IN THE WAKE OF THE ATTACKS IN PESHAWAR, WE MUST UNITE AND MAINTAIN WHAT GOOD WE HAVE!: HABIB YOUSAFZAI,CHAIRMAN OF THE KASHMIR DIASPORA ALLIANCE
ASSALAM-O-ALAIKUM!
Although India has occupied a portion of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, also known as Maqbooza Kashmir for decades now, and has drawn a line and attempted to create a barrier between us and our country of Pakistan; still our hearts are with our people, and we will always stand shoulder to shoulder in every situation with the people of Pakistan.
In fact, since India has gained its independence from the British, it has vehemently tried to destabilize and weaken the Pakistani state. It did not allow Junagar, Hyderabad, Manwadar to accede to Pakistan. In fact it stated that these states are Hindu majority states and as such it forcefully occupied them. But at the same time, the hypocrisy in its claims comes to the forefront when it illegally occupied Kashmir, and until today is not taking any steps towards justice by fulfilling the human right of self determination of the people of Maqbooza Kashmir. In order to establish hegemony over the subcontinent, it also occupied the Sikh Homeland Punjab, Khalistan without their consensus. Until today it is changing the demographic situation in Khalistan in order to even deem the right of self determination useless as now the occupier has flooded the occupied. Although the right of self determination exists, and it is a human right of the people, in reality it is something that is not required. In truth, justice must take place by immediately withdrawing its military and forfeiting all of its illegal claims on these territories. How can an occupier even be given as an option as a legitimate party, or provided any legitimate claim whatsoever? By doing these, we are legitimizing the occupier, and complacent with its claims.
Following along its historical trajectory of illegal occupation and indiscriminate goal of hegemony, the Indian state is also believed to have committed the incident in the Peshawar school, where over a hundred were massacred is a heinous crime and no one who claims to be human can do anything other than condemn this act. Regardless of who has sponsored such an act, and it is definitely worth noting that foreign interests are written all over such an event who have stopped at nothing in the past and continue to sponsor various groups and factions in order to destabilize Pakistan, it is imperative to note that these terrorists who have perpetrated these attacks are not Muslims. They must not only be punished, but must be eradicated as individuals that can carry out such attacks cannot be reasoned with. The reason we must do this is that we must take concrete steps forward; we must be in remorse, but remorse is not the solution. We need to take action!
In fact, if one takes a look into our faith as described by Allah the Almighty in the Iman-Mufassal, we should note what the Lord states; “I believe in Allah, His Angels, His Books, His Messengers, the Last Day, and in Taqdir, that all good and bad is from Allah the Most High and I believe in resurrection after death.”
So although it must be acknowledged that these acts were apart of destiny, these attacks are not a reason to go against the foundations of our religion, either flocking to secularism, or, taking part in senseless violence and attacks against our religious establishments. In fact, this is the pursuit of our enemy that we turn inwards and destroy what good we have. Taking part in baseless attacks in the domestic sphere against our religious establishments whether that is our mosques, educational institutions, holy places of worship and shrines is exactly what foreign interests would want, and exactly what the terrorists who are devoid of any faith dream of.
As a populace, a consensus must be reached in which the masses realize that it is these mosques, these holy places of worship, these shrines and educational institutions that are the only good that we have left. As such, our actions must be calm and calculated. Justice must be swift, and it must be served, but we must remember what true justice is and that can only be dictated by the teachings of the Quran. We must take the fight to the enemy, no implode from within. We must not start playing the blame game. Tragedy is not a means to become divided; rather, this event is a wakeup call for us to unite.
