Daily Times

“Almighty Allah has created two kinds of creatures: insan (human beings) and Pathan. Pathans are very different people. America may kill them in the numbers it wishes; they will fight even more. And they fight with strategy… they don’t fight to lose. They [Taliban] don’t have to lose because they are in awam [masses]. Pakhtun awam are with them. Taliban are nowhere in the picture; this war is now Pakhtuns’ war, who are on both sides of the border,” says Imran Khan, chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), in a video which is making the rounds these days on the internet.

Let us conduct a post-mortem of the statement. In the first place, he does not conceive Pathans as human beings; for him Pathans are a separate and unique kind of species. Then stereotyping them in a colonial style, he implicitly exhorts them to take on the US which he considers their worst enemy. His sympathies for the Taliban become more evident when he says “they don’t have to lose because they are in the awam, the Pakhtun awam are with them”. He does not distinguish a Pakhtun (a normal patriotic citizen) from a Talib (a terrorist).

I can understand why Mr Khan utters such statements; what I do not understand is why he thinks such statements (or in a broad sense this kind of approach to politics) will prompt people, specifically Pakhtuns, to affiliate themselves with his party, PTI. His overall political programme is reactionary, confused, misleading and enveloped in sentiments and emotions, on sale for the illiterate, inexperienced and the politically unaware crowd.

His campaign to plead the case for negotiations with the Taliban is misleading. The Taliban phenomenon has become a matter of life and death for us. We should try to understand that if the Taliban are eliminated, we have hopes for survival, otherwise we are doomed. The military has time and again signed deals with the Taliban — considering them sons of the soil — which they used as an opportunity to re-equip and regroup to fight even more lethal battles with new zeal.

‘Negotiate with the Taliban’ also rings hollow if viewed from a strategic point of view. In any state there must not be any entity more powerful than the state. The state has to eliminate or at least subjugate militant groups to disprove that there are states within a state. To negotiate with a militant organisation whilst it is dancing in the battlefield is to recognise its status as a state within the state. Is this what Mr Khan is pleading for? There would not be any harm in negotiations with the Taliban if they surrender before the Pakistan Army, salute the flag of Pakistan and lay down their arms.

A comparison with the US’s peace overtures towards the Taliban is equally misleading. Thousands and thousands of miles away, the US does not feel any existential threat from the Taliban, while for us it has become an existential threat. The only way out for us is to back our soldiers to wipe them out.

Another popular content of Mr Khan’s political strategy is anti-Americanism as a tool to exploit the sentiments of the poor and uneducated masses. In international relations, a shift in policy takes time and requires extensive homework to adapt the system to a new environment. Before buying Mr Khan’s anti-Americanism, please answer the following questions: from where will we get civilian and military aid? The IMF will be pressured to withhold loans; how will we then manage our economy? The US will tend to isolate us diplomatically; how many of our friends will potentially neutralise the effort? The US will allow a huge space to India in Afghanistan; how will we escape from being encircled by India?

Does it mean we cannot put an end to our dependence on the US? No, we can be independent like India, but for that we need to bring reforms in both domestic and foreign policy. On external fronts we need to bring substantive change in our strategic calculus, i.e. to cultivate friendly relations with Afghanistan and Iran and extend a hand of friendship towards India so that we have friends in our region. On the internal front, we need to bring socio-cultural reforms: end Islamic radicalism and corruption; pacify disgruntled citizens; strengthen our institutions; empower civil society and open up our general environment. We have to transform from a special state to a neutral one. Rather than abusing the US, Mr Khan should push for the required changes to make it easy for the managers of our country to divorce the US.

When he addresses Pakhtuns, he seems to be living in the 20th century, oblivious of their problems and priorities. At this time the Pakhtuns’ prime need is peace, which has become a luxury. Gone are the days when they would deem themselves a brigade to fight to hoist the flag of Islam over the globe. Now, after being beaten for the last ten years, they have become rational and pragmatic, concerned only with peace in their region. And that is the main reason behind the wholehearted support they have extended to the Pakistan Army in its fight against the Taliban. By likening them with the Taliban, I do not know how Mr Khan can get their support.

The Pakhtuns’ traditions teach them peace, progress and prosperity. In a traditional Pakhtun society, mullahs were limited to their prayer mats; tribal leaders controlled their society. The activities of a small number of fanatics should not make anyone liken the whole community with terrorists. The Pakhtuns’ second most important issue is reforms in FATA. Had their tribal brothers been exposed to a counter-argument, progressive political ideas and mainstream political discourse, they would not have been so easily misguided by the extremist elements that have been at work in their region for quite some time. Will Mr Khan stage a demo like the one he staged against drone attacks to push for reforms in FATA?

One of the basic causes of Islamic radicalism is lack of education. Khans (Pakhtuns) know the fact more than any other community of Pakistan but an education-friendly environment is not available to them. In the seven agencies of FATA there is not a single university. Will Mr Khan establish a university like the one he has established in Mianwali? For the person who is a philanthropist par excellence, it should not be an uphill task. There is no reason that the Khans will not support Khan if he makes sense of the problems they are facing and struggles to solve them.

The writer is a freelance columnist. He can be reached at khetranazk@gmail.com