All rather disgusting

Last week, the proud defence forces of the Islamic Republic test fired an umpteenth N-capable ballistic missile, something called Hatf-IX, meant to scare the wits out of India — yet another ‘major achievement’ of the mighty military to which this civilian government has no answers.

But then, it has no path. It is subservient to the man installed by the US, in its own national interest, on a three-year extension of service, and to the machine he commands. Our Indian fixation never abates just like our focus on using scarce resources (fished out of the perennial begging bowl) to educate the country’s children or to combat our burgeoning home-grown extremists. Rather than do anything that might better the lot of the people, nuclear Pakistan is racing to get into the top five of the world’s nuclear arsenal possessors and is busy blocking all UN efforts to negotiate an international treaty banning nuclear weapons fuel production.

So be it, but over the past week or so, disgust at everything thrown up by those that move and shake politics and policies has bloomed and blossomed. The current national hero (which keeps changing as circumstances dictate), the Supreme Court of Pakistan, has somewhat shown its colours. One must wonder seriously at the difference in its mindset and in that of the awful senator Mir Israrullah Zehri, given a cabinet portfolio (why only Asif Zardari knows). Zehri is on record in the Senate as having upheld the burial alive of at least two women of Balochistan in the name of honour and for saying that this was a ‘centuries- old tradition’ which must not be disturbed.

The Supreme Court, admittedly, has not yet got round to live burials, but in the matter of rape, it does seem to have a blinkered view of women and their place in the scheme of things pertaining to the Islamic Republic. The judgement handed down in the Mukhtaran Mai case smacks of ancient traditions when it comes to assessing raped women. As remarked The Washington Post, “The court’s ruling showed a keen understanding of traditional village mores, including the ‘extreme sensitivity’ of premarital chastity... justices in the 2 to 1 majority decision expressed little sympathy for Mai … In contrast, the judges referred often to the ‘presumed innocence’ of the defendants ... ”.

Yet another blot on the ‘image’ so zealously projected and protected of the republic that is Pakistan. Between the blasphemy laws (now fearfully forgotten) and the law as it pertains to rape, the ‘image’ can only invoke disgust.

On April 25, a horrific incident took place near Sibi, in the heart of Balochistan, when unknown dissidents cruelly set fire to a bus and burnt alive over 15 people, the majority of whom were women and children. Has the government uttered? On April 26 and 28, the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan went on a rampage in Karachi, attacking buses of the Pakistan Navy, killing and maiming. Schools are regularly blown up in what is now Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Yet last week, our army chief informed us and the Kakul cadets that the army had successfully broken the back of the militants amongst us.

Anatol Lieven, writing in Foreign Policy magazine on April 22 on “why Pakistan is so difficult to work with” and discussing the AfPak attitude towards terrorism, struck a little chord of welcome gallows-humour: “… they are basically at one when it comes to preventing international terrorism against the West. This is in part because the Pakistani elite shop in the West, send their children to study in the West and to a large extent actually live in the West. On any given day, a bomb in Harrods in London would be very likely to claim a Pakistani elite family among its victims.”

Published in The Express Tribune, April 30^th, 2011.