Pakistan: The cowards in uniforms, the heroes at sea

Pakistan’s heroes are not in Rawalpindi, not in Islamabad, not in the palatial cantonments that dot the land like parasites. They are on the open sea, carrying bread where others carry bombs, carrying hope where others carry shame.

By JUNAID S. AHMAD

Let us begin with a provocation, for nothing less would do: if courage had a capital in Pakistan, it would not be in Rawalpindi’s General Headquarters. It would be on the deck of a civilian vessel – part of the Global Sumud Flotilla – headed toward Gaza, with five Pakistanis – including former Senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan – who have dared to place their fragile, mortal bodies in the path of an Israeli war machine notorious for its appetite for blood. These men are not naïve. They know very well the grisly fate of flotillas past, gunned down in cold blood by a state that shoots aid workers with the same ease it drops American-financed bombs on refugee camps. And yet they go. Not with tanks, not with drones, but with sacks of flour and medicine. And somehow, in that terrifying imbalance, their courage outshines every medal ever pinned on a general’s chest.

It is almost comical, if it weren’t so tragic, to compare them to our own brass-buttoned overlords – the Pakistani generals. These titans of self-advertised bravery, these chronic vomiters of ghairat (honour) in every press briefing, are so busy polishing their boots on American rugs that they cannot spare even a bullet, not even a whisper, for Gaza. Instead, they distribute medals to Washington’s most fanatical Zionists, as though the Holocaust itself were reborn not in Gaza but in Rawalpindi’s banquet halls, where the generals toast with their patrons. They even had the gall to suggest a Nobel Peace Prize for the man affectionately nicknamed ‘Holocaust Donald.’ One wonders whether the generals’ sense of irony has been surgically removed along with their spines.

Meanwhile, five civilians – just five, from a nation of 250 million – are willing to sail into the jaws of death to say, at the very least: ‘Not in our name.’ Their action is both pitifully small and immeasurably great. Small, because they cannot undo a genocide conducted with American weapons and Israeli enthusiasm. Great, because they expose the moral bankruptcy of an entire state apparatus whose sole definition of bravery is bulldozing its own people and arresting students with a fondness for free speech.

Consider the imagery: on one side, civilians boarding rickety ships with humanitarian aid; on the other, generals in perfectly pressed uniforms, trembling at the thought of offending their masters in Washington.

Consider the imagery: on one side, civilians boarding rickety ships with humanitarian aid; on the other, generals in perfectly pressed uniforms, trembling at the thought of offending their masters in Washington. On one side, risk without hope of reward; on the other, safety wrapped in cowardice and medals pinned for services to empire. If hypocrisy were an Olympic sport, Pakistan’s top brass would sweep the podium.

And the media? Ah yes, our gallant ‘free press.’ Where is their wall-to-wall coverage of this flotilla, this act of Pakistani defiance? It is nowhere. They whisper about it in the margins, careful not to embarrass the cowards in uniform who might choke on their imported cigars if confronted with actual courage. It is safer, after all, to report on cricket scores and celebrity weddings than to admit that five ordinary Pakistanis have done more for Palestine than the entire defence establishment has done in decades.

This silence is no accident. The generals understand that the real enemy is not Israel, nor America, nor even India – it is embarrassment. To be outshone by civilians with nothing but their faith and a few supplies is intolerable to men who measure honour by the tonnage of their real estate portfolios. Better to suppress the story, to make it invisible, than to risk the public asking uncomfortable questions: ‘If five men can go, why not fifty thousand? If a senator can risk his life, why not an army?’ These are questions that shake thrones, so better not to ask them at all.

The Americans, of course, look on with approval. Their lunatic Zionists in power – those grinning armchair genocidaires who write billion-dollar checks to Israel with the same casualness that they order Frappuccinos – are delighted to see Pakistan’s army playing the role of obedient client state. They know that Rawalpindi will never dare to send real material support to Gaza. At most, a few crocodile tears at the UN, followed by a discreet military parade to reassure Washington that nothing serious is brewing. The empire sleeps well knowing that its client generals are too busy saluting to fight.

But the flotilla changes something. It is not the power of arms – Israel can sink those ships in an afternoon, and America will applaud. It is the power of shame. Those five Pakistanis have revealed a chasm between the rhetoric of honour and its practice. They have demonstrated that even in a country suffocated by cowardice at the top, there remain conscientious souls willing to stand where history demands they stand.

They remind us that Pakistan’s generals, for all their swagger, have been unmasked as little more than security guards for empire, while the real defenders of dignity are unarmed civilians sailing into danger.

Let us not romanticise too much. They are not going to liberate Palestine. They will not stop the genocide. But their act carries symbolic power greater than the sum of their lives. They remind us that history does not always belong to those with the biggest guns, but sometimes to those with the clearest conscience. They remind us that Pakistan’s generals, for all their swagger, have been unmasked as little more than security guards for empire, while the real defenders of dignity are unarmed civilians sailing into danger.

There is, too, an element of humour here – dark humour, to be sure. Imagine the generals watching footage of the flotilla on their plasma screens. Imagine the panic: ‘How dare these civilians do what we have not done? How dare they embarrass us by acting like men while we polish medals for Zionists?’ It is the kind of comedy that borders on tragedy, like watching a lion flee from a mouse.

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And so, we arrive at the stark contrast: five men with nothing to lose but their lives, against an entire military machine with everything to lose but its conscience. Five men who know they may be sailing to their deaths and yet find meaning in that sacrifice. Five men whose courage has already eclipsed the cowardice of their so-called guardians of the nation.

This is why their voyage matters. It is not simply about aid to Gaza. It is about reclaiming the very idea of courage from those who have debased it.

This is why their voyage matters. It is not simply about aid to Gaza. It is about reclaiming the very idea of courage from those who have debased it. It is about reminding a nation of 250 million that true honour is not measured in parades or medals or rented alliances, but in the willingness to stand with the oppressed even when the cost is death.

At the end of the day, the flotilla may be destroyed, the volunteers may be killed, and Israel may chalk up another ‘victory’ in its gruesome tally. But the moral ledger will remain open. And on that ledger, the names of five Pakistanis will shine brighter than the entire constellation of stars on the shoulders of our generals.

The generals may have their guns, their medals, their patronage networks, their American visas. But what they do not have – and what they cannot fake – is courage. Five men sailing into the abyss have stripped them bare. And no amount of propaganda, no quantity of medals for Zionists, no thunderous declarations of ‘strategic depth’ can ever clothe that nakedness again.

Let the last word be this: nations are not remembered for their generals. They are remembered for their heroes. And in this moment, Pakistan’s heroes are not in Rawalpindi, not in Islamabad, not in the palatial cantonments that dot the land like parasites. They are on the open sea, carrying bread where others carry bombs, carrying hope where others carry shame. If Pakistan has any future worth the name, it is with them – not with the cowardly brass who confuse surrender for strategy.

And so, the flotilla sails, into danger, into history, into the conscience of a nation that has long forgotten what courage looks like. Perhaps now, at last, it will remember.

Professor Junaid S. Ahmad teaches Law, Religion, and Global Politics and is the Director of the Centre for the Study of Islam and Decolonisation (CSID), Islamabad, Pakistan. He is a member of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST – https://just-international.org), Movement for Liberation from Nakba (MLN – https://nakbaliberation.com), and Saving Humanity and Planet Earth (SHAPE –https://www.theshapeproject.com/)