BEYOND THE MELEE
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
The country is increasingly dominated by a political melee with the return of selected leaders and their henchmen, courtesy the United States and the NRO -- although the fate of the latter thankfully is still not certain in terms of its survivability in the face of the law and legal norms. Nevertheless, Islamabad is already awash with old carpetbaggers and the advance guard for the perennial party hoppers -- of the political not social variety. Everyone is being targeted and old accusatory labels have also been revived with Benazir firing the first salvo before she reached Karachi in an attack against the Supreme Court premised on the provincial card.
Meanwhile, the temporarily reprieved allegedly corrupt souls are already trying to fit their favourites in the various corridors of power in the capital which is why the bureaucracy is off and running to secure their future. The disease has got so out of control that the Presidency has had to issue a warning to the State mandarins. Of course, Ms Bhutto's return has also given a boost to the pro-US lobbies in Pakistan and we are now being informed how the US "saved" us from a nuclear attack from India and Israel.
This despite the fact that the Indians were not prepared to risk such a move given the fear of a reciprocal attack on Bombay from the Pakistani side and the Israelis also faced certain uncertainties that have also prevented them from attacking Iran so far. In any event, if the US had advised against such an attack on Pakistan, it was simply out of their own national interest. So let us not feel any sense of obligation, especially given how we have been hounded and penalised for developing our nuclear capability.
In fact, there is presently an effort amongst Western analysts to present the case that it has been the US rather than the nuclear factor that has prevented escalation of conflict and also on occasion actual conflict between Pakistan and India. The arguments used are based on unsubstantiated assumptions, but those seeking to downplay the value of the nuclear capability will latch on to anything.
In this connection it is good to see the Foreign Office finally state publically, what then Indian Army Chief, General V.P. Singh had already acknowledged in May 2002 -- that at the time of Kargil, Pakistan had not readied any nuclear warhead on its missiles. Perhaps we should accept that Americans can not only lie but do so frequently in terms of international politics (look at the case of WMDs in Iraq) and the infamous Bruce Reidel statement was simply a lie to assert the criticality of the US in preventing war escalation in the subcontinent.
Perhaps we should remind ourselves that both Pakistan and India kept Kargil deliberately limited -- with Pakistan not bringing in the PAF despite the entry of the IAF into the war. The importance of the nuclear factor in maintaining a strategic stability in South Asia cannot be underestimated -- just as the threat to this stability posed by the Indo-US nuclear deal cannot be overestimated.
Coming back to our domestic political antics, we are so absorbed by them that we are neglecting critical developments around us. The role of the Indian state government of Gujarat in the massacre of Muslims in 2002 has once again been established -- this time by the website Tehelka.com. Yet, our political elite has shown a strange silence on this count. Of course, the self-proclaimed champions of human rights such as the US and the EU have also shown little concern over this massacre of Muslims. They were silent then and continue to remain silent now. Why?
Similarly, the public writings of British writer Martin Amis calling on the Muslim Community in Britain to be made to suffer -- and he advises on exactly how this should be done -- have barely caused a ripple even of protest. Clearly, fanning hatred against Muslims has become kosher in the US and many parts of Europe post-9/11. Racism is acceptable if the target is a Muslim.
Under these circumstances, we in Pakistan must not be swept away by the Western rhetoric of "extremism". There are "extremists" on both sides of the religious and political divides – including secular extremists and the neo-con Christian extremists of the US who have unleashed their own terror in Iraq and, through Israel, in Palestine. While we need to fight a war on terror to eliminate this scourge from our country, the war itself cannot simply be military-centric with civilian collateral damage. This will only end up aggravating the cleavages within our polity and make national reconciliation that much more difficult. Nor will such a strategy be tenable in the long run since fighting against one's own people is difficult to begin with. Already, the damage to our nation and state has been tremendous in terms of the social fabric and national cohesion.
Instead, we must adopt a holistic approach which will give the local people in the tribal belt and areas like Swat a stake in the system so that the terrorists and perpetrators of violence are isolated. Space denial can only come by winning over the ordinary people -- and that means co-opting local leaders against the terrorists. Our anti-terrorist policy has to be delinked from the US war on terror to give it internal credibility, which will also allow our security forces to be more effective. There is a need to also take more seriously, the foreign elements fanning the violence.
It would be interesting to find out where the hundreds of Americans trained in Pushto and pictured appearing in local garb with beards, have all disappeared. As for our Indian neighbours, we need to be more vociferous over their presence in Afghanistan along the border with Pakistan. Equally important, we need to have better human intelligence as well as information on foreign finances and arms coming into the country.
At the end of the day, those who break the law must be punished and no dialogue can be held with terrorists. But we need to learn from our mistakes. Take the case of Lal Masjid. When there was a need to take strong action against the illegal occupation of the children's library, the state hesitated, sending all the wrong signals. The wrongdoers skilfully exploited the state's hesitancy and the media became increasingly more sympathetic to them. The final error by the state was to label the whole issue a "hostage crisis" – which it clearly was not. The net result has been that even though the state finally took action against the law breakers and perpetrators of violence, the public has done an about face and the level of sympathy for the Lal Masjid inhabitants has been tremendous. In addition, international human rights organisations are also seeking explanations from the state over its use of force. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has also effectively sought to restore the status quo ante.
Similarly, in the case of FATA and other parts of NWFP where the state has been neglected development for decades and created no stake in the system for the locals, the vacuum has been filled by hatred-spewing preachers and terrorist recruiters. The state cannot simply alter this situation by use of force. The force has to be measured and accompanied by economic incentives and political outreach -- including bringing back the local political forces backed by state support. Finally, our elite's claims of being tolerant would sound more credible if this reflected an acceptance of the richly diverse landscape of this nation. This means ridding ourselves of hackneyed Western labels of "liberal" and "extremist" and embracing all who are prepared to accept the legal parameters of the law of the land.
The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Email:
smnews80@hotmail.com
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=77956