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opinion

Something has been gnawing at me since the Tucson shooting. Actually, the gnawing began a few days before, with the gunning down of a high-ranking politician in Pakistan.

The two assassination attempts generated markedly different responses in the countries where they took place. To point out this difference will strike some as insensitive. But I see a constructive message in the comparison.

Throughout the United States, condemnation followed Jared Loughner's near-murder of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. As CNN's Candy Crowley confirmed, some chapters of the Tea Party "were the first to come out and condemn" the crime.

Days earlier, Salman Taseer, the liberal governor of Pakistan's largest province, died at the hands of a young Islamist. Aggrieved by the governor's opposition to anti-blasphemy laws, Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri - a bodyguard assigned to protect Mr. Taseer - allegedly pumped 27 bullets into him. Lawyers showered rose petals on Mr. Qadri as he entered court. When he emerged, police officers propped him on the back of an armoured car to lead the throngs in celebration.

Others may not have feted Mr. Qadri, but they tolerated the assassination. "No Muslim should attend the funeral or even try to pray for Salman Taseer," instructed hundreds of clerics. Reuters described them as coming from "a relatively moderate school of Islam in Pakistan."

In such a chilling context, one has to applaud the few brave Pakistanis who publicly expressed embarrassment about Mr. Qadri's being hailed as a hero. Even before mourning Americans gave me a new reference point, I'd wondered: Why so little outrage in Pakistan?

My Pakistani friends routinely tell me about the cultural forces plaguing their country. They talk about selfishness among the secular upper classes, which leads too many to turn inward, guard what they've got and segregate themselves from the masses. They emphasize apathy, the sense that you can't make a difference, so why bother trying?

Above all, they identify fear - of ridicule, of family dishonour, of harsher retribution. If a top-level politician is killed by his own security detail, what safety can the average person count on?

I'm reminded of an e-mail from a Pakistani who wants to speak up. "I tried to," Muhammad assured me, "but was made to realize that I would offend many and win almost none, with harassment being the cherry on top."

I sympathize, but I also believe Pakistan, like more than a few Muslim-majority countries, has to confront a bully beyond Islamism. That bully is a culture steeped in fatalism. A culture of fatalism convinces individual liberals that personal risks are not worth the backlash because they'll have zero public impact. Better to succumb to your fate by setting yourself on fire, as has been happening in some parts of the Arab world.

By contrast, American culture glorifies personal risk for the greater good. Witness the tributes to citizens who sprung into action when Mr. Loughner opened fire: the man who swung a chair at him, the woman who grabbed his bullets as he pulled them out his pocket, the young political intern who stanched Ms. Giffords's bleeding.

A friend of Pakistani heritage, raised in Scandinavia, offers another story that attests to the value of the individual in Western society. "Remember the guy who bombed Stockholm last month?" she prods. He didn't die instantly, she informs me. A young Swede rushed to the bomber's side in an effort to save him.

When asked whether he would have done the same had he known the man was a terrorist, the Swede said yes - owing to their shared humanity. My Muslim friend notes dryly that Islamic societies would leave the rescue to Allah.

Still, I draw hope from the fact that fatalism could have plagued the West, too. Early Protestants ardently embraced predestination - the idea that nothing you or I do matters because our destinies are already determined. A long process of reinterpretation undermined that debilitating belief.

Can it happen with Muslims? This week's uprisings for freedom in Tunisia suggest it's possible. Nor is all lost in Pakistan. Mr. Taseer's daughter has been told to watch her mouth and "remember her father's fate," but she won't.

"My father's assassination could teach us something," Shehrbano Taseer writes, "if only we let ourselves be taught." I'm with her. Fate is fiction.

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