Who’ll save the day?

The writer is a former editor of Dawn. ***************************************************************************************************************************** THE focus for now may be on Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, but sooner or later Muslim countries will need to address the internal rot that threatens the peace, stability and harmony in each of them. By its mad and sickening attacks on Gaza, Israel is drawing fire and not enough, if you ask me, given the enormity of the death toll of civilians, including children, by its air strikes and artillery bombardment. Many in the West were earlier apprehensive of being termed anti-Semitic if they criticised the State of Israel. Slowly but surely the tragic images emerging from Gaza are emboldening one and all to demand an end to murderous Israeli actions, and the Jewish state seems to be losing the battle for key public opinion. It is pointless for now to examine what ails the Muslim world, but it is worthwhile keeping Pakistan firmly in our sights. The latest Gaza tragedy has brought together in one voice, for example, opinion leaders and Orthodox Jews alike in the United States, and it seems many with a conscience now believe Israeli transgressions to be so criminally excessive that silence isn’t an option. But it isn’t clear how this shifting public opinion among quarters normally sympathetic to Israel’s cause will translate into relief for the Gaza residents as reportedly not a family has been spared bereavement and not a home left unscathed by the ferocity of the attacks Gaza has had to brave. Even an intransigent and arrogant Likud-led Israeli government will realise that its murder and mayhem can’t go on endlessly and will look for some ceasefire option, having made the political point to a hard-line baying-for-Palestinian blood support base at home. Then Gaza will slip from the headlines, occasionally returning with a spurt in violence or when yet another effort is made to kick into life the dead peace process. But the story will revert to being relegated to the back-burner as it has been over the past so many years. When this happens, Muslim countries will once again need to focus on internal strife and toxic ideologies, spreading like wildfire among the malcontents at home. The sooner this happens the better. In fact, Gaza may provide the impetus for this. For surely, the impotence of their leaders, many of whom are wary of the sort of political Islam Hamas has come to represent and which the Muslim Brotherhood displayed whilst briefly in power in Egypt, must anger the common man and woman on the street, creating an inflammable situation. It is pointless for now to reach far and wide across the Muslim world and examine what ails the ‘ummah’ but more appropriate to keep Pakistan firmly in our sights. Yes, Pakistan where even as an operation is ongoing in various parts of the country against militancy, intolerance is rampant. The tragic photograph of two young men lying dead in a Quetta street, with blood still oozing from their bullet wounds could easily have been mistaken for Gaza. However, our own capacity to kill in the name of faith is second to none. This newspaper earlier this week quoted the outgoing director-general of Sindh Rangers, the articulate but not necessarily effective Maj-Gen Rizwan Akhtar, as describing sectarian killings as a very complicated ‘phenomenon’ that has to be dealt with in a number of areas and that wasn’t just a law and order problem. This was the general’s way of perhaps absolving himself of responsibility for the dozens, if not hundreds, of Shia professionals who have been mowed down in Karachi on the DG Rangers’ watch. It must be a huge embarrassment to the officer that he was not able to make any breakthrough despite his abundant resources to track down sectarian killers. The story of our men in khaki is not too different in Balochistan where it is kosher to be allegedly involved in ‘disappearances’ and the killing of separatists whose bodies are routinely found dumped in the province but be apparently so clueless about Lashkar-i-Jhangvi that allegations of complicity are levelled. While our soldiers’ sacrifices in the war against the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan are laudable and worthy of being cherished, their leaders’ soft corner for terrorists belonging to one particular school of (religious) thought is alarming to say the least. It would be wrong to blame only the army and its intelligence set-up. The current PML-N elected government also often acts like it’s committed to the same bent of thinking, reportedly offering teaching jobs to those graduating from the madressahs belonging to the Deobandi school. And the close ties of PML-N leaders with some of the sectarian leaders are not a well-kept secret. But the truth is it isn’t one school of thought which carries the blame for the intolerance that’s made its home in the country. After all, how can one ever forget how the killer of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer was feted by Barelvi religious leaders and how the judge who pronounced the verdict in the case had to leave Pakistan to stay alive? More recently, as one read with shock and horror the burning of Ahmadi homes in Gujranwala by a seemingly demented, singing and chanting crowd and the killing of an innocent woman and children, one was shocked to see criticism of the ‘liberals’ by a Shia organisation’s social media account. Its wrath was directed at the ‘liberals’ because they were ‘deliberately’ clubbing together Ahmadi victims and Shia Muslim victims of murderous thugs and this was a conspiracy to remove the distinction between a Muslim sect and a group declared a minority by parliament. Not for a moment, did the organisation consider that perhaps the two were being mentioned in the same breath as both were being supported as innocent victims of serial murderers. With such thinking on all sides even hope is fast becoming a luxury. Who’ll act to save the day?