You Failed Us Mr. President

October 1, Sialkot: 31 people killed in a bomb blast in a Shiite mosque.
October 7, Multan: 40 people killed in a car bomb blast in a Sunni congregation.

Welcome to Pakistan which is Moderate, Enlightened and above all, Tolerant!

Musharraf was a brave man with a clear and focused vision about Pakistan when he came to power in 1999. He was a man of few but words of wisdom. Now, five years past, he is a perfect product that suits us the Pakistanis: vague, politic, glib, imposing and above all reluctant. What happened to him? Has he ever had a monologue or looked inside and wondered as to what happened to – in his own words – an “idealist” that turned into a foul “pragmatist.” Has he become increasingly incompetent in good governing Pakistan or as generally believed, he doesn’t have the courage to implement what he thinks he should and keeps speaking about it? A million dollar mystery, indeed!

The events in quick succession in Sialkot and Multan have jolted the whole nation who is now practically waiting for a ruthless messiah and have lost hope in what the golden words of Musharraf had been. These events speak about the total incompetence of our intelligence and security agencies, which eat up a bigger chunk of our national income and that too without any public audit. One is bound to question as to if they are really needed or it’s the priority of the targets that the ruling elite provides them with? Is having Javed Hashmi behind bars and hounding politicians to turn real “patriots” more important than breaking into the unholy circles of extremists planning to derail the whole country? “Idealistically” it is not but “pragmatically” it may be and the ordinary and common ceaselessly keep paying the price of this pragmatism that is of no good to them. How can five hundred thousand rupees per casualty really compensate the life of a human being? Is this the value of a human life in the Land of the Pure? Thinking the lives of the members of troika ten times more important than the lives of ordinaries, would the families of this “troika” accept five million rupees for the lives of their dear ones? A life may be lost “idealistically” but the family will have five million rupees “pragmatically!” Good bargain worth going for?

Over all these historic years of Pakistan’s life, the clarity of action and idea of the rulers is admirable when they came to power but only in a year or so, all of them become the same: indifferent and power lusty. People of my generation (unfortunately) grew up young during Zia’s unnatural and oppressed era of Islamization where the seeds of extremism and Jihad were sowed all around but in their own quarters. Young people exactly of the ages of their own sons were readied and prepared to sacrifice their lives in the ruthless and barren mountains of Afghanistan while their own sons studied and worked in Europe, America and UAE. This bloody process continued and later the Jihad was turned towards the green and pine hills of Kashmir and more youth spilled their blood for the green bills which the rulers kept stuffing in their already overflowing pockets. Commoners on the streets of Pakistan suffered, are suffering and probably keep suffering. The only incident in which the ruling elite suffered was the loss of the daughter of then NWFP governor, Gen. Khurshid Ali Khan in a bomb blast in December 1995. Beside that, people in Pakistan keep dieing like flies and not an eyebrow is raised.

Such violence has a history in Pakistan and the first mistake that our governing elite made was to press Sir Zafarullah Khan to resign. Successive governments kept bowing against the unreal, polarizing and unholy demands of religious dogmatists and unfortunately Musharraf seems no different. We all remember the way he reversed his radicalism on the proposed amendments in the registration process of the blasphemy cases and the recent dilly-dallying on Hudood Ordinance.

Such a religious fervor was systematically cultivated by Zia’s military rule that a certain sect was supported and formalized all around the country and the NWFP Governor Gen. Fazl-e-Haq openly supported and financed this sectarian outfit. Gen. Haq was later assassinated. Strange it may seem but this religious group took out strong and violent processions against his killing while all others simply condemned. The training and sanctuary relations of this group and many others were fostered with Afghanistan – Pakistan’s once “strategic depth” in the West.

“Give me an inch and I’ll ask for a foot” has always been the strategy of our Mullahs and it’s been proven time and again. Encouraged by the withdrawal of successive governments from acting against them, these mullahs turned militant both domestically and regionally and certain agencies and institutions backed them. Incidents that have recently shaken the whole country are simply the continuation of what’s been happening over the last three decades and it will continue. Nation should be mentally prepared for more dissemination of five hundred thousand rupees to the families of the killed.

We had hopes on Musharraf – when he addressed us on October 17, 1999. We welcomed him as our savior – and we never took onto the streets. We even voted for him in his controversial referendum – if not 96% but at least 60% would have favored him. We believed him when he promised us crackdown against extremists – but we heard about “seat to seat adjustment” and later saw the government granting “opposition leadership” to extremists. We thought he would hold corrupt accountable and introduce true democracy – but we saw NAB-dodgers in Cabinet and people turning “patriots” by the night. We relied on him for his apparent honesty and clear demeanor but he foiled and fizzled out on every single front.

In the words of great Martin Luther King Jr.: “True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice" and justice we demand from you sir. Justice on every promise that you made from crackdown on extremists to genuine democracy; from across the board accountability to provincial disharmony; from enlightened moderation to madrassah reforms; from peace with India to bread for a poor man; from good governance to good economy. We have already been failed many times and you have due share in that Mr. President.

Please don’t fail us anymore!