There are grounds on which we accept moral doctrines that vary from those we profess. We might say that we have not experienced the history that other people in other places have experienced; we might say that there mores that have not entered our lexicon, for our social arrangements are different. We might call all that a relativist moral doctrine that requires that though we may not agree with other values, we accept them to be near “lived facts” for other people. We disagree; but are not disagreeable.
However, relativism must fall when values are used slipshod, to run over other credos and conceptions of the good life. A 45-year-old Christian woman, Aasia Bibi has been sentenced to death in Pakistan for allegedly blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad. Her crime? A claim that he is no prophet of the God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus.
As a liberal, I cannot accept the moral doctrine that would view Aasia Bibui guilty of any crime that might demand the death penalty. What she might have done is register an opinion; an incendiary opinion, but an opinion all the same. She might have apologized to the relevant plaintiff, this might have all been washed away. Instead this has moved through the judiciary system, the judgement intact.
Yet, there has been no crime committed, in any sense that any respectable individual might think of offenses committed that might then deserve the ultimate punishment. (This, irrespective of our strongly held judgements on the moral value or disvalue of the death penalty.)
It matters then, that Aasia Bibi, a mother of five children, denies having made the claim for which her life hangs in the balance. She claims that she is being persecuted for her beliefs, in a country where prejudicial behavior against Muslims and Christians is not unheard of. She was tried under duress without legal representation or the ability to represent herself. Upon sentencing, along with the cost of her alleged her life, she was fined 300,000 Rupees. In other circumstances, perhaps this might be a coddering miscarriage of justice, rectified with extreme urgency. Here, however, the judgement reached by teh Lahore High Court remains standing.
The Governor of the State of Punjab, Salmaan Taseer has gotten Aasia Bibi to sign a petition of clemency that will be presented to President Asif Ali Zardari, who according to his constitutionally vested power, may then pardon her. Aasia Bibi claims that a Muslim cleric brought the complaint of blasphemy against her. Governor Taseer claims he has not discovered any evidence of such blasphemy.
Nevertheless, though the President might pardon her, the mark remains, clear and red, a charge against humanist doctrine, in support of religious zealotry. Indeed, had Aasia Bibi in fact made the blasphemous claim, the appropriate punishment could not be death, whatever the religious doctrine supported by the state–here Islam.
If Pakistan is to make something of itself, in the view of the world entire, some claim to balance policies and mandates that respects life and liberty, then it must suspend from its own corpus, judgments of the sort made against Aasia Bibi and delineate the mandate of local judiciaries so that they may no longer make ghosts out of defenseless women like Aasia Bibi. These are difficult times, of course: War in Pakistan on this border and another. Food prices shooting up, even as manufacturing and jobs fall. Gang warfare in the major cosmopolises. Still, humanity is best practiced when it is most in need of practice. The local courts and the judiciary entire of Pakistan failed its recent calling. It cannot afford to miss another similar call, should one be brought against another powerless supplicant accused before the majesty of the law.
