Christian houses set on fire. What next?

People throw bricks on a Christian home after setting it on fire

An angry mob set 40 Christian homes on fire today for an alleged incident of blasphemy. Through our past experiences, we already know how farcical these allegations are. But that did not stop the so-called angry mob to spare the homes of Christians who didn't even have anything to do with the whole incident. Who just happened to be living in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Ironically I can bet that this same mob, which thinks it acted as a defender of God's word, has never gone to the mosque to pray, commits sins and adultery, and cheats and blasphemes against God's word everyday. Setting innocent people's houses on fire is the worst form of blasphemy that could ever have been committed. And who is going to prosecute them? What befuddles be is the kind of naivety our security agencies display. The SSP of Lahore for example, said that no houses had been torched. Pictorial and video evidence suggests otherwise.

It's time for the minorities to leave. It's time for the white (which stood for minorities) in Pakistan's flag to be decommissioned. They came for the Ahmadis. Then they came for the Shiites. Now they've come for the Christians. It's only a matter of time before all our necks are hanging out.

And the only reason this has happened is because our douchebag leaders, incapable, insurmountable selfish pricks, have no idea how a country is run. CM Shahbaz Sharif announced a compensation of 0.2 million rupees for the affected. Are you trying to slap an already brow beaten minority? 0.2 million for people who've lost everything? Who have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide? Who don't have their own homes anymore?

I'm a Pakistani and today I'm ashamed to be one. At the very least I wish someone would make an example out of the people who did this today. But that's expecting too much from the likes of Rana Sanaullah who actually hangs out with people who are responsible for such brutal antics. 

We are a nation that looks to God all day

In our quest to leave everything for God to fix, we have ruined everything.

They say God helps those, who help themselves. But we Pakistanis have a different take on this ancient saying. We think God helps those who invoke His divine name, cross their arms and sit back pretending nothing is wrong. We fail to see what is front of our eyes. Sometimes what is in front of our eyes is so brutal we are forced to see it. In those instances we pretend like we did not witness it. Instead we attribute that brutality to God by saying “God must have willed it”. Take the brutal murder of Mughees and Muneeb Butt for instance. They were murdered in Ramzan by a mob. No mercy was shown to them. I ask you, does God tell man to murder another man? Does God tell man to be brutal to other men? Does God tell man to show no mercy to other men? No. God does not do that. Man does that, because it is convenient to look at God and say, I am wrong because I was made wrong. And God must have willed it.

It is said that God gave man free will; free will to do as he would please. By that logic we Pakistanis have no business looking at God, or awaiting His help. He has given us the tools to make informed decisions. He has given us kindness and compassion. He has given us a brain and hands and feet and legs. Even with all of these things, if we continue to look to God for help, is that not blasphemous of us? Is that not satanic of us? Even with all these tools we await God’s divine intervention. We supplicate to Him asking for peace and tranquility; asking for better rulers and better conditions; asking for electricity and water and good doctors. All the while we forget the power to change our destiny is in our own hands because God gave us free will. God told us to be good. Instead we choose to be bad. We cheat, we lie, we steal, we hate, we destroy. God told us to use ijma and qiyas. Instead we are happy to listen to uneducated leaders who are master cheaters in their own rights. And then we sit back, cross our arms and look at God to solve our problems.

God helps those, who help themselves...

We Pakistanis are a confused nation. Maybe its because up till the 70s we had a very liberal atmosphere in the country. Then the 80s happened. Zia’s Islamization policies were completely opposite to what Pakistanis were used to. The result was the birth of rampant hypocrisy. An identity clash. We pretended to be something we were not. In our homes we forgot what so called Islamic principles we were following in the public. We preached one thing, did quite another. We were told God will fix all of our problems. We were told God had made us superior because we were Muslims. We were told we have no faults, no problems because we are Muslims. How wrong we were. The problem with this ideology was that we stopped seeing our mistakes. We stopped acknowledging our mistakes. We stopped caring about the wrongs we were doing that we were passing off as right.

When you stop seeing your mistakes, you cannot acknowledge them. When you don’t acknowledge your mistakes you cannot fix them. And when you don’t fix your mistakes, you just keep going deeper and deeper into the grave you are digging for yourself.

This is why we Pakistanis love to look to God all day long. Because we think we’ve made no mistakes. Because we think God’s punishing us because of some corrupt people amongst us. What we fail to realize is that we are those corrupt people and the only reason we are being punished is because we fail to acknowledge our mistakes and correct them. Instead we rely on God to be our saviour and deliver us from our miseries.

God only helps those, who help themselves...

Until we keep looking at God all day to fix all our problems without moving a muscle, we will never get out of the abyss we find ourselves in. We must use the tools that God has given us to make amends, make smart decisions. We must use our kindness and compassion to spread love and wipe evil. Only then will God help us. Only then will God deliver us from our misery.