NAP. Snore. Repeat.
Erecting barriers, checking ID cards at check posts, and having police mobiles parked at major chowks is not policy
Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. PHOTO: PID
Is the National Action Plan turning into one of those bad jokes that don’t have a punchline?
Constituted within the ambient range of the APS tragedy, the NAP as it’s now so appropriately called, promised a new-found resolve among the country’s leadership to battle those whom it had always mollycoddled. Those men (and a few women) who sat around the bouquet-laden table in the Prime Minister’s House in January last were never in doubt they were signing on something that looked much better on paper.
So after much hemming and hawing, they all agreed to NAP. And then they began to snore.
No surprise then that we are where we are today — running around like plucked chickens trying to secure tens of thousands of schools instead of slaying the monster who’s slaying our children.
Meanwhile, the citizens of this country are grappling with primordial fears — fears that should have ideally been buried along with the jet black terrorists hanging from the noose. Confused, anxious and nervous, parents are perplexed about who and what to listen to. The last one week has been a classic case of a befuddled leadership struggling and failing to project a sense of authority and direction.
Which begs the question: is anyone at all in charge?
The army chief is shuttling between Charsadda, Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Karachi while the prime minister spends lazy days in Davos and London. Who’s taking what decisions? The Punjab chief minister orders the closing of all schools for a week, while the interior minister says there was no need to shut down schools. Who’s taking what decisions? The armed forces order the closure of Army and Bahria schools in Sindh, leaving the other schools without any direction; then the Sindh government issues similar orders but confusion reigns. Who’s taking what decisions? Provincial governments issue fresh directions to schools to beef up security, but no one knows which school can take what measures, and is it even possible to verify if these steps have been taken? Walls, guards, barbed wire, barriers? Will these keep the terrorists out? Who’s taking what decisions?
And then the security drills? Does anybody with an iota of sanity left have an idea of the grotesqueness we are calling the new normal? In the name of preparedness, guards with assault weapons are barging into classrooms, aiming their guns at the nervous and/or bemused kids, bundling them out with their heads down and generally re-enacting the horror of a real attack? Yes, we need the kids to be aware of the threat, and yes, we need to have some drills, but do we really have to do it in this crass way? Would you like your child to be looking into the barrel of a gun, even if it’s a drill?
Have we collectively lost our bearings, our minds and our basic humanity? And so we unfortunately return to the original question:
Is ANYBODY in charge here?
Post-Charsadda, Pakistan appears to be adrift in a sea of confusion. Bombastic rhetoric fired off through badly-written, cliche-ridden press releases will just not cut it. Instead of confidence, reality is instilling jitters. Attempting to secure every educational institution is not policy. Raising new units among the police force to respond to threats in schools is not policy. Issuing arms licences to teachers is not policy. Erecting barriers on roads, checking ID cards at check posts, and having police mobiles parked at major chowks is not policy. What it is in fact, is abject surrender to an enemy which, we were told, is on the run. Really? It seems we are.
NAP was our answer to this enemy. NAP was our answer to the murder of our children. NAP was our answer to the wanton destruction of everything we hold sacred. NAP was the atonement for our cowardice. NAP was the atonement for creating and nurturing these monsters. NAP was the atonement for us extending our hand of friendship to their clenched fist. NAP was the atonement for our leaders calling them brothers while they slit our throats and drank our blood.
NAP was us finally waking up. Except we never did.
And so we respectfully ask all those luminaries who signed on the NAP: shame on you, or shame on us? Parents are not supposed to outlive their children. And yet Pakistanis continue to lower those tiny coffins into graves because the luminaries who signed on the NAP do not have the courage to live up to their commitments. Today, we live in pure terror because these men and women, who gathered in the PM House that January day and proclaimed a new beginning and a fresh resolve, have betrayed us. They have all the power, all the resources, all the mandate, but they lack moral clarity; they lack moral responsibility and above all they lack moral courage.
We die. They NAP. Shame on them? Or Shame on us?
So let’s ask these leaders in one voice: why have you not implemented all the 20 points of the NAP in totality? Why have you not reformed this rotten criminal justice system that sells justice to the highest bidder? Why have you not reformed the noxious curriculum that teaches our kids hate instead of love? Why have you not reformed the madrassas so they stop being breeding and recruitment centres for extremist elements? Why have you not smashed the terror networks hiding in plain sight? Why have you not gone after the TTP safe havens across the border in Afghanistan? Why are you still so weak, so confused, so clueless and so devoid of a strategic vision that after all these years, after all these promises and all these commitments — you still cannot protect us.
The Pakistani State today speaks with a big mouth and carries a very small stick. This small stick may swat flies, but at a defining moment in our nation’s life, it cannot defeat the enemy that threatens our future. Let it then be known to one and all: when we the people needed them most, they the leaders took a NAP.
Shame on us?
Published in The Express Tribune, January 31st, 2016.
Constituted within the ambient range of the APS tragedy, the NAP as it’s now so appropriately called, promised a new-found resolve among the country’s leadership to battle those whom it had always mollycoddled. Those men (and a few women) who sat around the bouquet-laden table in the Prime Minister’s House in January last were never in doubt they were signing on something that looked much better on paper.
So after much hemming and hawing, they all agreed to NAP. And then they began to snore.
No surprise then that we are where we are today — running around like plucked chickens trying to secure tens of thousands of schools instead of slaying the monster who’s slaying our children.
Meanwhile, the citizens of this country are grappling with primordial fears — fears that should have ideally been buried along with the jet black terrorists hanging from the noose. Confused, anxious and nervous, parents are perplexed about who and what to listen to. The last one week has been a classic case of a befuddled leadership struggling and failing to project a sense of authority and direction.
Which begs the question: is anyone at all in charge?
The army chief is shuttling between Charsadda, Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Karachi while the prime minister spends lazy days in Davos and London. Who’s taking what decisions? The Punjab chief minister orders the closing of all schools for a week, while the interior minister says there was no need to shut down schools. Who’s taking what decisions? The armed forces order the closure of Army and Bahria schools in Sindh, leaving the other schools without any direction; then the Sindh government issues similar orders but confusion reigns. Who’s taking what decisions? Provincial governments issue fresh directions to schools to beef up security, but no one knows which school can take what measures, and is it even possible to verify if these steps have been taken? Walls, guards, barbed wire, barriers? Will these keep the terrorists out? Who’s taking what decisions?
And then the security drills? Does anybody with an iota of sanity left have an idea of the grotesqueness we are calling the new normal? In the name of preparedness, guards with assault weapons are barging into classrooms, aiming their guns at the nervous and/or bemused kids, bundling them out with their heads down and generally re-enacting the horror of a real attack? Yes, we need the kids to be aware of the threat, and yes, we need to have some drills, but do we really have to do it in this crass way? Would you like your child to be looking into the barrel of a gun, even if it’s a drill?
Have we collectively lost our bearings, our minds and our basic humanity? And so we unfortunately return to the original question:
Is ANYBODY in charge here?
Post-Charsadda, Pakistan appears to be adrift in a sea of confusion. Bombastic rhetoric fired off through badly-written, cliche-ridden press releases will just not cut it. Instead of confidence, reality is instilling jitters. Attempting to secure every educational institution is not policy. Raising new units among the police force to respond to threats in schools is not policy. Issuing arms licences to teachers is not policy. Erecting barriers on roads, checking ID cards at check posts, and having police mobiles parked at major chowks is not policy. What it is in fact, is abject surrender to an enemy which, we were told, is on the run. Really? It seems we are.
NAP was our answer to this enemy. NAP was our answer to the murder of our children. NAP was our answer to the wanton destruction of everything we hold sacred. NAP was the atonement for our cowardice. NAP was the atonement for creating and nurturing these monsters. NAP was the atonement for us extending our hand of friendship to their clenched fist. NAP was the atonement for our leaders calling them brothers while they slit our throats and drank our blood.
NAP was us finally waking up. Except we never did.
And so we respectfully ask all those luminaries who signed on the NAP: shame on you, or shame on us? Parents are not supposed to outlive their children. And yet Pakistanis continue to lower those tiny coffins into graves because the luminaries who signed on the NAP do not have the courage to live up to their commitments. Today, we live in pure terror because these men and women, who gathered in the PM House that January day and proclaimed a new beginning and a fresh resolve, have betrayed us. They have all the power, all the resources, all the mandate, but they lack moral clarity; they lack moral responsibility and above all they lack moral courage.
We die. They NAP. Shame on them? Or Shame on us?
So let’s ask these leaders in one voice: why have you not implemented all the 20 points of the NAP in totality? Why have you not reformed this rotten criminal justice system that sells justice to the highest bidder? Why have you not reformed the noxious curriculum that teaches our kids hate instead of love? Why have you not reformed the madrassas so they stop being breeding and recruitment centres for extremist elements? Why have you not smashed the terror networks hiding in plain sight? Why have you not gone after the TTP safe havens across the border in Afghanistan? Why are you still so weak, so confused, so clueless and so devoid of a strategic vision that after all these years, after all these promises and all these commitments — you still cannot protect us.
The Pakistani State today speaks with a big mouth and carries a very small stick. This small stick may swat flies, but at a defining moment in our nation’s life, it cannot defeat the enemy that threatens our future. Let it then be known to one and all: when we the people needed them most, they the leaders took a NAP.
Shame on us?
Published in The Express Tribune, January 31st, 2016.