Army Public School, Peshawar: Mother of All Tragedies
By Farooq Sulehria
18 December 2014
Viewpoint joins millions of other Pakistanis in mourning the tragedy wrought all over Pakistan, by the Taliban fanatics, by way of children’s massacre at the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar.
Tragedies visit upon poor Pakistanis almost on daily basis. Since 9/11, the frequency of calamities ---most of them made-in-GHQ--- accelerates with every passing day.
However, no tragedy since 9/11 has devastated Pakistan as miserably as 16-12-2016. This is because, as many have remarked, ‘The smaller the coffin, the heavier it is to carry’.
Tragedies should not be compared. I find comparison a disgusting capitalist value. I am not drawing an analogy here between the shocking murder of Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007 and the massacre at the APS, Peshawar. While Pakistan was shocked and paralyzed for a week after BB’s martyrdom, the fatigue and gloom after Dec 16’s carnage has divested Pakistan in an unspeakable, inexpressible manner.
An unbearable heaviness of being a Pakistani surrounds the entire ambiance.
Held between the khaki hammer of strategic depth and puritan anvil of Taliban terror, one feels like screaming. One is not even allowed to mourn in peace. The vultures in the persons of Hameed Gul, the father of Taliban, and Sarkari-beards land our mourning and funerals with familiar but ugly squawk.
Hameed Gul and his urbanised children--- the Taliban in suite and tie ---as usual want us to blame India for the Greek tragedy enacted by strategically tended assets at APS, Peshawar. Unless he himself is butchered by the Taliban Colonel Imam-style, he will not be able to spot the blood on the Taliban hands.
There is Kamran Shahid, another irritating anchorperson with beard in his stomach. Kamran Shahid is wondering if Norway will award the Nobel Peace Prize to the APS victims. He should have been wondering if the USA will award the Legion of Merit to Pak Army soldiers martyred at the APS. Dear Viewpoint readers: When you have a problem with Malala, you do not have a problem with the Taliban!
The commissar of Jamia Banoria wants us to perform Tauba (forgiveness). He thinks the tragedy staged at the APS, Peshawar, is wrath of god!
The mullah of infamous Lal Mosque, who draws salary every month from an unIslamic state, refused to even condemn the attack.
Every time puritan fanatics have slaughtered our children and siblings, the ISPR-manipulated, ISI-driven ‘free media’ unleashes these vultures on us to anesthetize us intellectually, morally and politically.
They occupy our television screens and social networking sites to rescue the Taliban by deploying the ‘Indian hand’. The apocryphal ‘Indian hand’ ---tended, nourished and carefully nurtured through what Althusser called, ideological state apparatuses--- plays the role of a tranquilizer as well as adrenaline.
When a distraction is needed, it is injected as an adrenaline. When the reality is too bitter to be confronted, our fatigued masses themselves begin to crave for the tranquilizer. It does not matter if the tranquilizer is provided by such discredited druggists as Mubashar Lucman, Zaid Hamid and Gen Musharraf.
Once drugged with ‘Indian hand’, the stark reality becomes hazy. Memory is frozen. Judgment sheds every shred of criticality. Conspiracy theories overtake naked facts. Paralysed---morally, politically and mentally---and drugged, this half-dead ‘nation’ is infused with ecstasy by an obscure hockey player playing hockey with his middle finger.
When you play hockey with the middle finger, the Taliban win.
I am not talking about the minor Taliban holed up in the mountains. By Taliban, I imply the principal Taliban anchored in the mainstream media, mosque-and-madrasa networks, cantonments, campuses, text books, police, bar and bench, bearded brotherhoods and the parliaments.
However, it is not the masses you can blame as the liberals tend to do. Problem lies elsewhere.
It is not merely the Mullah Abdul Aziz of Lal Mosque and Mufti Naeem of Jamia Banoria finding it hard to condemn the bloodbath of our children. It is not merely Zaid Hamid, Ahmed Raza Kasuri, and Ahmed Quraishi trying to shift our focus to India. Some fashionable lefties are also finding it hard to type the three-lettered word: TTP. The Taliban apologists were not merely occupying mainstream, we had amid the left such great analysts who were discovering class struggle in Taliban barbarism.
Mother of all post-9/11 tragedies is not the massacre at the APS, Peshawar. The real tragedy is: whenever a consensus emerges against the Taliban, the ‘Indian hand’ skilfully turns the tide back. Playing the second fiddle to Messrs Hameed Gul & Co, Professor Alex Callinicos’ ideological children in Pakistan cut an indeed sorry figure when they deploy Marxism to defend the Taliban fanaticism. Here, tragedy and farce intermingle.
Source: http://www.viewpointonline.net/2014/12/vp232/mother-of-all-tragedies
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-terrorism-jihad/army-public-school,-peshawar-mother/d/100674