Counter narrative on N Waziristan sounds pretty convincing

Nusrat Javeed.

A truck-load of ministers and ruling party legislators had gone to Hyderabad to assert by holding a massive rally that Sindh remains the invincible citadel of the PPP, come rain or shine. One was thus not surprised to find the National Assembly miserably deserted Monday evening. Non regular reporters of parliamentary proceedings were, however, feeling disappointed for another reason. A large number of them had come to the Senate and occupied vintage seats much before its sitting. Faisal Raza Abidi was expected to take the floor and break a ‘big story’.

Not more than ten senators were present in the house, when the proceedings started and suddenly the sitting was adjourned due to lack of appropriate numbers. The lack of respectable numbers and deferment of business, in effect, indicated serious differences within the ruling alliance.

Although it definitely has the capacity to get a constitutional amendment passed from upper house of parliament without much ado, the ruling alliance has been constantly failing to move for passage of the amendment that had been drafted to facilitate the entry of dual-nationality holders to our elected bodies.

The weightiest ally of the PPP, the MQM, is pressing for immediate passage of the said amendment. But for the first time since joining the ruling alliance four years ago, the Awami National Party does not seem willing to oblige. Its reservations have started sounding more credible since the fierce opposition that two leading PPP senators, Raza Rabbani and Aitzaz Ahsan, had publicly expressed against passage of the same amendment. One is thus reluctant to anticipate any definite progress on this move, at least during the ongoing session.

Abidi will, however, get the floor Tuesday morning. He had manoeuvred this opportunity by staging an unprecedented scene during the Senate proceedings last Thursday. Abidi insists that due to many years of political struggle, he has established the reputation of a blunt-speaking public representative.

Many people approach him with solid information on brewing scandals and he never disappoints them after doing serious counter checking. Since the eruption of Malik Riaz/Arsalan Iftikhar saga, this vocal senator from Karachi had been frequently appearing on different TV channels to throw muck at Arsalan.

A group of concerned citizens suspected that “the Machiavellian Zardari had assigned him the task of maligning the superior judiciary” by hysterically spinning these muck-throwing stories. Some of them eventually approached the Islamabad High Court to extract a restraining directive in the end.

No television network has since dared to invite him for a one-on-one show with any of its top rated anchors. Still, Islamabad police and some FIA officials started approaching the TV networks to find out what kind of “stuff” Abidi had been showing them, off and on camera.

Abidi had also been summoned to furnish any evidence, if he really has it, to substantiate allegations he had been hurling nonstop and that seemed to have backfired.

Faisal Raza Abidi is a duly elected senator. In that capacity, he savours certain protections for story-telling. Before approaching him for any ‘investigation,’ the police and FIA officials are also obliged to duly inform the Senate chairman. That apparently had not been done and this provided ample room to Abidi to agitate for invoking rules that enable a public representative to “talk about matters of public concern.”

Abidi is not striking back at those police and FIA officials who dared to summon him. His main complaint remains that through a duly issued letter a senior officer of the apex court secretariat “directed my harassment.” I have it from more than six reliable sources that after staging his act Tuesday morning, Faisal Raza Abidi is all set to formally approach President Zardari with “an appropriately filed reference”. None of my sources were, however, willing to help me find an answer to the question: “What if the President opts to sleep over the reference filed by Faisal Raza Abidi?”

My sources insist that President Zardari is not even willing to move on a far more serious and substantive issue. Since the shocking attack on Malala, a powerful section of our so-called establishment seriously believes that the target-shooting of Malala could help build a motivating ‘consensus’ to clean up North Waziristan. Such consensus was last seen in the first quarter of 2009 for clearing Swat of the parallel-state creating militants.

While the president dilly-dallies on the subject, a dedicated group of armchair revolutionaries flooded various social network sites with pictures, stories and counter narratives which helped stoke doubts. The counter narratives, spread by these elements, have rather begun sounding more convincing and credible. “Good Taliban” should thus not feel insecure. North Waziristan will continue as a base camp for waging ‘jihad’ against Afghanistan-occupying Americans and Nato forces.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 16^th, 2012.