By Syed Faraz Ali

While the death of Osama bin Laden has been a reason to celebrate for many across the globe, ordinary Pakistanis try to make sense of it all as Pakistan becomes the focus of international speculation and increased threat. A student from Karachi shares his reaction with The Samosa to news that the world’s most wanted man was taking sanctuary on home soil.

It’s not the only thing on my mind, living in Karachi, that Osama bin Laden was killed. That’s not the end of my day. Farooq Baig was killed too, I never knew who he was till today, and today this member of MQM’s Rabta Committee’s untimely demise brings out the worst our beloved city has to offer. Last count was 27 cars and a bank burnt, eight people dead, much more injured, haywire traffic throughout the city; everything stopped. There’s terror on the streets, hardly the time to think about the issues of sovereignty that this nation's retired ex dictator seems to have on his mind.

The news is all about Osama’s death though, because this is big news. He was killed in Abbottabad 500 yards away from the biggest military academy in Pakistan. My friend’s father, who is a retired brigadier of the Pakistani army, can’t get enough of how bin Laden was probably looking on at the academy from his roof when General Kayani was talking about how he’s broken the spine of terror in Pakistan. There are few people talking about how Musharraf is a hypocrite and shouldn’t be talking about US encroachments on Pakistani territory because they’d been down to the same during his time in power. Some are talking about the ambiguity of the government regarding the matter of whether our forces and the American forces were working in collaboration. It is funny; Dante would’ve appreciated the humor in this.

I never knew Osama bin Laden. I have never really met anyone who works for the Taliban. There is a drone attack almost every day in the North Western regions, so much for our sovereignty. It seems as if anybody can conveniently cross the Af-Pak border, even if the person is 6 feet 4” tall and always plugged into a dialysis machine. For us, however, Bin Laden never was the enemy. The enemy was everybody who’s terrorising our country, killing our people and maiming any sense of liberty the common man could’ve enjoyed here. I don’t care about Osama, but I do care about the decadence of my country.

The Taliban’s been plaguing our country for years. The bloody mujahedeen of Afghanistan, reactionary throwbacks rooted in the seventies are a threat to me and everybody and everything I stand by. I care if they use this as an excuse to bomb our cities and threaten our security. There’s already news of one in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and apparently bin Laden didn’t really mean much to them either. They can function without bin Laden, who was apparently surviving without the use of any communication technologies, through couriers who used to travel on foot with written messages across the border. They say they can unleash the Mumbai attacks in any major city of Europe and I for one have no doubts regarding the matter. I care if my Professor comes to class and tells us about how Osama bin Laden is a martyr and we should treat him with respect. I care if this fuels the mindless, cold and radical fundamentalism on our streets. The helpless will flock to any group in society which offers them the freedom of fighting back or freedom from the insecurities of the common life. Help us help ourselves, bin Ladens they come they go.

I see the news showing how people gathered at ground zero to celebrate the death of bin Laden, a big victory for the war on terror apparently. On this side of the world we’re not sure if he was killed this morning, five years ago, if he was killed at all or whether this was another bullet bump in the approval ratings and Mr. President’s bid to retain office. We’re not celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden because he was our guy; but mostly because we don’t care. We have a lot of other things on our minds.

How about the utter decadence of the country we live in? How about the aggregated nervous twitch each time something else goes wrong? How about the fact that it’s incomprehensible for us that the ISI did not know about Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts? How about the large clientele of international delinquents harbored in our country? How about the fact that an average citizen, including this humble writer, would take their first opportunity to flee this country? How about the insecurities we face as a nation?  

Bin Laden means nothing to us; he’s a masthead for a lot of things which are the banes of our existence. You can’t throw his body into the sea and expect us to believe that his death is the collective death of all terrorism in the world. The death of Osama bin Laden is a great victory? I don’t think so, and I don’t think anyone with any pull of reason does.