Dear Zainab

Dear Zainab,

One year ago, today, your mother had proudly went back to collect her degree from her university. As she attended her convocation, she passionately spoke of her dissertation on ongoing extremism in Pakistan. Nothing could make her feel more passionate than an attack on Army School kids which had left countless innocent dead. Brutally dead.

However, on 21st October this year, as you opened your eyes in her arms, she realized far better and a stronger reason to combat extremism than any else. For you.

If what and how I feel for you is how those mothers felt for their children, I can't even begin..

And hence. Dear Zainab. I still think there are still two kinds of Taliban in our country.

While I still visit a Shia friend,
my heart sinks somewhere in confusion.
While I still extend a hand to an Ahmedi
my brain stands in vagueness
While I still grieve the APS victims
my faith still reminds who is an infidel
While I praise the Army
While I condemn the ISIS
While I change my display picture for Paris
While I write for Syrian refugees
I still defend Muslim countries inability to accept refugees.
While I condemn the preperators of APS attack
I still turn a blind eye to ideology that motivated them
While I support the operation against Taliban
My mind still isn't ready to acknowledge the ideological extremism penetrating the nerves of 180 million.
While I am shocked at how an IBA alumnus could be behind a terror attack
I still don't find anything wrong in religious circles teaching me how I am right while the rest are wrong.

In the name of God even today, I am bought and sold at the hands of traffickers.
In the name of God even today, my religiosity is confused.
I am to defend Islamic image of peace worldwide while I am to attend circles that teach me the infidelity of the rest.
I am to talk peace and grieve the victims of APS today and next week I am to argue how celebration of Prophet's birthday is wrong.

When the world, when the minorities beam with excitement as I join them in public expressions of religious tolerance. Inside somewhere my heart sinks because back at the circles back in my home country I am taught I am the only one right.

Perhaps that is how the heart first must have sank for an elite institute's graduate as he took his step to believing his religious narrative to be the only one right.

Perhaps this is how he was trafficked. Perhaps this is how those trafficked attacked the kids last year today.
Perhaps this is how religion is bought and sold.
Perhaps this is how I am bought and sold in the name of God.

There are still two kinds of Taliban in our country Zainab. And we need to fight the one creeping inside us. They creep through denial, ignorance and refusal to accept the soft extremism. We are to combat ideology that imposes a single version of faith, fights over Prophet's birthday celebration, discouraging others and declaring verdicts against them. For they often lead to how APS attack happened. For that is when we go beyond simply living our version of faith and start imposing on others.

There are still two kinds of Taliban in our country and we need to fight the one creeping inside us. To help us become less ashamed of what Humanity has become. To help us answer you when you ask of Humans and Hope.