A virus within us

During this eventful week, defined by the tumult of the presidential election in the United States, it has not been easy to keep your cool. The drama has been long and tense. Finally, Trump’s well-earned defeat should revive our faith in democracy.

In Pakistan, people are beginning to be worried about the spread of the second wave of Covid-19. The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) has issued new, tough restrictions.

And this concern has dovetailed with the rising tempo of a political confrontation that generates a new controversy on a daily basis. A lot of action is visible in the campaign for the Gilgit-Baltistan elections to be held next Sunday.

Though political rallies and religious congregations are not expected to observe pandemic-related restrictions, there is considerable focus on administrative measures designed to keep the pandemic in check. In any case, the second wave that is causing havoc across Europe is here. We were relatively lucky with the first wave but being complacent about it now is not an option.

In the midst of all these anxieties, my thoughts have somehow been stuck on an incident that took place in a small town in Punjab on Wednesday. I am just not able to blow it off my mind. At the same time, I am unable to explore it in any detail and expound on its wider implications. Yet I see it as one more symptom of the epidemic of intolerance and violent extremism that has afflicted our country for a long time.

To put it simply, as the event was reported, the security guard of a bank in the Quaidabad tehsil of Khushab district shot at and fatally injured the branch manager over allegations of blasphemy. He surrendered himself to the police, apparently behaving as if he had done a great deed. But it was later revealed that the issue was to do with a personal grudge.

In fact, the funeral of the bank manager, held on Thursday, was attended by a large number of people and the imam who led the prayers profusely vouched for the innocence and the piety of the deceased, saying that the accusation of blasphemy was false.

But I feel particularly disturbed about how the act itself was applauded by the mob that gathered outside the bank and how the guard led the procession in a heroic gesture. There is this video that was widely seen on social media. The crowd was raising slogans and people patted the guard on his back and someone kissed his hand, that had pulled the trigger.

This was a spontaneous response of the ordinary people of the street, a spur-of-the-moment reaction of the proverbial mob. It did not seem to matter if the allegation had any basis and if the act had any religious or moral basis. Perhaps this mob mentality holds sway across a large section of our society. We are collectively infected with intolerance and extremism. This malignancy is attested by our political history.

If violent extremism is to be seen as a pandemic (that is also endemic), what SOPs have been dictated by the ruling authorities to bring it under control? Incidentally, we do not have sufficient evidence to be convinced that they, the rulers, have the will and the power to do that. There is some confusion about how entangled this condition is with our official perceptions of national security.

Still, it can be said that the 20-point National Action Plan that was enforced after that unbearably painful terror attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar on December 16, 2014, through national consensus, has some specific prescriptions to deal not just with terrorism but also extremism and intolerance. The pity of it is that the incidence of violent extremism has not lessened during the past about six years – a long time when it comes to dealing with a national emergency. On the other hand, it may even have intensified.

There is no point in repeating the specific dictates of that Plan. It mainly dealt with terrorism. However, it called for the suppression of “hatred, extremism, sectarianism, and intolerance”. Effective steps had to be taken against religious persecution. There had to be “zero tolerance for militancy in Punjab”. The criminal justice system had to be revamped and reformed.

Where we are lost now is certified by a speech delivered by our federal interior minister a few days ago. Let me quote from a statement issued by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan: “For the federal interior minister Brig (r) Ijaz Shah to ‘warn’ the political opposition that their narrative would invite terrorist attacks was irresponsible and dangerous”. There is more about the minister that I would not go into.

Why I feel so deeply perturbed by a bank guard using his firearm against the branch manager is because it brought to my mind so many more incidents of a similar nature. There are certain forces, certain passions that have overwhelmed our society. Consequently, the very potential for moving ahead in the modern world is being stifled.

Besides, we are very uncertain about where we are going. Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has set ‘Medina ki Riyasat’ as his ideal, has also been inspired by some contemporary examples, such as Iran and the Scandinavian countries. In his recent interview with German magazine ‘Der Spiegel’, he said that he wanted to replicate the Chinese model in Pakistan, and elaborated his thoughts a bit.

It is true that China’s miracle, in terms of economic growth, is astounding. Imran Khan said that, despite not having electoral politics, the Chinese were good at bringing the best people to the top. China has lifted 700 million people out of poverty within a short period of 40 years.

Yes, but there is a limit to what we can learn from China and the system it has evolved. Our two peoples, culturally, are entirely different. And one fundamental principle of China’s system is its attitude towards religion as such. The two countries belong in separate worlds.

The writer is a senior journalist.

Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com