Adil Najam
The stream of disturbing images from Islamabad continues. It has left one dumbfounded. But one must never be silent in the face of injustice. Of the many disturbing reports and images that have been floating in, there is probably none more poignantly disturbing than this one from ARY:
Violence, of course, can only beget violence, and one saw this too in the manhandling of the State Minister for Information, Tariq Azeem. Yet more evidence that violence is replacing discourse as the mode of disagreement in Pakistani society.
This is not a question of which side you are on. Ultimately you have to be against violence. We have written about shameful violence and police brutality before – tearing down the shalwar of a young man in a ‘missing persons’ protest and then also against the lawyers during the CJ movement. But this is not just shameful; it is needless. Now there are also reports of muzzling the media; another tactic we have seen before. It demonstrates the government’s slipping grip on power, but it also demonstrates a society that is so torn that every issues – may it be religious, social or political – has to end in violence.
The government, after all, has already gotten the verdict it wanted. At least let the people vent out their anger. There is nothing to be gained from this violence. For a nation that has already lost so much, this is merely also losing whatever little dignity that might have remained. As I have written already in a comment elsewhere, history shall judge the merit of the decision that was given by the Supreme Court on the 28th of September, but the violence of the 29th of September was shameful and needless and will remain (yet another) blot of our national political psyche.
All this mayhem that we saw in Islamabad yesterday was just because one man wants to continue to hang on to power. His sidekicks had declared a few weeks ago that they will have Musharraf elected as president “at all costs”. Let’s see how much more the nation has to pay.
Peaceful protest is the key but the PEOPLE MUST STAND AND DELIVER now or remain silent forever. I again remind those ATP readers who favour the Mush rule that all of this chaos could have been avoided by him and him alone. My open letter to him as shown here http://www.otherpakistan.org/archive.html simply depicts the death of Mush’s own Pakistan first idelogy for a selfish ‘Musharraf first’ ideology. Compare his lust for renewed power with the distaste for power that Justice Wajihuddin has but he has entered only in the interests of serving a nation. Such actions are befitting that esteemed office and Mush could take lessons from him.
Finally I stil ask where are the Pakistani people?, is it too much to ask them to stand up for Pakistan or are they waiting for an archangel to beckon them? This time will not come again, all we need to do is make a peaceful protest in our own bazaars and chowks be it Quetta or Karachi, we need not travel to the capital or make loud gestures, we can do it all from the comfort of our own neighbourhoods, so Pakistan jaagoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Feimanallah
Wasim
This is the end of the road for me and I am sure for a vast number of Pakistani hyphenated into this or that or whatever team we are on or whatever crowd we hang out with. When the Supreme Court of Pakistan removes the last fig of dignity and exposes itself, than whatever little dignity or pride one may have for the nation are also shattered.
With the Pakistan’s judiciary decimated, and with the continuing state terrorism and violence and ethnic politics, any semblance of the facade of state or government or even of unity of the various communities are also shattered and exposed. We have all hoped and prayed that we might recover from our heighten level of political misfortunes that had befallen us. But when the Supreme Court is annihilated, than whatever little hope one may have that we might recover from the heighten level of political misfortunes that had befallen us are also shattered.
…. and they are talking about their manhood and “karr lo jo karna hai”! I give up.
It is surreal… it was like that scene out of Jinnah the movie where Jinnah throws himself at the Police officer stopping him from carrying out lathi charge against the protesters…
But this is not a movie… this is real.
Is there no shame … is this enlightened moderation of which the regime is a spokesperson?
God save Pakistan.