This suicide bombing is the latest in a series of attacks seeking to eliminate Pakistan’s religious minorities from the public realm. But while these atrocities target members of religious minority groups, attacking them in public spaces means that the damage is borne by all members of Pakistan’s middle- and working-classes.
In Pakistan, there are few places where working- and middle-class families can spend time together, outside of their homes and places of worship. This is partly because many public places are not seen to be appropriate places for women.
For example, markets are often viewed as male-dominated spaces, where women should not loiter. And while shopping malls and coffee shops are considered by many to be appropriate places for women to meet, entertain their children, eat and shop, many working- and middle-class families are excluded, either because of the location or the prohibitive cost of the merchandise available there.
By contrast, public parks are places where families can socialise, exercise and take their families outside of the segregated religious spaces of mosques or churches. They are also some of the only locations in Pakistan where Sunni Muslim families share space with members of Pakistan’s minority communities — Shias, Christians and Ahmedis.
By targeting Gulshan-i-Iqbal park for the deadly attack, the Taliban splinter group Jamaat-ul-Ahrar are seeking to intimidate religious minorities into abandoning the public realm. Sadly, they are not the only ones seeking to silence Pakistan’s minority voices.
At the same time as the bomb detonated in the Lahore park, 10,000 people were invading Islamabad’s parliamentary area to protest against the execution of a self-confessed murderer: Mumtaz Qadri. Qadri was hanged in February for the assassination of former Punjab governor, Salman Tasser, who had been seeking to reform Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.
The blasphemy laws can lead to a death sentence for those accused of insulting Islam. Tasser had argued that the law was being used to victimise Pakistan’s Ahmedi and Christian communities. The issue of blasphemy is politically sensitive and attempts to amend the law have been virulently opposed by religious groups and conservative political parties.
The protesters gathered in Islamabad demanded the implementation of Sharia law across the country; the release of Sunni religious clerics charged with murder and terrorism; that Mumtaz Qadri be declared a martyr; and that members of the Ahmadi community and other religious minorities be removed from key government posts. The protest was called off on Wednesday after the Interior Minister provided a verbal agreement not amend the blasphemy law nor to act leniently towards those convicted under it, to release all those arrested for protesting, and to review cases against clerics charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act.
The attack in Lahore and the protests in Islamabad reflect different political agendas. Yet both are aligned in that they seek to eradicate religious minorities from the public space: from parks and from leadership positions in government. These groups form an influential political power bloc, which each of Pakistan’s successive governments has had to contend with and appease.
Pakistan’s government and military — the de facto power holder — have each contributed to division and intolerance in the country by systematically removing forums for public debate on a range of issues: from the blasphemy law, to the insurgency in Baluchistan. Those in power have sought to silence any direct critique of the military establishment, intelligence agencies or their senior leadership.
Indeed, in April 2015, a public event titled ‘Unsilencing Balochistan’ at the Lahore University of Management Science was cancelled at the instruction of the government. The speakers sought to raise awareness of the enforced disappearance of an estimated 18,000 Balochis — people native to the Pakistani province of Balochistan — in the conflict between separatists and national security forces.
A local activist, Sabeen Mahmud, rescheduled the cancelled talk by hosting the event in the small community space she ran above a bookshop in Karachi. Mahmud was assassinated by unknown perpetrators as she left the event.
The taboos around these issues have resulted in a national media which is reluctant to directly critique the government, the security forces or conservative religious parties. Journalists reporting on these issues have been found dead in suspicious circumstances. Many others have received threats, both veiled and direct. Instead, the op-eds of major English language newspapers in Pakistan critique these institutions with vague allusions to ‘the Establishment’ and ‘the Boys’.
Neither the upper classes who hold government and leadership roles, nor the generals and brigadiers who staff the army, spend their time in public parks. They have their own private gardens, air-conditioned homes and private security personnel. Meanwhile, the public spaces available to minority, working- and middle-class Pakistanis are getting smaller and smaller — and so are the forums to debate or critique the authorities’ failure to address these issues.
Rosita Armytage is a political anthropologist and PhD candidate researching power and influence, and social mobility in Pakistan at The Australian National University.
This article first appeared here on The Conversation.
It makes no sense for Rosita Armytage to state that “The attack targeted Christians — a predominantly working-class community in Pakistan — who were celebrating Easter.” If the TTP, which claimed responsibility for the attack was interested in targeting Christians it would have bombed a Church or a predominantly Christian area.
She totally ignored the view of most analysts in Pakistan that it was an Indian dictated reprisal for the capture of a RAW Agent which was made public on Friday night.
To be a real academic she should take of her jaundiced glasses and perhaps then she would see clearer and hopefully understand things better rather than churning out boiler plate statements like, “Neither the upper classes who hold government and leadership roles, nor the generals and brigadiers who staff the army, spend their time in public parks. They have their own private gardens, air-conditioned homes and private security personnel. Meanwhile, the public spaces available to minority, working- and middle-class Pakistanis are getting smaller and smaller — and so are the forums to debate or critique the authorities’ failure to address these issues.” which could be said to hold true for most countries.
Sir, RAW conspiracy theories are undoubtedly a prominent feature of the Pakistani political landscape. As you point out, the tension between India and Pakistan shapes the response of many to severe and heinous crises such as this one. You correctly point out that the senior leaderships of many countries often do not spend their leisure time in public parks. But neither do attacks such as this one occur in most countries.
Unfortunately, it is common in Pakistan for certain groups to blame failures that should lie with the government and military regime on India rather than demanding accountability from their own government. This unwillingness to criticise the institutions that rule the nation is exactly part of the problem that ensures minority groups will remain vulnerable within Pakistan and continue to be targets.
It is hugely counter productive to present every atrocity in Pakistan as a plot designed by India. The violence that minority groups routinely experience in Pakistan is the responsibility of the Pakistani government, and of the population to demand and oversee policies that promote tolerance rather than division and marginalisation.