We are sorry, Dr Abdus Salam.
We are sorry that Pakistan has said that you are not worthy of honoring.
From the defacing of your grave. Now to the attempts to remove your legacy from one of the country’s leading universities that paid tribute to your outstanding contribution to the world of science. We are sorry that a Nobel Prize, Pakistan’s first, was not enough for the religious right to see beyond your faith. Just as we are sorry that the criminalisation of the latter occurred on democracy’s watch.
But most of all, we are sorry that we, the citizenry, from civil society to the fourth estate to the defenders of Jinnah’s secular vision did not do more to fight back. For you. In your name. And that of the entire Ahmadi community. In short, all those who were left behind in this hostile land. We are sorry that we did not grasp that once extremism has been appeased, there is little, if any, chance of ever going back.
We are sorry that your religion today stands desecrated by a state intent on taking what should be the personal and regurgitating it as the political. From making the right to citizenship dependent upon denouncing you and yours. To maintaining separate electoral rolls that take the hard legwork out of witch-hunts.
Our head hangs in shame as we mourn the way in which this modern democratic state that we call home has, in recent times, capitulated to those firebrands that will not rest until they have bludgeoned to death the rich tapestry of religious pluralism. The bereavement is ours, too.
Indeed, we have no words when confronted with that bitterest of pill; the one that we have all been forced to swallow as the custodians of blind justice gorge out her eyes as they make declarations of faith a matter of public consumption. Or when the elected representatives of we, the people, let a certain retired captain run rampage on the Assembly floor uninterrupted as he termed you, Dr Salam, and your religious brethren, a threat to the country. With the only workable solution being to bar an entire community from the armed forces. Thereby positioning the latter as defenders of a certain faith as opposed to the citizenry.
But what we wish to apologise most profusely for is this. The way in which those who have untold blood on their hands are allowed to repent their sins while the state turns the other cheek. As the latter does its best to mainstream these reformed assets that will see them down arms in favour of the ballot. Thus the message is clear. It is easier to forgive murders, terrorists than it is to respect the right to religious diversity. And still we maintain democracy’s charade.
For all this and more, we are sorry. Yet the time has come for steeled resolve. For all progressive forces to find a collective tipping point; to swing the scales of injustice the other way towards de-politicising religion. It is the only way. To fulfil the dream of Pakistan first.
This, Dr Abdus, is the very least that you deserve.
