Pakistan: A confused nation’s slow march to clarity

Ayaz Amir

It has taken a long time, and precious time has been wasted. And we have had buffoons who wouldn’t be given the time of day anywhere else setting themselves up as self-proclaimed muftis and hogging acres of newspaper space and hours on television, spouting nonsense in the name of peace, democracy and freedom of expression and adding to the confusion of a confused nation.

But slowly, slowly, the Islamic Republic, Fortress of Islam no less, is being compelled by the force of circumstances to leave the phantoms of the past behind and wake up to the reality of today’s problems. Not that the denizens of the Fortress have become suddenly wiser, or their understanding has been illuminated by a flash of lightning. No, the cruelty of circumstances is leaving them no choice but to emerge from the welter of their monumental confusion and begin to see things for what they are.

With the start of the North Waziristan operation the playing with shadows, the embracing of shallow peace doctrines, the nonsense of the self-proclaimed muftis has hopefully ended. Wars against insurgencies – especially an insurgency as strong and well-entrenched as that of the Taliban – do not end in a fortnight, or a month, or even six months.

They can go on and on, as we have seen in Sri Lanka, as we have seen in Chechnya. And you have to face the wind and brave the elements, and summon up reserves of courage you thought you never had before you can raise the standard of victory. Material resources are important. You can’t do without them. But more important are such intangibles as resolve and the spirit of sacrifice…plus the quality of leadership.

So this operation is not going to end soon and there will be no shortage of heartache and suffering on the way. In our long history of migrations there will be another migration. And people will be displaced from their homes and the wretched of the earth will bear a greater share of the suffering than those in a better position to look after themselves.

But at least, after a long time, our path is clear and our course is set. The worst thing in any conflict is vacillation…swinging from one mood to the other, and not sure of what to do. As a nation we have displayed our share of doubts and vacillation. This last year was especially bad, indecision elevated to the status of an art form. Such was the sum of our national confusion that the All Parties Conference which should have been seen as the farce it was, was applauded by so many as an act of statesmanship.

The NW operation hasn’t happened just like that. It has been preceded by two things: the taming of the media, the opportunity for which was provided by the media civil war, to put it no more bluntly than that; and the education of the government. To say anything more about the media civil war would be to step on too many brittle toes. So let us desist.

The education of the government has led to some surprising developments, forcing its hand and putting an end to its vacillation. Overnight, this adult education programme has turned leading doves in the cabinet, with a known bias against the army, into prime time hawks. The present stances of the defence minister, Khawaja Asif, and the information minister, Pervaiz Rashid, are somewhat different from the positions they so loudly took when the media civil war started. By adjusting their line and length – one of Sheikh Rashid’s favourite phrases – they are flowing with the tide.

Someone who has become irrelevant in this entire process is the interior minister, Ch Nisar, who started off as a peace advocate and a Taliban apologist but who, for various reasons, seems to have run out of favour with the prime minister. He is not to be under-estimated but for the moment at least he is on the side, other ministers stealing a march on him. But he is a veteran of many an in-house struggle and needs no tips on survival from anyone.

Who are the cooks in the PM’s kitchen? A couple of relatively junior bureaucrats playing larger-than-life roles, a former newspaper columnist (a friend of mine, incidentally), and two or three ministers, no more. The parliamentary party is irrelevant; the cabinet is irrelevant. Collective decision-making and anything remotely resembling cabinet responsibility have never been part of the PM’s style. But it has worked for him.

After all he is prime minister for the third time, not you or me. So he can turn to all the gurus and pundits and say, who are you to teach me these tricks? And the pundits would be stumped for an answer. In fact it is true to say that in all of Pakistan’s history there has been no luckier entity than the House of Sharif. Brilliant politicians have bitten the dust or drunk from the cup of humiliation. Through luck or the power of prayer, or whatever, the Sharif family has survived and prospered.

Note even something in the present education of the government: tensions with the army haven’t quite ended but the PM, reading the writing on the wall and seeing which way the wind is blowing, instead of travelling further on the path of political hara-kiri has done an about-turn and is now all for an operation against the Taliban insurgency.

Just a few days ago the government seemed panicked by the prospect of Allama Tahirul Qadri’s return, and his invoking the spectre of a ‘revolution’ against the existing order. But all this talk of agitation and marches has been upstaged by (1) the start of the NW operation and (2) Khawaja Asif executing his near miraculous switch-around from army-baiter to army-defender.

All this is very smart and clever. And clever moves are good enough for minor things or everyday exigencies. For something more serious, for something like Pakistan’s crisis of survival, trickery, alas, is not enough…a slightly higher quality of leadership is required.

From Pakistan to Iraq, from Iraq to Syria, the world of Islam – if we can call it that – is in a state of ferment: civil war in Syria, civil war in Iraq, a serious internecine conflict in Pakistan. Bashar Al-Assad has been able to hold on in Damascus because of a toughness few people would have credited him with, and because of the Syrian military. The Maliki government in Iraq is unable to stem the advancing tide of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) – an Islamist force more radical than Al-Qaeda – because the Iraqi army is not being able to put up much of a fight.

In all this extended arc of fire the most cohesive, professional military force is the Pakistan military…army and air force. If the battle for Fata, despite our various failures of leadership, is not turning into a rout of the Pakistani state, if the Taliban are not turning into the advancing spearheads of the ISIS, it is only because of this one factor, the Pakistan military. We have romanticised democracy too much in Pakistan. Whatever the level of democracy our collective illiteracy deserves we have achieved it. Whatever the freedom of expression our collective ignorance deserves we have it. But today the problem Pakistan faces has gone beyond democracy and the gibberish spouted in the name of freedom of expression. This doesn’t mean we roll up democracy and the media, only that we understand what is at stake. The Taliban don’t believe in democracy. They believe in freedom of expression only for themselves. The only language they deal in is that of force. The only language they understand is that of arms.

So let us brace ourselves for this conflict and try to give a good account of ourselves. And let us show the world that we are capable of defending ourselves. In war nations can be destroyed. But nations can also emerge stronger from the flames of conflict. Maybe, after all the setbacks and frustrations of the past, this is how our steel is tempered.