Pakistan to Require All People to List Religion on Official Documents

I remember asking a Russian Jewish coworker why she and her husband had emigrated in the 1980s, and she told me—quite emphatically—that it was because their Judiasm was on their passports. If that doesn’t strike a chord with you, just look at the pogrom scene from Fiddler on the Roof, and remember that one of the big criticisms of the movie is that they toned down the anti-semitism of the Czar’s government. Religious minorities tend to have long memories of times when they were treated horribly, to put it mildly.

Not a good time to be a non-Muslim in Pakistan, as the Czars and Cossacks seem downright benevolent compared to ISIS, the Taliban, and Al Qaida.

Indonesia requires citizens to have one of the six legally recognized religions on their ID cards. This serves one function and one function only: discrimination against non-Muslims. Hence, the Muslim majority supports the practice and leans very heavily on politicians who threaten it. The minorities, of course, largely hate it.