The first stirrings of change?

Is it possible that we are seeing the first attempt in decades by citizens to reclaim a society lost to obscurantism, growing fanaticism and intolerance? Certainly the massacre of December 16 in Peshawar shocked nearly everyone across the country. But whereas we have in the past gone on to forget such acts, to put them aside and carry on with lives, this time perhaps there is a feeling that we have no choice but to act.
One reason for this may be that the Peshawar attack was so reprehensible that it did not divide. Unlike the killings of Hazaras, Christians, Ahmadis and Shias in the past – acts that we simply watched silently but barely reacted to – this time there has been less sense of divide; a greater feeling that we are all now immensely vulnerable, targets of a merciless force.
The tangible fear that first hung mainly over minority groups has spread out. Seeped, indeed poured into every home – whether they belong to the poor or the rich, to Muslims or non-Muslims. The low attendance at all schools in the country as they opened in the middle of this month reflected that. So did the raised walls and barbed wire outside the buildings.
The more privileged, so far in many ways immune from events around them, were this time drawn into the net of terror too. Hysterical social media messages, demands to school administrations and the circulation of obviously fabricated audio messages drove this on. For now it continues as ‘security’ arrangements continue to be stepped up, notably at the more ‘high profile’ schools in Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar, Karachi and other cities.
The reactions to this threat have in some ways been predictable. People talk of leaving the country; or at least those who can do so do. In some households bags are already being packed, other arrangements made. Fleeing fear is in many ways a not unnatural human response. But we also see a fight back, or at least an attempt towards one. It is tragic it took a monstrous act on the scale of what happened at the Army Public School to bring it about. But for our future the most significant question of all is where it will lead.
Petitions of every kind, new social media pages and campaigns have been floated. Demonstrations have been held, some reasonably well attended as in Karachi, some less well so as in Lahore. Petty lines of divide, as on the issue of whether or not to involve political parties has split people into factions, the bigger cause and the need for unity lost somewhere in this squabble. But setting squabbles aside we have gains, with efforts on to bring the media together against terrorism and create a wider force against it.
Some media channels have already done what they can, helping keep the Peshawar victims alive in minds; reminding a nation with a very short memory not to forget. So far the effort has, at least to some degree, worked. People continue to talk about what militancy has done; of course this is so because it has intruded into every life and gone beyond being an abstract concept that exists on television screens and affects lives other than our own. Parents are meeting children who talk casually about death, and every new announcement of a ‘red alert’ in a city sends entire households into panic.
The warnings that the Taliban would eventually enter all our lives have come true. Now that they are no longer restricted to terrain far up in the north, it has become harder to argue they are really not an evil force at all. Of course the fact that this argument did not begin when schools in Swat were shut down and people butchered there in 2008 and 2009, when people in Khyber were forced to flee razed homes a few years later or even when threats were made on previous occasions to schools in big cities means simply that the monster has grown bigger, split into different entities and slithered its way across the country, leaving a slimy trail everywhere we look.
Yes, we have an effort to clean up the mess. But are there enough people to undertake the task? It has been obvious of course where opinion lies, or at least where it is best demonstrated. The protests in the country against the Charlie Hebdo cartoons have been far bigger than those against the brutal murder of at least 132 children. The cartoons are unacceptable; of course there have to be curbs on this kind of ‘free expression’. But can we protest the mowing down and torture of scores of children with equal force and vigour? We need to think.
‘Civil society’, as we call it, can achieve a considerable amount. Through history, it has brought the state under enormous pressure, as during the Vietnam campaign, the US civil rights movement, in South Africa and at home during the 2007 protest to restore the judiciary dismissed by General Musharraf. But given the situation we have at present, with a well-armed, well-organised force working against us, the state too will have to step in to oust extremism, intolerance and militancy. It has after all in the past played a huge role in helping it grow.
There are some signs it is now willing to do so. In Lahore this week, one offender found guilty for the massacre of almost 100 Ahmadis in the city in May 2010 was sentenced to death by an anti terrorism court. Another, a juvenile at the time, was given a life term. Those guilty of attacking minority groups are then being punished. There is also talk of a new law banning hate speech, clamping down on mosques and the loudspeakers they use to spread it and measures to ban terrorist outfits and clamp off their sources of funding. Ninety-five outfits that should have been banned but continue to operate have been identified in Punjab. We can only hope the state is earnest in its desire to deal once and for all with the militant threat. But this is an exercise that will take much time and effort. It cannot be achieved overnight.
Of course we need a broad ranging policy addressing the media, school curriculums, madressahs, the condition of public sector schools, poverty, illiteracy and a great deal more. But most of all, we need absolute, unshakeable conviction and commitment. Backing from the military is also a must, and right now this appears to be present given all that has happened. But the danger is that the resolve that exists right now will finally dissipate. Such an outcome must be prevented and this is possible only if public pressure can be kept up and a move made to ensure there is no going back and no giving in to militancy.
We have made the same mistakes too often in the past. The results are today before us. There is now simply no room for further error and many elements making up our society will need to work together if the goal of a more harmonious country in which less distinction is made on the basis of belief or ethnicity is to be achieved.
The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor.
Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com