Militancy, a Product of Fragile Social Fabric

Increasing militancy in our society is clear indication of looming disaster if one analyses objectively. The way incidents of terrorism are happening signals that we are heading towards an era of civil war-seemingly not far away.

Putting aside the debate of whether external forces are responsible or not, the militant phenomenon is a solid reality in our society. The growing bomb culture spread fear and panic leading towards a heightened sense of insecurity.

There is an ongoing debate among the academia, print and electronic media and intelligencia to highlight the factors contributing to this state of affairs in our part of the world. Numerous arguments brought forward attribute to ‘the Afghan factor’, ‘the external forces’, and ‘Talbanization’, ‘political unrest’.

In the pace that follows I would draw on another important factor; fluidity and fragility of social fabric in our society. Notably we can observe that there is increasing level of intolerance between different economic classes, religious sects, ethnic and lingual groups, and territorial populations. The fabric which was built on strong foundations of trust, faith, integrity, belonging and sacrifice, has been destroyed due to a dramatic rise in political turmoil and violence.

Youth is the most affected segment. The major chunk of our youth population is alienated to the extent that they have least trust in state, lack in sense of belonging, alarming level of cynicism. People expect from their society fairness, recognition for their contribution to society, trust that others will not take advantage of them and a sense of belonging. Instead, they are get fear, threat, unpredictability and lawlessness. This the scenario where alienated population especially the youth resort to violence and provide terrorism operating groups raw material which they polish and use for their own vested interests.

Long tradition of resorting to violence to solve political problems eventually contributed to militarization of society. Violence breeds violence.

Intolerant attitude is common among the masses. A long history of deprivation and human rights violation has pushed such attitudes to develop a wider scale.

A cursory overview of daily incidents both civil and criminal reported in print and electronic media shows that we are very much intolerant in attitude and behavior. Right from small family unit to the state or societal level we are involved in ‘strife within’ syndrome. We are very much lacking in a sense of community living which used to be the hallmark of our peaceful surroundings.

There is an urgent need to emphasize the values of tolerance, interfaith harmony, trust, and mutual respect among the masses.