Author: Ophelia Benson

I think Ahmed Rashid, much as I value his work, is over-optimistic about what is possible.

Taseer’s death has unleashed the mad dogs of hell, inspiring the minority of fanatics to go to any lengths to destroy the democratic, secular and moderate Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

How can there be such a thing as a secular Islamic Republic of anything? Or a secular Christian or Hindu one either?

I don’t think there can. That’s where Jinnah went wrong, and it’s where the whole idea falls apart before it takes its first breath. People who think there can be such a thing don’t grasp what “secular” means. An Islamic Republic is, obviously, an officially religious state, and that is the very thing that a secular state can’t be.

The idea must be that you can do both…but how could you? If it’s Islamic it’s Islamic, and then it’s not secular. You can’t do both. And that’s exactly why Pakistan is so fucked up, and getting more so every day.

Sadly, poignantly, indeed tragically, Aatish Taseer sees things more clearly than his father did.

Pakistan was part of his faith, and one of the reasons for the differences that arose between us in the last years of his life–and there were many–was that this faith never allowed him to accept what had become of the country his forefathers had fought for.

…

And where my father and I would have parted ways in the past was that I believe Pakistan and its founding in faith, that first throb of a nation made for religion by people who thought naively that they would restrict its role exclusively to the country’s founding, was responsible for producing my father’s killer.

For if it is science and rationality whose fruit you wish to see appear in your country, then it is those things that you must enshrine at its heart; otherwise, for as long as it is faith, the men who say that Pakistan was made for Islam, and that more Islam is the solution, will always have the force of an ugly logic on their side. And better men, men like my father, will be reduced to picking their way around the bearded men, the men with one vision that can admit no other, the men who look to the sanctities of only one Book.

Exactly. Better men and women will be wiped out by the bearded men, until there is nothing left but bearded men and their terrorized slaves.

Already, even before his body is cold, those same men of faith in Pakistan have banned good Muslims from mourning my father; clerics refused to perform his last rites; and the armoured vehicle conveying his assassin to the courthouse was mobbed with cheering crowds and showered with rose petals.

I should say too that on Friday every mosque in the country condoned the killer’s actions; 2,500 lawyers came forward to take on his defence for free; and the Chief Minister of Punjab, who did not attend the funeral, is yet to offer his condolences in person to my family who sit besieged in their house in Lahore.

And so, though I believe, as deeply as I have ever believed anything, that my father joins that sad procession of martyrs – every day a thinner line – standing between him and his country’s descent into fear and nihilism, I also know that unless Pakistan finds a way to turn its back on Islam in the public sphere, the memory of the late governor of Punjab will fade.

And where one day there might have been a street named after him, there will be one named after Malik Mumtaz Qadir, my father’s boy-assassin.

As Salman Rushdie said a couple of days ago – RIP Pakistan.

Mohammed Hanif asks who is responsible for the murder of Salman Taseer? (And who is responsible for the multiple deaths and critical injuries in Arizona? Who is responsible for the attempted assassination of a Congressional representative and the successful assassination of a federal judge outside a Safeway in Tucson? The questions are related. It’s not just a single assassin in either case – it’s also a society, a culture, a discourse, a world view, a rhetoric, a climate, a mindset, and the people who help to create them.)

When Pakistan’s television anchors and newspaper columnists describe Salman Taseer’s assassination [as] a tragedy, they are not telling us the whole truth.

Because many of these very anchors and columnists have stated, in no uncertain terms, that by expressing his reservations about the blasphemy law, Salman Taseer had crossed a line on the other side of which is certain death.

This kind of thing isn’t harmless, nor is it without any effect.

The same Islamabad where Salman Taseer bled to death in the middle of a pretty neighbourhood played host just a couple of weeks ago to a Namoos-e Risalat (Dignity of the Prophet) conference which was attended by individuals whose party manifestos include the death by murder of Shias, Ahmadis, Hindus and Jews.

Were some of our prominent politicians not in attendance?

Do these same people not inhabit our government corridors, media organisations and security agencies? Do we not break bread with them at weddings and funerals?

The same thing, mutatis mutandis, is true here.

Oh jesus god now it’s our turn – a Democratic representative and a federal judge and a bunch of aids shot at an outdoor meeting.

I’ve been to meetings with my representative, often. They’re wide open. You can chat with him up close and personal as well as during the meeting.

Salman Taseer refused to hide, Gabrielle Giffords held a public streetcorner meeting…and look what it got them.

We’re all doomed. I feel sick.