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

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,

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.… Read the rest

Back in Pakistan…Salman Taseer is buried.

Taseer’s three sons, men with black shirts and red eyes, flung rose petals into the grave. A bugle sounded; graveyard workers shovelled sticky winter clay on to the fearless politician’s coffin. And across Pakistan, people wondered what was disappearing into the grave with him.

Liberals have long been a minority force in Pakistan, reviled for importing “western” ideas and culture; now they are virtually an endangered species.

As Taseer was laid to rest in Lahore, his assassin, 26-year-old policeman Mumtaz Qadri, was also being showered with rose petals, in Islamabad. Cheering supporters clapped Qadri as he was bundled into court.

Oh dear god…it’s such a nightmare. That people like that exist … Read the rest

Furthermore, Rosenau’s misreading is itself political, in the sense that I dislike. It’s what one might call a little too convenient. It frames me (as I just told him in a comment on his post) as dogmatic and unreasonable and nuance-free and kind of stupid. Well that’s how accommodationists like to frame gnu atheists, isn’t it – so how helpful it is that his foot slipped just as he was reading what I’d written so that he got it backward.

It’s the usual, usual, usual thing. Claim that new atheists say what they don’t say. Claim that new atheists in general say what one new atheist once said in a bilious moment. Paste in what one new atheist said and … Read the rest