While life and limbs of Pakistanis continue to be torn in the 'war within', the blame game for this carnage continues with India, US and Israel as the hot favourites to have fingers pointed at. This blame game is incredibly monotonous and boring, yet it never fails to loose traction in the Pakistani society, which loves living in self denial. Pakistanis are predominantly refusing to acknowledge the inherent extremist tendencies giving rise to militancy in this society.
A sizeable and influential majority in Pakistan which includes members of its establishment, executive, business and political classes which are leading the masses, are silent yet firm supporters of the 'Islamist hawkish ideology' which essentially fuels the hate based militant extremism in Pakistan. This ideology took birth in the era of Gen Zia ul Haq and engulfed the country during his decade plus rule of the nuclear armed Islamic Republic. This ideology arose out of the need to counter the soviet expansionist designs while Pakistan became a traditional western/capitalist order's ally since its inception. Zia's Pakistan with its Jihadi ideologies, created and commissioned in close association with USA succeeded in defeating the so called communist invasion which won the west its 'cold war' against the USSR breaking the latter.
However the entire above stated saga, infested Pakistan with the cancer of Islamist militant extremism. This cancer till date remains unresponsive to any kind of treatment,but parts of it could only be surgically removed while relapse of this disease occurs time and time again. The only cure, to this disease of militant extremism is to address its root causes and remove them from these roots. However, it requires patience and mass consensus of the Pakistani society for any such cure, for the treatment, even then, it would be spread over decades, not years.
For the time being, the mere realisation of this problem as an inherent or resident evil within Pakistani society has not met popular consensus in this country. What Pakistanis fail to realise is that the enemies of the Pakistani state are only able to exploit the fault lines of their society because they actually exist. These fault lines are based on factories of hatred and militant extremism chartered by the Mullahcracy created by Zia and his cronies to fight the American Jihad. Zia may not be blamed for facing the might of the Soviet Empire at his doorstep the way he did, but he is surely to be blamed for not putting the genie back in the bottle which his policies unleashed in the region after the end of the 'cold war'. Instead the security establishment groomed in Zia era created the 'Frankenstein' invented under their so called policy of 'strategic depth'. This policy, not only alienated Afghanistan from Pakistan irrespective of decades of hospitality which the Pakistanis extended towards their Afghan brethren, but plunged the entire region including Pakistan into a maze of mindless terror and barbarism.
This power given to the Mullahs in the Zia era, with unlimited supply of money and weaponry in exchange for smooth flow of brainwashed ideological mercenaries for the American/CIA sponsored Jihad, created the Mullahcracy as it stands to date. Once the Mullahs tasted this power and perks which came with it, there was no going back for them. After the USA achieved their objective of defeating USSR in Afghanistan, they simply abandoned these Jihadist they had helped to create and used to their benefit. Pakistani state on the other hand also practically did nothing to close these nurseries of militancy right in their midst. Instead the policy of 'strategic depth' which was a cover to control Afghanistan produced what is now the third generation of 'international ideological mercenaries' up to be hired by the highest bidders still being manged by the Mullahcracy of Pakistan and Afghanistan, based in Pakistan and the UAE.
The mistakes made by the US and Pakistani establishments in not terminating their clandestine activities of the 'cold war' with comprehensive closure of the Jihadist organisations came back to haunt, both these countries, but with Pakistan yet again at the forefront, sitting in the front row of the backlash.
The irony of the Pakistani situation is compounded since the majority of the Pakistani society embraced the Zia era sponsored Islamist extremist ideologies which best suited their patriarchal mindset. The voices of reason and dissent in the Pakistani society were systematically targeted and terminated by the militant extremism which is still deeply prevailing in the male dominated Patriarchal society of Pakistan. Even, men of high stature like slain governor of the Punjab province, Mr Salman Taseer and his like aren't spared by this resident evil of extremism in the Pakistani society. All the various segments of the Pakistani society from top to bottom remain delusional by mistaking their extremism and the support of militancy as some kind of religious or moral duty. Even the ideals of the founding fathers of the Pakistani society have been hijacked and rephrased by these extremists like the Mullahcracy tampered Islamic religious text to help help create their brainwashed religious zombies.
The only hope for the Pakistani society is the acceptance of the existence of this resident evil of extremist mindset from within their rank and file. That would be the first step towards the normalisation of the Pakistani society which is predominantly extremist in its outlook while bloodshed and militant extremism is shrugged off as a way of life here. The next step would be to clip the wings of Mullahcracy and their supporters who thrive on selling hatred and brainwashing the poor and innocent population. Only after that through mass education, the Pakistani society may revive itself within one to two decades, moulding itself back into the image of their founding father, M A Jinnah.
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