The state is in imminent danger of implosion. The killing of Governor Taseer is meant to send a clear message to the political leadership: Any politician not acceptable to the extremists could meet a similar fate. The incident, followed by rallies in support of the killer, indicates that extremist thinking is touching an all time high. It doesnt matter whether the extremists are in a minority or that they cannot win the elections. What is significant is that they are already dictating to the government and parliament.
Even now, the State can fight the threat by rooting out extremism with commitment and determination and by evolving long term measures to remove the factors responsible for a phenomenal rise in the trend. But let it be clear. If left un-responded any longer, the threat will soon be beyond anybodys control. Extremism will consume the state.
Extremist thinking was promoted under a plan by Zia-ul-Haq after the overthrow of Bhuttos government in 1977. Conscious of the role played by the students in the 1968 movement that led to the overthrow of Ayub, Zia-ul-Haq armed right wing student organisations to cleanse the colleges and universities of dissidents and pro-democracy elements. These organisations banned all expressions of free thinking on the campuses to ensure conformity with the power of the gun. At places, the establishment encouraged armed groups with narrow ethnic agendas to carry out the same mission. For more than a decade, key universities and colleges were battle grounds. Student unions led by extremists were put in control of educational institutions where they influenced the admissions of students and appointments of teachers. Teachers who opposed dictatorship and wanted academic institutions to be a venue for debate and discussion were either hounded out or silenced.
A curriculum with an overdose of retrogressive thinking called the Ideology of Pakistan was enforced from the primary schools upwards. Hatred of religions other than Islam, particularly of Hinduism, Christianity and Judaism was a major component of the new fangled ideology. Countries where the majority of population subscribed to these three religions were portrayed as enemies of the Islamic world. Christians living in Pakistan were presented as the agents of the western powers and Hindus accused of working in cohorts with India to weaken Pakistan from within.
Succeeding civilian governments by PPP and PML(N) failed to undo the changes brought about by a dictator in the curricula. The PPP has been required to pay in blood for their negligence. Next is likely to be the turn of the PML(N). Thirty years of indoctrination through mosques, madrassahs, childrens text books, the Urdu press and state controlled media have made a fairly large chunk of society narrow-minded, intolerant, self-righteous and xenophobic.
This explains why there is no end to reports of terrorists with Pakistani passports being caught in one country after another. This explains why highly educated young men from middle class families are found involved in terrorist acts.
For the last three decades, civil bureaucracy, judiciary, the armed forces and intelligence agencies have been manned by those who have been fed hatred for other religions and for the West and India. The institutions have thus lost much of their professionalism. There are elements among them who have sympathy for those who launch attacks on minorities, conduct suicide bombings and commit murders in the name of religion.
The malaise is not confined to those radicalised by the mainstream educational system alone. With the state having little to spend on education, thousands upon thousands of poor parents are forced to send their children to seminaries which besides providing free religious education also guarantee free boarding and lodging and promise jobs as prayer leaders and officials in the expanding madaris system. Meanwhile, these seminaries continue to churn out students who preach hatred for other religions and sects. The seminaries and mosques have spread intolerance to small towns and rural areas which were once under the spell of the teachings of the Sufi saints who preached love for all human beings irrespective of their caste or creed.
The religious parties sidelined in the last elections by the voters are using the issue of blasphemy to acquire centre stage. As things stand, the PPP is thoroughly demoralised and unnerved while the PML(N) has not gone beyond routine condemnation of Taseers killing. In fact, a majority of the party rank and file is not convinced of the imminent danger. Acts of appeasement would help neither the PPP nor the PML(N) as both are being condemned as pro-US by the religious groups.
The establishment itself is under imminent threat now. The state no more has the monopoly over the use of force. Despite the armys stand that it would not initiate operation in North Waziristan at Washingtons bidding, the extremist militants maintain it is kowtowing to America. They have attacked GHQ, killed retired and serving officers in Parade Lane and attacked SSG at Tarbela. More officers and men have died at the hands of the extremist militants now than in all the insurgencies of the past put together. Unless the establishment and the mainstream political parties realise the gravity of the threat and join hands to meet it, they stand to lose. The questions, however, remains whether they have a realisation of the situation and of what needs to be done.
The writer is a former academic and a political analyst.