The yard stick…

It has been a year since the massacre of 147 innocent children and staff at Army Public School, #APS, Peshawar, Pakistan. It is a tragedy that is too hard to forget. Although, in today's time and age, when mass killings have become anything, but a rarity, the images of children's corpses, stacked on top of each other, is a view unforgettable.

It would be too easy for me to say the usual "Rest in peace" prayer for the souls of those 138 children, of ages 5-15. But, can their souls rest in peace, looking at what has been done to eliminate or restrict the cause of their murder? Unfortunately, the aftermath of that massacre, which took place on 16 December 2014, leaves a very little to take comfort in.

I will not walk you through the events of the last whole year, but let me just mention a few of the actions taken, by the decision makers in Pakistan, in the wake of the slaughter of innocent children, who had made the mistake of being children. Of course, as per template the Pakistani authorities went into pumping momentum into the ongoing anti-terrorist operation, which carries the marketing label of "Zarb e Azb".

This, as a retaliatory measure, was a good thing, but what did we achieve as a result of that massive military push? Just a couple of hundred corpses of men, who had been brainwashed by the madrassas, funded by the same Pakistani authorities? Yes Madam Monsieur, it was the same military, which designed and implemented the policy of dumbing-down the nation, by subjecting it to utter radical Islamic ideas, funded by Saudi Arabia.

It might not be a surprise to many that there are thousands of radicalization factories in Pakistan, which are unaccounted for. Any terrorist that you might see in a newspaper image or on TV and even the ones, whose bodies are exhibited as the war trophies, had also been pass-outs of one of those thousands of madrassas. To make things clearer, let me tell you that Mullah Fazl Ullah, who was the mastermind of Peshawar massacre, passed out from a madrassa run by one Sufi Muhammad, who founded a terrorist group called TEHREEK E NIFAZ E SHARIAT E MUHAMMADI (This Sufi Mohammad was a member of the Jamaat-e-Islami party. He created his organization in 1992 and actively took part in the Afghan Taliban scheming. He was arrested in 2002 for terrorism and was released from prison in 2008. Do you need any more information to understand his high ranking links?). And now, do you want me to give you details about this Sufi's connections with the organizations, which designed the radicalization scheme for Pakistan?

Sufi Mohammad (TNSM)

This does not mean that only unregistered and unaccounted-for madrassas churn out terrorists. You can study the example of a terrorism factory, called Jamia Hafsa, in Islamabad, which has been successfully minting religious extremists, without let or hindrance. To make things clearer, let me just tell you that just once in Pakistan, when a person, and his administration, dared take practical steps towards elimination of this ideology of radicalization or Islamization, he was faced with utter resistance from within the military. The person I mentioned is Pervaiz Musharraf. Although, he was the chief of army staff (COAS) in 2007, during that rightful operation against Lal masjid, his overt opponents included, General (retd) Hameed Gul, who was one of the architects of this virus of radicalization.

You might not know that Hameed Gul's son never served in Pakistani military, but he did go to Afghanistan to take part in armed activities of Taliban. The list of opponents of Lal masjid operation is inexhaustible and included people from every walk of life.

Anyway, in the initial days following the Peshawar massacre the military did score a few hits, against rogue armed terrorists, but that effort lost breath very soon. Just one week after the slaughter of so many children, our people in the places were busy planning, how to use that event to their benefit. We all know about the National Action Plan and other good sounding paper fodder. But have we done anything against the cause and source of radicalization?

When they started finally executing convicts of terrorism, it looked as a good step in the beginning. But now when I see that a terrorist called Mumtaz Qadri is still alive and kicking, I doubt the honesty of that policy. All that running around after the Peshawar massacre, reminded me of a comedy play. In that play, in a scene depicting a crisis situation, one of the actors started running up and down the stairs. When asked, why he was doing so, he answered: "I am running up and down, so that later I could say that I did all that I could". This example might explain all that running around, following the Peshawar massacre.

Mumtaz Qadri (See the similarity: He is also a wahhabi)

We also remember the crackdown on MQM and PPP and other political forces. But if we look closer, we will notice that this crackdown was against non-religious political forces only. If MQM or PPP or any of their members were involved in criminal activity, they had to be apprehended. But, why is it so that people with radical links and fanatic goals are immune to such crackdown? Is Maulvi Abdul Aziz of Lal Masjid, such a valuable asset for the masters that he could appear on TV on 17 December 2014 and uphold the terror attack against children, but still never even went to jail? Mind you this pig-faced maulvi is a government employee. He draws salary from MEHKAMA AUQAF. So MQM's head office could be raided, but maulvi Abdul Aziz's Lal masjid could not be raided. What a hypocrisy!

I just had a great idea. Why don't I start a drug business out of a mosque in Pakistan and sell heroine unobstructed. I will be immune against enforcement of law, because mosques are sacred. Don't try to judge me for this idea. Because, in essence, I will be doing the same, what maulvi Abdul Aziz has been doing in a mosque, with impunity, for many decades now. He is selling death and destruction, and I will also sell the same.

Following the Peshawar massacre I also noted another stable trend that General Asim Bajwa and his ISPR have been spending valuable money on making Shah Rukh Khan out of General Raheel Sharif. Probably Mr Bajwa has forgotten that the role of ISPR is to provide information regarding military and that it is not a PR agency. But ISPR has spent more money on promotion than the government has spent on resettlement of IDPs.

Like it or not, but what ISPR has been doing, regarding personal promotion, is a necessity also, because in our nation of worshippers of holy cows, one cannot even perform his/her duties, unless one becomes a holy cow.

To evaluate any nation, you can easily use Socrates' following saying as a yard stick: "Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and weak minds discuss people".

Now please take this yard stick and apply it to Pakistan as a nation. What do Pakistani politicians do in the legislative assemblies? They talk about each other, either praising their friends or bashing their foes. What do the journalists and observers do on TV or in their printed materials? They discuss persons and the most intelligent of them rarely discuss events. And mind you they discuss events only, when they have an event of the magnitude of the Peshawar massacre. What do they teach in Pakistan? They tell you about the greatness of Mohammad Bin Qasim and Qutbuddin Aibak. Do they ever tell you about policies or ideas? No certainly not. What do people discuss in cafes? They discuss fellow citizens or the politicians or Generals, but they never contemplate about the politics. Just two weeks after the Peshawar massacre, Chairman PTI, Imran Khan got married. His marriage very quickly overtook the news worthiness of the Peshawar massacre. So what does this tell you?

This tells us that Pakistan is a nation of weak minds, where even the discussion of events is a rarity. So to survive among such a herd of weak minds, one does need a lot of PR to survive. But. Mr. Baja has overdone it. Maybe, ISPR should have spent some of this PR money on producing anti radicalization materials. Probably if ISPR and the military were interested in eliminating the chances of reoccurrence of events like, the Peshawar massacre, they should had informed the youths of Pakistan that Islamic fundamentalism was BAD. They should had told the youths that Pakistan was created for the sake of progressive people and not for the cause of Wahhabis. They should had spent some money on teaching the weak minded people, the value of human life.

But, alas all state funds are spent on personal PR and support of radicals.

It might seem to the reader that I had forgotten to mention the civilian government of Pakistan, when talking about the aftermath of the Peshawar massacre. But, the real reason is that since we have de-facto martial law in the country, the ones, who are enjoying the benefits should also be held accountable.

Please go back just three decades and you will understand, why duffers like Nawaz Sharif are in the prime minster house today. You will understand, why politically illiterate people like Imran Khan are leading politicians in the country. You can comprehend, why uneducated prayer leaders (mullahs) are free to call themselves DOCTORS (Ph.D.). You might be able to fathom, why the people who don't even know the proper gender of words are journalists and "intellectuals".

Just go three decades back and you will understand, how a taxi driver became a strong leader overnight in Karachi. During the same trip through time, you will also understand, how people were systematically eliminated, unless they were duffers. This trip will also tell you, how Pakistan ran into power shortage. Just three decades back and you will understand, how bullshit writers like Ashfaq Ahmed became prominent philosophers, and how automatic rifles replaced words, as the weapon of choice.

I understood this a long time ago, and during this year, following the Peshawar massacre, I understood the rest. If we want to survive as a nation, first of all we have to work against Islamic fundamentalism. We have to reestablish the right order of things, in which brain controls the brawn. We have to achieve the elimination of terrorism from our land and we cannot do this until we eliminate the religious radicals. Because if we won't do this, the lives of 147 innocent children and staff, massacred on 16 December 2014 in Peshawar, would had been lost for nothing.

Once we will rid our society of this menace of religious extremism, only then can we even assume that the souls of the victims of Peshawar massacre, and the souls of all the victims of modern religious terrorism, could rest in peace.

Some of the victims of radicalization of Pakistan!