The paths of glory: Defeating the ideology of extremist violence

Since its birth in 1947 Pakistan has sown many martyrs on its soil, and has yet to reap its saints. In the first nine days of this year two more of its sons sacrificed their lives to protect their fellow citizens from mass slaughter by terrorist groups.

The intrepid but brutal antiterrorism stalwart, Superintendent of Police, CID, Muhammad Aslam Khan, popularly known as Chaudhry Aslam, was killed in a suicide-attack on January 09 at the Lyari Expressway in Karachi when a vehicle laden with 200 kilograms of explosives rammed into his car. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility and boasted that this was a major triumph in its relentless onslaught to impose its diktat on the country.

For those who bother to think - a habit that the leadership of the country is yet to acquire - the TTP statement revealed its weakness. The banned outfit unwittingly admitted that it was petrified by a single individual and had tried to eliminate him on at least five occasions in the past. But after each assassination attempt, Chaudhry Aslam emerged a stronger man. It seemed as though he was driven by some mysterious inner force which made him ever more determined to take on the hideous monsters that kill, maim and destroy in the name of their false religion which is far removed from the sacred tenets of Islam.

Despite the crippling grief of so irreparable and so irredeemable a loss, his wife maintained her poise and dignity. Without succumbing to ungainly emotions she said on television that she was proud of the supreme sacrifice rendered by her husband for the country. Chaudhry Aslam was a controversial man and had even spent time in jail but was, however, exonerated because the charges against him could not be proved.

Chaudhry Aslam was certainly not a saint - nor did he ever pretend to be one. He was what a policeman should never be under normal circumstances. But the situation in Karachi over the years has been anything but normal. In the four months preceding his assassination more than 200 security personnel were killed in the megacity by terrorist groups and criminals.

Ruthless in his fight against these elements, Chaudhry Aslam may even have been responsible for unknowingly killing innocent people. But he found himself up against a wall because the justice system had failed miserably to punish those who had terrorised the entire city. He accepted life's buffets without complaint and derived strength from an unwavering commitment to his cause - on this there could be no compromise.

According to a person who had known him well, he deliberately chose to walk along steep and dangerous paths. These were the daunting paths of glory which, he knew only too well, led to the heavenly gate of martyrdom. Death, after all, was not only inevitable, it was also the great equaliser - the monarch and the mendicant would ultimately be interred in the same soil. What really mattered to Chaudhry Aslam was how a person lived his life. He must have believed, as Soren Kierkegaard did, that "the tyrant dies and his rule ends, the martyr dies and his rule begins."

This is not entirely true because real life is far more complicated. Contemporary Pakistan, for instance, is a land of many thousand martyrs - soldiers, policemen and civilians have laid down their lives in the fight against terrorism, but these heroes are unsung and unremembered. They lived and died unknown and have become a mere statistic in the gruesome list of those who willingly faced death so that their countrymen could live. It is the rule of the tyrant, not that of the martyr that is ascendant.

What else can one say when the leadership of the country bemoans the extermination of the arch-terrorist, Hakeemullah Mehsud, but merely sheds crocodile tears when a 15-year-old child, Aitizaz Hasan from Hangu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa gave his life on January 06 in a desperate struggle with a suicide-bomber who was about to enter his school. It is about people like Aitizaz that the Bible so rightly says, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).

It took the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government a week to even commiserate with the boy's family. But Aitizaz's father, despite the crippling burden of his grief, told his friends and well-wishers to congratulate him instead of offering their condolences. Aitizaz had attained the glory of martyrdom and would live forever in the prayers and thoughts of the coming generations - his death, though heart-rending, had the terrible beauty of a Greek tragedy.

It is a shame that a child should have had to sacrifice his life to save his friends. The security of citizens is the duty of the state under Article 9 of the constitution which reads: "No person shall be deprived of life or liberty, save in accordance with the law." The government has clearly failed to fulfil this obligation and has instead sought to pass on the blame to extraneous factors such as drone attacks.

But this is belied by statistics. In 2013, despite a 31 per cent decrease in Predator strikes there were as many as 49 suicide attacks representing a 39 per cent increase over the previous year. Seven months into his third prime ministerial term, Nawaz Sharif is a sadder though not necessarily a wiser man. He actually believes that talks with the TTP, which are yet to get underway, will eventually lead to a blissful haven of enduring peace.

But here again unvarnished statistics speak differently. Since the day he was sworn in on June 05, 2013 until December 31, 2013 no less than 2,113 people were killed in 1,345 incidents of violence which include 827 terrorist attacks - all of these have been perpetrated by the TTP or its affiliates. The flagship in this formidable armada of terror is Al-Qaeda.

Those who have dared to oppose the terrorist onslaught have been abandoned by the government. On January 13, Chaudhry Aslam's widow made the startling disclosure to Geo TV that he had not been provided 'a bomb-proof vehicle'. The slain hero had to fend for himself and borrowed a bullet-proof car from a friend. But this was taken back by his unnamed benefactor prior to the deadly attack that took his life.

He has been replaced by another fearless officer, Shafiq Tanoli, who has also escaped several assassination attempts. At the end of December he was wounded in a terrorist attack and hospitalised. But like his predecessor, he is determined to fight the hydra-headed monster that has terrorised Karachi through the years. One hopes that the government will provide him the wherewithal to facilitate his mission.

In this scheme of things, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has succumbed to the temptation of delivering Sunday sermons to the media. This is becoming a habit. In his latest homily he spoke about the "good and the bad Taliban." He should have known better because this is like differentiating between a good and a bad terrorist. All such groups imbibe from the same deadly potion of violent extremism. They will persevere with their agenda of violence till their objective of capturing power is achieved.

But the pride of place for hare-brained ideas belongs to the minister for religious affairs, who is convinced that by the introduction of Arabic in primary and secondary schools, terrorism can be defeated. The reason is that the coming generation will be able to understand the actual teachings of the Quran. Need one remind him that Osama bin-Laden was an Arab as are all the big names in Al-Qaeda and its affiliates. They have de-contextualised passages of the Holy Book to justify mass slaughter in the name of a religion that is founded on peace.

The Quran leaves no doubt that it is a book "for people who think." This is the key to defeating the ideology of extremist violence. But the leadership of the country is confined to a room where the windows are shuttered and the doors are barred. The name of the warder is fear.

The writer is the publisher                         of Islamabad-based                            Criterion Quarterly.   iftimurshed@gmail.com