Monday, January 13, 2014
Ambivalent on militancy
THE attacks keep mounting, the state keeps dithering, the politicians keep squabbling and the public remains as confused as ever. Yesterday’s attack on PML-N leader Amir Muqam in Shangla is just the latest in a seemingly endless stream of attacks across the length and breadth of the country — and destined to become yet another attack that did not cause an inflection point in the national response to militancy and terrorism. Witness the pusillanimous response of the political class to the bravery of 15-year-old Aitezaz Hussain — so much so that Imran Khan himself has voiced his disappointment at his own party’s government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. And while the prime minister and the army chief have shown some moral courage in recognising the ultimate sacrifice and unimaginable bravery of young Aitezaz Hussain, a more fitting response would be if the state finally developed some clarity on what the Taliban represent and why coexistence with their ideology ought to be unacceptable.
Yet, real change — of the good kind — is nowhere to be seen. So the questions have necessarily become grimmer too. What, exactly, will it take for the state to accept that the dialogue-first option is not a real strategy against militancy? A return to the devastating violence that wracked the country in the late 2000s and early 2010s? While the Taliban have proven they still have the ability to launch physically and psychologically devastating attacks, it is also almost certainly true that the sustained pressure put on them in various pockets across Fata and parts of KP by the military has affected their ability to achieve the level of violence of four or five years ago. Paradoxically, then, does a possible depletion of the Taliban’s capabilities — or at least a disruption of their network — mean that the state is willing to settle for a long-term bloody stalemate now? A stalemate in which neither side is poised to inflict the final blow on the other and one in which society, the economy and national psyche are left in a continually perilous state?
To denounce that possibility as craven surrender or supine leadership would be to miss the point. While those characterisations may well be true, the point at this stage really is to try and understand how a different course can be encouraged. Imran Khan and the religious right have staked out their positions. The PPP, the ANP and the MQM — essentially the secular left — showed their lack of ideas over five years. Now, the PML-N appears sympathetic to the idea of dialogue without necessarily being enthusiastic about it. The army appears itching to take on the TTP, but continues to be ambivalent about the idea of jihad and proxies. Somehow, from those variables, a more effective policy against militancy has to be crafted. But from where exactly is the existential question of today.
The eternal mistrust
THE views of former US defence secretary Robert Gates on the mistrust between Pakistan and America shouldn’t surprise us. It has been there even when this country was America’s most “allied ally” and the US had a base in Pabbi. Those were the mad Cold War days, with a commie behind every bush. Pakistan then considered itself at the centre of several concentric circles and enjoyed its self-assumed importance. It had a bilateral defence pact (MDAP) with the US, was a member of the Baghdad (later Cento) pact and was considered a ‘link’ in the worldwide US-led chains of anti-communist alliances because it joined the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation, too. Later, along with Turkey and Iran, it adhered to the Eisenhower Doctrine. Yet America never fully shared Pakistan’s view of India, even though secretary of state John Foster Dulles termed neutrality — which the US press called ‘Nehrutrality’ — immoral. Islamabad likewise felt piqued by the massive doses of economic aid which Washington continued to gift to New Delhi. The first major breach occurred during the 1962 Himalayan war when Pakistanis thoroughly enjoyed the drubbing the Indian military received from China. President Kennedy felt Pakistan had not behaved like a US ally, and began rushing American military hardware to India. The split was complete.
The 1965 war widened the rift with America, which would rediscover Pakistan’s strategic importance a decade and a half later when Brezhnev invaded Afghanistan only to be humiliated. It was then left to the OBL hijackers to effect a rapprochement. Eleven years have passed and they have continued to cooperate while secretly and often publicly bemoaning each other’s duplicity. Yet both realise the geopolitical consequences inherent in mutual abandonment. No American strategist would ever think of walking away from the Gulf and southwest Asia where the US has vital economic and geopolitical interests, nor does common sense suggest Islamabad show a red rag to the superpower bull. It is their destiny to cooperate while grumbling and murmuring. Memoirs of a secretary at war, the second Gates book, however, shows a consciousness of Pakistan’s problems when it speaks of safe havens on both sides of the border. In spite of the eternal mistrust, and to repeat a cliché, what unites them is greater than what divides them.
Ban on arms, pillion-riding
ANOTHER spell of high security and another meaningless move by the Sindh government. With Eid Milad-un-Nabi falling tomorrow amid fears that there could be violence, the provincial administration has announced a ban on the carrying of weapons and on motorcycle pillion-riding in five cities, including Karachi. Till Jan 15, special permits to carry arms have been cancelled, and any motorcycle carrying two or more male passengers risks being stopped by the police. And stopped they will be, since regrettably many policemen consider pillion-riding bans as manna from heaven. In a country where the shortage of public transport means that millions ride motorbikes, the citizenry often has no choice but to double-up. Over the next few days, that is reason enough for them to be harassed; many will not be able to avoid paying up. As for the ban on arms, suffice it to say that we are certain that all the law-abiding citizens who have taken the trouble to obtain licences will be dutiful and lock up their weapons. It can only be hoped, though, that all the criminals and violent extremists that keep peace at bay in this country are similarly conscientious. Perhaps they only need telling that their arsenals are best kept out of sight and, preferably, out of use too. (Pillion-riding might not be an issue for many of them since, they say, crime pays — especially in a place with prosecution rates as low as in Pakistan.)
Why should the Sindh government be singled out, though, for its predilection for cosmetic measures that produce little good and act, instead, as yet another inconvenience for millions of people, another reason for them to feel harassed by a state that ought to be on their side? All the provinces and the centre regularly resort to similarly pointless moves, a notable one being the trend of shutting down the mobile phone network during periods of insecurity. Pakistan’s security issues are grave indeed. When will the state start taking them seriously?