A Message to the Pakistani American Community
By Jim Moody
Washington , DC
Please accept my deep condolences at the tragic assassination Monday of Governor Salmaan Taseer who stood firmly for human dignity and courageously against laws that both stifle peaceful free expression and have been used to settle personal scores -- and hence abused.
Pakistan Ambassador Haqqani spoke eloquently on National Public Radio here yesterday against this thoughtless and tragic killing. His term “obscurantists” to identify those who impose this law was of course correct.
Such laws are obviously counter to any modern state where the majority may rule but total conformity of belief or expression is not a reasonable or productive goal of the state, be it North Korea, Pakistan or anywhere else.
We are all aware of the early Christian dogma that condemned anyone to torture who claimed that the earth circled the sun rather than the opposite. Galileo was threatened by the church with torture and death unless he reversed his discovery. But there are numerous other examples where rigid dogma stifled human advancement and well being.
We Americans who care deeply about Pakistan and its wonderful, generous people hope their political leaders will have courage to oppose rigid conformity in expression of human beliefs, especially when peacefully expressed. And democratically reverse laws that punish respectful expression of those beliefs.
