A walk on the empty streets of this city is not an easy one. It’s only an act of violence that puts this city to silence, or it’s the silence that haunts before a Grand violence. It has become customary to bath the city streets in blood every day. The time is not far when graveyards will no longer be accommodating. The city no longer has flowers whose fragrance would make it a place of delight. Rather, it is the stink of blood which makes it feel like a walk in the garden of dead skulls. Once known as the city of lights, its death nowadays that always has the last laugh here.
In this city, the recent cold blooded murder of Suleiman Lashari, a youth, at the hands of another youth, Salman Abro, is a horrific shocker. Unfortunately, this incident is not the first of its kind. In recent past, the murders at the hands of Shahzeb Jatoi and Hamza/Shoaib are examples of youth murderers that attracted media attention. It would be fair to predict that as time passes by, this kind of killings will become a common practice. And we will become used to it, for we have already become used to suicide bombings, gunny bags stuffed with dead bodies, shutter down strikes and more recently the Vigo-guard culture in this society.
Though these murders were committed by individuals, but collectively, these incidents aren’t the result of an individual’s behaviour. The youth believes and follows what it is sees, and a youth that grows up in an ill society such as ours, must not be blamed; they may at best be termed a Master-Mad youth. The madness of this youth may partially be blamed as a parenting failure; in reality, it is the failure of our social structure. In the absence of morals and human values a civilised society cannot come into existence. In such a society the social fabric is bound to falter and the society bound to be doomed.
In any intolerant society such as ours, bullet is seen as the most feasible way of settling any difference of opinion. Human rights activist Advocate Supreme Court, Rashid Rehman, was told in court that he would be killed for accepting the brief of a blasphemy accused. And as promised he was killed. Professor Shabbir Shah of the University of Gujrat (UoG) and Dr Attaur Rehman, a known medical practitioner, had to depart early from this world for holding liberal views. Dr. Manzoor Memon was brutally murdered for reasons yet unknown to public. Governor Salman Taseer was gunned down in broad day-light for talking sense, while his killer went on to become a national hero. The judge who decreed his killer capital punishment, had to run for his life and has been in exile ever since. We, however, now have a mosque in the Capital named after his killer Mumtaz Qadri, and a library named after the slain founder of Al-Qaeda – Osama Bin Laden. Not to forget, we have our national ballistic missiles named after Afghan Beasts – Mahmud Ghazni and S. Ghouri. What values would a youth learn in a society where men such as these are hero worshipped?
Analyzing history, we see that every third world country has a hero like Jinnah. It is the successors who make that nation a hero from zero. However, seeing the conditions of this country, even Boko Haram would feel shy committing the atrocities that are committed here on everyday basis. The mass graves in Baluchistan, the burning alive of Sindhi politicians, the issue of missing persons, all point in the same direction, as to who is in-charge. If elections ever made any difference in this country, the real rulers wouldn’t ever let us have them. Circumstances change, different actors come to stage, performing a script written by the men in boots.
Their core interests: Foreign policy, national security, commercial empire, budget demands, supremacy of the chief, have left all the governments a bystander in this country. It somehow depicts a picture of how things used to be in Rome centuries ago; when she was still a Republic. The Roman Generals in their greed for power, wanting to suppress the Senate attacked the Republic and became dictators, leaving thousands of soldiers and innocent civilians dead. However, on each occasion, each one of them was found repeating the same words: that their actions were a necessity and in the best interest of the Republic. Centuries later, the world has evolved. However, much remains the same in this part of the world. The greed for power has never allowed this civil-military balance to settle. More recently, media in this country has come of age, demanding a share in this power holding. Upon the orders of real rulers, the recent bashing of a media group at the hands of brainless politicians and religious bigots is an example of this power show. What these men fail to understand is that, it is in the nature of power that it is does not belong to anyone. It is fictional and befriends none nor is loyal to one.
This power show also led to a well known journalist (Mir) being labelled a traitor. Whether he is one or not, only time will tell. It was shocking to see that a man whose only weapons are his pen and his tongue is violently attacked in order to be sent to the afterlife and, sadly, educated men pray for his death. His only crime being that he accused the demigods of this nation for the attack. The list of traitors in this country includes sister of the Founder of the nation – Fatima Jinnah, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Faiz, Faraz, Jalib amongst others. If these men and women were traitors, then which sane, wise men wouldn’t want to be amongst this hall of fame. If this continues, the traitor-ship certificate awarding body with their little wisdom might soon be pushing us back to the Stone Age.
Politicians in this land are considered the biggest sinners. They are held responsible for every wrong, dragged to courts, media trial-ed, and labelled incompetent by every Tom, Dick and Harry. However, nobody dares to raise their eyebrows to question the incompetency of military and intelligence agency when GHQ was held hostage, Banu Jailbreak, Kamra Base attack, Mehran Base attack, Hakeemullah Mehsud residing within this country, D.I Khan Jailbreak. The list of incidents showing such gross incompetence is endless. What is evident is that the citizens of this republic have vowed to defend their patriotism blindly.
Saleem Shahzad’s book (for which he was murdered), Babar Ayaz’s – What’s wrong with Pakistan, Ayesha Siddiqa’s – Military Inc., Carlotta Gall’s – The wrong enemy, Heraldo Munoz’s – Getting away with murder are some of the books that show who the real rulers are and how things are run in this country. How and why common people are killed and where the money of this nation is spent. If things continue in the same way than the day is not far, when we M-I-G-H-T have the best defence in the world but, sadly, nothing left to defend.
We need to realize that our school books are full of lies, our religious clerics only preach hatred, most of our heroes were demons and women till-date are killed for giving birth to girls (56 killed in 2013). We have become boiling volcanoes of extremism and intolerance. Our religious, ethnic and other divisions keep increasing day-by-day and sooner the day will come when it will be a fight of every man against every other man. Our mosques, temples and churches are no longer safe. Killing of good men no longer causes alarm in our society. It is that which resides in the chest and that which knows or thinks – the rational soul situated in the head that seems to have gone missing. We now frighten the world with our polio spreading capabilities, as if having a Green passport wasn’t fun enough. Do we even realise how scary a place we appear to the world?
Rationally, the bringing up of youth in such a society is bound to produce generations that would lack wisdom, vision and morals. These generations will be brainless and filled with hatred, aggression, and intolerance. They will be violent and will denounce humanity and peace. However, insanity is a valid legal defence to any crime. Therefore, these generations when at youth must best be labelled a Master-Mad youth.
