The Taliban’s pound of flesh

They want their ideology to rise within us, eclipse our better senses. And by the looks of it, the scheme is working.

The Taliban are coming to exact their pound of flesh and this is not a joke. Our intelligence supremo has just told a group of lawmakers that surprises are expected in talks with the militants — the more acceptable word for Taliban. But hang on. Is surprise, by definition, not something unexpected? And if the surfeit of reports and analyses carried in newspapers is to be trusted, engaging these militants was always the best idea. And now that the US president has come out of the closet and expressed his love for the turbaned warriors, we should also confess that we are smitten.

But our deep state’s love for the Taliban belies logic. They are a self-propelled doomsday machine with a coy mind of its own. And then there is the worry about the Taliban’s contagious ideology, the actual pound of flesh.

Every faith has a code of ethics and permitted methods to achieve them. Most faiths actually forbid the use of barbaric methods, no matter how much their followers try to justify them. And the Taliban have erased that distinct fine line. When ends start justifying the means, the means get meaner by the day and eventually ends, too, more crooked. This freneticism has been inflicted on the Pakistani nation by this band of thugs as even Ziaul Haq’s 11 years couldn’t.

They have struck again and again, intellectually, emotionally, socially, subliminally and exacted many pounds of flesh. First, they collected our deep state, then religious political parties, then clergy and now mainstream media and political parties too. And since then, our deep state’s central conceit and plot device has been that they are god-fearing people who just want a free Afghanistan (obviously serving as our strategic depth). And while they removed pound after pound of living tissue from our body, blood was also being spilled, innocent blood on which no one has any right. And our Portia is already dead.

This time, the threat is not territorial and they are not coming on horseback from abroad. They want their ideology to rise within us and eclipse our better senses. And by the looks of it, the scheme is working. Why, I ask you, within a few short years, has our parliament become so weak-kneed that offering fatiha for Salmaan Taseer is forbidden and yet someone can get away with doing the same for Osama bin Laden? Why is it that when the Abbottabad Commission seems all set to declare that the man killed by the US marines was not Osama, our intelligence’s head honcho quietly visits Doha? Why is it that the two main political parties vying to replace the current government are coming out of the closet as Taliban apologists? Why is it that Jamaatud Dawa and Jamaat-e-Islami rallies are taking place with an increased frequency? And finally, why is it that while terrorists responsible for the deaths of countless fellow citizens are set free by our courts, our honourable judges cannot overcome their fixation with memogate? Something sinister is afoot.

One does not need to be pernickety to gauge the loss of our brave soldiers at the hands of these barbarians. All you need to do is to travel to Rawalpindi and visit the Armed Forces Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine and meet some war victims there. It is not time to fuss, but to stand up and reclaim Quaid’s Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 3^rd, 2012.