After the murder
From the Blog PkColumnist.com: After the murder - Like the screams of the woman beaten in Swat by the Taliban, which gripped the imagination of the public and transformed an ineffective anti-insurgency operation into a popularly backed full-fledged war against extremists, Salmaan Taseer's murder has had a dramatic impact. It has aroused feelings that are frankly intolerable; so much so that for many those who celebrate or are indifferent to Taseer's murder, are no longer viewed as the kind of people with whom they want to share a country with. There is thus today a sense of 'them or us' that has not existed before. Yesterday's silent majority is today's bitter and dumb minority. Reality has finally overtaken them. They may say little out of fear or remorse but their actions will speak loudly in the months to come. One can guess what the well off amongst them will do. They will be reading up on foreign visa regulations. Interest will pick up in the 'second home' plan that Malaysia has to offer. Their children, if abroad, will be told not to return home, even for holidays. In due course, their houses will be up for sale and the search is probably already on for the hawalawala who will transfer funds without any questions asked. A Hindu fellow citizen said, 'this is the last straw'. As for the not so well off, their wailings will be confined to newspaper columns and a despair that is treated not by hope but dope. Thus far this lot had affected a disdain for debates around issues of religion. It was not a subject that gentlemen discussed. The mullah scarcely mattered in their lives. He was someone that they had to tolerate on Fridays and only because his qutbas were delivered before rather than after prayers. The mullah's prattle had no connection with their world because, if poor, they were preoccupied with securing an income before practicing virtue and, if rich, how better to spend their lucre. As it turns out both the rich and the poor and the weak and the powerful were grievously in error. The mullah means to get their attention even if he has to kill for it, of course, under some religious pretext or the other. The Pakistani elite never fully understood that the war against the TTP was a curtain raiser of what was to follow. And that the war was not merely about regaining control of territory or establishing the writ of the state but rather a deadly serious conflict between two entirely different perceptions of life and versions of Islam. Actually it was a war between two different religions, theirs and that of an adversary, comprising their fellow countrymen; and that the prize was Pakistan. Had they studied history, they would not have left religion in the hands of the mullah because religion has more effect on moulding life than nationalism, the economy or a common language. And that every major question is a religious question. In Europe, for example, it was not until nationalism took on the hue of religion in the 16th and 17th centuries that it made any headway and it was only then that the Holy Roman Empire began to break up. The kings and princes involved in that war had to cry out that the only salvation that existed was within their church and not that of the Pope or Luther before they were able to persuade fellow Germans to kill each other. Much like the Taliban is doing today. They forgot that the motivating factor for the Arab conquests was religion; or that the past and present Persian-Arab divide is due entirely – their other differences were suborned within this cleavage – to their very different versions of Islam, so much so, that one side regarded the other as worse than infidels. Absurdly, they overlooked the obvious, namely, that religion mattered in their own country. Indeed, the very creation of Pakistan was, as it happens, exclusively on account of religion. The fact that Bangladesh exists as a separate country and, at times, as a fiercely anti India entity, reinforces rather than negates the profound impact of religion. Even the Indian 'mutiny' of 1857 had to be given a religious twist before the country rose in revolt. They forgot that when Mustafa Kemal of Turkey rejected religion as the ideology of the state in favour of secularism, he had to fight and win a war against his fellow countrymen and continue to kill those who remained wedded to the old concept. Even the pro-Islamist government that is currently in power has continually to assert that it is not steering Turkey away from secularism. The wearing of the scarf has been made legal in Turkish universities under the aegis of a law guaranteeing such freedom in the present secular constitution. Without Jinnah to guide them, our predecessors buckled to the mullah. But even if they rejected secularism and made Islam the 'grundnorm' of Pakistan, contrary to the advice of the very prescient Suhrawardy, why did they omit to ask the question whose Islam, that of the mullah, who celebrates Taseer's murder, or those who regard it as a heinous crime and itself punishable by death? And now that the question cannot be avoided, shelved or fudged any longer, why are they reposing their trust on those rotund yellow looking, yellow livered politicians who continue sitting on the fence, flirting with one side of the divide while blowing kisses at the other. If they fail to come to their senses, they face a civil war and, like most civil wars, it will divide families and homes, judges, the legislature and the executive; nor will the armed forces remain free, their cant of martial discipline notwithstanding. A violent upheaval, albeit slow in the making, threatens the very existence of this country susceptible as it already is to fissiparous tendencies. Nor will regional and global powers sit back inertly while the country burns. Even as we speak extremists are emerging from their lairs to lead large demonstrations on the streets. Energised by the 'josh' among their ranks, even as embedded an establishment figure as Fazlul Rahman, is abuzz about a revolution in the making. The question often asked by locals, as much as foreigners, is that now that the battle has been joined who will prevail. So will those whose responsibility is to safeguard the state and the fundamental rights of the people finally act? Or have we already embraced the doom assigned by fate? . Read Full Post
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