The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) held a pro-Operation Zarb-e-Azb rally in Karachi on Sunday to show its support for the military offensive currently underway in North Waziristan. Military action has always been a lightning rod — dividing those in favour of containing radical militants through the use of force from those who oppose the human collateral damage and financial expenditure that are the unfortunate reality of war. The rally sent a strong message of support to the army, which is the need of the hour. The fact remains that North Waziristan is an epicentre of terrorism and a magnet for jihadists from all across the world. Initially, the jihadi violence was directed outwards in the region (towards Afghanistan and Kashmir/India) and therefore supported by the security establishment, who trained and funded religious fundamentalist groups to wage wars in the two neighbouring countries. Slowly, over time and incrementally, the guns of these proxy forces have turned inwards and the Pakistani state, government and people are paying a heavy price. For over a decade, the Taliban have relentlessly attacked and bombed market places, schools, government offices and security institutions, kidnapped and murdered state officials and civilians, and waged war against polio vaccination, music, art, education and democracy, amongst other things. The current security situation is far too dire for peace talks to be a realistic option and the Taliban have not brought reasonable or acceptable demands to the table. The recent events in Iraq and Syria serve as a grim warning of the possibility of terrorists overrunning the country. The only viable option therefore is action first, and then peace talks can follow with elements willing to accept the writ of the state, the constitution and the hard won democratic system.
Since its founding, the MQM has been a consistently secular party that is opposed to jihadist tactics and ideology and refuses to subscribe to an Islamist agenda. MQM Chief Altaf Hussain’s anti-terrorist comments while addressing the rally via video link are therefore to be welcomed as is his latest statement against the growing terrorist menace. He saluted the brave soldiers of the Pakistan Army, speaking in support of democracy and criticizing jihadi violence and the Taliban’s demands to establish an Islamic Caliphate, governed by their own, narrow, literalist interpretation of Sharia law. Altaf Hussain also spoke against ethnic and sectarian divisions and violence, which is ironic given the MQM’s ethnically exclusive agenda and its role in spreading violence and extortion in Karachi, ruling the metropolis through fear and force and reducing a once prosperous port city to a battleground ruled and rampaged by private militias and criminal gangs. Altaf Hussain claimed that “enemies” have sown the seeds of ethnic, religious and sectarian hatred in Pakistan, which is a typical cop-out. As a society, we must own up to our security establishment’s initial creation of and later mistaken equivocation regarding terrorism, and the skewed policies and political myopia displayed by the state and its intelligence agencies that have led to the quagmire we find ourselves in today.
It is important to note that members of other religious and political parties also attended the rally, including representatives from the PML-N, PPP, APML and PML-F, putting petty party politics aside to display a crucial united front against terrorism and in support of Operation Zarb-e-Azb. The only party conspicuous by its absence was the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf. At a time when the order of the day is political unity behind the struggle against terrorism, Imran Khan is once again on a solo flight, sulking over moot points and irresponsibly raising objections without offering a practicable alternative to the military operation. *