Feeding the crocodile

Governing principle of Pakistani State is that it negotiates (read surrender) to bullies, punishes weakest of the weak

A prayer is in order for Raza Rumi, who survived the cowardly attack on him on March 28 and condolences for the family of young Mustafa, Raza’s driver who didn’t. The very brilliant Raza Rumi is one of the most courageous voices in the country and his indomitable spirit will not be overwhelmed by bullying, more to power to him. However, it is our spirits that sink. One would have imagined that the Media would be distressed, appalled and angry at the attack on one of its best. Not everyone it seems; some channels could not find the time to even report it any detail. Then there is the usual niji (private) channel nonsense. The duty of solidarity extends not only to the Media but to each one of us.

It was some consolation to see most political leaders condemn it. However, some introspection and perspective is required. Mr Imran Khan recently came up with the remarkable assertion that the “Taliban do not want to enforce Sharia on gunpoint and only want to liberate us from America’s war”. The sheer idiocy of the statement makes it too strenuous to refute, if you still want reasons there perhaps, maybe 40,000 of them, the most recent being Mustafa. Mr Khan, ably assisted by xenophobes and conspiracy theorists, believes everyone who does not agree with him to be a “foreign agent”. This is where it transforms from plain silliness to dangerous, even violence provoking. Many of his young followers will leave no stone unturned (and upturn reason) to defend “our liberators”, while have callous apathy towards our martyrs and the courageous few like Raza. “Our estranged, slightly angry, brotherly liberators” also know that Mr Khan and Chaudhry Nisar Ali, etc. are there for them, making excuses and providing warrants in advance, the Jihad Inc.’s PR wing works in overdrive. Till the time Mr Khan and his fellows do not see enough sense to understand the implications of their ridiculous accusations and labeling, their condemnations are worse than hollow, they are disingenuous. The likes of Mr Khan and some of his overzealous followers have created the enabling environment for this wanton criminality, once they do the “Zionist/RAW/Mossad, etc.” chorus for too long, they paint a target on someone’s back. Most of the Taliban apologists are not given to reading; however, given their feeling of self-importance, one might quote lines from WB Yeats, from his poem “Man and the echo”, which he wrote when he found that some Irish rebels in 1916 went to their death at the hands of English forces quoting lines from his play. “Did that play of mine send out, Certain men the English shot?… Could my spoken words have checked, That whereby a house lay wrecked?”



This happened in Mian Shahbaz Sharif’s Lahore. Another thing that happened in Mian Sahib’s Lahore was the assault and torching of Joseph Colony. Now, Sawan Masih has been convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to death. The State cannot protect its citizens (from the “minorities”), worse it will punish them further for being the oppressed, the weak. The angry zealots who attacked Joseph Colony were mostly not bearded clerics: the disturbing thing is that the state, the clerics and their apologists have created the enabling environment where they do not need to do everything themselves. The precedent is that you can get away with it.

Express group has been relentlessly attacked, and it is easy and lazy advice merely to tell them to brave it and lay down more lives. Where is the State? It is unreasonable to expect someone to be this brave. Who will protect the dissenters? The State has vanished, or at least, is vanishing. The governing principle of the Pakistani State is that it negotiates (read surrender) to the bullies, punishes the weakest of the weak and abandons Salmaan Taseer and Raza Rumi for defending the weak. The precedent is that to become a “stakeholder” or now, as surreal as it sounds, “liberators”, you have to unrepentantly kill in large numbers and gloat about it.

It is convenient to ask Express to join the glorious traditions of martyrdom. Very well, however, where is the demand for protection, where is the display of solidarity from the Media? While committees negotiate in the highest of the high government places and the representatives of our “liberators” monopolise prime time television giving their point of view, and getting deferential nods of agreement in return, who would want to stick their neck out? Raza Rumi is an exceptionally brave man and he did. So will the Media as a collective decide to boycott our “estranged brothers” and not give them the platform to spew regressive hate, particularly when they have no qualms in attacking the Media itself? Winston Churchill’s now cliched saying is, “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”

In the Sawan Masih case, for the few who care, it is easy to get angry at the Trial Judge and erroneously conclude that the entire judiciary consists of closeted, religious fundamentalists. However, the important question is, does the State display the capacity or undertake to grant protection to the judge who will decide to stand up? The answer is no, the State is both completely unable and completely unwilling to do any such thing. Aasia Bibi’s appeal continues to be adjourned, while Mumtaz Qadri is celebrated on front pages of newspapers of record. Courage and martyrdom are qualities easy to admire, however, not so to emulate, particularly when no one cares. Shaheed Salmaan Taseer was not only abandoned by the State, but by almost everybody else.

The Pakistani State in its present state shows no sign of weathering this storm. The narrative of the State has to be changed before the nature of it is. The nonsense of ‘extremists’ on both sides, of “Zionist protocols” and “foreign agents” have run its course, and will, if continued unabated, come back to haunt the present proponents, and then as the cliche goes, no one will be left to care. The Media needs to stop giving airtime to those who kill with impunity; kill not only lesser mortals like us but them too. It is painfully overdue now that the State, political leaders and the Media stop feeding the crocodile.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 30^th, 2014.

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