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
@Peja,
Since Raza has already pointed out that the thread is going on a tangent, I will abstain from further argument on this issue. I will however make one point that if you think that Pakistan has true democracy then you either don’t understand democracy or the Pakistani politics.
Indeed the 18 OCt tragedy marked the first blow to the sart of political process in the run up to Election 07. The event raises many questions. I havnt found one convincing explaination in the media so far as to whether the target was Benazir or her populism that was to upset political interests of anti-Bhuto forces. It seems bobmbers carried out their assignment to achieve multiple goals. While they were angry with US-sponsored new political allignemnts, they also wanted to make a point that they dont loose the turf they have acquired in recent years due to political vacum and through their militant methods.
Raza’s post sheds lights on important dimensions of the gord drama enacted on 18 OCt. I agree that no matter what the march towards full democracy must not be halted. The tragedy should serve us an opportunity to get united and participate in open political expression. The coming election must be held in an incluisve and credible manner. Any attemtp to usurp political process will only open up more chances of gory scenes bening repeated as were witnessed on Oct 18.
Well done Raza. Good post. you have rightly highlighted that extremism is the most pernicious problem of the country today. In the 90s it was corruption but in today’s Pakistan- extremism occupies number 1 position having displaced corruption- at least for the moment.
We just need to look at our history to see what happens to a country when a country keeps it politicians out of the political process for a while. In the 1960s, Ayub Khan banned H.S.Suhrawardy ( probably the most popular if not the greatest Pakistani leader after Jinnah and Liaquat) from politics and kept Awami League out of the political process- even after Suhrawardy’s death. All this led to the rise of Bengali nationalism and subsequently the separation of East Pakistan.
By keeping Bhuttos and Sharifs out of politics and political process, Musharraf has strengthened the hands of religious extremism. The vacum which has been created by the ouster of mainstream political parties ( PPP and PML-N) from the political space has been filled up by religious parties and this phenomenon abets, not controls, extremism.
In the 60s and 70s, it was Bengali nationalism which resulted in the break-up of the country. Today it is religious extremism which endangers the existence and survival of Pakistan. In the early 70s, Pakistanis were killing Pakistanis in East Pakistan and this resulted in break-up of the country when India exploited the situation. Today, Talibanized Pakistanis are killing Pakistanis and if this trend is not stopped, we will be handing over another cakewalk victory to India.
The fact that Benazir chose to desecrate Shaharah-e-Faisal with her evil existence was in itself a bad enough omen to invite the attack in which Benazir “miraculously” escaped….
It is interesting that Mr. Harris Siddiqi epitomise the whole thinking of ruling elite by which I mean Pakistan Army. I believe the final argument of dictator is always the turn out of people in elections , that is where they bring the silent majority. So 25% people came out to vote in election, 75% stayed at home hence the majority does not trust their leaders. And a dictator will call those 75% as silent majority and this silent majority is always with the Dictator. Silent majority is not with the leaders because they don’t come out and vote for them and this majority is with the dictator as they don’t come out and protest against him.
The myth of 25% people coming out and voting is just the similar myth as the whole military junta and its cronies kept claiming for 8 years that people don’t come on street. Once they were on street the had to kill 138 people , wound 500+ people to make sure that they don’t come on street again.
It is absolutely heartening to see the scenes of 18th October morning, this gives me hope about this nation. I am saddened because of the events of that dreadful night, I am saddened also by the events of Waziristan , Lal Masjid, Balochistan but then the mornings of 18th October brings hope back. That’s why I told my colleagues at that morning that Pakistan is not Iraq where dictator will keep ruling for 24 years , is not a Arab monarchy where monarchs are ruling for 70 years. It’s a society who produced the poet who said, “Ab raaj karay gee khalq-i-khuda, Joo mein bhee hoon aur tum bhee hoo”