Only We Are Turning Against Each Other

It was a valley of Koh-e-Suleman. We were sitting in an open wreck, and in winters everything is dry. Around us were dry crop fields. People grow crops in these belts, where their economic sources are crops, goats, and a family member in Dubai.

The fire was set, and a big boiler was placed on three stones. There are usually one or two common boilers in those villages of mountainous areas. A traditional food was meant to be cooked. We were new in the reins of politics; everything for us was in black and white. We were travelling in winter to some new villages to see new friends and visit more widely the masses. All this was dreamy for us. We were full of motivation and full of spirit.

“Banuk is doing nothing in Europe. Nobody is doing anything. They are just staying there and living a comfortable life.” He was arguing all this, and I was listening to him with my full attention. He had spent some long years in politics. For some time, I took all this as an unturned fact. It was kind of something which was written on stone for me. Life went on; I propagated it as a fact, merely because we were new in politics, or maybe this was the pattern of our politics — I mean Baloch politics. Maybe I am wrong. I do not know. I do not want to make an opinion without evidence.

It was an evening. I was preparing for my exam. I received a message: “Are you witnessing social media?” I went to X and saw, “Ex-Chairperson of BSO Azad, Karima Baloch, is missing from Canada.” For a moment, I was ashamed. Why did I say all this? We cannot behave like this. There is no way we should generalize who is contributing to politics and who is not.

For a moment, I was not calculating whether she would return alive or not. I was just thinking about what I had done. Balochistan came to the streets, and we too were trying our best to demonstrate against this. I remember there was a young boy who was with me when we were cooking on that plain field. He was with me throughout that journey. He was later there, giving pamphlets to the masses to come and join the protest. Later, someday, he became mortal with a gun on his chest in the mountains of Balochistan.

I remember I also saw friends and comrades say that, “This boy is not good these days. He is thinking differently. He is viewing things from another perspective. Maybe he is influenced. Maybe he has a polluted mind.” Maybe these are the dynamics of our politics. This is how we live. We do politics. We differentiate amongst us who is good and who is bad. And we try to find enemies amongst us. No one is losing anything; only we are turning against each other, and the movement is at stake.