Will the Real Pakistan please stand UP?

Image courtesy of the BBC

“It is very shocking to hear that girls can’t go to school, they are taking us back to the Stone Age.”

These are the innocent, yet courage-filled words of an 11-year old girl on the outskirts of Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.

It is an outrageous issue that hundreds of schools in a former tourist haven are being bombed under the pretense of Islamic law, albeit one twisted to nefarious ends.

If the world could only take a peek into the life of an average guy in the pristine SWAT valley, it would encounter radio broadcasts warning of deadly acid attacks on girls who “dare” to go to school, just one among the many shocking events of daily life over there.

Certainly, the fact that an average Fatima or a Begum, still maybe at an impressionable age, has to cower in fear at the thought of school is very well achieved by such hideous threats.

Add to this, daily public hangings, decapitations and day-long power cuts, the former glory of the “Switzerland of Pakistan” is being torn to tatters.

The handling of this situation that has been snowballing to the world’s attention since 18 months has been pathetic, to say the least.

And the situation is not set to improve, especially since the ever-smiling Mr. Zardari, the supposed president, has said that making a peace deal with these murderous thugs and militants is a necessity of the times!

The conundrum of making deals with someone and consequently describing them as thugs is sheer mockery of all forms of Justice that the citizens of Pakistan expect from their elected representatives.

The people made sure of their writ when they collectively denounced the religious parties that participated in the elections of 2008.

And yet the elected reprensentatives, instead of heeding the citizen’s call for a uniform justice system that is swift and just, caved in to the religious hardliners and gave them authority to rule and give out justice in the valleys of SWAT, in the name of the Holy Islamic law called the Sharia.

Even if one could stomach the brute imposition of an out-dated system of codes like the Sharia, the one being implemented is a twisted version with deep roots in medieval edicts wherein women are subjugated and everyone who doesn’t agree with the religious figureheads is considered an “infidel”!

The most ironical of all these events is that the Civilian government is using the former militant, the septuagenarian Sufi Mohammad, as a mediator for talks being held with the Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah.

Now, factor in the fact that the Taliban leader who has swathes of Al-Qaeda and the Afghan forces under his command is the son-in-law of Sufi Mohammad, and that Sufi Mohammad himself, commanded large forces to fight against the US invasion of the Talibanic Afghanistan around 2002,and was miraculously released on pardon just last year!..Truly mind-bending.

Furthermore, there is a real chance that the isolationist policies of Sharia may give further impetus for brain-washed militants to take-over even Islamabad next…….and they certainly don’t lack the military or the economic strength to achieve this, since the Taliban’s main channel of profit is the worldwide Opium trade.

Even conservative estimates say that 90% of World-wide Opium trade is controlled by Taliban, which goes to say that this keeps the Military machination of the Taliban well-oiled and raring to go.

The proximity of the SWAT valley to Islamabad doesn’t exactly give comfort to anyone, as it is just 100km from the capital city!

Imagine, Just 100km apart is a deep chasm in socio-political environment;

Islamabad with its Elected Authorities, and SWAT valley with its Feudal lords…..

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Even if the Taliban aren’t thinking of taking over Pakistan, it sure is one of their primary objectives to annex the disputed state of Kashmir, and the handover of the SWAT valley to the Taliban gives them a direct and unchecked[one might add] corridor from the Afghan frontier to the door step of the Indian controlled Kashmir. This scary proposition requires deep analysis and is best left to the intelligence personnel of India.

Even as militant leaders celebrated the hand-over on the open streets; Caught in the dichotomy are the poor people who live their daily lives in confusion, not knowing who holds sway over his destiny, since their liberty is not protected by any sovereign authority.

It is a no-brainer that the current state of affairs is only due to a clear lack of “political will” and nothing else, since even the might of the Taliban fails over the towering Army of Pakistan, one of the largest in the world.

Thus, the dearth of action or even inadequate action has had devastating effects on the nation state of Pakistan.

As the man in the street cries out for help,

Will the civilian government realize that they are just playing into the hands of the Taliban, and that the Taliban which promises to help with all its might in case of an Indian invasion is just laying the traps of appeasement for hardliners in the army and ISI, large parts of which are already alleged to be in collusion with the Taliban.

The question is…

Will the Real Pakistan please stand up?