Protest in New York!

September 6-10, 2000, was the week of the U.N Millennium Summit in New York. The eyes of the World were upon New York, as over a hundred of the world's heads of state gathered together at the U.N to discuss the problems facing the world.

I arrived at Penn Station at about 5:30 PM on Saturday, September 9th, right across from PIAs Roosevelt Hotel where Musharraf was staying while in New York. I marched up 6th Avenue towards 42nd street with my Placard in full view, that read in bold black and red letters:

PAKISTAN

STOP DISCRIMINATION AGAINST

RELIGIOUS MINORITIES

REPEAL

BLASPHEMY LAW AND

SEPARATE RELIGIOUS ELECTORATES

As I turned the corner on 42nd Street, I saw a group of people of obviously Pakistani origin marching up towards me, about a block away. I did not know who they were at first, and decided to become a roadblock, so I held up my huge placard on the stick it was attached to, anticipating a confrontation with the usual blindly nationalistic, frenzied Pakistani mob of beardos chanting the slogan, "PAKISTAN! RIGHT OR WRONG!", "PAKISTAN!", "PAKISTAN!".

As they drew up nearer, I heard their slogan, "STOP KILLING CHRISTIANS", "IN PAKISTAN, IN PAKISTAN". There were men, women and children of all ages in the protesters ranks, about 250 in all. Their placards read, "ESTABLISH JOINT ELECTORATES IN PAKISTAN", "PAKISTAN: STOP POLITICAL APARTHEID", "STOP TREATING CHRISTIANS AS 2nd CLASS CITIZENS".

They were quite happy to have me join them in their protest march up 42nd street to Lexington Avenue in front of the Grand Hyatt hotel, where General Musharraf was to host a dinner for the Whos-Who of the Pakistani Expatriate Community in the USA. Apparently, we had all been heading towards the same destination. It was a natural fit, and quite a remarkable coincidence that I bumped into these people marching for virtually the same cause, at the same time I was wandering around Manhattan.

Along the way, the chanting continued, "STOP KILLING CHRISTIANS!", "IN PAKISTAN!", "IN PAKISTAN!"

The NYPD was waiting for us to arrive across from the Grand Hyatt hotel. In an orderly manner, we stepped behind the previously erected barricades and continued the protest with banners held high as well as the Pakistani flag fluttering in the breeze. The organizers had loud speakers and they invited people to make short speeches. I decided I should say something as well to lend my support. I was somewhat nervous as to how people would react at first, afterall, this was a decidedly Pakistani-Christian gathering and political event, and I was probably the only Muslim there. In addition, I had never made any political speeches to a gathering of the general public.

I started off by addressing my fellow protesters by telling them, "Bhai-oon, mein Musalmaan hoon, aur mein aap key saath hoon." (Translation: "Brothers, I am a Muslim, and I am with you"). That received quite a response.

During the course of the evening, I made several extempore speeches about institutional discrimination in Pakistan against religious minorities, the betrayal of the ideals of the Quaid-e-Azam's vision of Pakistan over the last 50 years, in which religion was not the business of the state, and the daily injustices which minority religious communities are suffering under the yoke of legalized 2nd class citizenship. I spoke about the need for Pakistan to stop providing a basis for religious discrimination, in law, and in fact, by ending the pernicious practice of identifying the religion of the bearers of Pakistani Passports and National Identity cards. This practice serves no legitimate state interest whatsoever. It only perpetuates sectarianism. I addressed the so-called 'Islamic' Blasphemy law of Zia Ul Haq, which does not owe its origins to Islam, but has its antecedents in the British desire to avoid communal unrest in the 'Jewel of the Empire', India, among the native heathens, irrespective of whether they were Hindus or 'Mohammadeans'.

That General Zia ul Haq abused religion in an attempt to create political legitimacy for his dictatorial rule, is a fact only too well known to need refutation. That most Pakistani politicians are too gutless to pay the political price at the hands of mullahs and an uneducated, over emotional, and easily agitated and manipulated people, required to repudiate his bequest of bigotry, sectarianism, gender discrimination, and internecine civil conflict, all in the name of Islam, is also well known.

As the time for Musharraf's anticipated arrival at the reception drew nearer, the slogans changed their emphasis to incorporate, "Pakistan Zindabad", "Pakistan Army Zindabad," "ESTABLISH JOINT-ELECTORATES IN PAKISTAN", and, "WE WANT DEMOCRACY IN PAKISTAN," in between refrains of, "EQUAL RIGHTS FOR CHRISTIANS!", "HUMAN RIGHTS FOR CHRISTIANS", "IN PAKISTAN!", "IN PAKISTAN!". Even, "Sohni Dharti Allah Rakhe ...", made an appearance during the proceedings.

My question for readers is this. These people love their country, then why then does it not love them back equally?

The wily General must have entered the hotel through a back entrance to avoid the protest going on across the street, for I did not see him step out of a limousine. Former Senator Javed Jabbar, currently Federal Minister of Information, eventually came out to address the crowd. I will summarize what he said.

Mr. J.J started off by stating that it was the regime's intent to establish, "The Quaid's Pakistan." Some people hooted at that notion, and suggested he should not take the Quaid's name. Mr. J.J then denied the allegation made by the organizers of the protest, that General Musharraf was unwilling to meet with them. He said that had the general known beforehand, that they wished to meet with him, he would have found time in his schedule of events for a meeting. Mr. J.J stated that General Pervez Musharraf was certainly not unsympathetic to minorities, he was educated himself by Jesuits, and was aware of their problems. J.J also defensively stated that he himself (J.J) worked closely with minorities in districts with a majority of religious minorities, "in Pakistan, in Pakistan," and was also well aware of their daily problems.

Under the Musharraf devolution plan to bring democracy to, "Pakistan, Pakistan," Mr. J.J stated that the Christians were likely to receive a (whopping) 5% (his emphasis) of the allocated seats at the local level. He reminded the crowd that Pakistan was a country which had formerly already had a Christian CHIEF JUSTICE at the head of the Supreme Court, in an almost hushed tone of voice, as if to call attention to this fact as a pointed example that religious minorities could reach the highest offices of the state even today, which would be a patently false and misleading assertion, had he in fact made it.

Mr. J.J was booed by many people. He was booed, because of the condescending attitude he conveyed to the crowd. It was obvious he had not come to listen, only to make the regime's official position (if not its political compulsions) known.

You won't catch them saying this to the press, but its clear the regime in its political calculus of survival, had decided before the summer of 2000 that it just could not fight political bush fires on all fronts. The documentation of the economy was the top priority as even the Pakistan army could not be paid without an increase in tax revenues to the state, and it could not afford to fight a united front encompassing the corrupt, politically unprincipled and opportunistic mass political parties, the traders, tax evaders, and mullahs, simultaneously. Something had to give. So when a mere 1000 mullahs staged a protest in Lahore against the much heralded, proposed procedural change in the Blasphemy law, and clashed with police, under conditions of quasi-martial law prevalent in the country, the generals panicked. Musharraf announced the withdrawal of the key component of his modest human rights package, unveiled with such fanfare only weeks earlier. The proposed procedural change in the Zia ul Haq Blasphemy law, which sought to limit its abuse, by limiting registration of FIRs to the level of Deputy Commissioners, to safeguard against false cases being filed under it by easily bribed SHOs, was withdrawn. The generals were not willing to pay the political price for undoing the legacy of Zia ul Haq. They undoubtedly felt they had enough issues to deal with in the country already, and confrontation in the name of religion with the mullahs was something they could not afford. In their political calculus, it was better to do some good for the country, rather than none at all.

Therefore this modest proposal for a procedural change in the Blasphemy law became yet another casualty of the lack of education of the masses, and the prevalence, and exploitation of ignorance in Pakistan. It was easy for the Mullahs, in the prevailing situation of national illiteracy, where four out of five adults is functionally illiterate, to deliberately mischaracterize what Musharraf was trying to do and get away with it. The regime just could not win a propaganda war against the loudspeakers of the mullahs. So General Musharraf, who seems to operate his regime on the basis of consensus among his top army commanders, folded his hand, and decided to concentrate his effort on documenting the economy.

Thus it is, that this law which lacks adequate procedural due process safeguards, and as applied, discriminates against religious minorities, and shocks the conscience of civilized men, continues to be the law of the land in Pakistan today.

Now here was Mr. J.J, responding to the demand for Joint-electorates, telling the Pakistani-Christians standing before him, that he worked with religious minorities, "in Pakistan", and that these people were,"in the United States", implying that, "the regime knows what is best for you people." The answer is the 5% formula of representation for Christians. Be happy (left implicitly unstated but obvious from the tone of his voice and manner, was the fact that Christians constitute significantly less than 5% of the population of Pakistan). That was the substance of the message he conveyed, as I understood it, standing four feet away from him in the crowd.

Either Mr.J.J simply missed the point, or did not hear the slogans, or is himself functionally illiterate, for it simply passed above his comprehension that these people did not want or demand,"SPECIAL MINORITY RIGHTS", instead, they wanted, "EQUAL RIGHTS." And there is a world of a difference between the two. The religious quota system of representation that Mr. J.J was talking about and telling them to accept, leads to second class citizenship, whereas legal equality and the opportunity to participate in national affairs on an equal footing, leads to NATIONAL INTEGRATION, which is what this political rally was really about. As for Mr. J.Js reference to Chief Justice Cornelius heading the Supreme Court of Pakistan, that was three decades ago, not in today's post-1973 Constitution, State of Pakistan.

The fact that General Pervez Musharraf or Javed Jabbar may in fact be fundamentally good men with the interests of Pakistani religious minorities close to their hearts, is no substitute for legal equality, and an end to the framework of the law that sanctions discrimination and second class citizenship on the basis of religion in Pakistan, in the year 2000 AD.

The legal principle, "Separate but equal" was discarded by the U.S Supreme Court as nothing but a sham for discrimination, in the landmark civil rights case, Brown V. Topeka Board of Education, in 1954, that paved the way for desegregation and legal equality. Pakistan should follow this enlightened example, and end the system of political and religious apartheid that indisputably exists today in the country.

It is time for Pakistan to live up to the promise of religious tolerance and legal equality, made by the Quaid-e-Azam. A country founded to provide a haven from religious discrimination, can do no less.

If the Quaid-e-Azam, M.A Jinnah had been alive, i know which side of the barricades he would have been standing on today.

\\*\\*\\* The entire event has been recorded on videotape to the best of my knowledge and belief. The entire protest lasted from approximately 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM.