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Friday March 29, 2024

In this country...

How can you write about anything but Peshawar this week? We write about what we think about, for the

By Mosharraf Zaidi
December 20, 2014
How can you write about anything but Peshawar this week? We write about what we think about, for the most part. Most of these columns that I write are dripping with bad news and a negative assessment of where things are. I hope Allah will judge me kindly, and that He will accept these efforts as my contribution to an honest discourse in this country, that is, in many ways, the only post-Westphalia tribute to Allah.
In this country, which is supposed to be a place where people can safely practice the faith, we were supposed to be able to pray safely. In our traditions, both those that date to before Bin Qasim arrived here, and those afterwards, one of the forms of worship we have had is love. Indeed, Bin Qasim’s sword could never achieve what Data Sahib’s love did. Ajmer Sharif may be in another country, but the system of love is one. It is who we are.
In this country, we were supposed to be able to pray. Safely. We were supposed to be able to love safely, to be one with The One, to be at peace with ourselves, one with ourselves. We were supposed to be able to worship safely. One of the forms of worship is the pursuit of knowledge.
The Holy Prophet (pbuh) instructed the pursuit of knowledge almost as strenuously as he did the path of love. We were to go to China, if need be, to seek it.
In this country, we were supposed to be able to seek knowledge. To pray safely, to love safely, to worship safely, to learn. We go to China quite a lot, but it is only to ask for things. To ask for weapons systems to use against India. To ask for forgiveness for allowing terrorists from ETIM to operate in our country. We never went to China to seek knowledge, or to ask why Chinese Muslims aren’t allowed to fast.
In this country, we were supposed to live without fear. But here we are. We are scared of Modi and his Hindutvadis. We were never scared before. Over 1,000 years we lived with them, never scared. Now, we’re scared? Nuclear weapons, F-16s, tanks, MRAPs, night vision goggles, training, surveillance equipment, guns, bullets, bombs. Why do we exist in fear in a free country?
In this country, we were supposed to live free. But here we are. Ahmadis, Christians, Hindus, Ismailis, Shias, and depending on where and when you get into the wrong argument, Deobandis, and Barelvis too. This country was freedom for the Baloch. Now some want freedom from freedom.
In this country, we were supposed to fly. Our children, especially. Iqbal promised us this. You can check all his poetry on manning up and being proud and being Muslim. We were supposed to be a place where we could fly.
This country was supposed to be a place of innocence, and freedom, and wonder and inquiry. For Muslims, for non-Muslims. For those that feared that India would one day have a majority rule that wanted to reward its Godses and silence its Gandhis.
Modi’s election affirms something visceral in us. Blinded by the white-hot light that is our utter failure to be anything we were supposed to be, we now seek solace in the minor failings of a bigger, more stable, richer, more powerful country. Gujarat and Ayodhya? We will never forget.
All Saints Church? What’s that? PNS Mehran? Where is that? The Marriott in Islamabad? For coffee, or dinner? Model Town? Wait. That was horrible. Those Mians are real scum.
Peshawar. City of flowers. Peshawar. City of Kissa Khwaani.
Peshawar. City of murder. City of mayhem. City of blood. City of the blood of children. Twelve-year-old Khaula. Sixteen-year-old Huzaifa.
City of children that didn’t have breakfast before they left for school. City of wailing mothers. Worried that their babies will never come home. City of babies that don’t come home.
City of murder. City of murtids. City of qitaal. City of blood, of gore, of guts, of brains, of flesh.
City whose children’s flesh was strewn across classrooms in which the Holy Quran was taught, and recited.
City whose children’s clothes were soaked with so much blood that they couldn’t separate the skin from their uniform.
City whose children won’t ever know rejection from LUMS because they will never be able to apply. Never know rejection from a girl because they never had a chance to say hi. Never know graduating, or getting a job, or getting married, or having a baby. Or watching their parents become grandparents. Or of burying their own parents.
City of children buried by their mothers and fathers.
City of children whose mothers will never get therapy because there aren’t enough therapists, there aren’t enough clinics, there aren’t enough medicines, there aren’t enough pills, enough articles, enough flowers, enough hugs, enough duas in the universe. There aren’t enough duas in the universe. There aren’t enough duas in the goddamned universe.
In this country, we were supposed to be able to live on the back of duas. The prayers and warm wishes of our elders. Those that had departed this world. Now we live cursed by the haunting memory of children that have departed this world.
In this country we were supposed to have children that would grow up strong, like Iqbal’s eagle. We were supposed to have children that could soar. One hundred and forty one mothers just buried their children six feet into the ground. Faiz out-predicted his Sialkot homie. This isn’t quite that country. And we are in mourning. The darkness is almost complete and total. And there is no morning.
Twitter hashtags are one form of protest. It isn’t storming the Bastille, but if we Tweet enough, maybe we’ll feel better.
Protests are another. At one, India-fixated, pseudo-terror organisations like the Jamat ud Daawa pray for the departed, and announce their plans to avenge the murders. At another, the Shia-fixated, pseudo-terror organisations like the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat pray for the departed, and announce their plans to avenge the murders.
In this country we were supposed to be able to express our identities freely. The whole point was that we did not want something like the RSS to scare us out of our wits, to scare us into our homes, to scare us into feeling like we don’t matter, that we can’t win, that we won’t ever break out of this cycle.
The prime minister knows the country we were supposed to be. He went to Peshawar. Surprising many. But he announced an APC and put Chaudhry Nisar in charge. Surprising no one.
Ch Nisar already had a turn, putting together the embarrassingly elementary and idealess internal security policy. The Peshawar attack happened after Nisar put his security policy into action. This doesn’t inspire confidence.
In this country, we were supposed to be able to live with dignity and confidence. In this country, sending your children to school just became an act of heroism, of courage, and of intense stupidity. In this country. The sheer indignity. It is too much.
The writer is an analyst and commentator.