The writer is Executive Director News, Express News, and Executive Editor of The Express Tribune. He tweets @fahdhusain
fahd.husain@tribune.com.pk
On May 28 this year I had written my fears:
“Feel your heart sink — for sink it shall at the prospects of another travesty to befall us and our loved ones. Feel the tightening in your stomach as fear strangulates you — for strangulate it shall at the imminence of bloodletting somewhere, sometime. And feel the inevitability of mayhem lurk around you like a menacing shadow — for lurk it shall at the promise of dark days…The drip, drip, drip of enforced normalcy is the poison slowly being injected into our veins by a leadership that has bludgeoned itself into failure… The Manchester attack is oceans away and yet you hear the danger ringing like a bell. You ask for whom the bell tolls? It tolls for thee.”
On June 23 this bell tolled loudly. But is this clanging shrill enough to jolt us out of our partisan battles? Is it loud enough to make us sit up and read the bloodied writing on the wall; to relook at our tweeted story of imagined success; to revisit the map that was supposed to chart us through the minefield of terror and lead us to serene salvation?
May 28: “Remember the people who killed 60,000 of us? Remember those who slaughtered our children a few years ago? Remember them who wiped out entire families in Peshawar, Lahore and Karachi explosions? Remember them who played football with the decapitated heads of our soldiers and vowed to unleash rivers of blood on our streets? Remember those who supported them with their words and sentiments; who justified their murder and mayhem on the grounds of misplaced beliefs? Remember those who sanctioned a dialogue with them and offered to host their offices in our cities? Now recall the vows and promises to bring them down; recall the plans, steps and ops to take them on; recall the hype, hoopla and hysteria generated with calculated intent to prove the tide was finally turning against them and in our favour. Recall all this and now scan the landscape for progress indicators.”
June 23: Promises, plans, steps, ops and vows of the State lie shattered within the bloodied debris of Parachinar, Quetta and Karachi. Bravado sounds silly now, official messages ring hollow and condolences an insult to those who lost loved ones. The “my heart goes out to…” tweets by Lilliputian leaders are the newest example of aping words of the West without bothering to ape their anti-terror standard operating procedures. There is something terribly rotten within the state of Pakistan and it’s the nation’s worst-kept secret.
May 28: “A long line of terror-mongers strung up. Check. Terror camps across the Durand Line blasted by artillery fire. Check. High-profile murderers like Ehsanullah Ehsan surrendered. Check. Terror plots like the one in Lahore foiled and potential perpetrators like Noreen Leghari netted. Check. A visible reduction in attacks in major urban centres. Check…But the limited progress on these fronts is dwarfed by the monumental failure in one key — and possibly the key — area: National Action Plan (NAP). Never was an acronym more appropriate in its verb form than this one. The abysmal failure of this plan however is less a breaking news and more a train wreck in slow motion.”
June 23: This slo-mo wreck slammed into three of our cities on a single day and devoured the precious lives of those who depend on the State of Pakistan to protect them. The State failed them. Again. It failed them because it is a State that is ill-intentioned, ill-prepared, incompetent and weak. Yes it is weak not just in its capability but also in its resolve.
May 28: “Any unknowing person visiting this land of ours should not be faulted for imagining that our war against terror is far behind us. The lullaby of partisan politics has sedated us back into deceptive normalcy. The reimagining of terror is such that the shock of a suicide attack wears off before the dead are lowered into the ground. We believe we are fine, till the next attack happens. And then we are fine till the next one; and yet we are fine till…Laments turn into dark humour and the sharp stab of disappointment transforms into a dull ache. The colossal failure of the combined leadership manifests itself in its absolute inability to solder a singularity of purpose. The artificial and superficial consensus on pursuing the common enemy has been ruptured by the glorious combination of incompetence, inability and ill-will borne of personal, political and institutional compulsions. It is a failure carved in crimson blood.”
June 23: Are we fated to suffer from this failure carved in crimson blood? Are we condemned to bury our slain again and again and again while the exalted minions of the State of Pakistan snore away the National Action Plan (NAP)? Do not regale us with your endless tales of success when terror mongers continue to strike at will; do not burden us with your best laid plans when those plans come to nought in the killing fields of Parachinar, Quetta and Karachi; and do not boast to us about the supposed progress on NAP when we know NAP continues to nap as more of us are lowered into the ground amid wails and cries of anguished citizens.
May 28: “From whence did sprout such decay of purpose? … And did we not really mean what we said when we carried the unbearable burden of small coffins on our shoulders? … Can you smell the scent of sin in the air? It is the sin of rupturing the resolve to combat terror in every shape and form; the sin of not crafting a powerful central narrative that paints our struggle as an existential one; and the sin of defacing the memory of our fallen by losing the zeal to fight the enemy on every front and reform ourselves on every front.”
June 23:
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main…
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 25th, 2017.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
COMMENTS (1)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ