Blight of nations

A man dies and goes to heaven. At Pearly Gates, he is accosted by Saint Peter. After quick introductions and seeing everything checks out, the Saint asks our man to show his scars. The clueless man says he has no scars to show. The saint retorts, “What a pity! Was there nothing worth fighting for?”

Societal evolution has wired our brains to divide the choices available to us among neat little piles marked good and bad. Since most of our adult life is spent in the grey area between the two stacks, life is usually a struggle against our most intrinsic programming.

Around the world, democrats watch with horror as their rivals snatch from them their most cherished principles and use them against them. Freedom of speech can now range from saying the N-word on air to posting terror manifestos online. Thanks to Citizens United versus FEC use of dark money in politics is speech too. Likewise, freedom of assembly can also mean assault on public properties like the US Capitol. And the ones attacking such symbols can still call themselves patriots. Confusing, right? Devastating.

What the world is facing today is old news in our neck of the woods. Twenty years ago, when the country that had been programmed to lionise militancy in faith decided (primarily due to extraneous but fundamentally sound reasons) to confront the spectre of terrorism, its entire system exploded in a flurry of pushbacks. To comprehend the base programming, just go through the lyrics of the national songs we inherited from ‘Aey Quaid-e-Azam tera ehsaan hai’ to ‘Aey mard-e-mujahid jaag zara’. What does stand out? Two things. The emphasis on the Islamic identity. And the identification of the enemy as kafir. Don’t get me wrong. I am not arguing with retiring them. They are an inextricable part of our cultural history. All I want to point out is that in simpler times, our opinion-makers presumed that the enemy could come in only one shade and colour.

And then, in the fight against terror, our soldiers and law enforcement personnel were confronted by an enemy who raised the same slogans as them. You shouted ‘Nara-e-Takbeer Allah-o-Akbar’; they shouted ‘Nara-e-Takbeer Allah-o-Akbar’ and exploded in your close proximity killing themselves and you. This is enough to mess people up for life. And remember that most of your garden-variety television pundits have grown on the same tree. They tried their best to obscure facts with conspiracy theories, which did not help even one bit. But somehow, the discipline still held up. The war kept going. The enemy was almost defeated. Until late 2021 when self-destructive deals were cut with the terrorists and jet-black villains were allowed to walk free.

What kept the war going? Remember, the desire to cut deals with the terrorists is not new. Shakai, Sararogha, Swat and then in 2014, the TTP nominated Imran Khan and Sami-ul-Haq as mediators. But the war went on. The reasons were existential. When the enemy starts attacking you, the wounds they inflict work as the final argument. If your life is my death, better you die. Crystallising moment, right? But the struggle in the heart of our hard state never went away. During the rule of Imran Khan, the Taliban apologists finally gained a foothold through backdoors and rapidly consolidated their position in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s war-affected areas. We are living in the timeline that emerged after our state decided to push back against their dominance.

I earlier brought up the matter of fundamentally sound reasons. Here is an explanation. The fight against terrorism, militancy and extremism was important because such elements gradually tended to dismantle the state structure and seek to install a totalitarian theocracy. But Pakistan’s case is further complicated by two factors: one, it did not emerge as an organic nation centuries ago; two, halfway through its history, it lost a substantial part of its territory to an independent Bangladesh. Add to it the complication offered by political Islam, which did not have a consensus (ijtihad, ijma, qiyas, you name it) interpretation for over a millennium when there were no nation-states and only empires. So, if Pakistan allows these elements to prevail, they would seek to merge the country with a larger empire with a capital abroad. A colony of sorts with no local voice. In essence, the end of the republic. Also, there is no end to the crusade of such elements. A country that allows its territory to be used as the base camp of international militancy not only annoys its rivals like India but also offends allies like China, Russia, Europe and the US.

To think that the pushback against such elements would undermine the Muslim identity of the country is preposterous. Nearly 97 per cent of its population is Muslim. So, our state reached the same wise conclusion twenty years ago where Indonesia’s Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (Revival of Islamic Scholars) has reached today. Then terrorists made this job easy too. When suicide is haram in Islam, how can suicide bombing be permissible? When killing unarmed civilians is not permitted, how can killing your coreligionists be justified?

Resulting recalibration has enormous potential. The decision to act like a nation-state and not allow its soil to be used against others in the name of religion would also include the desire to have better relations with neighbours — also, the recent decision to keep the army away from politics. And to focus on rebuilding the economy.

Do not think for a second that there is no connection between the fall of Kabul, the deal that brought terrorists back to our soil and the attack on the corps commander’s house in Lahore and the GHQ in Rawalpindi.

Some Western pundits who have a visceral dislike of the Pakistan Army or Pakistan itself for the alleged support of the Taliban seem to be lionising the miscreants who indulged in such dark deeds. But here is a fundamental contradiction. In doing so, they champion the very elements whose actions earned their ire in the first place. Army is being punished because it wants to oppose militancy and calls to play a political role. Given our history, it is a leap of faith to believe that. But the evidence should convince you. Look at the attacks on the army. And also, bear in mind it is the only institution which ensures a regular turnover.

In the hour of the crisis of judgment, in gloom and moral dilemmas, I have a coping mechanism I can identify. Pick a direction, and don’t stop. Corrections will present themselves if need be. Also, don’t let go of what works. In Pakistan’s case, discipline and the desire to preserve the country have always worked. Why change that now for populism? Also, embrace your scars and be ready for more because they will make you great.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 13^th, 2023.

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