Will the real Islamic country stand up?

Today Pakistan buries murdered Christian government minister Shahbaz Bhatti. The BBC covers it this way:

The funeral is being held amid tight security in Pakistan of murdered minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti.

Mr Bhatti, a Christian, was shot dead on Wednesday by the Taliban after urging reform to blasphemy laws.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani led mourners in Islamabad, describing his colleague as a “very rare” person.

Mr Bhatti’s body was then flown to Faisalabad in Punjab for burial in his native village nearby. Hundreds of mourners are paying their respects.

Wednesday’s assassination in Islamabad was the second this year of a Pakistani politician who wanted to reform the controversial blasphemy laws.

In January, Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, who had also opposed the law, was shot dead by one of his bodyguards in the capital.

The blasphemy law carries a death sentence for anyone who insults Islam. Critics say it has been used to persecute minority faiths.

Prayers were said at church in Islamabad before the coffin was flown for burial

Observers say Mr Bhatti’s killing leaves Pakistan’s Christians without their most prominent voice and threatens to silence debate on the blasphemy law. The government is accused of giving in to religious hardliners.

But, in that same edition of the BBC, is a story on Lybia, and that Lybia may become the next North African country to fall before demonstrators demanding democracy, not shariah.

Embattled Libyan ruler Col Muammar Gaddafi’s bastion in Tripoli is on edge amid opposition calls for protests after Friday noon prayers.

Forces loyal to Col Gaddafi have set up checkpoints in a flashpoint area of the capital, while some foreign journalists were barred from leaving their hotel.

Government forces have launched new air strikes on rebel territory in the east.

The revolt, which broke out in mid-February to end Col Gaddafi’s 41-year rule, appears to have reached deadlock.

In one country, the mosques are places that hide radicals who wish to impose shariah law on whole countries. But, in other countries, the mosques have functioned like the Christian churches of the South did in the USA when African-Americans were demanding their civil rights. In this case, they are helping those who wish to overthrow dictatorships and go to a more relaxed and democratic approach to life.

So, will the real Islamic country stand up?

Actually, they are all Islamic countries. But, the e-mails and faux arguments that have been going around the Internet would have you believe that any and every time that Islam “rears its head,” that all non-Muslims will suffer. The reality is much more complex than that, but many have not been willing to believe it. It is much easier to set up a monolithic enemy that must be destroyed than to look at a situation that is complex. All too many have that attitude that is found in one old joke about the Marines (or the Texas Rangers or …) whose punch line is that we kill them and let God sort out who is innocent. That punch line only works if it is believed that the majority of the people killed are either enemies or probably future enemies. Any other reality would make that punch line a rather sick justification for immoral killing.

What both North Africa and Pakistan have been showing us is that the reality is much more complex than that which all too many have been arguing. There is more than one type of Islamic country. As North Africa shows us, there are those Islamic countries whose majority is restive under dictatorship and who wish a less “religious” approach. As Pakistan shows us, there are Islamic countries that go the other way. The situation is complex.

But, our call as Christians is to seek the truth and not that facile stereotype. Look at the “Islamic” events of the last two months and learn to see “complex.”