Monuments to confusion

Islamabad diary
So Malala deserved to die. “We targeted her because she would speak against the Taliban while sitting with shameless strangers and idealised the biggest enemy of Islam, Barack Obama.” Thus the warriors of the faith, trying to justify the unjustifiable. What was the bigger crime, sitting with shameless strangers or idealising Obama?
Wonders will never cease. The Taliban stung by criticism? This is something new. Inured to drone attacks and military action – things which they could fathom and in a way deal with – but grinding their teeth in helpless anger at this disaster of their own making, and not knowing how to get back at the growing body of criticism created by their action. So words have the power to hurt?
But the Taliban retain the power to shock, first by the attack on the young girl and then by delivering, in the manner of religious injunctions, mind-blowing justifications. The attempted murder of a young girl justified in such terms? And there are people in our society, no shortage of them, with whom such reasoning resonates...if such warped thoughts can be given the name of reasoning.
“Shariah says that even a child can be killed if it is propagating against Islam”...this again from the Taliban. Which Shariah and whose Islam? Forget so-called religious leaders. No point in exposing their contradictions. Come hail or sunshine expect them not to deviate from their chosen script, their path to bread and butter in this world and to heaven in the next. But what about other bright souls, no shortage of them either, who hold it as a self-evident truth that we should negotiate with the Taliban? Imran Khan would not be able to survive a day under the Taliban but it is fascinating watching him as he gets worked up about engaging with the Taliban.
Malala’s ordeal has helped concentrate minds like nothing else. But to prove once more that we live in an imperfect world, it has also exposed our mixed up thinking...not so much the thinking of common people, less given to fanciful flights of logic, as of religious firebrands and political redeemers. Hand it to them for confusing the issue the moment they open their mouths, bringing in the United States, Afghanistan and jihad even as they denounce the attempt on the girl’s life.
And whoever has seen fit to drag the possibility of a military operation in North Waziristan into the ongoing debate and outcry has done little to clear the mist. An operation there is for the army to decide, not the political government which has little say or even interest in the matter. And it should be decided or not decided on its merits, after cool calculation. An army is not worth much if it is pitch-forked into action by emotional pressure, whether coming from outside or generated inwardly by something like Malala’s shooting.
But having said this, isn’t it high time we cleared the cobwebs from our minds and realised that regardless of whether the Americans are in Afghanistan or are getting out in a year or two, the mindset of the Taliban, their narrow interpretation of Islam, is a threat to us all...that what they stand for, the ideas they propagate, and for which they are not above targeting a 14-year-old school girl, are antithetical to the very idea of Pakistan as articulated by its founding fathers. Iqbal and Al-Qaeda, Jinnah and the Taliban...is it possible even to think on these lines?
If an operation in North Waziristan is a matter of tactics and timing, of weighing the pros and cons, getting our thinking straight, realising the enormity of the danger we face, is something far bigger. Are we ready for this? Is this republic to remain a monument to confused and divisive policies or are we finally prepared to live like a normal country?
Normality means the army high command reaffirming its loyalty to the ideas of Jinnah, begging forgiveness for the aberrations of the Zia and subsequent years. It means abandoning the false notions of strategic depth and throwing all the weight of our not inconsiderable energies on domestic problems. Setting our house in order, developing a sound economy and maintaining a valid defence...these should be our priorities. And settling the problems of Balochistan – we must take these seriously – and seeing to it that we have nothing to do with the politics of jihad, whether dedicated to the liberation of Kashmir or the winning of influence in Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s strategic depth lies not in Afghanistan. Whoever gave us this idea? The generals responsible for this philosophy deserve an extended stay in purgatory. Our strategic depth is Balochistan. Take that away and what remains of Pakistan? Just an over-populated corridor running from north to south. Our so-called strategic location is because of that province.
The choice is clear and should leave no room for confusion. Talking to the Baloch, yes, by all means...even if they have begun talking the language of independence. Talking to the Taliban, no, because the mediaeval kingdom they believe in has nothing to do with Pakistan. Let them conquer Afghanistan. Let them conquer Chechnya. We should be rid of the false ideas we have been nurturing these past 30 years if not more. Pakistan should not be any kind of safe haven for them. And then let America fight its own wars. And good luck to it.
But let us not be under the illusion that our internal cancer, that of religious extremism and the nationwide network sustaining it, is dependent on or connected to America’s presence in Afghanistan. America may leave tomorrow yet this cancer will remain. We will still have to figure out how to fight it. The fight can be postponed, not abandoned if Pakistan is to be rescued.
But no reason to despair. Better-organised societies have been beset by confusion at different times in their history. Recall the divided psyche of France on the eve of the Second World War. The Wehrmacht came as conquering heroes later. Defeat lay in the mind of France before the onset of hostilities. As for Britain, in the long run-up to the war opinion there was divided about the best course to adopt towards Hitler. There were those who advocated a policy of engagement, eventually turning into the bitter leaves of appeasement. Munich exposed the hollowness of their thinking. Churchill’s was the lone voice from early on which said that there could be no talking to Hitler because Hitler’s goals were not amenable to negotiations.
Hitler revealed himself in Mein Kampf, much before he came to power. How many more self-confessions from the Taliban before a divided and confused nation can finally agree that they and their goals stand fully revealed and that there is no halfway house with them?
It won’t hurt us if at this juncture we also started thinking about the larger problem besetting us. Isn’t it time we rethought the idea of Pakistan? The two-nation theory was good enough, indeed essential, for separate statehood. But haven’t events overtaken it? Proclaiming our Muslimhood is no answer to the problems of Balochistan. It helps us achieve little clarity about the threat posed by the Taliban. So what is the answer?
History itself is throwing up the alternative, the need to recast the idea of Pakistan on what I can only call ‘modern’ lines, shying away as I do, for obvious reasons, from the word secular, turned into a red rag by the ideologues standing guard over the flickering flame called the ideology of Pakistan.
Email: winlust@yahoo.com