The Canvas

There are things in our society that are held so firmly as a taboo that you won’t even get your friends and family to talk about them. Failing to understand where the discrepancy lies, I can’t understand this unanimous silence towards the ‘atrocious sorties of Islamic refinement’ taking place all over Islamabad…? I think its me who feels so much about the community I live in, the country that gave me my identity, the neighborhood where my friends played, the graveyards and cemeteries my elders are buried at, all of that being taken over by irrational fanatics.

People might take me for a liberal, well, I am not. Neither am I a hardcore conservative. I don’t fricking know what I am! With all the confusion about who’s right and who’s wrong, who should die and who should live, all around I feel nothing but alienated from the same society that calls for help from the ‘youth’ like me to take the reins of power and prosperity for the country into the future. Bleh!

I was reading the newspaper and I came across this horrific news piece from The News on Sunday July 01 2007, carrying the title,

Three more massage centers on Taliban hit list

I am flabbergasted at the same time being powerless and voiceless about it.

This is what the news post had to say,

‘Spa’ — a massage centre and swimming pool is being run as health club in Shaukat Complex in Super Market — ‘Nirvana’ (massage centre and beauty parlour) in House 14, Street-90, G-6/3, and UN Club — established by the United Nation’s Entertainment Office at double road in F-6/1 with diplomatic sanctity – are among the three ‘health clubs’ under threat, the sources maintained.

Take a look at this picture. Can you see whats happening here? Can you see that there is a woman and a man standing watch over as the execution of a woman with an AK-47 takes place? They are the witnesses. I wonder where the second female witness is, as according to Islamic Sharia, there needs to be two men, or if not that then two women in place of an absent male witness. Can you see the inhuman crudeness with which it is being carried out in a football field. A fricking football field! Not only does it add insult to injury being executed in public, they have decimated the purpose of a football pitch! Do WE, want this to happen in our backyards? The quick, fast tracked, divine justice?

And who knows what is divine in these times? Because the last time someone had an outing they struck at night, captivated women, raided without notice, backed off from the stand-off claiming ‘Pak Sino friendship’ was at stand and lastly did not feel the need to reveal to anyone outside that if the hostages were given a chance to clarify or not. How ISLAMIC!

And this is not all, the two people, Pakistanis here, caught were from the MMA… yes, read here! The Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal came into existance when all the religious parties combined to form a single party when Musharraf took the helm! They are the majority seat holders in NWFP!

Dear fellow Pakistanis, we seriously need to rethink ourselves, reawaken from this catatonic state of ours and take action! This is our country, this is our city, these are our people! We can’t let irrationality and ignorance take over our cities and towns. I am in no capacity to make decisions, thank God they have people for that. But this is how I see things should be carried out:

• Elections are near, the Lal Masjid should be allowed to campaign for voters, and get elected from some seats. This will show us how popular they are and if the people they are willing to protect and impose their Islam on really want them to be there or not.
• The Lal Masjid clergy should be given ample amount of time and space to carry out any research and recon they want to do in Islamabad and around about ’suspicious massage centers’ and be able to inform the public and the police about their existence. From there the law enforcement authorities will take matters into their own hands. There is no need for us to have rag-tag mini armies everywhere we like going around terrorizing people.
• The students at Lal Masjid should be taken to other madaris, where it is quite evident that this madarsa is not interested in teaching them anything but hate. I am pretty sure they use the ‘have-not complex’ to torture the kids psychologically. Additionally, the students should be cleared off any criminal charges that they undertook under the influence of Lal Masjid clergy.
• The students at Lal Masjid be given scholarships to study in schools of their liking. There are a lot of good Islamic schools out there with excellent academics and their students go on to become better citizens. Although the definition of ‘better citizen’ can be disputed from person to person, mind to mind.
• The clergy should be told to give up it’s ways, and let the authorities take care of the problems in the city. They can however abet the forces by ‘informing’ the public and the police about such activities.
• If even after that they refuse to cooperate and create a menace in Islamabad and help terrorist outside of the Lal Masjid, they should be told they will be dealt with force. After that, what ever course of action is taken the Lal Masjid Clergy will have to deal with it.

These guidelines are only upon the current authority’s will to follow. I cannot say they would, I do not advocate they should, but we as Pakistanis have the duty to provide a pool of ideas for them to work with. And in all honesty, do we really want another Beirut in Pakistan?