The fruits of democracy

We used to get nascent democracy out of a dying dictatorship. Now we are about to get military courts courtesy the new democratic model. Various measures, including military courts, are being sold to us in the name of special circumstances. The only real justification we actually have is the fear of reprisals by terrorists against civilian judges. True. There are judges who spare hardcore terrorists because, either they are closet sympathisers themselves or are afraid of them. In a diseased society, every section is affected.

The question is not that of judges alone. What about prosecutors and witnesses? We have seen prosecutors and witnesses killed by murderers. How would military courts protect them? We are told that military courts will be speedy because they would be given a time frame to convict or acquit the accused. But the same can be done with the civilian courts.

In a society like ours, we must provide security and protection to judges, witnesses and prosecutors, who are trying to convict the bad guys. But protection is not just about posting gun-toting guards around them. After all, former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer was gunned down by the guard entrusted with the task to protect him. One of the tools of protection in these circumstances is ensuring the anonymity of those under threat. Keeping their identities unknown from the prying eyes of the media and the public at large is a tool successfully tried in many countries around the world. Why can’t we do that here? Yes, we can and we must.

This is not a conventional but an asymmetric war, with the state and society fighting the visible and invisible beasts. No army in recorded history has ever defeated an insurgency without the active support of the people. It has not happened before and will not happen here.



Do we know how the bodies of the recently hanged convicts were received? There were big funerals for them. It is clear that we still have sizeable support for the terrorists’ ideology. Can military courts fight this sympathy wave for terrorists? The answer is a clear ‘No’.

The heart and soul of this war is not about convicting, killing or hanging a certain number of terrorists. It is all about eliminating support for the terror ideology from the minds of the people. It may sound like a cliche but it is and remains a fight for the hearts and minds of the people.

In the fight for the hearts and minds of the people, it is critical to prove the moral superiority of the state fighting against terror. If we act like terrorists in our pursuit to eliminate terror, we will only embolden them. We must punish terrorists but we must not act like them. Just like terrorists, we can’t be the judge and the jury. Therefore, we must create mechanisms not only to administer justice but ensure that it is seen to be doing justice as well. Yes, justice delayed is justice denied but justice hurried is also justice buried.

Remember, terrorists can and will commit the most heinous crimes but the state will erode its moral plank if it punishes a single innocent person. In the fight for justice and peace, it is critical to establish the moral authority of the state. This war will not be decided by military superiority but by the moral superiority of the state.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 31^st, 2014.

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