Are Shias Not One of Our Own!

Run, while you can. Run away from this mon­strous state that Pak­istan is becom­ing. Run before the denial and igno­rance of the cit­i­zens of this land of pure devours your soul. Run before you lift a stranger’s life­less body bathed in blood. Run before that body is of your loved one’s. Run before you are a vic­tim your­self. Run while you can.

We vowed to nev­er for­get what hap­pened on the fate­ful day of 16th Decem­ber 2014. When we saw images of young chil­dren, all pale and drenched in blood, with an anguished soul we com­mit­ted to nev­er for­give the per­pe­tra­tors behind this dread­ful act. We saw moth­ers bel­low­ing in agony over coffins of their young sons and we promised that we would stand against the ter­ror­ists who stole our future from us. We vowed, we com­mit­ted, we promised to nev­er for­get and less than 2 months lat­er, we have for­got­ten, we have moved on and we have gone back into our favorite mood, Denial.

We ignore what doesn’t affect us or rather we think it doesn’t. We remain obliv­i­ous to a calami­ty, switch the TV chan­nel and pre­tend noth­ing has hap­pened. We are suf­fer­ing from a self-imposed short term mem­o­ry loss as we are too stone­heart­ed now and turn­ing our faces away is eas­i­er than fac­ing what this coun­try is becom­ing.

Over 60 Shias lost their lives in a sui­cide attack on 30th Jan­u­ary 2015 while they had gath­ered in Kar­bala Maula Imam Bar­gah in Shikarpur for Fri­day prayers. Fathers, broth­ers, sons, grand­sons, grand­fa­thers, so many rela­tions wiped out of exis­tence in a mat­ter of sec­onds.

And how did the peo­ple of this land of pure react? By stay­ing silent. A deaf­en­ing aching silence has been observed by the cit­i­zens of this coun­try. Why? Are the Shias not human enough? Is the loss of their lives not a loss? Are the shat­tered fam­i­lies not real enough? Is their blood less red than ours? Or are they not ‘Mus­lim’ enough?

This is exact­ly why Jun­dal­lah, who has con­ve­nient­ly claimed the bar­bar­i­ty, car­ried this attack. For them the peo­ple who believe in the One­ness of the Almighty, accept Quran as their sacred book, Prophet PBUH as the Creator’s mes­sen­ger and Hazrat Ali as Ameer-ul-Mom­i­neen, Com­man­der of the faith­ful, are not reli­gious enough. How can lov­ing Hazrat Ali be a sin? Remem­ber how Prophet PBUH pro­claimed loud­ly and proud­ly: “Mann Kun­to Maula, Fa Haza Ali un-Maula: Who­ev­er accepts me as a mas­ter, Ali is his mas­ter too.”

How can mur­der­ing the devo­tees of Ali be a reli­gious act? How can mur­der­ing any­one be reli­gious? Have we gone blind or have we closed our eyes to what Shias are going through in Pak­istan? In fact, what all minori­ties are fac­ing in this with­er­ing state? Why are we com­fort­able in sit­ting at home and not protest­ing on the roads for our fel­low cit­i­zens?

Or are we still in a delu­sion­al state of mind that every­thing wrong that hap­pens in our coun­try is a con­spir­a­cy of the west or our neigh­bors to weak­en us? How long are we going to keep point­ing fin­gers and for­get­ting that the ene­my is indeed one of us? And when we don’t con­demn or raise our voic­es against the ene­my, we are in fact sup­port­ing them.

How many Joseph colonies can we afford to see get burnt? How many Ahmadis will have to be mas­sa­cred in their mosques? How many Shamas and Saj­jads will have to be burnt alive in the kiln? How many dead bod­ies do we need to see on Alam­dar Road to wake up this sleep­ing nation?

We came out in thou­sands when­ev­er any polit­i­cal leader called out for a jal­sa or a sit in. Even if half of those peo­ple had the audac­i­ty to come out to show sol­i­dar­i­ty for the lives lost in Shikarpur, our Shia brethren would’ve slept a lit­tle in peace. But we didn’t. We stayed at home. We stayed in our com­fort zones. We moved on with our lives. Because why should we protest? Why should we be out on the roads? They were Shias after all; they were not one of our own!