Pakistani Ambassador To The U.S. To Be Investigated For Blasphemy

[struggle4progress]

15. Your political analysis seems naive to me. It is, first of all, entirely clear that politicians

throughout history have incited mob violence as a way of consolidating power: the nazis are perhaps the most obvious recent example, but there are plenty of others, including the segregationist "heroes" of the southern US states in the Jim Crow era, or the Serbian nationalists during the 1990s wars in the Balkans. The people willing to use such tactics are usually not especially touchy about what popular prejudices they seek to inflame and incite, and there is no question historically that religious differences have often been used for this purpose -- but dragon's teeth have also be sown frequently along ethnic, linguistic, national, racial and other sociological furrows, and in many societies such furrows are frequently correlated for historical reasons

Secondly, I made the point (in the post to which you are replying) that an attack on the blasphemy laws, on the grounds that they constitute a form of religious bigotry, does not seem to be a viable option for Pakistanis, because they could immediately be subject to prosecutions under the blasphemy laws: an in-country attack (which is the only attack that can succeed) against the blasphemy laws must therefore proceed on an entirely different basis

Thirdly, I made the point (in the post to which you are replying) that vague laws, with opaque scope, can be used to serve the people in power who enforce those laws, since such laws are difficult to defend against if a prosecution is lodged: the accused has in advance little option to avoid the operation of the law, since nobody knows exactly what the law entails. This means that political opponents and persons holding minority views always exist in a state of uncertainty, which effectively imposes substantial limits on their human freedoms. Vague laws, of opaque scope, are always the handmaidens of totalitarian government. Since these arguments can be phrased without reference to religion, this was the direction from which I suggested the in-country attack against the blasphemy laws should proceed

To judge from your reply, you evidently do not believe that the blasphemy laws can be used in any way except to enforce religious conformity. Various human rights organizations disagree with you, and I have posted an excerpt and link to an example immediately upthread. Notice that I am NOT claiming "the blasphemy laws are not used to enforce religious conformity" but rather that they are flexible enough to admit other uses and that they are put to other uses

To judge from your reply, you also evidently believe I am trying to "make excuses" of some sort: frankly, I have not the slightest idea what has set you off in that direction, because all I did (in the post to which you are replying) is to point out that no one in Pakistan can attack the blasphemy law on religious grounds without falling afoul of it and to indicate the Pakistanis therefore needed a different angle of attack. That seems to me a matter entirely amenable to rational inspection, and if you doubt my reasoning you are of course free to exhibit what you consider its flaws; on the other hand, I see no way to judge the truth of your assertion No one believes you, which I can only find rather irrelevant to the discussion