Moving Onwards

Abstract

Pakistan is going through turbulent times. Culture wars are visibly ripping the country apart as groups talk past one another, each confident that they are the proprietors of culture and interpreters of religion while others are misrepresenting or even debauching it. These cultural conflicts, often rooted in religious interpretation and belief, are manifesting today as actual wars, albeit power and ideology are deeply integrated within them. As we’ve seen throughout this book, one of the most critical arenas where this conflict is playing itself out is in perceptions and interpretations of women’s rights. But indeed, the conundrum’s scope is wider than this. There are so many different interpretations not only pertaining to rights women should have, but also of the role religion—specifically Islam—should play in influencing policies, economic institutions, and especially laws in Pakistan. All of this divisiveness is having a horrific impact on social cohesiveness to the point where some communities do not regard other communities within Pakistan as legitimate, and violence becomes an everyday phenomenon: Ahmadiyas ¹ were long ago decreed to be a non-Muslin minority and are attacked just by displaying the kalma (affirmation of the Islamic faith); Christians have witnessed their homes set ablaze amidst blasphemy charges; Shi’as have had their processions attacked (and have attached back) while the Shi’a Hazara ethnic community in Baluchistan has endured unrelenting violence and disappearances; and now terrorist attacks between Sunni versus Sunni—often perpetrated by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan—are no longer surprising.