The day I became an “Ahmadi”

28 May 2010.

I was about to eat lunch in my office’s conference room with two friends. A colleague walked in asking if I knew there had been an attack on the Ahmadi mosque in Garhi Shahu. I checked my phone but there was no sms or missed call. I told him he must be mistaken but got up anyway to turn on the television; as I was walking out of the room, he mentioned that the Model Town mosque had been attacked too. 

The news hit me with a sheer, naked wave of panic. My brother goes there for prayers. Half of my family goes there on Friday.

Trying not to lose control, I ran outside to the reception area and called my brother, half dreading that his phone would be off. He didn't pick up. When I finally got through to him, he was clueless about what was happening. I told him to switch on the tv, get in touch with everyone and started making frantic calls myself.

This is how the nightmare began.

During the next half hour news kept trickling through my phone of family members, friends and relatives stuck in either of the two mosques. Among them was a cousin's son, my 11 year old nephew. He was alone inside the Model Town mosque, his father stuck outside the gate. I saw the father on television arguing with the policemen standing on the road to do something. There was a wild look on his face which only a parent can have for their child. I broke down just a bit.

It was the first of many times I would in the next few weeks.

Minutes and hours passed. Friends and colleagues started calling and messaging. It was a couple of hours before we found out who had survived and who hadn't in the Model Town attack. The news of relatives and friends who died at the Garhi Shahu attack kept arriving late into that Friday evening. Five of my cousins/relatives were inside the mosques. Three survived, including the 11 year old kid. Among the 86 people who died that day, I still cannot bring myself to count the number of friends we lost. My family spent the next three days attending funeral prayers in Rabwah and Lahore. They had to split in three groups so they could attend all of them. 

What I didn’t know that weekend was that 28 May, horrific in what it brought, was just a preliminary signal of what was about to come; a slight shift in the barricade which would  later give way to an avalanche. The aftermath of the attacks would change my perception of who I was and alienate me from the only place I knew as my home.

Contrary to my appearance, I'm not a religious person. Religion does not guide or govern my life; humanism and spirituality does. I have grown up in a household startlingly different than who I am. It is where everything revolves around "us"—the community. Having lived through the upheaval of the 1950s, the betrayal of the 1970s and the horror of the 1980s, my parents and siblings have evolved a very strong sense of unity among "ourselves." Everyone else is an outsider, to be met, befriended, and supported in time of need, but never trusted completely when we are the ones who need help and support.

The 1990s—during which active persecution of the Ahmadis dropped down dramatically compared to the preceding decades—is the decade I remember in entirety. It is the time of my childhood and teenage. I was sent to education institutions where religion was never a subject of discussion. Till I entered college, we friends did not even know which school of belief the other subscribed to. Due to such precise exposure to the world, I did not identify with how my family perceived the society. I did not understand why everyone thought "we" had only "ourselves" to rely on. I used to tell my parents repeatedly that the era they had seen was more or less over. They needed to let go of the paranoia, step out of their safety net and become inclusive. The “social circle” of 50 people I was safely tucked into kept me removed from reality. It took the death of 86 people for that illusion to vanish.

After the May attacks, something strange happened. I saw how my family mourned the loss. I saw how the community handled the aftermath. I saw the silent suffering, the absolute trust in God, the defiant resolve to take care of our own. But more shocking was how I reacted to the events. I was glued to the television and newspapers that weekend, just trying to get as much information as I could—to make sense of it all. (I had been so used to the obsessive censorship of anything Ahmadi in the media my entire life. It was a bit surreal to see “us” being discussed so openly in the media.) I thought about all the families of terror victims and wondered if they also went through the sense of shock and disorientation I was feeling. But slowly I started realising how my experience will always remain different from the other victim families. The reason was that my state, constitution, judiciary and a significant portion of the public had historically been on the opposing side—against me.

The breakdown was rapid and uncontrollable. Discussing the event dispassionately and logically was an ordeal. There was an overwhelming outpour of love and solidarity from my friends and colleagues. I heard from people I hadn’t been in touch with for years, who just called, emailed or messaged to share their horror and give their support.  But among this startling generosity and affection, I began noticing things which I hadn’t picked on before. The shifting, uncomfortable eyes and frozen smiles; absent family members who never called to check if we were alive; acquaintances, even former teachers, who were vocal about the floatzilla incident, but quiet when directly asked about the attacks on facebook; the polite but firm refusal of distant relatives to eat or drink anything when they came to visit our house. All these observations were cemented in my mind when I heard about those more vocal (and frankly less hypocritical) about their feelings. Almost all my friends were witness to at least one person who approved the attack. There were numerous more who condemned the attacks but tried to justify them by shifting the blame on us.

I felt like a soft target waiting to be shot in the head because of what I chose to believe. No matter whom I spoke to, how sympathetic or rationale he or she was, no one understood my confusion, fear and broken trust. During this time I started to understand the reason for my family’s defensive approach. That’s when I realised how important it was for us to stick together as a unit.

One year has passed since the attacks. The panic and heart ache I felt the first few months is no longer there. An involuntary apathy and alienation has taken its place. I feel hollow debating and discussing possible ways we can help save this country. It is difficult to own a country where we still have to ask the basic questions: are we Pakistani citizens? Do we have a right to life? 

Admittedly these are the same questions many liberals have now found themselves seeking answers for, especially after Salman Taseer’s death. But the questions pose a stronger existential threat to us.

I know even if we—the citizens—succeed in saving this country from the violent extremists, there probably won’t be anyone who will save us—the Ahmadis—from those who are left behind. And I’m not willing to wait around to find out which of these two outcomes will be our end.