Pakistan - Steady rise of Militants’ narrative greatest fault line of Pakistan’s body politic

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The steady rise of the militants’ narrative, supported by the far right and Islamists, is a new and far more dangerous fault line of Pakistan’s body politic and this rise of the one-sided narrative of the extremists is a failure of the state and society.

There is a dire need to correct the narrative to win this war. However, we will not be able to correct the narrative until we address the perception that militants have been encouraged by state policies and addressed the perception that some militant outfits for advancing our foreign and security policy objectives.

This was started by Senator Farhatullah Babar speaking at a seminar on the ideological dimensions of militancy organized by the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security studies at a local hotel in Islamabad.

We must admit that a course correction is needed.

When the chief of a religo political party says that the soldiers killed in the war are not martyrs, when the head of another religo politcal party says that even a dog killed by the US is a martyr and when quite a few argue that the west has awarded Malala the Nobel Prize only to use her as a ‘pawn’ in their new crusade against Islam, clearly the militants’ narrative seems to be winning.

The existing narrative on war against militancy is based on four pillars namely that it is jehad, is directed against the US and foreign troops in the region, is against the drone strikes and that this is US war and not the war of Pakistan.

There is an element of intellectual confusion and both the state of Pakistan and international community has contributed to this ideological confusion.

The state of Pakistan contributed to it when Zia embraced the jehad ideology and formally decreed ‘Iman, Taqwa, jehad fee sabillillah’ as the battle cry of the troops.

The international community contributed to it when President Reagan described the eights mujahideen leaders who were invited to the White House “the moral equivalents of George Washington”.

It is less difficult to fight militants but more difficult to fight the mindset.

We are also not serious in addressing the issue, he said.

The National Security Policy announced several months ago admitted ‘large number of terrorists either are or have been students of madaris where they were brainwashed to take up arms against the state’ and promised to mainstream 23,000 madaris in the national and provincial educational establishment in just one year. Yet not a single rupee was allocated to NCTA in the 2014 budget.

We will not win the war of narrative until we candidly answer the question whether the state is still patronizing some groups and why?

Questions do arise when Asmatullah Muawiya, the Punjabi Taliban leader, publicly declares ceasefire against Pakistan and directs his guns towards Afghanistan and the state remains silent