In an ideological wilderness

In the midst of all this political turmoil and some evocative October anniversaries, I feel obligated to begin with the tirade of Captain (r) Mohammad Safdar at the National Assembly on Tuesday.

Yes, his claim to fame is that he is the son-in-law of a former prime minister and husband of the rising star in the supposedly ruling party. But what he said and how he delivered his message has a bearing on the inherent drift of popular politics.

It does not seem to matter that we have constantly been warned about it. We have a great gift of closing our eyes to all emerging threats to our polity in the context of cultivating a modern democracy. Nothing is able to shock us into taking any decisive action. And what greater shock can we ever have after that December of 1971?

In fact, Safdar’s bad-tempered attack on Ahmadis reminds me of another December anniversary of the same date that had spawned the celebrated National Action Plan, with its resolve – among other things – to abolish hate speech. Pakistan did not change in any drastic manner after that unbelievable massacre of our schoolchildren. Perhaps the dark passions that threaten its survival have spread deeper into the minds and the lives of ordinary citizens.

You might say that the remarks of an MNA of the PML-N have adequately been censured. Yet, there was no immediate response to his diatribe in the National Assembly. It did not trigger the kind of response that should be expected from a party that is struggling for the vindication of its democratic rights and is in the process of enlisting support from moderate and somewhat liberal sections of Pakistani society.

So what did it really mean? Why did the son-in-law, in a sense, get away with it? Coincidentally, the speech was delivered on World Mental Health Day. No insinuation in this regard is intended but we must certainly be worried about the political mindset that is dominated by bigotry.

Among other vilifications of a persecuted minority, Safdar demanded that the Ahmadis should be banned from the military and government services. The director general of the ISPR, Major-General Asif Ghafoor, was prompted to say that no one has to prove that they are Muslims. He asserted that the army is a national institution where every Pakistani can serve irrespective of his or her religion. This would include Ahmadis.

In the absence of any formal repudiation from the party, which should be expected from Nawaz Sharif himself, there were some comments from some party leaders. Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal, on a visit abroad, tweeted: “it is tragic to see hate speech against minorities in [the] National Assembly. We believe in [an] inclusive Pakistan. Pakistan respects all minorities”.

In a television interview on Thursday, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi called the speech “irresponsible” and said that an explanation would be sought from Safdar. He was obviously answering a question posed by the anchor.

There is an irony in this episode that underlines a ideological confusion that the PML-N must deal with in a convincing manner. Safdar also demanded that Nobel Laureate Dr Abdus Salam’s name should be removed from the physics department of the Quaid-e-University, Islamabad. The fact is that this admirable step of honouring a great Pakistani who happened to be an Ahmadi was taken by Nawaz Sharif. And it appeared to say something about how the then prime minister was becoming a more mature politician.

It is this point that has relevance to the evolution of the embattled PML-N. In the present confrontation of the party with the establishment, it has earned the sympathy of some liberal and democratic elements of Pakistani society. There have been some other hints that Nawaz Sharif was becoming more rational and a realist in his politics.

So what should he do with his son-in-law? It is possible that this issue is not being discussed by the party leadership because it is embroiled in other grave issues, with tensions building up on the ehtesab front. At the same time, the tirade in the National Assembly has touched upon some deep wounds in our polity and provides another opportunity for us to understand why the conservative forces of obscurantism are gaining ground in the present circumstances.

There are many reasons why our civil society would feel more threatened by the unchecked rise in religious extremism, even in the face of the reported victories against terrorists and militants. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has justly expressed its outrage at the statement that targets a religious minority group.

In its statement issue on Thursday, it noted that the Ahmadiyya community is already the most persecuted religious minority group in Pakistan. The commission said that the use of the floor of the National Assembly to advocate discrimination, hatred and exclusion for citizens in this manner is deplorable.

Let me quote a paragraph from the statement: “This is an extremely disappointing trend in a country where one does not have to look far for methods of intimidation and discriminatory behaviour against religious minority groups. It is also a bad omen for Pakistan’s beleaguered democracy if members of political parties are able to express such intolerant and politically incorrect views at a public forum with such impunity. It is regrettable that no political party or attending parliamentarian condemned this parliamentarian as he made his speech”.

Now, with this distraction, I am not being able to look at the many October anniversaries that also relate to our encounter with democracy. For the PML-N, October 12, 1999 should be a throbbing memory. Our first military intervention was in October of 1958. And a very significant October anniversary is tomorrow – October 16 when the first prime minister of Pakistan was assassinated in 1951.

But I will conclude with the anniversary of the attack on Malala by the Taliban on October 9, 2012 because Malala is still unwelcome in a Pakistan where such a large number of people look at Mumtaz Qadri as a hero.

In any case, Malala tweeted on October 9, 2017: “[Five] years ago, I was shot in an attempt to stop me from speaking out for girls’ education. Today, I attend my first lectures at Oxford”.

The writer is a senior journalist.

Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com