Pakistani leadership using Islamophobia to cover own misdoings

Shamim Mahmood

Prime Minister Imran Khan is all set to embark on his visit to Russia. According to reports, the premier will have one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in which among other issues, he is also likely to raise the matter of Islamophobia. 

There are an estimated 23 million Muslims in Russia which means that one out of five Russians is a Muslim. 

The incumbent Pakistani leadership has been very vocal against Islamophobia in the West. Before we move further, let us examine some key facts. According to Wikipedia, Pew Research Study and other statistics agencies, Muslims are the fastest-growing religion group in the world. There were 1.8 billion Muslims in the world as of 2015, roughly 24 % of the global population. If current demographic trends continue, the number of Muslims is expected to exceed the number of Christians by the year 2070. 

The countries/region where the religion (Islam) originated are Muslim but this region is home to only about 20 percent of the Muslim world. A majority of the Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific region, including large populations in Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, and Turkey, which is about 62 percent of the total Muslim population. Muslims are a small group in China, representing between 0.45% to 2.85% of the total population, according to the local government figures. 

According to a Pew Research Study, the Muslim population is growing, and in the next two decades Muslims could become the second-largest religious group in the United States. Similarly, the Muslim share of Europe’s total population has been increasing steadily and will continue to grow in the coming years. 

Similarly, Islam is spreading rapidly in other European countries. Yet the population of Europe is not declining because of immigration. Since 1990, from all population of Europe, 90 % has been Muslim immigration. Only in France, 30% of children aged 20 and younger are Muslim in the big cities and other cities this number has grown to 45%. It is said that in 2027, one in five Frenchmen will be Muslim. And in just 39 years France will be an Islamic Republic. 

In the last 30 years, the Muslim population in Great Britain has grown from 82,000 to 2.5 million – a 30-fold increase. There are more than 1,000 mosques and many of them are former churches. In the Netherlands, 50% of all newborns are Muslim, and in only 15 years half of the population will be Muslim. In Belgium, 25 % of the population and 50% of all newborns are Muslims. According to government statistics, by 2025 one third of all European children will be born to Muslim families. In Germany, the downward spiral in population is no longer reversible…… It will be a Muslim state by the year 2050, according to the German Federal Statistic Office.

On the other hand, Muslims are not ready to allow other faiths to flourish in Islamic countries. Strict restrictions are imposed on propagation of other faiths while worship places of the minorities are targeted by mobs in name of religion. Discrimination against minorities is common in almost all Muslim countries, they do not have rights as full citizens. The situation in Pakistan is such that underage girls belonging to Christian and Hindu communities are abducted, forcibly converted to Islam and married to their abductors in spite of the presence of child marriage restraint laws. The blasphemy law is misused by leveling false allegations against minority citizens and several neighborhoods have been burnt to the ground or vandalized over these charges.

In spite of the growing number of Muslims across the western world, the hue and cry over Islamophobia raised by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leadership seems more like a ruse to cover its own failings at home. The slogan of making Pakistan on the model of “Riyasat-e-Madina” is ostensibly another way of diverting the people’s attention from the core issues of poor governance, inflation, political instability, human rights violations, and deteriorating law and order in the country etc.

Instead of using the term Islamophobia time and again, the Pakistani leadership should focus on protecting its own people from the monster of religious extremism that is devouring the society from within.