Curbing the Persecution of Shias
By Mehr F Husain
6 February 2015
Despite a violent Partition and the unpleasantness
that followed in this new land, the Shia community had once enjoyed a peaceful
existence in Pakistan free from any form of religious hatred or violence.
Now ‘Shia-hunting’ is fast becoming a sick sport of a
kind. And the recent suicide attack on a Shia Imambargah indicated that Shia
genocide is also an element of the war on terror that needs to be examined.
Almost always, the blood trail leads to Zia’s
Islamisation program. While this largely consisted of introducing controversial
laws including the Hudood Ordinances, for the Shia it was the zakaat tax that
hit a nerve with them.
Zia’s introduction of the collection of zakaat from
bank accounts, irrespective of the source of money, was not in accordance with
the jurisprudence of any Islamic school of thought, but the Shia community in
particular considered this an attack on their system of religious charity
including khoms and zakaat.
Consequently, the Shias decided to hold a peaceful
protest as a means of communicating their dissatisfaction, causing them to
stage a sit-in in Islamabad which eventually culminated in the creation of the
Shia Declaration Form.
Ironically, this peaceful act would be the seed from
which anti-Shia sentiment would grow and with Zia's nurturing, flourish.
While the form exempted Shia from paying zakaat from
their bank accounts, Zia used it as a means of singling out Shia in all areas
including civil, military, government and socially.
As Shias were screened out at the earliest stage
possible, there came a time when there were no Shia in the military or
bureaucracy.
Soon after the zakaat protest, anti-Shia riots began
to take place in areas where this religious minority was the majority,
including Gilgit-Baltistan and Parachinar.
In a democratic regime, it is possible some elements
of civil society would have moved to support Shias, but after Bhutto and under
Zia, the left-wingers and liberals gave priority to the restoration of
democracy, which they believed would resolve all problems - including
Shia-based discrimination in Pakistan.
But any political movement, irrespective of religion,
that took place as a means of expressing discontentment was crushed by Zia.
What also added fuel to the fire were geopolitical shifts that typically
overshadowed the problems at home, causing Pakistan to become embroiled in the
Soviet Afghan war that saw the US and Pakistan come together as allies.
Here again, Zia’s support of the US consisted of
recruiting young men as jihadists who were then packed off to Afghanistan and -
post-war - morphed into the Taliban.
This Frankenstein would eventually be used against
Shias who were being viewed as sympathisers of the Iranian revolution in 1979.
Religion became a political tool and with the
assistance of foreign support, religious political parties found themselves in
a position where they could generate anti-Shia sentiment via organisational
support and distribute literature among the youth, causing them to recruit from
institutions including Punjab University and Karachi University.
International funding also enabled madrasas to
flourish, causing Zia to mutate a fragile democracy into a one-man show.
Sadly post-Zia, things became worse for Shias. So
deeply embedded had the sectarian divide become in the form of books and
lectures by hate-mongering preachers, that even a female Shia leader like
Benazir Bhutto was left helpless to stop the persecution.
But as more Pakistanis strive for democracy pouring
out in the name of cleaner elections and anti-terrorism, maybe those anti-Zia
liberals were right.
Post Shikarpur, a group of activists staged a sit in
demanding justice for the Shias who died, something that never happened under
Zia.
A secular democratic Pakistan free of international
meddling could be better for all minorities including Shias.
Mehr F Husain is a
columnist based in Lahore
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2941645/THE-LAHORE-LOG-Curbing-persecution-Shias.html#ixzz3QzgPib5w