More deadly terrorist attacks in Pakistan. This time it is schoolgirls who are among the dead, their bus caught up in the blast. The only human response is horror and revulsion. What had these girls — or the two prisoners killed in their vehicle, also caught up in the blast — done to deserve the ultimate punishment? Had they been supporters of the US? Had they been spies? Were they apostates or so wicked that they had to die?
That the Taleban can set out to kill without thinking who the victims will be, or caring, shows its total moral depravity. It claims to be fighting in defense of Islam, but such is its mania for blood that it kills — innocent children at that — without any sense of remorse or wrongdoing. These were ordinary Pakistani girls, daughters of ordinary Pakistani parents, doing nothing more threatening than going to school. Of course, for the Taleban, that itself is a crime. It hates the very idea of females being educated and when in power in Afghanistan banned it. Maybe this was a mistake — a school bus in the wrong place at the wrong time — although if it were, the people of Pakistan will wait long and in vain for an apology. But who can be sure it was a mistake? In Afghanistan last year, the Taleban murdered over 150 teachers and students and this year boasted it would kill girls if they remained at school. There too, and in Pakistan, large numbers of schools have been torched.
Murder, a hatred of education, and a hatred and fear of women (remember the Taleban’s ban on women working, even those who had no family to support them?): Where do these fit into a religion the Taleban claim to be fighting for? They do not. That members of the Taleban can kill without concern shows how far they have strayed from the faith. Instead of pursuing peace and justice, they have turned Islam on its head with their lust for blood. They worship at the altar of death.
This paper receives vast numbers of letters from readers, Muslim as much as non-Muslim, shocked at the barbarities carried out by these fanatics. They rightly say that ordinary, tolerant, God-fearing Muslims suffer as a result and Islam is mocked by it. They also say that Muslim organizations and religious authorities are not doing enough to condemn these acts and need to spell out in ringing terms that it is against all Islamic teaching to kill innocent people. Again they are right. Scholars must stand up and shame the Taleban for slaughtering innocents like these schoolgirls or the hotel staff at the Marriott in Islamabad. Paradoxically, letters are also received from some who, knowing that no sincere Muslim would kill the innocent, suggest that this is proof that those involved are non-Muslims out to destabilize and manipulate. They are right that no true Muslim could do such evil. But Taleban indulge in such things and that needs to be faced. The problem will not be dealt with by denying it — or insisting that everything is the West’s fault.
