When a shop owner in Hafeez Centre posted a notice banning “infidels” (explained to mean Ahmadis), social media erupted with questions of whether Pakistan could be called ‘Trumpistan‘ after the infamously Islamophobic politician Donald Trump. Now there is another case of Pakistani hyper-nationalists imitating their famous American counterpart. Our own infamous hypernationalist zealot Zaid Hamid has announced creation of a new database to track anyone against Pakistan ideology.
Now, you are saying, what is the harm of tracking Pakistan’s enemies? Obviously, there is none, but this is asking the wrong question. The question is what is the definition of an enemy? Zaid Hamid gives a clue: “I am specially talking to those students who follow ANP, BLA, MQM and Sindhi sub-nationalist groups.” So you see, Zaid Hamid is not actually threatening Pakistan’s enemies, he is threatening Pakistanis who doesn’t accept the same politics as him.
Donald Trump has threatened to create a database to track all Muslims in America. In Pakistan, our own hypernationalists are threatening to create a database to track anyone who disagrees with them. Donald Trump wants to silence Muslims. Ironically, so does Zaid Hamid and his backers.
