Swat

City of the dead at the end of another lost highway
- Green Day

Pakistan is a country that has various ethnic groups who have been living in harmony together for decades till today. Being a multicultural country Pakistan is a place where people with different beliefs, cultures and philosophies live together. When did it become right to tell an ethnic group that their beliefs are wrong? When did it become right to impose the beliefs of one ethnic group onto another ethnic group? When did it become right to suppress and even eliminate one ethnic group based on their beliefs? Whatever is happening in Swat is called “ethnic cleansing” by every definition and in every dictionary of the world. Masking the issue of ethnicity and beliefs with the label of terrorism is resulting in the deaths of innocent men, women and children. It is hard to understand why today any ethnic issue that has Islamic roots is tied to terrorism. I don’t know why is the struggle of one ethnic group to protect it’s culture and to live freely and survive with their own beliefs is considered wrong.

Pakistan as a country has lost its way, its ideology and (hopefully not) its future. We are going down a lost highway with misleading signs that will take us to disaster. Today one ethnic group calling itself “moderate” is taking over the entire country, tomorrow the other will strike back and it has already started happening. The show of moderation by the group in power can be seen in the blood of innocence at Swat. It is like the history repeating itself again and again and we are determined not to learn from it. We can look back and see what happened in Bosnia, we can recall and think over why Algeria never saw peace, and we can learn something from the Shah of Iran. The philosophy of “to live and let live” is straight out the window of our leaders who by living most of their lives in barracks learnt nothing but the philosophy of war and violence. How come these people know what human rights are when all they learnt is war tactics, “yes sir”, “left-right” and to follow orders. Power belongs to the people of Pakistan and not to these puppets pulled by strings in the hands of their foreign masters.

Swat, a paradise on earth now looks like a town of Bosnia, which is too much of a price to pay for ones beliefs. I hope the blood of the people of Swat breathes life in every Pakistani living in every part of Pakistan. I hope all Pakistanis rise up against this aggression and struggle for justice and their right to be free. It is a big ask that requires perseverance and constant struggle and this is the time to do it. We need to refresh our minds with the ideology of Pakistan; we need to recall once again the freedom that Quaid-i-Azam stood for. It gives me strength to see the people of Swat who despite of oppression still stand for their beliefs and I wish and I pray that they succeed and bring Pakistan back on track. And I wish we all make Pakistan the country that was once dreamt by Allama Iqbal.