Speaking on behalf of the NSF faction with the AWP a statement was recently made in Dawn by Fahad Rizwan that “Many leaders have tried to confuse us [by telling us that] our enemies are the Taliban, India or the US when the real enemies are poverty, military dictatorship and a corrupt political elite.”

Firstly, for decades the leadership of Pakistan has indeed misguided the youth. But it was not by telling them that the Taliban are our enemies but by telling them that the Taliban are heroes of Islam. In fact, aside from the left and liberals, the entire national rhetoric of Pakistan from Benazir Bhutto to the Jamaat e Islami was arguing the position through the 1990s that the Taliban had restored law and order to Afghanistan. It is only now that the public is itself coming to the realisation that the Taliban are in fact the enemies of the people.

Secondly, and more importantly, it simply boggles the mind how one can state that the fascist forces responsible for killing progressive activists one by one across the country, the death of 80,000 people, over a 100 billion dollars in losses to the economy, and bringing Pakistan to edge of complete chaos through death, destruction and mayhem – are not our enemy? How can any truly progressive student possibly think such a thing?

I bring this to the notice of the political party that is leading these students. What are you teaching your activists? If after years of activism, our youth leaders cannot even in words identify the Taliban as an enemy, I question the kind of political education that is being provided to these youngsters?

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