Back to the Future; From APS to the Easter Sunday Blasts.

March 23,2016 was an eventful day in Pakistan, while the nation was busy celebrating its republic day by putting up a show of its military might in Islamabad--tanks, jets and all--a rather small group of highly motivated young men, belonging to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaat Al Ahrar, was probably roaming around the Gulshan Iqbal park to finalize their plan of action. On the other hand the Christian community of Lahore was thinking of places where they would hide Easter eggs for their children to find. By the end of the day most of us were hooked up to the T.V screens for the NZ vs PAK cricket match & the media was busy discussing the merits and demerits of a generic name like 'Pak Sar Zameen Party' and whether their flag is legit or not.

On March 27,2016 which not so coincidentally also happened to be Easter Sunday, Gulshan Iqbal Park Lahore saw dead bodies in the dozens, after a suicide bomber laden with explosives,ball bearings, nuts, bolts and a determination to meet his hoors without further ado, exploded himself amidst citizens of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, most of them being women and children. The Jamaat ul Ahrar spokesperson, the famous Ehsan ullah Ehsan didn't take very long to claim that they had carried out the attacks targeting the Christian community. Meanwhile a crowd of religiously motivated men marched towards Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan after attending the chehlum of a convicted murderer. They also had a hoor wish, but their Faith wasn't as unwavering as the Lahore bomber kid. They stayed at Islamabad for 3 days, paid their respects to the PM's mother and sisters in their daily prayers and sermons, scared the shit out of some military helicopters by launching their footwear towards them and went back home after being handed out lollipops by the government.

A couple of hours in and our social media discourse was invested in answering the two most essential questions that were raised after the attack. Firstly, whether the Eiffel Tower was lit green to show solidarity with Lahore or not and secondly, whether it was an attack on Pakistanis or Pakistani Christians? Obviously Zaid (Johnny Doe), the kid who lost both parents and a sibling to the blast, would have forgotten everything if the Eiffel Tower displayed the Pak flag for a couple of hours, Parisian validation was all he needed and these bloody Westerners couldn't even manage that. 

These questions themselves are a comment on the intellectual decay that we as a nation are suffering from. Our incessant need to seek validation, even for recognizing ourselves as the victims, from Europe or America is plain old pathetic. After the Charlie Hebdo debacle, the largest processions in solidarity were held in Paris, after the Brussels attack it was Germany that was overwhelmed by the number of people that took to the streets to demonstrate their unity and that is despite our juvenile DP wars a.k.a. lame attempts to stay relevant, at least online. And guess what, there were no party flags in these gatherings, nor did we hear deafening yet hollow slogans from one group or the other.  We are yet to see a significant number of people get out on the streets, setting aside the differences in background and point of views, in solidarity with the victims of any tragedy that has taken place in the decade and a half of violence that we have witnessed as a nation. Unless we see an exclusively Pakistani demonstration of solidarity to the victims of any and all attacks against Pakistanis, notwithstanding their religious, ethnic or political motivations, it won’t matter if the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty or even if the whole world is lit green. Apparently we have better things to do.

Why the debate on a Christian or a non Christian attack continued fiercely even after the Taliban spokesperson announced that the attack was aimed at Christians celebrating Easter, notwithstanding the special love of the TTP for the Christians, is not beyond explanation. There are people in our discourse who passionately believe that an event ‘x’ which is a negative event i.e. a terrorist attack in this case or a gang of pornographers in Kasur or honor killings throughout the country is not as damaging to the image of the country as the propagation of these events by the media. In essence they are trying to compare the perpetrators of the actual crime to the propagators which is unfair to say the least. Even if the propagators are doing so out of malicious intent they are indirectly forcing us to face our issues rather than sweep them under a rug. So in trying to claim that Pakistani Christians are not a persecuted minority we’re essentially rejecting the agency of people as Christians to mourn the deaths of their loved ones. 

Nevertheless both these questions proved successful in diverting the debate to an endless pandemonium of rhetoric until the next big thing hits the screens; enter Panama leaks, which has positioned us right back in the pre NAP (National Action Plan) days. When is the government going? seems to be the most important question as far as the mainstream media is concerned. What will it take for us to arrive upon the more pertinent questions like:

What happened to the national counter extremism narrative that was supposed to be an essential part of the NAP?

Where is the academic vigilance required to build a unanimous counter narrative?

Why is it so that 2 and a half years, 30 terrorist attacks and almost 500 casualties later, we still have a government employed imam at the Red mosque who has continuously reiterated that in the fight between the Taliban and our forces, the Talib’s are the martyrs and we the oppressors?

How is it possible that in a post NAP Pakistan a religiously motivated alternative judicial system (JUD Shariat Courts), is blatantly operating in the heart of Punjab?

Why was a bunch of hooligans allowed to sabotage the Federal Capital of the country, for 4 days, while making calls to the domestic servants and drivers of the ruling elite to murder them in the same way as Qadri had done, without any consequences?

No matter how badly we ‘break the backs’ of our enemies in military ops , they will come back to kick our back sides over and over again unless we come up with a long term plan to curb the nurseries that provide the manpower for these terrorist organizations and devise a comprehensive strategy to bring potential recruits into the mainstream. Moreover initiating a dialogue on the mainstream media to come up with an alternative narrative which has the backing of Ulema from various sects is absolutely necessary and that is only possible if we start asking the right questions, which almost no one is bothering to ask, let alone answer, because Panama papers can give you off the charts ratings and that is all that matters. Sadly the vigilance and unanimity shown after the APS attack is fading away and we the citizens of Pakistan will have to wait until (God forbid) another APS to take another baby step towards a safer Pakistan, maybe.

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