Some are martyrs, some are just killed

One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom-fighter, as they don’t say these days

This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.

Those of us who first started reading Pakistani newspapers in the late 1990s—Jai Ho internet!—will remember that in ‘Held Kashmir’, ‘mujahids’ frequently used to ‘embrace martyrdom’ or ‘shahadat’, often while carrying out ‘fidayeen’ attacks on the Indian army. So it is amusing to see the Pakistani English language newspapers employ contextual morality now that the mujahids are doing the fidayeen routine on Pakistani streets.

On his blog over at Dawn Asif Akhtar draws attention to this:

Silly media, you forget so easily, they were ‘mujahids’ just a decade ago, get with the programme! And to think General Pervez Musharraf did all this hard work to free up the media so that private opinions may thrive and democracy may flourish, and this is what you do with your freedom? Terrorists should be called ‘mujahids’ and their death should be referred to as ‘martyrdom,’ not the other way around where security jawans are the martyrs while militants just end up getting ‘killed’ or ‘slain.’ [Dawn]

If this makes you believe that the Pakistani mindset has changed, think again. Pakistan’s Urdu commentariat reveals that it is people like Dawn’s Mr Akhtar who are living in the alternate universe.

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