Daily Times

The macabre terrorist outburst obliterating about 100 citizens in merely four days, starting from last Sunday, has once again spiked concerns about the mounting chaos and catastrophe confronting us. Swept away in these blasts were soldiers serving at a spot abutting the army citadel, pilgrims returning from their soulful trips, vaccinators who had vowed to vanquish the polio virus and ordinary folk following their daily routines, unmindful of their tragic end. The raids also raked up memories of 50,000 other compatriots, including over 5,000 soldiers and security personnel already swallowed up, and over $ 60 billion drained from the tottering national economy. They have shredded confidence in the safety of our streets, homes, offices, schools and the sites, rites and venues of our worship, funerals and internments. Even shrines and sepulchres of several popular Sufi saints, revered for centuries, have been vandalised. The gloom, grief and uncertainty have thus driven the masses to a desperate quest for some immediate and effective salve for deliverance as neither the government nor their valiant armed forces have mounted any concerted or veritable defence against the deadly menace stalking their survival, livelihood, future and posterity.

The government, particularly its federal and frontier dispensations, plagued with a pervasive scepticism about its sympathies and ambivalence towards extremists, seems to appease and coddle the perpetrators rather than protect the people from them. Ever since their coming to power, they have been dangling the drama and diatribe of a dialogue with the terrorists despite a relentless rise in their ravages. This strategy, as seen by the bitter fate and failure of previous accords and dialogues when governments were on a relatively far stronger pitch, has evidently baffled every saner circle. It is inevitably destined to even more doom as dialogue, according to entire established wisdom, logic and realities, has always favoured the dominant forces in the fight. However, this government’s clout to counter or control the terrorist onslaught has now been shown to be miserably tattered.

The terrorists are evidently quite capable of cracking, countering or circumventing any spying and security tropes thought to have been erected to thwart them, select and strike their targets almost at will and flaunt their success and responsibility with impunity. Any obsequious imploring for a dialogue by an indecisive government incapable of mounting an effective deterrence is thus bound to boomerang, eroding the constitution and the collective national will, verve and the resolve to work with the modern world.

The reluctance of the army to take on these few thousand militants, despite being acclaimed as the seventh largest world force, is even more perplexing. Protecting the people from external and internal threats apparently has been the real cause and quintessential reason for the creation and maintenance of the army. This terrorist curse, however, seems to cloud this rationale, as the human and material toll taken by it surpasses several hundred times the total sum sacrificed in all the engagements against India, which is claimed to be the main threat justifying defence expenditure far exceeding what can be spared from the national revenue and resources. Still, their reasons for restraint, perhaps, may be quite intricate and compelling. In the ultimate strategic wisdom and analysis, they may even be far more fruitful to our grand glorious global future being perceived by our praetorian lords. The prospects of the putative splendour of strategic sprawls in newer lands may also be equally enchanting to some megalomaniac swaths but the general population, buffeted by bewildering bouts of terror, has to contend with the fact that their armed forces have not actually moved to crush the terrorists who were once so fondly bred as an enviable asset to our strategic ascent.

Disillusioned and defenceless, ditched in a hellish gyre of gore, grenades and bombs, they have but to besiege the Lord for His infinite mercy, might and intervention for their deliverance. Allah, in fact, is the only solace, source and support for the sufferings of a country that was so fervently believed to be run by Him, the US and the army. The US now has been so adamantly ostracised for any action against the terrorists on this territory and the army itself has also not obliged.

Seeking Allah’s support through extensive and effective invocations and evocations thus has to be organised on an elaborate national scale. Aamils or saintly professionals marvellously proficient in the divination, conjuring and realigning of the supernatural and celestial forces to alter, amend and redirect the normal course of physical phenomena and calamities and the dictates of destiny, fate and the future, thus appear to be our only option for this purpose. Pakistan, fortunately, is abundantly endowed with these miracle makers. Our silver screens, print media, ad brochures and graffiti on the streets, office walls and intercity transport routes show how these veterans can bring back lost love, melt the most stone hearted idols, flush out the deadliest family feuds, fracas and litigation, cure the most malignant inflictions and tame the most relentless and intractable enemies. The djinns commanded by some of them can even conquer mountains.

Their talent and potential, however, have so far been scattered, catering only to the relief or fulfilment of their clients and thus have to be coordinated and consolidated to combat this havoc on a collective national basis. Special cadres and conclaves of the aamils for this purpose would have to be knit at the street, city, district, provincial and federal levels. The impact and power of their prayers and incantations can be exponentially enhanced through proper synchronisation just as the gentle harmless rays of light are turned into giant laser power just through their proper collation and collimation. Special television sessions for collective invocations led by eminent aamils can be scheduled where a wider part of the nation can chime in as the devotees are seen lilting to the lectures and lamentations of various televangelists. Special squads, similarly, can be deputed with the police to plug in the unbound ambit of their hexes to incapacitate explosives before they hit the victims.

Such celestial intervention actually is not quite unknown to us. Some of our 1965 war accounts, for instance, related how some saintly bearded beings, in green glimmering raiment, were seen floating around in the air, deflecting and busting incoming enemy bombs with their bare hands. We were thus blessed with a celestial anti-missile patriotic system long before its material versions emerged in the US. The probability of these narratives actually nudged the US’s designs, of course, which has not yet been researched. Still, they reveal how the power of prayers, supplication and evocations, has been believed to transcend material means and support. Organising our aamils to actuate this power and defence thus must become our new focus to flush out terrorism.

The writer is an academic and freelance columnist. He may be contacted at habibpbu@yahoo.com