They surprise me by saying Assalam-o-Alaikum [peace be with you, the formal Muslim greeting] each time I call them or they call me. Although this may not be surprising for others to hear such a greeting from a Pakistani, I am definitely surprised. They speak no differently than any other Pakistani, and if you don’t know the person you’re talking to, you cannot determine his religion. Whether in Pakistan or in North America, there’s a dilemma for Pakistan’s Christian community members; although they are as much Pakistani as their Muslim compatriots, they still are considered second class citizens.
They can be prosecuted under Pakistan’s blasphemy law, which carries a sentence of capital punishment. They are politically hindered and made ineffective by being bracketed into a separate electorate [Pakistan’s Christians and other minorities used to elect their representatives under separate electorate]. Like other Pakistanis, they too celebrate Pakistan’s Independence Day in the United States and lobby for Pakistan with U.S. senators and congressmen. However, despite all these patriotic efforts, they don’t get the level of respect they deserve.
Pakistani Christians in North America and Canada have the same financial and social background as Pakistani Muslims. Pakistani Christians, who settled in the United States and Canada, belong to the middle class, are formally educated and owned properties in Pakistan. Lower class Pakistani Christians cannot come to the United States, of course. Pakistani Christians face the same kind of social problems in the West as their Muslim compatriots. Their youth face the same problems, which afflict the other “ABCDs” [American Born Confused Desis – Desis is a term widely used for people of South Asian origin].
According to Toronto, Canada-based Dr. Rasheed Gill, the only difference between the two Pakistani communities is that Pakistani Christians don’t need to be told about Christmas. In contrast, Muslims are exhausted by having to explain to the Westerners what Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Adha [the two major Islamic festivals] are all about.
According to Dr. Victor Gill of Philadelphia, the biggest disadvantage for a Christian in the United States is that, unlike Pakistani Muslims, they cannot get the Green Card by marrying an U.S. citizen –unlike their Muslim compatriots, they don’t have the custom of arranged marriages. Most Pakistani Christians settle in the United States and Canada by seeking political asylum. Thanks to the irresponsible actions of religious extremists in Pakistan, he says, no one will be surprised or regret if Pakistan’s entire Christian population seeks asylum in a foreign country.
Like other immigrants, the Pakistani Christians too live in big cities of North America and are equally divided between America’s two main political parties. Dr. Dilnawaz Lateef of the Pakistan Christian Council, Chicago, says that Pakistani Christians living in the city’s posh neighborhoods support the Republican Party, but middle class inner city Pakistani Christians support the Democrats.
Dilnawaz himself is a strong supporter of the Republican Party and prays constantly for a George W. Bush win in November. According to him, only the Republican Party is taking tough action against Muslim extremists. He commented that Christians are being massacred from Indonesia to Sudan, provoking an immense reaction amongst Christians.
Speaking about Christians, Isaac Social of New Jersey, a veteran journalist who has worked in Pakistan’s leading Urdu language newspaper, Nawa-I-Waqt, indicated that beyond Pakistan, there is strong support for the Republican Party in Christian communities throughout the Middle East. The anti-U.S. sentiment in the Muslim world is due to jealousy of the Americans residing in these countries, he said. If a war is being fought in Vietnam, there are demonstrations in Pakistan, which means that the anti-American sentiment in Pakistan is based on religious grounds.
Fed up with the biased behavior of the Pakistani community newspapers in North America, Social started his own newspaper, Hum Loag (We the People). Pakistani Christians played an active role in the creation of Pakistan, he said, and extended full support to the Muslim League Party [that lead the struggle for Pakistan’s creation during the British raj]. Well-known Christian leader Dewan Bahadur S. P. Sangha made extensive visits to rural areas to urge Christians to vote for Pakistan’s creation. There were certain areas of the undivided India where Hindus would have gained majority vote had the Christians not voted for the Muslim League Party. He is the same S. P. Sangha who made the first Urdu movie after Pakistan’s independence, “Teri Yaad Main” (In Memory of You), directed by Dawood Chand.
Social also recalled with great pain that Squadron Leader Peter Christie of the Pakistan Air Force laid down his life in defense of his country, during the 1971 Pakistan-India war. He regretted that streets and roads have been named after every martyred military officer across Pakistan, but Peter Christie has been ignored.
Pakistani Christians living in North America are greatly perturbed by the discrimination their brethren face in Pakistan. Gravely concerned with the separate electorate system and blasphemy laws, Pakistani Christians are relieved that recent political reforms have scrapped the separate electorate system. However, family members can still the target of blasphemy law. Victor Gill believes that religious parties in Pakistan follow double-edged policies, championing for the rights of deprived Christians to score political points.
The nationalization of Christian educational institutions in Pakistan is another area of grave concern for the Christian community. Professor Dilnawaz says that Maulana Kausar Niazi, an eminent Pakistani Muslim scholar and one-time minister of religious affairs in the 1970s, wrote a book that detailed ways to exterminate Christians in Pakistan, recommending that these institutions be nationalized. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto implemented his recommendations and nationalized all Christian-run educational institutions in the country during the 1970s, as part of his government’s controversial nationalization program. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, whose daughter Benazir Bhutto also became Prime Minister, was hanged by General Ziaul Haq in 1979, accused of murder. Bhutto’s action not only destroyed these educational institutions, but also threw Pakistani Christians into serious economic hardship.
These educational institutions have now been returned to Pakistani Christians’ organizations; however, so far Christians have been unable to take any advantage. As well, Pakistan’s decision to change the weekly holiday from Sunday to Friday has also immensely hurt the spiritual life of Pakistani Christians, according to Philadelphia’s Dr. Gill.
For Rasheed Gill, Pakistan’s Christian community problems need to be looked at in a realistic manner. According to him, no matter what changes are made to Pakistan’s electoral and government systems, the country’s Christian population cannot get its demands met. Pakistani Christians living in North America can neither get their brethren out of the country, nor can they really help them. They are ardent supporters of General Pervez Musharraf, who they feel has done much for Pakistan’s Christian population. If there have been failures, they say, they are not intentional, but rather due to the president’s own limitations. They believe that Christians must live in unison with rest of the Pakistani population.
Gill’s advise to Pakistani Christians who emigrated to Canada, who have forgotten their brethren back in Pakistan, is to keep contact with their fellow Muslim countrymen in order to create better conditions for Christians in Pakistan.
