Adil Najam
The enemy struck again. Killing Muslims in Lahore and then in Karachi.
In this blog our vocabulary has always been the vocabulary of Pakistan, of Pakistanis and of Pakistaniat. It shall remain so. Yet, today we deliberately choose to use the vocabulary of religion because those who were targeted were targeted because of their faith. The killers were targeting processions mourning those killed at Karballa. There was nothing ambiguous about the horrific murders of Muslims in Lahore and Karachi. There should be nothing ambiguous about our reaction to it.
The intensity and the frequency of violent intolerance may have escalated, but there is nothing new about the scantimonius self-righteousness that has, for so long, and so consistently, made us our own worst and most enduring enemy: Hum he Qatl ho rahey haiN, hum he Qatl kar rahey haiN.
That both attacks were intended to be much bigger had police and security personnel not intercepted the attackers – one reportedly just 13 years old – is of little consolation to the loved ones of those who died. Including the loved ones of the lowly policemen who gave their lives intercepting these murderers. But it should be yet another moment of reflection for the rest of us. As we wrote in December 2009: “… the Pakistani policeman’s life – very literally – [has become] the only thing between a suicide bomber and his would-be victims.” The Pakistani policeman is not perfect. Nor are we. They represent the same violent schizophrenia that the rest of society does; the same violent schizophrenia that has made their job more violent than any job deserves to be.
nah says:
(January 27th, 2011 6:29 am)
“This is in regards to your comment about “Illam Din had killed a Hindu by attacking him bravely with his own knife”
This shows that there is no difference between you and the animals you criticise.”
No dear, you miss-understood me. I was not trying to differentiate among humans and animals on subjective bases but between Qadri and Ilam deen, and that too only on factual grounds.
In fact when we see humans like ID and Q lynching their fellow beings on the basis of some ambiguous allegation of blasphemy, I am led to consider animals far better than humans.
@Monano
Monano Says
“I know there are extremist elements in different sects but they never used suicide bombings for inter-sect killings, they never had the potential nor they have now.”
The extremist elements can issue Fatwas of Kufr and Fatwas to kill (by Maulana Haneef and many others) and there are hundreds of books being sold across the country containing these fatwas of different sects against other sects and when some fanatics (Mumtaz Qadri) start acting on these Fatwas, we instead of blaming and controlling Fatwa issuers, we start saying that no Muslim can do this and that they are sell-outs.
We see all the fatwas to kill spread all around us but do not want to accept that there are many fanatics out there getting influenced by these Fatwas.
And if some one start blaming these fanatics and Fatwa Issuers (our mullahs), we start saying that he or she is blaming Islam and we start calling them Liberal Facists.