Daily Times

What happened in and to the government and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) peace process in these recent weeks? Where did a process that seemed to be so promising when it began with the ceasefire accord go wrong, and what factors contributed to its ultimate breakdown? Where do things stand today? What can be done to revive it? The breakdown of the process in the last few weeks produced clashing narratives, reflecting different opinions for judgment and classic delaying tactics. Public support for negotiation has dwindled, even when public opinion began to favour a negotiated solution. Reviving the peace process requires mutual reassurance about the availability of trust from both parties for negotiating a principled peace based on a compromise that meets basic needs and validates the identities of both people. The important thing is to understand the dynamics of the negotiation process. What affects the process, who are the actors, why it can fail, what constitutes effective negotiation strategies and tactics, and so on are what we must ask. We know that negotiators do not necessarily act rationally and it is possible that sometimes they may act against their own, objectively perceived interests. Achieving more than optimal results will occur frequently by seeking to discover and attempting to meet the interests of parties engaged in negotiation, and recognising the importance of relationships inherent in interest-based negotiation approaches.
Although no overall power governs the negotiating process, we do not know who has the upper hand in these peace negotiations but this does not mean that the process is ungoverned. The government laid an administrative framework, the role of which in providing seriousness has been redefined rather than evaporated by the Taliban’s organisation of the negotiating team and the proposed agenda system between state and non-state actors is primarily in the shadows. Lack of success in the peace accord shows how this negotiated nature of statehood, and the power differentials between the various actors, involve constant renegotiation. Instead of producing uniform results within the negotiating teams, this form of regulation crescendos on the power configurations in particular personalities at particular times.
During the last two months or so, considerable amounts of time and energy have been spent resolving terrorism issues and managing associated conflicts but the objectives are lost in the process. There are two obvious reasons for the revival of interest in negotiations. For starters, it is clear that unsuccessful negotiation or the failure to negotiate at all leads to conflict that is both unproductive and costly. Second, there is recognition that many negotiations fail to maximise potential gains in the outcomes they produce. There is a third, less obvious point: disputes are not zero-sum situations –one side does not need to lose for another side to win, and all parties do not necessarily want the same thing. Negotiations that take a zero-sum approach can fail to optimise results, if they succeed at all.
The government/TTP conflict can be described as an existential conflict between two identity groups each of which claims the same territory for its homeland, religious beliefs and political state. In such a conflict, the identity and the existence of the other represent a threat to each group’s own identity and existence. These dynamics have led to a view of the conflict in zero-sum terms, not only with respect to territory, but also with respect to religious beliefs, national identity and existence. The TTP espouses a view of Islamic sharia that says either ‘us’ or ‘they’ are an Islamic nation. Thus, over the course of the conflict, each side has made systematic efforts to deny the other’s identity on the premise of ideological beliefs, the authenticity of its links to Islam and the legitimacy of its claims to the ultimate religion. Indeed, each incorporated negation of the other’s identity is its own perceived narrative. This zero-sum view of the conflict is held to different degrees by different individuals and groups within each group and, indeed, by the same individuals and groups at different times. Though it has transformed over the years in response to various developments, it remains a powerful dynamic in the conflict. Significant elements in each group continue to subscribe to it with ideological zest, and their influence grows under conditions of increasing threat, mutual distrust and despair.
The perception of the conflict in existential and zero-sum terms has direct consequences for internal (intra-group) factions within the TTP. On the one hand, it invariably sets off intra-group conflict whenever the possibility of a compromise arises. The conflict reflects the division in Taliban groups between the fundamentalist or rejectionist elements who, for religious or ultra-nationalist reasons, want to hold out for total victory as compared to the more moderate elements who are willing to consider compromises for the sake of peace, as long as their group’s existence is assured. The TTP intra-group conflict resulting from this division plays a significant role in exacerbating and perpetuating the inter-group conflict by making it intractable. On the other hand, the existential nature of the conflict creates a powerful intra-group consensus. Thus, when members of the TTP perceive a threat to the core of their group identity and to their existence, there is a strong tendency to soften internal divisions and to close ranks in the common cause of group survival.
The nature of the conflict and other conflicts between splinter TTP groups condition public reactions to any effort to set a peace process into motion. I propose that movement toward peace create an approach avoidance conflict at two levels within this negotiation process. At the negotiating table, the dovish and the hawkish Taliban elements are drawn by the prospects of a peace process. The doves are likely to embrace the process with enthusiasm and hope; the hawks — particularly the radicals and rejectionists, whose hawkishness is ideologically based — are likely to feel threatened by the process and to react with fear and despair. With the active involvement of these two groups, both approach and avoidance tendencies are likely to rise within the TTP that in return help the prospect of peace, hope and anticipation.
Concessions necessitated by peace negotiations might land the government on a slippery slope but could spell the end of their long-standing conflict with the Taliban. At the micro level, the formulation of a principled peace can be seen as an effort to promote attitude change in the Taliban, which moves beyond identification toward internalisation. On the other hand, at the macro level, the ideas that such a formulation would inject into the political thinking of the Taliban can be seen as a step toward reconciliation. Reconciliation is a process extending over a long period of time, much of which can take place only after a political agreement has been negotiated. Yet often significant steps toward reconciliation must take place in order to enable the parties to conclude a political agreement. To move the process forward in the current phase of the conflict, it is necessary to take a further step toward reconciliation through mutual acknowledgment of the other’s identity and authentic links to the land. This can, of course, occur only in a fully reciprocal context, in which farewell to violence is inscribed and each side’s own collective identity is affirmed as it, in turn, acknowledges the identity of the other.

The writer is a member of the Diplomate American Board of Medical Psychotherapists Dip.Soc Studies, member Int’l Association of Forensic Criminologists, associate professor Psychiatry and consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at the Huntercombe Group United Kingdom. He can be reached at fawad_shifa@yahoo.com