Justice for Palestine Can’t Mean Death for a Pakistani Worker
There’s something deeply heartbreaking about waking up to the news that a man simply doing his job—flipping burgers in a KFC kitchen—was gunned down in the name of “protest.” That 45-year-old Asif Nawaz, a resident of Khan Colony, never made it home from his shift at a fast-food chain in Sheikhupura, because someone decided his life was expendable in the wake of a larger cause. And that’s where we really need to stop and ask ourselves: what are we even doing?
What kind of protest ends with a man bleeding out in a kitchen?
It’s easy to chant slogans, to feel the heat of injustice in your bones when you see the horrors unfolding in Gaza. We are angry. We are heartbroken. The genocide unfolding in Palestine should enrage every ounce of our humanity. But that fury cannot be misdirected at someone like Asif. When mobs storm restaurants, vandalize property, throw stones and bullets, it doesn’t make the occupation end faster.
It’s not just about one tragic death either. It’s the dozens of employees now scared to go to work. It’s the normalization of mob violence under the banner of faith and outrage.
What happened this week in Pakistan is not resistance. It’s not solidarity. It’s chaos disguised as activism. From Sheikhupura to Karachi, we saw mobs attack KFCs and Domino’s, shattering glass and throwing stones as if that somehow liberates the people of Palestine. It doesn’t. It just breaks another mother’s heart. Asif Nawaz is not the enemy. He didn’t drop bombs or draw borders. He just showed up for his shift. And now his children will grow up without a father, not because of a drone strike, but because of a bullet fired by someone claiming to fight for justice.
There’s this dangerous myth that protest has to be aggressive to be powerful. That rage must be loud, even destructive, to be effective. But some of the most powerful movements in history were built not on violence, but on persistence. Don’t buy from a brand if you disagree with its ties—fine, that’s your right. But don’t walk into a store and shoot a man just trying to make ends meet. That’s not protest. That’s murder.
We need to shift the conversation.
It can be smart. Strategic. It can hurt systems, not people. It can boycott, educate, mobilize, and build movements that actually challenge the structures behind genocide and injustice. That’s how resistance sustains itself. That’s how it builds legacy. Not through shattered windows and spilled blood, but through collective, conscious action.
We have to find better ways to channel our grief and our anger. Social media may amplify rage, but it can also misguide it. One trending hashtag isn’t worth a life. One viral video of a shattered storefront isn’t worth the trauma of a child who’s just lost their parent.
What we’re doing now is not solidarity. It’s self-destruction. It’s turning our pain into collateral damage. If we truly care about justice for Palestinians, then we need to embody the very values they are being denied: dignity, safety, and humanity.
If this is about humanity, then let’s act like humans. Let’s mourn with integrity, not through bloodshed. Because if you’re fighting for the oppressed by becoming the oppressor, then you’re not fighting for justice.
At the end of the day, what good is your protest if it mirrors the very violence you’re standing against?
Rootcause: State is responsible for this action. The anger and frustration among the public regarding what’s happening in Gaza is not being channeled in the right direction; rather, it is being suppressed. These are the consequences of misleading your own citizens.
What’s happening in Gaza is wrong, but the state won’t let you speak out or take any action against it.
The state could have banned KBC long ago, given that KBC supports the killing of Palestinians, and its continued operation in Pakistan itself implies support for genocide.
Certainly, he was killed as a result of the state’s policy. This could have been prevented. His family’s grief could have been avoided.
If we had boycotted with full conviction, KFC would have been shut down by now. As usual, we prioritized our taste buds over Palestinian lives — and we still call ourselves Muslims. We are such hypocrites that even Abu Jahl would laugh at us.