What to do after the Multan blast?

A bomb blast in Multan rocked the
city of saints last Sunday, killing at least 10 people and injuring dozens more. Among those who survived, their are many who have lost their arms or legs, eyes or ears, rendering them permanently disabled, dependent on others for the rest of their lives. Will they ever be able to forget what happened to them at the bus stand? Past this week, I am sure all of us will.
What about the families of the wounded? They endure the trauma too, an injury of a different kind that does not inflict physical wounds but hurts just as much, if not more. We will not remember them either. Five days from today, I bet we will just count the dead bodies and move on with our lives while the fact remains that some survivors stay in the hospital for weeks or months after the incident. And when they leave, they leave in a wheelchair, to be pushed by someone else for the years to come. Have you ever thought about them?
As a nation, we do very little, if anything, to acknowledge their contribution in this war. No one talks about their lives after the attack or their discharge from the hospital. How do they survive? How are they treated by the government, by their friends and by society? Imagine if you are the sole provider of a family with four school going children, your parents living with you and you lose your right arm. Without your income and without the government’s assistance, how long will it take your family to fall apart? Who is going to educate the children and how are you going to make the two ends meet? These questions, however relevant, slip our minds. We always remember the children of Peshawar in our prayers, which we should. However, the people who can in fact benefit from something more than prayers, we tend to disregard them and ignore their deprivation.
That is why I think it is time for us to recognise the disabled citizens and their families as the real heroes of the war on terror. No, I do not think those who have passed away have offered less to the country. Of course, they have sacrificed their most important asset, their lives, for their mother nation, which cannot be undermined. However, the slow death that kills the disabled takes the suffering of martyrs to another level. I think it is the obligation of the government to provide assistance, both financial and social to affected families as an integral part of its ongoing efforts to curb terrorism. Can the government do this alone? Surely not. Civil society has to step up too. NGOs need to make this a priority to raise awareness. And the media has to stop chasing Ayyan Ali and follow some real people, people who suffer even today from an attack that occurred in 2008.
I understand that if the terrorists had attacked the city five years ago, like they targeted Lahore and Peshawar, we would have just thought of it as the price every nation has to pay for supporting the US-led war on terrorism. Back then, it was widely understood that the jihadists attacked their fellow believers because somehow Pakistanis had not resisted their ruler’s decision enough for becoming a US ally in the war against terror. And by doing so they have become accomplices, betraying their Muslim brothers and endorsing the ‘crusade’ unleashed upon them. Should their cowardice not be dealt with accordingly? Should their society be considered Islamic at all? These meaningless and shallow arguments have plagued us for years, sweeping moral justification away from people in favour of the jihadists who were portrayed by some enthusiasts as ‘freedom fighters’, a freedom fight in Pakistan for a war that was fought in Afghanistan, Iraq or Palestine. Under those ambiguous circumstances, people who have died or were left disabled were not regarded as martyrs, not even human beings; they were considered just as collateral damage, the loss one has to incur to obtain the higher objective.
Things are not the same anymore though. After the failure of negotiations and the Peshawar massacre, the terrorists have lost their ‘moral authority’ if one ever existed. Indeed, it would not be too wrong to say the war is not debated on religious grounds anymore at all. It is now a war against criminal gangs that have taken up arms against the state and its people: men, women, children, old, young, sick and healthy. Have you met anyone recently who wants to negotiate a peace deal? People say: find them, try them and kill them. Even the most outspoken proponent of negotiations, Imran Khan, keeps quiet over this issue although it remains uncertain if he agrees with the use of force. For years, he stood against it but, as a populist, he understands how not to exasperate people’s opinions even if he does not understand how to end an insurgency or how to quell a rebellion.
So, what should be the response of the provincial and the federal government now? Sheepish like before, pleading for the Taliban to spare Punjab, as Shahbaz Sharif did in 2009, explaining to them that both the PML-N and the Taliban stand against protecting the US’s interests in the region? Or should the government reassure people that it really is committed to eradicating violence in the name of religion? I do not think appeasement is a policy that can help the PML-N any longer. Areas of Punjab need as big an operation as the one in Karachi. Would it muster enough courage though? I doubt that. The Chief Minister (CM) is too busy running around and messing up power projects, one after another. The heroes of Multan will not grab his attention. They will be forgotten after a couple of emotional speeches.

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