Making a break from terrorist and militant organisations is not enough. We must also root out the mindset
Source/Credit: Daily Times | Pakistan
By Yasser Latif Hamdani | December 22, 2014
It says something about our apathy as a people that it took the deaths of more than 130 children in Peshawar to wake this nation up. This rare moment of national resolve should not be fleeting. We have already paid a heavy price for nothing but a lack of will on the part of the powers that be. So, what needs to be done? The answer is quite clear: end the distinction of good terrorists versus bad terrorists! Accept — to use Hillary Clinton’s analogy — that when you keep snakes in your backyard, they will inevitably bite you. This is a bit of conventional wisdom that is not very common in Pakistan and its immediate environs. Even in India Jarnail Singh Bhindrawala was handpicked by Sanjay Gandhi of the Congress Party to deal a deathblow to the Akalis in Punjab. Bhindrawala went on to become the biggest headache for Indira Gandhi’s government. His death in the wake of Operation Blue Star led to Indira’s own assassination. Tragically, though not as decisively, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s government, through its interior minister, Naseerullah Babar, played with fire by appropriating the Taliban as Pakistan’s best hope in Afghanistan. A spin off of the same Taliban was to assassinate Benazir Bhutto years later. Our circumstances are further muddied with the powerful military establishment that often mistakenly conflates its own imagined strategic interests with that of Pakistan.
It is also important to realise that the enemy is not just the militants waging war against us. Our worst enemy is us. Those who killed Shama and Shahzad may not have been members of a banned outfit but they were part of the same broader issue. Those who persecute Ahmedis, hound them and kill them because of their faith are also the same people. Sectarian differences may separate Mullah Fazlullah and Mumtaz Qadri but make no mistake, both are terrorists and any attempts to distinguish between the two, as is the pattern of Barelvi religious leaders, is also a fraud being played on us. In this, the leaders of the Barelvi sect are no less guilty than Maulvi Abdul Aziz of Lal Masjid. Nor can we have two different standards for innocents in Peshawar and innocents in Mumbai. This should not be our narrative. We should never have produced Kasab and his kind. Kasab was just a boy though; his strings were held by others, others like Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi who are hardly concerned with emotional connections or indeed humanity. Meanwhile, Hafiz Saeed blamed India for Peshawar, he had to. It is a matter of bread and butter. Forget that Umar Khorasani had already jumped in to take the credit for it and has in fact misappropriated a hadith for this purpose. We all know what part of our society is incapable of calling a spade a spade. Tragically, you still find former generals and retired military officials defending Hafiz Saeed as a patriotic Pakistani citizen. Hafiz Saeed, Pakistan’s own Bhindrawala, has only served to weaken the Kashmir cause and bring down Pakistan’s prestige. He has discredited the freedom fighters in Kashmir as extremist terrorists. The legitimate Kashmiri case has been undermined not as much by India as it has been undermined by ‘patriots’ like Hafiz Saeed. Pakistanis should reject such patriots. Our military needs to make a clean break with these fogies.
Making a break from terrorist and militant organisations is not enough. We must also root out the mindset. If we as a nation are serious about dealing a deathblow to terror we also have to take to task organisations calling for violence against minorities. For example, on December 26, 2014, which is a few days away, the Aalmi Khatme-Nabuwat Sargodha, backed by Anjum-e-Tajaran Sargodha (Sargodha Traders Association), plans on attacking the Ahmedis in Rabwah. According to the poster circulated by the said organisation, they intend to decisively put an end to what they view as the “cruel un-Islamic activities” of Ahmedis. Presumably, these cruel un-Islamic activities are that they ‘pose’ as Muslims by praying five times a day. Is the chief minister of Punjab listening? Is the government going to do anything to avert another human tragedy?
Nations make mistakes. We have made our fair share of them. While other nations rectify and embark on a path of course correction, we have, without exception, exacerbated the situation with wrong turn upon wrong turn. They say that a pomegranate tree needs special tending or else the fruit comes out sour. Pakistan is like a pomegranate tree. We have done a terrible job of pruning it and tending to it. Let us, however, not underestimate the power of December 16, 2014. The martyrs in Peshawar have created a new Pakistan with their blood. Today, there is unprecedented unity and resolve in the country to fight and hit back at the enemies of humanity and reason. We saw a glimpse of this when ordinary patriotic citizens of Pakistan took the battle to that terrible specimen, Maulvi Abdul Aziz, and his Masjid-e-Zarar. The burqa cleric sent out a threatening press release that spoke of dire consequences for the protesters outside Lal Masjid. The protesters responded by filing an FIR in the thana (police station) and stayed out in the cold till the FIR was finally registered. Similarly, FIRs have been registered against the burqa cleric all over Pakistan.
It is now up to the leaders, civilian or military, to devise policies that bring Pakistan into the 21st century and ensure that every Pakistani, whatever his or her religion, creed or gender, is a respected citizen of Pakistan living in security and peace. Pakistan must be at peace within and without, at home and abroad. This is the Pakistan we want and it is time the powers that be got that message loud and clear.
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Yasser Latif Hamdani is a lawyer based in Lahore and the author of the book Mr Jinnah: Myth and Reality. He can be contacted via twitter @therealylh and through his email address yasser.hamdani@gmail.com
Read original post here: Path to course correction
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