Pakistan shuns physicist linked to 'God particle'
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ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan's only Nobel laureate helped develop
the theoretical framework that led to the apparent discovery of the
subatomic "God particle" last week, yet his legacy has been largely
scorned in his homeland because of his religious affiliation.
It's a sign of the growing Islamic extremism in his country.
Adbus
Salam, who died in 1996, was once hailed as a national hero for his
pioneering work in physics and work that guided the early stages of
Pakistan's nuclear program. Now his name is even stricken from school
textbooks because he was a member of the Ahmadi sect that has been
persecuted by the government and targeted by Taliban militants, who view
them as heretics.
Their plight - along with
that of Pakistan's other religious minorities, such as Shiite Muslims,
Christians and Hindus - has deepened in recent years as hard-line
interpretations of Islam have gained ground and militants have stepped
up attacks against groups they oppose. The majority of Pakistan's
citizens are Sunni Muslims.
Salam, a child
prodigy born in 1926 in what was to become Pakistan after the partition
of British-controlled India, won more than a dozen international prizes
and honors. In 1979, he was co-winner of the Nobel Prize for his work on
the so-called Standard Model of particle physics, which theorizes how
fundamental forces govern the overall dynamics of the universe.
Salam
and Steven Weinberg, with whom he shared the Nobel Prize, independently
predicted the existence of a subatomic particle now called the Higgs
boson, named after a British physicist who theorized that it endowed
other particles with mass, said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Pakistani physicist
who once worked with Salam. It is also known as the "God particle"
because its existence is vitally important toward understanding the
early evolution of the universe.
Physicists in
Switzerland stoked worldwide excitement Wednesday when they announced
they have all but proven the particle's existence. This was done using
the world's largest atom smasher at the European Organization for
Nuclear Research, or CERN, near Geneva.
"This
would be a great vindication of Salam's work and the Standard Model as a
whole," said Khurshid Hasanain, chairman of the physics department at
Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad.
In the
1960s and early 1970s, Salam wielded significant influence in Pakistan
as the chief scientific adviser to the president, helping to set up the
country's space agency and institute for nuclear science and technology.
Salam also assisted in the early stages of Pakistan's effort to build a
nuclear bomb, which it eventually tested in 1998.
Salam's
life, along with the fate of the 3 million other Ahmadis in Pakistan,
drastically changed in 1974 when parliament amended the constitution to
declare that members of the sect were not considered Muslims under
Pakistani law.
Ahmadis believe their spiritual
leader, Hadrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who died in 1908, was a prophet of
God - a position rejected by the government in response to a mass
movement led by Pakistan's major Islamic parties. Islam considers
Muhammad the last prophet and those who subsequently declared themselves
prophets as heretics.
All Pakistani passport
applicants must sign a section saying the Ahmadi faith's founder was an
"impostor" and his followers are "non-Muslims." Ahmadis are prevented by
law in Pakistan to "pose" as Muslims, declare their faith publicly,
call their places of worship mosques or perform the Muslim call to
prayer. They can be punished with prison and even death.
Salam
resigned from his government post in protest following the 1974
constitutional amendment and eventually moved to Europe to pursue his
work. In Italy, he created a center for theoretical physics to help
physicists from the developing world.
Although
Pakistan's then-president, Gen. Zia ul-Haq, presented Salam with
Pakistan's highest civilian honor after he won the Nobel Prize, the
general response in the country was muted. The physicist was celebrated
more enthusiastically by other nations, including Pakistan's archenemy,
India.
Despite his achievements, Salam's name
appears in few textbooks and is rarely mentioned by Pakistani leaders or
the media. By contrast, fellow Pakistani physicist A.Q. Khan, who
played a key role in developing the country's nuclear bomb and later
confessed to spreading nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and
Libya, is considered a national hero. Khan is a Muslim.
Officials
at Quaid-i-Azam University had to cancel plans for Salam to lecture
about his Nobel-winning theory when Islamist student activists
threatened to break the physicist's legs, said his colleague Hoodbhoy.
"The
way he has been treated is such a tragedy," said Hoodbhoy. "He went
from someone who was revered in Pakistan, a national celebrity, to
someone who could not set foot in Pakistan. If he came, he would be
insulted and could be hurt or even killed."
The president who honored Salam would later go on to intensify persecution of Ahmadis.
Salam
was targeted even after his death. His body was returned to Pakistan in
1996 after he died in Oxford, England, and was buried under a
gravestone that read "First Muslim Nobel Laureate," but a local
magistrate ordered the word "Muslim" to be erased, said Hoodbhoy.
Since
Salam's death, life has become even more precarious for Ahmadis in
Pakistan. Taliban militants attacked two mosques packed with Ahmadis in
Lahore in 2010, killing at least 80 people.
"Many
Ahmadis have received letters from fundamentalists since the 2010
attacks threatening to target them again, and the government isn't doing
anything," said Qamar Suleiman, a spokesman for the Ahmadi community.
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