This week is an important one in the history of Pakistan. It was 30 years ago ths week that a prime minister of this country was sent to the gallows. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was cruelly extinguished by a Maulvi Mushtaq of the High court, who’s hatred during the judgment was visible for all to see.
These days though it is hard to understand just who it is that our political leadership are fighting as the opponents are shady and shift shape with each passing day. However we need not bother ourselves with technicalities in this regard as the word militant is enough to cover the length and breadth of the people who are carrying out a civil war in Pakistan.
Yes it is civil war and not “America’s war” as the militants are engaged in systematically dismembering parts of our country from the control at the center. First was FATA and the little control we had there as it was swept away within months, the latest has been SWAT and there too the militants have defeated the army in several places and where they have not, have reduced them to sitting inside forts.
Now it seems they are moving south, into districts of both Southern and Northern Punjab and have kept up their strategy of attacking state security apparatus to weaken it and then take over in lieu of either armed insurgency or peace accord. The attack on the police academy in Lahore is a link to this long chain going all the way back to Afghanistan.
The question which arises in my mind though is where these militants are getting their funding and logistical support from? Coralled on one side by the US forces and on the other by Pakistan’s not so popular but effective intelligence agencies and army, how is this steady supply of arms, money, communications equipment as well as high explosives making its way to them? Is there a breach in our wall from any side? Mir jaffars in the midst?
The west certainly thinks so and alleges our intelligence agencies are involved, but perhaps they are mistaking agents from across borders with those of our own? It is no hidden fact who stands to profit most from the dismemberment of Pakistan, although I dare say they will, if it god forbid happens realize this as their greatest folly as we are the only line of defense between them and the barbarian hordes on that side of them northern mountains.
Frankly our political leadership right now seems like a small island facing a huge hurricane, the waves of religious zeal coming from the north seem to be overlapping its shores. When it comes down to it the government has within a year lost touch with the people which voted it into power, alienated members from their own party and forged so many back door deals it would take a “deal specialist” just to sort out who is in who’s bed. This kind of political wrangling has off course taken focus away from the main issue at hand and thus the bearded ones march gets louder with each passing moment.
Perhaps it is time the people took matters into their own hands as they did in the long march, perhaps we should now focus on each neighborhood and protect it on our own from these militants. It is quite obvious that the state machinery has failed and when that happens there is nothing left to do but fight for ones own piece of earth. What is sad is that although the government extolls the virtues of past leaders of their party, they have totally forgotten that ZA Bhutto lives on as a legend despite his many mistakes because in the end he died at the common man’s side not in a drawing room with gleaming pictures behind him.
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