ICC Note:

Following the bombings of a Sufi shrine in Pakistan, many can see that religious intolerance remains a growing problem in Pakistan. Many human rights activist, including many Christians, believe the problem of religious intolerance begins with Pakistan’s poor education system. In many cases, NGOs have found that Pakistani children are being taught to hate religious minorities in school. Many have proposed to fix this problem, but many of the solutions proposed have yet to be implemented. Will Pakistan ever be able to shake off the religious intolerance that is the cause of so much violence? 

11/14/2016 Pakistan (The Express Tribune) – A few days ago, a friend of mine (who is a renowned activist) jokingly made a comment on Facebook that no suicide bomber would ever consider detonating in Lasbela, Balochistan because it’s unbelievably hot there; no bomber is mad enough to kill himself in such scorching heat.

Alas, he was proven wrong.

On Saturday, a young suicide bomber targeted a Sufi shrine near Lasbela, killing around 60 people and injuring more than a 100. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, and right now, I wish – as insensitive as that joke was – that my friend had been right. His words keep replaying in my head.

Just before this tragic incident, an American friend and I had been trying to re-activate a petition among Pakistani activists. The petition came about in response to news reports last year, which stated that the Minister of State for Federal Education was proposing to make the teaching of Islam mandatory in all Pakistani public schools.

We feel that this would only perpetuate the intolerance that plagues the country and results in religious extremism and vigilante brutality. A single religion should not be emphasized in public schools because it can evoke feelings of superiority over others who hold different beliefs, and, conversely, feelings of inferiority among those of other faiths. Pakistan must seriously take into account how the minds of the young are shaped by what they see, hear, and are taught if they want to change the fabric of a society where suspicion and violence now seem to lurk around every corner.

…

In Pakistan, radicalization and religious extremism are decades old. They have been nurtured through various means. School curriculums, textbooks, distorted history – a study conducted by the Pakistan-based NGO Peace and Education (PEF) found that, “Pakistan’s public school textbooks negatively portray the country’s religious minorities, including Hindus, Christians and Ahmadis, as ‘untrustworthy, religiously inferior, and ideologically scheming.’”

Even various political parties still promote the element of hate while dividing people by religions and religious sects.

…