Ejaz Haider is right, we do not need more Aitizaz Hasans

Ejaz Haider wrote an intelligent satire titled ‘Aitizaz Hasan and the bomber’, to pay tribute to Aitizaz Hasan, the boy who had to die in order to save hundreds of students from a suicide attack.
The thesis of his article was simple; he wanted people to realise what Aitizaz had lost, how brave the boy was, and point at the ordinary life that he would miss out on even though everything else will remain the same for us.
What Haider received for his tribute to Aitizaz was undignified criticism. He, then, composed a rebuttal, ‘Reading Text for Dummies’, to explain what he had meant, but a writer should never have to do that.
Pakistan is proud that a 14-year-old Pakistani boy took on a suicide bomber, all on his own and saved hundreds of children.
I am sorry, but this disgusts me and I am sure it disgusts Haider as well.
The pathetic event that resulted in a 14-year-old’s death could have resulted in 500 injuries and more than 50 deaths but just one of them died. Aitizaz standing by the school gate was a happy coincidence that saved many lives that day but the disgust that a suicide bomber targeted a school, and a young boy had to stop him still remains.
Dancing and drowning in our foolish patriotism, we forget that an ordinary, fat boy, who probably loved eating among other mundane things, lost his life. This country brought him to a position where he had to choose between his life, his love for eating and a school full of his friends.
We, the dim-witted, but emotionally and patriotically over-enthusiastic morons disapprove of Haider calling Aitizaz ‘fat’.
This is a perfect example of how reason leaves us when we start worshiping heroes and how patriotism turns us blind. To us, Aitizaz is just a role-model and an example of patriotism, and we are going to bathe in this and worship him. We transformed a kid, so easily I might add, into an idea and we are not even going to look back at what we did.
Yes, Aitizaz saved lives that day and we are grateful to him. The government and people of Pakistan took this as an excuse, yet again, to slip through the cracks of accountability and shy away from addressing the menace of militancy.
We made him a role-model but did not condemn the fact that the blast took place in the first place.
We embraced his death but didn’t give two hoots about the life he lost – the life WE took away from him because we did nothing to prevent this spread of terrorism.
We made him a symbol of patriotism and will hail all those who die in this path, but will not question our part in their death.
All Haider did was point out that people matter, so please don’t reduce that boy into an idea; an idea as preposterous as patriotism.
Haider perhaps doesn’t think patriotism is stupid, but I do.
To a dead Aitizaz, our chants and tweets mean nothing at all. He saved living people, granted them life and now those living-people will move on with their ordinary lives. The least we can do is honour and remember his life, instead of his death.
The ordinary life that we take for granted, Aitizaz was deprived of it because Pakistan has allowed militancy to propagate. We allowed them to infiltrate us and as the people of this nation, we let them do so without any struggle. We vote for conservatism, mix religion with politics and everything that keeps this country from enlightenment.
Coming back to Ejaz Haider calling Aitizaz ‘fat’, firstly, I think it should be alright to state the obvious, so I don’t see why people have been whining about it so much. Secondly, the writer only meant to highlight Aitizaz’s ordinary life which patriotism and Pakistan have taken away from him.
If there are going to be more suicide bombers, there are inevitably going to be more Aitizazs. If that makes you proud, then go ahead and do as you please. I personally think that the innocent life that was lost matters more than the symbol of patriotism that we have turned him into.
Some people misunderstood his article Aitizaz and the bomber, and others deliberately misinterpreted it.
Patriotism is a fishy phenomenon and we are clearly very touchy when it comes to it. His explanation was to restore his tribute to Aitizaz. He wasn’t really trying to teach people how to read and interpret text, which, unfortunately, he had to do anyway.
We do not want more children to die a ‘patriotic’ death.
We do not want more children to die, period! We do not want more Aitizaz Hasans because only one million suicide bombers can make one million Aitizaz Hasans and we have had enough.

And that was the point of Ejaz Haider’s article.