Consensus against violent groups--- 19/05/2009

Dialogue with violent groups is about ending violence and not about conceding political ground or territorial control. In a fragmented political scene like ours, it is a major challenge to reach this understanding

Political support for fighting insurgencies of all types requires national consensus. The term consensus however doesn’t mean perfect or total agreement. The major stakeholders, players and state institutions must have an agreement on who the enemy is and how best to end the violence against citizens.

In the present political map of Pakistan, the political parties, civil society and social groups from the Swat region and FATA are the real stakeholders. Rationally speaking, their interests are peace, stability, progress and good governance. There should be no doubt about the true aspirations of the people of this region.

All militant political or religious groups that take up arms against the state have a narrative of grievances, both real and fictional, that they use to build up a support base and to convince people about their path. But argument is never a strong weapon for the militants; it is through the gun, through torture and through mass murder that they establish control over communities.

Every insurgent group in our region, throughout history, has the narrative of injustice and hopelessness. They deliberately trashed the good intentions of governments and those political elements that wanted to reach out to them, and doubted their sincerity in resolving disputes through negotiations and peaceful means. This is not to say that all governments or those in positions of authority in Pakistan or other parts of South Asia were always people of peace and good judgement. Many of them are greatly responsible for the conditions of conflict.

We have often written about the causes of our current troubles, but this piece is essentially about how we can defeat those who are not willing to live under the Constitution and threaten the people, society and state of Pakistan with violence.

Sadly we have been through many violent conflicts and the threat of non-religious political violence still persists. Ethnic violence in Karachi for the past few years, notably on May 12, 2007 and April this year is a stark reminder of the many trouble spots that could divert our political attention and spread our security resources too thin.

What is then the consensus about? It is primarily about zero tolerance of violence and violent groups, regardless of their religious, sectarian or ethnic make-up. One reason some of these groups have become more violent is to establish territorial domains and dominance in the face of a weakened state and government. It is weak in terms of political legitimacy, moral standing and the political capacity to take bold decisions. Economic strains, ineffective leadership and disagreements among some vital sections of society on how to deal with terrorists further add to the weakness of the Pakistani state.

The narrow political interests of Pervez Musharraf and political expediency shaped his regime’s alliances with an ethnic group with a violent past in Karachi and the religious right, which has very close affinity with the Taliban. We now face the boomerang effects of his political strategy both in Karachi and in the border regions.

The writ of the Pakistani state is threatened by more than one group and in more than one region. Our present focus on Swat shouldn’t blind us to even greater and clearer dangers that we may face if we continue to fail in building national consensus against violent groups.

There are two important reasons for this failure. The first is duplicity; for example when a head of state celebrates violence in one part of the country as a sign of his political strength while using force against militants in another part, or when a political government fails to call a spade a spade owing to political expediency.

Such duplicity is a clear and dangerous sign of the weakening of the state. The politics of any party or group needs to be separated from the violent and criminal acts of activists, workers or hired guns, regardless of their affiliation. Tolerating the violence of one group encourages others to do the same, and further undermines the legitimacy of use of force by the state, especially if it is being selective in its targeting.

Use of force is not the preferred solution or the only option that a state must employ; and in an ethnically pluralistic and politically complex society like Pakistan, it cannot be the weapon of choice. As we have seen, it can be more divisive than uniting when the violent groups have a strong ethnic social support base and are plugged into nationwide religious networks.

The second important reason for our failure is a lack of clarity among our political elites on the identity of the enemy. The definition of enemy is politically loaded and every group will have its take based on its particular political imperatives. The picture becomes more confusing when there is more than one enemy, internal and external, and prevents the formation of a national consensus both on the identification of threat and how to deal with them.

Pakistan faces multiple internal and external threats today; we have referred to the linkages between the internal enemies, and the identity of our external foes is also very clear. We need to have clarity on these threats and how best to use our social, political and military resources to counter them, and to bring violent groups into mainstream politics and society.

This is what makes politics an art, and not a science; it seeks to make things possible and explore the outer limits of dialogue and understanding to resolve conflicts. But dialogue with violent groups is about ending violence and not about conceding political ground or territorial control. In a fragmented political scene like ours, it is a major challenge to reach this understanding; but without such an understanding and consensus, we will neither be able to point out our enemies nor find the right means to fight them.

Dr Rasul Bakhsh Rais is author of Recovering the Frontier State: War, Ethnicity and State in Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 2008) and a professor of Political Science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. He can be reached at rasul@lums.edu.pk