The war within

The challenge is to know thy enemy – and know it well!

“You have peace”, the old woman said, “when you make it with yourself”.

Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

In spite of repeated proclamations by succeeding governments that pursuit of peace, both within the country and with its neighbours and the outside world, is a priority consideration, there is little that can be said by way of a serious effort made in that direction. May be the government is not aware of what peace really entails or it may still be trying to figure out an ‘acceptable’ way to make the move, but one thing can be said with relative certainty: there is no peace in the country and, going by the perceptions of the ruling mafias and the methods adopted so far, there is little likelihood that it can be achieved anytime soon.

Look at it from another perspective. Who would believe that a country that is perpetually at war with itself and apparently doing pretty little to combat the demons of terrorism, sectarianism, militancy and extremism is actually interested in peace?

In the proposed Counter-Terrorism Strategy, the principal factors that have been listed as enablers for terrorist groups to keep growing include “sectarianism and religious extremism, spill-over of the violence from Afghanistan, presence of foreign militants and their sympathisers in Pakistan, weak control over mullah, masjid and madrassah, radicalisation, economic disparity, weak writ of the government and the absence of a comprehensive security policy and a counter-terrorism strategy”. A tall order, indeed! The catch is that if the malaise has been diagnosed, what is the treatment and where and how to begin?

The cardinal problem with any national counter-terrorism perception so far has been an absence of a dispassionate effort to define the enemy we have to fight. This effort has been repeatedly clouded because of one consideration or the other. Mostly these considerations have emanated from our religious preoccupations and our ill-perceived sympathy for some comrades-in-arms who are projected to be fighting a ‘holy war’. This has perpetuated and expanded both the intensity and the scope of our alienation from the rest of the world. While we have continued to struggle over nuances of which terrorist faction to fight and which to befriend, the rest of the world has moved on remorselessly to get together on one common platform: eliminate the demons of terrorism and extremism.

For Pakistan, it is not as much a case of diagnosing the malaise any longer as it is of zeroing in on the enemy and gathering the will to fight it. This has been woefully lacking so far. For it to happen, we have to immediately break free of the unnecessary entanglements of religious compulsions: the mullah-, masjid- and madrassah-syndrome. No strategy can succeed in eliminating the scourge of terrorism unless it comes up with an effective policy to tackle the obscurantist and militant agenda being ceaselessly propounded by a selective combination of these institutions. It constitutes the most critically damaging component of the disease that is well past the stage of being tackled by administering antibiotics alone. It is in dire need of an immediate surgery to confine it within the parameters that the state can rightfully allow.

The remedial process must begin with an honest introspective analysis of what has gone wrong with us, why and how? Unless that happens, the next essential step – that of devising or pursuing an effective plan to combat the evil – will be meaningless. If, because of lack of will, we are not willing to accept the prescription in its entirety that can cure the disease and keep diluting the intake because of one ill-conceived consideration or the other, the malaise is only going to get more lethal with the passage of time. We are already late by a long distance. The time to start is now because if we don’t get it, it is bound to get us.

The peace within is the real issue. We have to start this remedial process in earnest. No infected organ can be left out of the ambit of treatment as it may cause the fatal haemorrhaging before we may even know. It has to be a comprehensive prescription followed by a lethal administration targeting the entire scope of this debilitating sickness that has brought us to this pass. The primary prognosis has been long available and we have also been aware of the likely cure. We can’t afford to be indecisive and emotional about it any longer. We need a purely clinical solution that targets all rotten parts that are causing the lacerations.

Pakistan cannot afford the luxury of bedding some extremist concoctions that it may consider to be ‘friendly’. This has been a fatal mistake. Terrorism and militancy are a phenomenon that cannot be differentiated by their religious affiliations and espousals. They operate entirely on the basis of spreading maximum terror to attain their agendas. They don’t shy of killing people and ruining innocent lives in pursuit of their nefarious designs. They hate the prospect of equality and equity. There is to be no freedom of speech. Schools are to be burnt down and education denied to those who seek it. They are not amenable to reason or logic. Life is meaningless to them and human dignity even more so. Women are a cheap commodity that has to be caged. Exposure to avenues of enlightenment is anathema. They would much rather see small children at the firing range mastering the tricks of the gun rather than carrying books to learn. Everyone who disagrees has to be put before the barrel of the gun.

The question of inner peace is directly related to the prospect of knowing your enemy within and without. Unless this painful step is taken together with shunning all forms of hypocrisy practised under one garb or the other, the dream of defeating the scourge of terrorism would remain just that – a dream. No exceptions can be allowed. No middle course would be advisable. It has to be an all-out effort that targets not only the manifestations of extremism and militancy, but their nurseries and hotbeds. We must begin by looking inwards as these prejudices may reside within us – in our emotional attachments and our grandiose ambitions. It is time to clear that muck. We have languished long in the realm of pain. There is no more space for any such emotive infatuation that may, in reality, define the difference between our chances of survival and our plunging into a bottomless pit from where there would be no coming out. The enemy may be creeping within us. The challenge is to know it – and know it well!

The writer is a political strategist. He can be reached at: [email protected]