Silencing Sabeen Mahmud: impairing cultural and social discourse in Pakistan

Members of a Pakistani civil society rally for prominent women’s rights activist Sabeen Mahmud, who was killed by unknown gunmen, Thursday, April 30, 2015 in Karachi, Pakistan. Gunmen on a motorcycle killed Mahmud last Friday in Pakistan just hours after she held a forum on the country’s restive Baluchistan region, home to a long-running insurgency, police said. (AP Photo)

One can guess that the society has gotten to a new low point when a person is ‘silenced’ because he spoke against the human rights violation of the very same society. But that has become a common practice in Pakistan. Usually, it is a waste of writing a few hundred words condemning that society when you know the words are going to fall on deaf ears. But, consider this a personal rant and bear with me, if you may and you might be able to imagine yourself in the shoes of a Pakistani citizen.

Hailing from Pakistan myself, I have a first-hand experience of living in constant fear and horror of being the next victim whenever I heard about someone dying in Karachi. Karachi used to be beautiful. It was called the ‘city of lights’. Karachi never sleeps. The last one is probably still correct. It still doesn’t. But as in the past, the phrase had a positive connotation, now it is used in the negative one. How can you sleep when you hear about your neighbor who was shot dead the previous night? How can you sleep when, one morning, you go to the college and hear that your professor died in a target killing incident? How can you sleep when you can’t stop worrying that you might be next?

On 24^th April 2015, Sabeen Mahmud, a human rights activist from Karachi, was shot dead. I never personally met or talked to her. She was the director of one of the most popular cafés in Karachi, The Second Floor (T2F). If I talk about T2F, I would say if you have one evening to spend in Karachi, you must visit T2F. It is not just a regular café, but a place for artists, thinkers, filmmakers, writers, students, professionals and everyone who wants to spend his time learning something and being part of a creative community that doesn’t just want to sit around and consume but also give back to the society. T2F is a place for discourse. Sabeen Mahmud held exhibitions, debates, screenings, invited experts and analysts to talk about different social issues. Recently, she had organized a talk about the human rights violation in Baluchistan province of Pakistan. And that was her fault. Entirely her fault. She should have been killed and she was. She deserved it.

On Friday the 24^th, she held the seminar ‘Un-silencing Balochistan’ which focused on the province’s controversial stance and struggle for independence. A few minutes after the seminar, on her way back, she was shot and taken to the hospital to be pronounced dead. The Balochistan issue is something no one wants to talk about but Sabeen had the audacity to hold a discussion about it. She forgot if you want to live in Pakistan, think nothing, do nothing and be nothing. She rose up to the oppressors of freedom of speech and lost her life. She totally deserved it.

Supporters of prominent women’s rights activist Sabeen Mahmud, who was killed by unknown gunmen, hold her pictures during a rally, Tuesday, April 28, 2015, in Islamabad, Pakistan. Gunmen on a motorcycle killed Mahmud last Friday in Pakistan just hours after she held a forum on the country’s restive Baluchistan region, home to a long-running insurgency, police said. (AP Photo)

This is not the first time a human rights activist or someone who attempted to educate and better the intolerant society was gunned down. In March 2015, a social worker named Parveen Rehman, 56, who worked for the development of the impoverished neighborhoods across the country, was shot dead. Rehman was an architecture graduate from Karachi and had been working to help people who were victims of land-grabbing. Like Sabeen, she had received death threats before and just waved them off like it was nothing. Unfortunately, they came back to haunt her. She worked in the most dangerous neighborhoods of Karachi and never cared about security, prioritizing her efforts to empower people.

Similarly, social workers, activists, art patrons and professors have been killed in Pakistan for a long time. Rashid Rehman, who was the lawyer of blasphemy accused Junaid Hafeez, was killed in Multan for advocating blasphemy. The most recent incident being the killing of Dr. Syed Wahidur Rehman, a journalist and assistant professor at a well-known university.

These incidents occur when a part of society becomes intolerant to other perspectives and is not ready for a dialog. When the only option to show your power and dominance is to silence the opposition by gunning them down, it leaves no room for discourse and understanding and learning. The ideals and morals of a society become stagnant. The growth is nipped. A slow but calculated massacre of rebels, thinkers and artists eventually ends up with the fall of society and a moral devastation of a nation.

If you are a change-seeker and you receive a bullet with a letter to threaten your efforts, you are on the right track. Sabeen, who actually received a bullet, was on the right track. So was Parveen Rehman and numerous others who have spoken up and are silenced. But the best way to honor such right activists is not to sit in the corner of your room and stop writing or creating or inviting for a dialog, but to speak up, challenge the norm and not shun your freedom of expression to live a few extra years. That is the way to save culture and arts amidst the terror-filled Karachi. That is the way to defy the religious, social and political extremism and stand up against those who attempt to silence the voice of freedom.