The new government seems to be in control and a policy of peace is what the authorities have developed and are eager to employ in the backdrop of a chaotic security situation. The government even after the killing of Hakimullah Mehsud has reiterated its original stance that only dialogue with them would bring peace to the country. The Pakistan prime minister said that the efforts would be made that would take the peace process forward, and surely, that is the best way to move ahead. Not because there is or was no need to fight, but because whatever that had to be done in terms of military operations is now complete. There is a dire need to take the counter insurgency plan to the next level where negotiations ought to be made for a peaceful future co-existence.
The APC held in September had decided to give peace a chance and had authorised the government to hold talks with the militants. Thus, in a special meeting of the cabinet the government has presented its firm stance that it stands determined on negotiations with the Taliban post Hakeemullah Mehsud’s killing. The time is surely ripe; we have had 12 very long and painful years of war in our country with a future prospect of suffering the fallout of the 2014-withdrawal in Afghanistan. With thousands of people, including civilians and soldiers, being killed its finally time to exit the fighting phase and enter the peaceful one.
Major stronghold of militants have been dismantled by our security forces, and whatever has been left is the last minute hiccups that the Taliban are taking after their strangulation. Based on this premise of peace, Pakistan had protested the untimely killing of Mehsud through a drone strike that has stalled the process right at its infancy. What this incident alludes to is the killing of rogue operators by the high command once they do not remain useful for them, something that one sees in every movie. But, since we are ardent believers that the show must go on, so it definitely must, and at any cost.
According to the US State Department’s Deputy Spokesperson Ms Marie Harf, Mehsud was a direct threat to US national interests and had extensive links to the al Qaeda. Well, after his killing, has the direct threat decreased to a considerable proportion? What about the new TTP chief? Does he also pose a similar threat or would things be different? If the killing of Obama bin Laden still has not settled the monster of the direct threat to the US’s interests, (I don’t know about them being of national security), then nothing ever would. The US psychology needs to be traced for symptoms of other variety, that is, the insecurity of losing its power over other nations and their resources.
Thus in this background, instead of employing the famous victimisation narrative, the opposition along with the government, need to develop a clean and workable multi-tiered plan for negotiations along with a measuring mechanism that would provide the degree of success and level of success achieved to make it more transparent for all. This need for peace is not a new phenomenon, but one that has been sung by our security forces for a long time. Being so intimately involved in the war, keeping track of the strengths and weaknesses of the militants while fighting with them had provided them ample insight to conclude the time for changing the strategy of employment. One thing, however, was sure that both do not go hand in hand. Either you fight or you talk. Doing both simultaneously is known as treachery, and whether we like it or not, talking to the enemy must be done honestly if desired and long lasting outcome is to be achieved.
It needs to be known that the Pakistani authorities are interested in peace not only in the process of reconciliation with the militants, but have voiced their thoughts to denounce that “senseless use of force won’t help”. This statement uttered by Nawaz Sharif refers to the Obama administration against the use of indiscriminate drone strikes that are established to be counter-productive in every war effort.
The Pakistan Foreign Office has issued a statement regarding drone strikes after the prime minister’s visit to Washington, where he met and talked about the issue with the US President Barrack Obama. The Drone issue, like all others associated with the global war on terror has developed and grown over a period of a decade to attain complexity, controversy and continuity. There is a lot that has been said about it in every part of the globe but very little has changed on ground. Considered as the easiest means of maintaining a position of dominance during war times, drone attacks have become a signature strategy adopted by the western powers droning innocent people and militants alike while sitting thousands of miles away. Therefore, when the Foreign Office calls for a halt to drone strikes, by stating ‘strikes no more’, this is taken as a positive and brave attribute of the current regime.
Prime Minister Sharif is trying to construct a strong voice and ideologically positions himself within the struggle of opposing forces in the political environment where the strong centripetal forces are interpenetrated by centrifugal dynamics. Here language becomes, in the words of Bakhtin, a site for struggle of power. Thus, the narrative of peace becomes the narrative of hope and change that the ruling party had projected during its pre-election campaigning. The only thing that remains is that the ideology ought to be felt through action so that they become meaningful.
The writer is a lecturer in the Linguistics department of Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, and presently working on her PhD thesis in discourse analysis. She can be reached at [email protected]