Do the math. Eighty-five and still counting in Shabqadar, Charsadda. To avenge Osama bin Laden’s killing. Five on Tuesday, Kharotabad, Quetta. ‘Timely’ operation or extrajudicial killing? Three on Monday in Karachi. Target killing. At least fourteen in some of Pakistan’s rural areas because they couldn’t get medical care. A handful breathed their last at government hospitals in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar because the doctors attending to them were on strike demanding more pay. Needy patients be damned. An attack on an American consulate convoy in Peshawar. Missed the American – killed a local instead. That’s the death toll from the last two weeks and these figures may be understated. Under. Not over.
Life. Never has it been so inconsequential as it is in Pakistan. It is easier to end than inflation. It is so much simpler to kill than conspiracy. And faster to end than a rumour. It is not surprising then that even our dreams have become restricted. No more the chanting of the verses of Allama Iqbal ‘khudi ko kar buland itna’, or the revolutionary sermons of Habib Jalib ‘mein nahi maanta’ to rise against tyranny and injustice. The aspirations of Faiz and others such as him are long buried in the stark reality of what is Pakistan today. Reality bites. The latest song by Strings is a promise for some hope in Pakistan: “Jab roti sasti hogi, aur mehngi ho gi jaan, wo din phir aayega jab aisa hoga Pakistan.” (A day will come in the life of Pakistan when food will be cheaper than human life.) This will be Pakistan’s revolution. That’s how bad it has become. We don’t even dream big anymore. We dare not.
However, our khakis haven’t lost their zest for life. They want better fighter planes and improved detecting equipment, lest the US should again conduct an operation to take out Zawahiri, Mullah Omar or anyone their heart desires. But acquiring this technology is not a guarantee for them to take the US down next time. No sir. They will only act on our parliament’s instructions. Or so we’re told. The parliament has just been awarded its supremacy and is now in control. So, our designer suits and ties flew to China and Russia. The civilians! You can always count on them when you need reconciliation and coalition. While our president rushed to Moscow, our prime minister went off to China, and brought back 50 thunder jet planes and a public announcement for membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. God bless!
However, this may not help mitigate the loss of life at the hands of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. And our parliament has no quick fixes to undo what its own agencies, or for that matter, security forces positioned to protect us, have been doing for the last few decades. And how lovely to discover that our country’s top brass had not only offered their tacit approval for drone strikes but also requested the US to step up the strikes to aid their own operations. Thank you, Assange. At last, the media pundits droning on endlessly about the drones, and vociferously garnering support for those politicians seeking an end to drone strikes, may just shut up for a few weeks. And we may be spared the morality lecture on drone strikes and sovereignty.
Instead, they could perhaps focus on the buses being set ablaze in Karachi, pay more attention to protests calling for an end to 18-hour load shedding spells. Or maybe give voice to the KESC employees demanding their jobs back. Perhaps the media could open up its eyes long enough to concentrate on the hunger strikes outside press clubs, where families hold on to life size pictures of loved ones. I hear they’re offering 60,000 rupees as compensation to family members of the missing in Balochistan. It’s the least they can do. But try and explain the logic of money for missing to those who have seen bullet-riddled bodies of their teenage sons, or for mothers who bid adieu to their son last summer and still await his return.
But who has time to dwell on matters of the heart. Remember, life is cheap. An inquiry is being conducted to investigate the killings in Kharotabad. Security forces killed five Chechens including three women on grounds that they were suicide bombers. Media were in place when the incident took place to record the chivalry shown by the FC and the local police. Chivalry, however, got lost amid shots the media was not supposed to record – a heart wrenching shot of a woman waving her hand in the air just before she died raised more questions than the local CCPO had prepared himself for. So he settled for twisting the truth. The Chechens, he said, died in an explosion and not by gunfire. The post-mortem report proves otherwise. It also proves that one of the women killed by our chivalrous forces was seven months pregnant. What inquiry will take these cowardly men to task? They killed innocent people. Big deal. It happens everyday in Pakistan. After all, life is cheap.
When innocent people are dying right, left and centre, no one is on moral high ground. The Americans are cruel, yes, but what about the terrorists who keep ‘innocent civilians’ with them at all times to avoid being targeted. What would you call them? We have got to stop living in denial. Thunder jets and F16s are not the cure for our disregarded sovereignty or compensation for our dead sons and missing brothers. They can’t protect us from suicide bombers either. And they certainly can’t buy us more electricity. Or pay our doctors to keep them working. Perhaps one plane less? Can we barter?
It will be business as usual in Pakistan. An inquiry (read eyewash) will be conducted on the Abbottabad operation which will disclose same of the old. Our civilians will ensure that the new budget announces a larger share to the military – and the US will continue to fit our bill in the name of Coalition Support Fund. Our foreign policy will not be any different than before and our morals will still be questionable.
But beneath the boots and imported Bally shoes, my people will be trampled upon – my people who go without food and electricity for days, will die without reason and go missing when they cry out for their rights. Sovereignty comes at a price – but in my country, taking a life costs nothing.
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