The Mid Orient is simmering. After the anti Christian serial bombings in Baghdad, the next-door neighbour, Pakistan is again in the news, time again for the wrong reasons. Asia Bibi, a 37-year-old mother of two girls is sentenced to death for ‘the ultimate crime’, blasphemy against Prophet Muhammed. The West it slowly waking up to the truth of the matter. It’s been a year since she is behind bars for professing her faith in ordinary circumstances in an extraordinary way. While the West has been instrumental in arming Pakistan with millions of dollars pumped in for weapons, the same West has adopted a criminal silence when it comes to saving basic human rights and right to believe. The local community despite its appeals and prayers finds itseld at blind alleys as the Muslim law has appropriated the fabric of their lives.
The auxiliary Bishop of Lahore, Bishop Bernard Shaw has raised his heart and arms in appeal to Pope Benedict XVI, to intercede and speak in favour of Asia Bibi. The appeal is to repeal the law, to lobby at all possible levels to work for the salvation of the innocent; “We appeal to all mothers. Pakistan, Asia is a mom like you, defend her, do not let her children become orphans.”
The appeal is not only for the sentenced woman Asia Bibi. It is for the whole of Asia, where Christianity is under severe threat, perhaps in a more open way than in Europe and the rest of the world. Asis Bibi stood up to her faith, professing her faith not with a great deal of oratory acquired after years of study, but with the strength of her faith in Jesus Christ; ordinary words, which brought the local police to her doorsteps and a blasphemy charge over her head and her family. It is ironic that the law has sentenced her to death sentence, when the same Islamic law prohibits death penalty for women and non-Muslims.
What is at the centre is not the anti-blasphemy law, but its blatant use to silence religious freedom and basic human rights. The government is still to take actions on the wanton acts of terrorism and its perpetrators, but is on the quick to cater to the needs of fundamentalists. While the 20 million Christians in Pakistan are considered second class citizens and denied basic justice, there are cases where the trials of terrorists being overturned. Why don’t we read in tandem, the court order of the Spanish government that overruled the protest of Muslims in the Cordoba Cathedral as mere public disorder, the Swiss concern for the frequency of the minarets and the death sentence for mother of two children? We seem to happily convinced that the God of justice is blindfolded, tongue tied and in a straight jacket as these things do not happen in our neighbourhood. The powerful do not merit the title of powerful unless they exhibit a heart for the underdog.
No comments:
Post a Comment