What intention does the project of preventing a whole portion of humanity from being born reveal? Some religious fanatics advocate it. Time to investigate.
The matter is of course not light-hearted, but too many people use the word “genocide” light-heartedly. They in fact intend it as a mere synonym of “massacre.” Of course, a massacre is already a heinous crime, when a large number of people, considered absolutely or relatively in relation to a small territory, are killed. Yet, the fantasy of perverted human beings has been able to invent even another, more heinous crime—genocide.
A genocide is the systematic massacre of an identifiable human group targeted for total destruction. As “Bitter Winter” has previously observed, what differentiates a massacre from a genocide is that in the latter case the intention of the perpetrators is precisely that of wiping out entirely an identifiable human group, i.e., a portion of humanity. It is more than carnage. It is carnage put at the service of the idea of total destruction. For this reason, it can also paradoxically not be a carnage at all. To call it a genocide it is not crucial how many are killed, if the intention is that of killing them all.
By consequence, to identify a genocide, some distinctive and qualifying criteria have to be fulfilled. First, the a priori planning of the total destruction of an identifiable human group. Second, the order to perform it given by some authorities to some operators. Third. its factual implementation, at least as an attempt to reach the goal. All this should be traceable, documentable, and showable. Without those features, there is no genocide. What is most important here is in fact, as already anticipated, the intention of the perpetrators. Planning, ordering, and implementing are elements that reveal the project for total destruction, which is different, even juridically, from a massacre of people with no grand design, preparation, and organization. What is chiefly missed in the latter case is the intention to perform total destruction.
To identify a genocide, research is then needed. Any trial, cultural or juridical, or both, set to bring a person or a group at the bar for genocidal acts has the burden of proving the intention of the defendants beyond any reasonable doubt, documenting their planning, ordering, and implementing the total destruction of an identifiable and targeted human group. It may be difficult, it may be also very hard to do, but finding evidence of the perpetrators’ intention, offering the rationale behind planning, ordering and implementing that specific criminal act, is the necessary condition to identify a genocide.
Here “Bitter Winter” wants to furnish elements for considering and perhaps contributing to the scrutiny and verification of a possible act of genocide: the project for the total destruction of Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan.
Mainline Muslims consider Ahmadi heretics basically for—they say—breaking the “Khātam an-nabīyīn,” or the “Seal of the Prophets” concept. That is the formula that the Quran, the holy text of Islam, uses to indicate that Muhammad (c. 570-632) is the last of the prophets sent by Allah, God. Ahmadis, who consider themselves fully Muslims, refuse the accusation, saying that their founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908), is the promised Messiah and Mahdi, or a figuration of the second coming of Jesus. They affirm that this adheres totally to the Quran with no deviation and no addition, especially no extension to the succession of prophets that terminates with Muhammad.
For their creed, Ahmadis are religiously discriminated or persecuted in several Islamic countries or nations where the population is mostly Muslim, but in Pakistan the persecution they suffer is also political. Not only mainline Muslim clerics and leaders judge them as heretics, but also the Constitution and the laws of the country establish that they are not Muslims, severely limiting their freedom.
As a consequence, hate speech, harassment, violence and even assassination target Ahmadis in Pakistan. The animosity against them is widespread, supported by the constitutional and legal provisions of the country. The number of violent actions against them, their mosques, their homes, their shops, and the tombs of their departed increase day after day. Since many spiritual leaders of the mainline Muslim community publicly advocate the ubiquitous use of vandalism and violence against them, and Pakistani law-enforcement agencies do not do much to stop the situation, at time being also complicit, one may wonder whether a genocide is being carried out against the Ahmadis.
This cannot be a matter of opinion. No genocide, no investigation to verify a charge of genocide can be a matter of opinion. Keen analyses and scrupulous examinations should be conducted to ascertain whether the idea of the total destruction of Ahmadis has been truly planned, ordered, and implemented, revealing the full intention of the perpetrators to wipe out an entire human group.
As the International Human Rights Committee (IHRC), an NGO based in based in Mitcham, Surrey, England, denounced on September 29, 2022, Muhammad Naeem Chattha Qadri, a senior cleric belonging to the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), an Islamist party, called on like-minded people to attack Ahmadis (and this is sadly not new) by specifically targeting (and this is clamorous) pregnant mothers, to “ensure that no new Ahmadis are born.” He also added that “those babies who are being born, should be killed.”
Now, what intention does the project of preventing people from being born reveal? What intention does the project of preventing a whole portion of humanity from being born reveal? What intention does the project of killing those babies who might survive the project of the carnage of their human group reveal, in relation to the idea of entirely canceling that human group? What intention does the idea of preventing the physical existence of a human group through its generations reveal? What intention does the idea of stopping the historical transmission and continuation of a human group reveal? What intention does the hindrance to the natural reproduction of members within a human group and its natural replacement of vital elements reveal?
For such intentions, Polish jurist Rafał Lemkin (1900–1959) coined the neologism “genocide” in the 1940s. The world still identifies genocides and condemn their perpetrators based on Lemkin’s elaboration of that concept.
Does the intention of one actual or possible instigator of genocide indicate that all persecution against Ahmadis in Pakistan is genocide? Since a genocide is not defined by its success, even in term of numbers, but by the intention of perpetrators, someone who advocate a genocide should be treated as a person guilty of genocide, or at least attempted genocide or incitement to it. If others share the genocidal views of that person, they should be treated in the same way. If the whole machinery of aggression and harassment against Ahmadis in Pakistan should be proved to be defined by the project of preventing Ahmadis to be born, threatening with death those who might survive, that would undoubtedly be a call to genocide. History showed that maternity is eagerly weaponized by perpetrators of genocides. By killing babies in the wombs of their mothers and mothers alike, perpetrators kill the immediate future of a human group, rapidly moving forward on the path to achieve genocide.
Police, scholars, and judges should then carefully investigate to ascertain whether the ideas publicized by Muhammad Naeem Chattha Qadri and his fellow radical clerics are only isolated cases of instigation to genocide or are representative of a generalized sentiment among those who advocate hate speech, harassment, violence, and assassinations against the Ahmadis. Any such act is intolerable but should there be dots to be connected into a general scheme, they would cease to be single unacceptable and unjustified acts and would reveal a grand genocidal plan. Probably it is a matter for an “Ahmadi Tribunal” that could collect all sort of evidence and testimonies to judge independently and authoritatively, as it has been done in other cases for other countries.
The original post can be read HERE.