The city,undaunted

The incompetence of the men in charge of Lahore and Punjab can be gauged by the fact that when the Sri Lankans were attacked in the heart of the city on March 3,the just-appointed police chief had the nerve to say that he did not expect such an attack and thus his force was caught unawares. No heads rolled.

This time round,the callous remark was left to the advisor read minister of the interior in Islamabad,Rehman Malik,himself a former intelligence sleuth. He simply said Mondays attack was not expected. The question that will be asked: does this government expect the terrorists to warn it before they strike? It took the army and paramilitary forces eight hours to secure the training school that came under attack,and while action was ongoing,there was no notable official on the scene representing the government or overseeing the operation. It is this sheer absence of governance that must be blamed for these two attacks,outrageous and daring,and within weeks of each other.

Lahoris are known for taking adversity in their stride,refusing to be bogged down; and they do it with a bang. They may forgive but they are not made of the stuff that forgets easily. Their sense of justice and fair play is unparalleled. Punjab politicians may be as corrupt as their counterparts elsewhere but there is nevertheless a certain morality that the people still attach to politics. Lahore gave Benazir Bhutto a historic welcome on her arrival home from exile to challenge General Zia in 1986. In 1967,it was the birthplace of the Peoples Party at a time when nowhere else could Ayub Khans stranglehold be challenged,a birth which finally culminated in the dictator stepping down. In the 1988 election following Zias plane crash,seven of Lahores then nine National Assembly seats went to the PPP. In 1999,when Nawaz Sharif was overthrown by Musharraf,Lahoris celebrated his ouster by distributing sweets and breaking into bhangra. And just a decade down the road,on March 15 last,the same Peoples Party cut a sorry figure when Lahoris defied the restrictions imposed by Governor Taseers administration and rallied behind Nawaz Sharif to get Iftikhar Chaudhry restored as the chief justice of Pakistan.

The people of Lahore do not bow before highhandedness,nor will they do so before terrorism as they have repeatedly shown in the months just past,as the going got tough. In November last year,a bomb went off at the annual international music festival. The government asked the organisers to cancel the weeklong event,but the show went on,because both the whos-who of town and ordinary Lahoris turned up in large numbers to support the liberal values they cherish. Similar attacks outside theatres have not prevented them from going back to the stage and keeping the shows running.

Lahores women,equally,have braved the batons and the tear gas of dictators and autocrats. Theyve defied Zias Sharia laws by protesting under martial law; theyve confounded the mullahs by running in marathons despite threats from extremists. Lahoris continue to celebrate the kite-flying festival despite similar threats or restrictions. In an act of defiance to Zias Islamisation policy,the citys red district had refused to shut shop the dictator had to leave it alone.

It is a city where ideologues like the poet Iqbal and journalist Hameed Nizami,and dissidents like Faiz,Manto and Jalib,chose to live in tolerance of one another. It cannot be bogged down by agents of intolerance.

The writer is an editor with Dawn,Karachi

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