Isn't it intriguing that, when Bangladesh is celebrating the victory month, Pakistan is in shock due to the killing of almost 150 people, mostly students, in a military-run school?
I generally ignore news headlines that are about Pakistan. For I have concluded that nothing good could come out of that goddamn place. Of course, now I am talking about the massacre of students at Army Public School in Peshawar Cantonment on Tuesday, December 16, 2014. The Pakistani Taliban has claimed the credit for doing such a spectacular job of taking revenge. The revenge, expressed in terms of killing innocent children, is against the Pakistani military for their recent actions against the Taliban.
Coincidentally, the Pakistani military had to surrender in a humiliating defeat against the Bangladesh freedom fighters and the allied Indian military on December 16, 1971. Their sorry defeat ended one of the most horrendous brutalities that any military has ever committed on a civilian population in the history of mankind. Thankfully, Bangladesh has not created the kind of revenge-takers that the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has done.
Who were the killers of children at the military-run school in Pakistan? Who were the students there? Why were the killers so keen on this murdering adventure? Are there enough intellectuals in Pakistan to do some rational soul-searching on these kinds of questions?
Pakistan is a country where a criticism of Islam and its prophet can bring lawful death to a human being. Of course, most cases like that in Pakistan end in mob killing of the accused before the blasphemy law could do the job; and the mobs are generally praised in the country for trying to protect Islam.
There is no doubt that the military and civilian children that are students at the Army Public School are not getting a real education. Their common feature of growing up is fear of Allah; and that prevails over any other kind of learning that they are doing. While most of them probably would not join the Pakistani Taliban, they and the Taliban certainly have the commonality of the thoughts of preserving, protecting and propagating Islam. The Pakistani military had the same kind of zeal in 1971 when they committed the most heinous crimes in Bangladesh against non-Muslims, and against the Muslims who had the sense of respecting non-Muslims.
Interestingly, Pakistan was an ally of the Taliban in Afghanistan before the American war on terrorism began after the September 11, 2001, attacks on America by Islamic militants, sponsored and supported by Al-Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan. Now the country's Islamic government and military are killing their Muslim Taliban brothers on behalf of America! Sure, it is helping the civilized world; but couldn't the protection of the civilization be done without so much of bloodshed in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan?
According to a Reuters report in today's bdnews24.com (December 16), the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif said, "We will take revenge for each and every drop of our children's blood that was spilt today." Sure, for people who have not learned how to think, revenge is the way to handle problems created and faced by the same kind of people.
As per the same report, the Army Chief, Raheel Sharif, said, "These terrorists have struck the heart of the nation. But our resolve to tackle this menace has gotten a new lease of life. We will pursue these monsters and their facilitators until they are eliminated for good." This man obviously does not know what he is talking about. Creating terrorists and then killing them – what a novel idea to save a nation!
Isn't Pakistan a living lesson for the Muslims in many parts of the world? Don't they need to start thinking rationally? Nonsense and hatred for the religion are their core problems. Without shedding these two monsters, no bloodbath would lift them from the ditch that they are in. Sooner they realize that, better it would be for them and for the other peoples of the world.
======================== About the Writer: Sukhamaya Bain is a US citizen who was born in a place that is a part of today's Bangladesh. He is a scientist who feels strongly that societal justice is vital for the well-being of mankind. Thus, he occasionally writes on sociopolitical issues.