Pakistan is beyond any doubt one of the most unstable parts of the world. Violence is so part of daily life that this kind of incident is barely even considered newsworthy any more outside the region:
A car bomb exploded outside a mosque in Karachi on Sunday, killing dozens of people and wounding more than 140 in a Shia Muslim dominated neighbourhood.
And, of course, similar things happened very recently.
It was the third large-scale attack against members of the minority sect so far this year. Two attacks against a Shia Hazara community in Quetta killed nearly 200 people.
According to Human Rights Watch, more than 400 Shias were killed last year in targeted attacks across the country, the worst year on record for anti-Shia violence in Pakistan. The human rights group said more than 125 were killed in Baluchistan province. Most of them belonged to the Hazara community.
And who is behind these attacks?
Sunni militant groups have stepped up attacks in the past year against Shia Muslims who make up about 20% of Pakistan’s population of 180 million people. Sunni militants linked to al-Qaida and the Taliban view Shias as heretics.
While this kind of violence is euphemistically referred to as “sectarian”, the ugly reality is that this is hatred that is direclty fueld by religious doctrine. But the culture can only associate religion with good things, not bad things. When religious groups do charity work, religion gets the credit, but when they commit atrocities, words “religion” and “religious” somehow mysteriously disappear from the conversation.
While the good people of Pakistan often take to the streets to protest against freedom of expression in nations that are not even Muslims majority (picture above), I wonder if any of them ever pause to think that it is not criticism against Islam, rather, Islam itself, that is causing this kind of carnage in Pakistan. I have no doubt that such people exist, but whoever would dare to raise his/her voice against these mobs?
