More to Bibi case than meets eye — minister
TOLERANCE KEY TO NATION-BUILDING PROCESS, HUSSAIN WARNS
Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, the Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting, yesterday said the war of ideologies needs to be fought with dialogue and not guns.
Unfortunately those spreading disharmony in society were devoid of any logic, he added.
He was addressing a seminar titled Tendency of Intolerance and State’s Responsibilities, organised by the Pakistan Journalists Foundation (PJF).
Hussain said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government would support scholars and religious leaders who advocate for peace, tolerance and harmony in society through logic and dialogue.
Political motives
The minister said the country was not facing an institutional or state crisis, but social intolerance that served the interests of those who wanted to achieve their political motives in the name of religion.
“Such [people] create a new issue in the name of religion every now and then,” he said.
Religious circles, he said, should have rebelled against those who created chaos in the country in the name of religion. But unfortunately, it did not happen in Pakistan, which had to suffer for long due to war in neighbouring Afghanistan, which had a negative impact on the ideology and thoughts of its people towards the state.
He said, in Afghanistan, religious people and others who used logic were killed by those who believed only in the power of the gun. Consequently, society was left with no leader.
The same situation, he said, also prevailed in Pakistan, as the past governments did not back people who advocated for peace and condemned terrorism and extremism.
In that clash of narratives, he said, a number of Ulema (Muslim scholars), including Maulana Hassan Jan and Maulana Sarfraz Naeemi, also had to sacrifice their lives.
Hussain said things had changed substantially as people now know who is exploiting religion for political gains.
The minister called upon scholars, religious leaders and society to play their role in the clash of ideologies by promoting peace and harmony.