I am the gravestone and the photograph - part 2
January 11, 2013 1:34 AM   Subscribe

"After the blast the entire building came down. As the rescue teams and journalists rushed to the scene, a second explosion took place." Hazaras are a religious minority who fled from Afghanistan. They are called infidels by Sunni extremist groups operating in Pakistan, and as an ethnic minority, are easily recognized and targeted. The Pakistani government has done nothing to stop these attacks. Last night, more than 83 people from my community lost their lives. For nothing. posted by legospaceman (17 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
This isn't a war. There was no inciting event. Just the attacks. As they continue, families put all their resources into sending their young men abroad, legally or illegally. Many of our young men were deported back from Europe and Australia. Many of our young men drowned on the way to Australia, on rickety smuggler boats. Some of them make it there safely, and are allowed to stay.

Those young men can then hopefully find jobs and the means to help their families escape as well. Many of those young men come back to get married, even start a family in Quetta while living apart, waiting for the immigration process, for refugee status to be granted. After some years, they are able to take their wives and their children with them back to Australia, Denmark, Canada. It's just another way the community as a whole is trying to escape.

Some of those killed were young men, who had come back to get married. Some of those killed were those young men who were recently married, and left behind widows and young children. And some never had the resources to escape in the first place. In Quetta, a hundred houses are devastated, and the entire community is mourning.
posted by legospaceman at 1:48 AM on January 11, 2013 [2 favorites]


This isn't a war
War doesn't need an event.
Or Nations, with maps.
War is a constant, like background hum.
posted by Mblue at 3:02 AM on January 11, 2013 [2 favorites]


BBC report only gives cursory mention of the Hazaras.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvian an extreme Sunni group has claimed responsibility.
From August last year
A jihadist on the Hanein forum, who posted in Arabic, said the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi "is allied to Taliban-Pakistan and has a close relationship with it. Most of the operations against the Shi'ites [in Pakistan], if not all of them, are carried out by this group".
posted by adamvasco at 3:12 AM on January 11, 2013


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posted by infini at 3:30 AM on January 11, 2013


The Pakistani government has done nothing....

Seems to be a common refrain.
posted by three blind mice at 3:37 AM on January 11, 2013


War is a constant, like background hum.

More like a deafening roar, punctuated by the screams of the innocent.
posted by Djinh at 4:37 AM on January 11, 2013 [2 favorites]


Do we have a robust theory about how people decide it's a good idea to murder each other en masse? Is this really just a matter of serious religious faith, like the Malian police chief who personally chopped off his brother's hand for stealing? I have a hard time accepting that a particular murder or murders just can't be explained. Some scholar somewhere is issuing fatwas saying that Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is justified in doing this. What's his actual motivation for reading the Qu'ran a certain way?
posted by radicalawyer at 5:48 AM on January 11, 2013 [1 favorite]


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posted by lalochezia at 6:01 AM on January 11, 2013


I honestly expected this to be deleted.

Since it isn't, I may as well ask: how much cohesion/conflict is there between the Pakistani and Afghan Hazaras? Do they see themselves as a single people divided by colonial rubbish, or is there regional stuff?

Also:
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for the people killed.
posted by Mezentian at 8:20 AM on January 11, 2013


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posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:30 AM on January 11, 2013


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posted by Golden Eternity at 8:49 AM on January 11, 2013




I've always been a moderate about religion, but this bullshit is the pure analogue of evil. The religious nutcases that inspire this stuff should be scrubbed from the face of the earth, along with the nutcase priests (Muslim, Catholic, etc. etc - I don't care) who inspire that kind of hatred.

Screw religious relativism; the people who do these things are barbaric, and btw, so it the Pakistani government.

Just heard today about the US leaving Afghanistan; I wonder how many little girls will be poisoned or raped or kept from school by the f***ed-up religious nutcases in the Taliban. I seriously wish there WAS a miracle worker among us who could make anyone who does stuff - like what just happened in Quetta - die, on the spot - and just before they lose consciousness have that miracle worker come to them in a vision that resembles their fucked up idea of who their god is, and tell them that they've been lied to...in this case, their is no 70 virgins, or heaven, or whatever the hell nirvana they think they're heading out to.

I hear about stuff like this and feel two things: Hopelessness, and rage. Then, I try to forestall those feelings and work on making my little corner of earth a better place. Yeah, easy for me, but the BS and cruelty continues.
posted by Vibrissae at 5:07 PM on January 11, 2013


ยบ
posted by Vibrissae at 5:08 PM on January 11, 2013


Do we have a robust theory about how people decide it's a good idea to murder each other en masse?

I don't know. I don't think it takes much more than belief. Lord of the Flies.

Negotiate with the TTP?
posted by legospaceman at 6:58 PM on January 11, 2013


Pakistan Shia families refuse to bury dead - Families of dozens of victims from Thursday's bombing in Quetta stage sit-in to demand greater government protection.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:01 AM on January 12, 2013


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posted by Joe in Australia at 5:54 AM on January 12, 2013


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