An American Pakistani's Hope For Peace in South Asia & Around the World~

By Manzer Munir for Pakistanis for Peace

Another day brings news of a yet a new massacre on the Shia community in Pakistan. By last count, at least 47 people have been killed in a bomb attack in the Shia enclave inKarachi Pakistan by the name of Abbas Town with many other injured.

I’m ashamed of this brutality and for the 3rd consecutive large scale attack on the Shia people in Pakistan. The founder of the nation, Jinnah and his sister Fatima Jinnah were Shia Pakistanis. My wife’s family is Shia. Now for the first time, today I am also a Shia Pakistani.

I feel for the fear that this Shia community across Pakistan must be feeling for the last several weeks. Earlier this year, nearly 200 people had been killed in two separate attacks targeting the Shia community in the south-western city of Quetta in January and February. And for what? For having a different view on certain events in Islam’s history? For that these murderous theologically ‘purists’ would want us to believe? Are they not Muslim? And if you answered no to that, then are they not at least human?

These are your fellow Pakistani who cheer for the same cricket team, sing the same anthem, love the same green and white crescent star flag, they read the same history books, and eat the samechaat. Do they not also face Mecca when praying? Did Allah not also create them? Stop killing everyone that does not see the Qu’ran with your Salafist and Wahaabi eyes. No matter what Islamic school of thought you may follow, one thing is certain, bombing and killing scores of innocent women and children is not something God, any God would ever condone, certainly not in his name. Certainly, this is not Prophet Muhammad’s Islam.

I wish the people of Pakistan somehow would put a stop to this weekly targeting of this community throughout Pakistan. Obviously this is the job of a competent government to arrest and dismantle the network throughout the country so that there are no more perpetrator left. This is not the job of the populace. Sadly, the most inept administration in Pakistan’s history is still in power. Zardari’s government is highly incompetent in running a country effectively. With elections a few weeks away, the desperate general population of the country is hopeful for a good change.

The current sad and alarming nation in the country is not what the father of the nation, Mohammed Ali Jinnah envisioned. Jinnah was a “was an Ismaili by birth and according to Vali Nasr, a noted expert on Shia Islam, he believed that Jinnah was a Twelver Shia by confession, although not a religiously observant man. He wanted a tolerant and secular Pakistan, a nation of majority Muslims, but one that also respected all religions and their right to exist freely within its borders. What we have is the opposite of that and not the Islam nor the country that neither the prophet nor the leader had preached about. Pakistan needs to stop this insanity. Stop killing Shias, stop imprisoning Christians for allegedly ‘blaspheming’, stop desecrating the graves of Ismailis and most of all I want these criminals to stop destroying this already fractured country by carrying attacks on helpless citizens.

A nation unable to protect its minorities is not in the end much different than Germany during the Holocaust. The standing by of the majority Sunni population will mean that they have blood on their hands also. This time its Shia blood. Tomorrow it will be Christian or Sufi blood, or perhaps that of a soldier or policeman targeted by these militants and terror outfits. Arrest and grant death penalty to those who are responsible.

Pakistan needs to get rid of all the militant groups for the safety of the common citizen and make peace with its neighbor India instead of cultivating many of these terror groups for proxy wars in Kashmir. The same dog bites you back and is not controllable. It should have never been raised for attacking. Best to put it to sleep, make peace with India, solve the problems of its own people and develop the economy and provide safety and security for a hungry population.

Of course for this to all happen, Pakistan needs to have a fair and free election later this year where the best person should win, one who is a patriot and wants to better the nation and not enrich their pockets from it. I am not sure there is anyone in the bunch running that qualifies.Imran Khan comes pretty close, although not a candidate without his own fallacies. All I can say week after week after hearing the news that comes from Pakistan is that may God help this nation, the most precarious country in the world.