Apr
12
By Shahab Jafry
Three cheers! Here’s to the fabled bravery of the god-fearing mountain folk that inhibit the long held artificial line separating Pakistan from Afghanistan – the people who turned back Alexander, halted the British colonial rampage, bled the Soviet empire, have NATO wrong-footed and are the unending envy of the international media since 9/11. Of late, as the frenzied petrodollar indoctrination began bearing fruit, they’ve emerged mutated, with not only their faith and passion somewhat changed, but also their intended targets.
Thoroughly dedicating themselves to god’s word and work, they first exhibited the shift in Afghanistan. After bringing up a generation on scripture in an alien language – which they’d bother learning but the time was obviously better spent in action – they took out NGOs, bakeries, churches, doctors, nuns, teachers and every one thing that didn’t mirror themselves. For sure the thousands that honored the compulsory ‘or else’ showing at Taliban’s national day parades in Kabul were thinking, “What bravery, what piety”!
Then when Islamabad dumped the men of god as the “with us or without us” superpower fury came raging, it was only natural for years of chained-recitation teaching to smell treachery, against god and his special chosen men, demanding blood in turn. So the self-styled soldier clerics chanted verses, loaded Kalashnikovs, strapped on bomb-belts and sought martyrdom – small price for annihilating a social setup with men that were evil, women that would bear evil and children that would grow up to be evil, and of course embracing virgins waiting in the heavens. What bravery, what piety!
And as the cancer spread its tentacles deep inside Pakistan, these Pathan-majority talebs have achieved a remarkable elevation in their faith, their words and actions forcing even those keeping silent for the sake of the country’s image to finally break that silence. We see god’s banner lofted when a suicide bomber takes out scores worshipping the same deity in a mosque. We see Allah-ho-Akbar (God is great) chanted when shrapnel especially designed to reach far upon detonation cuts carcasses of little children in playing fields. We see Islam interject when criminal remnants from a dead age treat their women worse then the sheep they herd. We become the ridicule of the world when chickens birthed to serve a purpose long ago come home to roost.
As these bearded weirdo’s move down the mountains into mainland Pakistan, they comprise hordes that were not part of but stemmed from the process that brought them into being. They do not know of the east-west romance that channeled billions across oceans and deserts to engineer the fall of the evil empire. What follows is unprecedented, the sequel from the men of the faith’s chapter in Afghanistan.
True to their word, though, god’s warriors have provided a very vivid hint of their designs. Swat was the ideal retreat when I frequented it, even if it did sport a little excess of wanna-be poppy smoking hippies from the lower areas. Yesterday a chill ran down my spine as I saw TV coverage of a congregation of the pious there, men of god holding down a 17-year-old girl, rugged brave mountain warriors whipping her rear while her shrieks of pain paralyzed all and sundry. Surely far more honorable than having girls roam markets? What men!
Shahab Jafry is a free lance journalist from Pakistan based in Dubai.
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