South Asia Citizens Web

This week might have been an opportunity for Pakistan to acknowledge its own internal crisis, to start looking for the lost boys who are destined for very short-lived violent careers on our small screen. For India there was a real opportunity to stop hankering for American-sized victim status and start counting its own lost boys. Instead, it has turned out to be a case of the blind accusing the blinkered and then both walking hand in hand into the smog created by the airwaves pollution.

Editorial, Kashmir Times, 13 December 2008
Terrorism is the result of injustice and denial of democratic rights
It may well be a case of absolute ignorance and naivette to demand enforcement of stringent laws like POTA and TADA to combat terror attacks in the country. Those supporting these demands are inspired by the logic that such laws will prove to be a deterrent for the terrorists and make them think twice before indulging in heinous acts of perpetrating violence against innocent (…)

The invasion of Iraq, and US imperial policies over the last decades, created a hatred for Americans that ultimately translated into support for all who fight them. Most Pakistanis do not approve of the Taliban’s fundamental and primitivist social agenda. But, by virtue of fighting the Americans, popular sentiment is still with them. So, reducing anti-Americanism is the key.
We Pakistanis have to realize that this is a war for our very existence as a civilized nation.
The Taliban and allied extremists have a real chance of winning in Pakistan. The state is already crumbling in places and it could disintegrate quite rapidly, leaving the fanatics in charge. One cannot think of a bigger disaster for Pakistan.

It is an unfortunate paradox into which the political discourse on terrorism has been pushed. While minority scapegoating and majority victimhood had become the ruling order of the day, the Mumbai attack has suddenly swerved the entire terrain of deliberations on Hindutva terrorism and its connivance with the institutions of the State.