As I looked on in disgust at the celebrations going on into the night I wondered what happened to the ‘atta’ crises, the judiciary crises and the sky rocketing cost of living. The ‘general’ public seemed surprisingly chipper for citizens of a country at war and under attack from NATO and its own misguided forces and militants. Are they hallucinating and simply hysterical, I thought? Leaders are merely a microcosm for the rest of the nation so it’s pointless criticising them. If anyone should be criticised it’s the people of Pakistan who for too long have allowed themselves the luxury to leave it to God.
I couldn’t help but ponder at the irony of ‘defence’ day coinciding with events ongoing both in the capital and up north. If the martyrs of ‘65 were still alive they will surely feel we are more defenceless today than back then. The nuclear capability far from being a deterrent has become a liability. NATO forces bomb and attack our land at will and we feel obliged to keep the supply routes open to them. The puppet government in Afghanistan has the audacity to threaten us with pre-emptive action against ‘our’ problem of militancy and infiltration.
The power wrangling amongst the politicians amounts to little more than petty criminals quarrelling over the crumbs from their master, while he clears off the real booty. The access to deep sea waters from the oil rich central Asian region goes in a straight line through Afghanistan, NWFP and Balochistan. The latter is also a useful deterrent to that ‘naughty’ nation of Iran next door (who also provide a direct route to the warm waters!) and a check post for the exploits further to the east towards Tharparker and the coal reserves. A unified, strong and above all austere and independent Pakistan is a great obstacle indeed. Sadly our ‘leaders’ are doing all they can to facilitate a ‘smooth’ transition to a solution by alienating our own countrymen, strengthening the tribal lords and joining forces with the foe to root out any real chance of resistance once the plan is put into action.
One can almost hear the rhetoric that’s about to be repeated. War on terror is sure to feature as is liberation of the Pakhtun and Baloch from tyranny and docile existence; the panacea of real change and integration into the way of life of the civilised world etc. It is of course easy to blame everything on the ‘American Conspiracy’ – this unfortunately has connotations of an institutional and nationalist movement by the Americans to do harm to people around the world. The truth of course is much more sinister, this is corporate warfare – the demonic face of capitalism that has truly gone astray. For if it was for the American people then the plight of the millions of American families who go hungry every day will have been alleviated by the ‘American Administration’ and the enormous and widening gap between the rich and poor in the USA would’ve been narrowed. It’s not the ‘nation’ as a whole that is at play here. It’s through the hands of the big corporations and institutions that the invisible arm of power flexes its muscles. It’s the philosophy of profiteering at all costs that transcends borders, nationalities and even faith to corrupt the proponents of this philosophy - blinding them from the realities of human suffering as a consequence.
We know from the Holy Scriptures and authentic history that nations and philosophies like this have always existed throughout the chequered history of mankind. The lifecycle follows a similar pattern as well. Popular sentiment of a group of people is first galvanised with ideologies and concepts that strike a chord with the impoverished. Then follows the strengthening of the group around these ideas and the path to achieving them is charted. So far the interest of the masses appears to be at the fore but here it starts to turn. To achieve the ‘goals’ liberties and loyalties have to be submitted to a smaller group of elite. As soon as the masses surrender their liberties the elite becomes the destiny of the masses, their decisions have consequences for all and their mistakes endanger the entire group. The elite will guide the group through the path to achieve their ‘goal’ changing course as they see fit and resetting the goals to keep the popular sentiment onboard. The wider group has now been reduced to a herd of sheep at worse or a subservient mob at best. Their wellbeing is now determined by the elite. The elite gain power and eventually pass this on to other members of this elite group to share or to have exclusively. Eventually nobility gives way to acrimony and deceit often through a semi subconscious process as they have swayed and altered the course so often that even if they started on the right path they have lost all sense of true direction. The goal now becomes the perpetuation of power over the group. In order to achieve this, the group must be directed to serve their (the elite) interests yet convinced that it is their interest as well. The new goal of can now be only achieved through innuendo, spin, conjecture and general glossing over with the occasional lifeline of reform thrown in when no amount of talking can alone will suffice. The feel good factor becomes the central cog of articulating to the group how happy and well they are. Fear is inevitably a tool used generously as well. The fear of extinction through the hands of a rival group – a group that is perhaps in the early stages of its formation – is embedded and programmed into the conscious and subconscious of the people. They are forced to give up even more of their liberties in order to safeguard against this ‘rival group’. The ‘war on terror’ and ‘threat from militancy’ are tools of fear the elite in the west and east are using respectively to ultimately keep their respective groups subservient and willing to give up even more of their liberties when the time comes.
What then becomes of these groups and more pertinently the elite - as their fate determines the fate of their group? We find the answer in the Quran in Sura Fajr (89: 5-14):
Did you not see how your Lord dealt with the people of ‘Ad.
Of the city of ‘Iram’ - with loft pillars.
The like of which were not produced in all the land?
And with the ‘Thamud’ – people who cut out huge rock in the valley?
And with Pharaoh – lord of stakes?
These transgressed beyond bounds in the lands.
And heaped therein mischief (on mischief).
Therefore your Lord poured on them a scourge of chastisement:
For your Lord is as a guardian on a watch-tower.
It’s not the creation of the city of pillars or carving rocks that caused the destruction of these nations (groups). It’s the transgression beyond bounds and the mischief upon mischief they caused to others in order to perpetuate their rein that eventually destined them to the scourge of chastisement. These nations like all other groups of people received initial guidance through God’s appointed noble elite (Prophets) and prospered by following this and God indeed is All Giving and Merciful. Once they achieved prosperity the subsequent generations of elite sought to perpetuate this prosperity and hence strayed away from the path.
We live in a similarly misguided world today where the Ad’s, Thamud’s and Pharoah’s have all somehow metamorphosed and found new identities and have become contemporaries. They are transgressing the boundaries again and they are heaping mischief over mischief – God is watching and when the time is right His wrath cannot be averted. The modes operandi of commanding power may have altered slightly the intentions haven’t. the people of faith the world over need to find allegiance and true purpose once again, stop being a sheep in a herd for when the storm comes the sheep trample each other and when the Shepard disappears in the dust they have no where to go.
OC
