So Syed Salahuddin is now a global terrorist. Look who is saying this… Trump… Donald Trump… the president of the United States of America. But wait… so what. Who cares! Who gives America a damn now. Russia, North Korea, Syria and Iran are bullying it. Taliban have already inflicted a humiliating defeat on it.
Just like the beauty, terrorism lies in the eyes of the beholder. The war on terror in the wake of 9/11 has killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. No distinction was made between the children, the women and the elderly; between the combatants and the civilians. (By the way there were no combatants. They were defenders.) Millions of people became homeless. The architects of this war were those who lecture us about human rights, peace, tolerance, etc. They admit now that Iraq had no chemical weapons and they had to concoct false stories because they had to wage the war for the sake of war.
One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. We have seen this phrase changing its meaning. One man’s terrorist is the same man’s beloved! Who? There are many, for example, Gulbadin Hekmatyar. The world is bending over backwards to make the Taliban follow in Hekmatyar’s footsteps. But they are too stubborn. They say first of all vacate our land and only then then we can talk. The US is dying to embrace them but the Taliban are treating it exactly the way Trump’s wife treats him. So, tides can change their directions and who knows, we might one day see Trump embracing Salahuddin at the Oval Office and giving him a peace prize.
I met Salahuddin three times in my life. It is impossible to disagree with some of his arguments. For example, his struggle was democratic and peaceful. The elections were heavily rigged in Kashmir. The atrocities were endless against the Kashmiris and he had no option but to wage an armed freedom struggle. The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution No. 3314 passed in 1974 recognizes and validates the concept of armed struggle for freedom. But lecturing the big powers about international laws, norms and values is like casting pearls before swine. The US attacked Iraq despite the UN’s declaration that the invasion was illegal. So no law is a law before the powerful.
Times have changed now. It is the youth that is protesting in Kashmir, not Salahuddin’s fighters. There is no life in the old dogs
Salahuddin is right in saying that he does not give the US decision a damn. Looking at the development from a different perspective, Trump was an unwise ignorant to label Salahuddin a terrorist and Modi was even a cut above him. Salahuddin is a blank at least for the last 13 years. He has no influence in Kashmir, neither on this side nor across the Line of Control. This so-called global terrorist is so global that if four or five goons occupy his office in Satellite Town Rawalpindi, he can’t evict them by force. A few weeks ago, he was making a passionate appeal that Pakistan should return Hizb’s guns that it had snatched during Musharraf’s regime. The Hizb office is guarded by a weak and feeble man with a thin stick. For Pakistan, Salahuddin is just a liability. The establishment committed the folly of using him once. The experiment failed. His worth is no more than a used teabag. The problem is, the establishment can’t throw him in the trash can. So, there is no other option but to host him till he kicks the bucket. He is clinically dead.
The current wave of uprising in Kashmir is purely indigenous. Kashmiris are the most unfortunate lot on earth. Their woes are genuine, their claim is legal, their struggle is just — they pelt stones at the Indian soldiers and get bullets and pellets in return. The bullets kill them. The pellets damage their eyes for life. The Indian soldiers use Kashmiris as human shields to win awards. In this backdrop, putting global-terrorist-stamp on Salahuddin is like sowing the wind. Modi will soon be reaping the whirlwind. Salahuddin was a dead horse but now he will be galloping in the guise of the Kashmiri youth. Modi or India can have each Kashmiri declared as a global terrorist and put them in jail but they can’t be subjugated. Times have changed now. It is the youth that is protesting in Kashmir, not Salahuddin’s fighters. There is no life in the old dogs.
Since we learn nothing from history, if we are the true friends of Kashmiris, we should not commit the folly of hijacking this wave of uprising. Hope Pakistan will not do so. We are still holding Hafiz Saeed under house arrest!
The writer is an Islamabad-based writer. Facebook.com/writershehzad
Published in Daily Times, July 4th , 2017.