“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities’ rights.”
– Ayn Rand

When courage is lost, all is lost.
The State that lords over Pakistan is fast losing courage. The governments of the day are also losing courage. Those who populate parliaments are also losing courage.
What do we call someone who has lost courage?
Ask an 11-year old girl presently housed in Adiala jail. She has an entire village of fire-breathing people baying for her blood. She has the police registering a case against her and the government ordering one enquiry after another.
It’s the State of Pakistan versus an 11-year old girl with Down Syndrome. Courage anyone?
What of the righteous parliamentarians? Having thundered against mighty external enemies, and having breathed fire and brimstone against global powers, these legislators are tongue-tied on the fate of an 11-year old girl.
What do you call someone who has lost courage?
The death of courage has cast a dark shadow over the politics of Pakistan. The moral compass lies shattered somewhere on the cold, hard floor of expediency. A hazy, greyish river flows between the banks of Right and Wrong, blending them into one optical illusion.
Except it’s no illusion.
One 11-year old Pakistani girl with Down Syndrome has shown the mirror to the Pakistani leadership. The reflection in the mirror is grotesque. The monster in the mirror is not an illusion. The monster is real.
Leadership is all about doing the right thing. It is about internalizing moral courage and then externalizing it through policy. Leadership is not about quivering, shivering and quaking when faced with risk, and then taking the easy and expedient path.
What do you call someone who has lost courage?
I do not blame the law because it has safeguards against abuse. I do not blame the 11-year old girl with Down Syndrome because she clearly did not know what she was doing. I do not blame the crazed villagers because they have been manipulated and brainwashed by semi-literate clerics. I do not blame the hate-spewing, semi-literate clerics because they too have been fattened on a diet of intolerance and ignorance. I do not blame the rabid rabble rousing regressive religious parties who will do their rabid regressive rabble rousing because that’s how their political wheel of fortunes spin.
I blame the State for creating the environment that nurtured these elements. I blame the government for not protecting the weak and the innocent when the law itself provides for such protection. I blame the parliamentarians for their deafening and sickening silence when they should be bringing the house down with shouts. I blame the leaders of major political parties for their inaction when they are willing to hold rallies, protests, dharnas and marches at the drop of a hat.
The collective leadership of the nuclear-armed Pakistan is quaking.
What do you call someone who has lost courage?
Imagine this: the combined might and power of President Asif Zardari, Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Mian Nawaz Sharif, Altaf Hussain, Asfandyar Wali, Imran Khan, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry cannot protect one 11-year old Pakistani girl with Down Syndrome.
Courage?
No, this does not need a war. It needs the moral courage to do what is right. It needs the legal courage to do what is just. It needs the political courage to do what is responsible and humane.
Is that asking for too much?
Has the law taken its rightful course? Has the FIR been registered legally? Has the investigation been conducted thoroughly?  Have the inciters been dealt with properly? Has due protection been provided to the girl and her family? And above all, has the government – with all its powers and privileges – sent out the right message?
People take the law into their hands because the government lets them. And every time they do so, the hand of the government, and the state, is weakened one notch further. In this game of chicken, the government always blinks first. The message is: You mess with us and we will do nothing. You threaten us and we will do nothing. You browbeat us and we will do nothing.
So down and down we go, slipping, tripping, rolling and cartwheeling into the land of confusion where no one reigns except mayhem. A land where little girls stare into the eyes of a big bad wolf and there’s no woodcutter with an axe to save them. A land where the strong are weak and the weak are dead. A land where humanity withers like a delicate flower and courage bleeds like a gaping wound.
With apologies to Pastor Niemoller who said the original words, here’s what I say to you:
First they came for the Christians, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Christian.
Then they came for the Hazaras, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Hazara.
Then they came for the Shias, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Shia.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.

The writer is the host of  “Tonight with Fahd” on Waqt News.  Email: fahd.husain1@gmail.com Twitter: @fahdhusain