Let there be no silence

Published February 11, 2017
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

EVENTS of recent weeks have demonstrated that, while Pakistan’s policy on extremists and religiously motivated militants will constantly shift, there will be brutal consistency in addressing dissenting liberal views.

Just weeks ago, anonymous security officials were saying that an elaborate plan had been prepared to ‘mainstream’ those among the militants (in an obvious reference to Jamaatul Dawa — JuD and Jaish-e-Mohammad — JeM) who don’t threaten the state.

This mainstreaming project also proposed their recruitment in police and paramilitary forces as a way of giving armed militant cadres a ‘means of livelihood’. A security official told me I was wrong in criticising the proposal and that Hafiz Saeed and his organisation were a bulwark against the militant Islamic State group.


If silence was a panacea, Dec 16, 1971 would not have happened. The biggest national tragedy hit us like an express train.


Regardless of this proposal (which was still said to be awaiting government approval), that the security agencies had started to roll out some elements has been evident for months with the ‘insertion’ of JuD and its sudden high-profile presence in Balochistan and Sindh, the two provinces the establishment sees as politically troublesome.

While this was happening, there were a few voices of dissent warning against introducing religious extremists to areas where economic and social isolation has created unhappiness with the state as this wasn’t a solution. But nobody listened.

Now we suddenly find Hafiz Saeed under house arrest because, apparently, that is what is needed to comply with UN-mandated calls for actions against him. His organisation has also been placed under anti-terrorism watch.

Personally, I strongly believe that anybody who has not violated the law is entitled to their freedom. If someone has indeed violated the law then it must be established in a court of law and the appropriate penalties, including imprisonment, imposed.

Otherwise, such house arrests under some maintenance of public order law are unsustainable in the long-term and the courts will indeed, as has happened in the past, overturn Hafiz Saeed’s detention and release him.

But the state’s ambivalence is such that Pakistan is still to complete the trial (where, in an article written for this newspaper, the key investigator has said that piles of evidence exist) of those accused of the Mumbai massacre in November 2008.

This is how the state views elements that, in its view, don’t challenge its authority, do its bidding and act as an ally. No number of arguments with examples of similar groups — which follow an obscurantist interpretation of our faith, were seen as benign and then attacked the state — is heeded.

While I will acknowledge that JuD spokesmen are exceedingly polite and engage civilly with all those who criticise the party and its forerunner the Lashkar-e-Taiba on social media, unlike some belonging to democratic parties, it is also a fact that it maintains trained, armed cadres committed to ‘jihad’.

Now look at the ever-shrinking quarter given to those who advance dissenting views about the state policy of having supported jihad and of sponsoring/deploying non-state actors in the cause of its national security goals.

These ‘dissidents’ carry no weapons, have never fired a shot at the state or anyone else for that matter, and yet are treated with contempt for the Constitution and the law — and with callous brutality.

The recent case of the disappearances of five social media activists is but a case in point. They became the victims of enforced disappearance. Some weeks later, most of them were lucky enough to be ‘returned’. Yes, lucky enough because many others have remained missing for months on end, and the whereabouts of yet others are still not known.

It has been experienced that on their return they are disinclined to endanger their families and other loved ones, and are not even willing to point a finger at their tormentors. And who can blame them, when their own case has demonstrated to them the limitations of the law in protecting them?

Not only did they lose their freedom to people who will never be held to account but they were also accused of blasphemy, without substance or proof and without ever having been charged with any crime, let alone prosecuted.

In their despicable demonisation, even sections of the country’s free media, particularly the electronic, have demonstrated an eagerness to play a part. Reprehensibly, such mediamen and women justify themselves in the name of faith and patriotism.

In Pakistan, these days, incitement to violence, murder included, is treated almost as an article of faith by some sections and the basic proof of impeccable patriotic credentials. What depresses me most is not that such tactics can be against dissidents but that, often by design or default, multiple state institutions are seen to be complicit in this exercise.

If silence was a panacea, Dec 16, 1971 would not have happened. The biggest national tragedy hit us like an express train. A steady dose of lies meant we had no idea what was coming and could do nothing to stop it. And it is because no one was allowed to speak up that Zia’s legacy of destructive divisions continues to prevail.

If the patriotic credentials of those who were warning of the dangers of pursuing jihad as a tool of state policy had not been rubbished and had they been given a patient hearing, would Pakistan have had to bear 60,000 casualties — including the mass murder of our innocent children — in its ongoing war with extremists?

Silence is not an option. Not if we don’t want more Dec 16s; not if we don’t want more of our children to be slaughtered like those at the Army Public School in Peshawar; not if we want young Aitzaz Hasans to live their full lives rather than tragically become heroes. There can be no silence. There shan’t be.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2017

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