‘Islam is a religion of peace. Therefore, the people who carry out terrorist acts, especially those targeting places of worship and academic institutions, can’t be Muslims. Such dastardly acts are the handiwork of foreign forces, which are inimical to Islam and Pakistan for being the sole Muslim nuclear power state.’
‘The militants are the true soldiers of Islam. They’ve taken up arms with a two-fold purpose: to defeat the forces of kufr, and to rid society of evil. Yes innocent persons do perish in terrorist attacks. But their sacrifice is the minimum price that society will have to pay to achieve the noble purpose. At any rate, death will wash away their sins and ensure a place for them in paradise.’
‘The militants are merely protesting foreign domination of the country’s external and internal policies. While questions the methods they are using, one can’t cast aspersions on their intention. The jihadis may be misguided souls but they are men of honour; they have risked their lives to defend the motherland’s sovereignty. Instead of directing its guns towards the militants, the government should go after the coalition of forces – internal and external – that pushed them towards violence.”
These are the three narratives on militancy that, unfortunately, have held sway on the nation’s collective conscious. The first narrative denies outright that the militants are Muslims; the second enthrones them as devout Muslims; the third regards them as the only honourable lot this nation has produced.
Likewise, the first narrative blames terrorism on external, anti-Islam, anti-Pakistan elements: Hindus and Indians, Jews and Israelis, Christians and the West (so far the Chinese mercifully don’t figure in the narrative); the second treats terrorism as the inescapable step towards achieving the country’s grand destiny – becoming a citadel of Islam – for which no sacrifice is too big; the third blames the menace of terrorism on foreign masters and their Pakistani puppets.
The third narrative, which sees the militants as men of honour, remained a favourite with the mainstream right-wing political parties, including the PML-N and the PTI, until the December 2014 APS massacre. Imran Khan, in particular, would not mince any words in attributing terrorism to Islamabad’s alliance with Washington, which allegedly had reduced the nation to servitude.
Since the militants were believed to be waging war for a national cause, holding out an olive branch to them, instead of taking them head-on, was the recommended course of action. Not surprisingly, soon after winning the 2013 election, Nawaz Sharif announced that his government would initiate a dialogue with the Taliban.
Such an exercise had been undertaken in the past for a good number of times. But on each occasion it ended up in smoke. Down memory lane: in 2004, the armed forces concluded a deal with militant leader Nek Muhammad in South Waziristan but he failed to honour his commitment to banish foreign militants, and the agreement fell apart.
The next peace agreement was struck in 2005 with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan supremo Baitullah Mehsud, leading to a withdrawal of troops from South Waziristan. The militants set aside the terms of the treaty. Next year another agreement was inked with the militants, this time in Miranshah, but the same was used by the Taliban to set up their own administration.
Then in 2009, the government signed a deal in Swat with Maulvi Fazalullah, who now heads the TTP. But the pact had to be annulled soon afterward. The PML-N government also exercised the dialogue option, but predictably it produced the same results as previous such endeavours.
The APS tragedy forced many a right-wing politician to recant their pro-militancy narrative. Obviously, it was difficult to hold that the merciless murderers of children were men of honour. Thereupon, pushed mainly by the top military command, the government with the backing of all major political parties decided to go all out against the militants.
At the same time, the APS incident put a section of politicians and the clergy in a dilemma. Ideologically, they were too close to the Taliban to denounce them; and of course the tragedy was too terrible to be left without condemnation. To resolve the dilemma, they changed gears and switched on to the first narrative – denying that the militants were Muslims. This narrative has been echoed in the wake of the Charsadda tragedy despite the fact that the TTP wasted no time in admitting to having masterminded the incident.
Such a narrative, however, rests on a logical fallacy. Called the fallacy of composition, it assumes that what’s true of the whole is also true of its parts. Yes, Islam is a religion of peace. Yet from this it doesn’t follow that every Muslim is a pacifist. Islam is also a religion of justice but this doesn’t make every Muslim just. If that were the case, Pakistan, where more than 97 percent of the population professes Islam, would be a corruption- and injustice-free society.
Islam provides an ideal of conduct, which its followers practise in varying degrees. Some are corrupt to the bone, others are out-and-out honest, the majority represents a blend of the two; some abjure, others glorify, still others sanctify violence. Making a religion and its adherents synonymous is illogical.
The second narrative – which sees the militancy as a manifestation of the eternal war between Islam and competing creeds – is the most toxic of all in that it draws a sharp line, in the name of religion, between those who are on the militants’ side and those who are on the other side. What this narrative amounts to is that terrorism can be a legitimate ground for propagation and enforcement of faith. But can religion be enforced by coercion?
Besides, in a country where Islam is already the state religion and where the population is predominantly Muslim, what danger does Islam face to warrant such tactics as being employed by the Taliban. If such an assumption is conceded, state and society will have to condone any offence committed in the name of religion – be it the killing of non-Muslims and members of other sects, setting on fire places of worship or attacking education institutions for being nurseries of a liberal, progressive Pakistan.
Though they may seem different, the three narratives have produced similar effects, leading to all kinds of confusion in the course of the war on terror. Is the war our own or that of foreigners’? Is the militancy simply a reaction against Pakistan’s foreign policies or is there more to it? Should we put down the militancy with full force or embrace the militants? Are there any good terrorists? If yes, how can we set them apart from the bad ones?
The militants, on the other hand, have been dead clear: kill as many people as possible to weaken the state and leave its leadership perplexed.
The war on terror is not going to end soon. While our soldiers as well as civilians continue laying down their lives, the least we can do is to set our thinking right.
The writer is a graduate from a western European university.
Email: hussainhzaidigmail.com