Ask
no questions…
Why
some institutions are more sacred than others in this country?
I have no
sympathies with Osama bin Laden and feel that he had written his own death
warrants through his ‘deeds’. Perhaps the operation leading to his killing
might have been carried out differently. However, this is not what I am going
to discuss today. I want to share my sheer frustration and disappointment. I am
not disappointed of the way the US
government treated us, but on how we are getting treated by our own civil and
military leadership.
It would
not hurt much if the world does not trust us. However, it is extremely painful
feeling that our own government, our own army and our leaders do not trust us.
Despite this, we the ordinary citizens of Pakistan kept on supporting them
out of loyalty, optimism, and hope.
Despite
the suicide attacks in our streets, mosques, churches, and graveyards; we kept
on saying that it is only the matter of getting caught in wrong place and at a
wrong time, otherwise Pakistan
is a safe place to live in.
Despite
record inflation, worst energy crisis, natural and man made disasters, and
increasing economic challenges we agreed to a reduction in Public Sector
Development Programme (PSDP) budgets as we were told such reductions were
necessary to beef up country’s defense budget which was a must to ensure our
security, safety, and sovereignty.
Despite
various broken promises of our civil and army leadership we always gave them
the benefit of doubt. We thought they really meant it when they talked of
watching national interests; working for economic sustainability through
macroeconomic reforms, and not accepting foreign assistance at the cost of
national sovereignty.
We really
believed that unlike our previous rulers this time the government was seriously
interested in curbing religious militancy and getting rid of decade-old
“strategic asset”. We were made to believe that after getting rid of militancy
menace government would focus on human development and conflict transformation.
This was one of the rare occasions when broader society and all political
forces were supporting a strict action against religious fanaticism.
But what
did we get in return for our unconditional support to efforts towards
eradicating militancy? Plain lies. Hang on; even to lie they had to say
something. They opted to keep quiet. The head of government and the head of
state behaved as if nothing had happened. When President Zardari left for France during
2010, one quarter of Pakistanis were facing storms and floods. However, when
Prime Minister Gilani left for France,
after Osama’s killing, the whole of Pakistan was facing a diplomatic
storm. The bad timing of their visits reveals their “who-cares” attitude.
We trusted
them when they made us to believe that the war on terrorism was not imposed on
us rather Pakistan
was fighting its own war. The death of Osama should have been an important
milestone in this war which was very much “our own”. What a pity that our civil
or military leadership did not bother to take the nation into confidence and
formally inform about the events that led to the killing of Osama.
It is the
same silence, due to the fear of extremists’ backlash, which led to the killing
of Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti. This silence proved useless in the past
and it would prove useless in future too. The government will have to put its
foot down, say enough is enough and show its full resolve against religious
militancy. The government may not do so and the reason is that we 180 million
ordinary citizens of Pakistan
are silent. More than the silence of government, it is the silence of the
people which has disappointed me a lot.
Let us
believe in the official statement released by the ISPR four days after the
killing of Osama. The statement said that Pakistan was not aware of Osama’s
presence in Abbottabad; it was unaware of American action against Osama and
could not detect and stop the activities of foreign choppers in its garrison
city.
Having
believed in this statement, let us break our silence and humbly ask if all of
the above-mentioned is true then why some institutes are more sacred than
others in this country? Why should we reduce our public sector development
programme budget to beef up our defense budget? And, finally, if we have proved
to be inefficient and unreliable to the US
in war on terrorism then on which grounds will we be able to stop activities of
Black Water and CIA operatives in Pakistan? Will they not come to
capture more high level targets in other garrison towns of Pakistan?
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