Daily Times

In his 1980s book, A People’s History of the United States, American historian Howard Zinn wrote that “the memory of the oppressed people is one thing that cannot be taken away, and for such people, with such memories, revolt is always an inch below the surface.”

Fortunately, Pakistan has no memories of such revolts and oppression. In fact, ‘oppression’ may be too heavy a word for most Pakistanis to portray the numerous struggles of various groups and communities for their legal and constitutional rights.

It is clear that living with a perpetual sense of being an oppressed community or group causes the resentment to ossify and ultimately leads to alienation.

The 20th century witnessed two World Wars as well as the beginning and end of the Cold War. Millions of people were also affected by numerous inter-state and intra-state conflicts. Yet, the century may, with some justification, also be called the century of the idea and practice of non-violent resistance to oppression.

Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and Abdul Ghaffar Khan, to mention only a few, led their people in standing up to systematic oppression including denial of rights to education, employment, equal treatment before law and protection from arbitrary arrests and confiscation and destruction of property and assets.

The resolve and resilience displayed by these leaders was cemented by their own sufferings as well the sufferings of their communities. No amount of suppression by the states involved could deter them once they had fixed their eyes on the big picture.

Personal hardiness, derived often from their circumstances, and the social support they generated made them true icons, not only for their own communities and for the times they lived in, but also for the rest of the world and for times to come.

The record shows that harsh measures prolonged, not curtailed, the life of genuine political and social movements in South Asia. This was also true of similar movements in other parts of the world.

Harsh measures against a non-violent group or groups often result in stronger resistance mainly because, in due course of time, the aggrieved receive sympathy, if not outright support, even from the segments of the society which are only remotely concerned with their cause.

State repression of the peaceful struggles by Kashmiris and Palestinians has strengthened their resolve instead of wearing it out.

The military has been praised for ridding the Tribal Areas of the Taliban. It is time now to win the hearts of the tribal people. Some of the PTM activists may have had harsh words for security agencies but labelling them anti-state will be counterproductive

History has preserved fine details about heroic individuals, movements and events and turned them into beacons of light for decades and centuries. Who would have remembered a meek and frail Mumbai lawyer as a Mahatma had he ignored, like many of his countrymen did, the insult suffered during a train ride in the then British colony of South Africa?

Would not Abdul Ghaffar Khan have gone unnoticed in history like many Khans [landlords] of Hashtnagar had he chosen only a life of retaining and expanding the estate he had inherited from his ancestors. Today, he is eulogized as Bacha Khan because of his devotion to the cause of persuading his warlike Pashtun brethren to take up education and for an unending non-violent struggle for their social and political rights.

Once they had been inspired by their charismatic leaders, each oppressive measure served only to cement the resolve of the non-violent Khudayee Khidmatgars whose heroic determination remained unshaken from the 1930 massacre at Qissa Khwani to the 1948 killing at Babara in Charsadda.

The Babara shooting was ordered by Qayyum Khan, the chief minister of the then North-Western Frontier Province. He was later reported as saying that the Khudayee Khidmatgars were lucky that the police ran out of ammunition; “otherwise, not a single soul would have survived.”

In standing up to the Taliban during their campaign of terror, Mian Iftikhar Hussain and the late Bashir Bilour drew their inspiration from Qissa Khwani and Babara. They challenged them with the historic remarks that “your bullets and bombs will run out, but not our chests.” One of them laid down his life and the other lost his only son but remain undeterred.

The fate of Pakistan People’s Party would not have been much different from the many Muslim League factions had Zulfikar Ali Bhutto died a natural death after surrendering before a dictator. His sacrifice was followed by a campaign of arbitrary arrests, imprisonment and confiscation of properties that only strengthened the resolve of PPP workers.

Their resilience grew further with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, who challenged the Al Qaeda terrorists and their Taliban affiliates and returned to Pakistan to serve her people.

From Babara to Loralai, where a college teacher has died allegedly in police violence this past February, the resolve of those standing up for a cause, is strengthened by harsh measures. The Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement is the latest such phenomenon.

Taking cue from the brutal killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud in January last year, PTM’s anger visibly heightened following Arman Luni’s death.

The feeling has already turned into frustration at the failure to register an FIR against the police officer who reportedly subjected the young teacher to severe beating.

The police officer found responsible by a joint investigation team for extrajudicial killings, including that of Naqeebullah in Karachi, is also on bail and trying to get permission to fly abroad.

The PTM emerged with the killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud, but the anger and frustration it came to represent had been simmering just below the surface long before the cold-blooded murder. Tribal people have their enmities and their ways of resolving those. Arguing that a single incident can provoke them into a revolt would be incorrect.

The root cause of the resentment lies in the Pashtun suffering from the emergence of Al Qaeda and Taliban who wreaked havoc on tribal life by brutally murdering key elders and depriving them of their positions and property, to the anti-Taliban military operations that displaced the tribes, many of them more than once.

The denial of just demands like compensation for destroyed properties, the withholding of permission to return to their native towns, the body searches and what the tribals call humiliation at security check posts, the existence of unexploded landmines and the issue of missing persons only added fuel to the fire.

Young men the age of Manzoor Pashteen, the PTM leader, never raise their voice in front of their elders be they that at a hujra, a mosque or at their homes. Tribal traditions do not allow youngsters such as Manzoor Pashteen to stand bare-head before their elders or to take a seat before the elders do so. So what caused the majority of tribals, including many elders, to stand behind the 26-year-old?

Simply put, Pashteen pronounced the very words others were chewing. Prime Minister Imran Khan was among the leaders who expressed sympathy with the PTM demands. Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, the army chief, was quick to that the Watan Cards that many Waziristanis sarcastically called a visa to their home towns be abolished. He also drew applause by ordering removal of unnecessary check points.

Prime Minister Imran Khan was expected to lend an ear to the demands of the tribal people to remove their growing sense of alienation. A gentle touch from the prime minister and the army chief may help heal the wounds suffered during a decade and a half of conflict.

There was much elation on social media when Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor, the ISPR director general, mentioned the sufferings and sacrifices of Pashtuns during the anti-terror operations.

But calling the PTM and the Taliban “two faces of the same coin” will definitely drag things in the opposite direction. All visible indicators suggest that arrests, detentions and media blackouts have exacerbated the anger and support for the PTM demands. The midnight raid at the house of Prof Ammar Ali Jan, his arrest and subsequent release may be seen as a test case.

One must be cognizant of the fact that tribal people are proud of being called the ‘unpaid defenders’ of Pakistan’s frontiers. But if they are convinced that they will lose control over their resources, they will resist.

There are complaints that Waziristan people are not being allowed to export their pine harvest, the only source of income for many families. They feel tht they are being exploited by city traders who buy the produce on the spot at prices fixed arbitrarily.

The military was praised for ridding the tribal areas of the Taliban. It is time now to win the hearts of the tribal people. Some PTM activists and leaders may have had harsh words for the security agencies but labeling them ‘anti-state’ will be counterproductive. Inclusion helps, exclusion does not.

There were times the tribesmen would love to paint the portraits of Gen Ayub Khan, Ziaul Haq and Raheel Sharif on the back of their trucks. Gen Bajwa would certainly love to be celebrated the same way. So would Prime Minister Imran Khan. They should meet the just demands of the tribal people who are asking for schools, hospitals, roads and telephone and internet services. Being a warm people and guided mostly by their hearts, the tribals will reciprocate an embrace.

The writer is a freelance journalist