Nip the evil in the bud
In the backdrop of the ruthless tragedy of Peshawar, everybody from the lay man on social media to politicians to anchors on TV are demanding one thing; terrorist be hanged to death. After all, it’s a justified demand; blood for blood? Isn’t it? Speaking from the stand point of psychology; it does provide a bit of a relief to see those monsters hanged. The mind and heart agree with complete harmony that ‘death’ and only ‘death’ should be the fate of all the terrorists.
But wait, while killing may be the vindicated and a just remedy to ‘get rid of terrorists, will it eradicate terrorism also? Disappointedly, the answer is no; actually never. The sad reality is that those hangings or rushing so-called terrorists to the gallows are more of a façade. It is just to placate this numb nation and the international media that the establishment and political leadership are serious in fighting terrorism. They are doing ‘everything’ to purge this land of terrorists. And a great majority, heart wrenchingly, believes so. People here support the popular notion that the army is doing a great job. Well, to date, it remains debatable and highly controversial.
Domestic and trans-national terrorist and extremist groups like Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Harkat-ul-Mujahideen Al-alami (HuMA), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Mujahideen-e-Tanzeem (MeT), etc, are freely operating in Pakistan
In retrospect, nothing sombre is done to counter terrorism. Whatever is being done is more like trimming a large over-grown tree while watering its very roots. As a matter of fact, both domestic and trans-national terrorist and extremist groups like Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Harkat-ul-Mujahideen Al-alami (HuMA), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Mujahideen-e-Tanzeem (MeT), etc, are freely operating in Pakistan. All these facts provoke an incendiary question; are we really doing anything?
In my humble opinion, hanging those terrorists is by no means a good gesture. Firstly, if it’s true that the Peshawar incident was somehow a ‘reaction’ of Zarb-e-Azb, then aren’t those hangings infuriating enough to incite some kind of reaction also. After all, those weren’t two or three people hanged, they were a part of a larger group. It has become a kind of a vicious cycle, we kill them, and they kill us under a different name or cover each time. Forlornly, they are killing us at a much faster pace in various forms. Secondly, how many will we kill or hang? Killing for sure hasn’t helped us yet. What we need is to ‘uproot’ terrorism from Pakistan. We have to nip it in its very root, that very bud we have been irrigating since long. It will not help us fighting against ‘some terrorist’ when they seem out of control while protecting the others, taking them as assets and using them as a tool of foreign policy. What is the actual policy line behind fighting in North-Waziristan? Why is nothing done against the ‘Quetta-Shura’. Why are ‘some areas’ still called ‘federally administered tribal areas’ and are governed through British Raj’s set of laws called the ‘Frontier Crimes Regulations’ (FCR)? Are these areas not a part of this country? Why don’t we feel as possessive about these areas as we feel about ‘occupied Kashmir’? It’s been 65 years since Pakistan came into being and shamefully we have never merged these areas into our main-stream politics. No eco-political, socio-educational reforms have been introduced. No referendum has been carried out to know what those ‘people’ (and not just the head of the tribes) want. Why?
Thirdly, this issue is not just confined to ‘terrorism’. It has its roots in extremism also. We as a nation are engulfed with almost all kinds of extremism. We can’t eradicate one while supporting the other in any form. We have to exterminate both at the same time with all possible measures. Our morality has become increasingly selective. We condemn certain things while we remain silent when others equally atrocious things happen. This indicates our confusion and dual standards. For instance, we really need to question ourselves that why we who condemned the Peshawar incident so powerfully remain silent when Ahmadis are gunned down, Shia’s are killed ruthlessly, Christians are blamed and burned alive for blasphemy without any proof? At a closer look, the mob that burned the young Christian couple alive, those involved in murdering Ahmadis and those monsters that killed innocent children at the Army Public School share a common mentality. They all portray a mind-set that has increasingly become tolerable among us. Also, there is no classification whatsoever of social status, education, gender, cast or creed in this regard. You go outside, socialise with people and find this very disposition and temperament has spread everywhere like a viral infection. Shouldn’t we deal with the infection alongside dealing with the infected people?
This issue is not just confined to ‘terrorism’. It has its roots in extremism also. We as a nation are engulfed with almost all kinds of extremism. We can’t eradicate one while supporting the other in any form
Lastly, these killings and fighting have been largely ineffective as they have not been able to change Pakistan from being a ‘safe havens’ for terrorists. For example, the recent rise and spread of ISIS is not just confined to Iraq or Syria, evidence suggests that the attitude of the some in Pakistan is sympathetic towards this terrorist organisation. They (ISIS) like many other terrorist groups have already made their way in this land, so much so that they are found distributing pamphlets, CDs, maps and literature in Pashto, Dari and Persian in Peshawar, which was also sent to Afghan refugee camps and to eastern Afghanistan. This suggests that our counter-terrorism strategy is flawed from many perspectives, for while we are busy fighting few terrorist groups others are gradually penetrating in the country and hold an emotional and ideological support among us.
We all may have very different ideas regarding the aforementioned opinions. The truth is that we need to bring about massive structural and functional reforms in our society, in every walk of life, from politics to economics and from societal to educational attitudes. Without a paradigm shift and changing things from the grass-root level, we will go on fighting this war endlessly.
To sum up, the spirit (of terrorism and extremism) will continue to haunt us unless we hang the spirit also.
