Hazaras- Target practice for sectarian violence

According to a CIA report there are approximately 2.7 million Hazaras in Afghanistan. (Source: http://minorityrights.org/minorities/hazaras/)

Dictionary.com defines Hazaras as an Iranian ethnolinguistic group in central Afghanistan, North Pakistan,and Iran. Most of whom are Shiʿite Muslims. (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/hazara).

Just last year 7 women of Hazara origin were killed due to discrimination and out of ‘honour.’ A total of 43 women were murdered and around 32 were kidnapped.

These instances are not randomized, and they are not uncommon. Since the post British Raj era there have been disputes between people of different cultures and religious sects in the subcontinent and it’s neighbouring countries.

In Afghanistan, they constitute Hazaras are the third largest ethnic group but still complain of maltreatment by the dominant Pashtuns. In Pakistan, around 500,000 Hazaras live, mainly in Quetta, where they have offered impressive services in local police, bureaucracy, labor force, education, information technology and sports. The women of Balochistan in particular have striven very hard to break stereotypes. This being said the persecution of this group due to their heritage, and their Shia sect are totally unacceptable.

In October 2011, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), a respected Lahore-based independent rights group, urged the president and prime minister of Pakistan to take “immediate, direct and personal initiative” to stop the attacks on the Hazara community.

As a proud Pakistani I feel there is no question about the aid this minority requires. Whether it be financial assistance, humanitarian work or even awareness campaigns, something needs to be done!

 

The right to “hypocrisy”

I have been in this booming metropolitan for more than a decade now. And yes with the heat came the holy month of Ramadan. Fasting in this city where people never stop eating it made me wonder, do they actually stop eating, stop eating the piety that is

already in few, restrain from eating people’s reputations and making them a matter of petty gossip, hold themselves back from being untrue to them selves and others around them. To my sheer dismay I encountered the worst of worst, we only restrain from exhibiting the façade held on to prior to Ramadan and succumb to another one which is undoubtedly more pretentious and disconcerting in nature.

Are we all living a life to make others feel a little more envious of us and a little less happy or is it a matter of our own unstable principles that we can neither be true to ourselves nor a religion we so arrogantly flaunt.

Lahore is indeed a place where one meets all and sundry in a period of two days. Ramadan is the best time to witness it all because nobody stops eating anything available in the market. So are we all in this country not being true to anything other than pretension and deceit and eating like pigs or are we just too starved to see the difference between right and wrong? Is it at the end of the day our fault or is it always a higher authority being accused of our misdeeds?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The (F)uneral Parade

Now that summer is almost on its way out, there is not a better time to undergo retail therapy. As I was making the best of it I got a frantic call from a dear cousin informing me of something very unpleasant that would make me need real therapy.

Someone very close had passed away and I had to head out immediately in order to share the pain. But before I did that I had to look presentable. Now isn’t that something we should think about. I looked into the mirror thrice before I set out.

After reaching there the second thought that struck me was that I was not the only one who had looked into the mirror thrice, there were many accomplices, as I may put it, who had dug out the best to display at such an unfortunate time. Not only were there fabulously attired men and women but the glittering Guccis and shinning Pradas were there to make it all look like a page out of Vogue. And not to forget, the bedazzling diamonds and the patent Ballys were there too to make it all seem better.

 

I think I was still a little under-dressed though I had tried my best to dress for the occasion. Have funerals also become a fashion parade or is it just that we fail to comprehend that material will never replace flesh and especially the one that has taken a fall on the ramp?

Well I was not surprised when I saw few very sad and sulky women, or so it seemed, retouching their make up in front of a dresser.

Has the rat race made us think and act like real rodents or is it that we have to look our best for ourselves? Do we swank such treasure to clandestinely Morse-code each other of our social standing? Do we really need to resort to such acquisitive mind sets in order to make ourselves worthy of social approval or our we just too overwhelmed by a complex we are unable to bereave our souls of? Is this how a society’s well educated and supposedly well groomed contributor act?