Daily Times

Out of the many chilling accounts that have emerged after the Peshawar horror, there is one tiny detail that demands further inspection. According to eyewitness accounts, the militants who attacked the school in Peshawar entered the premises only after burning the vehicle they had used as transport. Let me underline the significance of this seemingly innocuous bit of information. The prevalent security systems we have (security check posts, barbed wires, electrified fences, snipers, etc) operate on one fundamental assumption: that the person foolish enough to breach such security would at least care for his life. That when faced with the primordial calculus of survival, a person would choose to live rather than die. But when you throw this supposition out of the window, what you have essentially are security threats of the worst kind: ones where the attackers do not bother with exit strategies, which are exactly the ones Pakistan has to live through.

So how do you stop someone who is not just unafraid of dying but is pretty much looking forward to it? Some say that you cannot and, if that is the case, then how can we at least stop such incidents from happening? This is a much more relevant query since terrorist attacks are by no means unique to Pakistan. In fact, at different times in recent history, terrorism has been used as a political tool on a global scale. Faced with the same predicament Pakistan is facing, the range of responses by various countries has been diverse. Out of the innumerable many, there are two important incidents that we can look at in order to weigh our options for retaliation.

September 9, 2001 will forever be remembered as the day the world changed. Seventeen hijackers smashed two passenger aircraft into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York City. As a result, 2,977 people died, including the hijackers and the 246 passengers on board. The 9/11 attack is crucial because it had some very significant consequences. In the US, the intelligence network took over available public space and civilian oversight was limited in the wake of security threats. Besides massive government restructuring, the state’s security apparatus was increasingly militarised. Additionally, harassment and surveillance of immigrants, particularly those of an Islamic bent, increased and multiple scapegoats were offered to the public for appeasement.

The US, moreover, launched the war on terror, the reverberations of which we are still facing today. Such was the extent of paranoia that when the world community did not deem the evidence tying Iraq’s Saddam Hussein with al Qaeda solid, lies were spun around the sensitive issue of (ultimately) non-existent weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) to invade the country anyway. In retrospect, 9/11 left the US a fundamentally changed nation. The torture programmes, the extra-judicial detainments, the elaborate snooping mechanisms and the acceptance of collateral damage, all originated after the 9/11 attack.

The other incident is a bit closer to home. On November 26, 2008, a series of 12 shooting and bomb attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai resulted in at least 164 casualties. The immediate aftermath of the Mumbai attacks was to shore up the city’s as well as the country’s defences. Training programmes for special response squads were initiated and better surveillance and counter-insurgency techniques were devised. The threat of a war between India and Pakistan loomed large in those days but saner heads ultimately prevailed. Instead of a no-holds-barred approach, restraint was employed. Throughout all this, our neighbours stuck to the available evidence. The Indians claimed they had proof regarding the Pakistani origin of the attackers and demanded that justice be done. In response, suspects were detained in Pakistan and the only captured perpetrator of the attacks was tried and convicted by the Indian courts. Besides a few instances of communal violence, the situation remained peaceful overall.

Some might object that the incidents are incomparable, since the threat we face is internal but, more importantly, these incidents demonstrate how countries faced with similar circumstances opted for differing responses after breaches of national security. Moreover, we can debate the true cost of the divergent strategies endlessly but the fact remains that one attack was enough to jolt these countries awake and be on guard against future threats. Coming back to our own predicament though, maybe the reason we ignored the terrorist threat in our midst for so long is because the victims previously belonged to minority sects and religions. Innocent people were still being butchered by the terrorists in the past but nobody cared because they were the perpetual ‘others’. Perhaps that is precisely why the response to the Peshawar attack has been markedly different because, once and for all, we have woken up to the real extent of the threat. All of the attacks before Peshawar had just been wasted opportunities to rectify the mistakes of the past. And even after more than 50,000 Pakistani soldiers and civilians have lost their lives in this battle there is still a sense of unfinished business.

After Peshawar though, we have openly admitted the abject failure of the civilian apparatus but, rather than addressing the root causes, we have chosen to eliminate the symptoms. As per the new action plan, military courts will be instituted for speedy justice. Furthermore, we have already started hanging convicted terrorists and scapegoats. But no one is talking about the real consequences of the path we seem to be headed on. The grief of the relatives of the deceased in the Peshawar attack is too immense to be consoled but, without burning off the poisonous stumps of this hydra-headed monster, there can be no true reprieve.

In view of this, the choice we face is one between liberty and security, between living with the prospect of collective decision-making and not living at all. It is a most difficult choice, if it can even be termed as one. The word unprecedented has been thrown around a lot since Peshawar and with some justification. However, at a time when we are deciding our future, it is imperative that we not become myopic. Unfortunately though, real tough questions about the thriving networks of militancy are being sidelined in favour of puny procedural issues. If you question the official response too much, you risk suffering the ire of the enraged masses or worse yet be termed as a terrorist sympathiser. However, if we leave the state’s response unquestioned, we must get ready to live in a heavily militarised state that cares little for trivialities like transparency or civilian oversight. I understand that law and justice can sometimes be mutually exclusive but should we not resist the urge to conflate justice with vengeance so that when the children of our children are looking back at this time, they can at least say that we tried and failed, rather than doubt if we ever tried at all?

The author is a freelance columnist with degrees in political science and international relations