Daily Times

“You never believed in the meaning of this world, and you, therefore, deduced the idea that everything was equivalent and that good and evil could be defined according to one’s wishes. You supposed that, in the absence of any human or divine code, the only values were those of the animal world — in other words, violence and cunning. Hence, you concluded that man was negligible and that his soul could be killed, that in the maddest of histories, the only pursuit for the individual was the adventure of power and his own morality, the realism of conquests.” – Albert Camus

Zainab was seven years old. She was kidnapped, raped, killed, and her body was dumped by the road side. She could be anyone’s child. She is dead. She is gone.

Zainab is not the first victim of this kind of bestiality in the area. There were others. Emaan Fatima, Fauzia, Noor Fatima, Ayesha Asif, Laiba, Sana Umar and Kainaat Batool, ranging from a little over four years to eleven years, were all kidnapped, raped and dumped.

Since we have a short memory, Kasur is the same town where, about two years ago, a massive child sex scandal was unearthed when about 400 children were found to have been raped and their videos mass-circulated. A PMLN parliamentarian was the ring leader. Political expediency held sway and the matter was rubbished as land dispute.

This is also the same city where, in 2014, a Christian couple, after being dragged while tied to a tractor, was burnt to death.

When people came our protesting against the heinous crime Zainab had been subjected to, police took to their guns, killing two and injuring many others.

It is a matter of abject shame that we are publicly discriminating among our people on the basis of their religious identity. It is as if these people are not humans. They belong to another species. Only Muslims are humans. Others are not, and they should be degraded and abused in every conceivable manner. This culture of hate is being systematically orchestrated, nurtured and vigorously promoted from all available platforms to the detriment of the state. This is Pakistan’s real and existential crisis

The Chief Minister of the province did not have the courage to face the people in daylight, this in a town where all five sitting MNAs and eight out of ten sitting MPAs belong to his party. So, like a dacoit, he visited Zainab’s parents in the thick of the night, duly accompanied by a cameraman to record the event for posterity.

Palpable fear hangs over Bulley Shah’s Kasur. Parents are scared of sending their children out — even to schools.

There are all kind of weird theories being projected through the media, the most glaring being the one pinning the entire blame on the parents and absolving the sitting government and its perpetrators of any responsibility.

Few, if any at all, have the courage to talk of the real reasons contributing to the degradation of the societal fabric which is virtually hanging in there by the most tenuous of threads.

This expanding malaise is reflected in Zainab’s tragedy itself with her father raising objection about the head of the Joint investigation Team (JIT) on the premise that he is an alleged Ahmedi. I was pained to hear this. I don’t know who this person is. I am also not aware of his integrity, competence or capability. But these are not the reasons for the objection. His crime is that he is an Ahmedi and, therefore, not worthy of conducting an enquiry. My pain increased further at the alacrity with which the Chief Minister of the province ordered his replacement.

It is a matter of abject shame that we are publicly discriminating among our people on the basis of their religious identity. It is as if these people are not humans. They belong to another species. Only Muslims are humans. Others are not, and they should be degraded and abused in every conceivable manner. This culture of hate is being systematically orchestrated, nurtured and vigorously promoted from all available platforms to the detriment of the state. This is Pakistan’s real and existential crisis.

Since 1947, there has never been any concerted effort to create an equitable, egalitarian and sustainable foundation for the fledgling edifice. There has been an abundance of religiosity and an eagerness to claim one’s share of the largesse that has been disbursed with impunity by the state through methods grossly foul. Perpetually mired in corruption, these methods have only grown more gruesome over seven decades to promote the myopic self-interest of a few who cheat their way to positions of power.

Is there anyone who has the courage to talk about the way we have raped this country and denuded it of the moral rationale of its creation? These rapists have come wearing different hues and shades, but they have all done the same thing: skin the state of its riches and let it hang in there as a virtual skeleton shorn of even the barest minimum to hide its shame.

The institutions have become convenient tools for the rulers to legitimise their plunder spree. These dilapidated structures stand as living examples of how mercilessly the foundations of the state have been hollowed by the marauding lust of a few who wanted to hoist their respective family oligarchies as the perpetual ruling elite of the country.

This lack of morality has now penetrated all segments of the society. In the process, people have begun to indulge in their own kind of loot and plunder. They lay a claim to this right on a par with the ruling elite, resorting to all kind of disreputable mechanisms to indulge their whims and fancies. What happened to Zainab is nothing but a reflection of this contemptible degradation that has spread through all layers of the society.

We have also developed a nagging penchant of dealing only with select manifestations of the malady that afflicts us, be it our endeavour against the spreading tentacles of religiosity, terror, crime, radicalisation, militancy or such other degenerative ailments that afflict the body politic.

But these ailments are not static. These have a dynamic of their own. While we can hope to continue using them to advance our objectives, these ailments keep multiplying to be used by others to their advantage also. This is how the evil has spread.

It is not that this evil has not been known. The real issue is that there is no effort to eliminate it because it is a convenient tool in the hands of the ruling elite to spread fear among a hapless people who become cheap fodder for the manipulators. The gross sufferance of the ordinary folks has only multiplied with time, so has the frequency of them resorting to unsavoury methods to satiate dormant frustrations and have their revenge on a society that forces them to survive on the throw-away morsels of the privileged.

Zainab’s sufferance is not her alone. The whole country burns in its ravaging ferocity. It is a moment of collective shame. The rampaging corruption of the ruling elite, deepening tentacles of religiosity and the ugly divides and divisions created within the society are the demons bedevilling Pakistan entering the arena of peace and enlightenment.

The writer is a political and security strategist, and heads the Regional Peace Institute — an Islamabad-based think tank. Email: raoofhasan@hotmail.com. Twitter: @RaoofHasan

Published in Daily Times, January 16^th 2018.