For Pakistan's sake

Thomas Friedman ci ricorda, dalle colonne del New York Times, cosa accadde subito dopo la pubblicazione in Danimarca di alcune vignette satiriche su Maometto: grandi proteste in tutto il mondo musulmano, compreso il Pakistan. Si chiede allora Friedman: "Chi nel mondo musulmano, e in Pakistan, è pronto ora a scendere in piazza contro l'assassinio in massa di persone vere, e non di disegni, nella vicina Mumbai?". "Sto ancora sperando", prosegue l'editorialista americano, "in una grande dimostrazione della popolazione pakistana contro gli attacchi a Mumbai, nè per me nè per l'India, ma per il bene del Pakistan stesso". "Questo tipo di violenza omicida", conclude Friedman, "potrà finire solo quando tutto il Paese - le brave persone in Pakistan, compresa la comunità dei più anziani e dei leader spirituali che desiderano un futuro migliore per la loro nazione - dichiarerà, in quanto collettività, che coloro si macchiano di tali assassinii sono vergognosi miscredenti che non danzeranno insieme alle vergini in Paradiso ma bruceranno all'inferno". Parole sante!

di Thomas L. Friedman (The New York Times)

On Feb. 6, 2006, three Pakistanis died in Peshawar and Lahore during violent street protests against Danish cartoons that had satirized the Prophet Muhammad. More such mass protests followed weeks later. When Pakistanis and other Muslims are willing to take to the streets, even suffer death, to protest an insulting cartoon published in Denmark, is it fair to ask: Who in the Muslim world, who in Pakistan, is ready to take to the streets to protest the mass murders of real people, not cartoon characters, right next door in Mumbai? (...)

I am still hoping — just once — for that mass demonstration of “ordinary people” against the Mumbai bombers, not for my sake, not for India’s sake, but for Pakistan’s sake. (...)

We know from the Danish cartoons affair that Pakistanis and other Muslims know how to mobilize quickly to express their heartfelt feelings, not just as individuals, but as a powerful collective. That is what is needed here. Because, I repeat, this kind of murderous violence only stops when the village — all the good people in Pakistan, including the community elders and spiritual leaders who want a decent future for their country — declares, as a collective, that those who carry out such murders are shameful unbelievers who will not dance with virgins in heaven but burn in hell. And they do it with the same vehemence with which they denounce Danish cartoons.