A seed of hope

This is a reflection by Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Anglican Communion in the world, about the Pakistani situation following the murder of Hon. Shahbaz Bhatti.In the history of some countries there comes a period when political and factional murder becomes almost routine – Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, Germany and its neighbours in the early 1930s. It has invariably been the precursor of a breakdown of legal and political order and of long-term suffering for a whole population. And last week, with the killing of Shahbaz Bhatti, the Minister for Minorities, Pakistan has taken a further step down this catastrophic road. To those who actually support such atrocities, there is little to say. … But to those who recognise something truly dreadful going on in their midst – to the majority in Pakistan who have elected a government that, whatever its dramatic shortcomings, is pledged to resist extremism – we have surely to say, “Do not imagine that this can be ‘managed’ or tolerated”. The government of Pakistan and the great majority of its population are, in effect, being blackmailed. The widespread and deep desire for Pakistan to be what it was meant to be, for justice to be guaranteed for all, and for some of the most easily abused laws on the statute book to be reviewed is being paralysed by the threat of murder. The case of Asia Bibi, so prominent in the debates of recent months, and the connected murder of the Governor of the Punjab, make it crystal clear that there is a faction in Pakistan wholly uninterested in justice and due process of law, concerned only with promoting an inhuman pseudo-religious tyranny. …If the state’s willingness to guarantee absolute security for minorities of every kind is a test of political maturity and durability, whatever the confessional background, Pakistan’s founding vision was a mature one. The disdain shown for that vision by Bhatti’s killers is an offence against Islam as much as against Christianity in Pakistan. …Shahbaz Bhatti knew what his chances of survival were – as the moving recorded testimony he left makes plain. He was not protected by the Government he so bravely served. How many minority Christian communities, law-abiding, peaceful and frequently profoundly disadvantaged, are similarly not protected by their government? What increased guarantees of security are being offered? The protection of minorities of any and every kind is one acid test of moral legitimacy for a government; and such protection is built into Pakistan’s modern identity as an Islamic state with civic recognition for non-Muslims. Many are anxious about Pakistan’s future for strategic reasons. But those of us who love Pakistan and its people are anxious for its soul as well as its political stability. It is heartbreaking to see those we count as friends living with the threat of being coerced and menaced into silence and, ultimately, into a betrayal of themselves. This must not be allowed to happen. They need to know of the support of Christians and others outside Pakistan for their historic and distinctive vision. Shahbaz Bhatti died, for all practical purposes, as a martyr – let me be clear – not simply for his Christian faith, but for a vision shared between Pakistani Christians and Muslims. When he and I talked at Lambeth Palace last year, he was fully aware of the risks he ran. He did not allow himself to be diverted for a moment from his commitment to justice for all. That a person of such courage and steadfastness of purpose was nourished in the political culture of Pakistan is itself a witness to the capacity of that culture to keep its vision alive and compelling. And that is one of the few real marks of hope in a situation of deepening tragedy that urgently needs both prayer and action.