I was getting into an elevator on January 4th evening last year, when someone overheard my conversation with a friend about Salmaan Tasser’s assassination. His immediate response was “usnay harkat he assi ki thi” (that’s what you get by committing an act like that). And I look at him wondering, what exactly did he do to deserve a tragic fate like that.
We are living in a country that is fast becoming intolerant, dreadfully myopic, and religiously strayed at a very alarming rate. This notion was further reiterated to me during the days following the Salmaan Tasser’s assassination. The responses what I gather from people had some extremely disturbing analogies. Where almost all of them condemn the slaying of the late governor, but they somehow blame Tasser himself for sparking the already well rattled debate on Zia era’s blasphemy laws in Pakistan.
“Why did he spoke on a matter that was already in courts,” some would say. While other presented some utterly implausible justification for his killing, that was supposedly backed by some unverified religious source which even they were not quite sure about. They even quoted some historical references that were somehow molded to construe as a basis for his killing in name of religion. If you have the patience to get into conversation with them and put across some sane argument, they will conveniently question your faith.
Such comments make me realized that this hatred and intolerance is not restricted to religiously baffled and self righteous beard bigots who chanted “death to Amreeka” in religious rallies. But it is a sickness that is well permeated deep inside our hearts and minds.
In aftermath of the assignation. news channels maintained their tradition of muddling the issue even further. Below is a clipping of a TV talk show, where two Mullahs conveniently omitted some of the Quranic verses to misrepresent the actual interpretation of a Surrah to justify killing on blasphemy. If you watch the whole clip, you will soon realize that one of the reasons for this alarming increase in hatred and intolerance in our society is due to our lack of knowledge of Islam. In such situation a usual Mullah entice people’s emotions by quoting portions of Quranic verses that suit their purposes. They are not confronted with authentic Quran and Hadith sources and they go on to preach hatred in disguise of Islam. Their foul versions is gradually contaminating people minds who are fast losing capability to question these twisted retards, all thanks to golden era of Zia-ul-Haq. It is known fact that Salmaan Taseer’s murderer Malik Mumtaz Qadri was influenced by poison spread by mullas like Qadri Hanif Qureshi. And people like these are spread all over Pakistan pushing young and vulnerable minds toward hatred and intolerance.
Historically Mullas enjoys the monopoly in spreading hatred and religious delusion. But now this role is actively taken over by televangelists like Aamir Liaquat Hussain who also makes hefty paycheck in the process. Dwindling literacy rate have also contributed to this gradual insinuation of religious fallacy into a common man’s mind who expediently sallow everything that s/he saw on television as mere fact.
These hate mongers walk among us. As we fight to salvage our country from the hand of religious fanatics and corrupt politicians, let us combine our effort to bring down these deluded hatemongers from television. Let us write articles & blogs, hold public rallies & protest, pressurize news channels or do whatever we can to create awareness to eradicate this hatred and intolerance beamed to our TV sets round the clock.
Muslim clerics distort Quranic verses to suit their purpose
quite true, and things are getting worse day by day. it is going to annihilate us complete unless we speak up and put up some resistance to this insanity.