140 dead and 538 injured – this little byline cuts through hearts and our future!
Yesterday was the day of images – moving pictures of excitement, energy, applause and then the saddest of recent tragedies. Innocent men and women charged with emotion and enthusiasm were blown away by suicide bombers, remote devices and alien belief systems. Or was it the case of wilful machinations and deceit. Only time will tell.
She had arrived much like the Greek characters – tearful, maligned, triumphant and a little pawn in the hands of gods. Amid the voices of criticism and hypocrisy that fail to note the complexity of our times, she emerged as a people’s woman – once again. Here were the loyalists dancing, singing and clapping – their queen, exiled and beaten had re-emerged.
They couldn’t care about the cost or the process. That was for the armchair classes of Pakistan to ponder about. The pull of Bhutto-name for the have-nots was once again re-established. So began a journey on the blood-lined roads of Karachi that have cracked with violence, blood and lawlessness. Yet they moved ahead oblivious of the fault lines that run from the drab, destroyed villages of Afghanistan to Karachi passing through a web of seminaries, officialdom and Lal Masjids of this world.
And so halfway, this peaceful journey – a testament of what the real Pakistan is all about – halted. And, something had erupted: imperial projects, state diktats and the crumbling centre. There was flesh, blood, fire and tears. And the wretched TV screens have documented all of this.
Devastating is one word that replaced amazing by the time we crossed the midnight in Pakistan! To quote Rumi here
A splinter is often
difficult to get out.
How much more difficult a thorn
in the heart! If everyone could find that thorn
in themselves, things would be
much more peaceful here!
There is a head now flashed on the screens – they can’t tell if it was a Jiyala or the suicide bomber. The TV channels are flashing bodies again and again – as before, discretion was thrown to winds and we have the singular honour of being a country where human limbs and guts of the dead are not just flashed but imposed on the senses until you are numb, exhausted and terrified. And, glorifying terror is the last thing we need.
Urooj Zia, a newspaper reporter was there:
“The bomb blasts happened while we were there. I was stunned, to say the least. There were people, bits of people, blood EVERYWHERE. An AryOne World cameraman lay there dying in front of us. We moved him to a police mobile, but he died in the hospital. I knew he would. I got his blood all over me — my hands, arms, clothes, shoes. Then there were charred bodies of policemen — smoke rising from them. Slippery blood everywhere….I went back to work after that, filed my story. Got home around 04:00 a.m., couldn’t sleep for two hours coz I couldn’t get the images out of my head. Puked a couple of times too.”
This tragedy is not just about who is responsible for this carnage. When humanity is in danger, we have to rise above our biases and loyalties and condemn what is WRONG. This is an issue that we all have to now live and deal with.
Our religion does not allow targeting women even in wartime and suicides are FORBIDDEN. Period. There is now a consensus at Al-Azhar and various other places of Islamic scholarship. If this is about Waziristan or the Lal Masjid then it should be fought elsewhere and not against the unarmed, dispossessed political workers.
All Pakistanis have to unite in condemning this barbarity. And all variants of Pakistaniat ought to be involved in this process – bickering at this stage will only make us question as to what message are we sending to the world, that we to quote Qandeel Shaam are “multiple little groups all bopping their heads against one another”?
Violence, militancy and suicide attacks are and will remain unacceptable. Legitimate politics must not give way to war-lord-ism! I end with Faiz:
abhii chiragh-e-sar-e-rah ko kuchh Khabar hii nahin
abhii garaani-e-shab mein kami nahin aaii
najaat-e-deeda-o-dil kii ghadi nahin aii
chale chalo key wo manzil abhii nahin aaii
Who was behind the bombing of Benazir’s procession?
The culprits are too obvious to hide. The operation was too sophisticated for the alleged groups to carryout. The motives of the real culprits also expose who is actually behind the ruthless massacre in Karachi.
See:
http://www.dictatorshipwatch.com/modules.php?op=mo dload&name=News&file=article&sid=1935&mode=thread& order=0&thold=0
Kavi,
My own views about democracy are a bit different. To me, democracy without literacy leads to anarchy. Look at the current structure of Pakistani politics and you will understand what I am trying to say. 80% of the elections in Pakistan are nothing more than family lottery which decides which family gets the NA seat, which family gets the PA seat and who gets to have the Nazim. Real elections only take place in maybe 10 to 12 cities and bulk of the voters who cast their votes don’t even know what they are voting for.
Majority of the constituencies have seen the same surnames as their “elected” representatives since the first election. If these surnames could not do anything positive for their people in 60 years what makes you think that they can do it now just because people are voting for them?
I think democracy in Pakistan is nothing more than people electing their dictators. I don’t get too emotionally charged with phrases like “voice of the people” and “will of the people” when people don’t understand their own voices. I wonder how many people who came to welcome BB yesterday actually know how big an amount $1.5 Billion really is.
The only voices of the people I hear are coming from the silent majority of almost 75% who don’t even take part in this drama. They may be silent but their silence is speaking volumes.
Thank for putting this senseless loss of life into some words,It is what it is. Does it matter who and why. It is a reality that there are among us “those who will kill people in the mosques, people on the streets, people at the bus stops, people every where” Allah have mercy on us .Left right or center,democracy or dictatorship I think first we have to become Human for this is not .
Allah khair karay or reham bhee
good post raza
BB sounded naive in her press briefing at bilawal house today when she reasserted again that suicide bombers never target women
wonder if she lives in la-la land!
the suicide bombers are depraved, delusional beings and recognise neither gender nor religion…does she not know this?
i thought i would never ever think this thought let alone put to words…i’d rather BB and others duplicitious leaders of her
ilk be ‘removed’ by these bombers if it means sparing the lives of the innocent bystanders
enough is enough!
Very good post by Raza as usual. The poem you posted in the end was great as well. About the broadcasting of the innocent people being murdered, etc, I agree that it should not be broadcasted. Most people think that it shouldn’t because it makes them uncomfortable; my answer to that they are right but we SHOULD be uncomfortable, it should make us disgusted enough to try to do something to about it. However, those people who suffer should not be identified since it would make the ensuing hell for their family that much worse.