Is Your Imam addressing Minority Rights Issues?

Like most of the readers of this post I was shocked, disgusted and angry at the Peshawer Church Blast incident; a terrorist attack during Sunday Mass. It is a time when a person is reaching out to God sharing his fears, his worries, his emotions and his secrets. It appears such a natural, private and fundamental right and to imagine that one cannot even have that personal time with God Almighty anymore. Nothing appears a more gruesome manner of threatening the right of life.

I thought I at least ought to hold a vigil to pay my respects to the departed. A mere 40 people joined outside the press club. We lit candles, prayed and said words of protest. Half hour later I realized I was preaching to the converted and though it was necessary to pay respect to those departed, the vigil was a so futile otherwise.

It hit me again that the solution of every problem lies in education. In a Muslim majority country where the minorities are being subjected to endless atrocities how can I get a word about what Islam teaches us to do in terms of minority rights? The answer was simple. The Mosque. The one institution where by a safe measure 90% population of this country is ‘informed’ if not ‘education’ on Islam is the mosque.

I launched a facebook campaign asking friends to visit their local mosques and request their Imams to condemn the Peshawer Blast and talk about minority rights in Islam in their Friday Sermons.  Friday prayers are the biggest weekly congregation of muslims and the best way to interact with every possible class/sector/segment of society.

I got a few positive response but most expressed concern and fear of backlash from the Imam. I could not blame them for feeling discourage. One would never know how the Imam may respond and you may very well be toying with the idea of being possible victim of blasphemy law. Wednesday evening I decided to do the test run myself. I do not offer my prayers regularly so I stayed up the whole night to ensure I make it to Fajr prayers on Thursday. I went to the neighborhood mosque and none of the familiar faces there were willing to come and talk to the Imam with me once they got to know I would ask him to condemn the Peshawar Blast Attack and seek his views on TTP. I sat with the Imam post fajr and tried hard to put the proposition to him in the most mildest manner to judge his reaction. The 30 minute conversation which followed made me try hard to control my frustration and amusement. A request for condemning an attack on a church turned into a debate on America, Taliban, Malala and the Arab Spring. Finally my patience paid be fruit. I found support from an elderly stranger who saw the wisdom in my views and who helped persuade the Imam. In the end he finally agreed to discuss minority rights in Islam in his Jumma Bayan with the condition that he will discuss the rights of the majority too.

Today, I left office my office to offer Jumma in the neighbourhood mosque. I was a little late and joined the Bayan midway. Tried to make my way through the crowd to find a spot in front of the Imam. The Imam noticed me and smiled. A few minutes later he started talking about the concept of Justice in Islam and said that as Muslims we should do justice without discrimination and even if a Non-Muslim is right he should get justice. There was no condemnation of the Peshawer Blast and there was no insight into the actual rights of minorities. I was to a certain extent heart broken and dismayed. I thought perhaps the Imam may bring it up in the Dua at the end. He didn't. The moment the Dua ended I felt the need to address the Imam across the hall and request him to pray for the Minorities and the protection of their worship places. It would definitely have had shock value but it would have also rubbed him the wrong way and I would have lost a medium of communication in him. So I waited for the crowd to clear up and spoke to him in private. He smiled and said "I did try to bring up the issue. Were you hearing?" I clearly did not look convinced to him. I told him "Imam sb what about discussing their rights? I came all the way here to listen to you talk about their rights." He said "I'll go for it next Jumma" and I replied "I will come here to offer prayers next Jumma too then." I learnt and realised that as someone preaching tolerance I need to be tolerant and patient as well. It does not matter how many Jumma it takes, our society.

Quite a few of my friends went to their local mosques to talk to their Imams for a long time. Imams of four different mosques in Defence Karachi happily agreed to discuss the issue.

Below is the relevant clip from today's sermon given by my Imam.

Poetry Meray Leader (Our Impotent Government) - Teen Talwar Dharna Day 2

A poetry on the impotence of the Government and the ignorance of all those Pakistanis not  willing to take part in the Protest actively on the streets. Recited on Day 2 of the Dharna  against Shia/Hazara Genocide.

Meray Leader: (Full Version)

Kia yeh hai tera laho? Ya yeh hai mera laho?
Galiyon main jo ajj beh raha, hai yeh kis ka laho?

Har simt ek cheekho pukaar hai, har gali main bo-qaate ka shor
Kay qaatilon kay haath lag gayi apni zindagi ki dor

Woh jo raat gaye se tak rahi hai raasta apnay chiragh ka
Dar kay bethi hai kay kuch pata nahi halaat ka
Himmat hai toh meray Leader ja kay us maa ko bata
Booriyon say tapak raha hai us kay laal ka laho

Khabie tasveer dekh ker woh hasti hai khabie roti hai
Maa! Baba kab ayen gey subah tak poochti rehti hai
Toh Us kam sin ko yeh kaisay samjhaye ga meray leader
Kay toh Khamosh tha jab zaya hoa us kay baap ka laho

Us Bhuray kay Kaandhay ajj, janaza utha utha kar thak gaye
Jo reh gaye hain zindagi kay chand saal, woh matam kay liye bach gaye
Woh pagal teri galiyon main mara mara phir raha hai meray Leader
Kahin dhoondh na le teri aasteen pay woh apni ulaad ka laho

Abhi kuch hi dino ki baat hai, hum ek general ko bhaga rahay thay
tumharay waadon par takia kar, jhamoriat kay geet ga rahay thay
Hum kam zarfon ko kahan tha itna hosh itni khaber
kay jhamoriat main mehenga hota hai sirf sahib-e-iqtedaar ka laho


Tum bus Committeeyan bana rahay thay, woh lashain gira rahay thay
Tum mushawrat aur mufahmat kay naam pay bahanay bana rahay thay
yeh sirf ghaflat hai teri ya asal majra kuch aur hai
yahan fironiyat bhi jhamori hai, yeh bara jadeed dur hai


Woh Karachi, Quetta, Gilgit main intezaar kertay reh gaye
Socha kay meray Leader kay tum bus ab madad ko aa rahay ho
Muaf kerna woh badnaseeb bawaquf bhool gaye
kay tum vote lay ker 5 saal kay liye araam farma rahay ho

Tum toh Leader bannay kay liye ajab tamashay bhi lagatay ho
ek dojay kay firqon ko gali de ker nafrat ki aag bharkatay ho
Ajeeb tassub main jee raha hai mera Awami Numainda
Awam ko awam say lar waha raha hai khud mera Awami Numainda

Taliban, Sippa-e-Sahaba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi aur Taiba
Haye, meray Leader tum kis kis say laro gey?
Tum toh aam say admi ho, hum tumhay yun hi dalair samajh bethay
Yeh awaam kon si sagi hai jo is kay liye maro gey

Yahan fauj bhi majboor hai, kay abhi upar say order nahi ayen hain

Toh phir General tu hi bata kia sach yeh afwaayain hain

Kay in Saapoloon ko tunay  toh hi nahi paal rakha

Shayad isi liye pila raha hai tu inhay awaam ka laho

zulm-o-jabr aur haiwaniyat ka ajeeb mahool bana dia
tum bhi kam yazeed nahi, roshni kay shehar ko qarbala bana dia
jab inhay mehangai, berozgari aur bemari na maar saki
tum nay un kay ghar main ghus kay khud unhay maar dia

Tumhay sadarat mubarak ho, tumhay wazarat mubarak ho
Hakumti mehloon main rehnay walon, tumhay tamgha-e-jisarat mubarak ho
Bus ab hum per itna reham karo, hum per itna karam karo
In janazon per apnay jhanday na lehrao, bus ab thori toh sharam karo

Hum awam khud bhi kuch kar saktay thay, magar andar say bahut dartay hain
shayad isi liye haq ki larai, sirf facebook aur twitter pay lartay hain
jesay humnay bhi apnay zameer ko ek lambi neend sula dia hai
Muharram ajj bhi hai mutabbir, mager Ahl-e-Bayt ka sabak bhula dia hai

Kia Ibn-e-Ali, Ibn-e-Hussain ki shahadat ka yeh nahi mafhoom
Kay jo haq ki rah main na beh sakay to beqaar hai laho

Tu ajj meray Leader hum bhi kuch kuch tum say ho gaye hain
Matlabi, nasal parast, firqon main bat gaye hain
yun hi khama khua nahi khulatay apna yeh laho
Poochtay hain pehlay kay baha Shia, Sunni ya Ahmadi ka laho

Hamaray liye yahi ghum kaafi kion nahi raha
Kay qaatilon nay giraya akhir meri maa, Pakistan, tera lahoo
kia yeh hai tera laho, ya yeh hai mera laho?
galiyon main jo ajj beh raha, hai yeh kis ka laho?

Poetry on Hussainyat - Teen Talwar Dharna Day 1

A poetry I wrote about Hussainyat and the menace of Sectarianism and recited on Day 1 of the Teen Talwar Dharna against Shia/Hazara Genocide.

The Dharna is not Shia!

Yesterday I spent 12 hours at the Dharna at Teen Talwar, Clifton, against the Shia genocide. At the time of writing, the Dharna is still underway and it has been over 24 hours since its start now.

When I joined the Dharna at Bilawal House last month, I had arrived 10 hours after the proceedings had started. The place was already packed with thousands of Shia protesters and being a Sunni I was intimidated. The repeated chants of “Labaik Ya Hussian” and “Ya Ali” were deafening and frightening. I was confused whether I should join in as I actually pondered if these chants were blasphemous.

I felt alienated listening to various references to the Imams who aren’t discussed in our mainstream curriculum.  Speaker after speaker made references to how the Shia population was a target, how they were the oppressed, how they were the victims. I felt frustrated thinking that the Quetta bombing was first and foremost a human tragedy, a national tragedy so why wasn’t it being treated as one.

I looked around and found the answer. If the protest was not a national protest, then why should I expect the victims to be identified as Pakistanis. If the organizers were Shia and the vast majority of protesters were Shia then why shouldn’t they have the right to highlight their victimization at a sectarian level.

Belonging to the majority sect of Pakistan, it was embarrassing to find myself in the minority in this protest.

At that time I realized that I was not intimidated because the Shias were hostile or unfriendly upon learning about my sect. In fact every Shia who learnt about my identity, came forward, shook my hand and thanked me for coming. The fear crept from inside from my deep rooted bias which is instilled in most Sunni children as how Shias secretly hate Sunnis. Sadly, the opposite appeared to be true.

Hence, this time I had made a point to be at the Dharna from the very start and encouraged all my Sunni friends to do the same. When I arrived along with my friends, there were just three people standing on Teen Talwar looking in all directions trying to spot co-protesters. We walked up and joined in. People drove by paying no attention. 10 more people joined in, but the bystanders appeared unbothered. Suddenly, I heard someone scream at the top of their voice “Naray-e-Haideri!”. The cars slowed down, the traffic Police took notice. I turned around to find that the voice was not of a Shia protestor, but of my friend, Nadir, a Sunni. I couldn’t hold back the smile on my face. What started with 3, reached the strength of close to 3000 in a few hours.

This lot of protestors appeared more mature and well aware than that at Bilawal House. This time slogans were not chanted against America but against Taliban. Western Powers were not blamed for sectarian violence, but Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba were bluntly blamed. This Dharna was not in denial. They were willing to accept that terrorism is a home grown problem.

Protesters stopped chanting “tum kitnay shia maro gey?” and asked “tum kitnay insaan maro gey?”

The goods things from the Bilawal House Dharna were also carried forward here and one had to be there to note those finer details. Teenage boys who were risking their lives by volunteering as security guards (unarmed), then there were volunteers who had made a makeshift kitchen and were serving tea, then there were those who were distributing juices, biscuits and biryanis, then there volunteers as young as 5 and as old as 70 carrying out trash bags collecting used paper cups and wrappers. No public or private property was allowed to be damaged. In all of those volunteers there were lessons to be learnt; the lesson of selflessness, the lesson of civic responsibility, the lesson of unconditional patriotism and the lesson of community.

Unfortunately, one sad fact also remained common between both Dharnas. Sunnis were again a minority. And now I want to ask the Sunni readers why? Why is Hazara killings not our concern? Why is Shia genocide not our concern? If it is then where were the Sunni Protesters? Why did we let this Dharna be reduced to a Shia protest too? Does only the death of a Sunni boy or girl has the exclusive privilege of being reported as a Pakistani death?

For those Sunni readers who really aren’t bothered about a Shia death, they should know that not all Hazaras who died in the bomb blasts were Shia.  

Every single time such a tragedy takes place the ignorance of the Sunnis results in only more ridicule for Pakistan at the international level as we expose to the world how polarized and inhumane we are that we cannot even condemn terrorism and loss of innocent lives as one united nation. But at home, the damage is worse. We make our Shia countrymen realize that they are alone. We tell them that we will celebrate 14^th August together, that we will dance on the streets upon our cricketing victories together, that in the good times we will be there, but that’s where the brotherhood stops. In the time of mourning and against threat you are alone. At most, we will extend our sympathies on social networking websites.

Attending the protest as a Sunni did not make me a better Pakistani, but what did sitting at home and just updating your facebook status against the genocide made you?

There were thousands of Pakistani students who took part in the “Occupy University” Campaign in England in 2008 in protest against Israeli occupation of Gaza. Sadly, most of them choose to sit at home now because apparently Palestinians are more Pakistani than Hazaras.

Step up and step out. Be a part of something. Make the protest Pakistani. Make this tragedy Pakistani. Make the demands Pakistani. Make yourself Pakistani.

I end with the poetry I recited at the Dharna highlighting not just the impotence of the Government against these atrocities but also the ignorance of the majority of Pakistanis not willing to come out on the streets for active protests.

Dr. Abdus Salam: Give back our History its Hero!

Yesterday was the 37^th Birth Anniversary of Preity Zinta. I was never concerned with her age or her work but almost every ‘notable’ Pakistani News Channel made it a point that along with all other cable tv viewing Pakistanis I am made aware of this important development in Ms. Zinta’s life. This week also marked the 87^th Birth Anniversary of Dr. Abdus Salam. However, unlike Ms. Zinta ‘s special day I was not informed of the news by the tv media as perhaps they did not see any point celebrating it. I learnt about Dr. Salam’s birthday on my own initiative and out of my own curiosity about Dr. Salam and because unlike 82% population of Pakistan, I have access to the internet.

My curiosity was sparked by one of the most beautiful yet tragic videos I saw on Facebook. It was a teaser of a docufilm on the science and life of Dr. Salam produced by two young Pakistanis. It was beautiful to me because it was a Film about Pakistan’s first and only Noble Laureate. It was tragic because the filmmakers had made the teaser to interest the viewers in funding the post production phase of the Documentary Film. They are seeking monetary support to celebrate the life of a man, a Pakistani, who literally changed the way mankind conceptualized the universe. As it was just a teaser it left so many questions unanswered and as I didn’t really know anything about Dr. Salam besides his Nobel Prize I took to the internet.

The more I read about the many achievements of this brilliant mind the more ashamed I was of my ignorance and the more frustrated I felt that I am a product of the Pakistani education system. How come this man was never presented as a role model in any of my physics and chemistry lectures in school? How come this illustrious name was omitted in our glorified history books which I studied while taking Pakistan Studies? Why was I made to rote learn the name of every single Soldier who was decorated with the highest medals in our wars with India but never educated on the life of a man who earned Pakistan the greatest medal in Science, the world had to offer.

Almost every Pakistani knows that Imran Khan used his World Cup victory to generate support for a cancer hospital. But how many know that Dr. Salam used his Nobel Prize to gain support for his dream project, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Italy which is at the forefront of serving scientists for developing countries by providing them continuing educations and skills. Or that Dr. Salam was instrumental in getting over 500 physicists, mathematicians and scientists placed for doctorates in prestigious universities in the UK and USA.

And I am baffled by the irony that we celebrate Dr. A. Q. Khan, the father of the Atomic Bomb of ‘Pakistan’ and the world condemns him whereas the world celebrates Dr. Salam and we condemn him. Why don’t we remember Dr. Salam like we cherish Dr. A. Q. Khan despite that he fact the Dr. Salam was dubbed the ‘Scientific Father’ of the Pakistani Nuclear Programme for having established the Theoretical Physic Group within the Pakistan Atomic Commission. I am not the only one. The whole world is as baffled on how Dr. Salam’s motherland shunned him while this son continued to serve her. How many times had it been that foreign countries specially Western countries have advocated the appointment of a Pakistani to an international office. While the world endorsed  Dr. Salam’s candidacy for the post of Director General of UNESCO, the Zia regime refused to put his name forward.

Is it because he was an Ahmadi? Is our country’s prejudice against this minority sect so deep, so preposterous and so insulting of the teachings of Mainstream Islam that we chose to condemn a man for his personal beliefs over celebrating him for his contributions to science and humanity? Were our leaders and people of this Islamic Republic so insecure about their religion that they could not afford the question of how someone so genius and informed on the subject of the evolution of the Universe prescribed to a different interpretation of Islam? They did not even need to answer this last question as Dr. Salam was not awarded honorary Doctorate of Science by 36 universities in 23 countries for the way he offered his prayers perhaps because the way Dr. Salam approached God affected only him, but the way Dr. Salam approached his work affected the world.

Dr. Salam lived as a Muslim for the first 48 years of his life during which Pakistan loved him and decorated him. He was declared a Non-Muslim for the remaining 22 years during which he was shunned by liberals and conservatives alike. His faith did not change for the entire duration of 70 years nor did his services to the Nation stop. What changed was the power dynamics in Pakistani politics; what changed was the ideology of Pakistan and what changed was Jinnah’s vision that religion was not the business of the state. 

The filmmakers of the docufilm are Pakistanis so how come were they bothering themselves with this tribute to the legacy of Dr. Salam? How come they did not hate and condemn him? My instant reaction was they must be Ahmadis living somewhere in self-exile and trying to highlight the persecution of their sect and politicizing Dr. Salam’s memory. What I learnt when I made the effort of actually finding answers out myself, an act which Pakistani’s (including myself) rarely indulge in, was quite the contrary. Both Zakir Thaver and Omar Vandal are non-Ahmadis and both of them as young Pakistani science majors in college felt betrayed by their country’s history books. They met at the College of Wooster in the U.S., the year Dr. Salam passed away and it was there outside of Pakistan where they discovered how well respected by the rest of the world, well received and influential was Dr. Salam.

These two individuals with their limited resources started work on the docufilm in 2002. The Documentary which took them to various countries to capture Dr. Salam’s life on camera. Thu far it has not been funded by any Ahmadi Institution but by individuals belonging to various sects and religions. They have dedicated the past 10 years in trying to research and develop the story, locate archives and film interviews pay a sincere homage to a man who to them was first and foremost a scientist, a teacher, a philanthropist an innovator, a patriot and a first-rate mind who challenged the limits of what was defined ‘humanly possible’; he challenged the status-quo.

If this initiative had been taken by our Government, this docufilm could have been completed in months if not weeks. In an era where Pakistan is globally perceived as a savage country and Pakistanis as regressive people what has our Government and our civil society at large done to celebrate those who thought and achieved things deemed beyond their times. Dr. Salam was a man who championed the cause of technological and scientific advances in third world countries; a man who was not schooled at Aitchison or Karachi Grammar but received education at a government school in Jhang; a man who belonged to a lower middle class family and had to fight economical and social pressures of taking conventional jobs such as the civil service to stick to his love, Mathematics and Physics. Dr. Salam’s journey is a beautiful romance between a student and education and given his socio economic background it is a journey with which every poor but eager student of this country can empathize with and get motivation from. It is a story every young Pakistani should be made to study and realize the power of the words of Dr. Salam’s spiritual mentor, Allam Iqbal:

“Jo Ho Shauq-e-Yaqeen Paida, toh badal jaateen hai taqdeerain”

The Government did not adopt any such initiative to pay him tribute but the Government did not forget him either. On the orders of a local magistrate Dr. Salam’s grave stone was effectively desecrated by removing the word ‘Muslim’ removed from his epitaph.

But what to say of the religious persecution of this tragic son when Pakistan is a country where the Superior Court occupied themselves for more than 30 years after the death of Quaid-e-Azam debating whether the Father of the Nation was a Sunni or a Shia.

Hoping that one day even though the Government may not be able to offer free education it can offer children the freedom to choose their role models. Dr. Salam, thank you and rest in peace Sir!

Abdus Salam Docufilm - Fundraising Teaser (abdussalamdocufilm.com/donate) from Kailoola Productions LLC on Vimeo.

The Ideology of Malala!

Malala is not a Bhutto, a Sharif, a Makhdoom or a Khar. She is not an heir to a political legacy. She is also not the first child to be attacked by the Taliban. Then why is she so relevant? Why the hue and cry over an attack on her? A cynical group has become active on the Social Media in Pakistan asking the question “Is Malala the only daughter of Pakistan?” and “What about showing sympathy of the many children who die because of Drone attacks?”

The attack on Malala was strongly condemned by Baan Ki Moon and even Barack Obama, whose own administration admitted to have caused 60 children casualties during Drone strikes. Just a few hours ago Madonna revealed Malala’s name stenciled over her back. So why had Malala taken the centre stage and has been turned into a symbol of resilience and courage?

Were the armed and strong Taliban really afraid of the ideals of a 14 year old girl as they were of that of Benazir Bhutto’s?

Both Malala and Benazir were condemned by the Taliban for being pro west. A friend, however, disagreed with the view that the Taliban were threatened by a girl and her books. He maintained that savages need not be scared of someone for them to kill them. It is a good enough reason for them that the other is person disagrees with their views. To add weight to his arguments he cited the recent killing of Shia Muslims in Pakistan by Taliban who being a minority do not pose a threat to the Taliban but follow a school of thought different from theirs. Perhaps that is true. Perhaps Taliban were just angry that Malala refused to sit at home and not attend school when they had occupied Malakand Divison back in 2008.

This appears a very plausible reason for me as I analyze the situation sitting in Karachi, thousands of kilometers away from Swat. But was Malala really my role model or did she really matter to the kids who live in the posh suburbs of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad and attend private westernized schools, enjoy the latest movies at the cinemas and shop for foreign brands at massive malls? The fact that half my friends admitted they haven’t even heard of Malala before this hugely publicized attack makes it easy for me to answer the questions above.

However, the schools, suburbs and malls of Karachi are not facing immediate threats from the Taliban (not yet). But the schools and neighbor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where Swat is located, are always on red alert. It is that province where the Taliban thrive and where they exhibit their influence. Malala’s courage back in 2008 when she cried out on live television “Open my School!” may not have influenced me or my friends but it certainly spelled hope for her peers. When Malala got nominated for the international peace award and was covered by all the top newspapers of the world she certainly inspired and gave courage to all those girls who go to her school, who travel in her bus and who live in the neighborhoods haunted by the Taliban. Malala even after attaining international acclaim did not take a scholarship to attend school abroad or migrate to a more developed area of Pakistan. She stayed in Swat and believed that with her will she can excel at home and that only would have reaffirmed the belief of her peers in their home city and in the educational facilities available to them.

Where kids from even the most privileged families of Pakistan aspire for a career abroad and making a life for themselves in Europe or North America thereby adding to the brain drain crisis of Pakistan, Malala belongs to that distinct class who had the opportunity to move to greener pastures but she believed in making things right at home. Malala does not belong to so called liberal class of Pakistan who cherish and miss the years when Pakistan had casinos and pubs and it fell on the infamous hippy trail of the 1970’s. Malala’s liberal ideals are not tied down to having such avenues of entertainment in her city. However, her ideals appear to advocate the right for one to get the education and exposure which will allow one the freedom and wisdom to live life their own way.

Being a daughter of an educationist it is not hard to imagine why Malala’s biggest anxiety was the threat to her education when the Taliban occupied Malakand Division. Perhaps, barring everything else, had the Taliban not forbid education for female students, Malala being just 11 would have been unconcerned as to who rules the country. However, the Taliban challenged Malala’s ideals with their extremist laws and she refused to bow down and in doing so she taught her friends and their families to do the same. She not just challenged the authority of the Taliban but their ideology as well. An ideology which does not accepts arguments, contra reasoning or even an intellectual discourse.

When Malakand was rescued by the Armed Forces in 2008-09 we all saw deserted training camps of the Taliban on television. I still remember seeing murals of heaven and beautiful women, presented as infamous 70 virgins, drawn on the walls of those training camps. It was not heard to guess what was being taught there. The Taliban were not motivating their recruits with monetary benefits. It also only made it more certain that the Taliban are not a commercial enterprise which offers jobs. Being a force born out of an ideology they operate like an institution, though a menacing one, which brainwashes its recruits and takes away their ability to reason. Ideologies are not harmed by guns and drones. Ideologies are challenged by education of and exposure to the opposite views and in this instance it is Malala’s view. Her view that education is her right and it is her biggest tool to become a strong and independent individual. Her view that education will help her understand her religion, Islam, and the rights it gives to women better and thus not accept any orthodox and extremist fatwa thrown at her by the Taliban.

And the relevance of Malala’s ideology is not just limited to countering the Taliban. Pakistan suffers from various criminal cultural traditions which have nothing to do with the Taliban. Karo Kari, Watta Satta, bartering women for clearing debts, getting women married to shrines and holy books and child marriages. All this may change is Malala’s ideology of education for every female child is adopted and promoted at a National level. It certainly does not appear to be the case right with Pakistan estimated to have close to 25,000 ghost schools.

Pakistan needs to stop living in denial and stop waiting for outrageous events like the public flogging of a woman or an assassination attempt of a 14 year old by the Taliban to realize how grave this threat it. Pakistan and its government need to endorse the idea that the Taliban were in fact scared of Malala’s ideology because perhaps that way we can give it the importance it deserves and work towards saving its future generations from all kinds of extremism whether religious or cultural. The outrage this attack has created is nearest to the one I witnessed when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. It is interesting that when Malala expressed her desire to be a politician three years ago she cited Benazir as her inspiration. The Pakistani people need to channel this outrage in forcing the government to shift its focus to developing educational and health facilities in the country rather than spend millions of dollars in expanding its nuclear arsenal.

It would be indeed criminal on Pakistan’s part if the only people who realize the worth of Malala’s ideals are international pop stars and foreign heads of state. 

Happy Independence Day to us Ignorant!

This Post is directed towards the fellow Pakistanis who either live or have grown up in the Urban Hubs of Pakistan.

Yesterday for the first time I spent the Independence Day outside Pakistan. And when most friends back home were busy celebrating our 63^rd Independence Day at funfairs, concerts and exhibition matches or were at home watching special televised transmission, the only link available to me to join in the celebration was to browse Pakistani News websites. I was of course envious of my friends but I felt it to be fair deal given that I, unlike many, had seen the Pakistani Team lifting the cricket world cup live at Lord’s, less than two months ago.

I had thought that getting a detailed sketch of the festivities would rejuvenate my patriotic zeal and give me the confirmation that Pakistan and Pakistanis have the will to rise above any crisis. This was a much needed feeling especially when the last couple of years saw the International media giving Pakistan every possible detestable label from ‘the most dangerous country in the world’ to a virtual ‘failed state’.

But in between reading news articles glorifying the spirits of the common Pakistani, I came across the two most disturbing incidents. In the first one a youth in Lahore standing under the shade of Minar-e-Pakistan waved the Pakistani flag fervently and then committed suicide by consuming poison. His last words as heard by bystanders were “Long Live Pakistan, Down with Unemployment.” He had given up on his life, but he did not give up on the country.

The second one by contrast involved no loss of life but brought more shame than the former. Due to security concerns the official flag hoisting ceremony at the parliament house by the Prime Minister was shifted to the Jinnah Convention Centre. Our political leadership did not risk their lives but gave up on the most time honored tradition which symbolizes the supreme sovereignty of the parliament after God.

These incidents begged me to ask myself the question which I have been putting off for over a month that is this the saddest Independence Day we have seen as a nation? Or was it 1949 when the young nation had to celebrate the day without its father Mohammad Ali Jinnah? Or was it in 1959 when the nation marked the day while its co-founder and then Prime Minister H. S. Suhrawardy, the very man who moved the 1946 Delhi Convention Resolution, was imprisoned by a Military Dictator after being framed in the most dubious and ridiculous claim which even embarrassed the very military court which sentenced him.

To many I believe the saddest independence day perhaps would be of 1972, when for the first time we observed the festivities without our east wing and Dhaka was never to see another crescent star flag hoisted on its soil. To add to the grief Pakistan marked the independence that year negotiating the freedom of 90,000 of our army jawans being held as prisoners of wars. Tariq Ali notes that Pakistan lost half its navy, a quarter of its air force and a third of its army but there is no count of how many, doctors, teachers and intellects we lost. All I know is Pakistanis forced 75 million other Pakistanis to turn into Bangladeshis.

To many perhaps the darkest hour of Pakistan was behind them but its most hypocritical display was yet to come. On 14^th august 1979 when Pakistanis safely celebrated their independence within their country’s borders, over half a million muslim biharis left stranded in Bangladesh after 1971 longed to return home. Their love for their homeland was so sincere that they set on a journey of 1200 miles to march across India to Pakistan on foot. All they ended up achieving was being arrested by Bangladeshi authorities. And for our part for our brothers we could offer nothing but a cold shoulder.May be because unlike 1947 we already had a country and thus we did not feel the need to facilitate such a migration and unlike the celebrated muhajareens of 1947 these half a million biharis would have only been a burden upon us.

But more astonishing was the fact that those who were home in Pakistan seemed to be only celebrating partition rather than independence. After all at a time when the country’s most sacred document, the constitution, stood suspended, when the country’s highest authoritative body, the parliament, stood dissolved, and in a year when the country’s elected Prime Minister stood at the gallows. What was so free about Pakistan?

But today Pakistan seems to have achieved a lot. We are a nuclear power. We possess the 7^th largest army in the world. At this hour when I am writing this article Pakistan enjoys democracy albeit a fragile one. Pakistan’s leadership feels proud to have earned the alliance of the world’s superpower and Pakistan takes it in its stride that it is fighting the war for the world. Ignorance! Yes this ever growing ignorance is precisely the biggest and most constant achievement of Pakistan. Jinnah’s young nation of 1949 has still not matured in 2009.

Neither nuclear weapons nor alliances with a super power guarantee the protection of a country. When the Soviet Union broke into more than 20 pieces it had the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world and if it not first, it was itself the second biggest super power. What it did not have at the end of the Soviet Invasion was national spirit. It had lost unity. How dare we fight wars for the world when we cannot fight for the independence of hundreds of Pakistanis detained by CIA in Guantanamo, Morocco and Saudi Arabia? After 62 years we stand at point zero, finding Unity, Faith and Discipline.

Thus yesterday I felt, we had the saddest independence of our history. When the youth of Karachi gathered in the national stadium for a grand concert, the youth of Orakzai Agency in Waziristan took cover to prepare itself from the next drone attack. When the president of Pakistan was busy handing out flats to the People’s Party faithful who lost their lives in the 18^th October blast, 25 million youth of this country were hoping only to get a job if nothing more. And for those for whom the wait has been too long, they committed suicide under the shade of the very monument which marks our freedom.

Our major political parties shamelessly abused public property by hoisting their party flags on every possible street light in their respective stronghold of Lahore and Karachi, but not one popular leader of Pakistan dared raising the Pakistan flag in Baluchistan. The Pakistani media very enthusiastically reported hoisting of Pakistani flags in the Indian Kashmir and political talk shows shamelessly seized the moment to remind India of Nehru’s promise which he made on the floor of United Nations, that India will hold a free referendum in Kashmir on its right of self determination. But can today a Hamid Mir, Javed Chaudhary, Shahid Masood or Zaid Hamid run a sincere media campaign asking the Pakistani Government to hold a similar referendum in Baluchistan? And if they do, will our Government oblige? The answer quite simply is no. Because the litmus test for democratic Pakistan is not the overwhelming majority of Baluchistan which might choose to stay with Pakistan but it is that insignificant minority which would want to secede.

We should not be angry on Mir Suleman Dawood for celebrating Baluchistan’s independence in London on 11^th August this year, but ashamed that we have actually conceded enough ground for Baloch leaders to exploit. Remember Mohammad Ali Jinnah was an Indian Nationalist before he became the Father of Pakistan and Sheikh Mujeeb-ur-Rehman was an ardent Pakistani before he founded Bangladesh. Writing about the fall of Dhaka earlier in this article and mentioning the state of Baluchistan reminded me how Pakistan has played the very role of All India Congress of 1935-37 which we were taught to detest in our history classes in primary school. What puzzled me that though back in my history class my own and many other inquisitive minds were pacified by the standard rhetoric of Hindu-Muslim differences, I wondered what difference caused our separation in 1971 and the current crisis in Baluchistan. The answer was not ethnic or social polarization it was ignorance.

It is the same ignorance reflected in our condemnation of the Pakistani Taliban. One can believe that Baitullah Mehsud was a traitor and served foreign agencies but did each and every member of his 30,000 troops also take an oath of allegiance to what we refer to as the Mossad-Raw nexus? Or were they all foreigners from Uzbekistan to begin with? No! Many were Pakistanis from the most poverty stricken areas of Pakistan, such as interior Sindh, Southern Punjab, the Tribal belt and most of Baluchistan. I have never come across or read about a terrorist who was a former student of Lahore’s Aitchison, Karachi’s Grammer School or Islamabad’s Roots, which of course is a good omen. But instead of realising this material fact in a positive light and spreading the outreach of such schools our inherent ignorance encourages us to rather indulge in the school-madarassah debate. Hence we all play our part in giving birth to this dichotomy.

We very bluntly blame the local madarassahs for giving young student extremist ideologies. What we don’t realise is that we defame an institution which is feeding, fostering and educating more than 3 million homeless and poor students. On the other hand the aforementioned elite schools of Pakistan have never published a policy to keep a reserved quota of seats for admission of homeless, orphaned or poor students. And these three are not alone, but they merely lead the list of thousands of such private schools which with a certified standard of education, effective administration and immense resources have made nil contribution to the public welfare structure of Pakistan. But the students of these institution which also includes me, ignorantly claim madarassahs to be the catalyst of terrorism.

The focus of our attention should not be that the big difference between the youth committing suicide in front of Minar-e-Pakistan and the one blowing himself up in front of government buildings is of ideology. Rather the fact begging our attention is that the common ground between those two is lack of a better or for that matter any opportunity to earn a respectable livelihood.

We as Pakistanis have condemned a significant portion of our society to die. And our growingly selfish outlook on this condemned lot is visible in our reaction to their deaths. If it was at a crowded hotel, we get furious because it could have endangered us but if it was a quite death by consuming poison we don’t even bother to offer prayers for the departed. In either case, a Pakistani died. But as ignorance also invites cowardice and tolerance for cruelty we continue to stay quite against the authoritative state and on the cruelty of the state policy which is the real causal effect of this extremism. And most importantly we don’t point fingers at ourselves. After all either we elect the democratic government or we quietly tolerate the military dictator.

How can we possibily celebrate independence when our own minds are not free. In a famous political talk show the host asked all the panellists what is one thing each Pakistani can do every day for 10 minutes to play his/her part to change the country. I thought to myself that may be we just need to only dedicate 10 minutes of our today to save this country. If only for 10 minutes we take off our spectacles of ignorance and think that is our own opinion on our country’s economic policy, foreign policy, development policy and defence policy independent?

I don’t know about you, but mine wasn’t. Some was influenced by a Religious Scholar, some a famous political commentator, some by a politician I admire and some by my father. My own mind as a Pakistani was not free. My own effort to use my brain and indulge in critical thinking was minimal. Allama Iqbal gave us vision for freedom of self, khudi, but I realised that our fundamental quest was more basic; it was awareness of self. To quote Faiz Ahmed Faiz ‘Meri zaat ka jo nishan milay — Mujhe raz-e-nazm-o-jahan mile’ (that if I find the sign of myself, I would perceive the secret of the world’s design)

No wonder we live in a country where the greatness of a political leader is not judged by the scandalised life she lived which actually materially affected us but it is judged by the way she died, a death which had no actual impact on our standard of living. We live in a country where millions of tax payer’s money is spent to get the United Nations Fact Finding mission to investigate that death, but where the Power ministry denies Transparency International the documents showing the agreement between the old and new owners of Karachi Electrical Supply Corporation, the importance of which cannot be highlighted enough.

We live in a country where the supporters of political parties with a strict hereditary flow of power, PPP and PML (N), dwarf the supporters of the two parties cleansed of any feudalistic hierarchy, MQM and Jamat-e-Islami.

We burn houses by the dozen in Gojra on alleged blasphemy because the local cleric told us to. But I don’t blame the cleric I blame the mob who were so aloof of their own Holy Book, the sanctity of which they were protecting, that they did not realise that the Holy Book does not prescribe any punishment for abusing the book.

We live in a society where the urban youth takes offence of being branded as Taliban nation and runs massive letter writing campaigns to start the Swat operation which we knew would have drastic consequences. But a worse label of being branded as a poor, indebted and puppet state does not bother us. The black turban Talibans saw the wrath of every outspoken, educated and civilised Pakistani on the streets Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. But these sensitive Pakistanis contained their condemnation of American drone attacks to their air conditioned drawing rooms. Hence it is not surprising that this ignorant attitude is now reflected in our state policy. At the time of writing this article it has been four days since the drone attack in Wana killed 10 Pakistani civilians and the Pakistani Government has lodged no protest at any official or unofficial level. Our ignorance has very easily outlined our comfort zones outside of which we feel no discomfort to let our national interests and our nationals die.

But I still wrote this article because one single event in the last couple of years still kept the hope alive, that we might have become deaf, dumb and blind as a nation but we are not dead. That event was the movement for the restoration of the judiciary. And even though the struggle came to be popularly known as The Lawyers movement the real impetus came from all walks of life; be it street hawkers or university students, be it housewives or businessmen, be it human right activists or politicians, be it news anchors or a newspaper vendors I saw all raising their voices for one cause. The struggle although was for a channelled and restricted cause did show that it is not hard to achieve Jinnah’s code of success; unity, faith and discipline. Sadly though many taking part in that struggle might not have realised that what they achieved was much more than the restoration of the Chief Justice. The visuals of 16th March, as seen in Lahore, the same city where the Minar-e-Pakistan stands made me believe that may be this nation wants to use every possible life line and it will not commit suicide.

But with this optimistic conclusion we still need to address our deep rooted notion of freedom. That does only Western, Indian or any other physical occupation qualifies as a compromise on our freedom? If so, than may be I have mistaken in my synopsis that 14th August today only symbolises partition and not Independence. And so with my apologies I wish my brothers and sisters a very Happy Independence day although we are only availed as much freedom as our Prime Minister had to hoist the flag at parliament house. But even after conceding so much ground to our collective ignorance I still cannot wish Independence to Afia Siddiqui and many others like her.