Human rights activists, Hina Jillani and Asma Jehangir, were attacked in Lahore by a group of terrorists and escaped death through a miracle. The case was ill-reported in the press, the ‘liberal’ government of Ms Bhutto stayed ‘neutral’, fanatics were allowed to publish threatening statements against the two sisters, and many good people thought it convenient to strike postures of ‘honest’ doubt. The police caught one of the culprits, identified the organisation they belong to, but was unable to proceed further.
Is that all? What if the women are attacked again by people whose threats are still being published by a section of the press? On November 7, a handful of people gathered at the Lahore Press Club and made fiery speeches protesting the indifference of government and society to the security of those who care for the rights of the underprivileged in Pakistan.
Caring for the minorities in Pakistan is a lonely business. But that is not all. You are under threat if you are open to new ideas, if you are without prejudice, if you believe in democratic values, individual liberty and human progress. In short, a certain kind of citizen, pejoratively defined as ‘liberal’, is a threatened species in Pakistan today. This ‘stigma’ is now second only to the one attached to secularists.
The attack on Hina and Asma may not have caused much fluttering in the dovecotes of the PPP in Islamabad or the PML(N) in Lahore, but the attack on democracy should worry them both. It has now become clear that when the liberal is hunted, it is the democrat, or he who spires to power under democracy, who is actually threatened. If the government and the opposition adopt a policy of ‘neutrality’ as a convenience, and don’t mind attending meetings where liberals are described as traitors, it is their own death warrant they are singing.
The Press Club meeting toyed with the idea of uniting under the liberal banner. Liberals often complain about the loneliness of their pursuit, about how they work in their separate fields with the extremists take united positions against them. To save his skin in an environment of intolerance, the liberal instinctively adopts three possible positions: 1) join the extremist on some common plank; 2) give up his faith or become a crypto-liberal; or 3) stay away from other liberals under attack.
This is a tragic scene because, sooner or later, the liberal will come under fire, and being alone, he will be a sitting duck for his detractors. That is why some liberals in the Press Club meeting suggested that they form a counter-terrorist front and fight it out with their intolerant adversary.
The truth of the matter is that the liberals are not equipped to handle the sort of threat they face. If they are attached to NGOs that work for the United Nations and its ancillary foreign national organisations, their funds are narrowly focussed and subject to strict audit. On the other hand, extremist organisations are funded on the basis of vague objectives and their donors don’t ask for accounts. The liberal abides by the law; the extremist violates the law and carries arms.
The liberals don’t have followers, they have workers whose only motivation is service. Were they to take on the extremists, they wouldn’t be able to deploy hundreds of armed men challenging the authority of the state. Against them, a single seminary will bring multitudes of village youths trained in weapons. It is foolish to think that liberals in Pakistan can unite and counter the terror that stalks them.’
It is the duty of the state to provide a secure environment for those who uphold human rights and individual liberty. In Germany, after a fascist attack on minority Turks, a million-strong procession of German liberals staged its protest in Munich. This was made possible by the willingness of the German state to defend their rights against extremists.
In many countries, where the state shies away from its duties, the liberal has to beat retreat in the face of physical danger. This is what happened in Bombay when liberals refrained from taking a stand against Shiv Sena’s open exhortation to kill Muslims. The most shocking development for them was the retreat of the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court of India in the face of Bal Thakeray’s open defiance of the Indian Constitution.
It is easy to despise the liberal, and easier still for one liberal to despise another, but his discomfiture signals the collective decline of society into barbarism. No state borne down by dogma of one kind or another has progressed in the past. It certainly cannot thrive in the future with all barriers breaking down in a heterogeneous global village. Liberal values are equally crucial to trade and commerce. Businessmen must know that they have a strong vested interest in laissez-faire, in freedom of enterprise, in soft trading borders and in easy access to markets wherever they may be. Economies cannot prosper if there are ideological or political restrains on the freedom to buy and sell.
So, those who function within the ambit of democracy and think they can flourish by ignoring the plight of the liberal are in error. In the death of the liberal is the beginning of the death of the state.