EDITORIAL
'Global
liability'
It is not a mere
saying but a hurtful fact of life that only the
wearer knows where the shoe pinches. And, how
hard! That shoe-pinching truth applies as well to
peoples, nations and organizations. For two
decades India cried terrorism, but the cry was
heard only after WTC. Today. India is crying
aloud that Pakistan is not a collaborator
against terrorism, but an instigator of it, but
the world steeped in interests and beverages does
not find it convenient to hearken. Take terrorism
anywhere in the world and you have not one but
several threads connecting it to Pakistan.
Whether it is the madarassas, the rabid
fundamentalists, or the institutionalized ISI,
one or more of them has its hands in the world
terrorism. From Sinkiang to Chechnya, Egypt and
Kenya through the clerics active in Great
Britain, Pakistan is indelibly written on their
face. All nations know of that. While some have
entered into what may be called bilateral
terrorist-truces with Pakistan, others are
suffering from the Pak ‘mistakes’,
‘mission’ or mechanizations.
Thus while the US
has coerced Pakistan to become its ally in its
fight against its terrorists, China has bought
the incursions into Sinkiang down by feting the
general. India and Russia, on the other hand
suffer the effects of Pak- intrusions
relentlessly. Thus when President Putin warned
the world, the other day, of the danger of the
Weapons of Mass Destruction with Pakistan falling
into the hands of ‘bandits and
terrorists’ he was speaking from a first
hand experience. That knowledge is not something
exclusive to Russia; the Chinese and the American
intelligence are well aware of the danger. They
are also aware of how close Pakistan is to
becoming a world nightmare. But they are not
speaking for those ‘bilateral truces’.
There may not be a direct Pak-hand active against
them, but how tenuous that comfort can be, is
amply shown by what the America has already
suffered. With that in view it is difficult to
buy the American argument that it has a logistic
need of Pakistan. With a foothold in Afghanistan
and a route through Central Asia USA can be,
rather must, be more clear about the terror
machine.
For, in shielding
Pakistan, America is not advancing the war on
terrorism and therefore not making itself and the
world secure. Whatever intrigue the American
strategists are brewing, is a false concoction.
The American nation, however, has the assurance
that it can ‘take the challenge when it
comes with full support and concurrence of the
home constituency. Russia too has demonstrated
that it can get as tough as it needs get. That
unfortunately is not the case with India. Here
the dichotomies of Government versus opposition,
the earthly versus the intellectual India versus
Hindustan, have not allowed the nation to fight
the menace with the single-minded concentration
the threat demands. None of that, however,
falsifies the high alarum the Russian president
has sounded out to the world. It is a global
liability there and the longer the world ignores
the fact, greater is the threat the world faces.
And as he puts it, the threat of the WMDs falling
in terrorists- hands is as strong as their
gaining access to the conventional arms supplies.
Together, Pakistan is a bomb ticking away for the
whole world.
Misplaced
crusades?
One always looked
at it as the sign of India’s vibrant freedom
that single individuals could take on the State
and win. At the very least they seemed to be able
to focus on issues, which the nation had passed
by in its quest for other benefits. Thus
Sunderlal Bahugana with his chipko movement
offset the destruction of large forest wealth in
today’s Uttranchal. And, JP almost
re-founded the democracy. Medha Patkar became
another Sunderlal saving Narmada. When Arundhati
Roy joined her, it was letters joining that free
spirit of India. Or, so it appeared. Then
independent evidence showed how the Narmada
Andholan was a far more complex assignment than a
crusade for the people displaced by Sardar
Sarovar. The money rings, the falsifications and
the slanted intellectualism suddenly became
suspicious and significant. Then, Roy became the
goddess of all things and launched a one-woman
crusade against India’s bombs. The American
bombs did not to bother her at all as she took up
residence in USA coming home only to protest. For
Gujarat she synthesized a ‘friend’
suitably Muslim and a woman-there, cooked up
conversations’ with her, and built a case of
how that friend hounded, harassed and molested.
Then the account was shown to have been entirely
fictitious. One has not heard her pontificating
on Gujarat since.
Then, we have
another one-man crusade in India approaching the
National Human Rights Commission on the behalf of
the terrorists killed in a Delhi store on the
strength of a dubious ‘witness’ who was
not present at the scene at all! If the reports
about the doings of that ‘witness’ in
Agra and the conduct in the capital are any good,
his ‘testimony’ is no good. But all
that did not deter the crusader of rights. To be
fair, the reports of the ‘witness’ not
having witnessed at all and other things came
later. But does it not show an unholy alacrity to
seize on the 'opportunity’ to disprove
India, rough and unreliable, as it happened to
be? Probably, the fact that there is a virtual
competition amongst these crusaders to be the
first to put India in the dock, also weighed
there. And, that is just the point. The activists
are all too eager to find sticks to beat their
nation and people, rarely tarrying for the facts.
The ‘first’ becomes news and hogs
headlines. And, that is all that matters! The
facts come limping after, and often refute
everything but that does not seem to be very
crucial there. But why not? Why doesn’t the
truth. why don’t the facts, matter’?
Why, don’t Indians and India matter?
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Feast
Day December 4, 2002
Saint of
the Indies ---- Francis Xavier
By
Predhuman K. Joseph Dhar
Holiness
has no favourite place or climate. A
saint blossoms where he or she is
planted. Sainthood is powered by prayer
and nurtured by faith-reflection. But it
is always God's gift and grace filled.
However, it has a human face. A saint can
be one who walks through a bedroom at
night with a sick child. A saint can
flower in the home where a family is
trying to make ends meet when the father
is away at work. Sainthood can be found
in the kindness of neighbours during
bereavement. It is tested in the struggle
to be honest and stand for fair play.
What
does it profit a man to gain the whole
world, if he suffer the loss of his own
soul."
This was
the question that Ignatius Loyla, the
founder of the Order of Jesuits, asked a
young Lecturer of Philosophy in the
prestigious University of Paris. The
young lecturer was Francis Xavier born in
Navarre (Spain) of rich and noble parents
in 1506. In addition he had good looks, a
good strong body, a good brain and a
charming personality. He went to the
famous University of Paris to study and
in hardly three years he found himself on
the teaching staff of the University. A
good athlete, with his warm, charming
personality he was soon one of the most
popular men in the university.
Then he
met Ignatius Loyola. Like Francis Xavier,
Ignatius was also a Spanish nobleman, in
fact an ex-army officer. While
convalescing after a wound he had met God
and underwent a complete change in life.
Now he was in the process of forming a
society of men who were completely
devoted to God and were willing to go
anywhere and do anything to serve God and
men, as God directed. This was to be now
well-known Society of Jesus.
Francis
was only 24 when Ignatius posed the
question to him and the question of his
friend did not create waves in him. Life
was too good, he felt, and with all his
advantages he had the world at his feet.
Why should he give it up? For what?
However the fact remains: Mysterious are
the ways of God. After about 6 months,
Francis accepted an invitation by
Ignatius and took part in some spiritual
lessons. In 1534, in a place called
Monmartra, Ignatius, Francis, Peter,
Faber and 3 others took the vow of
Chastity, Poverty and Obedience and also
pledged to serve in any capacity the Pope
thought fit.
In 1537,
Xavier was ordained a priest in Venice.
After that he served Venice, Bologna and
Rome in different capacities. When the
King of Portugal needed good priests to
go to India, Francis Xavier was the first
volunteer. He was not selected. One of
those who was fell ill..... And Xavier
went. On April 7, 1541 boarded a ship
from Lisbon travelling to India. He had
the order with him as the Apostolic
Delegate of India, but he kept the order
with himself and served as an ordinary
priest under the Portuguese Officers.
Life for
Francis was none too a bed of roses in
India. India was divided into a number of
little and bigger kingdoms. Petty
princes, struggling to preserve ancient
privileges, to realise ambitions, freedom
loving nobles hateful of Portuguese
encroachments; the rival maharajas of
Ceylon struggling for supremacy, all this
is a background over which our servant of
God walks, sometimes wearily, but always
constant in faith, high on hope and rich
and deep in charity.
This
disunity was but one of many difficulties
with which Francis Xavier was to cope.
There was the physical danger of dacoits
resulting from the disunity, the danger
from wild animals and snakes,
particularly the dreaded python. The
rugged terrain, far more difficult than
his own Navarre back in Spain, offered no
mean obstacle, but it was the subtropical
climate that was his most severe physical
trial. His difficulties were often
increased by the behaviour of those who
should have helped him the most -- the
Portuguese. They indulged in all sorts of
vice-prostitution, alcoholism and other
corrupt ways of life. Their behaviour was
enough for an average Indian. Portuguese
atrocities and Christianity were
inextricably interwoven. Francis had a
lot of unweaving to do. He severely came
down upon them for their debaucheries and
ungodly life, and so, instead of being
helped by them, he was constantly
troubled by them.
To counter
all this, Francis, first was physically
strong. Not all his sickness and
mortifications had undermined the
constitution, which made him Paris
"One of the finest high jumpers in
the University." This was necessary
if one is not to posit a succession of
miracles to keep any European even just
alive under his circumstances. Francis
did much more than keep just alive. Then
he had to be physically brave. However
supernatural his motives, there is no
reason to doubt that this was a natural
trait. In all his adventures, some were
extremely risky, he never seems to have
entertained the slightest notion of fear.
He had immense moral courage: he was not
afraid of accusing his own Portuguese
'supporters' or of attacking with bitter
pen the more extraordinary outrages of
some hostile rajah in whose territory he
might happen to be staying.
No
extraordinary gifts won South India for
Francis but that which Saint Paul, his
predecessor, ranks above all such
extraordinary gifts - Charity. It was his
utter selflessness, his complete
identification with the heart, if not
mind, that won his susceptible Indian
hearers, that must have won any hearers
anywhere who were not deliberately
malicious. They saw in his eyes, as he
uttered his few words in their language,
a burning love, a love of God and a love
for them, that expressed itself in his
anxiety for them, for their souls first,
and then for their bodily sufferings.
Here was
the real thing --- no proud or haughty
foreigner, but a simple, humble
"holy man". And Indian
instinctively recognize genuine holiness.
So they flocked to him in their hundreds
and their thousands.
Francis
Xavier arrived in Goa on May 6, 1542.
After presenting his credentials to the
bishop lost no time in visiting the
hospital and three prisons of the city.
He looked after the sick and preached the
prisoners to abandon the sinful ways and
tread the path of righteousness and good
behaviour. But hours slaving for this
scum of humanity -- the offscourings of
all-did not detain him for other
activities. He preached, he catechised,
and with a sure instinct appealed to the
children. After attracting an audience by
ringing a bell down the streets, he sang
the lessons, which he had rhymed and made
the children sing them. For a singing
people this was the perfect way of
committing his words to their memory. The
children learnt songs and sang them at
home so that soon the labourer sang the
ten Commandments in his field, the
fisherman in his boast, the housewife
going shopping. They were learnt and
handed down and never forgotten.
Francis
Xavier worked very hard for 10 years in
three countries - India, Malacca and
Japan. He stayed with the poor and ate
their food. His diet consisted of rice
gruel, and flattened rice powder. He
spent his days in studies and preaching
and nights in praying. When he was given
spiritual joy, he would say: "Lord
Enough!". But when he was confronted
with sorrows and crosses, he would say
"More of It Lordimore of It!"
Saint
Francis Xavier wanted to go to China and
Japan where he had been staying, but as
ill luck would have it, when he was in
the island of Sancian, 100 Km south West
of Hongkong, he succumbed to Typhoid and
died peacefully there on December 2,
1552. His body did not decay for a very
long time. Even now it is not decayed
significantly and is kept in the Basilica
of Infant Jesus in Old Goa. His feast is
celebrated on December 4 every year and
his body to exposed for general public
view every 10 years. Thousands of
pilgrims assemble on his feast day at Goa
at pay their prayerful respects to this
great saint of the Indies more
particularly of India.
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Media
Mix
By
Spectator
The month
of November saw the media in Delhi come
alive with not only political twists and
turns of politics but certain
non-political events too. The visit of
the world's richest man, Bill Gates,
filled many columns and space in the
print and the electronic media. He was
treated like a royalty, getting audiences
with nearly all the VVIPs in the country.
But the man after all was also promising
close to half a billion dollars in health
AID to the country. Many other Americans
come to lecture India on things like need
to befriend military dictators and ills
of pre-emptive strike and yet get a lot
of publicity without promising even a
pittance!
The other
non-political event that occupied the
media attention was the 22nd
International Trade Fair. This annual
fair is perhaps the biggest annual winter
attraction in Delhi for a fortnight
beginning November 14. The number of
people thronging the Pragati Maidan keeps
multiplying every year. Terrorists'
threats do not hold back the crowds; nor
all the inconveniences the visitors- many
from outside. Delhi-face at the ground or
to get there.
What
arouses interest is the publicity in the
media. Columns are written about many
fancy items and attractive pavilions,
especially foreign ones. The media, at
least in Delhi, had gone over board this
year in projecting the Chinese pavilion.
About 50 countries were supposed to have
participated in the fair. But most
readers of newspapers and viewers of TV
channels read or saw visuals only about
the Chinese pavilion. This brought a huge
rush at the Chinese pavilion as a result
of which a large number of thefts were
also reported from there. Thanks to the
media publicity, many visitors to the
exhibition ground already knew what to
expect at the Chinese pavilion. The media
had told them all about the Chinese fancy
bikes and electronic goods and their
prices on display.
Despite
the thefts in the Chinese pavilion, it
cannot be said that they were in a
particularly complaining mood. The amount
of free publicity that their products and
the companies manufacturing them got
during the fortnight of the trade fair
should have left the Chinese rather
pleased on the whole. It may have been
good for reviving the Hindi-Chini Bhai
Bhai spirit.
On the
other hand it might have left some other
foreign participants somewhat unhappy and
perhaps jealous of the Chinese. The
Chinese were lucky to have been exploring
the Indian market in particularly
propitious times when newspapers have
broken their taboo against free
commercial publicity in their columns.
What made the Chinese even luckier was
that they managed to get a lot of
publicity with perhaps minimum or no
expenses. A foreign or Indian business
house based in India would have spent
several times more to get the same amount
of publicity.
But the
main point is that publicity in news
columns for commercial interests has
become a norm in newspapers today. As any
careful reader of a newspaper will know,
many are the times when what is by common
consent an important event has been given
the go by to accommodate an item of
commercial interest. In fact, the
so-called ''leaders'' in Delhi would
happily miss what is known as hard news
rather than an item of business interest.
It is
perhaps a part of the process of
liberalisation and globalisation that
politics and economy become inseparable
in the media, print and electronic.
''General'' newspapers that thrived on
politics only till the other day have
begun to pay a great deal of attention to
business and economy. Some of them have
one or more pages of news relating to
business and economy. Likewise, leading
economic daily papers have sections
devoted to politics.
But it is
not clear if the new rules of combining
politics and economics justify free
publicity to companies and their brand
products by newspapers. In the old
fashioned journalism that was practised
by the fourth estate from its inception
till the dawn of the new era of dual
purpose journals, free publicity to a
company or its products in the news
columns was a strict taboo. The rule was
simple and sensible from the point of
view of economy of the newspaper, all
publicity has to be paid.
Now you
see names of business houses and products
displayed prominently in headlines and
often on page one. Introduction of
certain luxury items, cars in particular,
is heralded days in advance in the print
media as well as TV channels. A good
display of coming products and their
companies in news columns has become
almost de rigueur.
When India
set out on the path of globalisation of
its economy the burgeoning middle class
in the country started to become
conscious of quality products and
companies that make them. To that extent
there was perhaps no escape from commerce
intruding into news columns. Many old
style practitioners of the journalistic
craft who do not like it have yet to
accept this change. But what is even more
galling to hear is that in today's
newfangled journalism, the PR man or
woman expects to dictate the display of
commercial news.
Till not
very long ago that would have been beyond
a journalist's wildest imagination,
something akin to sacrilege, blasphemy.
No respectful newspaper in those days
would have allowed an outsider, much less
a PR man or woman, to enter its editorial
sanctorum, much less tolerate his or her
audacity to dictate the display of a news
item. In fact, the editorial department
in a newspaper was something of a lion's
den where few from the business and
administrative sections of the newspaper
itself would dare to enter, foraging for
any favour.
The reason
for this sort of apartheid in leading
Indian newspapers was to ensure that
business considerations did not cloud
news display. A company could well be
giving millions of rupees in
advertisement revenues but that did not
give it the right to expect any publicity
in the news columns of the paper; nor did
it entitle it to stop publication of
anything that it did not like. It was
also a way to insure that journalists did
not fall for temptations that a business
house could offer.
Today one
hears that certain big business houses
and multi-national companies spend
astronomical amounts on feasting
journalists who would be not only
entertained in the most expensive hotels
and restaurants but also flown to holiday
destinations in India and abroad. Add to
this ''gifts' that come at the end of the
junket. After spending that kind of
money, the companies will naturally
expect some publicity in news columns,
especially when there is no editorial
resistance against intrusion of
commercial interest in news columns. As
though to hide their ''guilt'', some
papers do mention that a particular item
was written at the behest of a
''sponsor''.
All this
is not to imply that the Chinese spent
millions of rupees to get the amount of
publicity they got at this year's trade
fair. But their example has been taken to
illustrate the central theme of this
column: the lines between news and
publicity are becoming increasingly
blurred in the Indian media. And at
times, the reasons behind a big publicity
build up are anything but altruistic.
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Terrorism:
Whats in a Name?
By
Sreeram Charlia
William
Shakespeare wrote an immortal verse in
Romeo and Juliet: What's in a name? That
which we call a rose by any other name
would smell as sweet.The supreme
dramatist was weaving his magical web of
words around benign subjects like love in
the late sixteenth century.
I am
writing about terrorism in Kashmir in the
age of mujahideen armed with Kalashnikovs
and rocket-propelled grenades. Whats in a
name? Why not call terrorism something
else and perhaps it might still convey
the stench of the worst imaginable
cruelty humankind has ever known? No.
Here Shakespeare is not applicable.
Here, the
name game attains far greater importance
than in besotted Romeos speeches. Let us
consider the politics with names played
in General Musharrafs land for proof.
Reporting
the latest raid and massacre in Jammus
Raghunath temple, Pakistans leading
national daily, Dawn, termed it an attack
by activists fighting for freedom.
Pakistan-based Lashkar-i-Tayyaba, the
biggest terrorist outfit in South Asia,
was responsible for the attack, and the
chief newspaper in its host country
referred to its cadre as activists
fighting for freedom. This happens to be
a climb-down from the more regularly
bandied freedom fighters who are waging a
struggle to free Muslim Kashmir from
Hindu India. Since the religious logic
comes foremost in the manner in which the
Pakistani press forwards the states claim
to Kashmir, repeatedly vandalising
temples andspraying bullets on peaceful
worshippers is considered normal freedom
struggle without flapping an eyelid.
Obviously,
Kashmir, whose 500,000 Hindus have
already been cleansed, needs to be freed
from the relics and ancient shrines of
these kaffirs too. And in the process,
temple-destruction will also foment
communal fires and set the whole of India
ablaze. What a wonderful freedom
struggle! It achieves but-shikani and
also furthers strategic aims.
While the
whole world has blacklisted Lashkar and
its kindred as terrorists, with capital
T, the Pakistani establishment, and its
muzzled pet, the Pakistani press go on
delivering old wine: those who slit
throats, gun down babies and riddle
temples with bullets are fighting for
freedom.
A few sane
voices have risen after intense world
scrutiny of Pakistan as the hub of global
terrorism. Questioning the blind
acceptance of terrorists being presented
as revolutionaries, nationalists and
freedom fighters, Tashbih Sayyed,
commented bitterly:
Now that
we have learnt our lessons in
Afghanistan, albeit so tragically, we
will have to be extra careful before we
extend our hand of cooperation to any
such "freedom movement." (Next
Stop-Kashmir, December 28, 2001, Pakistan
Today)
But as the
earlier citation from Dawn shows, the
mainstream press in Pakistan is having
great trouble calling a spade a spade.
And how can it change its nomenclatures
summarily like this, anyway? For decades,
the middle class Pakistani was programmed
into believing that a jihad is being
carried out against unbelievers in
Indian-occupied Kashmir, and that Islamic
law and jurisprudence justify the jihad.
Editorials have poured out of printing
presses for years about the human rights
violations of Hindu forces and their
deliberate destruction of Muslim holy
shrines. Charar-i-Sharif, which was
gutted in 1995 by terrorists and falsely
imputed to the Indian army, for instance,
is claimed by Pakistan as Islamic,
although it is the mausoleum of a Sufi
saint who treated all religions as one.
The role of the Urdu language press in
promoting a reservoir of hatred and
religious bigotry about Kashmir is even
more vitriolic and open. Just imagine how
the Raghunath temple terrorists must have
been described in Nawa-i-Waqt, Ausaf and
Al Binoria! Holy warriors? Soldiers of
God?
An
excellent specimen of the programmed
middle-class English-speaking Pakistani
who swallows the freedom struggle
nomenclature without question is a
so-called feminist and journalist I met
in Oxford at the time of the IC-814
airplane hijacking by Pakistani
terrorists that got international
criminals Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Zargar
and Omar Saeed released. I was sharply
criticising the Taliban for hosting a
hijacked plane in Kandahar and then
offering safe passage for the released
terrorists back into Pakistani territory.
My acquaintance feminism unravelled in
one second: Dont say a word about the
Taliban. They have done nothing wrong. I
was taken aback. Here was a Dawn reader
for sure, posing as a womens rights
activist, and defending an act of
international terrorism so brazenly! I
remonstrated that hijacking is an
indefensible act of terrorism, but she
seemed annoyed that I could dare attempt
to disturb her nomenclature and
cluttered-up brain.
The Indian
media must also bear some of the blame
for giving many Pakistanis hope that
those individuals their papers call
freedom fighters are indeed great heroes.
Any curious Pakistani can go to the
websites of Indias dozen or so national
papers and read that terrorists are only
occasionally called terrorists in Times
of India, The Hindu and Indian Express.
Sometimes, the genocidaires of
Chattisinghpora are called militants and
sometimes the assailants of the
Parliament of India are called Kashmiri
armed men.
Even when
identities of terrorists are clearly
established as Pakistani, hailing from
such and such district of the Punjab or
NWFP or trained in Al Qaeda camps, Indian
news media vacillate about using the word
terrorist. Some go to the foolish extent
of calling them terrorist with quotes on,
i.e. terrorists, or worse still,
suspected terrorists. When thirty armed
jihadis have erased a whole family of
bakerwals, the Indian press is still
trying to indicate that it has suspicions
that the murderers were terrorists!
Weak and
misleading language in big Indian news
dailies is not a new development. In the
1980s, they accepted the LTTE as freedom
fighters waging a struggle against
Sinhalese chauvinism in Sri Lanka. Once
Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by these
same Eelam liberators and once India
realised its mad folly of actively
supporting an outright violent and
terrorist organisation like Prabhakarans,
the media had to do a U-turn and learn
that the word terrorist is more
appropriate for an organisation that not
only suicide bombed and assassinated
former Presidents and Prime Ministers,
but also threatened law and order in the
state of Tamil Nadu. India has relatively
far greater freedoms of speech and press
than Pakistan and it is only a matter of
public pressure and readers pointing out
these lapses in nomenclature for some
positive change to come about. The
Tribune, published from Chandigarh, has
already taken a bold lead by unerringly
calling terrorists by no other name but
terrorists.
My
commentary on the usage of names in
describing terrorism that has ravaged
Kashmir clearly indicates that wrong
labelling of villainous terrorists serves
the interests of the Pakistani military
and intelligence and other enemies of
peace. It builds up a powerful
constituency in the Pakistani population
which internalises the lies that
Jaish-i-Muhammad and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
are actually virtuous sacrificial
crusaders who cannot bear the oppression
of Kashmiri Muslims.
And when
the world calls for an immediate
cessation of cross-border terrorism and
infiltration into Jammu and Kashmir, the
same constituency reacts that India has
succeeded in its nonsensical
Pakistan-bashing by poisoning Europeans
and Americans.
This is a
very common accusation levelled against
veteran American journalists like Selig
Harrison. Slippery nomenclature, rammed
into minds day in and out, serves to
broaden popularity of hideous religious
fanatics so much that when a neutral
outsider condemns them, he or she can be
instantly dismissed as an Indian agent or
Zionist. Daniel Pearl paid the price for
honesty about terrorism with his head.
After
September 11 and the Pakistanisation of
Al Qaeda, there have been calls worldwide
for a plan to de-jihadise Pakistan. The
replacement of religious madrassas with
modern scientific and tolerant schools is
considered the main technique for
de-jihadisation. But what about already
educated Pakistanis who read Dawn and the
Urdu magazines? How does one de-jihadise
them and their received language? How can
the correct names for terrorists be
taught to mute adults who have obediently
lapped up freedom struggle sophistry all
their lives? An old saw goes that one
mans terrorist is anothers freedom
fighter.
Unless one
is nave, it is easy to see that if
terrorism is properly defined as
intentional and systematic intimidation
and killing of civilians, then the
genuine terrorist would remain no man
freedom fighter.
The battle
for de-jihadising educated Pakistanis is
therefore one of surmounting the
censorship that screens out objective
definition and information about the
not-so-gentle indiscretions of freedom
fighters.
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