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30 May 2014
By Dr. Mahboob A.
Khawaja
Farzana Parveen was just 25 years old born alone and
died alone. The autopsy will show she did not die by
natural causes but was stoned to death. She did not
commit any crime except the dislike of her own parents
and family members to marry Mohammad Iqbal. They
viewed it a matter of honor and conspired to kill
Farzana. The shameful horrifying scene portrayed in
the global news media showed hundreds of spectators
witnessing the most horrifying crime to human nature,
not in darkness but in broad daylight right where
freedom, human dignity, and honor of the citizens
should have been protected - The Lahore High Court
compound and police in attendance. It is incredibly
shameful to be a Pakistani and to watch this inhuman
atrocity out of the nowhere. Why the police did not
offered protection to Farzana? Farzana's soul must be
wondering, why did the society not protect her against
this draconian act of violence? Where are the
concerned citizens who claim to be believers - the
Muslims and day and night talk about Islam as being
the faith and value of the society? The truth is that
Farzana is not the first victim of such a horrible
tragedy. Every day countless Farzans become object of
the powerful monsters of this beleaguered and mindless
trend of the society. There is no Islam and no
believing Muslims, as Farzana was being stoned to
death, nobody came to rescue her. Her husband Mohammad
Iqbal begged the spectators to save his wife but none
of them offered to help save Farzana from the stoning.
Is the Pakistan society fast becoming a morally
corrupt - moral and dead-ended nation? Iqbal disclosed
that "police did nothing during the 15 minutes the
violence lasted at the Lahore High Court. "I begged
them to help us but they said, this is not our duty,'
he said. "I took off my shirt (to be humble) and
begged them to save her." Jill Reilly and Mia De
Graaf reported in the Daily Mail, UK (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/
article-2642528/Farzana-Parveen-Pakistani-woman-
stoned-death-marrying-man-loved-pictured.html#ixzz33FoYn0I7),
that
"The 25-year-old had offended her family by marrying
Iqbal instead of a cousin selected for her. Honour
killings are common in Pakistan, but the brutality of
this case caused outrage around the world. Police said
her father, two brothers and a former fiance were
among the attackers. Muhammad Aurangzeb, Farzana's
20-year-old stepson, described how one relative had
tried to shoot her, then grabbed her head scarf,
causing her to fall over. While a member of Iqbal's
party wrestled the gun away, a female cousin grabbed a
brick and hit Farzana with it, he said.
'She was screaming and crying 'don't kill me, we will
give you money',' said Iqbal. He said he tried to save
her but the mob of more than 20 beat him back. At one
point, six people were beating her with bricks as she
screamed, he said, and he and his stepson begged
police to help.
Finally she stopped screaming.' If
the face of a human being is the mirror of the
character, surely, Farzana appears to be a decent,
pious and respectable young lady. She was legally
married to Mohammad Iqbal and reportedly pregnant
since three months. None of her characteristics
deserve this inhuman and sadistic atrocity by so many
people watching the vengeful drama of the few. The
nation's law and justice system is utterly perverted
and politically tainted that nobody trusts it to get
justice. A society where crime-riddled politicians
become leaders and known prostitutes take ministerial
oaths. Ms. Bhutto, Zardari, Sharif and General
Musharaf - the list can go on……the most heinous crimes
carried out by the so called politicians who looted
the national wealth and bought fantasy mansions
overseas, killed masses and ran prostitution parlors
and become prime ministers, ministers and members of
assemblies, how come they are not stoned to death in
public? Internationally indicted thugs and money
launderers and known political monsters get police
protection whereas an ordinary citizen becomes
statistic of the death report. Both Ms. Bhutto and
Zardari were indicted by a Swiss Court for money
laundering scheme, and in 1999, Nawaz Sharif conspired
to kill 300 passengers on a PIA flight coming from Sri
Lanaka to get rid of General Musharaf but now once
again, he is the elected PM. Pakistani politics is
devoid of ethical standards and political
accountability. To a conscientious Pakistani, the
embittered shame will not go away.
After the fact, women and men of conscience across the
nation and globe have expressed indignation and
protests against such a vicious cruelty carried out at
the premise of the place where law and justice should
have been fully guarded. Not so, this is Pakistan, an
emerging nation of indifference perpetuating
individualistic interest and choices to survive in
complete disregard to the terrible consequences
in-waiting for the future. Many observers point out a
pattern of deafening silence on the part of the ruling
elite and insecurity to public life often ignored by
the politicians.
Just last year in Kohistan tribal region of Pakistan,
four young women were ordered by a tribal elder decree
to be killed because they sang and watched as two men
danced in a wedding party. The official investigating
report never came to public attention as to why they
were murdered? Who makes a legal decree in a country
claiming to be an Islamic Republic? The official
debated the question as how to conduct investigation
in a region overwhelmingly without official presence
or no formal law and order in the governance. But
Lahore is not a remote village in Kaghan Valley but an
ancient city of several million people – a gateway to
Asia - and would claim to be civilized and honorable
in matters of moral conscience and human values. It
was no tribal Kohistan to underscore the official
incompetence to investigate an inhuman atrocity. At a
time after winning the freedom from British colonial
subjugation, common folks used to dream of Islamic
glory, human values and triumph for progressive social
harmony and peace across the new free nation. It
appears that the dream was shattered and misplaced by
so many martial laws and criminal rulers; the people
feel terrible sense of helplessness as if nothing
could rescue them from the continued cruelty of the
few and wide spread moral and political viciousness.
It seems more and more as if Pakistan under corrupt
and morally decadent leadership is replicating the
history of Romans. Colin Wilson (A Criminal History of
Mankind, 1984), explains how the Roman Empire declined
once it's sadistic and egomaniac leaders full of the
sensation of power behaved like children, the Roman
civilization collapsed into chaos, ruins and dark
ages:
"The Romans were slipping into violence by a process
of self-justification, and once a nation or an
individual has started down this particular slope, it
is impossible to apply breaks the Roman people were
too unimaginative and short sighted to realize that,
once murder has been justified on grounds of
expediency, it can become a habit, then a disease."
Pakistani nation claims faith in God as the core value
of its nationhood but the real world affairs depict a
different emerging picture. Last September, a church
was burnt down by reportedly the Taliban mob in
Peshawar – a place to worship God and killing 85 or so
innocent citizens of the minority Christian community.
The insane killers forgot that God is God of all the
human beings, not just of the Muslims and God loves
all of His creations. Those who violate the sanctity
of the Laws of God must be held accountable and
punished. Few weeks earlier, 10 international hiker
tourists were kidnapped and reportedly murdered by
Talibans in the K-2 mountainous region. Did anyone
investigate and caught the perpetrators of such
inhuman crime against the foreign tourists? Does it
not discourage the prospective tourists to ever visit
Pakistan again? In short and long terms, this loss of
national image and human values is irreversible. Again
in late 2013, Muslims of Shia minority were repeatedly
bombed in Quetta. An Islamic group was blamed for the
killing. The mourners kept the burial of the dead
bodies on display for days as a token of protest
asking the military to safeguard their lives from
in-house terrorism. It was clear that the citizens of
the country were left unprotected from the gangsters
and criminal elements of the society. None of these
development foster rational sense of a valued-oriented
Pakistani society except indignation, stagnation and
insanity. The global image of Pakistan and its
political governance is under scrutiny and being
undermined. The scope of sadistic cruelty and
viciousness is enlarged every day as every day becomes
a killing day of the innocent. Are there any
responsible people in the political governance who
should be held accountable for the security of the
nation? For a decade, Pakistan has endured senseless
killings of the civilian population. Do the Muslim
people of Pakistan have any collective consciousness
intact to realize that killing of one innocent person
is equal to the killing of the whole of the mankind?
For what reason are these killings carried out and
tolerated by the rulers? Is Pakistan governed by
politicians with no consciousness of the global
reactions to their incompetence, foolishness and
self-defeating criminal practices? For more than a
decade, Pakistan is engulfed with a culture of deadly
events, under corrupt and gangster dominated politics,
society is embracing kidnapping, threats of violence,
deaths of civilians, destruction of the habitat and
lost sense of public security, diminishing trades and
commerce, businesses, authoritarian trends in
governance and sharp indifference to the sacred values
of tolerance, respect for varied ethnic diversity and
co-existence in One Nation framework. There is no
political, moral or religious justification for the
on-going killings. These appear to be inhuman and
desperate acts of psychopaths and cruel minds that
plan to undermine the interests and the present and
the future of the nation. The
mob thought that they could annihilate Farzana Parveen
for ever but they failed miserably as they just killed
her body not the soul. Today, there are thousands and
millions of rising voices of reason asking for justice
and protection to the rights of women in Pakistan and
throughout the world. Why should women be targeted
anywhere on the planet for acid attacks, rape,
strangulation and draconian stone to death
eventuality? If Farzana was alive, she would have
asked: why am I stoned to death? What have I done
wrong to deserve this terrible cruelty? Would any
of the investigating reports answer her question? The
prevalent culture of political corruption and
mismanagement knows no sense of rationality to respond
to public fear of the unknown and prolonged hatred of
the crime riddled politicians. The
nation continues to be governed by uneducated,
indicted criminals and insane people who have no sense
of time, intellect and history. Pakistan is fast
drowning in its own dreadful act of indifference,
faltering security and sickening history of killings
its own people. You need intelligent and morally and
intellectually capable leaders, not Bhuttos, not
Zardaris, not Sharifs but educated people of the new
generation with an inward eye not to politicking but
to safeguard the rights, freedom and security of the
citizens and to transform the sadistic present into a
promising future for all. To change and reform the
political governance, Pakistani nation must think
critically and see the mirror for the past
misconceptions and errors of judgment and to pursue
political activism to bring the new-age educated and
intelligent people into political leadership role who
could think right, share new visions and plan and
implement new and creative ideas for political change
to safeguard the national interest, freedom of the
nation and its future. The rulers hold the absolute
power in Pakistan. There is no democracy, no political
accountability and no law and order normalcy and
safety to protect the ordinary citizens. Do the
politicians need a high power jolt to change the
course of history-making for the people of Pakistan?
If so, such a powerful jolt could come from the
determination and resolve of the will of the people to
ensure protection of the rights of all the citizens of
the nation, their freedom and honor and human dignity.
The voices of REASON are gaining momentum and must be
heard loud and clear.
(Dr.
Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global security,
peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in
Islamic-Western comparative cultures and
civilizations, and author of several publications
including the latest: Global Peace and Conflict
Management: Man and Humanity in Search of New
Thinking. Lambert Publishing Germany, May 2012). |
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