Daily Times

After a bit of silence and lull, the ugly monster of terror struck at Wagah border. Devastating, as usual. As many as 60 plus dead and hundreds more wounded. Each passing day is a reminder of this fear that engulfs the nation, day in and day out. The television screens light up and the commentators, self-proclaimed security experts and pundits commence with their routine chatter. The politicos issue their usual condemnations. The government promises the typical probe, there is the formation of an investigative committee and the country moves on as usual. Sounds like a very familiar story, the kind we all have witnessed, read and heard very often. The end result is zero plus zero equals zero.

The government (no matter who is in the saddle) raises its hands and claims that the whole world is facing this menace and that it cannot do much to eliminate it completely. The best we can do is conduct an enquiry and, in the end, close a file and wait for the next file to be initiated. The pundits and pseudo security analysts do the usual dart throwing at known enemies such as India, Israel and the US, and conduct their ultra-informative analysis. None of these blessed brains have ever provided a clear reason behind these usual suspects, other than to punish this sorry nation for possessing an ‘Islamic’ but nuclear bomb. According to their wisest interpretations, all the groups who claim responsibility for such heinous acts are the hired proxies of the aforementioned foes who are paid to create disinformation and chaos and malign our faith. Some of these sagacious souls tweet their pearls of wisdom as well to broaden this message. Not to mention, the dear darling of a revolutionary party of such wise skulls dominates the Twitter-sphere and spreads such vitriol among the party’s ultra-patriotic followers as a national service message. The piñata of our known foes is beaten in cyber space by catchy hash tags and the day comes to an end. If hash tags could do much in this area, then our enemies would have been annihilated by tweets and retweets.

Speaking of Twitter, there was a tweet that recently caught my attention. An Urdu daily based in Lahore ran a headline predicting a suicide bomber had entered Lahore to cause havoc at the flag ceremony on the border, a couple of days prior to the attack in Wagah. Perhaps the intelligence that was shared with the law enforcement agencies was not specific enough or must have lacked some significant detail that would have assisted the people in charge to avert this cowardly act. Who knows?

The groups that reach the media and claim responsibility for any such attacks become ticker fodder for a day on the idiot box. No one gives a damn after a couple of days because there is something sexier, juicier and more scandalous that emerges on the political scene and everyone and their mother-in-law focuses on the most current news, with the old story becoming stale and insignificant. Commentators shrug their shoulders and call it the expected and anticipated blowback from the ongoing military operation in North Waziristan. By now you get the drift of this very mundane and predictable cycle.

However, a special effort was made to assemble a group of people as usual at the same venue the following day of this attack to supposedly send a message to the enemy (ies) on how Pakistanis were not afraid and that we knew all our slogans by heart. It is just a matter of fate that somehow, on that particular day, the enemy (ies) went into hibernation just by witnessing the fervour of overly charged highly patriotic Pakistanis. Much like tweets, if slogans could eliminate the enemy (ies), then all the ordinance factories would be out of business for good.

May I humbly ask the two hostile neighbours, with utter respect, the purpose of all this noise, pomp and show at the border check post? By sloganeering, parading, staring at each other and making a big deal about hoisting or lowering a national flag at both ends, what are we trying to accomplish? As an old friend always says in a questioning manner, “And your point is?”

I know the ultra-patriotic crowd will jump as usual and come up with parroted sentences such as nations that are alive demonstrate their patriotic fervour and love for their land at such ceremonies. I humbly beg to differ with this emotional and meaningless rhetoric. I have been to Canada and Mexico a few times and have never seen any such bravado. I have driven through a few Middle Eastern countries and have seen no such flexing of muscle power at their borders. I know some wise soul will point out that none of these countries were partitioned like us. Ah, that ‘P’ word; the more I try to avoid it, the more it pops up with renewed vigour and its own rational reasoning.

Let me define, in my pea of a brain, what a nation full of patriotic fervour looks like. Remember: you can have all the land you want and show all the love you have by whatever act you deem appropriate as your exhibition of your love, admiration, reverence and respect but, without people, it is nothing but acres and acres of just land. It is the people who make countries strong and worth loving. So love, respect and care for the people comes first. Worry about the life of your fellow citizens first. Demand from the elected officials to demonstrate their progress in terms of what they have done to protect you and fellow citizens from any such mishaps in the future. Report the movement of any suspicious person to law enforcement personnel and media simultaneously and stay on top of the media to follow up on that story. Do not tolerate the seminaries that preach and propagate hate towards others based on their religious leanings. Cleanse your neighbourhoods of such outfits and illegal weaponry and then you will notice the difference. Embrace, expect and enforce zero tolerance for violence. You will not have to yell a slogan to prove your point; it will be obvious.

The writer is a Pakistani-American
mortgage banker. He blogs at http://dasghar.blogspot.com and can be reached at dasghar@aol.com. He tweets at http://twitter.com/dasghar