‘THEY are not us, they are them.’ These days, this is the narrative in vogue in Pakistan. But, suddenly, the interior minister evoked an outdated narrative, drawing comparisons that blur the line between our enemy and us: ‘The enemy looks like us.’

Pakistan’s Senate echoed with this phrase after the minister uttered it once again in his concluding remarks in a debate on the country’s recent security turmoil. He was explaining the reasons behind the slow progress on investigations into last month’s suicide attack in Quetta. By saying that the enemy looks likes us and lives within us, he perhaps wanted to explain that even the enemy eats and sleeps like us. However, he failed to impress the enraged opposition leaders, who understood similarities between ‘us’ and the ‘enemy’ in their own way.

Until a few years ago, we strongly believed the argument that it is hard to battle terrorists who are well entrenched in our society. Then we defeated the terrorists in the tribal areas and in Karachi. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) came as a blessing that many thought would only be possible if we achieved victory in the war against terrorism. Operation Zarb-i-Azb has cleared Fata of local and foreign terrorists, including those belonging to the East Turkistan Islamic Movement. Many, therefore, do not find it difficult to believe that the sporadic terrorist attacks occurring today are the handiwork of an external ‘hidden hand’.

At a time when the state is fighting for its survival, its practices must be open to democratic review.

The identity of the enemy is a critical issue in Pakistan, one that haunts political analysts’ discourse. There are many versions of the enemy — ranging from external to internal, strategic to political and social to ideological — but the narratives and definitions crafted by the establishment are considered more legitimate. Although explicitly defined, these narratives are difficult to explain. An effort to deconstruct them would suggest that their definitional contours are both vast and fluid, and can be extended as required. Ultimately, the establishment has the exclusive right to identify an adversary. Those who challenge or attempt to reinterpret this could fall into a gray area that is more serious than being labelled an enemy. It requires only common sense to identify oneself in the range of categories we confront. Let’s first explore the dimensions of this concept.

Usually, the enemy is divided into four broad categories. Obviously, being the mother of all ills, the ‘super enemy’ comes first. Everybody knows who this is. It has also remained constant because we don’t have the choice of changing neighbourhoods. It is everywhere and has extensive networks. It’s constantly engaged in conspiring against us and also using our other neighbours for that purpose.

The second enemy is the ‘enemy alien’. This is a category with a legal basis and is well defined under the Protection of Pakistan Act. An enemy alien is defined as a ‘militant’ whose identity is unascertainable as a Pakistani citizen. It is interesting to note that it was only in Punjab that 67 cases were registered under PoPA in the last two years — none were alien or unascertainable, all were Pakistani nationals.

There is another dangerous category, that of the ‘low enemy’, perceived in asymmetric terms: members of a society who have ‘lost identity’ in an opposite order and are eventually considered delusional and obsessed with certain kinds of idealism. The worst enemy of the status quo has always been idealism. The low enemy is entrenched in the country’s socio-political discourse. This is why it is difficult to identify and isolate a low enemy, covertly sheltered within the thought patterns of many communities. Usually, they are tested through different rubrics such as morally, financially or ideologically corrupt.

The last category consists of ‘potential enemies’ that includes supporters or facilitators of the first three types of enemies. Supposedly providing logistics and human resources to all kinds of enemies, this is also a dangerous category.

An argument can be made that, as they are all enemies, they would have links with each other. Their interests would and should align. They include all shades of enemies — from lethal to non-lethal, political to non-political and militants to the corrupt — which is how the correlation between terrorism and corruption can be found. The most dangerous conclusion of this argument is that the ‘super enemy’ is controlling all other shades of enemies.

Nonetheless, those who are not enemies are ‘patriots’. One should not confuse these patriots with those patriots of the PPP who were purified of corruption through political dry-cleaning by Gen Musharraf. A patriot cannot be corrupt and he always tries to be apolitical while being political. He hates the super enemy even more and fights its local allies in parliament, on television and wherever he finds an opportunity. He is immune to being labelled an ‘enemy’; nor is he approached or influenced by the super (or any other) enemy.

These patriots are above criticism and those who criticise them in the garb of the Constitution, transparency, rule of law, freedom of expression, etc are traitors. They are superior and derive their strengths from morality — a morality that is always above everything, including the Constitution. The religious have the right to challenge the moral right and that is obviously how powerful stakeholders develop a nexus within certain religious groups, which not only protect their moral right but counter all sorts of enemies.

This perspective could be made simpler or, contrarily, more complex but it clearly indicates the trust deficit between the establishment and different segments of society. It is also evident that the establishment wants to control and shape the national narrative, and it expresses displeasure when parliament attempts to do so.

At a time when the state is fighting a war for its survival against terrorism and multi-layered extremism, there is a need for continuous review of the approaches and practices of the state to make its response most effective. This is a job for parliament, but the establishment seems to be in a self-righteous mood.

The writer is a security analyst.

Published in Dawn September 11th, 2016