A ‘liberal’ NA ignores Taseer’s death anniversary

As a curious follower of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s Twitter account, I often find him expressing concern over the murder of Salmaan Taseer. The assassination of the former governor of Punjab by a guard specifically deputed for his security also seemed to have shaken his sisters, Bakhtawar and Aseefa. The three siblings reiterated their solidarity with Taseer’s family after completion of one full year of his murder Wednesday morning.

Yet, these sincere-sounding tweets did not seem to have motivated mainstream leaders of the party, their illustrious mother had been leading for decades to wage long drawn out battles against tyranny and bigotry.

The National Assembly that we have these days is packed with many self-declared liberals sitting on the PPP benches. It also has a distinct crowd of hardened secularists from the ranks of Awami National Party. Until my leaving the press gallery after sitting there for two hours, not one from amongst them dared to stand up and recall the murder of Salmaan Taseer that had happened in a crowded market of Islamabad.

One can disregard the opportunistic silence in the assembly in the grand interest of protecting a government. But the silence seems doubly ominous, if you consider it in the context that Islamabad police refused to provide protection to a handful of volunteers who wanted to stage a brief vigil at the spot where Taseer was killed. And the same police had not stopped another crowd from assembling at Aabpara in the morning. The wife of Mumtaz Qadri, the killer-guard, was prominently present in this crowd which chanted slogans and demanded his release for committing an act that the crowd considered commendable for faith-based reasons. With a defeatist mindset, the PPP has surely abandoned what the naïve well wishers of this party continue to associate with it: some form of ‘liberal ideology.’

Even after abandoning the so-called ‘liberal causes,’ the PPP feels no shame while feigning bravery. During the question hour, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar was found doing the same, almost audaciously. Someone from the opposition benches had asked her to explain whether the government intended to restore the Nato supplies to Afghanistan from Pakistani routes. And if yes were the answer, wasn’t it time to ask for appropriate compensation for the damage that cargo carrying containers cause to our roads.

Instead of providing a clear answer, Khar went on and on to remind her worthy colleagues that only a popularly-elected government could dare to retrieve ‘the space’ that a military-led government had conceded to a superpower. Through a unanimously adopted resolution, “the sovereign parliament of Pakistan” had clearly conveyed it to the Americans in mid-May 2011 that any violation of national sovereignty would not be tolerated the next time. They killed 24 of our soldiers at a check post on Pak-Afghan border and the prime minister took no time to close the supply routes.

After exhaustive consultations with senior Pakistani diplomats, our Foreign Office eventually articulated a package of guidelines to renegotiate the terms of engagement and cooperation with the US. The Parliamentary Committee on National Security is now deliberating over these guidelines. It will suggest the final package for consideration and approval by a joint sitting of parliament. The Foreign Office will begin talking to the State Department only in the light of guidelines furnished by a ‘sovereign parliament.’

The assertive stance of Khar did not please Dr Attiya Enayatullah. The donor countries and agencies had launched, groomed and promoted this articulate lady during the heyday of Pak-US relations in the 1980s. General Zia was then leading the Jihad in Afghanistan with not so covert help of the CIA. With the zeal of a neo-convert, however, Doctor Sahiba threw tantrums to find out from Khar as to why we had to wait for Salala to stop the Nato supplies. We should have done the same much earlier. To push the foreign minister in a tight corner, she also recalled that two years ago the ‘sovereign parliament of Pakistan’ had also asked the Zardari-Gilani government through another unanimously adopted resolution that the terms of Pak-US relations should be renegotiated after the departure of General Musharraf. Khar tried hard to make her understand that things turned qualitatively different after Salala. The May 2 attack on a compound in Abbotabad was different; for Osama had been found there after all. You really need to be recklessly audacious to practice politics in this country.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 5^th, 2012.