What is "Pakistan" and the Disease of Divinity

In a very interesting article, Economist.com raises the very important question on Pakistan based on the interview of Asif Ali Zardari with an Indian TV channel.  What does a Pakistani politician (or a common man) mean when he/she talks of “Pakistan”?  And then, of course, what does he/she mean by saying “Pakistan” is not involved?

IT MAY have been a slip of the tongue. But there was something very revealing about a remark that Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, made in an interview with an Indian television channel on November 30th. Asked about allegations that Pakistan was involved in the murderous onslaught on Mumbai, he promised, before the world, strict action “if any evidence points towards any individual or group in my part of the country”.

The (perhaps unintended) implication that Mr Zardari is in control of only part of Pakistan is all too true. And that helps explain why it is so difficult for India to respond.

The article then goes in to the point of India or the West should not “weaken” the politicians by looking to start a war.  Fair enough, I agree.  But then if this politician is “good for nothing”.. and those who are the mischief makers are tireless in their hate and campaign… then, what is a non-Pakistani victim supposed to do?  Wait endlessly till the time that this politician GETS the power??  Or take out the demons that the Army/Intelligence has sown themselves?

Neither the politician nor the intellectuals in Pakistan and elsewhere, see attacking even limitedly on the terrorists hideout as a sane path.  I want to challenge that point – and ask the obvious question WHY!!!  Indeed WHY should these cockroaches – terrorists and hate-filled minds – be allowed to fester WITHOUT CHALLENGE?

– The Pak Army and the ISI would not eliminate them!  They are the ones who created them!
– The politician CANNOT eliminate them.. he/she will be eliminated BEFORE he can even entertain the thought.
– The outsiders are ASKED not to eliminate them, because the proverbial “common man” will be the collateral damage.
– Meanwhile these hate-filled minds get bigger and better and attack with more impunity!

Does that bring back the memories of Nazi Germany?  The appeasement of the Demon to save the common man.. where the Demon has been using the common man as a shield.. until he can stab that common man as well?

CS Lewis once said:

“Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

Now, I don’t care whether this hate-filled mind of a terrorist distorts Quran or not.  The point is that each and every one of these minds BELIEVE and are CONVINCED that they ARE following the “Divine Word”!  And THAT word of their “conscience” is the sole compass for their actions.  To expect that their conscience that takes its orders from the “Divine utterance” will at any time soon be satiated is unlikely!

The world has been held to ransom for the misinterpretation of “Divinity”.  The question obviously one needs to ask is.. who has MET this “authority” who assigned the adjective of “Divinity” on an artifact that has become the “go-to” manual for the sick and the hate-filled minds?

What if it loses its coronation as being Divine? And men and women are asked to find that “Divinity” in themselves!!  Then the responsibility for creating the Divine EVERY MOMENT falls on every ONE of us instead of the convenient mechanism of “outsourcing” that responsibility on some word written centuries ago by who-knows-whom!

The truth is that Divinity and our obsession with that Divinity has put the mankind in absolute mess.  Ironically, I would like to quote Vasistha from Vasistha Yoga:

Fate or Divine dispensation is merely a convention which has come to be regarded as truth by being repeatedly declared to be true.  If this god or fate is truly the ordainer of everything in this world, of what meaning is any action (even like bathing, speaking or giving), and whom should one teach at all?  No.  In this world, except a corpse, everything is active and such activity yields its appropriate result.  No one has ever realised the existence of a fate or divine dispensation.(emphasis mine)

Let us put the onus where it lies… and stop waiting for a person who uses a “God surrogate” to be motivated to kill ….. to suddenly start not believing in it.  Belief in Divinity is a disease of epidemic proportions!  Take it away and we humans are FORCED TO ACT and with responsibility!