Restless Few, Silent Many

Six soldiers are killed in a militant ambush in North Waziristan. A suicide bomber strikes a school bus near Kamra air force complex. Four CD and video shops bombed down in Peshawar. Meanwhile, "Great Leader" is busy establishing "writ of state" on judges, lawyers, and media and civil society. And "the people of Pakistan", while being rightly outraged against the dictator-in-chief keep mum about the increasing influence of wanna-be dictators.


In addition to sympathising with the Islamists’ anti-US stance and justifying their anger against western clout that has spawned economic inequality and despotic regimes, there is a tendency to endorse the ‘moral order’ that the militants want to impose on society. Thus, all kinds of atrocities are tolerated. Not a murmur is heard when women, accused of indulging in wayward acts, are beheaded, or when public executions (bypassing state justice) are conducted in the name of purging society of undesirable elements. Little concern is enunciated by the educational authorities when girls’ schools are bombed. If at all there is any protest at the way young boys are brainwashed in seminaries and then dispatched on suicide and other missions, it is muted.

The liberals lack the courage, possibly even the numbers, to come forward and forcefully explain why moral policing and extreme religiosity have no place in a society which would be better off concentrating on how to improve the lives of its people. Taking advantage of their silence, dogmatic elements propound views that fuddle clear thinking. This is the phenomenon that is described as Talibanisation. The latter does not merely pertain to actual deeds of violence in the name of religion. It is also a state of mind.