That’s the message of Kamran Shafi in Dawn today, and I must say that I am sympathetic to his call. Hamid has become like a madman calling on people to “get ready for the mass suicide.” What kind of monster can say this at a time when we are already seeing too many senseless deaths in our nation? Have we not suffered enough to quench the bloodlust of Zaid Hamid? Can he not see the sickness and despair in the eyes of mothers in Lahore who have lost their husbands and children? How much more violence and gory deaths must occur to please Zaid Hamid’s fantasies?
I was to regale you with other stories to do with our security establishment’s tortured and seemingly futile hunt for the very elusive holy grail of strategic depth in Afghanistan (I ask you) this week, but the ever-increasing assault on our poor country and its innocent people by unlettered and brainwashed and murderous yahoos leads me elsewhere.
Who saw clips of the unintentional video shot by a shocked bystander who burst into uncontrolled moans as he filmed the Yahoo blow himself up and tens of others with him, limbs and blood and gore flying in all directions?
Well, I did, and while one has almost been inured to such scenes, the live images were shocking in the extreme and outraged me more and more every time they were repeated. Not for long though, because soon the scenes began to be censored, the more gory parts cut out of the film. Bad move by whoever for the people at large must be shown the extent of the bestiality and the brutishness of the yahoos who are lionised by some politicians for their own narrow political ends.
Lahore has been attacked twice inside of a week, the attacks killing scores of people and injuring and maiming many more. The intelligence agencies failed all ends up yet again, and as per usual, specially the premier agency aka the Mother of All Agencies which seems to have its finger in every matter — from disappearing people to formulating the country’s foreign policy to destabilising the government whenever it is perceived to be stepping ‘out of line’ — except in running the yahoos to the ground and nipping their evil in the bud.
You might well ask what I mean by the title of this piece. Simple: the Crazy Right are the successors of the Crush India Brigade of the late 1960s and early 1970s which gave us the Bangladesh tragedy (which of course had other reasons too); rump Pakistan is the country we are left with after the breakup of Pakistan as a result of the exertions of the crazy Right. They might well succeed yet again.
Here is the present high priest of the crazy Right, one Zaid (Zaman) Hamid, reportedly speaking on something called ‘Ummah Radio’: “Pakistan is in the headlines again! Oh people! Know that it is a combined action of RAW and Mossad to dismantle the divinely placed concrete foundations of the house of the pure, the feared fort of Islam. We are a nation which is like a glittering star of guidance for the crescent of the whole Muslim world, the pioneer of the creation of the green united states of Islam in the world that is drowning in the sea of ignorance.
“Oh Muslims! Always hold on to truth, and the truth is that it is yet again a Zionist-controlled western media’s conspiracy. Let’s rise up against the enemies of Islam; let’s nuke the … Hindus and Jews, the nefarious dark forces of this planet. Insha’allah, the time for shahadat is near. My sons and daughters, get ready for the big day, the promised day when Allah will make the Muslims victorious and Jews will run here and there to find shelter. Even the trees will talk and will say: ‘these sons of apes and swines are hiding behind my trunk’.
“Rise up and get ready for the mass suicide. Great nations die for a noble cause. What is more nobler than wiping the enemies of Islam from the face of this earth? Remember, Islam is a peaceful religion. Allah commands us to take care of each other. All are equal in the eyes of Allah. Slay them with your daggers. …Islam will rule the world….”. The transmission is interrupted. Announcer: “We are trying to re-establish the connection with our great leader, meanwhile we will ask Qari Bakir to recite ‘Surah Tauba’.”
If this doesn’t make your blood run cold and infuriate you all at once, dear reader, I don’t know what will. Can you and I ask why this person is allowed to go on with his increasingly violent rants aimed at the huge numbers of unemployed, half-educated youths who have nothing to do in a country that is essentially a security state and which, instead of creating job opportunities for these vulnerable targets for the spreaders of poison, spends most of its money on toys and more toys for the boys, and more and more luxurious perks for its generals?
Surely spreading hate against other religions is against the law? Surely calling for mass suicide is against the law? Surely advocating nuking the hell out of another country is a crime against humanity itself? Why, then, is this man not prosecuted?
Why does the federal government not get the Federal Bureau of Revenue to investigate the sources of this person’s income, which must be huge judging from the campaigns he mounts, to see who exactly keeps him in big money? Why does the judiciary, which seems to be hell-bent on just pursuing the federal government’s leaders, not take suo motu notice of this man’s dangerous spoutings?
We must recall immediately too that some days ago this person was hosted in Peshawar by Governor Owais Ghani and sent amidst official protocol to speak at Islamia College University where he was not allowed to speak by the Pakhtun Students Union and the Amn Tehrik and was sent scurrying back to the comfort of the governor’s bosom.
Why, pray, is the federal government’s representative in Peshawar trying to smooth the way for this purveyor of hatred? Why is he mollycoddling this man who is attempting to lead the country’s disaffected young astray?
Our country is at great risk, my friends, for no one seems to have learnt any lessons at all. I fear it will face even more grief in the coming days while our politicians leap off the cliff like lemmings.
