Can Peshawar rage finally rouse Pakistan to act against the Taliban?

Saba Imtiaz

Despite the impact of a rare protest against clerics, it remains to be seen whether the Pakistani state is willing to channel this anger into reform or action

All supporters of the Taliban are bastards,” states a banner strung up in Rahim Yar Khan, attributed to the police of this district in Punjab and posted on Facebook by a police officer. In Islamabad, protesters converged on the Red Mosque, the scene of a brutal confrontation between the Pakistani military and seminary clerics and students in 2007, to demand that the mosque’s head cleric denounce the Pakistani Taliban’s massacre in Peshawar. The Pakistani government has already begun executing convicted militants on death row.

These scenes would have been virtually unimaginable in Pakistan just a few weeks ago. But the massacre of 132 children in a school in Peshawar has served to channel outrage against the state and finally to get Pakistanis to agree that militancy is a problem.

There is a palpable sense of grief in Pakistan. There was an odd stillness on Wednesday morning, as the reality of what had happened in Peshawar began to sink in. Not since the assassination of the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007 has there been such a visible and widespread display of despair and anger.

In Karachi, shops that refuse to close when threatened by armed men or by torrential rains shut down to observe a period of mourning. The blare of this city and its 20 million citizens seemed to have been silenced by sadness.

As the days have gone by, mourning has given way to anger. And some are directing their rage at hardline conservatives who have supported extremism for decades. One of the targets is Maulana Abdul Aziz, the cleric at the Red Mosque who helped lead the 2007 insurgency. The protests against the mosque, while small, are a powerful symbol that some Pakistanis are tired of tolerating those who refuse to condemn militancy.

There have been other calls, largely circulated on social networking websites, to press clerics to condemn terrorism in their sermons, and to deprive the Pakistani Taliban of a platform in the media. Even though there has been similar outrage in the past – against the military for failing to find out that Osama bin Laden was living in Pakistan, or against religious groups that condoned the assassination of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer – it has rarely resulted in an actual protest.

It may seem ludicrous that this is happening only after years of assassinations, bombings and mass executions by the Pakistani Taliban and militant groups such as the anti-Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. For years, terrorist attacks have been justified by their perpetrators and their supporters, on the grounds that their targets were apostates or that they were justified to enact revenge. The scenes in Peshawar – bloodied classrooms, described by a Dawn reporter as a “crawl through a nightmare”, and dozens of coffins – have united people on this much at least: there is no justification for killing children.

Is this a turning point in Pakistan and can this clarity lead to a consensus on how to act against militants? The cynical – and realistic view – is that it is not. Despite the impact of a rare protest against clerics, the basic reality is that the Pakistani state is unwilling to channel this anger into reform or action, or to address how militant networks have expanded to the point where they can besiege a school, a mosque or a neighbourhood.

It has become easier in Pakistan to go through life with blinkers on, to ignore the fundraising posters put up by groups such as the Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawa, believed to be a cover for Lashkar-e-Taiba. Easier to ignore the neighbourhood cleric railing against religious minorities, or the sight of Shia protesters refusing to bury their dead, killed in mass executions at the hands of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. And, finally, easier to ignore that the Pakistani state helped create the groups that are fighting against it today and that it still supports clerics who have helped shape irreversible divides in society.

The murder of more than 100 children may have forced many to take their blinkers off and wonder how Pakistan got into this state, but they will soon be resigned into putting them back on, because Pakistan just isn’t interested. It would rather protect hardline clerics and militant networks, even at the cost of young children’s lives.

On Friday, the Islamabad police stopped protesters from gathering at the Red Mosque and asked them to protest a short distance away, while activists of the banned anti-Shia group Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat were allowed to rally in support of the mosque and its clerics. Across Karachi, mosques affiliated with Jamaat-ud-Dawa blamed India for the Peshawar massacre in their Friday sermons.

But the calls to avenge Peshawar are loud and they can’t be ignored. The Pakistani government and the military have found a short cut to appease a country desperate for revenge by lifting an unofficial moratorium on the death penalty and fast-tracking executions. Calls for retribution for the Peshawar attack have begun to reek of bloodlust. Protesters at rallies have chanted demands to hang terrorists and a #WeWantPublicExecutionTomorrow hashtag trended on Twitter.

Among the 8,000 people on death row in Pakistan is Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman accused of blasphemy, as well as Mumtaz Qadri, who assassinated Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer in 2011 for supporting Bibi’s case. The Pakistani military has embarked on its own targeting spree, launching airstrikes in the tribal areas that have killed dozens. At least six prisoners are set for execution in the next few weeks. This kneejerk enforcement of the death penalty is not a solution to the problem of militancy. It is merely a convenient way to appease a country that doesn’t just want retribution but also wants closure, after years of bombings and military operations that have led to nought. The structural problems in Pakistan’s judicial and law-enforcement system and the warped policies that have allowed the state to support militant networks are not going to be solved at the gallows.

Hanging terrorists is not going to atone for the fact that more than 100 children went to school one morning and came home in coffins that evening. For that, the Pakistani state will need to be as brave as the students who will go back to their bloodied school and resume their education in the spring.