Pakistan’s war doesn’t end with Zarb-e-Azb
For the last three decades or so Pakistan’s narrative has lived under strict watch of the centre-right. Extremism and violence come in all shapes and sizes and inflict all manners of horror without prejudice on the people of the country. Somewhere along the way the centre-right narrative became skewed and marred with the worst possible interpretation of religious extremism. As Zarb-e-Azb chugs along, we have to stop and accept that perhaps the military offensive will put but a dent in the problems that are plaguing Pakistan and its people.
Is Zarb-e-Azb the solution to Pakistan’s little extremism problem? The sad fact is that while the military showed extreme efficiency at displacing a plethora of people from their homes, it will not produce a similar kind of efficacy when it comes to extremism. The country needs a multi-faceted approach to tackle this particular problem. However, in order to understand how to rid the country of all the issues that it is plagued with, it is important to first understand what those issues are.
Contrary to popular belief, even if the Taliban somehow magically evaporated into thin air never to be seen again, Pakistan would still be in trouble. Each province is marked by its own brand of violence and extremism — and not so surprisingly, while a lot of it is connected to religiosity, much of it is caused by elements that have nothing to do with religion. From the separatist movements in Balochistan to the political mafia that has overtaken Karachi — Pakistan has a long way to go. Of course, it goes without saying that the Taliban’s miraculous disappearance would have no affect on the many sectarian and targeted killings that take place on a regular basis. The country had descending into chaos, perhaps only by a small margin, long before it helped give birth to the Taliban.
Contrary to popular belief, even if the Taliban somehow magically evaporated into thin air never to be seen again, Pakistan would still be in trouble. Each province is marked by its own brand of violence and extremism — and not so surprisingly, while a lot of it is connected to religiosity, much of it is caused by elements that have nothing to do with religion.
The provincial conundrum
Any sort of progressive approach to Pakistan’s addiction to chaos will first need to acknowledge that each province or city embroiled in chaos needs its own set of solutions, tools and manpower. For instance, the approach required to find a solution to the issues that Balochistan is cursed with, will not work in Punjab. Also, with Balochistan the main problem is the separatist movements and their stance against the establishment. While the establishment continually impinges on the rights of the Baloch, they’re not a people to take things lying down — any efforts to suppress them have resulted in terrorist acts coming from different movements within the province. On the other hand, sectarian violence in Punjab is not the result of any kind of hindrance from the establishment. Ironically, it is the establishment itself that has allowed sectarian groups to fester and grow to this extent.
Every single province presents its own unique set of dimension and solutions need to work within that given context. A generic approach will neither fix the problem nor address any of the issues at hand effectively.
And that being said, there are some steps which need to be taken on a national scale.
The main ingredient
Education is quite literally the most effective long term solution to any form of extremism that exists. And education would have a huge task ahead of it. Pakistan doesn’t just have to tackle the different forms of education system, it has to first realise that there’s an education emergency with a good portion of the country’s children having no access to any form of education. Once it’s done focusing on that it can move on to the unchecked madrasas and add some form of structure or regulation to ensure that the content being taught therein isn’t promoting hate in the students.
The problem doesn’t start or end at the madrassas, however. Take a look at the curriculum being taught at any public school and you’ll find derogatory and hateful narratives about minorities in numerous subjects. The curriculums for private schools are no different. Our education system ingrains hate for minorities from a very basic level and it’s something that children are indoctrinated with, without ever having a say in the matter.
The books and courses need to be revised so that all forms of discriminatory passages and chapters are removed from them. Children need to be taught compassion and inclusivity. Unless they are exposed to diversity things in the country will never change and people will continue to belong to groups and sects and never to each other, least of all to the country itself.
The legal front
No constitution actually guarantees rights to all its citizens and simultaneously strips them off the same rights in the same breath. By adding a clause that makes a particular group of people non-Muslim against their will and wishes, the legal structure has actually given most people a premise to hate an entire group of people needlessly. If Pakistan is to outdo the harm done by religiosity it must first ensure that state decisions are free from any religious influences. While it may be a far stretch to expect that religion will be entirely removed from the constitution (we do have a fully functional Federal Shariat Court that counts more than all the laws combined), it is possible to remove harmful and detrimental clauses that single out minorities for hate.
Instead of working on any form of inclusive concept Pakistan has time and against introduced laws which are only harmful for the people in the long run. The recent Protection of Pakistan Ordinance counterterrorism legislation is proof of that fact. The country at this point needs to get rid of things such as the blasphemy law instead of introducing new legislation that is expected to only up the ante on the human rights violations against Pakistanis themselves.
Education is quite literally the most effective long term solution to any form of extremism that exists. And education would have a huge task ahead of it. Pakistan doesn’t just have to tackle the different forms of education system, it has to first realise that there’s an education emergency with a good portion of the country’s children having no access to any form of education.
While creating new progressive laws is a great idea, it is also extremely important to teach people to respect said laws. We have cases of women being bludgeoned to death outside court houses for marrying a man of their choice, as easily as we have cases of entire families being torched to death for alleged instances of blasphemy. Even with laws and legal structures set in place, the people have no patience and no respect for the law — not enough to wait for a decision that comes from the courts.
Communities in need
What makes a Pakistani a Pakistani? Most people are Shi’a, Sindhi, Punjabi, Barelvi, etc, long before they are anything else. Pakistan’s ethnic and religious segregation has only been made worse by the religious and ethnic leaders that are in control. At present a platform needs to be created on which Pakistanis can come together irrespective of their casts, creeds, and other affiliations. The country has no community centres that are inclusive and that is largely the problem.
As things stand, a Shi’a cannot pray in a Sunni mosque and vice versa. The closest we came was to the Darul Iman Jamia Masjid Qurtuba, which was a sect free mosque created in Islamabad. Even that mosque had no declared policy for including Ahmadis into its wing. What we need is a consistent policy on community based growth and that policy needs to be implemented nationwide — in big cities and small ones, in rural cities and metropolitans.
Pakistanis severely lack empathy. Several horrible crimes are committed against minorities on a yearly basis and the main reason is that those minorities are no longer seen as human. Some argue that the Shi’a beat their own children till their bloody in the name of religion while others talk about Ahmadis being the biggest kaffirs of all time. There is a great divorce of fact from reality — and people follow whatever narratives they are fed through their leaders. Until and unless people can come together and appreciate their differences they will never learn to accept them.
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