No country for sane men?

London is bathed in sunlight this morning. The sky is a beautiful combination of azure and orange hues. As  I stand at my window, staring out at London...Londres seems to stare back at me.I smile...London doesnt. 

I met a lady on the bus this morning. A painfully prim and proper lady...the way most aged British women are.An alice band tucked in her hair, a basket of fruit in her hands, a typically British floral dress peeking from beneath her typically British tweed coat. As I sat down next to her, she commented on the gorgeous weather (I did tell you she was British).I nodded my head and smiled. She then gave my son a long look and said what a handsome young man he was, what huge eyes he had.I smiled again and said, why thank you. "So where in Spain are you from?", she asked next. I looked her with knitted eyebrows and said, "Im not Spanish.I'm Pakistani." The good humour which this beautiful weather seemed to have brought out in her, disappeared in a jiffy. "O Lord what a torment that country is!" she declared, with clear disgust  and turned to face the window. 

There were a thousand things I wanted to tell her, I wished with all my heart to negate her but words failed me. All I did was sit there and fiddle with my fingers, once or twice I even chided Zoran(my son) to sit still or else...and the poor thing looked at me with questioning eyes...he had been sitting still. As she was leaving, the old dame turned towards me and said, "Good thing you left, that is no country for sane men!" I controlled a burning desire to jab my elbow in her side and push her off the bus...all this while fuming silently at myself for not having been able to say anything to her. Why did I not say anything???I could have said a million things to defend Pakistan but I didnt. And then the realization struck. I didn't because I didn't want to.

 How does one defend a country where a murderer is glorified? His act of absolute insanity and brutality is deemed heroic. How does one defend a country where fatwas passed by (often illiterate) clerics are placed way above the actual words of Allah?How does one defend a country where educated people entrust these very illiterate clerics with the responsibility to teach  a distorted version of religion to their children?No it is not as important for them to know which foot to put in the bathroom first or what dua to read when leaving the house.But yes it is vital for them to know that the power of judgement rests not with every Tom Dick and Harry(or in our case Mumtaz Qadree, Muneeb ur Rehman or the Imam of Sultan Masjid) but with Allah alone and that he who kills one human being is responsible for the death of the whole human race! Why are we so scared to pick up the Koran and read and understand it ourselves?Why do we depend on the deformed explanations given by these self-appointed Saviours of Islam?

How does one defend a country where you are justified in hating your neighbour because he is a Punjabi, a Pathan, a Muhajir, a Baluchi, a Sindhi, a Shia, a Sunni, an Aga Khani, a Hanafi Sunni, or just because he is a "sane" person, who is against all this sectarian hatred!

I feel my little one tugging at my shirt, he needs to go the loo. As I turn away from my window I look out at London one more time.This time, London is smiling. I am not.