One may presume that Dec 16 massacre of 150 young students and their teachers in Peshawar has woken the Pakistani nation to face what’s written on the wall: Our future doesn’t tie with waging jihad against our own people and other nations, but in excelling in education, arts, science and technology to bring back the past glory. Regrettably such a realisation will prove to be short-lived and soon the narrative of religious parties and their sectarian outfits will take over the nation to struggle for a utopian empire. We have been fighting religious and sectarian terrorism for decades, but have failed to put forward an alternate narrative to counter the terrorists’ ideology.
Religious parties and their respective madaris (seminaries) are at full liberty to hammer the general public with ‘going back to basics’ mantra which would solve all their issues. Madaris curriculum cover centuries old tribal practices as the way of an ideal life. In absence of any alternate narrative, they are winning on child marriages, enslavement of captured women and children, massacre of captured men, population control, discarding of DNA to prove rapes and list goes on. Where are our intellectuals and scholars to counter what religious parties and madaris are perceiving? Our failure to counter their ideology has already resulted in emergence of Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Al-Shabab, Boko Haram and Islamic State –they all firmly believe in ‘going back to basics’ and proving it well in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Nigeria and elsewhere.
Time to act is running out. Otherwise, these monsters will take over the region with the power of their utopian mantra.
MASOOD KHAN
Jubail, Saudi Arabia
Very good description of the realization that must take place in Pakistan…extremist who think they are above the law have been given freedom to pollute the minds of young people with hate speech… They have ruined their own country…it is time to take back the mosques from these hate mongers…time to follow the rule of established laws and not unjust sharia as determined by some uneducated mullah..
I think different narratives already exist in the society. No one ideology has been preferred by the people.The religious right has always supported conservative narrative over liberal narrative. The fight goes on. Terrorism has taken over our country, due to wrong policies of of the successive governments.
We can not combat these terrorists if we just keep playing blame game. We have to unite as a nation and show firm resolve to root out terrorism, extremism and militancy. We are living in denial. We must analyse the current precarious situation, and look into the root cause of this menace.
We do not have the time to waste on semantics and rotten ideologies. This debate would not serve our purpose. We must get a clearer picture and make intelligent decisions.
We can not get bogged down by such discussions. Let us get real, and use the full force of the State to eliminate terrorism.
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