Daily Times

Being mortals, we all live to die one day and be forgotten. But a few among us die to live forever and to be always eulogised. For them death is only a transition, a tunnel that ends in immortality. They are our real heroes, the martyrs (shaheed), who cross the great divide fighting for their country with honour or lose their lives to protect their faith or meet their Lord resisting the tyranny of a brutal regime. For their courage they are therefore considered living even after they have passed away a long time ago and are held in high esteem, especially in the Muslim world.

As the idea of eternity associated with the sacrifice of martyrs is so unique and precious, the term shaheed we always thought had to be used sparingly. Only those people who had served their nations indisputably, having displayed a flawless character throughout their lives should therefore be venerated with that title. However, realising the realities of modern times when the quality of every product made in Pakistan is going down the drain and adulteration is becoming a virtue, the quality of our shuhada (martyrs) has also been badly compromised. People with controversial and in some cases even a criminal past, who were killed under dubious circumstances, are also blatantly referred to as martyrs. World renowned terrorists like Osama bin Laden, the founder of al Qaeda and the person responsible for 9/11, also becomes a shaheed. At another time the leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsood is pronounced a martyr. Yet another time, shamefully though, the gang leader of organised crime, Rehman Baloch, alluded to be the Pakistani version of Robin Hood, has been proclaimed as a soldier of justice after he was killed in a police encounter. Worst of all, military dictators, mass murderers and traitors are also proclaimed as freedom fighters, honest professionals and great patriots in both the electronic and print media.

The injudicious and disputable use of the term ‘martyrdom’ in many Asian countries became more popular when some politicians were either assassinated or killed unjustly after a judicial trial. In response, their supporters, to make their point and show their resolve, arbitrarily referred to the unnatural and conspiratorial death of their leaders as shahadat (martyrdom). Sympathetic and understanding of their loss, neither civil society nor religious scholars objected to their indiscreet use of the term as a political slogan. The last victim of such an event was the leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, Benazir Bhutto, who lost her life in a suicide attack after a public rally in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007. Today, she lies in her ancestral town next to her father in a huge mausoleum with hundreds of visitors every day and is remembered as the ‘princess’ by the local population. Nevertheless, we also have to take into account that almost all politicians are divisive; if half of the people love them, the other half dislike their policies. Calling them martyrs is therefore tricky and many times misleading as even their supporters may believe that even though politicians are struggling for the betterment of the country, they will personally benefit from it by coming into power long before any of their policies would benefit the people.

However, the phenomenon of aggrandizement of the death of public figures falls into an abyss when by demonstrating extreme insensitivity towards our constitution — which in general has become our national trademark — we add General Ziaul Haq to the list of martyrs. I know some of his supporters still believe that since he was wearing the uniform on the day his plane crashed and as he was performing an official task for the defence of Pakistan, it can be argued that he, the worst dictator in the history of Pakistan, actually had passed away in the line of duty. Then his role in the Afghanistan war after the invasion of Soviet Army, which was theoretically going to attack and capture Pakistan to get access to warm waters, can only be commended. No civilian leadership would have been so effective and focused in running a successful jihad policy as the military dictator who usurped power after ousting the democratically-elected prime minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. On the one hand, the military command had to support the war in Afghanistan and on the other, the grip on foreign policy had to be kept tight for tough and ‘meaningful’ negotiations with the United States. It all happened because one coherent policy was followed by us that eventually led to the defeat and disintegration of the USSR.

On superficial analysis these explanations may seem true. But deep down everyone knows about the illegitimacy of General Zia’s rule, the fraud he carried out in the name of Islam, the deception in the form of a presidential referendum to extend his rule, and the chicanery through general elections and coercion to pass the eighth constitutional amendment to provide him a legal cover. From the abrogation of the constitution to the trial of Bhutto and from the public lashing of political workers to the exile of Benazir Bhutto, all his actions should be strongly rebuked by Pakistanis across the board.

Regarding the incident of August 17, 1988, on that day we all know General Zia was not supposed to be wearing that uniform, it was someone else’s right. He had no ‘official’ business to conduct as he should have retired a long time ago but he was clinging to power using illegal means. His presence in the plane denoted the lack of the rule of law, a major flaw in our system of might being right. In other words, it can be said that General Zia was an impostor sitting in the plane trying to act as an officer on duty, and to call him shaheed is to dishonour all the people who have ever laid down their lives for a good cause.

The writer is a US-based freelance columnist. He tweets at @KaamranHashmi and can be reached at skamranhashmi@gmail.com