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AROUND 30 years ago, I saw a production of Jean Paul Sartre’s existentialist play No Exit (Huis Clos in French) at the Avignon Theatre Festival in France.
I recall the sense of claustrophobia generated by the three actors who have been locked in a room for all eternity. Initially, they don’t know why they are there until it dawns on them that they are being punished in the afterlife. “Hell,” as Sartre observes so pithily, “is other people”.
This, it seems, is increasingly our fate in Pakistan as door after door shuts on us. Sri Lanka was one of the few countries that issued Pakistanis visas on arrival at Colombo airport. No longer, alas. I feel personally deprived as I have been going to the lovely island regularly for some 15 years, and spending much of the winter there.
Door after door is shutting on Pakistanis.
This change in policy has been caused by the hundreds of Pakistanis who have claimed political asylum in the country. Ahmadis and Christians, suffering from violence and persecution in Pakistan, have been driven to this extreme measure, and who can blame them?
Over the years, visa requirements for holders of our green passports have been steadily tightened across the world. From illegal migrants to heroin smugglers to terrorists, Pakistanis have acquired an unenviable reputation for undesirable activities. Annoying as it is when I have to jump through a succession of hoops to get a visa, I do understand why other states would want to restrict the entry of Pakistanis.
The latest door to slam shut was caused by the recent attacks at Karachi and Peshawar airports. Some airlines cancelled flights to these destinations, while others have withdrawn bids to lease aircraft to PIA. This will curtail the national carrier’s operations still further.
We are so accustomed to the daily mayhem that has come to characterise Pakistan that we forget it’s not a natural state of affairs. In countries where the rule of law and the writ of the state are both firmly administered, it is almost unimaginable for terrorists to take pot shots at landing airliners or storm airports with impunity.
Then there is the polio scare that has caused the World Health Organisation to demand that Pakistanis travelling abroad carry certificates proving they have been inoculated recently. How long before the world wakes up to the fact that it is easy to get a doctor to sign such a document for a small fee without giving an inoculation?
Just as it is becoming harder for Pakistanis to travel abroad, the number of foreigners visiting our shores has fallen sharply. For most diplomats, Pakistan is no longer a family posting. Few businessmen wish to risk their lives by visiting our country. And after the murderous Nanga Parbat attack that saw 10 foreign mountaineers murdered by TTP killers last year, not even the most foolhardy climber would wish to come.
Another field in which we have lived in isolation is sports. After the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in 2009 in Lahore, no foreign sportsmen have toured Pakistan. Again, who can blame them? We had promised the Sri Lankans the kind of security the president gets, but in the event, the police officer in charge was having breakfast when the terrorists opened fire in broad daylight.
It is this kind of incompetence at every level that has emboldened criminals and terrorists ali ke. When they know that our law enforcement agencies and judiciary have become incapable of arresting or convicting them, there’s no deterrence left. If by a stroke of bad luck they are apprehended, they are either busted out of jail by jihadis, or bailed out by weak judges.
This environment of impunity has given rise to a culture of violence and intolerance. The first to feel the brunt of this lawlessness are members of our minorities and women. It has pushed thousands of Shia Hazaras to risk their lives by travelling in leaky boats to possible refuge in Australia. I read recently that hundreds of Ahmadis were living unhappily in China, but I suppose anything is better than the constant fear of violent death at the hands of fanatics.
The sum total of this intolerance, violence and ignorance has resulted in a toxic nation that the world wishes would disappear. And while life goes on for us despite the daily mayhem, outsiders look on with a kind of fascinated horror.
Apart from the direct cost in blood and money ill-spent on an elusive security, we need to factor in the indirect costs of extremism. As the world shrinks from us, students and academics have fewer opportunities to study and interact with foreigners in their fields. Our intellectual output, not very high to start with, will be further reduced.
Just as important, we will not be able to experience at first hand the wonders of the world. As our horizons contract, we will become more diminished as a people.
Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2014
