My Trip to Pakistan: Eid-al-Adha Festivities, Hardees, Terrorism & Conspiracies

This year, I spent my first 'Īd in Pakistan in perhaps 2 decades. I was excited to be there, as there is a no better place to fully enjoy 'Īd than one's “native” country. The festivities around 'Īd seemed muted though. The crowd at Lahore's famous “Liberty” shopping area, for instance, seemed sparse. As I was to slowly find out, ironically “liberty” had been replaced with fear.

As I talked with different people, from a car driver working for a meager $85/month, to the MBA graduate working as a loan officer for about $400/month, to the businessmen making that much in a day, a sense of pessimism and fleeting happiness cut right through. A genuine concern about tomorrow seemed to constantly loom over everyone's head. The driver complained about growing inflation, and the impossibility of giving his child a good (=costly) education. The banker inquired about opportunities abroad, not satisfied with his career trajectory. And finally, the businessman complained about growing competition, and massive uncertainty in the business and political environment.

With 'Īd al-Aḍḥa approaching, our family's sacrificial goats were bought and tied up on the back yard. Prices were exorbitant, about $180/goat; twice the driver's monthly pay, and about half the MBA-graduate's take. I wondered what was driving prices so high, and the answer seemed to lie in the number of goats demanded per upper-class household. It has become a custom for this class of folks to do more than their obligation.  Most of these upper-class households sacrifice several animals. I even saw a beautiful camel trotting on its way to a mansion (interestingly, don't expect this family to eat camel meat as “no one” eats that meat, except the poor of course).

I questioned the high ratio of animals to households, because it is not like these upper-class Pakistanis (in general) are that religious. Some suggested that there were so many poor folk that doing the bare minimum hardly provided enough meat. Others gave a more sinister reason: this was a “status thing”.  That is, people would boast about how many udhiyas they performed.  I suspect that the real reason was somewhere in the middle, like most things in life. Unfortunately, those who suffer in the end are the lower middle-class, for whom the price of udhiya becomes unaffordable.

Despite the somber realization of sacrifice-boasting, it was still great to see the unfamiliar sight of goats in the backyard, wake up to the sound of children having fun with the animals, and to eat some of the most fantastic foods one can find anywhere in the world, an undeniable quality of Lahore.

Initially one would have thought there wasn't a war going on within Pakistan; people carrying on their lives, apparently sick of talking about sick carnages. But as soon as the news was on, everyone's attention turned to the tube, fearing another blast, another attack somewhere in their country. There was a constant threat looming over people's minds. And it wasn't just the attention to TV.

Going to the Masjid, the presence of the armed guard(s) was quite ominous. Once when I accompanied a family member to see a “ruqqiyah scholar” from the peers of Shaykh Sana'ullah Madani, we were frisked just to enter one of these sanctuaries of Islamic knowledge. Every section of Lahore had check-points. Only the presence of a female or a child in the car could save you from constant car inspections. And who could blame the police for doing this?

Before I knew it, the days of 'Īd came upon us. The goats were sacrificed (I took three down myself!), and the practice of our great Prophet Abraham (AS) was remembered. Hordes of poor people, entire families, lined up outside the house. Families brought their six kids with them, each with a plastic bag to take some of the offering. And within a few minutes, all our giveaway meat from our several-goats offering was gone!

Going out on 'Īd day, the markets still seemed light. The biggest crowd was in front of the first-time-in-Pakistan, newly minted American franchise of Hardees. Now, mind you, Pakistan is no stranger to franchise restaurants. There isn't a corner where you won't find a KFC, Pizza Hut, Subway, etc.  But I guess there is something to be said about the new kid in town. It was humorous, and at the same time troubling to see lines at the entrance to Hardees Junk Food, Inc, where a burger meal costs about $3.50, about 5% of the driver's monthly pay. Were a banker to take his family of five out to eat fast-food once a week, he'd be spending 20% of his monthly food on junk food!

The point? Food isn't cheap. As one writer from Pakistan wrote, America's junk food is eaten by the poor and unprivileged in America, while it has become the luxury food of the rich and privileged in developing countries. The poor man in America keeps getting fatter and unhealthy on junk food, while the poor man in Pakistan can't afford it. I guess you could consider this as a silver lining.  Another ironic aspect of the lines at Hardees is the reminder that no matter how much the Pakistani street may hate America's influence in Pakistan, the street can't get enough of American food. I guess that's  similar to Pakistanis' infatuation with Indian movies. You could be in a war with India, and Pakistanis wouldn't give up Indian movies!

Towards the end of my trip, the relative peace in metropolitan Pakistan was shaken, when an attack took place at a mosque in Rawalpindi. Every Pakistani seemed glued to the TV. People narrated the story of the attack to each other in highly emotional language. One would have thought that Pakistanis would be now used to these near-routine news murderous attacks, whether at the hand of terrorist-men or terrorists-drones.  However, the syndrome of “old news” that doesn't seem to move those of us who are distant and unattached to these incidents, obviously did not apply to those living it daily in their lives, in their own homeland.

Sixteen children died that day in the horrible attack in one of the houses of Allāh in Rawalpindi. The head of TTP’s South Waziristan operations, Waliur Rehman, told the BBC that militants loyal to his organization had carried out the attack on the mosque. I wanted to see the reaction of the street. Who will it blame?  I was expecting the same old blame-game, start with America or India, then move down to the internal government, and then there is a chance that those who carried out the attack may get some heat. This time though I witnessed dramatically different reactions:

A very raw sense of despise and hatred was first aimed at the militants who carried this out. The man on the street wants to know why aren't even the masajid spared?

“What is the fault of those 16 beloved children, dressed up by their mothers in new Friday clothing, to go to pray with their fathers, but  they are returned to their mothers in coffins”

As I mentioned, the language was very emotionally colored. After the militants, the next finger is firmly pointed at the abject failure of the government. Zardari is probably equally hated as much as the militants. Pakistanis are embarrassed, very embarrassed to have a criminal as their president. They cannot wait for him to move on, but at the same time many openly wonder that after Musharraf, they got Zardari, after Zardari, who knows whether something worse could befall them?

Interestingly, the role of America or the West isn't mentioned as much. I found this surprising. In fact, I often took the lead in reminding folks that a significant part of the responsibility for the current state of Pakistan lies firmly in the policies of my adopted country, America. There is no doubt in my mind that one of the greatest and most horrific legacies of W. was America's strategy in Afghanistan, his unholy alliance with Musharraf, leading to a situation where Pakistan and Afghanistan have become intricately linked, perhaps not to be separated again.

But to the average Pakistani, it has become quite a bit simpler and much more direct. They are not prepared to discuss history; it is more about the present and the future. They want the militants out. They want the militants to stop using Islam as a mantle for terrorism. They want the militants to  leave their cities, and to go back to where they came from. The reason is quite simple: America will be, to them, America. You can't change its bad habits of interference and shortsighted strategies (that hurt long-term security). America's a bully that they don't have much hope in changing. What Pakistanis can impact is their own government. What they can impact is to protect their own children from being brain-washed by any of the militants. That is what they are interested in, a thought-evolution of sort, a desperation of sort.

My cousin, who lives only miles away from the Masjid in Rawalpindi had this to say about the mosque attack:

“the masjid in rawalpindi where 17 kids were killed is 2 min drive from my house….. my mum's dentist Dr shehnaz who lives on the main road and opposite that area, lost her 24 years old son in that masjid, which is just a few min walk from her house…. the heart wrenching catastrophy is that he had just returned from UK ten days back for his … impending wedding…. which was 2 weeks later!!! :( he was in the masjid with his 2 nephews and his dad… a retired general… dad n one grandson were in the 1st row… and late Bilal was with his younger nephew somewhere in the last ones… when he heard the fire, he fell on his nephew protecting him and told him to recite Kalma…..and he himself expired…
:( …………….. speechless!!!!!”

The doctor's 24-year old son, coming from UK to Pakistan for his wedding.  He wasn't at a night-club. He wasn't playing poker. He was praying in the first row, the most blessed row of the Masjid, when he was killed by terrorists, who took their own lives.  Imagine the brainwashing of these killers for a moment under the context: Masjid-> Jumuah Prayers-> On  the day of Jumuah-> Suicide bombing-> to become shaheed??  Is there a more painful scenario for this murderer?  He kills Muslims, men and children in a holy place, on a holy day, thinking that he will somehow be rewarded with good in the akhira?

Only a day or so after I returned from Pakistan, I heard the news about yet another bombing. This was even closer to home.

“Two brides, who were getting ready for their wedding at a beauty parlour, were among 62 people killed”

In fact, some of my relatives were just leaving home to do some school-shopping for their kids at the Moon Market in Lahore (another famous bazaar). My parents heard the blast at their home. That night, yet more women became widows. More children lost their mothers. And more parents lost their offspring. Another calamity struck the houses of those who had ventured out to buy some groceries for the home, buy some stationery for their children, or just enjoy a light snack. And yet more men killed themselves in the hope that their murderous rampage will lead them to paradise.

Shifting gears a bit

While most Pakistanis seem to have gotten over conspiracy theories, I was not surprised to find many webpages continue to call these cowardly attacks, all over the world, as being “false flag operations” or some other conspiracies. There is of course a silver lining to this perverted thought process. At least there is a general unity among the vast majority of Muslims that such attacks are heinous and to be condemned. The problem is that some continue to not believe the “news”. Whether it is the “biased” media (yes, the ENTIRE media) or some other excuse, a strong sense of cognitive dissonance prevents such folks from believing that their beloved mujahideen (a perversion of the term) could kill men, women, children, despite the daily evidence and lack of counter-evidence.

These same conspiracy-theorists would turn to the weather channel and never arrange a barbecue when a “fasiq/kafir” weather-man tells them that there is a 90% chance of rain tomorrow. These same conspiracy-theorists would not disbelieve the “news” about a drone attack that killed x number of innocent people in Pakistan!  These same conspiracy-theorists would depend and believe on all sorts of news in the world, but when the same news people tell them that militants attacked Mumbai, or militants attacked Sri Lankan cricketers, or militants killed and keep killing tens of their own everyday, they would be suddenly reminded of the ayah in the Quran of not believing the fasiq. Somehow the mass media, with its million prongs, is “controlled”. Even when credit is taken by the militant commanders, it is obviously planted. Somehow, in this age of free press and free access, where militants have their own sites and can plant propaganda on second-by-second basis, somehow, no one gets the story right. Except for the conspiracy-theorists of course.

To be honest, the conspiracy-theorist don't matter that much in the big picture. But the problem with their theories is that it highlights their own struggle to see how wrong many of the militants have gone. Until they and we, the “normal” Muslims, who watch news with healthy skepticism but not paranoid disbelief, those of us who don't live in an imaginary world of perfect warriors, until we all unite not just in agreeing it's wrong, but also unite in who to blame… Until we unite in blame, these terrorists will continue to be labeled mujahideen, and we will continue to lose our children, our fathers, our brothers, our wives, our mothers, and our sisters to them, except we won't believe it was them in the first place.

So dear Muslims, wake up. We have a problem. This “trained suicide bomber” (video tomorrow) is screaming to us that we have a problem. And even if that problem continues to be fed by external forces, that problem is now within. Let's deal with it.

It's our problem now.

Conclusion

Overall, on a personal level, my trip to Pakistan met its objectives, to be with family, to enjoy the 'Īd as it is supposed to be enjoyed. But on a deeper level, it gave me new insights into the psychology of a nation in deep turmoil.

May Allāh save the country and protect is people from bloodshed and harm.

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Tomorrow, I'll post a a chilling video that speaks volumes for the khawarij mentality of the terrorists. And the guy doesn't sound like a Blackwater guy, folks!