Updated: November 20, 2012.
"As the world celebrated Malala Day, we as a nation remained reluctant to stand against extremism that surely is not an effect of the war on terror but a mindset to maim, execute and terrorise the resistant Pakistanis for political power under the garb of religion."
Thus spake an activist friend of mine. A Pakistan-American, in fact.
And he's not alone. There are a lot of people out there picking on "the Pakistani nation" or "Pakistan" or "Pakistanis".
Why don't they fight back? The question often not-quite formed in their minds is "What's wrong with these coolies? Why are they not standing up, "Spring"ing up?"
From Arabs to Indians—Indian Muslims even more so, because they feel we walked out on them and left them shorthanded in their political struggles—from American progressives (again post-9/11American Muslims most of all) to Pakistani Leftists themselves, they're all saying, mumbling, thinking it.
Really?
We're the ones who've spent 3+ generations dealing with "
them" while "
the world" was in bed with them, from
Israel to
Washington to Riyadh to Islamabad to
Hyderabad in the Deccan.
Whether it is the student that got threatened 20 years ago with a "KK" (we have our own slang for the AK47, usually
paid for by "the world") for trying to organize a "musical evening" on a campus where student representation was banned by the local client tyrant of "the world"; or the college principal from the generation before that, threatened by a student for implementing the official state policy; or the All India Muslim League official from the generation before
that, standing in opposition to the Jamaat-e-Islami's position during the independence movement, our
nation has been fighting this.
And before you raise the
recently re-vivified and re-united Pakistani Left:
they have been wandering in the wilderness for the last 2 generations bickering over which of
their idols—Mao or Stalin or Lenin or Sajjad Zaheer—had it right, rather than doing the movement work that we all should have been doing for the last 30 years and more.
My
nation has been in there mixing it up, taking our chops and rolling with the punches. And when I meet activists from the days of Gen Zia who are now cosmetic surgeons on Harley Street, or money-minting CEO's in Silicon Valley, the irony is not lost on me. But I don't blame them. I know they fought the good fight when it really
could have made a difference. And they have the scars, physical and emotional, to show for it.
In the aftermath of "the cartoons", I
went on WNYC (New York Public Radio) pointing out that this is an ideological and political struggle of keeping back the neo-purists from taking leadership of the Muslim Ummah (global community). And I made it a point to not let a characterization of "them" as the faceless, otherized "enemy" go unchallenged. This has been, for a century or so, a struggle for the the hearts, minds, and
leadership of the Ummah.
And "the world"'s solution was to help put in place and support client tyrants that raped, tortured, pulled out fingernails and generally made sure no hearts were won for moderation or good sense.
And that's why in the last few years, we've seen, I am starting to feel, that
they have finally, after about a century or more of work, started winning: Egypt (remember the last elections?); Palestine (elections, again); Syria ("
the Brotherhood is calling the shots" NPR tells us); ...
What y'all need to do is to stop picking on my nation, each of you, and do what you and your forebears should have been doing all along to stop this happening.
Look in the mirror.
My nation is not the one that dropped the ball.
PS: As for who to watch right now here's a list of previous posts:
and most important to answer those who think ALL Pakistanis welcome the military coup when it comes (or that we all should when it comes to Egypt because not doing so is supporting bad governance or the Islamists):
