A Tale of Two Cities

This tale has two unlikely cities: Tuscon and Islamabad.  Cities that sit in the shadows of towering mountains - Mount Lemmon and Margalla Hills.  They are unlikely to be compared under normal circumstances.  But we live in abnormal times -- religious and political extremism abounds.  Rightist forces in all societies are resurgent and carrying significant political capital.

The two cities are linked together by two horrific acts of violence against politicians.  People generally don't fall in love with politicians, and often it is easy to despise them.  People in this line of profession do a lot of wheeling and dealing - both in public limelight and in shrouded backrooms.  But it is impossible to justify violence against them in democratic environments.

The incidents I refer to were separated by barely four days: On 4 January, the Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was assassinated by a member of the elite police force - Malik Qadri.  On 8 January, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was critically injured by a gun-toting nut-case - Jared Loughner.  In the latter case, Loughner proved more deadly because he managed to also murder six other people including a 9-year old girl and a judge.

The similarities in what took place and what it means to politics in the US and Pakistan is uncanny.  In both cases, zealots carried the day by successfully carrying out acts of violence.  These acts, among other things, were meant to frighten political oponents and to "send a message."  In both cases, a consequence will be muffling of opposing political voices.  One might hope that the US polity is strong enough to rebound eventualy, although I have my doubts given some recent trends.  For Pakistan, the situation is much more dire.  The implicit encouragement for political violence -- as manifested in the shape of hordes of narrow-minded zealots openly supporting the act of Mr. Qadri -- can open the door to perpetual unrest, and in the worst case, a civil war.

In both cases, cooler heads need to prevail and the voice of reason needs to overcome extremist perspectives.  The partisan and polarizing rhetoric must be toned down.  We see some signs of that in the US, with the likes of former president Bill Clinton taking an outspoken stance on this.  How effective he will be remains to be seen.  We don't see any signs yet of such conciliatory efforts in Pakistan - rather, the voices of reason seem to have gone silent (in fear, perhaps).

The situation in Pakistan is quite ironical.  The assassination is seen by some as an act that somehow "protects" Islam.  That couldn't be farther away from the truth.  In my previous blogs (see "A Note to Islam's Apologists" and "Who is an Ideal Muslim"), I have written about how Islam's basic concepts and fundamentals revolve around peace, humility and harmony.  The Holy Quran explicitly prohibits fasad - a state of anarchy and violence.  It reprimands those who try to wrap fasad inside the foil of religion; that state is deemed worse than murder.

It is challenging to devise ways to have an open dialogue on issues that involve religion.  In many cases, the ones that need to be engaged in an open dialogue are also the ones who are emotionally attached to their religious (or sometiemes political) views - often to the extent of being blind to any logic or rational conversation. 

In the case of Islam (and the situation created in Islamabad), we must therefore revert to the logic and reasoning that is embedded within the Holy Quran.  The divine word can hopefully carry the day.