Daily Times Editorial Nov 23, 2013

Day of protest Increasingly, it is difficult to recall good news on most days in Pakistan. The exceptions therefore stand out. Religious parties and groups throughout the country had called for protests after the Friday prayers yesterday against the Rawalpindi incident on 10th Moharram in which at least 11 people were killed. A shutter down strike closed markets through the length and breadth of the land on Friday, providing a trouble-free passage to the protest rallies and processions taken out. No reports of violence or other negative developments had been received by the time of writing these lines. This is cause for breathing a sigh of relief, since the apprehension that the tension that had erupted between different religious denominations in the wake of the Rawalpindi tragedy may erupt into sectarian riots once again on a day fraught with such possibilities. The fact that nothing like this transpired is both a relief and also food for thought why a potentially dangerous situation has been successfully defused so quickly. Credit must go to the authorities for deploying sufficient forces, army, rangers, police, etc, to ensure peace prevailed wherever protests were due to take place. Credit must also go to the religious parties and leaders on all sides for successfully managing and defusing the anger of their respective followers. While Imambargahs were specially protected on the day, the routes and sites of protest rallies and all sensitive locations along the way were also adequately secured. The day of peaceful protest has reinforced faith in the inherent good sense of the people across religious denominations. If only the country could learn to handle all such potential powder kegs with the same sagacity, calm and maturity, Pakistan could well be transformed before our very eyes from ‘the most dangerous country in the world’ to one that invited the respect and admiration of the world. As Friday has shown, this is not a goal beyond our ken. Afflicted as the country is by a range of issues that inherently lead to conflict, such as terrorism, the sectarian divide and the extremist, intolerant mindset that has permeated society in recent decades, the historically evolved, tolerant, syncretic Sufi culture is the paradigm state and society must strive to return to. This is the antithesis of the ‘contributions’ of Ziaul Haq, the Afghan wars, jihad through proxies without and increasingly within, and can help Pakistan to reassert its true character and personality. Whereas the extremist mindset can and must be combated by these ideological and theological means, non-state actors who refuse to listen to reason will have to be tackled with the full might of the state. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government at the Centre and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa campaigned in the elections on a platform of seeking peace through negotiations with the militants and terrorists. Since assuming office, both claimed to have been attempting such a denouement, but assert that the US drone that took out Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Hakeemullah Mehsud put paid to all such efforts. The icing on the cake was Hakeemullah Mehsud’s replacement as TTP chief, Maulana Fazlullah of FM radio fame. Since the latter has declared after being selected to head the TTP that no talks with the government were possible, the PML-N government appears to be in a dilemma. The Prime Minister’s Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz was forced to eat his words to a parliamentary committee the other day that the US had now committed to halting drone attacks while the peace negotiations were on. That assertion was blown sky high by the drone attack in Hangu that reportedly killed Haqqani network commanders. Increasingly therefore, the PML-N government is being inexorably pushed towards girding up its loins for military action against the TTP. While this plan is being (hopefully) firmed up, the Central and Punjab governments (both led by the PML-N) must mount an ideological offensive against extremism and deny the sectarian and terrorist groups that enjoy ‘immunity’ in Punjab the ‘safe havens’ they have carved out over the years in the heartland of Pakistan.