Corporate Pakistan has once again been jolted owing to the recent Quetta blast. Apart from limiting their response to the anxiety of parents, companies and their overseas trading partners they seem little inclined to reconsider their own passive approach towards the issue thus far: waiting for the administration to restore peace and stability.

Many leading lights of the community were relatively open to the suggestion of initiating a discussion in their ranks about the tricky subject of financing and supporting questionable causes and outfits, without properly screening their business links.

They also saw the value of being more discreet in their marketing practices. Currently the marketing drive, particularly on the electronic media, is guided solely by the commercial angle: sponsoring programmes that command the highest viewership, irrespective of their content.

There was a vague realisation amongst business executives of the link between the promotion of obscurantist ideas, the danger of mainstreaming fringe currents through the projection of disoriented celebrities, self-proclaimed thought leaders and healers, and the rise of intolerance and violence in society.

They spoke of a fairer, inclusive, economic system to curb extremist ideologies amongst distressed and desperate people, but sidetracked the issue of fair wage structures and wage disparity within companies. They saw it more as a social issue, placing the burden of introducing equitable policies entirely on the government.

However, most Pakistani businessmen perceived terrorism as a key concern that scaled up risk and its associated costs, besides adversely impacting the country’s image abroad and dicouraging prospective local and foreign investors.

Many tycoons were candid in their discussion on the issue but averse to the idea of going on record beyond condemning acts of terrorism.

Commenting on the consequence of the August 8th Quetta terrorist attack on a group of lawyers, a concerned OICCI President, Shahab Rizvi, said it was bound to have a negative impact on the sentiments of foreign investors, especially those who were planning to invest in Pakistan in the near future.

Shahab recommended that the country’s businesses, including traders and shopkeepers (preferably led by FPCCI), need to make a joint effort to strongly beef up their respective security infrastructure, pledge to look for and stop all possible sources of funding to extremist elements and back law enforcement agencies in substantially improving their intelligence and monitoring.

“Such incidents cause great damage to the country in terms of loss of talented human resource, disturb the social system and hurt the image of the country and its people in a way that cannot be measured in numbers, and hurt the potential of growth and prosperity”.

Shahab Rizvi referred to OICCI’s July 2016 annual security survey which gave a very positive feedback from foreign investors in Pakistan about the fast improving security situation in Karachi and other major business centres. “However incidents like the August 8th Quetta attack are in the nature of one step forward and two steps backwards on the security confidence level”, he stated in a written response to Dawn’s query.

Abdul Rauf Alam, FPCCI president was approached but his comments could not be obtained.

Atif Bajwa, chairman of The Pakistan Business Council, endorsed Shahab Rizvi’s outlook on the issue. Talking to Dawn over the phone he saw the recent attack as a setback because, he said, after a long time there had been some optimism developing in business circles with the gradual easing of the power crisis and the perceived promise of progress associated with CPEC. In his written response he condemned the attack and added: “…However, it forces the business community to beg the question: Is condemnation enough? Is there more we can do?

“In the past, traders and other businessmen have been victims of terrorism ... a lot has been done to combat terrorism, there is still a long way to go until communities feel safe again.

“As a nation, we have to deal with the insidious elements which are penetrating various segments of our society. And to do this, the business community needs all the help it can get. We feel that one of the most effective allies we have in this battle is the media. Business associations, advertisers and the media have to come together to start thinking collectively about changing the narrative and confronting this issue head on.”

In its third edition the Global Terrorism Index, which provides a comprehensive summary of the key global trends and patterns in terrorism over the last 15 years, produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace, confirmed that the trend is in an upward swing.

“In 2014 the total number of deaths from terrorism increased by 80pc when compared to the prior year. This is the largest yearly increase in the last 15 years. Since the beginning of the 21st century, there has been over a nine-fold increase in the number of deaths from terrorism, rising from 3,329 in 2000 to 32,685 in 2014. Terrorism remains highly concentrated with most of the activity occurring in just five countries — Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria. These countries accounted for 78pc of the lives lost in 2014”, the report available online stated.

“The research finds that 92pc of all terrorist attacks over the past 25 years occurred in countries where state sponsored political violence was widespread, while 88pc of these attacks occurred in countries that were involved in violent conflicts”, the study remarked.

Published in Dawn, Business & Finance weekly, August 15th, 2016