Raymond Davis and hypocrisy

Instead of setting a legal precedent, releasing Davis has ensured that we fight the same battle at a later date.

Poet Walt Whitman once said “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes”. It’s a quote I like to trot out whenever I find myself arguing for every conceivable position on some pressing issue of the day. It allows me to fool myself into feeling pride, rather than shame, at my indecision.

Anyone who has ventured an opinion on the Raymond Davis saga has to admit, that he or she is operating from a position of ignorance. Outside of a few government officials, no one can say with any certainty whether Davis had diplomatic status. Since the entire case hinges on the issue of immunity, any thoughts offered hinge entirely on emotion and prejudice rather than logic.

Broadly speaking, opinions on Davis were divided along ideological lines. Those infused with ultra-nationalism or religious fervour, declared that murder is murder. The nuances of diplomatic immunity were lost on them. Then, there were the liberals and realists who ruefully argued that, as a client state of the US, Pakistan had no option but to release Davis. His diplomatic status was merely a useful tool employed to add meat to an argument that had already been formulated.

In the two months that the controversy invaded the public consciousness, opinions solidified and became even more intractable. This dogmatism should have become untenable when Davis was released under the qisas and diyat laws. The outcome was one the liberals desired, but the underlying justification for it should have been anathema to them. Conversely, the qisas and diyat laws have long been championed by the Sharia crowd. Using those same laws to free an American spy was like bowling a bit of a googly.

Instead of giving everyone pause to re-examine their own opinions about the Davis case, both sides have been having a field day pointing out the hypocrisies of their ideological opponents. Liberals are laughing at the mullahs, who after arguing for the qisas and diyat laws for years, are now decrying the fact that the hateful and imperialist Americans are the ones benefiting from it. But they are purposely forgetting their own culpability in sidestepping the fact that, the desired outcome was achieved only by using laws they stringently oppose.

In the midst of this frenzy of point-scoring, none of us seem to have realised that other than the immediate issue of Raymond Davis’s future, not a single issue has been resolved. Since Davis was freed before his claim of immunity could be ruled upon, the status of US officials who straddle the line between diplomacy and espionage is still undetermined. With so many Americans roaming the land, another Davis is sure to crop up soon enough. Instead of setting a legal precedent, releasing Raymond Davis has simply ensured that we fight the same battle at a later date.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 18^th, 2011.