Last week, one of the most long-awaited court rulings in Pakistan’s modern history was delayed. Asia Bibi, a Christian woman, stands accused of blasphemy, for which the penalty is death. Like many such cases, it rests on a flimsy legal basis. But it also stirs intense sectarian feeling. One Islamist group says they will take to the streets if Bibi is acquitted.
I met Archbishop Sebastian Shaw of Lahore in London, on the day scheduled for Bibi’s supreme court hearing. The day before, it was announced that one trial judge has had to withdraw because of his involvement in a related case. The hearing might be months away.
Archbishop Shaw says that Bibi’s acquittal would assure Pakistan’s minorities “that there is some supreme authority that can give justice”.
It would be a much-needed reassurance. According to the charity Open Doors, Pakistan is the sixth worst country for anti-Christian persecution. (Only the police states of North Korea and Eritrea, and the killing fields of Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, are worse.) Some of the persecution is open: there have been attacks on churches and terrorist outrages such as this year’s Easter Sunday suicide attack in Lahore, in which 75 died (most of them Muslims).
And yet Archbishop Shaw seems confident that life will improve for Pakistan’s Christians. the archbishop is genial and almost twinkly-eyed even when discussing his job’s impossible demands; I am almost surprised when he admits to having “sleepless nights.” Nevertheless, he speaks about the future with much less angst than many a Christian leader in Europe. That may be partly because his own diocese – the largest, numerically, in the country – is rapidly growing. This year five new priests were ordained, he tells me proudly: the largest crop for more than 20 years. Three new parishes have opened.
Archbishop Shaw also thinks the harsh treatment of Christians may begin to ease. Along with Anglican, Hindu and Sikh leaders, he recently appealed to President Mamnoon Hussain to review the blasphemy law, which has been in place since 1994. Archbishop Shaw was encouraged by the President’s response, and is “very hopeful that now the government realises the misuse of blasphemy law, and is ready to pass legislation to stop the misuse.”
There is also a law that no non-Muslim can become president, prime minister or head of the army – though, the archbishop adds, laughing, that this law is scarcely necessary. “I mean, nobody from a minority can become the president of Pakistan [anyway]. But the law is there, and that is not good. In principle it should not be.”
Pakistan’s Christians are oppressed in subtler ways, too. The vast majority of them work in menial jobs, many as sanitary workers. “There is no written law,” says the archbishop, “but actually, it is practised.” Most are very poor and have the least-wanted jobs or are unemployed.
However, he says “We are fighting for our rights, and some are lawyers and engineers and teachers.” And despite the unignorable problems, “through the help of our education, there are many Christian young people who are coming up to colleges and universities. So in this way there is a hope that in future, Christian young men will have better jobs. There is hope.”
Pakistan has not always been so harsh an environment for Christians. Many were involved with the foundation of Pakistan in 1947, when it was assumed that the state would preserve religious freedom. But Islamisation soon began. Then General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, president from 1977 to 1988, made the “Sharization” of Pakistan his chief goal, passing many laws to Islamise the country. “And these Islamic laws created and gave a feeling of insecurity to all minorities and especially to Christians,” Archbishop Shaw says.
But it isn’t just the legal system which has pushed Christians into an insecure position. “A lot of problems in our society come from our textbooks,” says the archbishop. These books use the word “infidels” for non-Muslims; some suggest that Christians and Jews cannot be trusted. “From the textbooks, the students learn to degrade one another based on religion.” Archbishop Shaw suspects the lack of oversight of educational materials is a major cause of Islamist fundamentalism.
Archbishop Shaw does not quite spell this out, but teachings can do more than increase tension. A 2015 Pew report found that, though many Muslim-majority countries are hostile to ISIS, Pakistan is an exception: one in 10 – 16 million people – view ISIS favourably, and only one in four have an “unfavourable” opinion of the terror group.
The Church is appealing to the government to remove prejudicial material. “The government says every year, yes, the coming academic year it will be OK. But it is not OK.”
The archbishop tries to make plans without getting discouraged. For instance, with the help of Aid to the Church in Need, who have invited him to Britain, Pakistani Catholics have translated the entire 800-page Catechism into Urdu. It has been a hit, apparently: many people have found their faith strengthened by it. “We thought it was impossible,” says Archbishop Shaw, “but we did it.”
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