Courting savages

Legal eye
The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad.
It often takes an egregious event for us to be shaken out of our slumber and see things clearly for what they are. Salmaan Taseer spoke up against the abuse of the blasphemy law and our religious bigots branded him a heretic and even celebrated his murderer. It took the persecution of the 14-year old Rimsha Masih, and a vile prayer leader attempting to frame her, for people to gather the courage once again to speak of the flaws in our blasphemy law. Likewise, it has taken an abhorrent attack on another 14-year old, the zestful and courageous Malala Yousafzai, for us to admit the cancer that the TTP is.
The TTP (“savages and beasts,” as the Senate resolution put it without naming them) has been practising barbarism in the name of Islam and takes pride in being feared merchants of cruelty. They have established suicide factories that transform 10-year-olds into human bombs. They have been slitting the throats of their opponents (including Pakistani soldiers) and filming such gruesomeness for marketing purposes. They have indiscriminately attacked military establishments, personnel and civilians. And they have systematically eliminated state officials and leaders within the society whose resolve to stand up to these savages has been visible and deemed contagious.
Malala has been attacked because she fell within this category of people who refused to endorse their retrograde worldview or be coerced into submission. What can be more contagious (and scary for the TTP) than the refusal of a 14-year-old girl to be afraid? What will the brutes and the bullies do if ordinary people refuse to be cowed down? But what is startling is that despite the across-the-board concern for Malala’s health and wellbeing, many of our political and thought leaders still lack the moral clarity, or the courage, to identify the TTP as the murderous thugs that they are.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” Edmund Burke had argued. And he was right. This is not about bravado. (If Malala has taught us a lesson, it is that we don’t need guns but clarity of thought and the courage of conviction to stand up to tyranny.) This is not about US imperialistic policies or the anger that post-9/11 US wars have provoked within Muslim societies. No amount of evilness attributed to the US can rationalise the actions of a religion-inspired militant group that tyrannises fellow citizens and fights the state with the aim to capture it.
And this is not about drones. Drones are a bad idea for state sovereignty and international legal order. Their legitimacy will threaten international peace by giving pre-emptive self-defence a new meaning. As a weapon system drones cause collateral damage and undermine due process of law. Their use in fighting an insurgency involving citizens is unjustifiable on moral and legal grounds. But the Taliban did not become barbarians because the US started using drones. The collateral damage caused by them might have opened up a new recruitment arena for the Taliban, but let’s not confuse cause and effect.
Leaders have the ability to do a few things that set them apart from their followers. They can bring the spotlight to an issue. They can define the underlying problem. And they can offer solutions. Imran Khan’s peace march to Tank was commendable because it did the first thing: it brought within our contemplation the fact that Fata is a part of Pakistan. It reminded us that the blood of innocent civilians isn’t cheaper just because it is spilled in our “ilaqa ghair.” But that is all it did right.
Imran Khan’s prognosis of the root cause for “violence” (the tongue-in-cheek reference to the TTP’s terrorist ways hardy acknowledged explicitly) – i.e., the US presence in Afghanistan – is wrong. In highlighting the anguish of innocent civilians in the tribal belt, omitting the mention of cruelty being inflicted on them by the TTP is disingenuous, if not outright dishonest. And the proposed solution to fixing our broken Fata – i.e., unleashing willing tribesmen on the Taliban – is not just simplistic but also unconstitutional. Isn’t misrepresenting problems worse then refusing to talk about them?
Our centre-left liberal political parties, all in government at the moment, are guilty of being wimpy. They do not have the nerve to stand up against bigotry and intolerance even when they understand the evil. The bigots riled up against Salmaan Taseer and the ruling parties backed down. The TTP has been targeting members of the PPP and the ANP and their kin at will, and yet these parties have manifested lack of courage and will to fight the TTP. The crime of our ruling regime is one of omission. But is Imran Khan rendering himself liable to the charge of misrepresentation?
Speaking at the Karan Thapar show recently, Imran Khan refused to name names (Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Hafiz Saeed) while asserting that he will eradicate all militant groups if voted to power. His excuse was that Pakistan has become a very polarised place, as evidenced by Salmaan Taseer’s killing, and there was no point trying to become a hero who someone might shoot. He said something similar in Talat Hussain’s show while speaking of the attack on Malala. Refusing to condemn the TTP explicitly, he explained that the PTI had workers and supporters in TTP-controlled areas whose safety could be jeopardised if he spoke candidly.
Imran Khan’s position on the role of the army in festering problems confronting Pakistan has been similar. He condemns drones, but not the army that implicitly allows them by clearing Pakistani airspace to avoid accidents. He opposes violence in Balochistan, but not the invidious role of intelligence agencies. His argument is that, legally speaking, the elected civilian government is in charge of the khakis, and if it is impotent enough not to assert control, it ought to resign. The ruling civilian government’s informal justification is admission of weakness.
The PPP-led regime acknowledges that it has little say in relation to drones, Balochistan, the Taliban, Afghanistan and the US, as these things fall within the domain of the khakis. And our history is witness to the treatment meted out to civilian governments when they wade into khaki domain. So how does one understand Imran Khan’s position vis-a-vis religion-inspired militant groups, whether those of the sectarian variety or the TTP? He wants the civilian government to go home if it can’t reign in the khakis and turn theory into practice. But he will not identify and condemn the TTP and other militant outfits because expediency and ground realities advise against it?
It is important to identify the root causes of violence. So let’s start with the homegrown ones that we can address even before we conquer the world. Let’s speak about the abuse of religion by militant groups and religious political parties that act as abettors and apologists for terrorists. Let’s speak about the khaki-contrived jihadi project that armed, trained, organised and brainwashed citizen militias to pursue the state’s national security goals. Let’s speak about the willingness of the state to cede its monopoly over violence to “lashkars” in breach of Article 256 of the Constitution and to continue to treat Fata as non-man’s land diving Pakistan and Afghanistan, as opposed to sovereign territory.
There can be legitimate difference of opinion over what would constitute the most effective anti-insurgency strategy for Pakistan. But let us understand that under no conception of rule of law can amnesty be offered to wilful and unrepentant criminals, that unconditional offer of peace to terrorists is capitulation and refusing to condemn those admitting their crimes is appeasement. We need national resolve to fight the cancer of intolerance and violence epitomised by the TTP. And we must judge the leaders who are timid, confused or simply unwilling to take a candid position on this most crucial aspect of state and societal reform.
Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu