Uplifting the poor
April 8, 2021
Our runaway population
April 21, 2021
Our self created traumas.
Respects to the two policemen who lost their lives and 340 others who were seriously injured. These front line soldiers deserve our highest gratitude. They risked their lives fighting zealots, criminals and militants – who in a few hours had frozen and brought a nuclear state to its knees.
While this militant group needs to be crushed and disbanded, how do we intend to reform the equally insane zealots within the government. After all it was the government of Pakistan that on 16 November 2020 signed an agreement with the militants agreeing that their outrageous demands – break all ties with France, send back the French ambassador and boycott the French goods will be taken to the Parliament.
On February 12, 2021 the government signed another agreement with the militants that extended the date of taking these demands to the Parliament to 20 April 2021. The Prime Minister stated that “we are not doing it for TLP but we are doing it because it is part of our faith’. This of course was a face saving digression from truth.
Must we not admit that we buckled as a state. We appeased and encouraged militant groups, that ought to have nothing to do with our foreign policy. We signed agreements to buy time. We did not close down and disband this group from day one. We continue to allow many similar groups to exist who extract their illegal and immoral pound of flesh and who squeeze our shrinking spaces for tolerance, peace and progress.
Much before fighting our external enemies, Pakistan must fight its internal enemies. It is time we grew out of appeasement mode and started to behave as a responsible state, and not an extension of a ragtag extremist group of stick carrying “madrassa” kids.