The war begins.

Image: Associated Press

Via The Guardian:

Pakistan was reeling tonight from a spree of militant violence that plunged its cultural capital into chaos and demonstrated the bloody resolve of Taliban extremists vowing to overthrow the state.

Five attacks in a day in Kohat, Peshawar and Lahore that have left at least 40 people dead and scores injured. Interior Minister Rehman Malik was at his usual best with his statement “Terrorists will conduct more strikes”, while the police and commandos battled to regain control of the Elite Forces HQ and the Manawan Police Training Academy in Lahore, this is obviously the beginning of the fallout of the Waziristan operation. With the Pakistan Army poised to start the war to take back Waziristan, which will be a long and bloody operation (considering it took the Army over 18 hours to regain control of its GHQ, lets reserve our optimism for the outcome of this war),  I am now tired of asking where our government is, what the intelligence apparatus of this country is doing, and why we can’t forget about the Kerry-Lugar Bill for a minute and focus on the fact that we have a war raging on in the country that we don’t seem to be winning. In just one example of the security lapses today, according to eyewitness accounts at Manawan, the walls of the academy, which the terrorists had scaled barely six months ago, have still not been reinforced, and still stand tall at a measly 5 feet.

Oh, just to be clear, the terrorists didn’t enter via the gates to the academy this time either. And if the security setup is going to remain the same, we might as well just hand them the keys to the Kingdom of Pakistan.

Journalism, bah.

While foreign publications sometimes publish the most ludicrous pieces on Pakistan that could give their local counterparts Ansar Abbasi and Rauf Klasra a run for their money [God, how I detest them], and even our local papers’ correspondents are openly plagarising from blogs, this new article about ‘Facebook Pakistanis’ in today’s The Times has to be one of the most ridiculous pieces I’ve read in recent days. I don’t understand, for the life of me, how editors at publications like The Times even accept this tripe as journalism.

Sigh. Perhaps I should have known that this terribly muggy Sunday would not be a good day when I got an email first thing in the morning asking if I wanted to contribute to Humsafar. Yes, PIA’s in-flight magazine. This is what nearly six years of slaving at different jobs has led to: job offers from Humsafar. Although if I get laid off from my current job anytime soon, I might just end up writing for them [hey, everyone's taken the national airline for a ride, why can't I?], and then everyone will be free to call me Huma the Humsafar Hypocrite.

Oh, and Rehman Malik gem of the day, via The News:

“I advise the extremists to be Muslim and Pakistani.”

Need I say more?

Why politicians in Sindh need to be shot repeatedly.

There is a massive humanitarian crisis going on in the country, with over 2 million people displaced. We have heard and seen harrowing tales of despair, misery, poverty and more over the past two weeks alone. A war rages on in the country, and there are reports of over 200,000 people unable to leave their houses in Swat and the Malakand Division.

Yet Sindh’s politicians, are crying themselves hoarse over the entry of IDPs in the province. From Sassi Palijo of the PPP, to MQM’s various leaders to the regional parties, everyone has their own reasons for why they don’t want these beleaguered citizens of the country to enter their province. The latest statements can be found here.

The Constitution of Pakistan guarantees, lest the politicians forget, the right of freedom of movement to its citizens.

“Every citizen shall have the right to remain in, and, subject to any reasonable restriction imposed by law in the public interest, enter and move freely throughout Pakistan and to reside and settle in any part thereof.”

Honestly, when I read the different statements these politicians make, the only thought I am left with is: “Have they lost their marbles?!!?” For the love of all that one holds holy, these people have been displaced from their homes. They do not have anywhere to go back to for the time being, no resources – they literally have nothing. Are this province’s politicians that callous, that cold-hearted and that, well for the lack of a better word, senile, that they can’t let these people stay here? If there is a threat of Taliban members entering the city, why not deploy police at bus stands where they disembark from and run thorough security checks? And having followed the movement of IDPs to some extent in Karachi, I can safely assure you that there are not hundreds of thousands of people that have entered the city.

I don’t think I’ve been as disgusted by politicians as I am today.

UPDATE: 16 vehicles have been burned, three people (including a woman who was coming back from a wedding) have been killed and eight people have been injured. Traffic is extremely thin, and most of the shops run by Pathans have been closed.

A Gloomy Sunday Indeed.

Random collection of thoughts this Sunday:

1. Husain Haqqani should really stop Googling himself and then try to defend himself. Else, it can turn into a hilarious showdown on a blog.

2. I <3 Maila Times.

3. The NWFP Information Minister should stop giving press conferences. Because it just looks like desperate face saving.

4. COAS Kayani’s gone to France. This sounds like something out of The Onion to be honest.

5. Link of the day: An incensed Pakistani’s letter addressed to Shireen Mazari.

6. Why Facebook is not good for my blood pressure: Celebrities who post about going shopping for themselves at Mall of Emirates and then have a status update the next week advertising their shopping trip for IDPs from Itwar Bazar should be shot dead. Clearly citizens from Swat, Buner and Dir are only deserving of items from Itwar Bazar in this celebrity’s opinion. And spare me the bullshit of its the thought that counts, they’re human beings too and deserve what we consider the best for ourselves as well (I had to get this out of my system).

7. Dear Fatima Bhutto: Please stop writing op-eds. Please. I will pay you to do so. The reasons are many, but foremost of all are my mental and physical health, which are under severe threat from all-together collapsing every time I read something you’ve written. I have tried avoiding all links leading to your articles but sadistic people I call friends keep sending them along. Just stop.

8. Ludicrous event of the week has to be Mohammad Hanif getting detained with his family in Australia by immigration authorities for three hours. Full story here

Shattered/Swat.

Disclaimer: This is a rant. Don’t judge me.

I am tired. I have been filming and reporting on IDPs in Karachi for three days now, and apart from feeling like my bones will melt into a pile of nothingness I am now descending into the depths of an intensely black depression. I always thought of myself as this journalist with a heart of steel – after all, if we got depressed over every story we did, we would probably all be in a padded cell by now. Not that some of us shouldn’t be there already, but still. I thought I had learned from my mistakes in 2005, when I internalised the pain of sifting through tapes and tapes of footage of dead bodies of children from the earthquake, of trying to post updates on where to donate goods, what the latest news was, 24/7.

But post-Swat, I am shattered. I cannot look into the eyes of six year old children and try to get them to tell me what they saw. Or see their blank expressions and wonder how they will ever forget what they’ve seen. I cannot look into the eyes of parents who tell me that “bachay kia, hum khud zehni mareez hochuke hain”. I cannot reconcile myself with the fact that political parties are using a war as an excuse for photo-ops. I cannot believe how TV channels are giving more face time to ministers and politicians visiting the IDPs’ camps as opposed to taking to task those responsible for helping the displaced.

Ad now that I have gotten this rant out of my system, I am still tired and still as depressed. Ghalib said it best perhaps: “Buss ke dushwaar hai har kaam ka asaan hona / Aadmi ko bhi muassar nahi insaan hona.”

Whatever gets you through today.

Must read of the day: Mohammad Hanif’s hilarious op-ed on the definition of kafirs and more on BBC Urdu’s website. Will someone translate this for our non-Urdu readers as well?

Also, I am sick and tired of people asking me to join groups on Facebook against Talibanization. As my friend F rightly pointed out, Sufi Mohammad and co will really not check the number of members on a Facebook group against them and decide ‘oh ho, lets NOT go for the Nizam-e-Adal regulation and our extremist version of Islam’. Some of the titles of the groups I’ve seen so far:

1. The Dying humanity at da hands of Talibans!!!!!!!! [Da! DA!?! And what on earth is Talibans?]

2. Terrorists are the enemy of Islam and Pakistan. See their real face. [What? They're not George Clooney look-alikes under their black socks that they use for masks?]

3. Yaar, Where’s My Pakistan? Voices for Change [After the success of Dude Where's My Car, comes this summer's blockbuster...]

4. RID PAKISTAN OF LOCAL TALIBAN AND MILITANT MULLAHS [-2 for not turning off Caps Lock]

5. No place in Pakistan for the Taliban – Lets Get Them Out [And logging onto Facebook is JUST the way to start]