Daily Times

In the afterglow of the Islamabad sit-in, one hears the faint echoes of Winston Churchill’s famous speech on the eve of Dunkirk in WW-II. When accosted by a boastful bevy of parliamentarians gloating on the successful evacuation of 340,000 troops by a flotilla of 800 vessels, he thundered, “We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations.”

Wars indeed are not won by evacuations. But was Faizabad standoff a war or a peaceful protest? A peaceful protest as per the apologists of the protesters, but a war as per the near and dear ones of the six killed during the violent denouement of the drama. It was a war waged way earlier between religious particularism and state machinery responsible for maintaining order.

The sanguinary response of the state machinery to violent acts of religious extremism has always been balanced by appeasement nullifying the gains of retribution. The state and society’s inability to take the bull of extremism by its horns lies in the state’s ideological paradox. A creed or faith used as a leaven to bind the disparate proximate identities of the nation ultimately turns against its own manufactured national identity due to sectarian schisms. Religion that was to unite and galvanise national response often gets interpreted in sectarian language, resulting in sectarian feuds. A force that the state often uses for national integration suddenly attains menacing hues like a Frankenstein’s monster. The purveyors of that force, the self acclaimed religious scholars who usually act as ‘beau sabreurs’ of faith now become villains of the piece. The state response towards such elements is ambivalent due to the cognitive dissonance in the minds of law enforcement as well as political leadership that view any religiously inspired insurrection through a sacral prism.

The recent sit-in rode over a crescendo of religious passions inflamed due to purported changes in a declaration of the belief in the finality of Holy Prophet (PBUH) signed by parliamentarians, while filing their nomination papers. The religious sentiments were exploited by the politically motivated clerics that like other sects wanted their group to get some political relevance. A bumbling government’s insecurities constrained its ability to explain the real facts of the whole Election Act 2017 issue to a seething populace whose only source of the facts was the interpretation given by the clerics of its own sect.

With the facts still shrouded in mystery, the investigative labours of Raja Zafarul Haq also promise little. The religious fury of the clerics once aroused could not be doused through any assurances who announced a march at the capital unless their demands were met. The first demand was that of the resignation of the law minister after which they said they would condescend to lay further demands during subsequent parleys with the government. A harried government surrounded already by a miasma of corruption panicked and ran hither and thither like a headless chicken without a strategy or a plan.

A state that is fighting extremism by offering blood and guts of its soldiers, policemen, and citizen needs to be mindful of the perils of appeasement

When the government finally woke up from its deep slumber, the protesters had already occupied the strategic choke point cutting Islamabad from Rawalpindi. Forgetting that a stitch in time saves nine, the government’s inaction and lack of seriousness helped the firebrand clerics build a groundswell of popular support. The event enabled the suppressed masses groaning under the structural violence of an apathetic elitist power structure to come and take a dig at the government. While Faizabad remained blocked for 22 days, the clerics daily spewed the hate sermons adding some new phrases in the lexicon of abuse. An initially bored TV watching population also started viewing the antics with amusement drawing a vicarious pleasure out of government’s discomfiture.

The episode also served to reveal the cracks in civil-military relations that had been papered over after the fracas over Dawn Leaks. A government that was viewing the whole scene with suspicion evoked a similar response from other two important state institutions that in an ideal situation should have strengthened the government’s resolve and capacity to deal with the challenge..

But can a capacity be developed if the resolve is absent? Right from the beginning the government’s desultory planning and rudderless strategy was on full display with clear differences in the approaches of main leaders of the PML-N. The lack of will to fight extremism stems most probably from a fear psychosis vis-à-vis religious extremists and a selfish desire to retain a vast chunk of right leaning electorate. Whatever the reason, it is costing the state a fortune in terms of lost international credibility, internal disharmony, and political instability. The way the Faizabad sit in has been handled and resolved through a deal smacks of an appeasement strategy that history tells us acts like a red rag to the ire of a bully.

A state that is fighting extremism by offering blood and guts of its soldiers, policemen, and citizen needs to be mindful of the perils of appeasement. One cannot fight extremism through selective application of nostrums to kill the disease. Extremisms of all hues and shades irrespective of the sectarian denominations should be stamped out ruthlessly.

The roots of this state capitulation to Faizabad protesters can be traced back to mollycoddling of Mullah Fazlullah who ran a parallel government in Swat while the government looked the other way. The botched Lal Masjid operation was another example of the perils of appeasement. The post operation handling of the Lal Masjid episode sowed the seeds of extremists’ revival. The rehabilitation of the main actors involved in the operation was the main reason behind the recrudescence of the religious violence that found its latest expression in the form of Faizabad sit-in. Those gloating over the ‘successful’ deal with the extremists have apparently forgotten the history. Examples of Fazalullah in Swat, Lal Masjid clerics in Islamabad and Tehreek-e-Labbaik protesters in Rawalpindi should be enough to prove the futility of appeasing the extremists.

The Faizabad deal would soon come back to haunt the government as another power broker riding the bandwagon of religion might come hurtling down the Grand Trunk Road, expecting the same response from the government.

The deal already has dealt a grievous blow to National Action Plan while the extremist narrative stands strengthened. It should not be allowed to develop into a template for other fanatical groups using religion to whip up public frenzy for their political motives. A dangerous precedent has been set which should not be allowed to recur. Compassion sans gumption leads to appeasement whose perils must be clear to a state and society in the throes of a life and death struggle against violent extremism.

The writer is a PhD scholar at NUST; e mail: rwjanj@hotmail.com

Published in Daily Times, December 4^th 2017.