Love is Peace and Hatred is War

DSP Iqbal Mohmand, a famous Pashtoon poet said,
Iqbal! My father used to tell me always!
That love is peace and hatred is war.

Iqbal Mohmand loved and struggled for peace. Some days, he got martyred in a blast some days back.

Before his martyrdom, on February 1st, there was a bomb blast inside the mosque at police lines in Peshawar. In the blast, one hundred and three people got martyred, and more than two hundred were badly injured. After the blast, ‘Olassi Passon’ is an uprising/ protest movement called by the leaders of the community. It was attended by thousands of people, including police personnel and members of the public. The protesters demanded a transparent and impartial investigation into the blast.

According to mainstream media, this was a suicide attack by the terrorist group Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan. Isn’t it strange that the TTP announced after the attack that they don’t have any link to the blast?

Afterward, the police personnel arranged a rally for their protection. Unfortunately, the protection they asked for was nowhere and DSP Iqbal with his colleagues faced the same fate.

The Pashtoon nationalist leadership raised their grievances as before. Sardar Hussain Babak of Awami National Party stated that it was not a suicide attack and it needs to be investigated, the years-old demand of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement to call a truth-and-reconciliation commission about what happened in the belt. Manzoor Pashteen of PTM stated that the safety and security of the public and police is the state’s duty and the state should take it seriously and revise its policies. He was sure that the protests by people and police said the obvious fact: people need peace.

No one can deny that the state has a social contract with people and the one right it has to assure to all: the right to life. If the state does not work to ensure the basic right of the people, people’s hopelessness and mistrust of the state will increase, which will be the ultimate failure of the state.

Media as the fourth pillar of the state needed to be there to cover this all but they again got silenced. By whom? We don’t know.

This and many other uprisings are due to state policies and its cold shoulder towards the legitimate demands of Pashtuns. The protests have expanded to all corners of the country and still, the state can afford to ignore them at her peril.

Since 2018, and since the very start of the Russian invasion and the American invasion of Afghanistan, we as a community have faced so much violence and so many killings, missing persons, and mines that we are now helpless most of the time. Naqeeb Mehsud, Arman Loni, Arif Wazir, Tahir Dawar, and now Iqbal Mohmand.

I know, I know politics has got its explanations. That being so, let me ask some questions.

Our homes keep getting destroyed.
What KIND of freedom is this?
Pashtuns keep getting ruined.
Life’s boats keep getting shattered.
Our beloved women keep dying.
What kind of freedom is this?