As I am sure you are hearing, all of Pakistan’s major cities are experiencing violent demonstrations right now. The ‘good’ news (if you can call it that) is that it is not pervasive, and seems to be limited to certain always-tense areas. The PPP – Benazir’s party – has mobilized across the southern province of Sindh, and some cities, notably Hyderabad, are virtually cut-off from the rest of Pakistan by blocked roads, fires and marching mobs.
In Lahore, there have been a few deaths, and some neighborhoods are on fire, but it is limited in scope. As I suspected at the outset, this was the work of the Islamicists, with al-Qaeda taking the ‘credit’ for the assassination. The Islamicists have hated Benazir since she became PM the first time, and had vowed to kill her if she tried to reenter politics. An aside of interest is that the person they say carried out the shooting and suicide mission was a member of the outlawed group that responsible for the attack on a church, and a Christian school in 2002.
If there is any country on the face of the earth that didn’t need this, Pakistan is it. Now, the question is can Pakistan keep from imploding due to political in-fighting. This sounds like an academic question: it is not. Of the 160,000,000 people in this land, a tiny, tiny minority are infected by a blasphemous religious bloodlust. Everyone else pays the price.
Last summer, we sent a letter that quoted a man, interviewed during the Red Mosque siege (its a thrill a minute here in Pakistan!). He said: ‘What about the kiddies? The little children? Shouldn’t we be looking out for them? All I can say is – God help Pakistan!’ The children here are paying the price yet. Please, please please, have our sisters and brothers who read the Outlook remember this nation in fervent prayer. Pray that the Prince of Peace may reign in this troubled land. Please.
Robert Johnson and Marianne Vermeer are Presbyterian mission co-workers, serving at Forman College in Lahore, Pakistan
