issue
Your answer is as good as mine
A state can never win against the terrorists if half the political actors don’t 
agree with the rest
By Ejaz Haider

Extremist terrorism has taken a heavy toll on Pakistani life, both civilians and soldiers. The conflict, which was largely confined to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas until 2006-07, has spread to the urban centres. Despite several large and small military operations in FATA under the overhang of Operation Al-Meezan, the conflict continues to simmer there. Worse, with the military putting the squeeze on extremist groups in FATA, they have resorted to terrorist attacks in the urban centres.

Result: chaos, and a sense among the common citizen that the state is not in control of the situation.

Recent attacks on the Shia community and the lacklustre response of the state, bordering on insensitive apathy, have strengthened the view that the state is merely reacting and has no well-thought strategy to address the problem.

People want solutions — and fast. Are they right?

There are three problems here. One, checking terrorism is not an easy task. More so when it is the result of extremist ideologies operating within a context where external threats link up with internal fault-lines to create a diabolical interactive dynamic. Even if the state and its functionaries were competent, the country would still have had to live with this menace for a long time.

Two, the bigger problem is that the ideologies the state has to deal with have seeped into large sections of the population. This makes it very difficult for the state to isolate the terrorist from the population.

Finally, the state itself, for a host of reasons, is simply unprepared to deal with the problem. There is no comprehensive strategy based on studying the phenomenon and breaking down the response to the three phases — short-to medium-to long-term.

Corollary: we should expect more of the same.

So, nothing can be done?

I have faced this question repeatedly over many years but more so in recent times. The problem with offering solutions — and yes, there’s no overarching single solution; any strategy will have to have multiple solutions — is that they must be viable. In this case, the viability of a solution is not just related to what must be done but also what can be done. The problem becomes worse when the ‘must’ and ‘can’ parts of viable solutions collide headlong into a wall made up of several disabling factors.

Let’s take an example: terrorism is a national threat. A national threat is to be dealt with by the federal government, regardless of how much power has been or can be devolved to the provinces. Easy? Conceptually, yes. In reality, policing is a provincial subject and since no effort has been made in the past decade to create a federal force to deal with the issue with a mandate to override the province or parochial provincial interests, there is inertia.

Ask the interior minister and he says Punjab refuses to deal with the problem. And what can the federal government do?

Nothing. This is a real problem and a procedural-structural one. The state faces a similar problem in terms of creating an effective legal framework to deal with acts of terrorism whether it is the issue of the law of evidence, witness protection or detention and trial. The deep irony is that taking care of these structural problems is a necessary but not sufficient condition of fighting terrorism. The sufficient would require much more at the operational level.

The point, however, is that if the state has been unable or unwilling or both to even deal with the necessary, how much more difficult it would be for it to address the sufficient.

There are always four levels of any conflict. In ascending order they move from the tactical to the theatre to the strategic to, finally, the highest level, i.e., the political. Any comprehensive strategy has to wed the necessary and the sufficient at all levels. At the political level, the state has to see how, if at all, the internal and external threats complement each other.

What can be done, if such linkage is found, to reduce the catalysing effect of the external on the internal?

At the strategic level, a decision has to be taken about who the enemy is, how to define it and what guidelines to issue for the lower two levels to deal with it operationally. This is where the national narrative comes in. A good example would be the narrative India has created on Kashmir. It is that narrative that not only sells Delhi’s oppressive policies in Kashmir but also finds its defence for them in the majoritarian consensus. I give a negative example deliberately to show how states can, when they want, sell even that which, going by the idealist framework, they shouldn’t.

The state in Pakistan has failed to do that. The strategic level also has to deal with how to configure forces; where and when to employ them; how to use force; when to rely merely on the threat of the use of force; how to translate the use of force into utility of force; when to fight; when to talk — essentially, a host of issues.

This level must also develop a consensus among political actors in a democracy. A state can never win against the terrorist if half the political actors don’t agree with the rest. Or when the state wants to fight but the political opposition doesn’t.

At the theatre and tactical levels we have the actual operations being conducted. Effective intelligence, good policing, optimising the effort. Forces have to be configured according to the nature and level of threat.

The terrorist operates within a context but he also aims to change that context. Understanding this is very important. Tied in with this is the strategy of dislocating the terrorist from the context that sustains him. In Pakistan, that offers its own problems. A state that has relied on religion to bind it together now faces the threat of being torn apart by the very fault-lines, denominational, that have historically informed the practice of religion.

So, the state is in the unenviable position of going against the “aspirations” of large sections of its own population. Note another irony: since we also want democracy, this population must exercise the right of vote too. Traditionally, religio-political parties haven’t picked up too much vote except in certain areas. But there are other parties, centre-right and right of centre who get this vote and for doing that they also link up with those forces whose hard-line cadres are the very people that pose this threat.

Exhibit A: PMLN’s overtures to Ahle Sunnat Wal Jama’at, the political face of the terrorist Lashkar-e Jhangvi.

Exhibit B: the enlightened PPP’s government in the Punjab in 1993-96 which had an SSP MPA who was also a minister.

So, what kind of solution can one offer when the state is unable or unwilling to do both the necessary and the sufficient? Your answer is as good as mine.

The writer is Editor, National Security Affairs at Capital TV and a visiting fellow at SDPI  

Correction

Last week in this space we used a photograph of William Dalrymple but inadvertently missed the credit. The photograph is by Saad Sarfraz Sheikh.

  Fielding candidates
The ongoing PTI intra-party elections are telling in many ways
By Shahzada Irfan Ahmed

The ongoing intra-party elections of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) have pitched different groups of the party against each other. The old guard is under pressure and desperate to save their slots from losing to political heavy weights coming from other parties.

Hooliganism at polling station in Lahore and tensions in Multan and Rawalpindi are manifestation of existing friction — of contests between Kasuri group and Assef Ahmed Ali group in Kasur and Shah Mehmood group and Javed Hashmi group in Multan. The results are important as they will make choices clear and easy for the top leadership in these constituencies.

Besides, there are questions as to what the party stands to gain or lose from these elections. Will they set a positive tone for the party? Will this exercise lead to further fragmentation in the party or acquaint its members (most of whom are new to politics) with the secrets of electoral politics?

Omer Zaheer Mir, Central Convener, PTI’s Tsunami Change Group and ex-member PTI Punjab election cell tells TNS their intra-party elections have created a hype which will translate into active participation of party members in the general elections. He says millions of party members have elected union council level leadership through cell phone messages in the first stage of the polls. “They have seen their opinion matters and this will motivate them to go to polling stations in general elections,” he thinks.

He claims such an exercise has never taken place in the history of the subcontinent, resulting in election of tailors, street vendors etc as presidents of union councils. A large number of elected town presidents are from middle and lower-middle classes with no family history of politics.

Mir agrees feudals and filthy rich candidates have won in some areas but clarifies this has not been the trend in most cases. “You go through the list of successful candidates and you will find very few Niazis and Khans. Ancestral/familial politics is something we have discouraged.”

Mir claims the PTI popularity is on the rise, “due to the genuine and transparent intra-party polls it has held” because “people tend to trust the party which holds affairs in transparent manner and makes its leaders declare their assets publicly”.

He urges the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to call record of polling from all political parties who claim they have conducted intra-party polls. “We have complete record of text messages and calls and have maintained the voting lists. Can anyone tell how the presidents of PML-N etc are elected behind closed doors and who vote them to these positions?

Sarwar Bari, National Coordinator, Pattan Development Organisation terms the PTI elections a welcome development though he condemns use of force and violence at polling stations.

“At least these elections and the related activities are visible to the public,” he says adding that in the pre-partition days annual meetings of All India Congress and All India Muslim League coincided with intra-party elections. These were occasions where great leaders like Jinnah, Gandhi, Bose etc would enter into debates and answer questions raised by party workers. Unfortunately, “these traditions were discontinued after the Partition when feudals entered and dominated politics,” he adds.

Sarwar does not expect the fundamentals of party politics to change immediately but says the change will come gradually. Generally in elections, the main foundations of political mobilisation have been caste, personal friendships, reciprocity etc but, here, “the PTI ideologues have also played a role,” he adds.

Senior political analyst Suhail Warraich calls for development of a proper electoral college before any political party goes for intra party elections. He tells TNS even the PPP and the PML-N — the two biggest parties of the country — do not have membership lists.

In case of the PTI which claims to have one, he adds, “any person who bothers to send an SMS at a prescribed number becomes a member and eligible to vote for election of 13 union council members. Instead of gauging a person’s association with the party by his willingness to send an SMS, he should be properly registered and involved in active politics and decision-making.”

No doubt the union council members are loyal to the party and become electoral college for selection of top leadership but the fact they have been selected through text messages and phone calls is questionable.

Warraich says the political parties in Pakistan do not have funds to spend on enlistment of members and for engaging them actively in party activities. In Scandinavian countries, he adds, even the government supports political parties to conduct intra-party polls.

The importance of intra-party polls cannot be undermined. They organise party workers and help in selecting different tiers of leadership but expecting a change in top leadership is unrealistic in the Pakistani scenario. “Parties are known because of the leaders and not otherwise. If Mian Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan change the name of their parties today, the popularity would switch with them.”

He sees the clashes and brawls among followers of different PTI groups at polling stations as normal. “This happens whenever there are open contests. It seems those who lose will accept the results, especially when there is very little time left in elections,” he adds.

Yeh Woh
Mind games
By Masud Alam

Good girls spend their better years imagining what would ‘he’ be like, with or without the help of his photograph, and often without having a preferred candidate in mind.

He could be an air force cadet for a Nowshera girl, a high school droupout but flashy son-of-a-rich-man for a Lahori girl, a poor artist for a Karachi girl, or a white man for a Mirpur girl … or you can mix and match fantasies, spend some time with each until it stops being exciting and then move on to the next. One obvious benefit of fantasies is in the freedom it gives you. Absolute freedom to be whoever you wish and pick as your suitor whoever you wish. No complications, no resistance, no consequences. You can be as creative and daring as you please. Be kinky, be bad. Plan to elope with the motorbike cutie in your street who drops you hot languid looks and pumps up his biceps every time you pass each other.

You can look forward to receiving rishta of a Shan lookalike who rides a white horse for his first introduction with his future in-laws. You can imagine running in slow motion holding Faisal Qureshi’s hands on French beach and singing, ‘wada karo saajna’. I must clarify the song and the actor are in no way related and that I’ve used the name in generic terms, in the expectation that among so many Faisal Qureshi’s on television, one must be a ladies’ man.

The point is you are free to fantasise because you can’t think of anything to do to change the reality. You have accepted your role in life to be gracefully passive, be thankful for being allowed to attend college or university, enjoy whatever freedom you can extract from your parents and teachers, and then marry an uninteresting and romantically challenged man to become a full time mother and home maker for the rest of your life. You need fantasies to spice up a bland reality without having to do anything for it.

Men fantasise too. Only, they are at their fantastical best when dealing with responsibility rather than the opposite sex. For instance they play out in their minds for months various scenarios and logistical details before finally taking the car to a garage for an oil change. The bigger the responsibility, the faster they run away from it. Voting in general elections for instance is the most important civic responsibility and around 25 million men who had their vote registered did not use it in the last election.

And not because they don’t care.

They speak passionately against the oppression of the powerful, they lament the shabby and filthy state of this country, they decry rampant corruption, they yearn for a democratic change, but there is nothing they’ll do to bring about this change. They won’t even go out to vote. When the ugliness of reality makes them sick they take refuge in their favourite fantasy in which the Leader emerges from somewhere, gets elected to the highest job, and puts everything in order by simply signing a summary.

The Leader can be someone known or it can be a total stranger, which is a more exciting prospect. That Leader is as improbable to show up as angels descending on Earth to help us fight the war against terrorism. Fantasies create a beautiful but passive world in which there are no choices, nothing to do, no responsibility and no expectations. There is however a guarantee that reality will turn uglier the next time you come out of your reverie.

Because the good girls who spend their blossoming years imagining what would be their man like, grow into women who have found out what their men are like and they are not impressed. Half of the voters – men and women – vote for a known criminal or a person of bad reputation and the other half doesn’t vote at all, and then they wonder why every government we elect is more corrupt and inept than the last.

There are good candidates in every constituency, just as there are potentially good husbands in every neighbourhood. You don’t have to go for the lesser evil. You don’t have to accept rogues, thugs or idiots as your husband or representative. If you don’t like any of the candidates, field one of your own and canvass for him or her. Better still, put yourself up as a candidate and find out what does it take to get the trust of people.