Daily Times

From Maulana Samiul Haq to Imran Khan, all conservatives portray Pakistani liberals as bloodthirsty hounds who, in order to please their Lord, the US, are eager to endorse the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians in North Waziristan (NW) through an army operation once again. The right leaning political parties have repeated their stance for so long on the media and presented their case with such audacity while the liberals have defended their allegations so badly that it seems almost true even when everyone knows it is not.

It should have been a priority for the left leaning educated middle class to deny this accusation as baseless and untrue, which it is, and they should have provided a comprehensive rational argument against such a preposterous claim but they just succumbed to it and spent most of their time justifying the support for a grand scale army operation in NW. As their narrative sounded defensive, unconvincing and foreign, they were attacked even harder and harder from the right wing hawks on television and the newspapers that labelled them as ‘pseudo-liberals’ and ‘pseudo-intellectuals’.

Keeping rhetoric aside and putting things into perspective, the allegation against the moderates can be divided into two main parts. First, contrary to the worldwide liberal ideology of peace and non-violence, Pakistani (pseudo) liberals are in favour of this as they push for strikes in the tribal belt, which not only makes them hypocrites and dollar thirsty US agents but also Godless supporters of secularism. Quite the opposite, the truth is that both liberals and conservatives in the US agreed to wage a war in Afghanistan after September 2001. Even for the Iraq war, Hillary Clinton, a democrat, a renowned liberal and the former secretary of state, has said on record that knowing what she knew then, she would vote in favour of attacking Iraq again. It seems, for the Pakistani guardians of religion, that she must be a pseudo-liberal too.

Secondly, the liberals favour the killings of thousands of people in the tribal areas just because of their conservative traditions, their tribal structure and their close association with Islam instead of negotiating with local Pashtuns to give up the small number of foreigners and the terrorists hiding in their areas. For the same reason, the pseudo-liberals, who otherwise show compassion towards saving the life of even a dog or a bird in the west, have favoured drone strikes in FATA even when studies have confirmed the proportion of innocent deaths is much higher and even though the Predator attacks create a lot of resentment in the tribal belt, leading to more terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

The whole premise of this argument is inaccurate and exaggerated, in my opinion. A kind of straw man’s fallacy in which the position of the liberals is first blown out of proportion and then that extreme and unrealistic view is negated as being vindictive, cruel and intolerant. In the case of terrorism, Afghan policy and jihad, the position of liberals is very clear. From day one of the first Afghan war when Russia invaded Kabul, liberals have opposed the use of religion to obtain political objectives. During those days, when conservatives were busy giving a bloodbath to Afghans with US money and weapons, liberals promoted their nonviolent agenda. They were then labelled Russian agents by the same people who now call them US agents.

Today, after the deaths of thousands of innocent Pakistanis, what liberals are saying is not any different. First, the state should dissociate itself at once from all the jihadi groups whether they have been trained for the struggle in Kashmir or to fight an insurgency in Afghanistan. Second, that Pakistan should put its own house in order first and improve its governance as a priority by focusing on healthcare and education, settle its own political issues as a matter of urgency and reduce religious intolerance through a comprehensive programme way before it liberates Kashmir.

Third, the state should assert its control on all of its territories from Karachi to Peshawar against everyone who uses violence to promote a religious or political agenda. From gathering credible intelligence and data collection about the network and functional apparatus of these organisations that, under the disguise of social work or religious education, are promoting hatred, intolerance and sometimes even training to their members, to effective policing and evidence collection, followed by speedy trials and successful convictions. The state has the responsibility to establish its writ through all of its resources. Nonetheless, it is clear from the hundreds of attacks throughout the country that it has failed in every department. It has failed to infiltrate them, pre-empt them, capture them, control them, prosecute them, convict them and eradicate them. Its intelligence information is sub-optimal, police performance is dismal, evidence collection nonexistent, investigation procedures villainous and the court system rudimentary.

Sometimes, to make the situation even worse, the state itself has been accused of being an accomplice. Under pressure from the people, the only way so far it knows to curb terrorism, to some extent, is an army operation or with US-led drone attacks. Had the state announced an all-inclusive plan to reduce extremism and terrorism, I am sure liberals would have agreed to such a strategy without hesitation and would have provided their complete approval. However, there is none.

When inaction leads to suicide, action becomes imperative. Without having any other option, they had to support army action in NW, which they do, and that has been regarded as their mistake. To label them bloodthirsty hounds in such circumstances is a great dishonesty but what can you expect from people who sell religion to come into power?

The writer is a US-based freelance columnist. He tweets @KaamranHashmi and can be reached at skamranhashmi@gmail.com