Shooting ourselves in the foot Soon after our border guards had exhibited aggressively scornful gestures towards their Indian counterparts towards the “line” at Wahga and the general public provoked to make loud slogans directed at those across the zero line (same was reciprocated from the other side) that a suicide bomber struck from behind. Sixty five lay dead and more than a hundred injured. Now this is what we have been doing for the past 67 years. Our complete focus has been outside our borders. It started with India, to be followed by the Soviet Union and Afghanistan when “Eeman Taqwa and Jehad became the official slogan of our armed forces. And Islam was employed as a driving force to fight the “enemies of Islam” outside our borders and not the “enemies of Pakistan” inside, while our “brilliant” policy makers forgot that anybody can be conveniently labeled as the enemy of Islam. In fact, the suicide bomber who struck Wahga last night was also targeting the “enemies of Islam.” Our security establishment created a threat perception and diverted and mobilized almost all our resources to fight an enemy outside our borders but forgot that the real enemy lay inside. And the real enemy was defense at the cost of democracy and development, Islam at the cost of a secular outlook, vested interest and inequality, exploitation and oppression, unjust distribution of resources and indoctrination of hate culture, illiteracy and ignorance, faulty economic policies and state patronage of militant non-state actors. The real enemy struck East Pakistan from inside and we lost half the country. The same is happening in Balochistan but we only tell our people that it is nothing just a “bairooni haath” And today when three “jehadi outfits” from within the country have accepted the responsibility for the suicide attack we are still focused at what we should do about outside i.e. India, Afghanistan, Iran and the US. And the rangers announced today that the ceremony at Wahga would continue unabated to boost the morale of the people. And the people then came to watch “the circus” where stupid aggressive gestures were demonstrated as usual while the audience was provoked to shout nonsensical slogans, quite oblivious of the fact as to what happened last night and the same could happen again. However, like in the past, our focus would perhaps always remain on the outside and never what is brewing up inside. Tailpiece: Prior to World War II, Germany and Japan were great military powers focused on the outside. Both were destroyed. After the end of world war, both focused on the inside. Today they are economic superpowers, stable and progressing, prestigious and respected within the comity of nations. Can we learn from history before we are destroyed or we would continue to shoot ourselves in the foot? Waseem Altaf
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 14:53:13 +0000
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