Taliban Neighbors
Pakistan’s current constitution (its third, written in 1973), states that “adequate provision shall be made for the minorities . . . to profess and practice their religions and develop their cultures.” And it guarantees “fundamental rights” within the provinces, “including equality of status, of opportunity and before the law, social, economic and political justice, and freedom of thought, expression, belief, faith, worship, and association.” In 2007, minority communities throughout Pakistan celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of Jinnah’s historic August 11, 1947 speech, in which he rebuked “the evil of neoptism and jobbery” and said that the new government should be impartial and organized by law and order, equality for all, and religious freedom. “You are free,” he proclaimed to the peoples of new nation. “We are starting in the days when there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another…. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all . . . equal citizens of one state.”
For the minorities, however, it has not gone well. Rumalshah said:
“Freedom and equality of rights and all the rest is only on paper for Christians, and not the reality. The constitution says one thing, but even the courts do something else. The worst part for us are the ordinances under which a Christian’s testimony in court is counted for only half that of a Muslim’s. This is the heart of the problem with the blasphemy law. In court, if a Muslim accuses a Christian of blasphemy against the holy prophet, the Muslim’s word counts for twice that of the Christian’s. This is why most blasphemy cases end the way they do. And a Christian woman’s word in court is one-quarter that of a Muslim male. I have more legal rights in my adopted country of Britain than in my native Pakistan, where I am discriminated against because of my religion.”a Christian woman’s word in court is one-quarter that of a Muslim male
More immediate opportunities for the diocese to see injustices redressed may occur through the provincial government, which has a degree of governing autonomy apart from the federal government. A remarkable example of what is possible occurred in the summer of 2005, when the Institute for Global Engagement (IGE), a Christian political think tank dedicated to “relational diplomacy,” invited Akram Khan Durrani, the popularly elected chief minister of the NWFP, to Washington DC. The trip was politically risky, both for IGE and for Durrani, because his party, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, has been portrayed, not without reason, as anti-American.
Duranni had a political agenda for the NWFP that included seeking passage of controversial Islamic legislation based on sharia. “That is why we wanted him to come to Washington,” Josh White told me about Durrani’s visit. White, a fellow at IGE and a leading specialist on Pakistan politics, lived in the NWFP for a year and has a strong interest in Christian-Muslim dialogue. “Durrani and his advisors never had a direct experience of America before,” White said, “and there was very little that people in Washington knew about this party, which is very influential in that crucial region.”
Although it was an unofficial visit, IGE arranged meetings for Duranni and his staff with individuals at the State Department, the Defense Department, and the National Security Council. They also spoke at the Brookings Institution and toured Ground Zero. “There was a lot of open, honest dialogue with them,” White explained. “We certainly were not convinced by the end of these conversations that their political agenda was entirely innocuous, and they still had a lot concerns about American policy. But we each came to appreciate to some extent where the other was coming from. And there were moments on both sides when the situation became more human. We saw this as a learning process, as a goal in itself.”
The effect of IGE’s mission on the diocese has been direct and beneficial. “The changing situation that is developing through IGE, and especially the role being played by Josh White, is significant,” Rumalshah told me. “It has facilitated a warm relationship between the chief minister and myself, as well as two important construction projects.” Duranni’s provincial government backed both projects, politically and financially – a new church to replace a deteriorated structure in Bannu, and a new church building on the campus of Peshawar University. “There are thirty-eight mosques on the campus,” Rumalshah said. “Building a church on the campus had always been denied to us in the past.”
“The gospel does not come as a disembodied message,” wrote Leslie Newbigin. It “comes alive” when “there is a community which lives faithfully by the gospel and in that same costly identification with people in real situations as we see in the earthly ministry of Jesus.” These seem apt words for the Christian life being demonstrated in the province – a place back in time, as it were – where Christians seek to imitate Christ by succoring others in their sufferings. This life is not about solving the problems of the modern world, not is it done from a position of human strength.
Christians in the diocese, however, are not naive about the struggles they will endure, yet they remain determined to live out the gospel in visible, caring ways, identifying with real people in real situations. They get this from Bishop Mano, who got it from working alongside Mother Teresa early in his ministry over 40 years ago. He described his experience to me:“Before she was well-known, I had a placement for about six months with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, caring for the poor on the footpaths of Calcutta.
“Before she was well-known, I had a placement for about six months with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, caring for the poor on the footpaths of Calcutta. At the time, up to a million people had their abode on the footpaths. Couples would mate there, mothers would breast feed their children there. Even during monsoon season they would cook and sleep there. That was their daily experience. My own experience there, especially seeing the love for others that Mother Teresa practiced so tirelessly – to prepare the young for life and the old for death – has influenced me for the rest of my life.”
In northwest Pakistan, Bishop Rumalshah seems to have translated this shaping experience into what the Bible would see as a wisdom-based way of life – a practical Christian faith that seeks to build relationships and community on the common concerns of life that are shared even among people who are different. “We have one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all,” said the bishop, who frequently quotes these words of Paul in Ephesians. He relies on this Christian tenet for his own spiritual strength, and he sees it as essential to the diocese’s service, saying: “We all have a common God, common ground, and common interests on which to have relationships. And it is a privilege that God enables us to serve here in the name of our faith.”
For Bishop Rumalshah and the Christians of his diocese, this means “smelling the sweat of your enemy, embracing him. This is where your faith is tested,” he said. “The whole area is becoming Talibanized. What can we do? We live there. Our basic premise is conscious engagement and incarnational presence, which is service leading to a relationship. You cannot cultivate a relationship by remote control. You have to be there, physically, with them. That is at the heart of it. And we have space in that region as a church to do it. This is not a wishful thinking. This is real thinking, real thinking about a forsaken region.”
(Charles Strohmer is a visiting research fellow of the Center for Public Justice. He has written on issues of religion and foreign policy for numerous publications and is currently writing a book on wisdom-based U.S.-Mideast relations (see: Wisdom Project Précis).
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