No more business as usual, please!

The new government’s apathy to the incessant pounding, which the state is regularly taking from militants, and more recently from nature in the form of floods, should be giving all of us sleepless nights. But of course it isn’t. Take a stroll in any bazaar and it doesn’t give the impression that the country is at war. It’s business as usual.

These are very grim times and the sooner we realise this, and force ourselves out of our respective bubbles, the better off we’ll be, in the long run. Since long, we have become experts in conveniently looking the other way and ignoring issues that would otherwise warrant an extraordinary response from the state, as well as society at large.

It is common practice for senior government officials in the West to make long trips, covering thousands of miles, to visit troops fighting on the front line on special holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving. But it is silly of us to imagine that our leaders would do the same. Since this government came to power, several high-profile attacks have taken place, which belie the notion that the scale of the war has toned down since it spiked in 2007.

The Jinnah Residency bombing, the attacks on the Hazara community, the Dera Ismail Khan jail break, attack on the ISI office in Sukkur and the Nanga Parbat massacre are just the boldest few among numerous other such incidents.

And where are our leaders? The soon-to-be former president has been out of the country since his security chief was killed in Karachi, whereas his newly-elected replacement is busy giving TV interviews left, right and centre. The prime minister spent the last days of Ramazan in the Holy Land. The leaders opt for these activities despite being aware of ground realities.

They may have their reasons, but don’t soldiers and policemen dying on the front deserve a pat on the back? Don’t we owe everything to them? Don’t they deserve a surprise visit by their commander-in-chief on Eid?

Our soldiers need to be reassured by their leaders that their death is for a higher purpose and not owing to a lack of clarity regarding the national security policy. Is it too much to ask of our leaders to sacrifice their Eid plans and visit our soldiers fighting on the frontline?

Published in The Express Tribune, August 9^th, 2013.