Do Ahmadis deserve to live in Pakistan?

"Do Ahmadis deserve to live in Pakistan?"
Yasser Latif Hamdani is a prolific author and social activist .Yasser completed his bachelors in Political sciences and Economics from Rutgers University and got L.L.B degree from Punjab University. In May 2006, he got his license as an advocate. As a lawyer, he has been engaged in different activities such as striving for freedom and rights of minorities across the country. He has great experience in the field of telecommunication laws, corporate laws, banking and constitutional law. Additionally, he has worked as a writer in Friday times, which is a weekly based newspaper. He is also a part of several reforming societies which are working there in Pakistan for the establishment of peace. In this article, "Do Ahmadis deserve to live in Pakistan?" the author sheds light and gives an overview of the persecution of Ahmadis that began after the 2nd amendment to1973 constitution. The whole issue is that a number of Muslims do not accept Ahmadis as 'Muslims' in Pakistan. They are charged or blamed for their conflicting beliefs about Islam. The topic has become a hot debating issue, with different people having opposing views. The speech of former Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and Amir Liaqat's talk show deteriorated the conditions for Ahmadis which prompted Hamdani to write on this subject. The audience of this article is general public which is the whole community living in Pakistan. Although, the writer has used effective language, organization, and various styles to elaborate the discrimination of Ahmadis yet his lack of background knowledge, hasty generalization, and fallacious arguments perplex the reader. Moreover his tone seems to be biased towards Ahmadis.
In this article, the author shows his mastery in describing and making a list of the discriminated events against the Ahmadi community. For example, restricting them to offer prayers in their worship places, 'desecrating' their graveyards, raids by police on their homes, demolishing their shops, arresting them on suspicion and even mercilessly killing them for their religious views in Pakistan. The purpose of author is to focus on human and religious rights to stop harassment in Pakistan against Ahmadis.
The author uses effective language throughout the article which helps him to communicate his ideas efficiently. He uses simple vocabulary, which enables him to presents his ideas in lucid sentences. In order to appeal the reader`s intellect, he has used short but effective verses from other languages, such as Urdu. For example, he quotes "Jo Qadiani ka yaar he, Ghaddar hai Ghaddar hai" to depict the social status of Ahmadis in Pakistan. He wants Muslims and Government of Pakistan to realize that how Ahmadis are treated as a community in Pakistan just because of their religious believes. The language he used is very simple, which helps him to appeal to diverse poll of audiences and engage the reader with the text without being bored and annoyed.
The author organizes the article in effective and convincing manner by appropriate setup of ideas. He brings the main idea into debate through an effective manner. For example, the author initiates the article by giving reference to Gilani`s speech in Khatm-nabuvat conference, which helps the author to have a firm foundation of his claims. Furthermore, to strengthen his arguments, he depicts the history of Ahmadis, when they were declared non-Muslims according to the constitution of Pakistan. The well-established organization of examples made by him demonstrates the current societal status of Ahmadis to the readers. In addition, he talks about the significance of Ahmadis in society by elaborating the contributions of Ahmadis towards the history of Pakistan. He gives tribute to Ahmadis regarding Pakistan Resolution and also discussed about Dr. Abdus Salam who won noble price but he was not appreciated by Pakistani government just because he was an Ahmadi.
The writing style and use of emotional appeals also make this article effective and convincing. For example, in the ending paragraph, he uses short sentence structure, i.e. "The growing violence and hate against Ahmadis along with the general decline of the Pakistani state is creating a situation very similar to Germany between the two World Wars of the last century, and many fear a brutal extermination of this community from Pakistan", while narrating facts and examples, he uses the long sentence structure. The emotional appeals such as merciless murder of Ahmadis, brutal extermination of community, desecrating the Quranic verses and restriction in offering the Eid prayer are used efficiently in this article which helps him to attract and convince the audience. Basically, the author mainly focuses on narrating factual incidents by portraying the misbehavior of the Pakistani towards Ahmadis by using different style of tone and different persuasion appeals such as ethos, pathos and emotional appeals.
Furthermore, the attitude of author is biased and serious throughout the article. In describing the facts regarding the desecration of Ahmadis, he uses the miserable tone for the bad condition of Ahmadis in Pakistan. But at some points his tone changes into biased and harsh. In the concluding paragraph, tone is serious, which is also a little bit aggressive. In this article, author confines himself to a single perspective that is about the discretion of Ahmadis but he does not describe the facts that why Ahmadis are facing this situation. In the statement "The 2nd Amendment to the 1973 constitution, most legal scholars agree, introduced sectarian partisanship into the constitution and legal framework which was further cemented in1984 through the infamous Ordinance XX, which seeks to criminalize Ahmadis identification as Muslim", shows the biasness of author that he uses the infamous and criminal word for Ordinance XX. His views about the judiciary also show his biasness.
Hamdani in his article gives reference to the different events but does not explain the situation. For instance, in the first paragraph of this article, he describes the history of Ahmadis and how they were expelled from the Muslim community in the announcement of 1974.He refers that in 1974 the mission of Pir Mehar Ali Shah was completed but he did not describe about the mission of Pir Maher Ali Shah. Secondly, he mentions about the 'disturbance' in 1953, but no background knowledge regarding this disturbance makes the reader confused, so these facts are not properly discussed by the author. He also writes about the Munir`s report that "The Munir Report is an early example of state institutions fairly carrying out their responsibilities undeterred by religious extremism", but he does not explain the Munir Report, which also creates confusions in the mind of reader. Additionally, in the beginning of third paragraph he quotes "But 1974 was a different story" but he does not explain why this story was different?
The hasty generalization in this article also confuses audience to understand his arguments. In the second last paragraph, "Historian caution that the fetters imposed on Ahmadiya community are reminiscent of the Nazi Nuremburg Laws and are certainly much worse than the Jim Crow Laws of the United States of America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries". He talks about the historian but he does not explain that who were the historians and what they said. He also generalizes the Nazi Nuremburg Laws and Jim Crow Laws on the basis of his assumption. He compares the Ahmadis situation with those situations. He says that the laws which are made against Ahmadis in Pakistan are like "Nazi Nuremburg Laws". Nazi Nuremburg Laws were made by Hitler mainly to grab fundamental rights from Jews. In contrast Pakistani constitution is full of different fundamental rights. Furthermore, in this article, first he says "Leaders of the Anti-Ahmadiya Movement openly state that Ahmadis do not deserve to live", then he generalizes his claim by the statement of single person by quoting that "One prominent activist of the Khatm-e-Nabuwwat Lawyers Forum told this writer that "by the grace of God, Mirzais had been reduced to the level of chooras (Christian sweepers) and soon they will be cleaned up altogether". Firstly, he claims that all Anti-Ahmadiyya Muslims leaders are against Ahmadis, but then he supports his claim by considering the case of a single person which is also an example of hasty generalization.
Furthermore, he has used fallacious arguments to support and make his claim credible. As he has talked about the Dr Amir`s talk show of Geo TV, "The host of the said show Dr Aamir Liaqat Hussain had conducted a show a few years ago where a religious scholar incited the public at large to kill Ahmadis at will, leading to the murder of two Ahmadis within the next forty eight hours". Here, he claims that the show of Amir Liaqat Hussain was the cause of those two murders but he does not provide any evidence related to his claim. There could be many other reasons for these murders. While talking about the Dr. Abdus Salam's achievements, he makes fallacious and illogical assumption by saying his achievement as 'most extra ordinary human discovery' which creates badly impacts and depicts that how ordinary his research is? Therefore, these fallacious and illogical analogies make his article ambiguous.
Ahmadis have equal rights to in Pakistan like other minorities. One thing should be clear that Ahmadis were declared Non-Muslims by the Ordinance of Pakistan and their beliefs are different from Muslims, so they cannot practice their religion teaching in accordance with Islam. However, they should have equal rights and full freedom to practice their religious activities like other minorities. They should have full authority to live their life as a free citizen of Pakistan. Our constitution also gives same privileges to them as expressed in the following article of constitution "According to article A-2
(a) every citizen shall have the right to profess, practice and propagate his religion; and
(b) every religious denomination and every sect thereof shall have the right to establish, maintain and manage its religious institutions"(shabir 20). When Islam and constitution of Pakistan dictate that you should respect every religion then why Ahmadis are targeted? The behavior of our nation should also change. Our nation is biased towards the Ahmadis, as the author describes the example of Dr. Abdus Salam, who being an Ahmadis gave Pakistan recognition by winning Noble prize, but in return Pakistan did not give the reputation which he deserved like to Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. Yasser Hamdani describes not only the current situation of Ahmadi community in Pakistan but also the highlights the extremism of some Muslims. The article is well-structured using forceful language and emotional tone and miserable narration of events regarding the discretion of Ahmadis. However, in this article he lacks background knowledge, and makes hasty generalization, and fallacious arguments, which creates confusion in reader's mind but the effective language and different examples used presents the theme of article in a well-mannered way.







Works cited
"Do Ahmadis deserve to live in Pakistan?" Do Ahmadis deserve to live in Pakistan? Yasser Latif Hamdani, Friday Times 06 September 2012. Web. 14 April. 2013. .
Bashir, Muqtedir Akhter. "Article 2-A of the Constitution and Minorities Rights."Paktribune. Paktibune, 27ma Mar. 2012. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.
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