Pakistan’s Darkening gloom

IF YOU tolerate this, your children will be next. Moderates and liberals in Pakistan are still reeling from the assassination of a liberal politician, Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab Province, by one of his own bodyguards. Mr Taseer was murdered, shot in a hail of bullets at a posh shopping centre in Islamabad, apparently because he dared to speak out against a repressive anti-blasphemy law which is used to intimidate the weak—mostly fellow Muslims, but also religious minorities, including Asia Bibi, a poor Christian woman whom he had defended.

More disturbing than Mr Taseer’s death, however, was the deafening silence from the powerful in its aftermath. Lawyers showered his traitorous bodyguard with rose petals. The killer has become a hero. It has been almost impossible to find a judge who will dare take on the case. In parliament no senator would lead a prayer to commemorate the slain politician. Almost none of Pakistan’s articulate and educated liberal voices have dared speak out in his defence. Even Mr Taseer’s allies mostly stayed away from his funeral. By contrast, in Lahore on Sunday, I was caught up in a huge crowd of Islamists celebrating noisily the death of the hated liberal. A burst of anti-American sentiment following the arrest of a mysterious gunman in Lahore has somehow merged with this further rejection of secular values.

Now comes another reason to be gloomy. After Mr Taseer, it has widely been reported that Sherry Rehman, a Karachi-based female politician who has talked of reforming the blasphemy law, would be next on the religious thugs’ list. Ms Rehman has since locked herself away. On February 3rd Pakistani newspapers reported that she had been persuaded to withdraw any plans she might have had to table a bill for the law’s reform.

The same day, just as miserably, newspapers reported that a 17-year-old schoolboy, also in Karachi, had been arrested and charged with blasphemy. His sin? Apparently he had written something objectionable while doing an exam, although nobody can be told what it was he wrote (lest they be charged with committing blasphemy-by-repetition). The invigilator felt obliged to report it. The school authorities did so too. The police got involved. This is insane. To any reasonable observer, it is deeply troubling when state authorities decide to arrest a child for something written, however bad the taste, in an exam paper. The boy apologised. But, according to Pakistan’s law, as a blasphemer he could now be executed.

For moderate Pakistanis, proud of living in a country that has defied military rule, ensured the return of democracy and promoted the interests of its people against meddling outsiders, it is troubling to see thuggish radicalism spreading in such a fashion. Hateful and intolerant ideas are being spread by madrassas and by excitable news organisations. Increasingly, many Pakistani women feel compelled to cover their faces or to stay at home. Those who should be speaking out in defence of liberal, progressive ideas are becoming too frightened to defy the men with guns—or to break the terrifying silence of their fellow citizens.
The Economist