The world’s worst masochists, ever

Many are the times that I have called ourselves a very unique people in very many ways: the way we form horizontal queues; the various ways in which we manage to carry two, not one but two, fully-grown sheep on one little 70cc motorcycle with another person sitting at the back holding the poor terrified animals by their horns; the way we carry glass sheets (glass is transparent, see?) on the same motorcycle, jutting out three feet on either side, completely oblivious of the fact that oncoming bicycles/motorcycles might go crashing into the glass, cutting the oncoming chap’s head right off his body.

And other such: cyclists without lights or reflectors and pedestrians, dressed in dark clothes, riding or walking, quite nonchalantly, on the wrong side of the road, in the face of oncoming traffic, absolutely unmindful of the fact that they could well be run over; women balancing a load on their heads, carrying a baby and holding another two children by the hand, one a mere toddler, crossing Lahore’s high speed Ring Road just a 100 feet away from an overhead pedestrian bridge. And so on and so forth.

Like, say, going overboard in showing our eagerness to talk with avowed, dangerous, ruthless and murderous enemies of our state; our lay people; our soldiery, indeed the enemies of everything, including our Constitution. An enemy cold-hearted enough to blow up mosques during prayers; invade army cantonments and identify and kill senior officers and their children; blow up buses carrying our soldiers to work; mercilessly decapitate our soldiers and policemen and Levies and Khasadars; kill Muslims of other sects; and in the latest, possibly the most shameless assault: on completely innocent people: the poorest of the poor, the weakest of the weak: our Christian brothers and sisters and children.

Are we not behaving exactly as described above? Are we not walking right into the path of an oncoming and heavy trailer truck? But, even though describing ourselves as ‘unique’ might bring a smile, isn’t ‘masochist’ the word I want in describing us and our behaviour, in this particular matter? Now, before anyone yells blue murder, I only refer to these two meanings of the word masochism: 1) ‘The deriving of pleasure, or the tendency to derive pleasure, from being humiliated or mistreated, either by another or by oneself, and 2) A willingness or tendency to subject oneself to unpleasant or trying experiences.

Consider: we are now being lectured by none other than the Great White Hope, Imran Khan, that the TTP (and affiliates) be given ‘an office’ ensconced in which they will then talk to the government. The reason he advances is that if the Americans can allow the Taliban to have an office in Qatar, why can’t we let the TTP have one in Pakistan?

Array, Khan Sahib, the Afghan Taliban are resisting the American occupation of Afghanistan, and as my friend Amir Mateen said in The News just today, are NOT wantonly killing their own innocents, i.e., bombing women’s Meena Bazaars! The Americans, on the other hand, want to talk to the Taliban because they want to leave Afghanistan in an orderly fashion, facilitating the transport of their expensive and state-of-the-art heavy equipment and material. How does the TTP, which avowedly wants to take over the state of Pakistan through whatever means, compare in any way with the Afghan Taliban?

Your party, Imran Khan, deliberately reads history untruthfully and dissembles disgracefully: you simply do not accept, and I repeat myself and others, that the takeover of K-P and then Fata started way back in 1994 by spreading terror among the populace of Swat, then Malakand, then Dir and Bajaur and then other areas of Fata. One has to repeat this for the benefit of the very young who support you and who simply do not READ enough to know enough.

But, who is to argue with you, O’ Great Khan? So, since what you say is always right, let’s just go down the ‘Give the TTP an office way’ and see where we get. Apart from the fact that they are a proscribed entity, banned by law, will they have renounced violence by then?  Why, only this last Tuesday (and just a few hours before your brilliant suggestion) they attacked and destroyed part of the under-construction Gandao Dam in Mohmand, killing three poor workers and kidnapping two others. They also set fire to heavy equipment such as bulldozers and trucks and tractors!

So, when will they stop their murder and mayhem? Remember, that just two days after the government announced ‘talks’ (mostly dragooned into it by your continued demands), and one day after your government in K-P unilaterally and quite stupidly announced the army’s withdrawal from Swat, they had the temerity to assassinate the Swat Divisional Commander and seven other soldiers across Fata?

But back to the ‘office’. Pray, where will this office be? If the area was not so inaccessible, I should have suggested a custom-built building at the site where Major General Sanaullah Niazi was martyred, a befitting tribute to a brave soldier to have his murderers sit and talk ‘peace’ where they killed him. But that’s a no go. This ‘office’ will have to be in Peshawar or Islamabad. In Peshawar, might I suggest a building very near where these murderers blew up the brave IG of the Frontier Constabulary, young Safwat Ghayur? Reasons same as stated before. In Islamabad, the very first site that comes to mind is your own estate, Imran Khan, up in the hills of Banigala Park! I have already suggested to the government to make you the pointsman in these ‘talks’, which you have championed so long and so hard.

As to staff cars, I do not think the TTP is wanting for fancy Land Cruisers considering how all the stolen vehicles from across the country and even abroad, land up in Fata, but there is the question of flags. (Remember the flag fiasco in Qatar, which we certainly don’t want). So, let them fly TTP’s flag (higher) on the right hand side and poor old Pakistan’s (lower) on the left. Pennants of ETIP and al Shebab can fly under the TTP flag. Good luck to you, Pointsman! And God save Pakistan and us masochists.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 27^th,  2013.

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