World View: Pakistan Mob Lynches Christian Couple over Alleged Blasphemy Charge

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Pakistan mob lynches Christian couple over alleged blasphemy charge
• Jordan recalls Israeli envoy as violence increases in Jerusalem

Pakistan mob lynches Christian couple over alleged blasphemy charge

Site of the brick kiln where the Christian couple was burned to death (Express)

A poor Christian couple who worked in a brick kiln were accused onMonday by a co-worker of having burned pages of the Koran. Noevidence was presented. On Tuesday, a local cleric used loudspeakersof his mosque to demand that his community to punish the couple. Amob gathered outside the couple’s house, dragged them out, and beatthem. They locked up the couple for two days, attacked the woman withshovels, then tortured the husband, and threw both of them into thebrick kiln where they had worked, letting them burn to death.

The police had two days to stop all this, but did nothing until afterthe couple had been killed.

I’ve reported on several similar cases over the years. A completelyunsupported charge of blasphemy is made, and the accused is murderedor lynched.

In January 2011, Salman Taseer, a high ranking Pakistani official, wasassassinated by one of his own bodyguards. Taseer had publiclyopposed Pakistan’s blasphemy law, and so Taseer himself was committingblasphemy. Taseer was shot in broad daylight on an Islamabad streetby Malik Mumtaz Qadri, a member of the “Elite Force” that weresupposed to protect him. ( “5-Jan-11 News — Pakistan’s crisis worsens as senior politician is assassinated”)

The next day, when Qadri was brought to court to face charges ofhaving assassinated Taseer, the other lawyers showered him with roses.A statement by 500 Pakistan religious scholars praised Qadri forkeeping alive a “tradition of 1,400 years in Islam” which requires thekilling of anyone committing an act of blasphemy against ProphetMohammed.

In September 2012, a mentally retarded 14 year old Christian girl in asuburb of Islamabad was arrested for blasphemy, accused by a Muslimcleric of burning papers containing verses from the Koran. She waslater released when it turned out that the cleric had manufacturedevidence, but she and her family had to be relocated because ofthreats against them.

The application of blasphemy laws in Pakistan is extremely irrational.

The cases that make international news are when blasphemy laws areused to target Christians, but in fact that’s a small percentage ofsuch cases. Blasphemy laws are used by Muslims to target otherMuslims in well over 90% of the cases, usually by Sunni Muslimstargeting Shia Muslims or Sufis or Ahmadis. Thousands of Pakistanishave been jailed, tortured or killed by means of the blasphemy laws.But what’s really remarkable is ordinary Pakistanis accept this, andthey refuse to speak out against it.

This is exactly the kind of behavior that I’ve frequently described inGeneration-Xers in America, where thousands of Gen-X financialengineers created the financial crisis with the purpose of defraudinghated Boomers, without being investigated or sent to jail, becauseGen-Xers refuse to blame other Gen-Xers for anything, even seriouscrimes. It’s this refusal to blame other Gen-Xers for crimes thatcharacterizes this generation today versus the Boomers, and it’sexactly the same kind of behavior we’re seeing in the Pakistanipopulation today.

As I explained in “The Legacy of World War I and the Holocaust”, this is also the samebehavior that led to the 1930s Holocaust. Germany’s Lost Generation(the generational predecessor of today’s Generation-X) hated theprevious Missionary Generation just as much as today’s Gen-Xers hatethe previous Boomer Generation.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, these situationsoccur in all times and places throughout history, and result inhistory’s greatest catastrophes. In each case, the generationalconflict morphs into a political conflict, as people in everygeneration are forced to choose sides in the generational debate. In1930s Germany, it was the Christians blaming the Jews for Germanhumiliation in World War I. In America in the mid-2000s, it was theDemocrats blaming the Republicans for the Nasdaq crash in 2000. InPakistan, it’s the Sunnis blaming the Shias. The result is always thesame: catastrophe. Daily Times (Pakistan) and BBC

Jordan recalls Israeli envoy as violence increases in Jerusalem

Tensions escalated sharply in Jerusalem on Wednesday, as Jordanrecalled its Israeli envoy, citing increased violence betweenPalestinians and Israeli security police around the Temple Mount, theholiest site in the Jewish religion. The Temple Mount is part of the Al AqsaMosque compound in Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam (afterMecca and Medina). When Israel temporarily shut down access to the AlAqsa mosque compound for two days last week, Palestinian Authoritypresident Mahmoud Abbas called it “tantamount to a declaration ofwar.”

Jordan’s announcement was followed by further clashes, and a terroristact, when a Palestinian drove his van into a crowd of bystanders, andthen got out of his vehicle and began attack people with a crowbar.He was shot and killed by police. Hamas has claimed credit for theterrorist attack. A similar incident occurred two weeks ago, raisingconcern that this will be a new pattern of repeating terroristattacks.

There is a clear trend line of increasing violence in and aroundJerusalem, ever since the bodies of three Israeli teenage settlerswere found weeks after they were abducted on June 10 by terroriststhat Israelis believe were commissioned by Hamas. This was followedby a spiral of violence, as well as the Gaza war. Tensions andviolence continue to increase almost every day, and violence betweenJews and Arabs is the worst it’s been in over a decade. This has ledsome Israeli officials to believe that a “third intifada” is here, andthat Palestinians will increasingly attack Jews in the months to come.Irish Times and Jewish Press

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Pakistan, blasphemy, Salam Taseer,Malik Mumtaz Qadri, Holocaust, Hamas, Gaza war,Jordan, Israel, Temple Mount, Al Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem
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