Militants on the march

Recent attacks against CD shop owners in Swabi highlight how ‘moral policing’ seems to be the latest trend in the country, whether conducted by the state or private individuals and groups.  When non-state actors, like the militants who target CD shops in Swabi, decide to take morality into their own hands the situation is infinitely more dangerous than any other form of censorship. At some point or the other, access to the internet, social media and most recently, telecommunications have all been under threat of censorship in Pakistan. When the government spearheads these moves for restrictions of personal liberty it is disturbing enough — but we take comfort from our ability to challenge the state’s actions in court. When militants take it upon themselves to enforce morality, however, there is no recourse to justice.

Operating on society’s shadowy margins, militants say they wish to eradicate immoral or un-Islamic activity, and they use violent means to do so. This practice was at its most extreme in Swat before the military operation but Swabi and other settled districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa have faced their own share of violence, with 2007 being an especially bad year for CD shop owners as they were hit by successive bomb attacks. Faced with all this, the issue of censorship pales in comparison to a larger problem: that the writ of the state is being undermined by militants, who kill and bomb innocents with impunity. For a strong, stable Pakistan, the state must be the only entity with the moral and legal authority to crack down on any activity — indeed, the state must be the only entity that can determine whether an act is immoral or illegal in the first place.

Legislative procedures must be followed and debate should allow for all interests to be taken into consideration before decisions are made. If the state does not stand its ground and take steps to curb the militant’s illegal and deadly actions in Swabi now, militants will only carve out greater spaces in which they feel they can exercise their will.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 28^th, 2011.