Even the Holy of the Holies?

One high-profile attack after another, all in a matter of days. Looks like Hakimullah Mehsud means business to the point that the days of battling Baitullah now seem like a kindergarten fight.

If General Headquarters can be attacked with such audacity as we just saw, you can forget about any inch of Pakistan qualifying as "secure." It seems that the shocks to our national psyche would not end anytime soon, as if sytematically calibrated by Divinity in whose name this entire bloody carnival is going on.

When the Sri Lankan cricket team, with its "head-of-state security protocol," was ambushed in the middle of Lahore, we consoled ourselves that a mere politically motivated transfer of a police official at the worst possible time opened an unfortunate gap for the militants to jab their fingers into. The escaping Sri Lankans took with them international cricket from Pakistan's stadiums for the forseeable future. Militants 1; Pakistanis 0.

The attack on the Manawan Policy Academy in Lahore landed as another punch to the guts. Things did not look good. The war was no longer in those Godforsaken tribal areas, which we could conveniently lump together with the even-more-Godforsaken Afghanistan. This battle was now being fought in the country's political and cultural heartland - if there ever was a Pakistan, it was in Lahore - and it was obvious that the Pakistani state was being washed away.

The Islamabad Frontier Constabulary Camp. The Jandola Fort. The United Nations compound in Islamabad. And now, this!

The attack on GHQ is over, but its effect will be longstanding. It opens possibilities that were previously ludicrous, and poses new questions about where the Pakistani nation could be headed:

1. The war against Islamist militants in Pakistan has reached the military's doorstep, quite literally. An assault on the Waziristans is inevitable now, along with a few other tribal areas thrown in. This not only means an eventual end to the political status of FATA, but it would also mark the turning point for the Pakistani army from an India-specific force to a counter-insurgency apparatus. Whether the army can go through this transformation smoothly is critical for the future of that country.

2. This is the moment of truth for Pakistan's ideology as an Islamic state. So far the government has desisted from demonizing the Islamist militants as it should have long ago soon after the first time Pakistani cities were targeted. But a direct attack on the military calls for a comprehensive and all-out strategy. Could this be the Ataturk moment of labeling every beard and burqa as anti-state? Could this push the government into actually taking control of every pulpit in mosques around the country, and rein in lay imams and religiously-inclined political parties from the incitement that has been their manifesto and rallying cry? In short, could this be the moment that takes religion out of Pakistan's political ethos? And if it is, what does that mean for the country that has since 1971 relied on its religious identity as its primary bulwark against further dissolution?

3. The threat of Islamist militants is dangerously real and uncomfortably close for the average Pakistani now. If GHQ can be penetrated, then the beardos with guns are already everywhere. It is too early to say, but such moments create public revulsion for those who threaten to upset the status quo, no matter how unsettling the status quo is. Almost everyone knows, including the religious parties, that the rise of Islamists is no Iranian Revolution, but simply a descent into chaos with no prospect of any recovery for many decades. If the population of the country starts becoming wary of the beardos, what does that mean for the nation's general parameters of political discourse? Would Pakistanis reflexively start moving to the left?

These are truly exciting times.

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When our beliefs were innocent...

I was surfing the net, avoiding the news from Pakistan, as usual. The TV was playing in the background with the usual bits about the Prime Minister speaking in English in interior Sindh, and I am thinking, why, oh why, is the world like this?

Suddenly I heard 'lab pe aati hai dua ban ke tamanna meri,' that poem by Iqbal which we all so proudly sang in school.

Such innocent words, that poem. And look where we stand today.

Where did that innocence in our beliefs go? When did we start becoming like this? Our Islam was a belief that the world can be a better place, that it will be a better place. It was an undying value system which allowed us to see the beauty in God's most sterling creation: mankind itself.

But somewhere, there were this other kind of Islam that was being nourished. An Islam based on hate, violence and intimidation. No one could possibly want it, or so it seemed.

Things look so much different today.

For what good?

"They fled through heat and rain...the dust of the caravans stretched low across the Indian plains and mingled with the scent of fear and sweat, human waste and putrifying bodies. When the cloud of hate subsided, the roll of the dead was called and five hundred thousand names echoed across the dazed land - dead of gunshot wounds, sword, dagger and knife slashes and others of epidemic diseases. While the largest number died of violence, there were tired gentle souls who looked across their plundered gardens and then lay down and died. For what good is life when reason stops and men run wild? Why pluck your baby from the spike or draw your lover from the murky well?"
- Donald F Ebright, "Free India: The First Five Years: An Account of the 1947 Riots, Relief and Rehabilitation"

Seriously, for what good?

Premonition

...
Said I one night to a pristine seer
(Who knew the secrets of whirling Time),
"Sir, you well perceive,
That goodness and faith,
Fidelity and love
Have all departed from this sorry land.
Father and son are at each other's throat;
Brother fights brother. Unity
and Federation are undermined.
Despite these ominous signs
Why has not Doomsday come?
Why does not the Last Trumpet sound?
Who holds the reins of the Final Catastrophe?"
...

- "Chirag-i-Dair" (excerpt)
Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib,
Benaras, 1827
(translated by Qurratulain Hyder)

God Protect You

You drive through the boulevards of Karachi's rich localities, passing a string of crore-rupee mansions. The houses on both sides are monstrous behemoths. Tall ionic columns appear to leap across from the boundary walls. Gold paint emblazons the balustrade and railings. Polished metal gates, marble-covered facades, mahagony window panes. Its clear that the vault had run out of space to store money, so no effort was spared to throw together an expensive concoction that is painful for any appreciative eye to bear. But suddenly, you notice an engraving on one side of the facade that reads in Arabic 'Mashallah.' You want to spit out the nausea that collected within you from taking a 10-second look at the house. But the 'Praise be to God' clamps down your throat and you wonder whether an expression of outrage would be noticed by the cemented calligraphy on the wall. You turn your face and walk away in disgust, only to see more replulsive architectural specimens adorned with the same flowery narcissist invocations to God. You wonder, could God be this immune to such horrific creations made by the hands of His ostensibly most genius product?

The 'Mashallah,' 'Subhanallah' and unending variations of God's name on flamboyant freak shows are not the evil warders that they are often claimed to be. They are an obtuse effort to make a critic subconsciously deflate his or her judgment and deflect the assessment to acknowledge the 'Divine Hand' in something as tasteless as what stands before you. Could you dare to criticise something that has Allah's name written all over it? If you do, then you are conveniently a heretic and not worthy of offering any opinion to begin with. If you dont, mission accomplished!

The next time you see God's name being utilized in the name of art, think whether the artistic creation really needed such an honour. Good art does not depend on praises to God; it instead harks to the inner soul lurking within you that God himself has so artistically concealed. Chances are that the art work enmeshed with cheap holiness is so terribly regular that only God's name can truly protect it from being thrashed into immediate oblivion.