The Plight of the Hazara- A generational Curse

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Introduction

Pakistan, as a state, does not exactly have a stellar reputation when it comes to the treatment of ethnic and religious minorities. Be it the forced conversion of young Hindu girls, or the blatant killings of individuals of the Ahmadi faith, it seems that unless you are a Sunni and a Punjabi as well, you do not deserve rights in this country.

Who are the Hazara?

Unfortunately, violence and persecution is not something new to the Hazara community.

According to J.P Ferrier, a 19th-century French scholar, these people have inhabited the Hazarajat region of Afghanistan even before the coming of the Greeks with Alexander the Great at the helm of the conquest. Thought to be the descendants of Mongol invaders, the Hazara’s origins are a bit murky and there is a lot of conflicting theories about them. What has not changed, however, is the amount of persecution they have had to face over time. 

The Coal Mine Incident

In the latest case of the ongoing violent displays of religious and racial intolerance, on the second day of the new year, 11 coal miners were brutally executed in Mach, Balochistan. It is the latest in a string of terrorist activities that targeted the Hazara people in particular. 

The Hazara community, in response, began a series of protests to bring attention to the situation. Exhausted of all other options, the hapless relatives of those that were kidnapped and executed, placed the bodies of their loved ones and blocked out one of the main roads. Not long after, multiple other protests also sprouted in different cities across the country, with demonstrations being held in Karachi as well, shutting down much of the city. 

They were able to bring some mainstream attention to the situation because of this, but it did not take long for our glorious leaders to turn this issue into a political game.

Political Point scoring

Much like many other such incidents, unfortunately, it did not take long for the mainstream attention to be redirected from the plight of the Hazaras towards political point-scoring. 

Marium Nawaz, the daughter of former PM Nawaz Sharif, came to the protestors to express her support. According to her, she came to Quetta to talk to the government as a “representative” of the protestors. It did not take long for her expression of grief to turn into an emotionally manipulative rant about the incompetence of the government and the victimization of minority groups. It was lost on her that her father had been in government multiple times and that he, too, allowed violence against the Hazara community to go unabated. 

Imran Khan, who has also done his bit in calling out past governments when it comes to violence against the Hazaras, then retorted to this by asking the protestors and the opposition to not blackmail him with the bodies of the dead. 

Despite all the media attention, it seems that the point of the conversation has already been lost, and the Hazara will continue to be victimized whilst the state and the opposition continue with their finger-pointing. 

History of Persecution

Abdur Rehman Khan was the emir of Afghanistan in the late 19th century. Known as the Iron Amir, he was infamous for his acts of brutality against the Hazaras at that time. The Dracula Amir, as he was also known, was responsible for the killing and displacement of 65% of the Hazara population of the region. It was around that time that some of the community migrated to other areas of Afghanistan, and Quetta, in Pakistan. The descendants of those immigrants face acts of racial and religious violence to this day. Almost as if a curse has been placed on the community in the region.  Read about Sharbat Gula a Afghan girl.

During the 1990s, the Afghan Taliban began the targeting of the Hazara community, with executions and bombings that were not infrequent. In 2001, a bus was stopped and passengers identified as Hazara were executed. Being physically distinct and of a different faith has made the Hazaras a favorite target of Sunni extremists. Acts of ethnic cleansing have continued in the current intensity for more than three decades in Pakistan, with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Taliban, and now the IS claiming the multiple attacks on the hapless Hazaras. 

Conclusion

The origin and continued existence of the Shiite Hazara community in Pakistan are mired in persecution and violence. The persecution has unfortunately caused many of the Hazara community to emigrate to Australia, America, and wherever they could get to save their lives. 

The incredible lack of sensitivity displayed by people on both sides of the aisle on this issue has been shameful, to say the least. As the government and the opposition (past, present, and future) continue to harangue each other using the Hazara’s plight, more and more of the community will seek to escape the very place that they had sought shelter in so many years ago. 

It seems that it will not take long for all of our minorities to either escape the country or be killed by extremists backed by conservative religious sentiment. Unless and until the root cause of these issues is addressed, the problems faced by the minorities of our country will not come to an end.