Daily Times

First and foremost, I want to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you who read and appreciated the write up from last week. I am truly humbled and honoured. Your feedback here, via e-mails and on Twitter, is extremely valuable; please keep it coming.
Moving on, what has transpired is not surprising at all. The ‘committees’ are playing their ‘look busy’ games. The love, affinity and the camaraderie of the members are being highlighted by the media. One of the members of the Taliban’s intermediary committee, none other than Maulana Abdul Aziz of Lal Masjid fame, has become the darling of the media. Every night he can be seen in the prime time slot on various channels, expressing his views in the light of religion. I know some of us, including myself, suffer from amnesia every now and then and forget that, at the peak of that conflict, our respected Maulana had issued edicts against our military as well. I think, if my poor memory serves me right, there was the threat that the ill-fated mosque at that time had plenty of food supplies and ammunition, including ‘fidayeens’ (soldiers), who were ready to respond. The archives of newspapers from 2007 are available for folks who are a bit rusty on that bloody episode, right in the middle of our federal capital. Whatever happened there was extremely unfortunate. Perhaps very fortunate for Maulana sahib who was acquitted by our respected courts, on all counts. Praise the Lord.
Now, the respected Maulana sahib has an issue with the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan not being Islamic enough. Hmm. He has made his rounds to the local bar councils and has found that most of the laws in effect were derived from British laws. What an insult to the Muslims of the Islamic Republic that, for the last 66 years, they have been following the laws of Christians. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have given their 15 demands to the government’s team, where demand number two states “introduce sharia law in the courts”, and demand number 14 says dictates, “replace democratic system of governance with the Islamic system”. A very minor detail for the Maulana and the rest but, as questionable and imperfect the constitution may be, it is the law of the land — an edifice on which this poor republic rests on.
All of a sudden, the ‘soft’ image building of the Taliban is being shown. Not so amazingly, the narrative from their side is being portrayed to give the impression that it is all about an Islamic system. So, all these people who were killed in mosques, churches, shrines, military bases and markets or beheaded in the captivity of our dear Taliban must have impeded the enforcement of an Islamic system. It is such a ludicrous statement that it is not even worth wasting your breath on.
The psychological war on the electronic front is also on. The people are being prepared for the inevitable. By invoking the religion angle, the clever strategists at the TTP’s end have played a masterstroke. A very dear friend recently sent me the online link of a Canadian programme where a Pakistani Canadian analyst, Mr Arshad Mehmood, very aptly described the situation. I second his perhaps unpopular yet very straight and blunt opinion. A majority of Pakistanis are “closet Taliban”. The reason is plain and simple: most of us have a very bigoted view of the rest of the world and, for that matter, even about our fellow countrymen who perhaps belong to another sect or school of thought, language, complexion, region or religion.
I agree with Mr Mehmood that ‘Talibanisation’ or extremism is not a new phenomenon; it has been growing and permeating in the collective psyche of the entire country for decades. Because it is not a single group or an organisation, it is the malignant mindset. There is no end in sight to this madness. Once you start your journey on this path, return is impossible. Every country has a liberal and conservative sphere, where ideological discourse and its pendulum swings, based on different issues. The conservatives here have a very narrow worldview and their jingoism and passion revolves either around honour or religion. The so-called liberals, who provide an alternative viewpoint, are shunned as either ‘fascists’, atheists or foreign agents. Very sadly, and oddly, most conservatives see the Taliban as their saviours, on some sort of a holy mission.
I have said this in the past and I will repeat it here: It is our defeatist mentality that transforms a grave wrong into a make-believe right. Seeking heroes in murderous thugs is against the tenets and teachings of our faith. No matter what justification is provided for their heinous actions, those actions do not pass the smell test. The poisonous ideology of hate, murder, mayhem and destruction is flashed as a statement against this ‘corrupt’, ‘inefficient’ and ‘adopted’ system of Jews and Christians. Somehow, these laws work well in their countries. The fact of the matter is not because the laws belong to any religion per se — it is all about ‘implementation’ stupid.

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