...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
. One was the Bloody Karachi Literature Festival, in which Pak intellectuals discussed how they could make their country safer and deal with extremism - Pakistain's real enemy. Many Indian publishers were invited to the event and works by Indian authors were also discussed and sold.
About 10 kilometres away, representatives of 40 religious and political groups participated in a Difa-e-Pakistain rally, where Jamaat-ud-Dawa
...the front organization of Lashkar-e-Taiba...
chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed
...who would be wearing a canvas jacket with very long sleeves anyplace but Pakistain...
asserted Pakistain's real enemy was India.
To blame external powers for internal problems is an age-old gimmick of state establishments. That way the state can evade its Hobbesian responsibility to provide security to their citizens.By constructing an external enemy and blaming it for everything bad happening in their country, they project themselves as saviours of their nation, reaping political and economic benefits.This has also happened in Pakistain.
But Paks must realize their real enemies are the people who are proponents of extremism, injustice and violence against women and minorities. Pakistain's real enemies are those who silence the liberals by threatening or killing them or forcing them to leave the country. Pakistain's real enemies are those responsible for sectarian and ethnic violence that has killed thousands of innocent people, and those who provide political and religious justification for such violence.
The people at the literature festival cannot be absolved either, because they have collectively failed to fight against the Death Eater forces. The civil society is the most potent forcein any modern state.It has the power to change the political regime. Pakistain's civil society did a courageous job supporting Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who had been forced out of office by former president
Pervez PervMusharraf
... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ...
. The movement resulted in Chaudhry's reinstatement and Musharraf's exile.
Not too long after that, the same people were seen showering rose petals on the killer of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer.
The liberals in Pakistain now have a responsibility.As David Easton had said, they have to come out of their cocooned and self-exiled life and fight against the Orcs and similar vermin if they are really serious about carrying out their social responsibilities. They have to use the tools and instruments available to them to educate Pakistain's youth. And if they fail to do so, Pakistain's future is grim.