These days a popular answer would be: “a long time back”. Such are the lows that one has hit in the last few weeks. Why have we lost direction as a nation? Why do we not have a direction? Pulled in different ways, each follows his instinct. We are told not to worry. “This is how democracy works; y’all schooled in regimented ways have never known the multifaceted-ness of pure democracy.” This democracy is really disorientating. It must work through consensus, not a need but a preference imposed by the expediencies of coalition politics, or at least a majority. That is hard to come by unless of course it serves the interests of the political masters such as removing hurdles to a third-term premiership.
Somewhere in this muddle of relearning democracy we have lost control and direction of this society. It has taken upon itself to adjudicate on what is right or white. The contradiction is manifest in the way that a political society given to most of its existence in the grey takes on primarily the role of determining all else in black and white. While it is kosher for a state to exist in the grey since that is when it retains all options, a society itself must define for itself a clear sense of right and wrong. Laws and its mechanisms help people reach those conclusions but when individuals arrogate such right onto themselves the decay begins. Vigilante justice is from where we began. An incident a day in Karachi; someone caught in a petty theft and burned to death by the people; someone pulled off a bike, knocked off with a pistol shot, all for a few hundred bucks in the wallet. Then it got more sophisticated. It began to be called target killing. We gave the process dignity and soon more organised owners began marshalling the progress. Call these the political parties, of all hues. Crime had patronage.
I get equally confused about the Kharotabad incident and the Sarfraz Shah killing. Why in the world those meant to own, operate and use firearms, only according to a given law and taught set of rules, end up doing what they did? Trigger-happy is the easiest way to characterise it, but what and who is driving them there, to that point where all rules are forgotten where only animal instinct prevails — no, not of crude culpability and ruthless execution, but survival. All animals attack for one end, survival. Carving a dinner is nuanced and therefore justifiable, but attack to live is that embedded instinct that God gave to all his creations. Where is this society heading? Who is leading it there? Why is it not heading the right way? Why does it exist in the grey? Societies that exist and breathe in the grey are usually as directionless as Pakistani society is.
I am reminded of Churchill. When London was thoroughly bombed and in ruins, and most Londoners were forced to spend their nights and days with the rats in the Underground Railway system, he, cigar in mouth, stepped on a heap of stones and rubble and famously asked if the courts were still running. Indeed if they were, Britain continued to be viable and capable of functioning as a state. But, it needed a Churchill! When a nation is devoid of a Churchill, all those that fill in should put their shoulder to the wheel; even those who are politicians by profession but outside of government, and all those who work among the people or from them or for them. It has been usual in our past for the military to jump in at times of such trouble. This time around the military has a hands-off approach chastened by their last experience under Musharraf. If society continues adrift, might one ask where the missing link is?
Our usual refrain in the last few weeks, especially since May 2, has been: who makes the foreign policy; why are we a security state; why is parliament not supreme, and whether the military is subservient to the civil authority or not? The grey world has been out with their knives painting everyone else in black and thus worthy of reprisal. Consider.
There are two pulls that are exercising society — the ultra-right religious extreme using militancy as a tool and terror as a weapon, and the social liberals who wear their progressive credentials on their sleeves. There is a dire need for progressive political liberalism in our society to enable people a clear choice in political philosophies but to colour social liberalism as political liberalism is outright insidious. Just one pole could have been easily absorbed as a clear threat to societal stability and would have therefore garnered necessary responses by the rest of society but with two poles, both attempting to fracture the centre to their own ends, unleashes the most damaging force of instability particularly when their combined target is not each other but the majority centre. That is ironic but that is exactly how it is playing out rendering society into utter confusion and waywardness. Their worry should be a leaderless society adrift, but their debates and attacks target their combined chosen objectives — weaken the core of cohesion through tearing at traditional bonds of stability. In it the military presently lies at the core of their attention. Abbottabad and Mehran both established a counter-narrative on the military’s traditional position in society, and the proverbial knives are out to convert this into a transformational moment. In safer environs it may not have been such a bad idea but in current climes the worry is will the nation-state survive even as we seek a moment of historic redemption against one institution of the state? My most favourite metaphor to make a line smaller is to draw another longer, not erase the one to minimise its size.
Come to think of it, how could Saleem Shahzad’s murder add to the ISI’s image and I do not think nuts run that organisation. If this is possible then Mumbai too could be possible. I am no fan of the ISI, but I am equally convinced of its contributions to our national cause as a part of its detailed mission. It is a subservient organisation of the government and the military. It will do what it is asked; killing Saleem Shahzad would not be one of those. But then all this and Kharotabad and Karachi begin to weaken your conviction.
We need to ask ourselves a few questions: are we driving the establishment up against the wall? Have we squeezed even wriggle space away from them? Does our continuous banter against them render them unsure of their evolving position in society, their traditional bastion? Will weakening the military as an institution strengthen our political system, the quality of our politics and its main players? Allocation of resources is a political prerogative; if we wish to squeeze the military to diminution it must as a national concern be preceded with a whole-hog review of our regional relationships. Sovereignty, honour and ghairat will need to be redefined. Our bigger battles lie within; the military will fall in its place as soon as those are resolved.
The writer is a political and defence analyst