Daily Times

Many Pakistanis – rather an overwhelming majority of them – were ashamed of what had happened to Piryantha Kumara. We also hanged our head in shame when Governor Salman Taseer was murdered by his security guard, Mashaal was brutally beaten to death within the premises of his University and a Christian couple set ablaze. We were also ashamed of the brutal killing of two young boys in Sialkot a decade or so ago.

We were also ashamed when a talented daughter of this helpless nation with bright prospects as an artist, painter, and calligrapher – Noor Mukadam – was brutally beheaded. We mourned these deaths, loathed the perpetrators of the crimes, simmered with anger, talked of the hydra-headed monstrosities of class hatred, religiosity, and the inhumanity that has poisoned our society, and toxified the mind of our people.

This helpless mourning continued for some time without spurring us into action to stem this madness and receded into the archives of our bitter reminiscences which no one wants to recall. We moved on to battle the new exacting challenges of life with the torturing awareness that all these brutal murders have taken a heavy toll on our nation tarnishing its image labeling it as an unruly crowd of angry, intolerant, and fanatic people, and depicting the land we live in as the most dangerous place.

We have not come to this pass all of a sudden. This class hatred, this religious fanaticism, this inhumanity existed, somewhat rarely, in the lands that constituted the federal structure of the new country. The rule of law, equality before the law, and stable law and order had secured various segments of the society, maintaining inter-faith harmony and equilibrium between sectarian factions. We inherited these secular laws and followed them for some good years keeping in check the religious bigotry.

We have sunk our country into a cesspool of foreign debts. We borrow and feed the elite and VIP culture.

After the overthrow of the legitimate Bhutto Government, General Zia, in a bid to create a constituency for his unlawful rule, began the haphazard Islamisation of laws of the country; sparking the dormant sectarian hostilities. For the recognition of his dictatorship by the West, he plunged the country into the American jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He mobilised certain religious factions and their seminaries for the recruitment of mujahidin and channelised the massive US and Saudi funds to them along with Afghan rebel leaders. The genie of religiosity once out of the proverbial bottle rapidly overwhelmed the society in his 11-year rule.

This religious laissez-faire attracted certain Muslim countries to fund and arm the sectarian factions promoting or securing their distinct faith. The violent sectarian demonstrations and bloody clashes have since been mocking the state writ and shaking hollow its very foundations. No subsequent civilian or military government has dared cull or cage this hydra-headed monster. Our state presents the picture of what the European countries looked like during the thirty years of the religious war from 1618-48.

We have a massive young population without proper education and skills and no hope for the future. The aristocracy– feudal and landed gentry, spiritual leaders and their sajadahnashins, civil and military bureaucracy–succeeded in capturing the state power and resources soon after the demise of the founder of the country and designed governing structures and state laws that helped keep intact their power and privileges and impose self-perpetuating apartheid in every sphere of national life -education, healthcare, neighborhood, travel, policing, court and law chambers and jails, jobs, trade; leaving the poor to bear the miseries of poverty and powerlessness, and the indignities slapped on them by the oppressive state laws and officials every day and every moment with simmering anger and hatred.

This anger is manifested in the hatred of the powerless against the powerful; poor against the rich; the worker against the worked for; the rugged against the well-dressed; the pedestrian against the car owner, the labourer against the manufacturer, and vice versa. One feels as if the whole society is sitting on a powder keg and needs a slight spark to explode. What contribution could we expect from the people faced with such social and economic asphyxia in building a healthy society? Their anger and hatred are exploited by clever religious and political demagogues for their ulterior motives.

The state is fighting its own battle of survival in the face of growing competition among its organs and institutions for more power, privilege, and share in-state resources. They owe their creation, powers, and perks to the aristocratic governing structures and state laws and are inherently against any change in the status quo. The governments find themselves helpless without the support of all the institutions of national power to initiate the long-overdue process of social and economic reforms and equitable distribution of state resources, thereby lifting the poor from the current social and economic asphyxia, reducing the powers and perks of the elite and doing away with the curse of VIP culture.

We have sunk our country into a cesspool of foreign debts. We borrow and feed the elite and VIP culture. We borrow and subsidize sick public sector enterprises. We replenish our foreign exchange reserves with remittances of Pakistani workers or dole-outs by friendly states and let our import bill inflate. We gauge our prosperity by the import of luxury vehicles, costly mobile phones, and the consumption of petrol. We ban the production, sale, and consumption of alcohol, but cannot stop the massive smuggling of luxury liquor by aristocrats. We cannot feed our people, and dare to have any population planning. We talk of Madina state but garland fanatic murders.

We are failing collectively to value our independence. We are failing to live within our means as a nation of honour and dignity. We are failing to rid our society of social, economic, and political contradictions and religious and sectarian extremism. We put up with corruption, hoarding, profiteering as the new normal of life, and tolerate many states within the state. Yet, we have a delusion of survivability.

The author was a member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan and he has authored two books.