Mobilising the emotions of people, whether by religion or ethnic nationalism, to gain and retain power is like sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind. A compromised political environment in which there is impunity leads people to take the law into their own hands according to their notions of what is right and wrong. The EU has raised issues related to the protection of journalists, religious extremism, misuse of blasphemy laws, and forced conversion in some parts of the country. Presently Pakistan faces economic sanctions by the EU, as does Sri Lanka, due to its adherence to this law and other human rights issues. A clause of the constitution mandates the death penalty for any “imputation, insinuation or innuendo” against the Holy Prophet. Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan has been accused of defending Pakistan’s blasphemy law and promoting Islamic fundamentalism to come to power and now to shore up support for his government that is failing to solve the problems of the people. It is not only in Pakistan that such inhuman acts have occurred, especially when there has been a failure of national leadership to instill a higher ethos of morality in the people, too often for the sake of electoral gain.

“Be kind to the stranger in your midst, because you were once strangers in the land of Egypt,” is the biblical injunction too often ignored by the very people who profess to follow its teachings. Over the eons, religion has served to humanize the more primitive nature lurking within human beings. The killing of a Sri Lankan in Pakistan by a frenzied mob who accused him of committing an act of blasphemy serves as a grim reminder of the ever-present danger of pent-up emotion exploding in society.

Ethno world 3