Pragmatism Trumps Principle - Again

"The time has come for the federal government and provincial governments to speak out and to take a strong stand against these murderers to save the very essence of Pakistan." Farahnaz Ispahani

When is a government completely and utterly redundant? When it is too fearful of the consequences of its governing to actually perform its executive duties. When the mob rules the day and puts the fear of Allah into that country's governing and ruling elite. When the prime minister and the president must continually look over their shoulders wondering when they too will be assassinated.

When the country's armed forces represent the well-organized tail that wags that particular dog. When, actually, the dog is the armed forces and the secret service and its tail hangs securely close to its belly. Its snarls its anger, serving as warning that it means to attack. And covert, surreptitious plans are afoot to prime the people to accept the challenge of mob rule. Pitting the majority against the minority.

Opening the door wide for the triumphant entry of Islamism in its most sinister and inhumane guise, as righteous and God-serving servants of martyr-complexioned jihad. The slaughter of those who are insufficiently dedicated to the fanatic's version of Islam has grown apace in Pakistan. It took first the life of Benazir Bhutto as she was contesting for re-election.

Now her husband has taken her place at the helm of the Pakistan Peoples' Party, and President. Knowing full well that death is not far from his door, expressing those misgivings to his foreign counterparts. But first, his tentative appeals to reason and peace were on the agenda, as he met with his Indian counterparts, as he sent troops to battle Pakistan's Taliban, as he attempted to withdraw apostasy and blasphemy laws.

But reform of the laws that construe the insulting of Islam a capital crime have been shelved. The murder of the courageous governor of Punjab province, Salman Taseer in January who advocated that reform gave ample reason to consider this to be, after all, an unwise move. Particularly when his assassin, one of his trusted guards, was feted by adoring crowds for his bravery.

And now, another message from Pakistan's fervent Islamists. The murder of Pakistani minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti, who also was aware that his days of advocating on behalf of Pakistan's minorities, as a Christian himself, placed him in imminent danger of death. The country is fractured by a population devoted to fanaticism, and another, shrinking portion that aspires to restore democratic rule.

It looks increasingly as though the fanatics are winning not only the debate but the war as well. The government, teetering with uncertainty and fear is held back from exerting itself to arrest those in its society who advocate for violence and fear, who incite and give praise to the murderers, in the name of Allah.

The lawlessness that exists and inexorably spreads from the Frontier Provinces, fanning out into Afghanistan and Pakistan both, is gaining in confidence and strength as evidenced by their bold and successful attacks even in the capital. Pakistan's terror training camps are legendary, its conscripts sent out over the world to spread their message of brotherly love.

This is a country that is incapable of governing itself. It is a threat to its neighbours, and to the rest of the world. It is a nuclear state. Its incendiary relationship with India brings it time and again close to the kind of belligerence that lingers on the potential for absolute destruction through sheer unappeasable rage.

That kind of blind rage appears as though it is a national trait. Reason, to put it lightly, for concern.