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WHY are we so prone to own goals? How on earth could a debate at a seat of learning have ‘maligned’ Pakistan? Had the mother of all agencies not reportedly intervened and stopped it from happening would the discussion have caused more commotion, noise and protest than the ban did?
I seriously doubt it. Whether Mama Qadeer, whose whole campaign was triggered by his son’s disappearance in Balochistan, is a separatist, an ultra-nationalist or a diehard patriot is beside the point. What ought to be undeniable is that he has a right to speak.
LUMS, the Lahore University of Management Sciences, had organised the debate titled ‘Un-silencing Balochistan’ where Mama Qadeer and some other Baloch spurred into activism by the disappearance of their loved ones were also supposed to speak.
Whether Mama Qadeer is a separatist or a diehard patriot is beside the point. What is undeniable is that he has a right to speak.
According to a LUMS statement the event was cancelled on the orders of the ‘government’. Now we know too well the extent to which the poor government can ‘order’ things around in the country. Discreet inquiries showed who actually ordered the banning of the seminar on the grounds it would ‘malign’ Pakistan. You get no prizes for guessing.
Since the banning of the event, so much protest has been visible on social media that if the idea was to silence the voices seeking information about the ‘missing’ Baloch, it stands thoroughly defeated. Not only has the whole issue been rekindled it is being discussed with renewed vigour.
Now before anyone jumps to conclusions I don’t support a separatist movement in the province as I believe it largely remains a fringe struggle and not a mainstream issue.
Yes, I condemn the murder of non-Baloch that some of my revered Baloch nationalist friends stay silent about. But I do believe there is a real issue of Baloch being denied their rights for decades, being treated often no better than a colony and the large-scale utterly condemnable disappearance and murder of its sons continues even when anti-terrorism laws could be used to legally enforce the state’s writ.
This to my mind is the biggest issue. The state has to rise above the tactics used by what it sees as fringe groups not enjoying mass support. If through its own forces or via proxies as is alleged with some justification by many Baloch rights groups, the state conducts its business outside the parameters of the law, it can only strengthen the hands of those seeking to subvert the Constitution and undermine its legitimacy.
It is that simple. In the wake of the nightmarish massacre of our innocent schoolchildren at the Army Public School, Peshawar, when we were told the state would take on and crush all militant movements in the country, one heaved a sigh of relief.
After all, for a number of years now, one has not been alone in identifying intolerance and militancy as the most serious existential threats to the country. But at least, so far, it appears that terrorism and militancy that have challenged the monopoly of the armed forces over tools of coercion are being taken on.
Let’s keep our focus on Balochistan alone. While the state is taking on the Baloch separatists with so much vigour that it often doesn’t even let the law stand in its way, the sectarian militants and terrorists are publicly perceived as enjoying the protection of uniformed men.
The leader of an outlawed sectarian group that publicly advocates murder of Muslims who don’t share its hue, is seen as enjoying the status of an asset. He isn’t the only one. Why? Well he is known to do the state’s bidding at the drop of a hat and is alleged to be running squads that hunt down Baloch youth sympathetic to the separatists’ cause.
As any military strategist would tell you such tactics may allow you to ‘clear’, perhaps even ‘hold’ for a time but never ‘build’. For that it has to be a hearts-and-minds approach. One of the prerequisites for such an approach is the ability to listen.
The state should begin by at least allowing its citizens, no matter how uncomfortable it is with their views, to speak. I have heard Mama Qadeer speak. One can hardly find anything approaching ‘hate speech’ in his words. Why should he be silenced?
So what if his words make some sitting in the citadels of power to shift a tad uncomfortably in their chairs? Rather than muzzle the man, wouldn’t it be better to reassess their own conduct to see if they could act differently?
As I write this I am prepared to be called all sorts of names. But that isn’t a worry. One earnestly wishes that when as a student many of us were called foreign agents for opposing the religious zealot-led brigade’s interference in Afghanistan, someone should have listened to what was being said.
When for years as a journalist one’s voice was one with those saying militancy as a tool of foreign policy was a double-edged sword, which would eventually wound us grievously, those committed to its use and their backers thought nothing of questioning the dissidents’ patriotism.
The argument of deploying unusual means to combat unusual situations, particularly in the national security sphere, is an old one. But employing means that have repeatedly failed to deliver the goals would surely make the sane think of that Einstein description of insanity.
Some of us, rather reluctantly and with huge reservations, did not oppose the last constitutional amendment setting up military courts in an acknowledgment of the ‘unusual’ situation facing the country. Now we wait for the law to be applied across the board and without discrimination.
If the state fails to do that will anybody really need to make an effort to ‘malign’ Pakistan?
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
Published in Dawn, April 11th, 2015
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