Christians of Pakistan

Until recently, the Christians and other non-Islamic religious groups and sects were indeed a silent minority of Pakistan, and they existed as people who were stereotyped and taken for granted by the mainstream majority, not to mention, belittled and ridiculed at every opportunity. It is a welcome sign that Human Rights Activists in Pakistan are now working to generate awareness on issues pertaining to these silent masses.

I was recently going through the Encarta '97 Encyclopaedia, and came across the following information for "Pakistan,"

"The leading religion of Pakistan is Islam, which is the faith of about 97 percent of the people. About four-fifths of the Muslims are Sunnite, and about one-fifth are Shiite. Hinduism and Christianity form the leading minority religions; other religious groups include the Sikhs, the Parsees, and a small number of Buddhists. The constitution defines Pakistan as an Islamic nation, but guarantees freedom of religion".

"Pakistan," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 97 Encyclopaedia. (c) 1993-1996 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved."

It is the final sentence that caught my attention and forms the basis of this article, i.e. the constitution guarantees freedom of religion. I believe this is a severe misrepresentation of the truth even though it is built into the Law of the land. The mere fact that no body is ever prosecuted for violating the sanctity of "other" religions leads me to conjecture that this vital piece of legislation is not worth the paper it is written on.

Laws in the civilised world are not only meant to act as resistance against socially unacceptable behaviour but also as a means of curbing-and-eliminating the very source of such attitudes. Law is only going to achieve the desired effect if it is enforced with as much vigour and enthusiasm as with which we called Salman Rushdie a blasphemer and condemned him to death. Please do not get me wrong, I am not saying that blasphemy does not warrant punishment, but that the majority who agrees to this punishment must at least consider it their duty to get the facts and understand the truth, rather than committing acts of violence without any comprehension. It is this focused herd-behaviour in condemning others for their religious belief, which makes me sad. It is for this reason that today intolerance amongst Pakistanis is at an all time high and is directed towards both Non-Muslims and fellow Muslims.

Minorities should be given their rights, or at least discrimination against them should be finished. Whoever lives in Pakistan legally has a right to be called first and foremost a Pakistani and then something else. An indisputable fact but far from reality. The average Pakistani is not concerned about the superiority of Sunni Vs Shia or Punjabi Vs Mohajir, all they are concerned about is how to provide the basic necessities of life to their loved ones, which simply means providing shelter and two square meals per day. It is the politicians and the right wing fundamentalists who try to provoke and instigate the people to assert superiority over one ethnic group or another religious group. Why? Because it serves their cumulative good to have their constituents in a state of turmoil, and moreover, it diverts attention from the real issues of economics, education, jobs, better health care and the lot. This same attitude is evident in dealing with Minorities. In general they are treated with great contempt. However, every now and then the politicians influence public sentiment by creating a pomp and show event, where with invited TV cameras and an orchestrated event they earn free exposure, often by presenting a minority with a sewing machine and some lip service. In the process somehow convincing themselves and others that they have been kind to the downtrodden people and hence free from further obligations for another year.

Most of us associate the Christians in Pakistan as being related to the cleaning profession - janitors. This is a fact, no matter how the "educated" amongst us deny it. In general we assume (tongue-in-cheek) that they are only capable of doing that particular job. Most of us also follow stereotypes, thus strengthening our prejudicial convictions about a religion, a race and its people. We refer to Christians as "chooras" (no offence intended for any Christian brother, as I am only trying to show the superficial contact we have with the Christians of our country). By not taking a stand against such name-calling we ourselves are the biggest chooras, racists and bigots, even the West pales off in our comparison. We make fun of their names, such as calling them "nee Margarate, ethon di safai neeio keeti, tun?" or make jokes about them Celebrating Christmas or going to church, or Allah-Forbid talking about mass or choir singing. And, in the process we prove how hypocritical is our society.

Why is it that if some people (read kafirs) in the west (U.K) complain that the Azaan-I-Fajr (call to prayer for morning) bothers them we get outraged and file lawsuits against the ignorant, racist Ungrez? And come up with such exclamations as "Oh God, the English are the most Intolerant people" (A real example from my student days in Edinburgh '89). But when a Maseeh (Christian) community member sings in a local choir in the handful of churches that they still have, we the official caretakers of political corrected-ness take it upon our shoulders to call it an outrage and call them all sorts of names.

Ironically one of the most famous Christian person we know is Tara Maseeh, the man who performed the final honours for the late Z A Bhutto in 1977! So you see we gave him the job to be an executioner because none of us wanted to be in blood and gore. It appears that the jobs we don't like, and find demeaning, get passed on to the Christian community. It is like they are at the bottom of the Pakistani food chain and get all the unwanted stuff handed down to them. At university, or college level, as far as I know, they don't get adequate representation, no seats are allocated to these poor souls and their children. How else are they to succeed in life if their very birthright, i.e. access to education is taken away from them? Could it be that it is a ploy on our part to not see them prosper or succeed?

If these determined people do succeed on account of their sheer hard work, we quickly discredit them by saying, "After all he will always remain a choora, So what that he drives a Toyota Corolla now, I remember when he used to walk 5 km every day to attend school". What we don't realise is that the individual has achieved something in life which most of us take for granted - the freedom and opportunity to succeed. All because we happen to be born in a country where religious freedom is guaranteed provided the religion we follow is Islam.

Biases and prejudices are acquired, we become biased because of "nurture" and not due to "nature". We become biased and prejudiced because we are influenced by observing the perceptions of our elders and other role-models. Somewhere on Chowk someone has cited the following example (rephrased here) -- if our elders tell a young kid that Mujib-ur-Rahman was a traitor or "ghaddar" of the highest order, the kid has no option but to believe it, and later when he reads the same in officially distorted textbooks the story becomes a fact, indelibly etched in his mind.

I feel that relating true incidents from life helps to get a pragmmatic view of a subject. Following is a true incident that I experienced.

One of my Rig (oil well site) assistants was a good guy called Mr. Shah, a Pakistani who I met when I was transferred to work in Abu Dhabi for my exploration company four years ago. Mr. Shah was a very helpful and kind man. He was glad to help me in my work as he considered it an honour to work for a Pakistani Engineer as opposed to the other nationalities of Engineers who often used to treat the mostly Indian /Pakistani Labour workforce as anything less than commendable, at the very best. In a few months I discovered that I was getting along with Mr. Shah very well. The other Pakistani Operators, mostly Shah's colleagues, became very jealous that I gave him respect and often joked around with him. I also noticed that they tended to maintain their distance in dealing with him. One day they formed a group and came to see me in my office after hours and told me "Asim sahib, its an honour to have you work with us, but please don't give too much latitude to Shah as he is one of them". I enquired as to what they meant?" One of them replied, "Asim sahib, you don't understand!! He is a "choora", and he is belonging to the Masseeh sect, and his real name is Mr. SHAW, and not SHAH as he writes", and went further to state "like in George Bernard Shaw". I was outraged at this and told them that I don't entertain such logic, and that if the others wanted to have a good working relationship with me, then they better learn to tolerate the Shaw's of this world. I made it explicitly clear that I was not going to change my policy of dealing with Mr. Shaw on the basis of this insignificant non-information.

Needless to say, initially the Pakistani crowd at my company was taken aback, and they even tried to ignore me, but fortunately over time they started seeing my point of view, or maybe they were merely afraid of my power and authority. Nevertheless they did not raise the issue again for the next 18 months I worked there. The resentment between Mr. Shaw and the gang continued, but not when I was around. Who knows what names they must have called me for standing up to my belief behind my back, but I could not care less. At least they appeared to have learned not all Pakistanis react the same way, and Mr. Shaw was greatly obliged too, as words of such things travel around quite quickly through the shops where Indians and Pakistanis were working. Incidentally, by dint of hard work, Mr. Shaw progressed to the level of Shop foreman, whereby the other Pakistanis and the Indians had to report to him, and this caused tremendous stink and unrest till such time as Mr. Shaw proved to be a fair man. The attitudes of the Pakistanis towards him gradually changed on account of him now having the authority to hire or fire these people, and over time the hatred-filled glances became outright flattery. The interesting point was that the preconceived notions of the Muslim Pakistanis towards the Christian Pakistanis had migrated to a third country, the UAE.

I had initially submitted this article over Christmas to the Pakistani newsgroup (soc.culture.pakistan) where sadly I had received no feedback.

Authors Note:

The above is merely an account to register a known problem. It is my hope that our learned and intelligent people can attempt to break away from the shackles of prejudices and view others who may be different in a fair and objective fashion. It is also my hope that we recognize others based on character and accomplishments rather than religion, family name, and the myriad of similar divisive categories that make us crate and package individuals into boxes.