Under Siege

For now the city heaves and sighs under the immense pressure of expectation. Things might literally blow up at anytime. There are whispers, each whisper a resounding conspiracy theory, each theory giving birth to a new fear invoking story. The whole city is buzzing with whispers and the collective murmur is too loud to ignore. Karachi waits silently as the elois and the morlocks both head home.
The machine of hate is spinning, the muhajirs look suspiciously at the pathans, the pathan look concerned about the ostracization of their way of life, the sindhis hate both the pathans and the muhajirs for ruining their oceanic jewel of a city. The shias are afraid of the sunnis, who are suspicious of the qadianis. This before the sunnis start filtering down the hate by hating each other dependent on the color of the cloth on their head and based on whether they belong to one ‘school of thought’ as opposed to another. Everyone is scared and scornful of each other. At the same time the average man is struggling to find flour and sugar and the perpetual increases in the prices of anything and everything, baffling both the seller and the buyer. If this is the calm before the storm, we don’t want either.
There are cross-points and intersections spread throughout the city, where ethnic lines merged in the past but now they just clash. Fronts as the warriors like to call it, fronts to maintain their way of life. It appears that everyone and their dog are ethnically cleansing and being ethnically cleansed at the same time in this city of lights. These new frontiers have surprisingly emerged in towns that were forever hosting a multitude of cultures before. Parsis welcoming the hindustanis, welcoming the pushtoons, welcoming the afghanis, until they all went to war with each other, with the notable exception of the parsis, who have always kept apart from this ethnic hulla bulloo. We are a people who have only ever identified ourselves through our differences and never through our likeness. We have shared so much and yet only remember each other through our enmities, these enmities acting as lenses to our characters and our souls.
The ironic joke in the city goes by where students going to a college are being frisked by the ‘Chowkidars’ before entering the premises. The students when approached by the ‘Chowkidar’ raise their hands and cry out ‘Allah Akbar’, whereby the poor chowkidar runs for his life and shuts himself inside in his measly cabin. Cue the laughter and angry remonstrations from the ‘Chowkidars’. I guess they can all laugh in relief, this time it was a hoax, next time…who knows.
All across the cities in Pakistan, people are going through the same numb feeling of dread every time they step out of their homes. What has fate planned for them today and will they become another number in the daily statistics of the blown, the deceased or if they are lucky, just injured. The murdering animals are men just like us, walking amidst us, eating, sleeping, walking and talking. The difference is that these animals have become so blinded by their hate that their wish to live their lives have dissipated which is how they are different from us. There must be a moment of transformation before these cowards blow themselves up in crowded places, a moment I wish that anyone alive today does not encounter anymore. A moment of recognition by the victims that this is not a man or woman like them, that this is an animal blinded by zealous hate and who is there to kill and be killed. What happens in that moment of recognition? Mostly people run for their lives, others stand and fight and control the murderer like the various brave security and police personnel all across Pakistan have done and are doing on a daily basis. The victims must not even get a moment to reflect on their lives, to think of their loved ones who are awaiting them in their homes. They must not be able to collect their thoughts in the panic that must have ensued to think that this is the end. They must not achieve any sense of closure before their world ends, and closure is enforced. They must think in their last moments that they do not deserve it, and they don’t deserve such a terrible end. No one deserves this. If you watch the footage of the Islamabad hotel Bomb blast, the spirit of duty and bravery is demonstrated through those final moments. A brave security guard, armed with a fire extinguisher trying to put out the smoke that is arising due to the potent mixing of the chemicals with the explosives. His hope is to avert this danger and to get back to his family by the end of his shift. His duty is to secure and prevent this ordeal and he tries his best till the last moment. He is braver than those cowards who commit these acts as he stands tall to their butchery and refuses to accept it and does what is in his power to prevent it, right until the moment he is blown up into million pieces. Yet at that moment he taught us a lesson far more important than any of our petty differences and perceptions can dictate. Each of us has to stand tall to this nuisance that infects are land today. We have to cut this tumor out of our own body, with our bare hands and with our collective will.
This problem will not be resolved by eliminating a nationality or ethnicity from a city or many cities. It is not solved by drone attacks or military operations as these men are like mice and insects who will disappear momentarily only to reappear later and continue their reign of destruction. It requires us to believe that we, already in harm’s way, must stand up to these cowards. Our divisions are providing anchors for this parasite, we must act together. I know I must act, as this menace is just waiting in the shadows for you and me. Now is not the time to debate over perpetual divisions. Now is the time to become a hero and there should be no doubts over who our enemies are.