Commentary: Don't lecture the victims

WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- "Pakistani Christians in America can play a positive role in increasing awareness about their homeland in the United States," Ambassador Ashraf Jehangir Qazi told two Christian gatherings in Philadelphia this week.

The appeal to the Pakistani Christian community sounded strange amid increasing hate attacks on Christians in Pakistan. In the latest, on Christmas Day, three girls including an infant less than a year old were killed.

The Pakistani-American Christian Association and Pakistani American Christian Coalition in Philadelphia organized the gatherings before the attack, and they could have asked the ambassador not to come. Instead, they welcomed him as a man representing a land they have left behind but cannot stop loving.

The pain that the Pakistani Christian community in America feels every time Christians are killed in Pakistan showed in both gatherings. Some broke into tears while talking about the attacks that never seem to stop. Others choked with emotion. Some kept quiet, staring at the guest with eyes filled with tears.

Yet none of them allowed the hatred and violence the Christians face back home to overcome the love they have for the land where they never seem to get a fair shake.

The ambassador attended the meetings and, as expected, defended a government which has done little for the security of the Pakistani Christians. And he displayed no emotions while performing this unsavory task. But those present did notice a slight wavering in his voice when he said that "the government has immediately condemned these cruel and evil acts and has done its best to apprehend the culprits and bring them to justice."

"One wonders how our diplomats, officials and ministers feel while making such tall claims. Don't they choke over words like peace and justice?" asked a member of the audience who was not a Christian.

"The elements who are engaged in these heinous crimes are in fact the enemies of Pakistan. The government is undertaking all possible measures to fully ensure implementation of the laws already in place to guarantee the rights of the minorities and prosecute those individuals who are found guilty of violence," said the ambassador, causing embarrassment to many in the audience who knew too well how Pakistani governments protect minorities and their rights.

"Joint electorate system," said the ambassador, "the government has restored the joint electorate system." Somehow, it did not please the Pakistani Christians who seemed more concerned about the safety of those they have left behind in Pakistan than their electoral rights.

Unable to impress the two gatherings with the restoration of the joint electorate system, the ambassador told them that the government had formed a high-powered National Commission for Minorities to safeguard their rights.

He reminded them that the Pakistani Constitution further guarantees equal status and rights to the followers of all religions and prohibits discrimination on account of religion, race, caste, color or creed.

There was no applause.

But the Pakistani Christians once again proved that they have a big heart. They allowed the ambassador to present a plaque to Gov.-elect Ed Rendell on behalf of the Pakistani American Christian Association in recognition of his services for the Pakistani community in Pennsylvania.

Pakistan has a tiny Christian minority, less than 3 percent of a population of some 150 million, according to a U.S. government fact book. They tend to be persecuted by religious extremists, who in the past received support from Afghanistan's Taliban regime. The Taliban has collapsed but the extremists are still around.

These extremists sometime kill Muslims who belong to a different sect or religious school different. But Christians are their favorite target because they are weak and poor and cannot defend themselves.

Given this background, it would be only natural that those Christians who escape Pakistan would hate the place where they were born but could not live. But surprisingly, they do not.