Daily Times

I was reading the story of a young man in a newspaper, which was an account of the atrocities he suffered at the hands of his captors. People in whose custody Shahbaz Taseer remained for more than four years are not different from brutal butchers of the Roman Empire and medieval times. Beheading, denailing, crucifying and burying alive are gratifications of these maniac genera. Several reports have been published about their sadistic pleasures; they have been exposed by media, and many times by their victims who are fortunate to get a chance of a new life once they are freed of captivity. Expressing things, facts, and figures is on thing, but feelings are directly proportionate to the spiritual link all human beings establish through love. Only those who are possessed by love can undertake the assimilation of gift of human affection, prize, and efficacy. The heart-touching story of the son of Salmaan Taseer will open a new chapter about the character of his abductors, and may be his own too.

More or less, the world is aware of extremists’ bestial manifestations but an eyewitness account authenticates more to their already proven barbarity. The details that came in media show how incredibly difficult it must have been for a man in his late 20s-early 30s to handle the pressure. Many times death must have laughed at him; many times the earth might have opened its mouth; several times he may have experienced hovering vulture-like creatures with their bloodthirsty bullets. But the resilience showed by the courageous man is remarkable. His story seems like a computer game, Hercules, I often watched my children playing when they were younger; one hurdle and another blockade, attacks from all sides, but Hercules remains running to achieve his goal. Is Taseer’s story not the same? Things that happened to him are so horrific they feel almost fictional.

In western countries when people pass through a difficult time, and during the course of that they are so fatigued physically, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually and morally that they take several years to come out of the post-trauma syndrome. They spend years in rehabilitation, and there are some who live their whole lives dependent on anti-depressants. There are certain side effects of situations where people suffer on this scale, and in some cases, they start to suffer from chronic mental diseases. In this film-like story of a real character with real sufferings everything turned on its head. Certainty of death was replaced by certainty of life, the hell of captivity turned into glorious freedom. The will, courage, consistency, hope, devotion of loved ones, wife’s faith, blessings of mother, unending love of siblings, and above all, prayers of family and friends miraculously washed the fog of hopelessness, helplessness, uncertainty, and fear.

There may or may not be any organised search campaign launched for Taseer’s recovery, but there was someone operating behind the scene. The one who is the Creator, who is the Giver of life, who controls our breathing, and who controls the world with unseen strings must be thanked for the blessing He showed to the Taseer family. Another test begins how one acts and reacts after emerging as a free man from such a horrible situation. Newton’s third law of motion is “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” The action was inhuman treatment of a human being who suffered for many years; now he will react too, but as Newton’s law of motion says, it may be in equal and opposite direction. The misery of Taseer was beyond human limits, and the reaction should be beyond limits too, but in opposite direction to what had happened to him. Good versus bad. In the present day Pakistani society of inequality, injustice, murder, rape, robbery, brutality, corruption and nepotism there is a lot of space for good forces to fight against social evils. Taseer should not forget that God may have a purpose for his life — purpose to fight for human rights, rights of workers of brick kilns, housemaids, servants, children, women, minorities. Marginalised sections of society are not less than slaves suffering at the hands of cruel masters, who ignoring all civilized norms of society, insult, dehumanize, disgrace and disfigure.

There should be a clear difference between truth and lies, white and black and good and evil. People who experience bad things learn about the dark side of life, and people who live a good life learn to appreciate the beauty of that makes their lives successful. Shahbaz Taseer saw hell on earth. And for some reason, I have a feeling he will do nothing but good in the world, being able to differentiate between the good and the bad. Shahbaz Taseer is the proud progeny of Salmaan Taseer who laid his life to save a poor Christian woman from a wrongful death. Along with millions of Muslims, Christians have a special kind of love and immense respect for the martyr Salmaan Taseer in their hearts, and for them, his sacrifice has diluted some of the poison of the misuse of the blasphemy laws. I hope and pray that Shahbaz learned the lesson of humility, love and humanity in his captivity, and throughout his life, he will exhibit those lessons in his character like his courageous father.

The writer can be reached at Kaleem.dean@mail.com