Rallies were taken out to protest the release of Raymond Davis by various political parties, including the Jamaat-e-Islami, in Lahore recently. The case of Raymond Davis became a matter of national honour ever since Davis shot two men in Lahore on the 26th of January, and even more so when the spy was acquitted under the diyat law and allowed a swift exit.
I wonder where all these people were when a few thousand other crimes were being committed in this country, crimes much worse than Davis shooting of young Pakistanis, because the victims were the countrymen of the criminals themselves.
Naeem Sadiq, in his excellent article titled A Matter of Honour in an English Daily, wondered where the great Pakistani honour was when five women were buried alive in Baluchistan, when Mukhtaran Mai was publicly raped, or when the Christians of Gojra were burnt alive?
Where, one wonders, are all these honourable people every time a woman is burnt in an acid attack, a couple killed, because they dare to aspire to a marriage of choice, worshippers attacked because they belong to the Ahmadi sect. Stick your neck into your own backyard, people, and look at all the filth strewn around before you point fingers at anyone else.
We were sightseeing at the Katas Raj Temple last month when sectarian riots broke out in the village next door. Temple officials bundled us out of there as fast as they could, pleading with us to hurry because, they said, whenever Sunni Shia riots broke out in the vicinity, the corollary was that both factions marched on to the temple, and burnt/pillaged it. Just because. This is what we do best: vent our own inequities on someone else.
I do not condone what Davis did, but at least Davis, who was apparently employed on espionage work for the CIA was not acting against his own. If any of these protestors had read a page or two of history, or tried to apply it to life, they would have been aware that espionage is a sad fact amongst the more shady facts of political life, a necessary evil that we all indulge in since way back in history, and that we do it too. The difference between spies of course is that there are those who spy on others, and those who work against their own people. The first are doing their job, the second are without honour and are called traitors. Who demands their death?
There are the feudal lords and their pitiful serfs, the politicians and their corrupt actions. What is this but traitorously working against ones own, let alone humanity itself? Who stands up against them? Who protests when our leaders stash away billions in foreign accounts, when governments take loans and blow them on palatial mansions and foreign trips, when they misuse foreign aid meant for the unfortunate? Go into Lahores electronics shops and see the appliances that say US AID on the packaging. These were meant for the IDPs, and instead are being sold in the open market. Honour? We dare speak of honour? Dont make me sick. The mullahs with their straggly beards who spout this mantra are the same who condemn a man and a woman to death because they were seen walking together. The Government Ministers who kowtow to them are the same who say that burying women alive is okay and must not be criticised because it is our culture. Like heck it is.
It isnt that we as Pakistanis are not involved in espionage ourselves. That we never break rules ourselves when we leave the country, never mind what we do within it. There was the case of the Pakistani First Secretary in Nepal who was spotted passing on 16kg of RDX (Research Department Explosives) to a Punjabi militant in 1998. The following year he was accused of involvement in the hijacking of an Indian Airlines aircraft, in which a young man was killed in front of his wife. The same year another Pakistani diplomat was caught running counterfeit currency deals, also in Nepal. How honourable are these men?
How honourable are those who pay a pittance in tax on grossly indecent incomes stolen from the poor? Or those who take bank loans and have them written off, and those who block public roads for hours every time they leave their homes? Those who defraud pilgrims of their hard earned money at the shrine of shrines, or those who kill other pilgrims at other shrines just because they dont think they ought to be there?
There is no honour among thieves, my love, American, Pakistani, whoever. Lets at least be clear about that, shut our sanctimonious little mouths, and take it from there.
