Adil Najam
Pakistan is in tears today. Yet again.
70+ people are dead in Wah today, as yet another cursed suicide bomber targets Pakistan and Pakistanis. The Tehrik-i-Taliban has taken responsibility for them. Only two days ago, 32 people were killed in a suicide attack on a hospital in the northern town of Dera Ismail Khan. Meanwhile incursions and attacks into Pakistani territory by American forces continue and fighting between militants and Pakistani forces rages in Bajur and other areas, killing even more.
In what continues to be war on and in Pakistan, Pakistanis continue to die. Pakistan continues to cry.
Some will call it the largest legacy of the Musharraf years. Some will read unstated messages within this murder and mayhem by these killers. Others will see it as the price in dead bodies that Pakistan pays in the War on Terror. Yet others will remind us that this is reaping what Gen. Zia-ul-haq sowed. There will be, I am sure, plenty more pontifications too – ranging from the absurd to the absurdly profound.
All I know is that today, yet again, Pakistanis die. Pakistan continues to cry.
Why must this murder and mayhem continue? I ask. When will it end? These, of course, are absurd questions themselves. Because we all know the answers. It will continue for as long as we let the killers kill and support their murders with our silence. Silence, of course, also kills. And some are condemned to cry silently.
This is challenge number 1 for Pakistan today and for the future
Stop blaming others for your problems.
Make no mistake folks – we are going through a civil war.
There are two competing visions of Pakistan that are tearing this country apart. First is inspired by Qaid-E-Azam; a vision of modern and progressive Pakistan where your faith is your private business. It has nothing to do with state. It is something between you and your God. The second is inspired by clerics of Iran and Saudi Arab, where your faith or lack of it is the business of state. It is state’s responsibility to judge your moral progress and give reward/ punishment to improve your moral progress.
Pakistan started with the first but very soon started veering toward the other. In this the responsibility of liberal elements of society should not be underestimated. With each such move, we kept silent hoping that things will finally take right course on their own. Alas! You do not get different result unless you act differently.
We have to understand that it is impossible to argue with divinely guided people. They can only be defeated. Military victory is necessary but that is only a part of it. Not even the most important part. In my view, the most important battle is to be fought in the hearts and minds of common Pakistani. And it is this field where we have been lacking. All of us need to fight this battle. In our homes, in our streets, in our offices, in our schools, in letters to editors, blogs, emails, websites everywhere. It is not an ordinary battle. It is the very question of Pakistan’s survival.
@Umar, NB & Shahid…
Thanks for the echoing my thoughts…I find myself extremely troubled that as a fully practicing Muslim I find myself mostly isolated when I speak up….
unfortunately I do not see this consensus developing anytime soon….I now understand how a nation of hundreds of Millions was subjugated by a couple hundred thousand English…we did not show enough spine then…and this struggle too exposes our utter bankruptcy…we see other’s children die and shrug and move on…finding excuses to justify the behavior of ‘fellow Muslims’ evil deeds…not realizing that our own kin will not be spared by a Mullah thinking rationally that we too Pray..pay Zakat and fast in the name of the most Merciful and the one true creator…
one thing that I do not understand is the argument of fighting ‘our own people’…this argument is utterly nullified by the actions of Hazrat-e-Ali (RA) who waged a full fledged war on the Khawarji’s and did out to death approx 40,000 of them….
Now we have a choice…we can stand with Ali (RA) or we can stand with the Khawarji’s…I for one will stand with Ali (RA)
I sadly see that the majority of Pakistani’s have somehow ‘stockholm syndrom-ed’ themselves into siding with the Khawarji’s…
so what if they are our own people…if you see your own brother try to set fire to your own house…if you see your own brother try to deny your child polio medication and if you see your own brother deny your daughter an education..what will you do…I’ll tell you what I’ll do…I will shed blood if I have to to keep my family and house safe from my own brother…
what will you do if you see your own brother try to kill your parents…? I believe the answer is obvious…
Being a fellow Muslim DOES NOT give you the right to subjugate me and my children…it DOES NOT give you a blank cheque to take over my house and impose yourself on how I raise my children..
it DOES NOT give you the right to decide if I live or die…
which is indeed the main problem with the Mullah…he has basically tried to outsource all the functions of Allah SWT…as in who is a man of faith..who will live…who will die…who will go to heaven etc…
and THAT my friends is Blasphemy…our own Prophet (PBUH)…the epic of humanity…He himself never claimed that he was guaranteed paradise and begged for Allah’s favour…can you imagine the Humanity…the utter loss of self in front of Allah that he showed us all…
Yet..Pakistani’s are putting their own faith in men…mere men who claim to be doling out one way tickets to paradise and one way tickets to hell…
now THAT is blasphemy and our disregard for this most profound yet simple concept is the cause of our own butchery at the hands of the beards…
@ Mustafa Kamal and Ilk…
just because I write here in english is no need for you to rejoice that my words will ring hollow and change anybody’s mind…you should temper your joy at knowing that the people killed in Wah were not what you would call ‘English Speaking Intelligentsia’….yet i write for them…and the women in the photographs…whose grief you find so utterly amusing…I write for the poor children who have just had their fathers stolen from them for no fault of their own…the children…Who I pray will curse you and your kind for eternity…for I am a Gunah Gar Momin…I do not know how effective my communication will Allah is..but I do know that the orphaned child (in whose orphanage you delight)…if he prays for justice….Allah will Listen…and I pray that you find yourself on the receiving end of that Justice…
for if my Lord is silent now…HE will not stay silent forever…and that should..more that anything I can say…make you change your mind…
I am done with you here…
Mustafa Kamal. What are you saying that you are the only one who speaks for “common Pakistanis”.
Any opnion you do not like must be “materialistic”? Why? How is calling murderers murderers “materialistic”? Please do explain.