Greetings Everyone,
It is with a heavy heart that I am opening this thread. In the last one week my my hopelessness regarding Pakistan has gradually increased. The reason is a piece of news my university alumini came across last week and was spread like wildfire. The link to the news is
CTD releases images of Safoora carnage, Sabeen Mahmud killers - thenews.com.pk
On closer inspection it was realized that the alleged terrorist in the picture on the right side was actually Sir Ali Rehman (calling a senior SIR is the culture of EME) from NUST, my senior and later my class fellow because of relegation. So he got education from Pakistan best engineering school which is run by Pak Army. Before I move on I must paint you his picture. He was a chill student, never into grades (the reason for his relegation), was an excellent basketball player, played a musical instrument, had a girl friend(as per rumors), had his final year project with two girls, excellent in embedded systems programming and mechanical modelling using ProE and AutoCAD. If I am not wrong he made more than 4 robots during his studies. He was the goto person whenever a problem occurred in micro controllers. So pretty much a normal hostel living student hailing from Karachi except for the fact that he didnt have any close friends.
Post graduation, we all class fellows got scattered, only fast friends remained in touch. Somehow he got off my radar screen. After six months or so, we got the news that he got into Uni Lever in Karachi a multinational company. He had his friends from my senior batch also working there. As per the reports he was into six figure salary. But he wasn't in contact with any of his class fellows. He soon was nowhere to be seen, neither on facebook no news.
Except last week when his picture appeared in the news. Soon our alumini started recognizing him. Soon we all remembered him and soon it was depression that followed. As per people in Unilever he resigned out of the blue one day and was never heard afterwards, his number got switched off and thats it. Another terrorist named in the news is the son of a senior Unilever employee. What was Sir Ali thinking? What happened to him? What convinced him to become a monster?
The point is, if someone from a decent family, educated from Pakistan's best engineering college, employed in a multinational can be brainwashed, what is the hope for the poor,uneducated , unemployed masses? How easy it must be to brainwash a kid from backward areas, with little or no education, with non existent employement /career? How easy it must be for enemies of Pakistan? How easily baluchistan /tribal areas/ rural sindh and rural Punjab can be manipluated?
We have made the job of our enemies too much easy. We are simply hopeless. Before this I used to believe only madrassas, poverty, joblessness, unawareness is responsible. But now the evil ideology has proved that it can penetrate the top 5% of the society as well. We need to be better prepared to fight this evil.
PS:- Some part of me is still unable to believe that he really is involved. But the evidence is pointing otherwise.
@Norwegian @HRK @Zarvan
this is a classic case of ideological crisis, confusion & chaos which exist in our political & social structure ....
Normally the pseudo intellectual ignore these issues & try to hide their ignorance under the rug of RELIGION or anything related to RELIGION, they fail to address the real issues which our society is facing & repeat the narrative borrowed from western intellects, take Mr. Ali Rehman as an example
- Was he killing people for political reason, we do have example of +10K such killing in Karachi alone within last few years .... ??? The answer is no
- Was he Killing people on the base of race or cast .... ?? again the answer is no
- Was he killing people on the basis of language or Nationalism .... ??? again no
we do have example of killing on the basis of cast, language, Nationalism, political activities but he was not involved in any of that previously establish reasons of killing, we do known that these evils have their strong roots in the decade of 60s (first riots in Karachi on the basis of language), 70s (rise of Nationalism in the provinces) & 80s, much earlier then the so called Religious Terrorism; we also know that these factors still prevail in our society even today; so the question is
Why Ali Rehman didn't participated in any act of Terrorism for the above stated reasons ... ??
and a secondary question
Why the reason for his act is religious motivation .... ??
before to address these queries we should first accept our failure as a Nation in the establishment of Common National Narrative about Nation and Nationalism, State & its Security policies, State & its Functionality these are common factors which are the foundation of ideological crisis can any one answer
What is a Pakistani Nationalism ...??
Is it a Theocratic Nationalism like Iran ... ??
Or Secular Nationalism like Turkey ... ??
Or Capitalistic Nationalism like USA .... ??
Or Neo-nationalism like India .... ??
Or is it Apartheid Nationalism like Israel .... ??
this is the one basic question will determine the National role of Pakistan at Domestic & International theatre, but wel till now failed to address it
Same is the case of National Security policy particularly internal security policy .... people blame State to extend the patronage to religious extremist during 80s but forget the support of states to Tribal lord in Baluchistan, landlords of Sindh & Punjab, Support to Sindhi, Baloch & Pukhtoon Nationalists (GM Syed, end of Hyderabad case are just a few examples), patronage of MQM in Urban Sindh ..... so on & so on ... without going into the detail about the failure of State in performing the basic function of Statehood I should ask only a simple question which state organ is performing up to requirements .... ??
these are the factors about which our youth is aware (but not well verse), some of them have lost their trust over the State other are losing, they don't trust traditional politicians & religious leaders any more; these political & religious leaders have failed our youth big time (
this is the answer of first highlighted query) & just because of this reason youth is accepting
new religious & political phenomena & doer among them are participating actively. (
this is the answer of second highlighted query)