Daily Times

Indoctrination leads a nation to progress or self-destruction, depending on the way it is inculcated in the minds of the people and how they follow it. Japan learnt this lesson after the meltdown of its nuclear power plant because of the tsunami that hit its territories on March 11, 2011. The indoctrination campaign unleashed in Japan after World War II had convinced the whole nation that their nuclear plants were absolutely safe. This absolute-safety concept was badly shattered when the nuclear meltdown began unfolding the safety lapses that disallowed them to reignite the generators that could cool down the rising temperature of the plant. Another interesting example of a self-deceptive indoctrination based on absolutism can be cited from an advice that the premier of the former USSR, Nikita Khrushchev had once offered to the visiting UN Secretary General Dag Hammerskjold by saying, “Don’t reject socialism. Don’t put your money on the dead horse of capitalism; put it on the good horse of socialism.” How seriously the UN Secretary General took this advice is less important than to realise the sense of an absolutism this advice had contained and the extreme of shock the people of the USSR, who were constantly indoctrinated to have an unwavering faith on such beliefs, must have felt when this good horse of socialism was doomed in the late 1980s.

A similar trauma jolted Pakistan when the absolute one-nation theory was smashed to smithereens as a result of the emergence of Bangladesh from the womb of the eastern part of Pakistan. All the self-alluding philosophies and ideologies based on one language, one country, and one religion became ineffective to keep the integrity of the country intact. Instead of learning a lesson from this experience, the ideologues of this absolute theory found a shelter in a conspiracy theory that blamed outsiders for the failure. It saved the real culprits from an onslaught of the people’s reaction that could have put their authority and sanctity into question and forced them to address the issues that had really caused the dismemberment of the country. Smart fellas! To save themselves from the wrath of the nation, they immediately removed the military dictator and invited the leader of the defeated political party of the united Pakistan, popularly known as the ‘Quaid-e-Awam’, to replace him. He initiated an economic reform programme and introduced an ideology that slightly differed from what was earlier followed and propagated. However, it did not take too long for the old guards to reassert themselves and have a military dictator, General Ziaul Haq, take the reign of power in his hands and pursue the same old policies with more radical touch and colour.

From one-nation theory the country moved forward to embrace one Muslim umma theory when we joined the US-led Afghan jihad in the neighbouring country. Indoctrination of jihad or militant struggle against the non-believers became a mainstay of our new political policy. It also became a rallying force for the Taliban to wage jihad against the weak and corrupt Muslim rulers of Afghanistan and snatch the reign of power from them. Two major successes in sequence strengthened the belief of jihadists and their mentors that they could spread their faith all over the world. After 9/11, this regional jihad became international when forces from the USA and NATO countries came face to face against these jihadists. The shock and disillusionment were great for the jihadists when their mentors had to take a U-turn against a doctrine that they always preached and regarded as the most revered and holistic one. A gulf emerged between the adherents and non-adherents of this holistic indoctrination, resulting in a new addition to the agenda of jihad: fight against the infidels as well as their supporters irrespective of who they are — Muslims or non-Muslims. Pakistan officially joined the war on terror but mentally remained hocked to the jihadist mindset. A duality of mind kept itself reflecting in the contradiction of our beliefs and deeds.

On the assassination of Osama bin Laden, the ISPR’s press release condemned him for sponsoring terrorist attacks in the country that resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent Pakistani men, women and children, while the parliament, as the representative of the people of Pakistan, elected to stay silent on this massive loss of human lives and preferred to condemn the Abbottabad operation and demanded necessary measures to ensure that no such incident occurs in the future. The PML-N, PTI, JI and JUI-F teamed up with the outlawed Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) to declare the slain al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden the ‘martyr of Islam’ at the Istehkaam-e-Pakistan Caravan in Lahore. In its editorial of May 17, 2011, the largest circulated Urdu newspaper, the Jang, wrote that only seven percent of Pakistanis are happy (meaning 93 percent are unhappy) on the assassination of Osama bin Laden. The survey carried out by Geo TV showed that 77 percent Pakistanis considered the US as the biggest enemy of the country. Another press report referred to an interaction of the former Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, with the student officers at the National Defence University in Islamabad wherein the overwhelming majority of the students considered the US as the main national security threat to Pakistan and internal (meaning the Taliban) threats were of secondary level for them.

And 40 years on, we still live on the same self-deceptive conspiracy theories that once led us to take decisions resulting in the fall of the East Pakistan. Back then India was a conspirator and now the US has taken its place. Those who consider religious extremism more responsible than the US for the current state of self-destruction are now suspected of their patriotism. In the past, Bengalis and their political leaders were charged with such blames. We are trapped in a quagmire of our own creation from where no easy way out is accessible. A huge loss of human lives, attacks on the GHQ and naval facilities, and the complicity of insiders from the armed forces do not appear to have any concern for us. Instead of condemning and treating the perpetrators of these crimes as traitors, we prefer to condemn the US as if the innocent victims (civilians and military personnel) were killed by US citizens.

How can a society indoctrinated for years on a self-righteous ideology be led to take an inquisitive look at itself? An irresolvable dilemma has gripped the country and its establishment. We hate America but love its aid and technology. We love our extremists but are unable to admit it openly. We launch military operation against the extremists and fail to wipe out this threat from the face of our country. Every other day, the menace of religious extremism keeps popping up at one or the other location in a new shape and form and all that we do is to keep watching it helplessly. The establishment now appears to have been caught in a complicated flux. The tide of extremism our ruling elites once created in the country is in no way willing to recede and it keeps reminding us of one critical question: “Would we be able to come out of it before we face a repeat of 1971?” When a crisis reaches its climax, its logical end becomes irreversible. It happened at the time of the East Pakistan crisis and it seems to repeat itself again unless a united effort is taken to curb it before we all succumb to it.

The writer is a freelance journalist and researcher. He can be reached at mohammad.nafees@yahoo.com