Coming soon to a theatre near you

So then, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham has arrived in the Citadel of Islam with several bursts of Kalashnikov fire, destroying a ‘Zikri’ Zikarkhana in Tirtij, District Awaran, Balochistan, killing six worshippers and wounding seven.

ISIS pamphlets have also appeared in Peshawar City itself, and on its outskirts while the Chief Minister of K-P camps in Frontier House, Islamabad, seeing to it that the Great Helmsman gets his breakfast and other meals in time in his container.

An aside: It is said that when the environs of the container get filthy with human waste and the debris consisting of plastic bags and pakora wrappers and mineral water bottles that the three or four hundred people who take turns hanging about throw there, it is moved to another location a few yards away, this exercise repeated daily.

The same is repeated in the Canadian Preacher’s ‘compound’ so to say, on Constitution Avenue, the stench emanating from both now reaching the Diplomatic Enclave, forcing residents to send out for more and ever more supplies of air fresheners and agar batties and the like. Poor things, just what must they make of us?

The leadership of both — the PTI which has a stake in the politics of this country, and the PAT which has none — its leader soon heading back to Canada after spreading the mayhem he has (in case that country cancels his passport), have not said one word about the new threats that the ISIS, and before I forget, al Qaeda through a new enterprise to be called the ‘Qaedat al-Jihad’, pose for this country.

The stated aim of ‘Qaedat’ is to ‘crush the artificial borders’ between Muslim States and to bring Jihad where it has never gone before. According to newspaper reports of late, Zawahiri also ‘renewed a long-standing vow of loyalty to Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar, in an apparent snub to the ISIS which is challenging al Qaeda for leadership of transnational militancy’.

Zawahiri described the formation of ‘al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent’s glad tidings for Muslims in the region. Boy, oh boy, are we in for it!

‘Counterterrorism experts say that al Qaeda’s aging leaders are struggling to compete for recruits with ISIS, which has galvanised young followers around the world by carving out tracts of territory across the Iraq-Syria border’. The brutal ISIS whose leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi calls himself a ‘Caliph’ and has demanded the loyalty of all Muslims.

So, while our ‘brothers’ go about giving our religion an even better image than they had already given it, and while they become a threat to the very existence of this country, an aging cricketer who thinks he should be prime minister yesterday, and a rabble-rousing foreigner on the dole in his new country, despoil our capital as only they can.

They have the gall to attack Pakistan Television Network in scenes reminiscent of the great Commando’s coup against an elected government; break down the fences of Parliament House; beat up policemen, and attempt to attack the prime minister’s house itself, none other than Imran Khan making the thundering call repeated many times over: ‘Nawaz Sharif ko gallay sey pakarh lia hai mainey; abhi time agay barrhaney ka aa gaya hai: PM House ki tarraf challo’!

It is a testament to the intellectual dishonesty of the PTI that after accepting Shaykh-ul-Canada’s offer to IK to become his younger brother and PTI and PAT workers First Cousins (Qadri’s words, not mine) a night earlier, and after PTI workers TOGETHER with PAT workers assaulted PTV, Shah Mahmood had the temerity to say in parliament that PTI workers were not part of the attack. I saw PTI flags and dandas in PTI colours myself. Shame.

Then Shah Mahmood says on the floor of Parliament that Imran Khan sent him to ask TuQ not to attack parliament but that the Canadian refused. Why then did the PTI not announce then and there that because TuQ had insisted on attacking Parliament, the PTI was no longer in an alliance with him.

It’s all a big lie, isn’t it? Every paper worth its name in this country, including this paper, has alluded to there being a ‘script’ to this whole tamasha: of variously, removing the government through these ‘choreographed’ protests; forcing the resignation of the prime minister; or at the very least weakening him to the extent that he would just be a rubber stamp.

Their move from Lahore; the camping next to each other in Aabpara; the bringing up of the cranes; the removing of the containers; the arrival in the Red Zone; the coordinated attacks on the police and on sensitive buildings, it was all part of a script. Been there seen that; was even on the receiving end of at least two such ‘coups’ myself! So, please, do not insult our intelligence which is the one thing that irritates me most.

Indeed, has the presence of a certain Pasha during the planning (or shall we say the ‘script-writing’) stage, who is presently in the employ of a foreign government, and his hours long meetings with Imran Khan, duly reported umpteen times in the press been rebutted by anyone? Just who are certain people trying to fool? We Pakistanis have grown up, gentlemen. All you can do is to threaten us and our little children now, cowards!

You haven’t seen me much in the press, but do see my TL on Twitter: I had always predicted the complete failure of these marches AND the ultimate demise of the PTI as a political party of note which status was well within its grasp. Just give good governance in K-P and win big in the next elections. God alone knows who the Great Khan listens to? I suspect just Shireen Mazari and that Niazi fellow.

To end, let me say that I have always stood for a fair accounting of the terrible happenings at Model Town; and completely transparent elections through the use of electronic voting. Above everything else peace in this, the only country I have.

Now for heaven’s sake get out of Islamabad and let the CDA clean up your stinking waste: we have a most respected visitor coming.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 5^th, 2014.

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