Adil Najam
The headline screams out that more than 40 people are dead after a heartless and soulless suicide attack on a mosque in Rawalpindi. The story under it tells us that more than half of those butchered are children.
Numb. Enraged. Without words. One stares into space.
How many such headlines have we seen? How many more are we destined to see?
Carnage. Bloodshed. Callousness. Hatred.
These are not things that anyone with a modicum of humanity can become used to. Yet, the world passes us by. Its not even news for the rest of the world. They are too busy worrying about “their” Taliban, to care about what “our” Taliban are doing. In the crazy world that we have manufactured, not every death is created equal. And certainly not every life.
Once again, Pakistanis die. Once again, Pakistanis cry. Alone.
Once again, Pakistanis stare into the darkness of nothingness, looking for answers. There are few words of sympathy from those who claim to be our friends. There are only sneers and jeers from those who are our enemies.
Why, one asks, why? Why do they hate us so?
In this video interview one would-be suicide bomber speaks up. It is harrowing. Listen, if you will, to the voice of hatred. Listen, if you can, to what Pakistan’s enemy sounds like.
@arfeen
I agree with you.
Some comments from the ATP Facebook Page:
– “he (in video) is simply sick minded, what can we say abt him, but one thing is sure he will get many hooray (punches) instead of horain.”
– “Ruthless, SICK, shocking, mindwashed. Besides Mr. Jihadi: Even the prophet sent someone home, as he had not granted permission form his mother do go along with others for war. What kind of “islam” do you think, you are representing?”
– “main soch raha hoon ke insan ke bash main wo shatan kitnia kathar kan ho ga jis ke is larkay aur is tara ke aur kitniay he larknoo ke dil or degam main itnia zher bhar daya hai…:(:(:”
– “Ohhh GOD….”
– “yeah sab islam ki original taleemat sy dori ki waja sy hai, jitna ham islam sy door hotay ja rahay hain utnay hee buray hallat aatay ja rahay hain, jab tak ham islam pay sahi tarah amal nahi karain gay aur uss ko dunya say zaida importance nahi dain gay issee tarah hota rahay ga. Allah saf kehta hai tum mairay deen ki madad karoo main tumari madad karoon ga, tum mairay ihkamat pay poora poora amal karon main tumari duyna wa akhirat donoo bna doon ga. laikin ham iss murdar dunyak peehcya zaeel o khawar ho rahay hain aur insaniyat sy bhee gir chukay hian ham. Allah maaf karay aur ham sab ko hidayat dai aur imaan mazboot karay aur tamam fitnoon aur shar sy hifazat karay (ameen)”
– “toba he.these ppl r so heartless”
– “How can these people live with themselves. Listen to this gy saying he will kill kids, and Muslims and even his own family. How can these Taliban mullahs live with themselves.”
Lets not get too carried away with the delicious sound of whining about “the world does not care about Pakistanis”. The world has been trying for years to tell the permanent establishment that the serpent they are feeding is going to devour them someday. This monster is our own creation.
The international Islamist terrorists are a loose but interconnected network of Islamists who came together in Pakistan during and after the Soviet occupation and mostly functioned under the supervision of (sympathetic) Pakistani army officers. The army high command completely succumbed to a relatively small number of Jihadi officers (due, in my opinion, to the extraordinary incompetence of our senior officers and the terribly short sighted decision to educate them in National Defence College, where they picked up notions of “strategy” and “national interest” that primed them for being made into utter fools by their jihadi peers) and gave them free rein throughout the nineties.
During this time, half a million men were trained by various jihadi organizations and a nationwide culture of jihad was allowed to take root in rural punjab as well as in the less fashionable sections of major cities. It was mostly off the radar of the small upper class from which we all hail, but it was a very major social shift. In the tribal areas as well as in Pakhtun Karachi and in most of South Punjab, it was easier to get justice from these people than from the existing state. To avoid international pressure and to avoid upsetting the sensibilities of the English speaking classes, the endgame of this jihadi enterprise was never publicized outside their own groups. The extensive links of the army with the taliban and of the taliban with these jihadi networks were also kept off the front pages.
All jihadists were never under Pak army control and some Arab extremists based in Afghanistan attacked the US, probably without Pak army knowledge. The US invasion that followed was assisted by the Pak army under the assumption that the Americans will one day leave and the good taliban will then come back. For that purpose, the good taliban were not hampered in their escape and sanctuary in Pakistan. Under American pressure, some jihadi groups were shut down while others were told to lie low. Unfortunately, the army then discovered that the jihadis were using the army more than the army was using the jihadis and many of them refused to lie low, leading to problems with the US and with India. I am not sure if the Mumbai attacks were done with Pak army knowledge or not, but am working on the assumption that they were NOT known to the army beforehand.
Members of this network have set off bombs in London, Barcelona, India, Bali and more.
This network is now striking against the army, so my assumption is that the army has really started to move against the jihadists (except for ones like LET, which continue to accept some supervision…again, whether they pulled off mumbai without Pak army permission is an interesting question)
And so on.
As you can see, in my version, leaving the jihadists alone is not really an option because they will not leave us alone. Their project was real, it was international and it would have led to war IN ANY CASE even if 9-11 had not happened (though the initial war may have been against India in that case). Tactical decisions are always open for debate, but the overall strategic issue is clear to me: the Pakistani state has to either openly side with the jihadists, in which case the anti-taliban Afghans, India, Russia, Iran and NATO will look for ways to bring us down (some jihadists have told me that in that case we will have Chinese support, though I doubt it), OR we have to take on the jihadist network by working WITH the Americans, the Afghans, the Indians and so on, and in the course of this, still safeguard national interests of a more secular nature (water, boundary disputes, trade disputes and so on). There is no negotiated settlement because THEY will not negotiate peace except as a temporary reprieve in which to build up strength.
Sorry, no time for references, though they exist for most of the above assertions. Anyway, you are free to find your own version.
What is your picture of this terrorist network?
What’s most depressing about these events is that our leaders have utterly failed to build some national sense of loss and resolve.
Yes, we must fight and we must unite. Maybe it’s time for overseas Pakistanis to come home and work on saving their country because no matter how long they’ve been away, they’re still Pakistanis–and more importantly are seen as Pakistanis. Even if they marry foreigners, their children will still be perceived as Pakistanis. We all know that as Pakistanis we are between a rock and a hard place no matter where we are–as Shoaib Mansoor has shown so brilliantly in “Khuda Kay Liye”.
Our expatriates are our strength; we must put this strength to use at home. Let’s work on this one problem: how do we unite our people?