Daily Times

Yes, it has been a while since I last wrote and the reason is that I have been looking back at 1947, 1951, 1965, 1971, 1985, 1991 and so on – the ebb and flow of history, so to speak, and the paradise that Pakistan was and was going to be until it all started falling apart like a house of cards. There is variation in this play of history. There is the breakup of the country into two in 1971. There is hope, rejuvenation, progress and a steady path, and then there is deterioration. When one looks at the span of it, there is one era that distinctly stands out. It represents a new kind of breakup and it is not how it happened in 1971. I am specifying this current misery, which is like shards of sliced flesh – slaughter but a slow and painful one. A breakup, which is silently being felt by millions, yet like a nation put into a democratic slumber, we struggle to cope with the machinations of politicians trying to survive yet another tenure without being overthrown by the one and only other force to reckon with.

The breakup is also more painful this time, as each segment falling off is small and stabs like a sharp pointed knife going deeper into already seeping wounds. I am reminded of a statement where someone quoted the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP’s) practice of slaughter as being done in the wrong way, and I did not understand. What was meant was starting to cut not from the jugular but from the nape of the neck as it prolongs the misery of the one being slaughtered. Suddenly, all those innocent Pakistanis flash before my eyes. Slaughtered just that way, a few just a day or so back, and yet the dialogue for peace must go on.

The breakup is new also because it nearly completes a cycle of intolerance, which has been compelling minorities to move silently out of Pakistan, trying to find another paradise. The situation is becoming more complex by the day with the TTP going ahead with their killings while in the middle of dialogue. The committees on both sides are trying to put the blame on ‘other forces’, as expected. There is the reality of young girls searching for schools in fragments of broken buildings, which survived the bombs of the Taliban or the vaderas (feudals) of Sindh. There is the population of females in the 180 million still trying desperately to represent their sizable majority, yet unaware of their rights as individuals and citizens of Pakistan where they remain a marginalised group with no voice. I wonder who is representing this sizable majority in the talks with the TTP, considering that these are the most directly affected by the decisions being made and the aftermath of the slaughters mentioned above.

Then there is another kind of breakup – the division of the haves and have nots, the division of liberals and fundamentalists. When you move around the cities, you can see this divide in the schooling systems, in the dress codes followed, in the language used, in the markets visited. There are two separate value systems, both pulling in the opposite direction and equally intolerant of one another.

There is yet another breakup, of the economic kind, and that is breaking up the very structure of governance. With a shortfall expected in revenue collection, the rupee falling in value and a government borrowing heavily from financial institutions forebodes another breakup, which may be around the corner.

Incidentally, even the TTP is not immune from this breakup as, each day, their representative promises that they will go ahead with dialogue while at the same time one of their commanders conveniently slaughters or bombs some more Pakistanis. This indicates either a lack of control over local operational command by the TTP or a deliberate attempt to further make a mouse out of the government. So, in view of all these breakups, one needs to make a decision. My decision is to breakup with what is being presented as our wish for peace.

Yes, hard to believe and hard to say but nowadays all we hear about is the dialogue that is going to give the ‘nation’ great news. The dialogue that is to rid us all of the evil of this long messy foreign war, the dialogue that is going to bring about peace, and of course sharia. So many wonderful words being tarried around like stones in front of dogs, slipping out of one’s paws and going into another’s.

I have difficulty with all of this. There is a basic premise that one cannot be comfortable with. The basic premise is that the nation is actually looking forward to what comes next on this dialogue table from a bunch of bearded maulvis (clerics) who do not necessarily hold a solid foundation in the political system but do have nuisance value, now overly enhanced by all the talk shows and madness of the media.

Peace at any price is not what we are looking at. Peace at the price that the politicians are willing to pay is what it is all about. There is no honour in dialogue with savages and prehistoric tribal patriarchal cavemen who want to bring their brand of barbarism to a country that was created for giving voice to a minority that was sizable and had a voice. Now that voice cannot be drowned again in the name of any religion or philosophy of life. The people of Pakistan deserve better and carry the potential to overcome these difficulties given half a chance. There is yet potential to grow, potential to be smart, progress in the right direction, holding each other’s hands, not cutting them. Our government needs to understand that the majority of the population of Pakistan that voted for them is not in favour of dialogue. Let us have a referendum to find out and the truth will come out. Winston Churchill once said, “You accepted shame to avoid war and now you have both.” Let us not go down this road of shame and accept that we must begin to seriously fight our own war once and for all. In this the only chance we have for freedom and progress is to stand as a united country.

The writer is a former civil servant, columnist, writer, trainer and consultant