Lately no news coming out of Pakistan seem to be good news. This afternoon I started writing about Benazir’s return in lighter words focusing on hilarious statements coming out of our politicians on her return and then this horrific news of scores of people dead started coming in. My lighter mood vanished totally and now I am left wihout words and more questions like, Why? Who? what now? etc.
The headline news on CNN reads as follows right now:
An explosion near the motorcade of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto killed at least 110 people and injured 200 more, officials say. Bhutto, returning after years in exile, reportedly was unhurt.
While we are glad that she remained safe, our sincere prayers are with those innocents who lost their lives.
zabt laazim hai magar dukh hai qayamat ka
zalim ab ke bhi na roay ga to mar jaaye ga
Raza,
Like you I’m too disgusted why so called elite and educated class hate PPP this much that they can’t even remain decent at the loss of innocent lives. Just imagine IF it was someone else say Nawaz Sharif or Altaf Hussain then the reaction would be complete opposite. I hope it doesn’t had to do anything with Benazir being a woman and leader of the Poor man’s party.
PS. Things at KMB is much worse.
I am not a supporter of Musharraf, I’m not a supporter of Benazir and certainly I’m not a supporter of Taliban, but I do relate with the common men and women of my country (even if I sometimes shake my head on the choices they make). And it pains me to see that once again it is us – the common folk – that have to pay the massive price (sacrifice of life, of the sense of security of the city, of millions of rupees in economic losses and much more) for the political games of the powers to be.
I had covered the sad events live for Karachi Metroblog and later reflected on it on my own blog as well, but it still hasn’t sunk in. My mind keeps wondering, why? Why must we think so little of the sanctity of human life so as to so brutally and so audaciously destroy it without any sensitivity for some secondary political gain or pseudo-religious agenda?
I really don’t know who was behind this, but what disturbs me the most is the psychology that could allow this to happen in the first place and the psychology that allows us -the supposedly educated elite who have access to the internet- to be so insensitive to the gravity of this situation so as to indulge in a name-calling and blame-casting game that I would normally associate with this country’s politicians.
Barring a few of them even they have (at least so far) refrained from outrightly indulging in such games. I always thought we were better then them. This is quite a dent to my self esteem in that way. It is disturbing to see some of the comments, both here as well on other posts on the theme on the Karachi Metroblog.
I’m beginning to feel shame in my own capacity as a human being, that any other fellow human being, can all call him or her self a human being, and a)conceive something inhumane like this and b)analyze it later on with such distaste and insensitivity. Sigh.
140 dead. A very heavy price for the so called democracy being thrust on us by America just so they can keep on fighting the war on terror. Benazir has failed twice and will fail again as she is incompetent and corrupt. Her voter base is illitrate and being taken for a ride by their feudal masters. Saw her interview today, political bickering has started and things will only get worse. Only silver lining is the pakistani nation’s resilience in such circumstances which is also wearing thin fast. I hate to say it but we are in for a rough ride. Everyone seems to be blaming everyone else and no one seems to be in control. I love Pakistan and saddened to see all this voilence and deaths
Raza, sorry if we’ve sounded indecent at a moment when we should seriously contemplate about trying to make our future safe but all that is being outpoured here is a result of the total frustration we’re getting out of the turmoil we’re finding our nation now for quite some time. Things are getting complicated with each passing day and we aren’t finding a way to find ourselves free from the tangle.
Now this one is great Ali Saheb –
it is good for the “US agent” that her peaceful followers (and well there are hundreds and thousands of them..alas) should be killed??
Let us focus on this tragedy and think of solutions where no party, or group suffers this fate – whether PPP or any other political grouping..