A pigeon flew past my window this morning

Will there be peace? Will this Operation succeed? Will we learn something? Will we come out more united than ever?

We will begin with a theory: Pakistani people, especially the sort who do not appreciate needlessly fatal interruptions to their day to day existence, are hapless, frustrated people. As these frustrations mount the threshold of their tolerance, their discontent is expressed vicariously through the reflexive patriotism of grand military operations, such as the one we are currently embarking on. It is perhaps for this reason that in times like these, these perfectly reasonable people turn into such ferocious warmongers.

It is no surprise then that the sheer violence of the past month has led to a paralysis of human empathy. What are we expected to do? Grieve the murder of Shia pilgrims or slap ourselves for appointing ‘progressive’ leaders like Imran Khan who incite blasphemy laws against their critics, while we solemnly accept the murder of Ahmadi doctors? What are we to make of the Balochi cause now? How do we dismantle the collusion of deep rooted political grievances and the politics of separatism when our government’s main policy is calculated indecisiveness, and our military has a severe messiah complex? Who shall we nominate to tell Zafar Baloch that his hunger strike could have been timed better because right now we have a lot on our plates, and we need the army to be a necessary evil against the Taliban? Had he brought his fussy eating habits to our door like the Taliban bring their knuckle-headed ideology, then we might have been moved to take him seriously.

How shall we mourn and give meaning to the martyrdom of our soldiers? Shall we now take out those flags that we keep recycling for our tireless PTI rallies? What do the colours of our flag represent when our martyrs are wrapped up in them and sent off to a better place? What comments can be made about the incompetence of those who constantly reassure us that our civil freedoms are purely symbolic and any relevant use of them will be considered an immediate threat to our national security? How can the inferred tyranny of the shock doctrine be disrupted before it leads to unquestioning obedience?

We had a lot to think about, but there was not enough time. There is never enough time.

Zarb-e-Azb, the military’s latest venture against the Taliban is a complicated topic to talk about. It is too early to make any snide judgments and any speculation needs to appear respectful when people’s lives are at risk, lest we end up risking our own. But that is exactly the point: The lives of our soldiers and civilians are at stake and if there is one thing we have learned through our dealings with the Taliban, is that the war against them cannot afford to have myopic goals. So the big question is, what is our plan of action? Where are we going with this?

The popular consensus in the main urban centres is that the use of force is necessary. It is difficult to go against this mood. Even the apologists who, for long, had given political legitimacy to the Taliban against western imperialism have finally switched sides, accepting that the Taliban network is a fascistic, imperial force in itself. We could welcome them into the discussion, except that the quality of their arguments has not improved by a single, desperate iota. Where they once viewed celebratory statistics about ‘terrorists’ killed by drones with utmost skepticism, and lamented the death of every innocent life lost as collateral, they have now decided to grant all sorts of concessions to the state/military as mere inevitabilities of modern warfare.

We are acting on certain assumptions that could have dire implications. Firstly, we are accepting the notion that terrorism is geographically concentrated and our army, which could not foil a terrorist attack on its own base, knows what it is doing and who it is targeting from the air. Without putting troops on the ground, this operation will appear to be nothing more than an exercise in collective punishment and will be viewed by the locals as an occupation.

The woeful hypocrisy of our rhetoric is highlighted when we condemn the entire population of North Waziristan for harbouring and protecting terrorists in exchange for money, or for being passive about foreign presence or simply for being ‘bloody backward idiots’. But who are we to rationalise the misfortune of others and subject them to the wrath of war, when we ourselves, for years, have passively condemned our minorities to eternal damnation by casually signing ghastly declarations of religious superiority? And what for? The acquisition of passports, so we may spend our holidays in peace? We cannot even begin to imagine the realities faced by common people on the ground and the choices they have to make. A bit of humility might take us a long way.

Secondly, this war has drawn imaginary demarcation lines between the historical identities of the public, the military and the militant, glossing over certain unpleasant connivances between the three. It might be refreshing to launch a decisive opposition against religious militancy, but the recent talks and the manipulation of allegiances that went with it, should prove one thing to us: the public, the military and the militant are not entirely heterogeneous groups.

There has been a degree of convergence in their strategic goals and aspirations in the region – after all, we groomed the Taliban to form alliances against our traditional enemy, India. It is this overlap that makes the army so uncomfortable in its shoes. Our generals know that dissent within the ranks is always possible, because under every uniform waits a civilian. So, while we do not have to worry about an Islamist revolution (because there is not enough support for extremist ideologies), we might have to find ways to mold the sympathy that extremist ideologies receive due to the toxic narrative of Muslim Nationalism that the army itself cemented under General Ziaul Haq.

We know that sympathisers sip tea in drawing rooms not far away from our own bedrooms. So, to suppress defections within the new surge against the Taliban, a new form of nationalism had to be invented.

The army now avoids internal dissent by presenting the Taliban as an infliction of ‘foreign lobbies’, but in doing so (along with our enthusiastic air campaigns), it risks feeding into an existing public perception that North Waziristan is a heterogeneous concentration of people whose allegiances lie elsewhere.

Though the TTP’s outsourcing of the Karachi airport attack shows that terrorism is a global issue, and that Pakistan can no longer be a safe haven for these terrorists, it also highlights a less acknowledged truth: it is also our issue. We have collectively made mistakes, ignored warning signs, and fostered proxy wars. This is a fight against the blood. It needs to be dealt with by our state, our military and mostly importantly, ourselves.

Islamist revolutions in the past have been diffused in places like Algeria, not by their military (which employed the ensuing havoc to simply increase its grip on power) but by popular uprisings among the masses.

This is the time to forge new identities, rather than replacing democratic sentiment with mindless nationalism. There are perfectly legitimate reasons to fight back other than being vacuously proud of one’s country and military. In fact, if we manage to fully participate in this fight against terrorism, rather than appointing messiahs on our television screens, we might have something to be proud of.

We need to think about the repercussions of a nationalist operation in which a huge chunk of our population will be displaced (or to be more precise, dispersed). It is precisely the prevalent nationalist tendencies which will result in the framing of IDPs as non-Pakistanis. These people, who are fleeing war like any other reasonable human being who values the functions of our evolutionary instincts, will be subjected to suspicion, racism, discrimination, and poverty.

Will we open our homes to these Pakistanis or will Punjab centrism prevail? Will they be offered residence, welfare and opportunity for employment? Or will we find another excuse to rationalise the displacement of thousands of families as karma for their geographical roots? Already, Sindh and Balochistan governments have clearly said that they have no desire to host the IDPs, with Sindh even instituting a visa regime that will block the entry of IDPs, unless they can prove a purpose of visit, as if these people were actually foreigners. CDA in Islamabad recently pushed for the demolition of ‘katchi abadis’ (slums) where Afghan refugees and IDPs from Swat had built their makeshift homes, and found menial work. Will our failure to integrate IDPs into a new hostile environment lead to new ruptures in ethnic tensions? Is Pakistan bound to become a self-fulfilling prophecy of infinite separatist movements? Will this operation transform us into a more tolerant people? Will democracy be safe in the arms of the military?

There is a lot to think about, but we are running out of time; Mr Tahirul Qadri’s tantrums demand much of our time.