Celebrating independence

I wonder how many more national days the nation will celebrate before it detects a perceptible change in the outlook and security situation in the country. What we have today is a land full of tension, fear and uncertainty. There is an administration that is not sure how it should proceed in the war on terror and law enforcement agencies that are being repeatedly targeted by the terrorists. On August 7, it was reported that the government’s official matador had decided that it was time to throw away the cape and look the bull straight in the eye. “Either we come to terms with the militants or indulge in an all-out war,” he said with characteristic aplomb. Drastic measures have to be taken before some semblance of normalcy can be achieved.

The spokesman was echoing the sentiments of a public that is totally fed up with the insecurities that lurk at every street corner — and a government that has so far demonstrated its inability to tackle the insurgency. While the main target of the terrorists is the law enforcement agencies, the bombings also take the lives of citizens totally unconnected with the military, Rangers or the police. Even worshippers in mosques are not spared. While the armed Ranger at times plays his role with bug-eyed fury like the man trying to hold down the hog-eyed steer, he knows he is fighting a losing battle, and there is nothing he can do to defeat the invisible enemy. And so, each act of terror is accepted with inevitability and weary resignation — and forgotten the next day. The public just doesn’t seem to care anymore. Of course, when the activists target children, especially girls who are trying to get an education, it gives one a permanent lump in the throat.



Independence Day is still celebrated in the country with considerable pizzazz. On the stroke of midnight, the cities explode with blasts of celebratory firing and firecrackers that light up the night sky. The only redeeming feature on this occasion, however, is the appearance of the odd article in different newspapers written by senior citizens who come out of the woodwork to remind the public that Pakistan was established as a secular state, not as a theocracy, even though obscurantist elements have done their utmost to corrode the national psyche and rewrite history. Though nobody really takes any notice of these pieces, I believe they are necessary from a historical perspective. If nothing else, they at least enlighten the young brainwashed reader, who was born during the reign of the emperor of religious intolerance that things were very different in the beginning and that heat without light can be very dangerous.

The old codgers who were youngsters when Pakistan was wrenched out of the subcontinent and the Muslims of the subcontinent were split three ways, still retain fond memories of the founder of the nation. But they have become an endangered species on the edge of extinction. If they feel the necessity to reproduce extracts of the famous August 11 speech, they do so because they care, even if nobody else does. Unfortunately, some of the symbols of the old Karachi in the sparkling, secular days are now just postcards, dog-eared, and yellowed with age, buried in an old trunk in the basement. They belong to a different country and a different era — an age of tolerance and goodwill when there was respect for the law and the minorities were equal citizens. All we are now left with are memories. And that is something nobody can take away from us.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 18^th, 2013.

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