On Monday, the government held high-level consultations with the intention of reviving military courts for the trial of civilians accused of terrorism. The 21st Constitutional Amendment, under which military courts were established in January 2015, expired on Saturday when the two-year sunset clause took effect.
On Tuesday, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan spoke about the missing bloggers and social activists, with specific reference to teacher, poet and dramatist Salman Haider. The minister’s remarks about the banned outfits created a furore. He said that sectarian organisations should not be equated with the terrorist outfits as he responded to criticism on his meeting with members of a banned group.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif inaugurated the restoration of the ancient Katas Raj temple and said that no one was permitted to discriminate on the basis of caste, colour or creed. He stressed that the rights of religious minorities in the country would be safeguarded and every effort would be made to give them their due status in society. On Thursday, Chief of the Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, according to an Inter-Services Public Relations statement, said that the Pakistan army is a great institution and its dignity and credibility will be upheld through “selfless performance of our rule and duties”. He said this during a visit to the Jhelum and Kharian garrisons.
On Friday, the media reported that the US had expressed concern over the missing bloggers and human rights activists. Addressing his daily press briefing in Washington DC, States Department Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner said: “We are concerned by reports that several Pakistani bloggers and activists have been reported missing. We will continue to monitor the situation”. He welcomed the interior ministry’s announcement that it would investigate the disappearance of one of them, Salman Haider.
Now, these news reports may not necessarily constitute a specific design or a direct linkage. But I do find them significant against the backdrop of the prevailing situation in Pakistan. Here is a flavour of the week in the context of some deeply emotional and disturbing interactions with friends and acquaintances. Fresh doubts are surfacing about the state’s capacity – or even willingness – to protect the life and liberty of the citizens. There have been a number of opinion pieces on the ‘enforced disappearances’ of bloggers and human rights defenders, underlining the fear and insecurity that these incidents have generated. But the media at large has other preoccupations. The Supreme Court proceedings on the Panama leaks have dominated the headlines as a political thriller. A kind of gross entertainment is provided by the loudmouths of the PML-N and PTI outside the court after every session of the hearing.
Meanwhile, the reports I have summarily put together should provide some basis of the most crucial issues that Pakistan confronts at this time. What is the measure of the campaign against terrorism and violent extremism that the military establishment and the civilian government have waged for more than two years? Is Pakistan becoming more peaceful, more tolerant and more open in terms of the values that define a modern democratic polity?
In this evaluation, we may also remember that the enemy within had actually been inspired and assisted by the ideas that have governed our policies. How else could the terrorists and the religious militants acquire the power that the awesome might of our military has found so formidable to deal with? We should also be mindful of the cost that was paid for the pursuit of a negotiated deal with the Taliban.
The bane of our life, actually, has been sympathy for the Taliban or the jihadi mindset that has existed at different levels of our administration. But this attitude needed to be vigilantly challenged after Operation Zarb-e-Azb was launched and certainly after the massacre of our schoolchildren in Peshawar on December 16, 2014. At least that was the resolve of the National Action Plan. And it called for a new set of administrators – who were morally and intellectually committed to the rationale of NAP – to take charge. That has not happened, as personified by our interior minister.
In any case, many victories in Operation Zarb-e-Azb have been reported, though the mission is not entirely accomplished. But the implementation of the National Action Plan is very much in doubt and the disappearance of some social activists has apparently turned things upside down. After all, what could have been the goal of these bloggers? Are they not, in effect, challenging terrorism and militancy and advocating peace, social justice, tolerance and progressive values?
When the government pursues the revival of military courts, it is admitting its failure to get the results that were envisaged in the 21st Amendment that only became possible after the national trauma of the Peshawar tragedy. Otherwise, military courts are a negation of democracy and civilian rule.
How the interior minister expounded his position on the enforced disappearance in the Senate is also very worrisome. He did say that the government is not in the business of ‘disappearing’ people and that he was in touch with senior intelligence officers to unmask the elements responsible for the disappearance of Salman Haider.
But his remarks about sectarianism were truly alarming and prompted a walkout by the opposition. We are all aware of how sectarian conflicts have been invested in the present turmoil in the Middle East but we should not ignore the history of Muslims in South Asia. Pakistan would not have been possible with the existence of sectarian militancy in this region. Irrespective of all this, to soft-pedal sectarian outfits that indulge in blatant acts of terrorism is to subvert the National Action Plan.
In this situation, the prime minister has done well to present a message of inter-communal peace and harmony. The religious minorities have the right to be equal citizens of this country. But religious intolerance has not been rooted out and extremism prevails at varying levels in different parts of the country, particularly in Punjab which is governed by the prime minister’s party.
To conclude, let me refer to an article I read this week in The Washington Post titled ‘Five myths about genius’. Author Eric Weiner identified certain places at certain times that produced geniuses. In addition to being urban, “all these places, too, possessed an outsized degree of tolerance and ‘openness to experience’ – the trait that psychologists have identified as the single most important to creativity”. He has quoted Plato: “What is honoured in a country will be cultivated there”.
The writer is a senior journalist.
Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com
