A few weeks ago, I happened to speak to one of my friends, a classfellow at graduate school. Currently he is working in Islamabad, just minutes away from the residence of the latest version of the Mughal emperors. Considering his professional qualifications, intellectual level and moral principles, I think his name should be put on the Exit Control List (ECL) instead of Musharraf’’s. As our government is seriously committed to stopping the ‘general drain’ rather than the brain drain, soon he, among many others, will leave for a lucrative job overseas. We not only studied together but also shared an apartment for some time. He had religious inclinations, but was miles away from those fanatics who just demand the implementation of Islam day and night but do not find enough time to understand what it means exactly. He preferred offering prayers in the mosque until he was labelled as ‘Lawrence of Pakistan’ by the imam, who ignored his beard but rightly noticed his so-called western attire. What else does one need in Pakistan to declare someone an agent of the Jews?
We were speaking after about six months or so. Thanks to Skype — and shame to our democratic governments in the post-Musharraf era that made the cost of telecommunication sky high — we talked for a long time. Long gone are the days when someone overseas can afford talking to family and friends over the phone, unless one heads a political party and long distance calls are paid for by party funds. As happens among friends, we talked about a variety of issues, ranging from family to international politics. It was on the issue of the Taliban that I was completely taken aback by the sudden change in his views. If he had lived at the North Pole all of his previous life, in this conversation I found him at the extremities of the South Pole. In a candid yet mysterious and tentative manner he brought the cat out of the bag and declared the Taliban as the chosen ones to lead Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia in the final and decisive war for the glorious victory of Islam. He further added that perhaps we were living in days preceding the ‘great’ war between light and dark, Islam and Kufr (infidels). I was completely speechless for a few moments. This is the result when a confused leadership sets religious extremists free to propagate their views unchecked. It was one of the many byproducts of the peace talks between the government and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Then I happened to speak to another friend, within 24 hours of 8/6, when extremist zombies unleashed their terror upon Karachi airport. Unlike my previous friend, he is a rigidly religious person and a passionate activist for the implementation of Islamic laws or, to be exact, the interpretation of his own sectarian beliefs. No matter whether the topic of conversation is astronomy or genetic engineering, exactly five minutes in he will lecture on the need for Islamic laws. He blindly believes that the Taliban, currently under the barbarous leadership of Mullah Radio, will soon take over the remnants of the country to make it the Islamic Emirates of Pakistan, a laboratory of Islam and international headquarters for an ‘Islamic Caliphate’. He believes that the Taliban are the fist of God, who caused the Soviet Union to disintegrate and humiliated US and NATO forces. How can Pakistani forces obstruct their journey to establish a ‘Caliphate’ and enforce ‘Shariah’ laws? When I called him in the afternoon of June 9, he was not quite up to date with the developments at Karachi airport. Thus in the current episode of terror, he considered the media’s role responsible, for the first time, as it did not blindly throw the blame on the ‘innocent’ Taliban. I informed him that the Taliban’s spokesperson had already claimed responsibility, saying that more surprises are in waiting. He laughed, apparently at my lack of information, and said this is just the propaganda of the secular media. The real Taliban work only for the Caliphate and do not indulge in such barbarism. Even if someone claimed the responsibility posing himself as one of the Taliban, certainly he was not with the real ones, the humble servants of Islam. Above all, he asked me if I had seen Taliban spokesperson myself, or any of my brethren, saying that they actually carried out the attack.
These are just two examples of two persons living in different worlds within Pakistan, to show how unimpeded illogical propaganda in print and on the airwaves affects the minds of citizens. There may be others, following in the footsteps of our religious and political elite, confused enough to have a well defined opinion on the matter. Before the beginning of dialogue, the Taliban were just Taliban, but now their different verities are available in the market: good Taliban, bad Taliban, real Taliban, fake Taliban, militant Taliban, non-militant Taliban and still counting. By claiming responsibility for the Karachi attacks, the Taliban tried to save our political prodigies from the trouble of finding the real culprits, but our federal Information and Interior Ministers are determined to ‘rescue’ them and find a foreign hand behind this terrorist act. Our national leadership that lives behind an iron curtain of security, found it too much for the sake of their own skins to condemn the TTP by name. Irony of ironies, the president of our nuclear state declared the assailants ‘cowards’. Our security agencies, once again, successfully proved that they have more important assignments to take care of than ensuring the safety of strategic assets. Salute only to those men who risked their lives, and the future of their families, and eliminated the terrorists within five hours.
In the aftermath, angry military jets bombed militant hideouts in Tirah valley, along the Afghanistan border. This approach may be effective in the short-term but is otherwise in the long run. In recent years, by ruthlessly attacking GHQ Rawalpindi, PNS Mehran in Karachi, and Minhas Airbase at Kamra, the TTP has proved its skill and reach to deliver devastating psychological blows wherever it wishes. TTP sympathisers and facilitators seem to be present in every corner of the country, not just in the wilderness of the tribal areas. Whether we like to believe it or not, we now live in a state of war and our enemy neither believes in human rights nor respects the Geneva Convention. Our national existence is not threatened from the outside; rather it is endangered from the cancerous blood cells that visit all the organs of the body. It is time to take tough decisions and to draw clear lines to identify and isolate our enemy, who camouflages himself misusing Islam and imposes terror in the name of Shariah.
The writer is a freelance columnist. He can be contacted at [email protected]