Of course you are not discriminated against - you seem an erudite, educated and probably well-off individual. Discrimination almost never occurs in the case of the well heeled. In India too, while an Azim Premji will not be discriminated against that doesn't mean Muslims are not discriminated against. In USA a Kobe Bryant might not be discriminated against, that doesn't mean that African Americans are not discriminated against. However, the problem in Pakistan is that the discrimination is enshrined in its constitution - against Ahmadis, against Hindus and other minorities. This is not the case in India or USA. Once discrimination receives state sanction - the likelihood of things improving are pretty remote.
Indeed, like I said in another post : The more I read about Jinnah and the works of Iqbal, it seems that we've gone terribly wrong because we've institutionalized and worse, made it socially acceptable, to discriminate others simply because they wouldn't agree with us. We went for a Pakistan because we believed that the Hindu Nationalists and a segment of the Hindu Elite wouldn't let us live in peace and develop our own Islamic identity and yet there is dislike and distrust of all Hindus in Pakistan despite Jinnah specifically saying something to the effect of 'we haven't a quarrel with all of them, for the vast majority of Hindus are peace loving people...its only with a segment of the society who want British Raj to turn into Hindu Raj, that we fight against'. The same can be said about the Ahmedis, despite the fact that their religious leader was shoulder to shoulder with the members of the Muslim League in demanding a Pakistan and that Mr.Abdussallam, an Ahmedi, was more patriotic than a million other Pakistanis out there. The same can be said about other minorities. The Blasphemy law for one, to the best of my knowledge, hasn't any sanction whatsoever in the Quran or the Sunnah, and yets its there. Some Laws are outdated and stifling for our women and yet they are still there.
To that effect there needs to be a reassessment of fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) in the light of modern discoveries and changing role of non-muslims in the world. For example, there is something called 'Idat' which essentially implies that a women should try observe a period of waiting in which she mustn't marry another man and try to be reserved in her social interactions, especially with men - now this was done to ensure that the paternity of any would be offspring doesn't come into question both in actuality and in perception. However, clearly, with recent advances in Science, such a dilemma is not faced anymore, as it was hundreds of years ago and neither is this valid for any older women. The first aspect of it has been eluded to by a plethora of religious scholars out there and the second part was already established by many leading medieval Islamic scholars and jurists out there, and yet most of their voices get drowned by these chest thumbing bearded baboons out there who instead of being polymaths like their predecessors would be commenting on what the Quran does or doesn't say, without even having a working knowledge of Arabic Literature.
Do you know, Secularism or at least a certain kind of it, was being discussed by medieval Muslim polymaths; though its more of a religious and legal pluralism kind than a disassociation of religion per se. If you were to historically contextualize the reign of the Ottomans when they constituted the Turkish Millet System, of the Prophet's Governance and of the Kingdom of Al-Andalusia, all of them were shinning examples of religious and legal pluralism, women's emancipation and freedom of education. Jewish polymaths like Maimonides, whose work holds canonical value in Talmudic law, was having fiery discussions on theology with Muslim theologians in Cordoba without fear of any reprisal. The same Maimonides coined Jewish law for the Jewish subjects of Al-Andalusia in line with legal pluralism that the State (and Islam) talked about. Do you know, Jinnah wasn't being cute when he said that 'Islam and its idealism has taught us democracy, it has taught us the equality of man...' because the Quran talks about all of those things, because the State of Medina and its charter are exemplary in their religious and legal pluralism, women's emancipation and some form of national cohesion - and parallels of it couldn't be drawn anywhere in the world till very recently in the past 1 or 2 centuries.
As a Muslim I believe in the infallibility of the Book and I believe in the Laws given in them, however, like all laws they too have a 'letter' and a 'spirit' to them...and no law can be applicable many, many years since its inception without the 'spirit' part of it. Many Mullahs of ours are willing to chop off people's hands without realizing that Omar bin Khattab (whom the Sunnis hold in high esteem as the 2nd Caliph of Islam) forbade doing exactly that because of famine, because a person was forced by circumstances to do as such, because someone wasn't a repeat offender etc. The same Omar said something to the effect of : Omar bin Khattab is responsible to God even for a dog that dies of thirst on the banks of Nile. And yet, all those aspects of good governance, justice and flexibility are forgotten to the rage of mindless bigotry.
In short, no where but the Muslim World, has Marx's observation that 'Religion is the opium for the masses' been more true. We've got a population thats more illiterate than at anytime in the history of the Muslim world and we expect them to understand the nuances of faith. A reassessment of religious principles in the light of modernity is required otherwise our bigotry will be the end of us. Iqbal lamented the same when he wrote his treatise 'A reconstruction of religious thought in Islam' to get the ball rolling, unfortunately, no one followed through with it.
But make no mistake, the alternative is not a secular system of affairs where religion not only takes a back-seat but is actively castigated and ridiculed at times. No, for religion is just an intensifier, a focal point, if you will....and it will be replaced by another (ethnicity,language etc). The real solution truly is the reconstruction of religious thought in Islam, of critical thinking based education imparted to the masses so that, as Jinnah said : each Muslim becomes a priest of his own, and of finally waking up from the slumber of ignorance and apathy that the Muslims are embroiled in - the same dormancy that Iqbal hollered over and over about.
Jinnah wanted a Pakistan which epitomizes democracy, the rule of law, religious and legal pluralism, where the Mosques are not just for praying five times a day but where intellectuals and scholars would routinely debate matters of varying significance for the average man, and the average man would actually think and ponder over every letter of every word of the Book and will have more than a working knowledge of a plethora of subjects out there, where our scholars will measure up to the high standards set by people like Avicenna and Averroes, where our women stand shoulder to shoulder with our men to drive this great nation forward and male chauvinism is looked on as a disease, where our minorities are a celebrated part of our identity as signified by the white in our flag and where we truly can show the world, as was intended, what an Islamic state can be. Inshallah, such a Pakistan will be realized, for if there is to be a Pakistan it must be Jinnah's Pakistan and not just a piece of land.
