Daily Times

Sometimes you have this feeling that something is very wrong. And you cannot quite pinpoint what is wrong. It could be a multitude of things or just a couple of things happening around you that make you feel like that. That is how I felt when I woke up this morning. Perhaps it was Amjad Sabri’s assassination the night before that made me feel this way. For the last few days I was starting to feel a little worried about the way things were in Karachi. First, an Ahmadi doctor was killed in his clinic, then the son of the Chief Justice of the provincial High Court was abducted, and finally Sabri was murdered. By themselves each one of these incidents was worrisome enough, but that they occurred in a cluster is clearly more than being just worrisome.

It would seem that after all the work done by the Rangers to “clean” Karachi, somebody or somebodies are trying to tell the powers that be that “we”are still around, and can still retaliate at will. It seems to be a proverbial poke in the eye. For somebody who lives in Lahore, it might seem a bit unusual for me to become so worried about Karachi, but there is good reason for feeling like that. It is not that two people were killed just for what they believed, in and a third was abducted for some reason most likely associated with some terrorist’s political purposes. For most of us who live in this country, Karachi was supposed to be the laboratory where the army/Rangers attempt at controlling terrorism was going to be proved effective. Now it seems that all the noise and movement so far has not made much of a difference.

Killing of an Ahmadi just because of his religious beliefs is despicable. But Sabri was also killed for what he believed in. Somewhere along the line the powers that be will have to tackle religious extremismthat breeds terrorism. Unless that is done the scourge of terrorism will not only persist but will also become worse. It is clear that the ruling parties in the centre, in the Punjab and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have neither the will nor perhaps even the inclination to go after religious extremists. Having said that the question then is who in Pakistan can and will do that? Most people will respond to this question by identifying the Pakistan army as the only force capable of making such an effort. Sadly, Karachi tells us that even the army does not have the capability or the perhaps even the desire to go after religious extremists.

As we go through the month of fasting, a period when most Muslims are concentrating on religiosity it would seem that the most “devout” among us would be thinking of things besides killing innocent people. But it seems that for a certain group of “believers” killing people they think of as non-believers takes precedence over expected religious activity. Here I must admit that the cancer of religious extremism that is eating away at our society from within cannot be easily excised. The only way ordinary Pakistanis can at least contain this affliction is by living lives as good Muslims and good human beings. Religious extremists realise that if too many decent people can continue to live decent lives without giving into extremist points of view then extremism cannot thrive. It is for this reason people like Sabri become victims. Sabri was a symbol of the Islam that most Pakistanis believe in and follow. Killing Sabri was an ultimate act of terrorism for the purpose was to terrorise an entire group of Pakistanis. That is why he had to die. Sadly, he is not the first and he is not the last.

When people look at Pakistan from the outside, what they see is the “rising tide” of extremism. Honour killings, sectarian murders, terrorist acts and such. For those of us within the country these acts go on, but at the same time, perhaps an overwhelming majority of Pakistanis still go on living lives that run contrary to what fill the newspaper headlines. And yes, there is this need to blame “hidden hands” or “outside” forces for these acts of terror, but the sad reality is that people responsible for these horrific actions live among us and are a part of our communities. It is true that many religious seminaries breed sectarian hatred and religious extremism, but at the same time, our “normal” schools do much the same. As I have said above, religious extremism is a cancer that cannot be easily excised. But it must be contained.

When the murderer of Salmaan Taseer was executed, the murderer’s burial was attended by thousands of people. If it is any consolation, Sabri’s funeral was probably attended by a lot more people. And many of the attendees realised that they could become victims of terrorist attacks by virtue of being participants in the burial rites. That is an important consideration. For in my opinion the best way we as ordinary citizens can fight back against religious extremists and terrorists is by going on with our lives as we did before terrorist attacks. We must not give into fear, butwe must also be careful because in this fight those that are responsible for our security do not have the ability to protect us.

A question that keeps bothering me is why our politicians and our security forces are so helpless when it comes to identifying and eliminating terrorists and extremists that live in our cities and villages. In the Punjab for instance the police can find and arrest every child that owns or tries to fly a kite, but those walking around with guns and suicide jackets seem to get a free pass. I suppose a child flying a kite is less of a threat to the police than an armed extremist.

The author is a former editor of the Journal of Association of Pakistani descent Physicians
of North America (APPNA)