8-year-old boy becomes the youngest person to face the death penalty in Pakistan
There’s an old saying that goes “show me a young man who is not a liberal, and I’ll show you a man with no heart. Show me an old man who is not a conservative, and I’ll show you a man with no brain.”
As with all sayings like that, it conveys an important message, and it’s a little silly to quibble over how accurate it is.
Along those same lines, I’d like to propose something like this. “Show me an 8-year old boy who has not committed blasphemy, and I’ll show you a boy who needs to read G. Gordon Liddy.”
It’s not that I’m a fan of blasphemy, but I am a fan of boys being boys, which means they do scatalogical, disrespectful, not grown up things. They jump off the roof with a bedsheet as a parachute. They make rickety ramps out of old wood and ride their bikes over them. They kiss frogs, rip off scabs, tease girls, and frighten their mothers.
Any regime that would consider charging an 8-year old for blasphemy should be mocked to scorn.
That reminds me of something that occurred when I was 12. As soon as we were all in class one of the girls (it is always one of them, isn’t it?) would lead us in the Pledge. He would come into class shortly after that. Well, I thought that was unfair. He should be there too for the Pledge! So one morning I just sat during that ceremony. When he found out, he was enraged at my blasphemy. He threatened me with physical violence, as was common in those days (late 60s), but I managed to talk him out of it. Those were horrible times in many respects, except for the rock music. I totally loved that music.
Blasphemy in this context is a code, or a pretext for persecuting members of rival religions. My guess from reading the article is that this is essentially a form of terrorism against the Hindu community. This has very little to do with a sensible definition of blasphemy or what is reasonable to expect of eight year olds — it’s not really about either of those things.
And in fact, given the history of Pakistan, it might not even be a fundamentally religious conflict, so much as a form of tribalism.
That’s a good point, and I suspect you’re right. But they’re charging the kid with blasphemy, and the world should look on with mock and derision.
Entirely agree.
As for G. Gordon Liddy, I was turned off by him when I heard the story about him eating a rat.
Talk about the punishment not fitting the crime! There’s so much more to this story that’s left untold. It’s difficult to come to any type of reasonable conclusion other than all actions taken to date are outrageous, given the initial offense. I’d like to understand “why” the boy did what he did. It didn’t seem to be the typical “boys will be boys” mischief. Yet, it didn’t seem to be intentional blasphemy either. Based on the article, it appears as if this incident was use as catalyst to settle old scores on both sides.