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