Muslim Mob Torches Christian Neighborhood in Pakistan

Discussion in 'The Cesspool' started by Balerion, Mar 9, 2013.

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  1. Balerion Banned Banned

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    Another bogus claim.

    I only assumed as much because you were making claims that were contrary to the facts.

    That's not irony, genius.

    Agreed, as a general statement, I suppose. What does this have to do with me, I wonder? You seem to be the only one pretending Muslims didn't attack a Christian neighborhood. Not even Bells has sunk that low. Though, admittedly, it's probably only because she didn't think of it. She's tried every other dishonest tactic available.

    Oh, okay. So, wait, you're saying racial tensions had nothing to do with that? You honestly think the impetus for those riots was simple criminality? Well, I guess that explains a lot.

    Clear evidence? The riot coincided with an election; in no article regarding the event has there been a line drawn between the two. And again (since you do have trouble reading my posts, apparently) I never said religion was the only cause. If it is true that the blasphemy never happened, then a fight between two people was one of the causes. But that riot doesn't happen without the allegation of blasphemy. Otherwise, there would have been no need for the man to fabricate the insult. He apparently had no trouble accepting religion's role in this, so what's your excuse?

    What key points have I ignored? I already addressed the other factors Bells brought up in replies to her, and I make a similar point earlier in this post. What more do I need to address?

    I think you're just trolling at this point. You don't seem to have any of the facts, you don't even seem to have read the article, and everything else is ad hominem. Maybe you saw Bells calling me a bigot and thought this was your chance to get some free shots in?

    See, this is what I'm talking about. This didn't happen at a steel factory, it happened in a Christian neighborhood. They came literally from the mosque on Friday to find this guy, then came back the next day to torch the whole neighborhood. What any of this had to do with the steel mill is beyond me.

    I never promised any such thing. You're the one who started in on this "suave" business. All I'm doing is giving you the facts, but you seem to be immune to them.

    Oh, so there isn't religious violence in the world? Phew! Thank goodness, huh?

    All I seem to inflame are morons. Can't really be concerned with that, though.
     
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  3. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Do you know anyone who doesn't take a hard line on what they perceive as their opposition?

    Maybe not everyone actually goes out to maim, kill or otherwise harm their opponents, but at least they do so in their minds or have the intention to harm them.


    The only people who are at least theoretically able to afford total non-violence, total non-aggresion, may be mendicant monastics.
     
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  5. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    People (whether they consider themselves theists or not, whether they consider themselves religious or not) who start off from the premise that life on earth can be peaceful and harmonius, from now on forever, are simply operating out of a mistaken notion.

    As long as resources (water, fuel, food, land etc.) are scarce, there will be a struggle for survival, there will be competition amond living beings and conflict of interests that will occasionally go from mental or verbal hostility to physical hostility.
    And as things stand, resources have been scarce, are scarce, and will continue to be so.


    It is stupid to try to blame any particular cause for the existence of this conflict - whether that presumed cause is religion, or politics, or social or economical factors or whichever.

    If anything, the only one to blame is the universe for not providing infinite and easily accessible resources for every living being. But people usually realize it would be stupid to blame the universe. So they blame whoever and whatever happens to be their pet peeve.

    And yes, blaming others actually brings one some peace of mind. Fortunately or unfortunately, peace of mind is a scarce resource too!
     
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  7. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Saudi Arabia?

    Oh, wait. It's the indentured non-Muslim workers there who are poor. So maybe your hypothesis does work.

    /sarc
     
  8. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    No, you haven't. At any point.
     
  9. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    I don't buy that, and by the way, orthodox Jews are just as crazy.
     
  10. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    So how does that work? Undereducated and illiterate people burn down Christian neighborhoods for trivial reasons, and it's the fault of western imperialism? Mohammed did the same thing, and where were the imperialists then?
     
  11. Balerion Banned Banned

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    You've answered your own question here. Not all faiths--not even all iterations of Islam--condone or promote this kind of behavior. Obviously no faith like blasphemy, but there is a difference between insulting blasphemers and burning their homes down.

    I don't ask for total non-violence or non-aggression. I just ask that people aren't killed for blasphemy, that they don't have their homes ransacked and set ablaze. And in most places, such a thing doesn't happen.
     
  12. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    I wasn't talking only about religious faith:


    Again:

    Maybe not everyone actually goes out to maim, kill or otherwise harm their opponents, but at least they do so in their minds or have the intention to harm them.

    The difference is only in the method.

    One person can kill another within seconds with a gunshot, or slowly in installments over many years, as they oppress them, exploit them and make their lives miserable.

    You think the capitalist who exploits his workers over decades until they die of exhaustion is that much better than someone who kills another with a gun?
    Or that the kids who bully another kid into suicide are that much better than those who set a person's home on fire?
     
  13. Bells Staff Member

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    It was the West that introduced the "offences relating to religion" into the region in the first place.

    The offences relating to religion were first codified by India's British rulers in 1860, and were expanded in 1927. Pakistan inherited these laws after the partition of India in 1947.


    The cornerstone of those laws were imported into the country prior to and after it's formation, from the British.

    Mix in some politics..

    Another aspect of the issue is that the union elections of the iron workshops were just round the corner and Sawan and Shahid belong to opposing groups. Some locals also alleged that the violent storming and burning of the Christian homes was done by the union groups aspiring to gain support of the people by proving themselves as the greater flag-bearers of Islam.

    Sawan Masih too, in his statement, has said similar things including the fact that the complainant Shahid Imran threatened him during an argument saying that he could destroy his life by accusing him of blasphemy, while both were drunk.




    So can anyone really say it is just religion involved?

    It is easy to beat the self righteous war drums, however when one actually looks at the issue, one can clearly see that there were many other elements involved in this particular incident.

    It is also worth noting:

    Muslims constitute a majority of those booked under these laws, followed by the minority Ahmadi community.

     
  14. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Bells: I wonder. "Codified" is not "created". It only means that the offenses had official legal penalty. Penalties for blasphemy being an old subject in Islamic jurisprudence, I wonder whether such laws were created to prevent 'extra-judicial' (the entire riot being 'extra-moral') murder and retaliation. Also, I wonder at whose urging such laws were introduced: the British governorship or Pakistani and Indian polities?

    Muslims almost certainly constitute a majority of those booked, because they constitute something like 98% of the Pakistani population. No surprises there.

    I don't think anyone has argued that it is only religion: several have argued that religion is the primacy and foundation of this hatred, however, and it almost certainly is.

    Wynn: reductio ad absurdum is not a response to every question.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2013
  15. Bells Staff Member

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    Yes but you are overlooking the fact that the blasphemy laws and the issues with it are literally a new problem within Pakistan.

    The laws that were introduced into India, which was then also adopted by Pakistan after the partition was actually introduced by the British to protect the Muslim population against Hindu majority.

    The laws were introduced at the urging of the British. The whole concept of such a law was fairly new to the pre-partitioned India.
     
  16. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks for the information. However, the Mughals were in charge of India prior to the British mandate. This link suggests that Islamic jurisprudence - which, in all four schools, mandates death for apostates - and, one should presume, for blasphemers - was in use prior to British control and well prior to additional blasphemy laws introduced in the 1980s and 90s. The last Mughal, Aurangzeb, was excessively - ahem - 'pious', and introduced Sharia for all subjects including Hindus. So legal enforcement of penalties for blasphemy against Islam actually predates the British mandate.

    Back on the issue of the social ramifications, most of the reaction is social and the murders mostly extrajudicial anyway. The main problem is that it lends legitimacy to the persecution of non-Muslims and Ahmaddiyyas in Pakistan: the rioters can claim that the country is Islamic and therefore that they act to protect religion and state. This is the central danger of theocracy. There's often a lack of serious appreciation of this fact by some observers, this danger not being different because it is 'over there' and not here. Would it make much difference to persecuted religious minorities in Pakistan where the laws came from, in contrast to how they're used? In fact, there is a possible protection for minorities under this law in that excitation of riots is prohibited, but as you can see, it's not used. I think the upshot is that it's just back with simple religious hatred again, Indian-British history notwithstanding.
     
  17. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Thinking that a life of peace and harmony is possible when resources are scarce, is patently absurd.


    You can make your case against "religious violence" only if you posit that a life of peace and harmony is possible even when resources are scarce.
     
  18. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    I thought they were the victims of western imperialism going after their precious resources. And why is their God making them suffer if they are so righteous?
     
  19. Bells Staff Member

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    And yet..

    Blasphemy laws were first introduced in the Indian subcontinent by its British colonial rulers. Before that, orthodox Islamic jurisprudence was briefly enforced during Mughal rule on the subcontinent but history is silent if there were any blasphemy laws prevalent at that time.

    [HR][/HR]

    History of blasphemy laws in South Asia dates back to the British colonial rule. Substantial parts of the British era Indian Penal Code of 1860 remain in practice even today in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.

    But the information available on how blasphemy cases were dealt with before the British rule is neither reliable nor convincing. Dr. Samia Raheel Qazi, President of women wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, had written an article on the blasphemy law that appeared in the Daily Jang on 28th November 2010[1] in which she said during Mughal rule all judicial cases were adjudicated according to the Holy Quran and Sunnah but she did not substantiate her claim with any citation.

    The Mughal Emperor Akbar was famous for his liberalism and tolerance towards all other religions and created Din-e-Ilahi by merging what he found best elements of religions being practiced in the subcontinent at that time but many Islamic scholars considered it a kind of blasphemy.

    It was during the reign of Emperor Aurangzeb, third generation ruler after Emperor Akbar, when an orthodox religious jurisprudence was enforced in India. However, this orthodox jurisprudence was practiced for a very short period of time because the downfall of Mughal Empire began shortly afterwards.

    During the British rule, four blasphemy laws were introduced in India, three of them (Indian Penal Code 295, 296, and 298) in 1860 and the fourth one (IPC295A) in 1927.



    There is no confirmation that such enforcements were actually in place in regards to blasphemy prior to the British.. It is not confirmed and no documents from that era show any indication that blasphemy laws were enforced or even in place at any time.


    I think the contempt in the region, the religious hatred at least, is connected to the British. Lets face it, the British bred the hatred to ensure they maintained power and control. It is a basic breakdown of an intricate political ploy, used by the British and the result was an absolute massacre on all sides and that residual hatred and distrust that we see to this day.

    But this type of radical Islam that is actually on the rise in Pakistan is relatively new.


    Qasim Rashid wrote an interesting piece on discrimination and religious discrimination in Pakistan. And in his article, he comments about his father and what his father remembered and knew of Pakistan shortly after the partition and the vast difference to the country and Pakistani society today:

    But Pakistan was not always like this. My father, born just three years after Pakistan's birth, tells me of a time when millions flocked to Pakistan as the land of opportunity. Today, as one-third want to leave, Prime Minister Gilani callously retorts, "Why don't they leave then, who is stopping them?" My father reminds me of a time when Pakistan's founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah specifically appointed non-Muslims to his cabinet to champion Pakistan's pluralistic platform. Last year, Pakistan's only non-Muslim federal Minister, a Christian named Shabazz Bhatti, was assassinated because he specifically championed Pakistan's pluralistic platform. Likewise, Governor Salman Taseer -- the single politician to speak up for Ahmadi Muslims -- was brutally murdered for doing so. My father tells me when the dream of Pakistan was to give India's persecuted Muslim minority the priceless opportunity to build the world's greatest, most tolerant nation. Today, Pakistan endows Salman Taseer's assassin as a hero and sentences the doctor who helped kill Osama bin Laden to 33 years in prison.


    So what has changed from the idyllic beginnings to this dramatic rise of religious intolerance and hatred over a fairly short space of time?

    When Pakistan was partitioned, India's minorities went there to escape discrimination and persecution in the Hindu majority India. How did we get from the ideal in the 40's to the hell that we have today?

    We know the answer. Encroaching radical elements of Islam embedding itself in positions of power which led to the declaration of Pakistan becoming an Islamic State (it did not start out that way).

    Pakistan is not the only country where the declaration of a theocracy led to discrimination and persecution of those of different religions or race. We see it in Israel, we see it in Iran and in Pakistan.

    Strangely enough, Pakistan's blasphemy laws are the toughest out of all Islamic countries. Which is interesting in that it seems as though they are pushing for the absolute extreme from the get go.

    I think once we discover the answer to how and why Pakistan became so radicalised, we will discover why feelings could be what they are which led people to be encouraged to go on such a rampage. Personally, I think religion is being used as a tool to achieve control and one of the articles I linked earlier in this thread showed how children in schools are now being taught about the more extreme and conservative form of Islam, something which did not happen prior to the 70's..

    With this riot, you have two opposing factions in a local political arena, having a falling out and one, because of his religion, has more leeway than the other and with that kind of atmosphere, it is easy to push people into that kind of a froth.

    Personally, I don't think it is just religion that is to blame. I think attitudes passed on when the country was formed and the belief system entrenched in society from that period played a big part and I do think that blasphemy laws is but a means for revenge. The guy even said that he would use it to get back at his former friend.. Hatred and politics is a nasty combination.
     
  20. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Without that insane religion, this sort of thing would not be possible. That's one of the great dangers of faith.
     
  21. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Realistically, it's likely to the point of certainty. If Aurangzeb went so far as to enact tribute payments on Hindu subjects, one can be pretty sure that he also didn't mind a little beheading for blasphemy. It also underscores that religious extremism - which this is really about - was in place loong before the British arrived. I'm fairly sure they didn't bring any Salafi imams with them.

    This claim concerns me. They intended hatred between the groups, but codified laws to protect the Islamic minority?

    Well, not really. It dates back at least as far as Aurangzeb. In fact, to be completely honest, this kind of pressure has probably existed as long as Islam has in India, though perhaps with less popular support.

    I read the blurb from Qasim Rashid. I can't speak to his remembrances - and Jinnah's history is long indeed - but religious tolerance has actually been on and off in India and Pakistan for a couple hundred years.

    Well, in point of fact India's Islamic minorities went there to escape discrimination. That says nothing about their corresponding tolerance or intolerance of other religious minorities.

    We may see it more diffidently in Israel than in Iran or Pakistan, but this is neither here nor there. What is it you intend from this tu quoque?

    I'll agree that active conservative sentiment has been on the upswing in the last fifty years. It's occurred before now, mind: my suspicion is that the likes of Qutb are behind it, as one of the chief instigators of religious hatred among Muslims and a contemporary of this period. Maududi is another. Having said all that, I'm not sure how it will help minorities in Pakistan now.

    Nor do I, nor does anyone writing in to the thread thus far, apparently. Several do consider it the primary cause, however.
     
  22. Balerion Banned Banned

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    Of course not. Bells is constructing straw men so as to avoid the issue of primacy. No one is suggesting that there aren't other factors. Of course, blaming imperialism is easy when you overlook the fact that the blasphemy laws codified during their occupation were made in effort to curb unrest between Hindus and Muslims. So the laws exist because of religious violence, rather than being the impetus for it as Bells suggests. There have always been vigilante actions like the one we saw this past week in Pakistan, and blasphemy laws were meant to stifle some of that by making the act illegal. We're really talking about anti-incitement laws at their heart, though they have been changed dramatically since British rule and are now, at least in Pakistan, a means of oppressing non-Muslims, but the laws became what they are today under Islamic rule.

    We don't know the politics behind the combatants, so Bells' assumption that this was based on politics is as yet unfounded. It might be true, but as usual, she's simply assuming it is because that way she can take the focus off of their religions.

    How silly of me to assume you were, since blasphemy is strictly a religious concept.

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    I would disagree with the notion that killing someone and torching their whole neighborhood over an act of blasphemy equates to bullying, or even the "capitalist" (even though these poor working conditions are often found in communist countries) who exploits his workers, but you're missing the point in attempting to rank these offenses. The point is to find out the cause and correct it. And we're trying to do that with bullying, and we've certainly made great strides in the west in correcting poor working conditions, so why would it be so wrong to correct this problem as well? What, we should just ignore it?

    What scarce resource was at stake during this event in Pakistan?

    Nonsense. First of all, there's quite a bit of real estate between "peace and harmony" and "Religious mob burning community to the ground because of their religion." They could co-exist without incidents such as these without necessarily living harmoniously. Secondly, resources are not at issue here. This had to do with religion, not oil or food.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2013
  23. p-brane Registered Senior Member

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    You know damn well that Israel isn`t a theocracy and in fact jews are among the world`s most secular peoples. What little genuinely impactful religious discrimination there is in Israel, it pales in comparison to the heinous treatment of people by their own governments in the rest of the region.
     
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