No room for dissenting voices

Pakistani society has taken vigilantism to epic proportions. As if cases under blasphemy ordinance against people for taking off milad posters and offering water were not enough we now have a brand new blasphemy case against a 17 year old high school student for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) in three of his answer sheets – Urdu, Islamiat and Physics – in his intermediate exams.

Unlike the above mentioned cases which were filed in rural Punjab by semi literate maulanas, this one was filed in Karachi by the controller of examinations of the Intermediate Board of Education, Karachi. The 17 year old is now in juvenile prison. He has pleaded guilty and appealed to the judicial magistrate for pardon. He has apologized and promised that he would never commit 'such a sin' again.

For starters, this kid is obviously troubled. He is a teenager dealing with existentialist anguish which is quite common in young people who think. What else would explain his supposedly blasphemous answers in a Physics paper! If anything, this kid needs to be listened and if possible counseled by professionals, not thrown in jail with common criminals.

Secondly, if I am not mistaken, a teacher is only supposed to grade the paper. Passing judgment on the contents of the paper and moral policing has never been part of an instructor’s duties. In fact they cannot even fail the students or take actions against them if what the students have written is against their religious or moral ideology. They most certainly have no right to instigate criminal action against an underage kid on the basis of his answer sheet.

In addition, an answer sheet is a private document and the controller of exams, Professor Agha Akbar had no right to make it public or use it as evidence against the boy in this case. If anyone needs a quick lesson in Ethics 101, it is the professor sahib, not the high school kid. The Intermediate Board is using the blasphemy law to coerce a student to form opinions as deemed fit by the institution.

This incident also gives a clear message to other conflicting souls; you stay quiet and suffer in silence instead of debating the questions that trouble you. It also indicates that young people have cannot express their genuine opinion in their papers and will only be saved if they write answers memorized by rote learning. Critical thinking, in anyways, is over rated in the land of pure. We want to produce assembly line products for human being with no room for dissenting voices.

Salmaan Taseer, you brave brave man, may you rest in peace

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Yes, they got another one.

Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer was attacked and killed in a firing incident in Islamabad’s Kohsar market. Governor Taseer was leaving his residence when one of his guards shot him in the chest. The guard named Qadri, who apparently was part of Rawalpindi’s elite force, shot him 9 bullets in the chest (he was shot a total of 26 bullets). Qadri stated that he killed the governor because of his liberal views and his stand against blasphemy laws.

Governor Taseer is probably the highest profile victim of the blasphemy law. He was shot dead because he was brave, he believed that all citizens should be treated fairly and he died for holding that belief. He decided to support a poor Christian woman on death row and he was chastised, ridiculed and threatened for that. In the end, he was even killed for that. All the PPP ministers such as Khurshid Shah and Babar Awan who defended the law should be hauled along with all the maulanas who burned his effigies and issued fatwas against him for this brutal murder.

I am sitting in my office, unable to move, mourning his death in solitude. I never knew him personally and only communicated with him on twitter but I mourn his death because in a deeply rightist society, he was a voice of sanity. I mourn his death because he was one of us, Pakistanis who want similar rights for everyone irrespective of their religion, caste, gender and ethnicity.

Governor Taseer was an entrepreneur, a politician, a great wit and a positive man who believed in this country. Just a couple of hours before his death, he tweeted this:

Mera azm itna bulund hae Parae sholon se dar nahin.

Mujhe dar hae tu atish e gul se hae Ye kahin chaman ko jala na dein

Salman may have believed in Pakistan, but after his brutal murder, I am truly hopeless about this country; he was shot dead because he was man enough to say what he believed in. Just like Salman Taseer, we too should wait for some lunatic to come and gun us down and win his stripes for 72 virgins in heaven.

Governor Taseer, may you rest in peace. You were a brave brave man and you will be remembered as one.