Standing Up to Taliban
By Mehr F Husain
March 7, 2014
THE OBJECTIVES Resolution 1949 is the starting point of when the poisonous mixture of religion and politics was concocted and it served as the basis for the Pakistani Constitution.
Since then the State has been a crippled entity, powerless and submissive, as Pakistanis have suffered horrible fates often resulting in death regardless of sect, ethnicity or class.
Death justified in the name of religion has become an all too common an occurrence and the faraway once upon- a- threat of Talibanisation has become an ugly reality even in the capital city of Islamabad. The powerlessness of the State to contain the Taliban has caused a new group to form, indicating that the TTP may not be the only menace in the country.
Right- wing Islamists and Taliban sympathisers in the government and terrorists festering in outlawed groups have influenced policy making since Pakistan’s inception which has included not just rooting the constitution in religion but also marginalising a particular sect. And today, allowing terrorists to conduct their activities on a mass scale targeting evert segment of society and institution. For far too long, the death toll has risen at an alarming rate with numbers adding up as nameless faces have lined hospitals and filled graveyards.
But now it seems that one face from each tragedy crops up one face as a symbolic reminder of what was meant to be yet remains an unfulfilled dream.
ON AN institutional level, it started with the attacks on the State in terms of targeting secular politicians — the most famous being Benazir Bhutto and then Shahbaz Bhatti, the Christian politician who was the only elected member of the Cabinet and Minister for Minorities followed by several other politicians targeted mostly for their anti- TTP stand. Next up was the military with the most recent attack consisting of the murders of the 23 FC soldiers who had been kidnapped a few years back. Then the media came under fire eventually resulting in publications like the Express Tribune which were cowed into silence by refusing to publish anything against the TTP due to targeted attacks against their journalists.
And recently on Monday, came an attack by a new, splinter group of the TTP on a local court in Islamabad resulting in 11 deaths, including a Judge, and injury to many others.
But it is on this societal level that attacks by the TTP have resulted in personalising Pakistan’s war against terrorism.
Ibtihaj, the 11- year- old Hazara child, was attacked on an ethnic basis and lost most of his family in the attacks in Mastung.
Aitzaz Hasan, the Shia student from Hunza, attended and fought for a school which was targeted because of its Shia student body. Fizza Malik the lawyer, one of the victims of the attack on the judiciary on Monday in Islamabad, represented the urban, middle class. And, of course, Malala the schoolgirl who was attacked, proving that not even Pashtuns were safe from the madness of the TTP despite residing in the north. Alive or dead, each one of them has been burdened with being immortalised as a symbol of the struggle for their respective fight for hope, bravery and progress despite their sect, ethnicity and class.
State, media, military, judiciary, civil society — the TTP have shown an indifference to each one, attacking independently but viewing them all as a whole entity labelling it as the enemy.
Those who cry out for war being the solution with dealing with the TTP need to realise that Pakistan is already at war, an unofficial one but war is war. This recent attack on the judiciary in the country’s capital city ought to be the defining moment when the government pushes for efforts to contain and control this war. Given all that Pakistan has been subjected to, how the ideological battle has turned into a bloodbath, this war- affected society still manages to produce stoic youngsters who try to live a normal life which consists of attending school, pursuing a career and just staying alive.
While the TTP may be the ones with might bullying their way into the public sphere via violence, that certainly does not mean that they are in the right.
It is these young ones who are in the right as they do not just represent peaceful resistance but also a way of existence which consists of education and progress. And this is why their future is the one that the TTP aims to destroy. May more of our young, mighty ones survive to tell the tale so future generations can learn and may our dead ones’ sacrifice never be forgotten.
Mehr F Husain is a Pakistani journalist based in Lahore
Source: Mail Today
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-terrorism-jihad/standing-up-taliban/d/56028