When the victims stopped to arrive at the hospital, a hush seized the journalists and they engaged in low tone exchanges. Victims’ families started to arrive at the hospital to know about the safety of their near and dear, usually weeping and crying in desperation and if they found someone of their kin soaked in blood and motionless, a strange feeling of helplessness engulfed them.

I came out of the hospital with a heavy heart. Way back to my office life in the city seemed as usual with the story to be filed on my mind. Afterwards, over a cup of tea some friends gathered and discussion turned towards the militancy, but it remained inconclusive till end and we dispersed with more questions than answers.

To quote Obaidullah Aleem:

“Who I have name for these recurring calamities

My cities are burning and people dying

None else in behind this deadly manoeuvring,

We are being killed, we are the killers.”

I had seen too much blood and gore scenes over a period of two years as a journalist covering the militancy, which has ravaged the NWFP and FATA. But most of the time the futility of violence left me gaping for breath and this feeling has dawned upon me with more force that what is the purpose of this killing and what the killers wanted to achieve.

I consider them actors in an absurdist theatre, when they say that the bloodshed in this country is against America, as how one of us could believe that killing their fellow humans could entitle them to the riches of Paradise. The people roaming around wrapping themselves in lethal explosives are to me reminiscent of the pig tailed child who heralded the end of Garcia Marquez’s city of mirrors.

The Kafkaesque manner of terrorism and the stoicism of the majority of our population often puzzles’ me as our society fiddles like Nero when the Rome was burning. The war was initially limited to Waziristan and most of us remained silent, then it spread to whole of FATA and parts of Frontier and we are still silent and one does not need to be Einstein to foresee what tomorrow has in store for us.

Faraz has put these aptly:

You keep on poking every heart with spears of bigotry.

We’re the people of love, why are you raising daggers.

Let music resonate in the city; let us live in the city.

We take care of flowers and guard fragrance

Whose blood you are here to spill, we only preach love,

What then you find in this city, when word ceases to exist.

When swords cut through gentle tanner, when lyrics leave for ever,

When melodies got killed and voices died down.

Whom you stone, when the city turns to ruins

Then this very sight of your face will haunt you in mirrors.”

Media has a strong tradition of resistance in the Indo-Pak subcontinent. From the refusal of the father of Indian journalism James Augusts Hickey to bow before the British raj during the formative period of Indian journalism to the Karachi journalists’ arrests after the imposition of emergency in the country, media has been the custodian of a great tradition of resistance in this part of the world.

The journalists like Faiz Ahmed Faiz have always bear the burnt for saying nay to the unconstitutional steps of the dictators taken for their survival on the name of national interest.

Dr. Iqbal Ahmed recounts the tale of a Bosnian newspaper “Oslobodenje” in his essay, “Intellectuals Role in Society,” which is similar to the present ordeal being faced by the Pakistani media.

The Oslobodenje was the Bosnia’s largest daily; it was established during World War II as an underground paper by the partisans who fought the fascists and after the break-up of the Yugoslavia it supported the Bosnia as a country.

Dr. Iqbal writes, “ Oslobodenje practised what it preached. Its editor is Muslim, deputy editor is an incredibly brave Serb woman, the staff are mixed – Muslim Serb, and Croat. As such, the newspaper anti its staff became a target of Serb nationalists, an easy target because its offices are located in the ‘death alley’ of Sarajevo within range of Serb gunners, The newspaper and its staff sustained many miunes but did not miss a day of publication printing often a single page. Oslobodenje became a symbol of Bosnian resolve, Sarajevans’ will to live and, above all, of Serb failure to destroy the values for which Bosnia stood. “Why don’t you move the paper out of Sarajevo?” I asked Editor KemaI Kurspahic soon after he had survived a bomb, ‘we can’t”, he replied simply, “Oslobodenje is a lighthouse”.

The same is the condition of Pakistani media after the imposition of the emergency when the government attempted to gag the media and silence the dissent shamelessly. The president who used to brag about the exemplary media freedom closed two popular TV channels in just one go and let the other operate mutilated.

But unlike the past the lawyers and the civil society have rose and speaking the truth to the dictator hand in hand with the media as legendry Faiz puts it.

“If pen and ink are snatched from me, shall I
Who dipped my finger in my heart’s blood complain -
Or if they seal my tongue, when I have made
A mouth of every round link of my chain?”
Translated (A.W)

Imagine, is all this possible anywhere else in the world? 

Khalil Gibran words sound prophetic if we see them in the backdrop of the contemporary Pakistan.

Pity the Nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion;

Pity the Nation that acclaims the bully as hero,

And that deems the glittering conqueror beautiful;

Pity the Nation that raises not its voice,

Save where it walks in a funeral,

And will rebel not save when its neck is laid;

Between the sword and the block;

Pity the Nation that whose sages are dumb with years,

And whose strong men are yet in the cradles;

Pity the Nation divided into fragments,

Each fragment deeming itself a nation. 

Federally Administrated Tribal Areas or FATA consist seven semi-autonomous agencies: South Waziristan, North Waziristan. Khyber, Bajaur, Kurram, Mohmand, and Orakzai agencies and five Frontier Regions(F.Rs ) F.R Peshawar, F.R Kohat, F.R Tank, F.R Banuu and F.R D.I. Khan.

FATA is spread over an area of 27,220 square kilometers and it shares 600-km. long border with Afghanistan and has population of 3.17 million Pashtuns residing on the Pakistani side of Durand Line which was drawn by Sir. Mortimer Durand the foreign secretary of British Indian government in 1893. It was meant to create a buffer zone between British India and Afghanistan by dividing the Pastuns tribes living on the both sides of the divide.

A major part of the FATA is rugged and inaccessible mountainous terrain. FATA is geographically located in NWFP but have a different administrative setup unlike other parts of the province and is administered under the Frontier Crime Regulations (FCR) promulgated by the British Raj to rein the fierce Pashtuns in 19th century. The governor of the NWFP exercises the executive authority in FATA as the representative of the President with discretionary powers as to ensure the “peace and good governance”.

The rest is left to political agent (PA) who has sweeping powers under his belt to manage, control and administer the respective agency. PA under section 40 FCR can preventively imprison anyone up to three years. Those who are convicted under the FCR have no rights to make an appeal in a court of law in Pakistan and the revision right rests with FCR commissioner appointed by the governor NWFP or final appeal can be made to the FCR tribunal comprised of the provincial chief secretary, law secretary and home secretary. PA can punish entire tribe on the grounds of collective tribal and territorial responsibility for the crimes in their area by imposing fines, arrests and property seizures. Fines are basically heavy and are deducted from the salaries of the employees of the fined tribe. The entire agency is subject to overall economic control by the PA of the respective agency.

The area has a unique psychological profile combining the Pashtun tribal code and orthodox religion. The tribes’ acts upon the Pashtun code or Pakthunwali while settling their internal and tribal issues. Pakthunwali is an unwritten code and is a collection of traditional and customary laws which determines the form and character of the Pashtun life.

During the Afghan war the whole of the FATA was converted into a base camp of the Jihadis with active US support. Later the emergence of Taliban also played a crucial role in strengthening the radical leanings among the population. After the fall of Taliban some of the active elements passed the difficult and inaccessible mountainous terrain and took refuge in the tribal agencies. Reportedly nearly five to six hundreds foreign fighters took refuge in these areas after the Spinghar (White Mountain) operation near Tora Bora in 2001 and operation Anaconda in Paktia in 2002.

The US pressure to rein and brought to justice these elements led to the deadly encounters between the law enforcement agencies and militants since 2002. In 2004 military operation was launched in South Waziristan. On 24 April 2004 military and militants signed an agreement known as the Shakai agreement but in the following weeks the agreement broke down as the tribal failed to handover the militants. On 25 June 2006 a peace deal was signed in the North Waziristan also. The government was also near signing a deal in Bajaur Agency when a missile attack killed more than 82 people in a madrassa and more than 42 soldiers were killed in a suicide attack on military training centre in Dargai in Malakand after the madrassa bombing.

At present there are 70,000 troops are deployed on Durand line to prevent infiltration and movement across the boarder. So far more than 700 hundreds of military personnel killed in clashes with militants along unknown number of militants, civilians and damage to property.

Borrowing the author words, “Let “R” stand for a sense of reality (or realism), “D” for dreams (or idealism), “H” for a sense of humor and … “S” for sensitivity.  As we can’t invent words like “humoride” or “humorate” after the fashion of Chemistry, we may put it thus: 3 grains of Realism, 2 grains of idealism, 2 grains of humor and 1 grains of sensitivity makes an Englishman.”

R3 D2 H2 S1 = the English

R2 D3 H3 S3 = the French

R3 D3 H2 S2 = the Americans

R3 D4 H1 S2 = the Germans

R2 D4 H1 S1 = the Russians

R2 D3 H1 S1 = the Japanese

R4 D1 H3 S3 = the Chinese

So what makes a Pakistani?

Note: “4” stand for abnormally high, “3” for high,”2” for fair and “1” for low.

Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was established in 1997 to spearhead the goal of US global leadership. Its main exponents include Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Armitag Francis Fukuyama, Jeb Bush, Zalmay Khalilzad, Lewis Libby, and Paul Wolfowitz etc who were the main force behind the US attack of Iraq. BBC’s Paul Reynolds writes that, “They saw the war in Iraq as their big chance of showing how the “New American Century” might work.”

But the Iraq failures doomed them; in a recent issue of Vanity Fair the brains behind the plan even assailed the president Bush for the failures in the Iraq.

It is the inner self of the artist that shines in the light of spontaneous artistic activity and this come from a personal energy, creative impulse or inspiration whatever we name it. It is the process in which the artist explores that part of himself which is hidden in the dark cellars of personality.

Your unhappy and silly youth.
Your arrival from the provinces in the city.
Misted-over windowpanes of streetcars,
Restless misery of the crowd.
Your dread when you entered a place too expensive.
But everything was too expensive. Too high.
Those people must have noticed your crude manners,
Your outmoded clothes, and your awkwardness.

There were none who would stand by you and say,
You are a handsome boy,
You are strong and healthy,
Your misfortunes are imaginary.

You would not have envied a tenor in an overcoat of camel hair
Had you guessed his fear and known how he would die.
She, the red-haired, because of whom you suffer tortures,
So beautiful she seems to you, is a doll in fire.
You don’t understand what she screams with her lips of a clown.

The shapes of hats, the cut of robes, faces in the mirrors,
You will remember all that unclearly, as something from long ago,
Or as what remains from a dream.

The house you approach trembling,
The apartment that dazzles you–
Look, on this spot the cranes clear the rubble.

In your turn you will have, possess, secure,
Able to be proud at last, when there is no reason.

Your wishes will be fulfilled, you will gape then
At the essence of time, woven of smoke and mist,

An iridescent fabric of lives that last one day,
Which rises and falls like an unchanging sea.

Books you have read will be of use no more.
You searched for an answer but lived without answer.

You will walk in the streets of southern cities,
Restored to your beginnings, seeing again in rapture
The whiteness of a garden after the first night of snow.

(Translated, from the Polish, by Howard Gardner and Robert Hass)

From Howard Gardner’s book Creating Minds ( !993)