After the school attack in Peshawar last year, it seemed for a while that we had at long last realised what was wrong in our conduct, and we would at least start trying to mend our ways. And try we did: military courts with blanket powers, enhanced counterterrorism operations across Pakistan, more security barriers than you can count, and even guns for school teachers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province are all manifestations of our frail resolve against the terrorist threat.
However, through all these measures, all we ended up doing was putting a bandage over the symptoms, and forgetting about the root causes. We thought that after some raids, arrests and hangings, we would be able to once again feel safe in our homes and in public places. But ailments have a terrible way of showing up when left to fester and hence we had to witness the slaughter in Shikarpur and then, more recently, in Peshawar again. At this point, we have tested tack after tack in our search for lasting peace but, so far, it has all been in vain. First, we went the appeasement route but we soon realised the extent of our mistake when the militants almost came knocking at the doorsteps of the federal capital. Then, with much ado, we propagated the good/bad dichotomy but that too failed to provide the solution. Then, after Peshawar, we erred on the side of the shock and awe strategy but I am afraid that will also fall short in due time.
For the naysayers and the appeasers, the narrative runs something like this: this was originally not our war, and once the US leaves Afghanistan, everything will fall back into place. They say that during the past decade or so, we might have suffered at the hands of some of our (more) wayward fellows but surely this is not an existential threat. Even now, when the US has all but left the territories west of the Durand Line and we are still failing to contain the monster of militancy with a full-blown counterinsurgency operation, some of the more approving observers maintain that the post-Peshawar counterterrorism strategy needs to be given some time to really reap the benefits.
But the truth is that increased militarisation of an already security-driven state is not going to deliver us from this hell. To make matters worse, the additional threat of Islamic State (IS) fanning the sectarian flames now looms large as well. In fact, the responsibility for the recent imambargah attack in Peshawar was claimed by Jundullah, a banned militant outfit that has publicly declared its loyalty to the Daesh caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Additionally, the situation with intolerance towards minorities is not improving at all and the fact that it took a massacre in a ‘sect-less’ place of learning for us to realise that all might not be well for the majority population speaks volumes for our current mindset.
Furthermore, if there is one lesson we can learn from the US’s experience in this regard, it is that even the most sophisticated weaponry fails in the face of guerrilla-style warfare. All the ammunition and all the security in the world have failed time and again to protect us, and it takes only a handful of terrorists to cause massive loss of innocent lives. But if brute force and appeasement are not the way to go, is there anything left?
There is, but only a handful are interested, and understandably so. After all, accepting that the values we have held for so long might not be the best way forward is a difficult task and, as Pakistanis, we like our tasks to be easy. It is with this mindset that we beat our chests raw when someone raises questions about the role of religion in politics and can never have a rational, meaningful discussion about it. Similarly, someone mentions curricula reform in religious seminaries and all hell breaks loose. In fact, empty talk about reform helps to even further demarcate the battle lines and provides ammunition to zealots who then use it to deadly effect.
But the truth is that unless and until factors such as the role of religion in public and private life are addressed head on, we cannot aim any higher than what we are doing right now. Already, the saner voices amongst us are talking in hushed tones and there is a lot of self-censorship involved while going about the business of life in this country. If we do not address the core causes involved, then the only thing we can do is sit back and wait for the barbarians to mount even more horrible attacks. Without recourse to a national consensus about the importnce of tolerance towards others, this is going to be just the first heat wave of a very, very long summer.
The author is a freelance columnist with degrees in political science and international relations