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Pakistan has lost its spiritual grounding, said the Peshawar Frontier Post in an editorial. As the nation celebrates the Eid-ul-Azha, a tribute to those who are completing their pilgrimage in Mecca, how many of us are truly dedicated to the “august day’s sublime message of supreme sacrifice?” Certainly few in the “elitist classes.” Politics at all levels is dominated by a few “families of land barons,” various upstarts, and “their hangers-on,” greedy to maintain their status as “rapacious exploiters of the masses.” Clerics are little better. Rather than true piety, they display an ostentatious “religiosity” that asks for austerity from others while “living in style and riding the sleek cars.” Worst of all, though, “is the chicanery of the intellectual elite.” Dripping with self-righteousness and condescension, the intellectuals pretend to be the only liberal-minded, enlightened people in an otherwise backward land. “They are out to paint the predominantly hapless citizens of this country to the outside world as rapists, honor-killers, obscurantists, fanatics, and evil-incarnates.” The faithful among us know what piety and sacrifice are. When will our leaders remember?
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