Asif Mahmood
Whenever we think that the wave of terror is now a story of the past it actually accomplishes the opposite. Now as a commoner I find myself grappled with many troubling questions with which is the actual epicenter of extremism in Pakistan whether it is modern educational institutions or traditional religious schools being the ultimate conundrum.
Generally, the extremism is attached to the appearance of a person. However this does not qualify to be a touchstone in understanding the intellectual contour of any person. Extremism doesn’t relate to any certain segment of the society or any particular group. Spitting it out in a more simple way ,let me say that extremism is not associated with the religious class of our society. Even the liberal or a secular person can be one amongst the extremists.
Extremism is not how you look like; it is all about how you think. It doesn’t relate to the human appearance; it actually relates to the mental faculty of a mind.
We as a whole, unfortunately , are scuffled with extremism. We have sidestepped the sad reality that is prevalent in our modern educational institutions but it does not mean that sidestepping something can make the things go in the right direction.
If you can take my words for that, I daresay that situation in modern educational institutes are more troubling than the traditional religious schools. Religious extremism is just one among the many shades of extremism. The way our modern institutes or polluted with cultural critical and linguistic extremism speaks volumes of the fact that this is the breeding ground for the extremist.
If the raw material is available it can easily be converted into a religious extremism or in some cases it may eventually turn out to be a religious terrorism.
What we need to understand is the fact that if we want to form a peaceful society we should address the issue as a whole and not in part. Our universities and our colleges are actually being converted into the fault line and this should be dealt with accordingly. The sooner the better.
