The Sky Is Falling (And it Really Is This Time).

I'm sitting here, listening to the radio right now. What I'm hearing is heart breaking and terrifying. Some radio channel has had the brains to go to Mingora, Swat and personally interview the people who are having to make their way through everyday life there. Here is what those people have to say

A secondary school girl:

She quotes islamic hadiths that ask followers, both men and women, to educate themselves, to actively seek knowledge. She gives the example of an educated widow, who upon the death of her husband can use her education to get a job and earn honourably for herself and her children, as opposed to the eneducated widow, who's only option is to sell herself and dance for men, everything the Taliban claims it wants to prevent. She wants to know who's Islam these men are following. When asked whether she has any response to the fact that these people claim that they are true believers and the rest of us are wrong, she refuses to believe that these men could be muslims in the first place, she knows they're wrong and states unequivocally there is no majboori in Islam, no use of force advocated, no threats, no bombings, no throat slittings, no beheading and no judging. Mere people, mere mortals have not been given the right to judge their fellows, that right always has and always will belong only to Allah. Who's right and who's wrong and who gets punished for what is only up to Him to decide. She boldly states what I wish more people would realize, that these men and their deeds are worse than anything any kafir could do because it's in the name of Islam. She spoke of the anger she felt when she realized that her dreams, her family's expectations, and the dreams of thousands of girls like her were going to be reduced to dust, that she might never become a doctor, her friend may never become a teacher, her other friend may never join the army. She wonders where the government is, where our army is, the army that's supposed to be one of the largest in the world, the one on which 2/3rds of our budget is spent each year, how an army of that proportion can't take on a few armed men?

A med school principle:

She spoke of how her family had relocated to karachi, how difficult it was becoming to live in Swat. How in a few years the number of women in the health profession or for that matter any profession were going to dwindle to none. She also spoke of how upon visiting Karachi a little while ago and witnessing the massive scale upon which Zardari's security is organized, she couldn't help but wonder why the government couldn't reroute some of that security towards Swat? Good question I guess.

A nurse:

She too spoke of how, soon, there weren't going to be any women hospital personnel left. When asked what women would do incase of emergencies then, she just said " well they (the taliban) should have thought of that". She spoke of an incident where a Taliban commander bought his wife to the hospital for a C- section and expected them to help her as he swore at the female nusrses and doctors and threatened to blow up the hospital if they didn't all stop working there and go home. How they were going to manage both save his wife and not work was anyone's guess. She spoke of how those who could afford it were leaving swat for other citys but those who couldn't, well, their future was bleak. She spoke of the sorrow she felt for the younger girls who weren't even going to get the oppurtunity to follow their dreams.

A shopkeeper:

He spoke of how this hadn't happened overnight, how for years now things had begun to change subtly. How scared women were, how things had shifted slowly from wearing the chador to being forced to wear the burqa to being unable to leave the house without a mehram. What women who's husbands/fathers/brothers were dead or working in other countries, were going to do was again, anyone's guess. He just wanted the Taliban to go home and his city to go back to normal.

The interviewer also took us on a small tour of mingora with a local journalist telling us how zanana bazaar, specifically for women, was completly deserted, how just a year or two back the place used to be jam packed. He took us to a roundabout where, for the past 2 years, numerous bodies have been turning up daily, all beheaded or mutilated.
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I guess the only thing left to say is that everyone start digging your gaza style underground escape tunnels to china, iran or india, because it looks like we're going to need them soon. As for all those who think that oh, it'll never happen to pakistan, I suggest you take a good look at Afghanistan and it's past.