How do you fight guns with mere words?

We at the Express Group do not look at the December 2 attack on our Karachi premises in isolation, as something unique to have happened to only our Group. We are, perhaps, one of the many in Pakistan’s media industry to be targeted over the last several years by those who do not believe in liberty, freedom and democracy. Pakistan has been ranked eighth in the Committee for Protection of Journalists’ 2013 Impunity Index, which spotlights countries where journalists are murdered regularly and killers go free. Condemning such incidents in the strongest terms, as is the routine, has not made and, is not going to make any difference to the perpetrators of such horrendous crimes. But then how do you fight guns with words? Well, by continuing to give voice to ideas stronger and more progressive than those that are driving these obscurantists. The phrase, the pen is mightier than the sword, may sound like a stale cliche in the current context, but its validity cannot be ignored even in today’s world of new media where it is the computer rather than the pen that rules. Since their idea of statehood is weaker than ours, they have taken up the gun to fight a losing battle.



The idea of Pakistan being a security state is one that has given rise to the prevailing gun culture in the country. The authors of this idea and its promoters need to realise that continuing to adhere to this kind of obscurantism is likely to undo the very state they are trying to preserve and protect. We need to get rid of all non-state actors before they take over the state, which they seem almost on the point of accomplishing at gunpoint. Their main strength does not lie in their obscure ideas but in the guns and gold that they have easy access to. It is almost impossible to believe that our state agencies do not know the sources of these two most important elements that help these criminals to impose their ideas on innocent masses — and the routes through which these reach the local terrorists. Once they are deprived of these elements in their armoury, they would wither away without the need to mount any operation against them.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2013.

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