Global IssuesPAKISTAN: Osama Killing Largely Unmourned
Three days since the death of Al-Qaeda chief and U.S. public enemy No. 1 Osama bin Laden, there are no public demonstrations to protest his killing, nor are there any other displays of anger or grief in this country of 170 million where he once enjoyed tremendous support.
Instead, the aftermath of bin Laden's assassination in a 40-minute air assault by U.S. Special Forces Sunday night brought to the spotlight the dwindling popularity of bin Laden, who was once regarded as the leader of the Muslim world.
'We had expected mammoth demonstrations, arson attacks and burning of government buildings by the enraged people. To our utter surprise, nothing happened and all is normal,' says shopkeeper Mustafa Khan in Abbottabad, 150 kilometres north of the federal capital Islamabad, where the U.S. forces found and killed bin Laden.
Khan recalled the Oct. 17, 2001 attack on Afghanistan by U.S.-led forces to topple the Taliban government in Kabul, which had elicited protest demonstrations by people in Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan, after the 9/11 attacks in Washington and New York.
'I still remember that thousands of students and (other) people had thronged the streets in Peshawar and elsewhere in the country and the barrage of protest demonstrations to condemn the action and express their solidarity with Taliban,' he added.
'In a country like Pakistan, protest demonstrations over every small and big issue is the order of the day. Osama bin Laden who enjoyed tremendous public support a decade ago has vanished,' said Javid Ali, a student of the Information Technology Institute near the Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad, not far from the house where bin Laden had been holed up.
Anticipating protests, the U.S. even announced the closure of its embassy and consulates in Pakistan to avoid any backlash. But on Tuesday it announced the opening of its diplomatic missions because the situation was normal.
Bin Laden's death has left most people unmoved.
Taj Muhammad, local political activist from the Awami National Party (ANP), said people now feel disdain toward Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, citing the suicide and bomb attacks in bazaars, mosques and funeral ceremonies by these groups, besides blowing up schools and other government-owned buildings. The ANP was itself at the receiving end of attacks for opposing the Taliban.
'The victims of Taliban’s attacks in most of the cases happened to be innocent and poor people, including women and children,' Muhammad said. 'Seldom have they targeted Americans or Europeans whom they considered enemies of Islam. It is the poor Pakistanis who end up suffering after every attack.'
ANP leader and senior minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bashir Bilour said that attacking mosques with bombs is the height of terrorism. He added that the Taliban's popularity has been dented since they started killing people and hanging their bodies from electricity poles. The bodies of opponents were exhumed and hanged in public, Bilour said.
'Osama was the biggest terrorist in the world who had been causing sleepless nights to the poor dwellers of the Federally Administered Tribal Area and adjacent Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,' he told the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Tuesday.
And it is not just Pakistanis but also Afghans who have shown indifference towards bin Laden's high- profile death.
The situation was different years ago, when Al-Qaeda and Taliban were revered. 'Al-Qaeda and Taliban commanded great respect as the people held them in high esteem and regarded them as defenders of Islam,' Khan said.
An English teacher at the Government College Charsadda agrees with Khan and tells IPS that the 2001 attack by U.S forces on Afghanistan had also helped the religious parties raise contributions from the people in the name of jihad.
'Majority of the people had generously contributed to the donation collection points established by religious groups and political parties,' the teacher said. 'Nobody knows where the huge amount collected from the people went but the argument was that the people had extreme love for bin Laden.'
ANP worker Amjad Ali said that the religious parties including Jamiat Ulemai Islam of Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Jamaat Islami parties had been the largest beneficiaries of the Al-Qaeda movement.
'The alliance of these parties had secured 70 seats in the National Assembly and had been able to form governments in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces in the 2003 election owing to their unflinching support for the anti-U.S. actions of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban,' Ali explained.
Both these parties had utilised the anti-U.S. sentiments of the people to their advantage, but now they are also mysteriously silent, he said. In the 2008 election, these parties secured only a handful of seats in the National and provincial assemblies.
Jan Alam, a history professor at the Government College Mardan, said that it was a matter of shame for those religious groups that the killing of bin Laden, once regarded as leader of the Ummah, had gone unsung. There were a few tiny protests in Quetta, but the rest of the country stayed calm and quiet.
© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service