Daily Times

Months have passed but still no one knows the exact coordinates of the peace talks, lost deep in the wilderness of the tribal areas along with the government’s sense of responsibility. Even the myopic can see, without any ambiguity, the writing on the wall in bold, underlined letters. It requires a multi-dimensional strategy, executed at various levels of society, to effectively curb extremism and its products, especially the Taliban, but the government seems confident it can cure the sick without an exact diagnosis.
First, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, our beloved politician, still in the process of becoming a real interior minister, hopefully will become one as soon as he is out of office. He seems too busy, perhaps doing what is not required of him, to look at either intelligence reports or newspapers. A headline finds him grumbling bitterly over the non-serious attitude of the Taliban peace committee. He roars that, amid needless rhetoric, peace talks cannot move forward. Speaking at the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) headquarters, indirectly admitting being stabbed in the back, our interior minister implores for the support of Taliban representatives, hurt by their hurled allegations at a clawless government. One wonders if he really lives in the country and knows what happens on the ground! Does he really believe the TTP is dying for peace?
Actions speak louder than words; has our interior minister taken the time to see if the peace rhetoric of the Taliban committee is backed by the Taliban’s ‘louder than bombs’ deeds? Is he able to challenge the fact that the TTP has undergone a complete transformation and has emerged as the Tehreek-e-Extortion Pakistan (TEP), with its financial interests across the nation? Some seminaries, even in the federal capital, have become a tool for the TTP, or TEP, to collect ransom and extortion money. Administrators of these madrassas (seminaries) are reported to help crack deals between victims and the militants. In some cases, these seminaries have acted as safe houses to keep the kidnapped until arrangements are made for the transfer of the unlucky to the tribal areas. In addition, 20 seminaries located in Rawalpindi, the city he represents, are reported to have assisted the Taliban in terrorist attacks.
On the pure land of Pakistan, seminaries or religious madrassas are allowed to sprout up at will. According to one estimate, Pakistan has 13,000 religious seminaries and this excludes non-registered ones. Who knows, and who should know, how many of them are serving the TTP more than religion? How many are polluting students’ brains with sectarian germs? How many are preparing the next generation of mercenaries, in the name of God, to fight in other countries? Most importantly, however, is: who has the guts to call a spade a spade and do something to make things right?
The US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, James Dobbins, has accused religious seminaries in FATA and Balochistan of attacks in Afghanistan and India. A new definition of patriotism requires us to completely negate undeniable and brighter-than-daylight facts, and thus our national duty is to consider Dobbins a liar with the satanic mission to derail the divine peace talks. However, how can we deny the existence of the hell our businessmen live in, enduring repeated demands for extortion money from different groups under the banner of the TTP?
One can imagine that while committees of both sides meet, greet and hug each other cordially, and later take their positions from every angle between one and 180 degrees in the media, the Taliban, in their bunkers and caves, smile and dance on the heads of those who rule the land. They sit together and meticulously plan how to reap more benefits from talks and kill as many innocent Pakistanis as possible in markets, courts and mosques.
Analysis of the ongoing dialogue process, putting aside all paradoxes it contains and its zero chances of success, will show that so far the Taliban are far ahead, reaping the benefits of the talks. The leadership of the TTP has become a household name, and the nation more and more confused. It seems that it is the TTP that is serious about peace and the armed forces are the only obstacle in the way of lasting peace and harmony in the country. In all this rhetoric, no one has time to focus on the news that the Taliban are now planning to use the River Indus for the movement of arms, ammunition and kidnapped people to skip security checks on land routes. The so-called peace talks have given the TTP an opportunity to better organise themselves and deepen their networks across the nation. This is just the tip of the iceberg but is enough to show what lies up their sleeves. The only role the Sharif-led government could think of was to reiterate its firm commitment for peace, and practically begged for it. Even if dialogue with the enemies of dialogue was part of a long-term strategy, it was not played well.
In addition to all of this, Maulana Samiul Haq, the chief of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Sami (JUI-S) and one of many known and unknown fathers of the Taliban, and now an undisputed national guide on the road to peace, dreams that some unidentifiable foreign and internal forces are busy hatching conspiracies to derail the divine dialogue process. When awake he advises first the armed forces and then the militants to be good boys, lay down their arms and follow him on the glorious path of dialogue, hand in hand.
What the Sharif-led government is reluctant to consciously realise is the harsh fact that the TTP issue is far more complicated than it appears. The inability of consecutive governments helped the extremists establish deep roots in the fabric of society. These extremist and sectarian outfits, affiliated with al Qaeda and the TTP, are now in the position to play an important role during elections through their organised vote banks. The PML-N has a history of benefitting from the cooperation of outlawed outfits during elections. Therefore, any concrete measures against these cancerous elements of society will be the last thing the PML-N in particular could wish for.
The harsh reality of today is that religious fanatics are more organised than the intelligentsia and civil society. They have the guns and the guts to use them whenever a situation so requires. In addition, the government is focused on issues of trivial importance; the Sharifs are not interested in sizing up the Taliban threat, the armed forces are in a dilemma and waiting for orders and the nation is more confused than ever. Therefore it is time civil society unites to face the menace of the TTP and to pressurise the government to take serious steps to eliminate terrorism, before it is too late.

The writer is a freelance columnist. He can
be contacted at qmparis@gmail.com