Daily Times

Apparently, there has been this deafening silence from the usual noisy quarters on our turf, which at least is worth a mention. The silence I am referring to is from the noise makers who get riled up on every drone strike and create a lot of hue and cry. Not a single year goes by, when a Yaum-e-Kashmir, Yaum-e-Takbeer, Yaum-e-Quds and Yaum-e-whatever is not celebrated without loud mouth chants and utmost fury. As I have said earlier, it is a good money making franchise because it involves the sentimental value of struggle of Muslims against non-Muslims. You can make solid pitches for donations or human resources as you are getting the faithful ready for the much-touted ‘Armageddon’. For the record, perhaps for the umpteenth time, I am not defending any drone strikes. In my opinion, they are deplorable, immoral and questionable. The tactic of guerilla warfare, which is a staple of the terrorists, cannot be reciprocated by sovereign and law abiding states.

The indifference that I am referring to is the ongoing bloodbath in Syria and Egypt. Each week the situation in both countries is worsening and the civil war is gaining momentum at full throttle. Thousands of people have been killed. The gruesome images on social media of the ‘Muslim on Muslim’ violence are terrifying and extremely depressing. But the usual quarters here are silent on these incidents because any such massacres are brushed off as the ‘internal affairs’ of these countries or if nothing else, then branded as a ‘grand conspiracy’ of the western world against Muslims and given some lip service. The usual conspiracy mantra gains momentum and a cobweb of confusion is crafted, without fail.

No one dares to mention the role of the Muslim players internally and externally around these horrifying ordeals. It is downright pathetic of the entire Muslim world to watch this whole saga unfold and witness the unnecessary loss of life and property. The gifted analysts and strategists who come up with a grand ‘invisible’ and ‘evil’ plan behind every disaster are perhaps busy deconstructing those plans layer by layer. Each day people are dying on the streets of Syria and Eqypt at the hands of their own people.

One often wonders, in all these years, has mankind learned any lesson from the past and the history of the world? Perhaps not. The conflict is mostly about power, territory or resources. Need I say more as the story of the Pharaohs in the Holy Books is so crystal clear about their pathetic end? Or in recent times, all the characters that wielded so much influence around their people are nowhere to be found. Time and its ruthless pit have swallowed all those so-called demigods.

The lust for power, influence and wealth are here, perhaps from time immemorial. The people rarely learn from history. The death toll in the Syrian civil war according to some estimates has exceeded 100,000 and for Egypt approximately 800 people have perished in recent weeks. The Obama administration has finally decided to take notice of the worsening situation in Syria and has decided to send the right signals. One may understand President Barack Obama’s reluctance to engage the US in an additional conflict in the Middle East in the backdrop of the disastrous pretext of the Iraqi invasion. But with utmost respect to the Commander-in-Chief, that signal is 100,000 lives too late. The Assad regime has decided to let the UN inspectors in Syria to trace the probable use of chemical weapons. To the respected President Assad Junior, isn’t it a bit too late, sir?

Turning towards volatile Egypt where the once dubbed ‘Arab spring’ has transformed into a ‘bloody summer’ for the people, as the Grand Military decided to stage a coup against a legitimately elected president. As mentioned earlier, the concept of democracy and democratic norms is foreign to us. It will require perhaps decades to take root and be nurtured within our tumultuous and rather hostile world.

You do not need to be a genius to figure out that there are certain powers within the Muslim world behind a great deal of these conflicts. It is an internal conflict that is playing out in such a shameful and ruthless manner. When people point fingers at the western world, implicate and entangle it in some sort of ‘grand conspiracy, I am bewildered at their simplicity. When two forces are hell bent on eliminating one another, they will always find suppliers who are willing to give them the arms to carry out their agenda. As insensitive it may sound, but war itself is a business that requires products to execute the mission. Too bad, the products related to this business are extremely lethal and detrimental to mankind.

The need of the hour for the Muslim world is to take stock of its situation. We are headed towards an abyss so rapidly that there is very little hope of survival or redemption. We are all bound to go as per our belief but a legacy of leaving the world a bit better than how we found it is far better than the mess we are creating for the rest of the world and ourselves.

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