Pakistan unable to defy extremists: Editorial - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Pakistan's future is possibly not very bright because of the nation's old, undying habit of not being willing to stand up to reason and logic, and its inability to raise voices against the demands of the extremists, who are increasingly gaining more control over the country and its people, an editorial in a Pakistani daily has said. According to an editorial in The Express Tribune, the Pakistani Government may have thought that by declaring September 21 "Youm-e-Ishq-e-Rasool", it may have grabbed the initiative from the religious and conservative elements. However, the events of the past two days only suggest that it was a grave miscalculation. The decision seems to have only galvanised and emboldened those elements in society who believe that by burning public and private property, destroying cars and injuring and killing innocent passers-by, they are somehow expressing their love for the Holy Prophet, the editorial said. The protests come in the wake of a crude US-made film that mocks Prophet Mohammed and portrays Muslims as gratuitously violent. The editorial questions how pelting cars owned by Pakistanis, or destroying shops, burning tyres and blocking roads, was linked in any way to protesting against a vile blasphemous film. Yes, the rage and anger is expected of any Muslim, in the face of such blasphemous material, but that rage needs to be expressed in a manner so that we don't end up burning and destroying our own property and people, the editorial said. Furthermore, by declaring a day of protest, the government seemed to have caved in to the extremists and ceded to them the initiative of expressing the nation's outrage, following which banned outfits led some of the protest rallies, most of which then turned violent, it said. In any other civilised country, the arrested protesters would have been booked and prosecuted for vandalism and arson. But that's not what one may see in Pakistan , as history shows that the nation has always been dominated by illegally constructed mosques and madrassas, acting as havens for terrorists, pulling the nation away from any progress that it might hope to achieve in the times to come, the editorial concluded.