Cutting the white – Chris Cork

Cutting the white – Chris Cork

We may have passed the point of no return as far as the victimisation of the minorities is concerned – not a statement to be made either lightly or without considerable reflection. Bluntly put, the future for religious minorities in Pakistan is looking extremely bleak and the accelerating incidence of violence against them is beyond the control of the federal or provincial governments. It is also beyond the will of federal or provincial governments as well, and they offer unspoken support to those who perpetrate crimes against minority communities. There may be condemnation from politicians and civil agencies at the top of the tree, but a different reality prevails closer to the ground. Indeed, there are those whose primary task is to uphold the law and protect the citizenry who are openly and with malice-aforethought fomenting religious and sectarian hatred, seemingly without any fear of sanction or hindrance. At a personal level, whilst my Urdu is not fluent it is good enough to understand what comes from the speakers 50 metres from my house. There appears to be no mechanism by which this process can now be stopped, and a bloodbath – several bloodbaths – is the most likely outcome as the extremism that was launched in the Zia era finds its maturity in the bloody mindset of those children born in his time and now adult.

The media in the last week has been awash with any number of pundits deploring this state of affairs, and not one that I have seen has offered a viable remedy for the cancer that now spreads faster than the chemotherapy of social change is going to be able to combat. The likelihood of the federal government growing a spine and tackling the problem on a broad front is zero. The so-called ‘moderate majority’ is a figment of the imagination of the moderate minority who populate the airwaves and some of the print outlets. There is no ‘moderate majority’. The majority either give tacit support to extremists who persecute minorities or just couldn’t give a damn – they have other things to worry about and who cares if a few Christians or Sikhs or Hindus go up in smoke? (Or Shias, for that matter.)

The moderate minority is vocal and visible, and can get the air-time and the column-inches with little difficulty, but they are largely powerless, utterly leaderless in terms of having a single charismatic who has the support of all, and politically neuter having been sterilized years ago by the all-powerful right-wing. Furthermore, those ordinary moderates who might take up the cause of the minorities and give them overt support are themselves terrified into silence by those who would question their religious credentials if they did. Thus there is no effective counterweight within the system that would balance out what is now an unstoppable force.

Those of you who read this column weekly may be surprised at my uncharacteristic negativity – I usually manage to find a light at the end of even the darkest tunnel. But not this one. I have seen the drift towards the abyss over the 16 years I have been in and around Pakistan. Seen it in the curriculum, heard it in the chai khana, and been blasted with it from the mosques. The liberal bubble that I move and live in throws up its collective hands in horror, but beyond having an intellectual debate about the origins of The Beast coming down the road – does little. It does little because at heart it knows a battle lost when it sees one and the coming years are going to see the white fade from our flag, to be replaced with blood-red.

The writer is a British social worker settled in Pakistan. Email: manticore73@gmail.com