Sheep without a shepherd

Pakistanis look up to their president in a crisis because he has unlimited power to sort things out and get things done. He is, therefore, the centre of their expectations. Crisis is a crucible in which the president and his administration are tested as nowhere else. No other event tries so vigorously the self-confidence, judgment and prudence of the president. The consequence of his action or inaction may determine the fate of millions of his countrymen. “Woe to him if trouble does not fade and the clouds do not roll back”. 

Mr President! “When are you visiting Pakistan”? A foreign journalist is reported to have asked Zardari. He was in America when Swat was plunged into a civil war and set on fire. At a time when Pakistan is facing one of the world’s worst displacement crisis, with many still on the road and over two million crammed into dusty camps, educational institutions or private ‘hujras’ in and around Mardan, Mr Zardari, oblivious to the suffering of his people, extended his stay abroad. The response one would expect from a president never happened. Instead of rushing back to Islamabad to oversee an unprecedented crisis, he stayed on in America before heading for London and Paris. He came under extraordinary criticism for his languid leadership style and callous indifference to the woes of his people rendered homeless by army action. What the world witnessed was the dangerous incompetence and staggering indifference of a president to human suffering. 

What is it that people really expected from their president in a national crisis? It is something that the national psyche needs. The people expect the occupant of the presidency to share their suffering, to assure those trapped in the cross-fire, that they will survive; that they will get through it. He has to be a chief executive who is in command, who reacts promptly, who mobilizes resources and alleviates human suffering. Above all, he must inspire confidence. And so, he has to be that larger-than-life figure. The change in intensity in the news media – cable channels are broadcasting round-the-clock horrifying pictures of thousands of people trudging along or packed like sardines in the tents, – has sharply increased the demand on the [resident. In such a situation, people want and expect more of a personal connection. That did not happen. People still remember how General Azam handled the flood crisis in East Pakistan. He struck a human chord and won over the hearts of the people of East Pakistan. They loved Azam and still remember him with affection. In stark contrast, President Zardari looked so cold, so unconcerned, so indifferent, so distant, so wooden and so bureaucratic. All the evidence points, above all, to a stunning lack of both preparation and urgency in the president’s response. Nothing about the president’s demeanour – which seemed casual to the point of carelessness – suggested that he understood the depth of the crisis. No wonder, people are furious, disgusted, mad as hell. 

The army operation has caused the biggest migration since Partition. While the rich got out well in time, poor people, growing more hungry, more frightened by the hour, were left behind and hardest hit. They did not have transport. The official evacuation plan, if any, was really based on people driving out in their own cars! The poor had no access to cars. As soon as the curfew was lifted, they tried to get out anyway they could. Hundreds of thousands of people, men, women and children, young and old, sick and infirm, streamed out of Swat and started the long march to Mardan. 

From the earliest days of our country to the events of today, my real heroes have always been the men and women, young and old, mostly poor, who risked their lives, and sacrificed their lives to found this Republic. It seems that in every age of our history, the people always rose to meet the challenges and difficulties of their times. I am now speaking of those countless people in Mardan and Swabi who welcomed the displaced persons with open arms and put them up in their humble abodes. Suddenly, as if by magic, they all belonged to one family, held together in the knowledge that each one were to give all that he had to give. No one gave the people the impulse to do what had to be done. They rose to the occasion spontaneously to face the challenge. It brought out the best in them. It was their finest hour. 

The hurricane Katrina unmasked George W Bush. The army action and the exodus it caused, has similarly unmasked Zardari. It illuminated a serious character flaw hidden from the public. In a president character is everything. He does not have to be brilliant. Truman was not brilliant and he helped save Western Europe from Stalin. He does not have to be clever. He can hire the clever. But he cannot buy character. He cannot acquire decency. He cannot acquire empathy. A President must bring these qualities with him when he enters the Presidency. 

Henry Adams once wrote that the essence of leadership in the presidency is “a helm to grasp, a course to steer, a port to seek”. President Zardari grasped the helm more then a year ago but the country still doesn’t know whether he has an inner compass, or a course to steer or a port to seek. It is now abundantly clear that Zardari is not worthy of the trust placed in him by his people. He carries a serious baggage, dogged for years by charges of corruption until they were abruptly dropped under NRO. No democrat should come to power through such an array of backroom machinations, deals with generals or Washington. No wonder, too many people reject his political legitimacy. 

“Pakistan’s pants are on fire”, said Representative Gary Ackerman, democrat of New York. During the Vietnam War there was a phrase that came to symbolize the entire misbegotten adventure: “It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it”. It was said at first with sincerity, then repeated with irony, and finally with despair. Sadly, a similar suicidal drama is being enacted in the beautiful valley of Swat on Zardari’s watch. It brings to mind Arnold Toynbee’s comment that a civilization doesn’t die from being invaded, but rather commits suicide. 

Sometimes, once in a long while, you get a chance to serve your country. Few people had been offered the opportunity that lay open to Mr Zardari. He blew it. His long absence from the country at a dangerous time in the history of Pakistan, his indiscretions abroad, his embarrassing press interviews, did more damage to the image of Pakistan than the much – maligned extremists could ever have done. 

President Zardari has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. His appeal to his countrymen for sacrifice to help the displaced persons reminds me of Lloyd George’s response to Chamberlain’s appeal for sacrifice when World War II broke out. “I say solemnly”, Lloyd George said, “that the Prime Minister should set an example of sacrifice, because there is nothing which can contribute more to victory than that he should sacrifice the seals of office.” A tearful Chamberlain resigned in national interest. His successor led the country to victory. 

These are critical days in Pakistan. There is no steady hand on the tiller of government. The survival of the country, its sovereignty, its stunted democracy, its hard-won independent judiciary, all are on the line. In these dangerous times, anything is possible. I shall not be surprised at any event that may happen. The country is gripped by fear and uncertainty. One doesn’t have to read the tea leaves for a glimpse of our future. The ship of state is decrepit and creaky. The sea is turbulent. The captain has a weak anchor and no compass. The crew is inexperienced. If the nation doesn’t wake up, we will all go down like the Titanic. History will remember both that Zardari failed to hear the warning bells and that politicians failed to ring them loudly enough.

The implication of operations in NWFP and FATA

The conduct of multiple military operations by the Pakistani forces in NWFP and Fata coincides with the planned surge of US troops in southern Afghanistan. The induction of fresh US forces on Pakistan’s Baluchistan border generates its own dynamics. The surge will push the Pashtun living in the Baloch border areas inwards towards Quetta and onwards to Karachi where their extended families already live. The start of operations in Waziristan and the increasing number of skirmishes in Orakzai, Mohmand and Bajour gives a picture, whether by coincidence or design, which clearly shows how the Pashtun both in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been placed in the tweeze of death and destruction.

In Karachi the MQM has shown its ethnic leaning by doing it best to stop the movement of Pashtuns to that city; Karachi incidentally is the largest Pashtun metropolis in Pakistan. In Punjab the police are preventing the Pashtun IDPs from entering their areas although publicly the government is saying the opposite now. One responsible officer from Punjab commented that they had made a mistake by permitting the Afghan refugees in the 1980s and 1990s free entry to their province. The Pashtun is thus unwelcome in his own land. These restrictions imposed on them are against the law and the Constitution. Is it then the case that the Pashtun IDPs are not Pakistanis?

There are already more than 2.5 million Pashtun homeless. Their forced migration from Swat, Dir or Waziristan makes this displacement bigger than that of Darfur or of the Rwandans a few years ago. Many of the Pashtun that I have spoken with are fearful about their future. It is worth noting that this violence against the Pashtuns extends from eastern and southern Afghanistan to northwestern Pakistan and it has now clearly become ethnic – or is certainly being perceived that way.

If someone wants an image to visualize what is befalling the Pashtun today the region truly reflects a scene from Vin Diesel’s recent science fiction movie Babylon AD. People are moving from place to place aimlessly and directionless. They have lost their homes, families, children and livelihoods. They are people without identity and if they also lose hope and are unable to return soon then I am afraid the promise of Pakistan in their minds will be broken. It is a great irony of history that those who are sons of the soil in Pakistan have become homeless, yet those who were homeless previously are anchored in Pakistani cities and are its masters – what a remarkable turn of events!

Sooner than later the ethnic nature of operations in Af-Pak and the issue of simultaneous displacement of Pashtuns in such large numbers, the less-than-fraternal attitude of individuals from other provinces of Pakistan coupled with the matter of so many ruined lives will aggregate into an ugly conundrum which will take many unpalatable directions in the not-too-distant future. Unfortunately, the leadership of the ANP in NWFP has lapsed into political oblivion. It’s only visible face is its brave and yeoman information minister, Mian Iftikhar. Secondly owning to their failure in Swat the secular ANP will suffer in any future election because available signs clearly indicate that new dynamics are in the making and they will usher their own political direction which may not be within the framework of the present political discourse of growth and development. People want security and development has become irrelevant in the face of basic issues of survival and identity. The crying need is for Pakistan to quickly rehabilitate the displaced persons or forego the right to lead the Pashtun. They could well then seek their own destiny.

Some intellectuals feel that the timing of the current operation was badly planned since the crops in Swat were ready to be harvested. They ask: “Couldn’t the operation have been delayed for a few more weeks?” A few on the other hand say that the timing of the operation was planned to coincide with the president’s US visit! Coming from this perspective it is claimed that Pashtun blood was spilt as a sacrifice for other strategic gains.

It may be noted that in 2005 there was no insurgent movement of the type witnessed in Swat and Buner and elsewhere. It all happened after the occurrence of the October 2005 Earthquake in Balakot and Azad Kashmir. The camps where jihadis used to receive training for fighting against Indian forces in Kashmir had to be sequestered from the prying eyes of US and NATO troops who were using helicopters for delivery of relief to NWFP and Azad Kashmir and were clearly aware of the presence of such camps.

Many of these camps were shifted and relocated in Swat and the Dir mountains. The location policy showed colossal ineptitude. A small section of the population in this region already stood radicalized by the TNSM movement of the 1990s. The creation of a lashkar by Sufi Mohammad, which he led into Afghanistan to support the Taliban against the US led invasion in December 2001, further radicalized those residents of Malakand who had accompanied him. The arrival of more radicals due to the shifting of the camps and their evangelical programming of the local population created the monsters that the military is now trying to get rid of. 

Furthermore the use of the sledgehammer of the artillery and the air force which causes collateral damage is like operating against a shadow and such tactics cannot succeed. A counter-insurgency war cannot be fought from a distance. For success the “enemy” has to be hunted at close quarters. This calls for the use of special forces and the police. Draining the swamp cannot eliminate the fish if other rivulets of escape are available.

The present operation cannot be considered successful until the leaders of the Taliban who have challenged the writ of the state are brought to justice. If this doesn’t occur rest assured that the IDPs are not returning and it will be futile to return the area to civil administration because the militants will surely return again and the civil administration will be made a scapegoat again. 

Some other important questions are why arrangements were not made for the reception and feeding of IDPs before the operations began. The argument that secrecy has to be maintained is, to say the least, egregious. Didn’t President Zardari “announce” before hand that Pakistan would launch operations in Waziristan? He did and still we did not make any arrangements for caring for those who were leaving after the announcement. 

Agreed that every nation passes through rough patches during its history but there are clear indicators which warn the leaders and people to correct their direction. We in Pakistan unfortunately ignore such indicators and live in a make believe world. We regularly take up futile positions which can only result in injuring ourselves We spend hours of air time every evening fulminating against the US as if that will bring peace to Pakistan. Apparently the US is implementing its national security objective which is to ensure that 9/11 is never repeated. It will do everything to ensure that. By allowing the spirit of militancy to flourish in Pakistan we are prolonging the stay of the US in Afghanistan. Is that wise? 

Finally let us not forget that both Fata and Pata come under the President’s personal dispensation. Art 247 lays this down and in my mind is a time bomb inserted in that document to devour Pakistan! If you look at areas where insurgency flourishes today then strangely they coincide with the special areas defined under Article 247 of the Constitution. It is proposed that before the military operations end in FATA and PATA we should use the opportunity to amalgamate them fully under the normal law within the Pakistani state. In my view both Fata and Pata should be merged into NWFP – a better opportunity will not come our way. This cloud may have a silver lining!

Swat’s future

That the conflict would force the civilian population out of the area affected in Swat and flood the towns and camps in the NWFP was not in doubt, our inability to organise relief is frightening.

Militancy in the tribal areas as such and in Swat in particular is based on real grievances of the local civilian population, the renewal of militancy can only be prevented if those grievances are successfully addressed. While the army operation is still on, a plan must be made as to what to do after the end of the operation.

The crucially important question is how to resettle the refugees in their respective areas. The settling of the returnees has to be fully in place, including coordination of the process of return, of handing out first rations for the people and for organising the registration and handling of compensation claims. Together with providing shelter, establishment of services like drinking water, basic healthcare units and a re-launching of education are extremely important. Those teams must include locals who are not only familiar with the people but also with the ground realities. They need to include people trained in building organisational structures as well as having technical skills, such as installing water-cleaning facilities, keeping files and records and handling money responsibly. Their identification and training should start immediately.

To make sure that militants do not come back under the cover of refugee return the army has to stay on in those areas to guarantee law and order. A disarmament campaign must be carried out. To give a form of security, some formula has to be worked out giving each extended family a licence for one weapon, or at least a measure of community policing on a voluntary basis. The police need restructuring and training after the demoralising experience of the two years of turmoil so that they can take over and provide for security when the army leaves. The training and reorganisation of the FC must also be addressed, this force will be required in place on a long-term basis.

The re-establishment of a functioning local administration is a major necessity. Recruitment and re-employment of teachers and doctors and administrators has to be done quickly and efficiently. One of the apples of discord has been girls’ education. There is probably no consensus about this among the civilian population itself. Therefore, first priority has to be given to reopen boys’ schools at all levels and girls schools at the primary level. There needs to be a dialogue initiated with regard to further education of girls. Only where there is a local backing for girls’ secondary and higher education it should be initiated. The intelligent handling of this question requires a good amount of sure instinct by the authorities.

In all sectors of reconstruction or re-engagement active local help and cooperation needs to be sought and obtained. This is the locals’ primary interest and they should be most interested and involved in an early solution of the problems.

A peaceful future for Swat will depend upon the fate of the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation. It will act as a model in Pashtun tribal areas. The demand for the implementation of what the locals think is the “Shariah” has been long-standing. This fact is in no way changed because of the army operation. Therefore, while going ahead with the NAR implementation, negotiations have to be reopened in order to find an acceptable to both sides solution. There had been a discrepancy between Sufi Muhammad and the government about who was to appoint the Qazis. The Qazi appointment is an administrative act and must be done by the NWFP government or the Peshawar High Court after having agreed on the names of the persons who have to be appointed. These must be qualified men having non-controversial backgrounds. These things have to be spelled out clearly.

Apart from the immediate need of resettling the Internally displaced persons and of restoring normalcy as soon as possible, there is a need to deal with the wider ideological implications of “Islamic” militancy in Pakistan. Pakistan is development-wise a weakly integrated territory with a huge variety of different communities and social structures such as tribal, rural and urban lifestyles. It is the need of the hour to develop a consciousness for this diversity in people of all walks of life in Pakistan through education. Pakistan will only survive if it recognises and respects those different lifestyles and value systems and refrains from trying to impose one lifestyle on all the others either under the headline of “modernisation” or in the name of “Islamisation.” Urban westernised lifestyle and values are confined to a small percentage of urban upper-class population. What they think is “progress” may not be acceptable to the large majority of Pakistanis. And on the other end of the spectrum, Pashtun “Shariah” understanding is more tribal code than Islam and should be confined to those tribals who think that this was “progress.” There are many more varieties in between these two extremes which all should be given the right to be different and to live according to their codes and lifestyles.

If democracy is to do what the majority wants then neither urban western ideas nor tribal Shariah will be valid for the whole of Pakistan. This can only be corrected by a genuine majority vote in a “run-off election” if nobody gets 50 percent and with proportional representation. The Quaid-e-Azam wanted Pakistan to be a home to all people, Muslims and non-Muslims, living on its territory. He understood that this cannot mean the streamlining of religion or lifestyles. Our present formula of democracy is badly flawed. The Objectives Resolution in our Constitution provides a broad and acceptable frame for such a tolerant and broad-based unity in diversity. The ability of the Pakistani state to incorporate diversity and still work under the Objectives Resolution of the Constitution will be the touchstone of our future existence. It’s high time all Pakistanis understand this (acknowledging with gratitude the research by Dr Bettina Robotka of the IBA, Karachi).

Is the threat

The view that Pakistan is facing an existential crisis is sustained by three factors — the fear of disintegration being a permanent feature of the Pakistan psyche, the danger of implosion caused by poor governance, and the emergence of a force strong enough to smother the state.

People acquire confidence in the permanence of their collective identity by its long history and their memories of having protected it against external threat and subversion from within. The people of Pakistan have never had this kind of confidence in the immortality of their state.

To begin with, fear of the state’s demise was innate in the circumstances of its birth. It owed its existence to a conjunction of diverse forces and the ordinary citizen could not dispel the thought that the direction of these forces could be reversed. The people prayed more often for Pakistan’s survival than for its strength and prosperity.

The custodians of the state deemed it expedient to nourish the fear of the state’s unscrambling in their own limited interest. They consistently argued that it was necessary for the people to blindly submit to their rulers, even when their commands and expectations of the people’s loyalty were in flagrant breach of reason and codes of civilised governance. These rulers tried to conceal their incompetence and lack of respect for the citizens’ aspirations by constantly harping on the threat to the state’s integrity. They made the state look so fragile that its existence could be threatened by a federating unit’s call for autonomy as promised in the Pakistan resolution or even by a score of people’s chant for civil liberties on Lahore’s Mall Road. The unending chorus about the brittleness of the state convinced the people that the threat to Pakistan’s survival was real.

The Pakistan rulers received great help in perpetuating their people’s fears from their Indian counterparts. Whatever the genesis of the confrontation between India and Pakistan and the merits of their respective standpoints, the people could perceive the threat to national security in a tangible form. And, finally, the events of 1971 convinced the Pakistanis that their state could in fact disintegrate. Nothing has happened over the past 38 years to help the people overcome their apprehensions of the state’s instability.

For many years now quite a few political analysts, and occasionally the rulers too, have argued that internal discontent poses a greater threat to Pakistan than any external force. Three factors have aggravated the threat of an implosion. First, poor governance has alienated the people to such an extent as to make patriotism a hazardous pursuit. One by one the state has abdicated its benevolent functions and at the same time its reliance on coercion has become more and more oppressive and irrational.

Secondly, the rulers’ resolve to run a federation as a highly centralised unitary state has gravely undermined the bonds of federal unity. A large number of people in the less populous provinces have been deprived of their sense of belonging to or of ownership of Pakistan. No state can forever withstand the centrifugal forces Pakistan’s rulers have in their infinite folly allowed to grow.

Thirdly, Pakistan has fallen a victim to the theory of dual sovereignty. The Objectives Resolution dealt a severe blow to Pakistan’s solidarity by creating multiple instruments of sovereign authority. According to it, the elected representatives were merely agents of the people and the latter were only trustees of sovereign authority that had been delegated to them by the Almighty. This theocratic structure of power created more grounds for legitimate rebellion than are available to citizens of a modern state.

The people could rise against their elected representatives if the latter, their agents, failed to fulfil their contractual obligations. They may also resort to direct action if the trust under which the Almighty had delegated His authority to the people (and not to any government) is betrayed. In plain words, this meant sanctioning defiance of the state if its writ was perceived to be in conflict with God’s injunctions. The constitutional gymnastics performed by Pakistan’s rulers and the political culture nourished by them have created a situation that a very large percentage of the people, especially in the dominant province of Punjab, may reject constitution and the law in favour of anything claimed to have been Divinely ordained. This is the most dangerous component of the threat of implosion.

However, none of the threats to Pakistan would have caused alarm if no agents of disaster were in sight. Such agents are now fully visible. They were created and trained by Pakistan’s own forces. Seizing the standard of Islam, without any legitimate claim to its ownership, they are weaning Pakistanis away from their state through a mix of deception and terrorism. They are not strong enough to destroy the Pakistan state’s integrity and they could be beaten off without much difficulty if the state could mobilise its powers against them.

Those challenging the state of Pakistan, and their objectives could range from Pakistan’s disintegration to its transformation into a new state, have been made stronger than they are by a set of circumstance operating against the existing state. The confusion raised by ideology wallahs has disrupted the unity of the state’s organs and its instruments of power. There are serious doubts that the state is able to commission all its levers of power for meeting the challenge. Besides, the global environment has been so thoroughly polluted by the advanced world’s misadventures over the past several decades that any outside power coming to the help of Pakistan can be branded as an enemy of Islam. That also increases the people’s alienation from the state.

Above all, the hordes ravaging the northern parts of the country are deriving comfort from the numerous pockets of their well-wishers across Pakistan. They can be found in government, in political parties, among professionals and in the media, and even among lawyers who seem to have closed their eyes to the threat to the judiciary and their calling itself.

All of this only shows that the threat to the state of Pakistan is real and ought to be taken seriously. Nobody can say, as yet, that matters have passed the stage of redemption. The collapse of Pakistan is not imminent; it is not even likely in the short run. The Pakistan state can certainly survive, only such a happy conclusion cannot be taken for granted. Those who wish to save the state will have to work for this end — soon and in requisite measure.

The man that is Sufi Muhammad

Though the Swat peace deal is dead and another round of fighting and suffering is upon us, the role of its architect Maulana Sufi Mohammad isn’t finished yet. Circumstances have made him a central character in the uncertain situation prevailing in Malakand region and beyond. The old cleric, now in his late 60s, is the key to making peace or triggering war in the mountainous northern parts of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).

It is, therefore, logical that Tanzim Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM) founder Sufi Mohammad’s statements make headline news and his views are widely discussed. The media has been highlighting whatever the Maulana has to say and, in the process, generating one controversy after another. This was to be expected because Sufi Mohammad is a simple village clergyman espousing straightforward opinions on modern and complex issues. He was never known as an Islamic scholar and doesn’t pretend to be one. But at the same time he likes to freely comment on topics that impact daily life and have something to do with the functions of the state.

Interviewing and seeking comments from Sufi Mohammad nowadays has become a favourite pastime of our media. His unconventional views are overly publicized and commented upon. Who else but the Maulana from Lal Qila in Lower Dir district’s Maidan area is ready to declare at this point in modern times that democracy and Sharia are incompatible, that Pakistan’s superior courts are un-Islamic and that women can only come out of their houses to perform Haj? At a time when most clerics are happy to be photographed, Sufi Mohammad isn’t bothered if he is criticized for arguing that taking pictures is against the teachings of Islam. Unlike the past though, his followers despite banning cameras are largely unable to shield him from being filmed from afar by better-equipped photographers.

For those who have known Sufi Mohammad for sometime, his utterances are nothing new. He has been saying the same things for years but his opinions never made it to the front pages of newspapers in the old days due to his limited political role. Besides, the media wasn’t so vibrant and intrusive at the time and television hadn’t come of age in Pakistan. Also, the geopolitical situation was vastly different then. Having waged war along with several thousand of his black-turbaned TNSM followers as an ally of the Afghan Taliban following the October 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan, Sufi Mohammad is a known enemy of America and a vocal critic of its policies. Any deal-making in Swat or in rest of Malakand division brokered by him cannot be acceptable to the US, which is concerned that Pakistani Taliban freed up after cessation of hostilities in the area would infiltrate Afghanistan and harm its own soldiers and also those from its Nato partners.

That Sufi Mohammad’s views haven’t changed in the past two decades or so could be verified from his speeches and statements in the late 1980s and during the 1990s. He founded TNSM on June 28, 1989 after dissociating from the Jamaat-i-Islami and giving up electoral politics. This clearly meant rejecting democracy and elections and embarking on a path of struggle whose battle-cry was “Sharia or Shahadat”. In an interview with this writer in October 1994 just before his impatient followers picked up the gun in Swat and certain other districts of the then Malakand division, he explained his anti-democracy views with the same vigour that he is doing nowadays. For him, the judiciary then was ‘English law’ and, therefore, un-Islamic and unacceptable. His concept of Sharia then and now is a simple judicial system in which judges, or qazis as he referred to them, would preside courts and dispense quick and affordable justice. The chosen qazis were to match the specifications set forth by him both in terms of character and physical features, meaning they had to be pious and bearded. In Sufi Mohammad’s scheme of things, the qazis were to enjoy a status higher than the deputy commissioner or the superintendent of police. His opinions must surely be ‘breaking news’ for all those who until now weren’t fully aware of him and his organization. But for those who have known him all these years, his views are nothing new.

Everything about Sufi Mohammad and TNSM then was unconventional. He or his organization hasn’t changed a bit in two decades. The TNSM letterhead at the time introduced Sufi Mohammad, son of Alhazrat Hasan, as a member instead of the head of the organization. The TNSM slogan was unity and its emblem the “Hajr-e-Aswad,” the holy rock from the Heavens that is kept in the Khana-e-Ka’aba in Makkah and is kissed by pilgrims seeking blessings of Allah. A picture of the holy rock was reproduced on the simple letterhead. It also carried drawings of two white and black flags, the former being the main flag of Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be Upon Him) and the latter his military standard. Even now, black-turbaned TNSM members carry the small white and black flags as they walk ahead of Sufi Mohammad.

It is also pertinent to mention that Sufi Mohammad did contest elections, winning a seat on the district council of Dir on the Jamaat-i-Islami ticket and representing his Maidan constituency for a while. In later years when he repudiated electoral politics, he campaigned for a boycott of the local government and assembly elections and achieved limited success only. The polls went ahead despite his calls for boycott and the turnout wasn’t bad in a place to which he belonged. He may have reservations about women going outside their houses but girls’ schools do function in his area and the female population isn’t always home-bound. And despite his disliking for the existing system of justice, the conventional courts, even though named qazi courts after the promulgation of the Sharia Ordinance in 1994 as a result of the violent uprising by TNSM members in Swat, Dir and rest of Malakand and in Hazara’s Kohistan’s district, continued to operate in his native and surrounding areas.

Far more important than his controversial views is Sufi Mohammad’s peace-making role. In a way, he and his TNSM followers are not much different than the Taliban, who under the leadership of his 33-year old son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah in Swat have played havoc with the lives of a hapless population and forcibly enforced their writ in the valley. The only difference is that Sufi Mohammad’s men want to peacefully achieve their goal of Sharia while the Swat Taliban and their colleagues in Buner, Dir and elsewhere in Malakand region are ostensibly trying to reach this objective through violent means. Both groups of militants have the same worldview and are definitely pro-Taliban, though their strategy is different.

This was the reason that the Swat Taliban declared time and again that they would abide by the concept of Sharia and Nizam-e-Adl that is acceptable to Sufi Mohammad. By making the peace deal with him and his TNSM, the ANP-led provincial government in NWFP indirectly conceded the demand of the Swat Taliban. It wanted peace at any cost and this wasn’t possible without involving Sufi Mohammad in the process and keeping him in good humour. However, it must have realized by now that Maulana Sufi Mohammad, unpredictable at times but still focused on achieving his goal of Sharia, is a hard taskmaster. His price for helping restore peace in Swat is not small. His realizes the centrality of his role in stabilizing the situation in the whole of Malakand region. You have to give him the Sharia and the Darul Qaza, or appellate court, of his choice and tolerate his controversial views on a host of subjects or annoy him and let the situation in Swat, Buner, Dir and elsewhere in Malakand and NWFP take its own course.

Some candour, please

Those propagating a policy of pusillanimity and appeasement toward the Taliban make at least two flawed arguments. One, that Pakistan is fighting an alien war in FATA as a mercenary of the United States and the drone attacks and the hatred against US imperialistic agenda somehow justifies the Taliban insurgency against the state and people of Pakistan. Instead of fighting ‘our own people’ to please the US, we must negotiate with them and stand together against imperialists. Two, where there is popular local support for a political agenda, the army cannot attack such agenda or those articulating and promoting it. Thus, it is fine for the state and the army to act as a neutral arbiter when it comes to a disagreement between the Taliban and the rest of the citizens of Swat or Buner for example, and act as a facilitator to promote reconciliation between the Taliban (as the dominant local group) and the state through peace deals.

Let us address our hatred for the US first. There are two sets of truths that fuel this hatred. One, that the US has pursued a shamelessly selfish foreign policy that is bereft of principles. And two, our successive political and military elites have not had the spine to enunciate a policy that squarely focuses on promoting and protecting Pakistan’s national interest where such approach might be at odds with the US foreign agenda. Together, these truths leave the people of Pakistan indignant, and the slavish disposition of incumbent rulers toward the US shames and angers us by exposing the gulf between our self-perception as a sovereign people and our reality of being led by a self-serving elite beholden to foreign masters.

It is understandable that there is some cheering and support for anyone who takes on a bully. We saw that during the first Gulf war when many in Pakistan (and in the Muslim world more generally) rooted for Saddam Hussain and Iraq, despite the fact that Saddam’s Iraq had never been a friend to Pakistan. Similarly the Hugo Chavez ‘the-devil-was-just-here’ speech against George Bush in the UN a couple of years back attracted loud cheers from all around. But amidst this understandable opposition to US foreign policy, must we cut our nose to spite the face when it comes to the Taliban and their insurgency within Pakistan? That the Taliban have couched their domestic political agenda in anti-American terms and a majority of Pakistanis are angry with the US for its drone attacks and resentful over its foolishly apparent stick-and-carrot policy doesn’t automatically align the interests of a majority of Pakistanis with those of the Taliban.

It is indeed marvellous that even people like Imran Khan (forget Jamat-e-Islami) are oblivious to the fact that in their opposition to the US agenda they have emerged as apologists for the Taliban. We must not act against the Taliban because the US wants us to. But we must neither underplay the genuine threat posed by creeping Talibanization to democracy, civil liberties and constitutionalism in Pakistan, nor embrace the Taliban in order to spite the US. There is no need to root our national agenda in anti-Americanism. So long as we are committed to upholding and implementing the Constitution across the four corners of Pakistan, opposition to both, drone attacks and the Taliban-leashed barbarism creates no paradox.

The second argument supporting inaction against the Taliban concludes that the state and the army must not fight its own people by making two subtle assumptions. One, the Taliban and those that they wish to impose their edicts over are in the middle of a political disagreement and the state and the army should not take sides. Two, the state should never use coercion or violence against its own people irrespective of their actions. Both these assumptions are misconceived. Let us remind ourselves that the Taliban are a product of Pakistan’s Afghan policy. The state created, supported and sustained madressas that propagated a brand of religious ideology that encouraged non-state actors to become agents of violence under the banner of jihad. The leaders of such madressas also had a penchant for a medieval society that shuns modernity and all things associated with the west.

The jihadi project didn’t only create mercenaries driven by religious zeal, but also imbibed them with the ancillary objective of creating a backward society once the jihad against infidels succeeds. The state cared little about such collateral effect of a deliberate state policy to recruit jihadis to promote its geo-strategic interests. Unfortunately, the more esoteric calling of the militants – of creating an obscurantist society – has now merged with the primary objective of fighting the infidels, as they see the rest of Pakistan as one big agent of the infidels. It is then farcical for the state to act as if we are witnessing a difference of agreement between different political groups in Swat, Buner, Dir and FATA that needs to be sorted out by these groups themselves. The state destroyed the level playing field between citizen groups when it transformed one group into professional merchants of violence.

To sit back and watch citizens with opposing points of view stake it out and develop a consensus in the tribal belt simply amounts to allowing the Taliban to make minced meat out of those opposed to their agenda and diktat. The state led by the army created this Frankenstein and it now shoulders the responsibility of confronting and neutralizing it. It is also incorrect that the state never uses violence against citizens. The state monopolizes the means of violence and uses it on an everyday basis against those who do not abide by the compact between the citizen and the state. We call it the penal justice system. Militant groups slaughtering fellow citizens, annexing their property and robbing them of their fundamental rights and liberties might be culpable of a higher crime against the state itself, but they are also guilty of murder, homicide, robbery, extortion etc. as defined by our justice system.

As a matter of principle, we cannot appease and humour them in the name of peace and reconciliation just because enforcing the law is harder against this group of citizens in comparison to other criminals across Pakistan that are less organized and trained. Pakistan has been ambivalent about extending constitutional rights and obligations to the people of the tribal areas merely because we got comfortable with the colonial legacy and bought into the logic of not trying to fix what is not broken. Notwithstanding the past, now that the tribal belt is up in flames we have no option but to bring it within the realm of the Constitution. Would allowing Sufi Mohammad and the Taliban to run a system of governance that falls foul of our Constitutional structure and principles not amount to the state facilitating its own balkanization? If such separatism is acceptable in Swat, then why not in Balochistan and Sindh where people have been similarly disgruntled with the state?

There is urgent need to inject honesty and candour in our discourse on the Taliban. Let’s admit that the Taliban are not barbaric because the US is bad. The Taliban are barbaric because they believe in a brutish approach to life and religion. If the US was to stop drone attacks in Pakistan or even quit Afghanistan, Muslim Khan is unlikely to go back to painting houses. The Taliban must be dealt with urgently and resolutely as an existential problem that is questioning and threatening the foundational principles on which our country is founded. Further, our politicos must give up double-speak. Let the PML-N say that it fears speaking against the Taliban because who knows they might prevail tomorrow and so this centre-right party wishes to keep its options open. Let the ANP plainly state that they had ‘no option’ but to surrender their writ to the Taliban because of the dithering resolve of the army to fight armed militias in their province. And let the PPP acknowledge that in trying to second-guess what every other power broker wants from Pakistan, this mainstream liberal party has lost all ability to support a thought-process of its own.

The Pakistan Army’s will and capability to confront the Taliban is under question because the masters of our security doctrine are confused about the future role and utility of the Taliban. The lack of capability of the army to fight a guerrilla war in the tribal areas is predominantly a consequence of lack of will to develop such a capability. Unless there is frank admission that the Afghan policy of the 1980 and 90s and the jihadi project conceived as a result was flawed and has had terrible consequences for Pakistan, the approach toward confronting Taliban will continue to be of the ineffectual fire-fighting variety that we have witnessed in Bajaur, Kohat, Swat, Dir and Buner over the last year or so. Once the army reformulates its defence doctrine wherein (i) Afghanistan is no longer a strategic hinterland but a friendly neighbour that should have a sustainable government representing the plural Afghan society, and (ii) jihadis have no further role in promoting Pakistani state’s geo-strategic interests, the need to keep options open with the Taliban will automatically subside. Only then will we begin to meaningfully address the root-causes of religious intolerance and violence in our society.

Pakistan a case of failed leadership

Today there is no such thing as law and order anywhere in Pakistan. When the administrative machinery breaks down (as it has in Pakistan), law and order is the first casualty. “And when respect for law and authority declines, the devil of force leaps into its place as the only possible substitute and in the struggle that ensues, every standard of conduct and decency is progressively discarded. Men begin by being realists and end by being Satanists. Sometimes synthesis takes place from within; sometimes it is imposed from without. If the original breakdown of authority is caused by a ferment of ideas, a genuine revolution like the French may result. If it is simply due to the decrepitude of authority, the solution is the substitution of a fresh authority, but whether that substitute is external or internal depends upon local circumstances”. This is the situation Pakistan faces today.

“The greatest threat facing Pakistan comes from terrorism not India”, said US Army General David Petraeus in a speech at Harvard University. “The existential threat”, Petraeus said, “is internal extremists and not India”. Similar alarming statements emanate daily from Washington. Contrary to what the Obama administration says, the greatest threat to Pakistan, in fact the entire Islamic world, stems not from religious militancy and sectarianism but from the surging American imperialism. Terrorism is not indigenous to Pakistan. It is the direct consequence of American invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and American Drone attacks in FATA. Religious extremism and sectarianism are symptoms of a chronic malady which has afflicted the Islamic world since the demise of the Holy Prophet. It is not a new phenomenon. It is an internal dispute with liberalizers or secularists within our religion. American imperialism, on the other hand, poses an altogether different and much more dangerous threat.

This is the darkest era in the history of Islam since the 13th century when the Mongols ransacked the Islamic world. Those who oppose American aggression are branded anti-American, terrorists and extremists. Afghanistan and Iraq, two sovereign, independent Muslims countries are under American military occupation. “Anyone can see what happened in Iraq. It was nothing more than a war of colonial conquest fought for oil, dressed up as a crusade for western life and liberty. And its authors were a clique of war – hungry Judeo – Christian geo-political fantasists who hijacked the media and exploited America’s post-September 11 psychopathy”. These words are not mine; they are spoken in John le Carres’s new novel “Absolute Friends” and all too accurately expose the true nature of the so-called American war against terrorism. Afghans paid a horrible price for not meeting US demands and defying the world’s sole superpower. Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are next on the hit list. It is now abundantly clear that Pakistan, the only nuclear power in the Islamic world, will soon be denuclearized and emasculated.

By succumbing to American pressure, we managed to secure a temporary reprieve. But at what price? Pakistan is splattered with American fortresses, seriously compromising our internal and external sovereignty. American security personnel stationed on our soil move in and out of the country without any let or hindrance. Pakistan has become a launching pad for military operations against neighbouring Muslim countries. We have been drawn into somebody else’s war without understanding its true dimension or ultimate objectives. Nuclear Pakistan has been turned into a ‘rentier state’ and an American lackey, currently engaged in a proxy war against its own people in FATA and PATA.

America has turned Afghanistan into the mother of all quagmires and is threatening to enact the same gory drama in Pakistan. They have destroyed a sovereign, independent country and shattered an equilibrium that kept Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns from each other’s throats for centuries. Their presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan is unwelcome and disruptive. Obama is sinking further and further into an endless conflict and a black hole in Afghanistan. The wisest thing America can do in its own national interest is to follow the first rule of holes, stop digging and get out.

In Afghanistan, the United States finds itself in a position similar to that of Nathan Rothschild, more than 150 years ago. The richest man in the world in the early decades in the 19th century, Rothschild died in 1837 of an infection of which the poorest Englishman could easily have been cured in the next century by readily available antibiotics. All of Rothschild’s wealth could not give him what had not yet been invented, and all of the vast military and economic might of the United States cannot secure what lies beyond the power of guns to compel and money to buy – victory in Afghanistan.

It is a misconception that Pakistan is, or is on the point of becoming a “failed state”. The Joint Forces Command recently issued a study saying that Pakistan could be in danger of rapid and sudden collapse. It most assuredly will not. Pakistan has demonstrated an impressive capacity to overcome crises of which we have had our fair share. Pakistan is not case of failed state. It is a case of failed leadership. Pakistan is caught between a hard place and many rocks, with a nuclear bomb in one hand and a beggar’s bowl in the other. Isn’t it a great tragedy that at a time when statesmanship of a very high order is the need of the hour, public stage is filled by weak-kneed triflers, mountebanks and charlatans begrimed with corruption?

Today Pakistan has a disjointed, lopsided, topsy-turvy, hybrid political system – a non-sovereign rubber stamp parliament, an “accidental president”, and a weak and ineffective prime minister – a system they call “pure democracy”. In the words of Oliver Hardy, “a fine mess they have got us into”. Democracy is a splendid conception, but it has a disadvantage on occasions of placing in the lead men whose hands are dirty, who are mired in corruption, who are dodgy, who will sap the strength of a country, not in years, but over a period of months, who will demoralize and encompass the collapse of a great nation in the space of a few months. When a nation is in crisis, it needs a man to match the time. In other countries, crises produced great leaders. In our country, leaders produce crises. When they go abroad or speak to Foreign Heads of State, Pakistanis sit on the edge of their collective seats wondering how their rulers will embarrass them next.

Failure is the most often heard expression in Pakistan today. Some say we are at the last quarter of an hour. These are times of great trouble in Pakistan. These are times that try men’s souls and moments when love for your country overrides all other considerations and calls for supreme sacrifice. It is not enough to sit back and let history slowly evolve. To settle back into your cold-hearted acceptance of the status quo is not an option. At times like these it is necessary to venture into the hazardous wilderness. The present leadership is taking Pakistan to a perilous place. The course they are on leads downhill. It appears as if we are on a phantom train that is fast gathering momentum and we cannot get off. I am reminded of some lines from an unknown writer about a railway accident:

Who is in charge of the clattering train,

And the pace is hot, and the points are near,

And sleep has deadened the driver’s ear,

And the signals flash through the night in vain,

For Death is in charge of the clattering train.

So what is to be done? Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has”.

Nowhere is that more accurately reflected than in the handful of persons who rallied round the deposed chief justice and changed the course of history in Pakistan. So let us get together. The battle for the restoration of deposed Judges is over. The Battle for Pakistan is about to begin.

Dangerous games

While General Musharraf showed little sense of self-respect in power, he is demonstrating it even less now. A man who violated the constitution of Pakistan to gain power, who created a real mess during his time in power, and who was thrown out of the government only after widespread popular protest where popular slogans equated him to with an American stooge, still has the courage to make repeated media statements about how he is needed back in government to lead Pakistanis on the right path. Rather than being grateful to his lucky stars that the western support saved him from being punished for treason (which was the popular demand), he has the imagination to talk about coming back in power. Since he has no party base (his sole claim to popular politics was his ability to buy politicians which constituted the ranks of the PML-Q), how he can entertain these grand personal ambitions is difficult to see.

The point that needs to be, however, taken more seriously is that it is the utter failure of the PPP government to establish popular trust that is allowing space for faces from the previous government to make these grand claims. That Pakistan is a complete mess right now is clear. The government is failing to give any sense of direction. It has no strategy to deal with militancy; rather it is following in the footsteps of Musharraf’s regime by relying on unchecked military operations and then settling for an extreme adjustment, so that there is eventually a good excuse to revert to use of military force. This is an extremely dangerous game, which can actually result in the break-up of Pakistan. But, if that happens, Musharraf and the current regime will have played an active and, in fact, conscious role in that.

There are two sources of militancy in any country: one is a genuine sense of grievance and hostility against the state, the other is the exploitation of a slight grievance felt by a certain section of the population by internal or external forces for calculated interests. This could be a result of purely domestic politics too. Even in ordinary religious or ethnic riots within any country, such as Hindu-Muslim riots in India, there are often political interests at work. On the other hand, leaders in Muslim countries, who have been long supported by the US, have often been accused of promoting the threat of Islamic militancy to retain their support within western regimes. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak is well-known for playing this game very skilfully.

The fear in case of Pakistan is that the current regime is trying to play a similar kind of game but very dangerously. Actual militancy thrives on a sense of injustice and on a feeling of revenge. The strategy of using military force to check Al Qaida in Pakistan’s tribal belt (we should remember how it started) under the Musharraf regime has turned not only the tribal belt but also other areas of NWFP reportedly into Taliban’s stronghold. It is critical to see why that has happened. Clearly the military operations have had a role to play. When over 60 children were killed in an attack on a madressah in Bajour, when the state carries out a military operation against Lal Masjid reportedly killing over 100 students, when random military operations in the tribal belt and now in different areas of NWFP result in many civilian deaths, the state itself is asking the population to become militant.

People like me who entered Lal Masjid during the period of resistance argued exactly what has eventually happened i.e., you will only increase the appeal of such a movement by using force because the leaders of that movement were using a very justice-based discourse to build their popular support. Anyone, who knows the landscape of madressahs in Pakistan, could see that Abdul Rasheed Ghazi was not a religious fanatic; he reasoned, he argued which many other madressah leaders do not. The result then is what we now see i.e., more than 4,000 people turn up to pay tribute to Ghazi when his brother leads the prayer. The use of force thus only increases the mobilising power of the radical groups. We are seeing the same in Balochistan. When Bugti was killed many argued that nothing would happen. But the current turmoil in Balochistan proves that Musharraf’ unchecked use of military force in Balochistan has again left dangerous long-term repercussions for the country.

However, while the genuine grievances are one side of the story, the other is that there have to be some external or internal elements supporting the expression of these grievances. The Taliban did take hold in Afghanistan but that was at a time when there was no state left. After years of war, what the country was left with were some competing warlords. In case of Pakistan, it is a fully functional state, enjoying heavy aid flows, and security and military support from the west. How the Taliban can keep taking over districts of NWFP without some systematic support is difficult to understand. These swings between giving in completely as done in Swat and then following with military operations that kill 50 (with no accountability of who they were) in Buner is a perfect recipe for disaster. The PPP government has to answer why it is following such a dangerous strategy.

Who will teach the army the virtues of the long haul?

We are as abrupt with our peace deals as with our military operations. Into both we plunge hastily and, more often than not, unthinkingly. We were desperate about the Swat accord and, after barely a fortnight, equally desperate about military action in Buner and Dir. We are like Faiz’s lover – in his lovely poem “kuch ishq kiya, kuch kaam kiya” – forever torn between the siren calls of love and the demands of work. Both in war and peace our Islamic Republic excels at half-measures. The failure of the military operation drove all those who mattered into clasping the Swat accord as if it was the only talisman left to save Pakistan. But the adverse western and domestic reaction to the accord has swung the pendulum the other way. Earlier there was no shortage of Taliban apologists in the ranks of the Pakistani commentariat. Now there is no shortage of armchair hawks, advocating the strictest military action. We have seen how in Waziristan, the other tribal agencies and then Swat, operations were eagerly started and, when the going got tough, as hastily abandoned. It remains to be seen whether the latest resort to arms is going to be any different. Talibanism is a menace and a threat to our way of life. There’s little room for any dispute on this point. In the eight hundred years that Islam has been around in the sub-continent, Muslims have raised their hands to the Almighty, praised the Holy Prophet and punctiliously recited the Quran. But nothing in their creed or their understanding of it has ever stopped them from enjoying and celebrating life. Fundamentalism of any kind – Christian, Hindu or Muslim – is an affliction. If someone like Mullah Omar were to rule Pakistan the lights would go out on life as we know it. But to acknowledge as much doesn’t mean that we take leave of our senses and stop thinking for ourselves. It shouldn’t mean that whatever the latest offering is from Washington and London should become our conventional wisdom. The Americans have very sound reasons to clamour for military action on our part. Stuck in Afghanistan and with no hope of early victory in sight, they would very much like the Pakistan army to emulate the charge of the Light Brigade: “Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die”. But there’s no reason for us to embrace the fate of the Light Brigade. Talibanism is not a surface disease. It is rooted in history, missed opportunities and repeated bouts of folly. It is not going to go away or be defeated by quick-fix military actions – actions which wax and wane as the moon does. This struggle requires nothing less than a revamping of the way we have been running, or rather mismanaging, Pakistan. It requires a change in our basic thinking. Let us by all means quarantine the Taliban in their mountain fastnesses. But let the army go on the offensive when it is in a position to do so, when it has built up its forces and the odds turn against the Taliban. Half-measures or half-hearted actions should be avoided like the plague. They haven’t worked before and are not likely to succeed now. To concentrate on the threat we face from within, the time may have come for us to give up on our India fixation. India is a headache. No doubt about it. Indians in an official position can be very trying interlocutors – self-righteous and, since we got caught in our domestic troubles, not a little smug and superior. If there is a Grammy award for shrillness and constant foaming at the mouth much of the Indian media – barring a few exceptions: Karan Thapar, Prannoy Roy, Barkha Dutt, Kuldip Nayar, Javed Naqvi, etc – would be prime candidates to win it. But a headache is one thing, an existential threat quite another. If anyone in Pakistan still feels threatened by India, or is powered by the belief that India has sinister designs to tear us apart, then not much is to be said of national confidence. India doesn’t need to tear us apart. We are doing a good job of it on our own. Sure, we have problems with India. Kashmir is a dispute and will remain one as long as the people of Kashmir are denied the right of self-determination. There are signs to suggest Indian designs on our rightful share of the waters of the Jhelum and Chenab rivers. Insisting on our water rights with regard to India must be one of the cornerstones of our foreign policy. The disputes of the future will be about water. But we are strong enough to stand our ground with India even without having to put all our forces on the eastern frontier. What is our nuclear capability for? If that is not enough of a deterrent, what is? The real threat we face is different and it comes in the form of the Taliban. But for this threat the army, both in terms of training and equipment and orientation and ethos, is not prepared. Apart from changing its own thinking, the army also needs political direction but is getting none. Government in Islamabad is currently a joke. Forget about intellectual deprivation. Does a federal cabinet of 70-80 members – or is it 85-90? – look like a war cabinet? If we are serious about saving Pakistan we don’t need Rangers’ posts on the Margalla Hills but, as a first step, the immediate resignation of the present cabinet and the installation of a war cabinet of not more than 30 ministers. To win the battle of ideas the army command must make sacrifices. The farce of senior commanders becoming real estate tycoons while still in service must end if we are to see the army function as a more effective fighting machine. Furthermore, children of officers and men falling in battle should get automatic admission in cadet colleges – Hasanabdal, Petaro, etc. The army should think of separate cadet colleges for girls. Doctors in military hospitals are allowed private practice. Why are we the world’s leaders in such absurdities? This practice should come to an end. Don’t our military doctors have their hands full with casualties from the Taliban front? It is not enough for the army and its agencies to see India through different eyes. They also need to think Balochistan afresh. The resort to arms will not work there. The Baloch may still physically be a part of Pakistan but mentally they seem to be out of it. The battle to save Pakistan must therefore begin from Balochistan. We should not make a bogey of Brahamdagh Bugti. If he is trying to create trouble in Balochistan it is because his grandfather, Nawab Akbar Bugti, was killed on Gen Pervez Musharraf’s orders. Brahamdagh should be given an amnesty and encouraged to return home. Balochistan’s wounds, and its grief, need to be healed not aggravated. Some other steps to indicate our seriousness: a uniform education system from the northern mountains to the Arabian Sea. Compulsory education for all, English from class one, new books and new syllabi, and no O- and A-levels. The Indians finished with O- and A-levels back in 1964. Why are we still stuck with them? If O- and A-levels were a guarantee of higher educational standards we would be ahead of India in education but are not. It must be a requirement of the new education system that on the first day of the week the national anthem should be sung in every school; on the second, Iqbal’s timeless poem, “Lab pay aati hai dua bun kay tamana meri”; on the third, something in Pashto by Khushal Khan Khattak; on the fourth, something from Bhitai or Bulleh Shah; on the fifth, a song in pure Balochi and one in Kashmiri; and on the sixth, as a remembrance of times past, a Bengali song by Nazrul Islam. The Code of Civil Procedure needs urgent and drastic amendment to make the provision of justice easier. This should have been done sixty years ago but can no longer be avoided. Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry can take the first steps in this regard. (And, please, an end to the plastic shopping bag which will destroy the Republic sooner than the Taliban). This may be the opportunity we have dreamt of all these years: of revitalising the Republic and building a prosperous and progressive Pakistan. The difference is that what was before just a dream is now a crying necessity. We either rise to the challenge we face by reinventing Pakistan. Or we remain the way we are, waiting resignedly for whatever awaits us.