The Deadly Pathology of Fanaticism
"The Taliban are the expression of a modern disease, symptoms of a social cancer which shall destroy Muslim societies of its growth is not arrested and the disease is not eliminated. It is prone to spreading, and the Taliban will be the most deadly communicators of cancer if they remain so organically linked to Pakistan." Eqbal Ahmed, Daily Dawn, Karachi, 1998
"They were young boys, aged 20 to 25, with backpacks and they were firing as they were running" explained a witness to the latest carnage in Pakistan. After the assault, while Pakistani commandos and Sri Lankan cricketers were counting their dead and wounded, the terrorists sped away from the scene, leaving behind them rocket launchers, grenades, automatic rifles, pistols, magazines of ammunition, plastic explosives and two-way radios. Along with dried food and water bottles.
Well prepared, well trained and resolute. Reflections of the vicious attack on Mumbai, a mere few ago, when a handful of Pakistani terrorists held Indian police at bay for horribly long hours stretching into days of unrelenting bloodshed and horror, bringing India and Pakistan as close to hostile reaction as could be fearfully envisioned for two nuclear countries. The same kind of training and intent, similar provisioning and like results.
To terrorize the population, the country, and the world at large into a greater realization of the indomitable will of a fanatical Islamic structure that will stop at nothing in its zeal to attain its goal of supremacy. The toll of dead and wounded is nothing compared to Mumbai, but the damage to Pakistan is incalculable. Already recognized as the most dangerous country in the world, the country that produces the greatest number of dedicated jihadists, it is being corroded internally.
The current president of Pakistan, known for his unabashed predilection for corrupt self-availment, has his late father-in-law to thank for nuclear proficiency, his wife's father's murderer for the promotion of radical Islam and his own predecessor for insufficient attention to weeding out the radical elements in the country's ISI intelligence service, supportive of the Islamists.
The people of Pakistan certainly deserve better. In parliamentary elections they overwhelmingly rejected the Islamist parties in favour of the country's secular political parties. Going so far as to return a secular party to the North West Frontier Province. They have no reason to be grateful to their new government for appeasing the Taliban and permitting sharia law in the Swat Valley.
As it was, terrorists have felt free to strike Rawalpindi, Karachi and Islamabad, now Lahore. Peshawar lives in fear of the Taliban, scrupulously eradicating hundreds of schools, beheading those who defy them, murdering at random, scattering frightened refugees, to consolidate their ruthless hold on their territory that is a haven to al-Qaeda.
The Taliban leadership is patiently determined. One small victory after another. The deaths of those whom the government dispatches to forestall their advance is as nothing; the Pakistan army is incapable of defending Pakistan. As goes Pakistan so also does Afghanistan. That is only the beginning of the beginning. Unless the deadly strain of Islamist jihad immolates itself.
How likely is that? The answer to that puzzle lies in Islam itself, in the greater community of Muslims, in their reaction, their determination, not that of the West.
Labels: Religion, Traditions, Troublespots, World Crises
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, March 04, 2009
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