Editorial
The level of tolerance in our society has dropped down to a record low. In the past few weeks, incidents of unprecedented violence have occurred to substantiate this claim.
First of all brutal and unjust killing of Rashid Rehman, who was the finest, fearless, bold and bravest human rights activist. He was gunned down in Multan for his support to a young man Junaid Hafeez, lecturer in Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan accused of religious
blasphemy. After Shabaz Bhatti and Salman Taseer, Rashid Rehman was made silent for promoting the cause of human rights and religious tolerance.
On several occasions, he was threatened for his life but no measures were taken to provide optimum security to him. Mr.Rehman will be remembered for the iconic work for work he has done for the promotion of human rights. Since 1987, he was south Punjab for Human
Rights Commission of Pakistan and has remained as a defense lawyer for several blasphemy cases and thousands of human rights cases including that of Muktaran Mai’s case.
Intolerance has been embedded into our society with deep-rooted seepage of various clashes of interest and ideologies. The recent media campaign of one media house against
the other is also a worrisome game which can engulf the entire country into a state of
chaos.
In a recent debacle done by one of the leading channels, the rival channels
started using the tool of religious bigotry and hatred to gun each other down. Those who are accused had made a public apology but still, those having disgust for the media house are putting all their efforts to outpour the venom.
This has become a threat since the environment of hate is affecting the lives of thousands of workers attached to the media house, for most among them, this is the sole source of their bread and butter. Last but not least is the recent WHO restriction on Pakistani travelers boarding international flights to present the certificate of vaccination.
Pakistan, along with Syria and Cameroon, the restriction was imposed as the country has remained largely failed to meet international standards of eradicating the menace of polio from the country. Pakistan is one of only three countries where the crippling virus is endemic.
The other two countries are Nigeria and Afghanistan. One of the major reasons behind this is the recent campaign run by the fundamentalists that the polio vaccine can cause fertility
problems or that it is against Islam. This drive became aggressive after the killing of Osama Bin Laden in May 2011 when he was traced out while using a fake polio drive by Dr.Shakil Afridi.
Other reasons include inefficient drugs administrated to the children and continuous internal displacement of the children. Giving a religious color to these significant drives has led to the efforts of the government as “sketchy at best”.
Keeping in view all that is happening at the domestic level, one cannot take the eyes off from the changing regional dynamics as a result of elections on both the eastern and western borders of Pakistan.
First, the most troublesome, the border aligning with Afghanistan which is facing a transitional year as 2014 is the year of NATO forces withdrawal coupled with the presidential elections that were held last month to have a new Afghan leader face all the political and security challenges about the country.
Pakistan is one of the important regional players in having a peaceful and stable Afghanistan since it was a key backer of the 1996-2001 Taliban regimes in Kabul. Elections results are yet to be announced as in June, there would be the second round of polls in Afghanistan but initial results reflect Mr.Abdullah Abdullah of National Coalition of Afghanistan, is leading and amongst the favorite.
In India Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP), hard the core nationalist party has a sweeping
win in recent elections in India where Narendra Modi will be sworn in as new Prime Minister. BJP party has a hard stance for Pakistan and time will reveal that how much “thaw” the government of Pakistan can expect from such a right-wing party leader rose to the power
having its hands soaked in the blood of thousands of Muslims in Gujrat.
Before we begin and go on to make peace deals in mutually beneficial coexistence with
our neighbors, it is imperative to work on making our house in order. This would only help us to face all the emerging regional and international challenges of multidimensional nature with dignity and honor in this comity of nations.
