It is not uncommon to hear people argue that a disenfranchised
group’s terror is a sovereign army’s war. Moreover, people do, after all, argue
that the IRA, Palestinian, Sri Lankan or Red Brigades bombings which have
claimed innocent lives in the last century could be understood because of their
national liberation cause. One could even claim that a historical assessment of
at least some such situations shows that violence has not always been associated
with adverse long-term outcomes. It all depends on the cause.
For example, the defenders of some acts of terror by the African
National Congress perhaps stand vindicated in South Africa today. Other acts,
say of the Baader-Meinhof in the 1970s in Germany, stand a lesser chance of
passing the test of time. The invocation of distinctions between military and
non-military targets, intentional or unintentional killing of innocents,
collateral versus principal damage, is conceptual sophistry that does not
determine but succeeds the ideological or political cause which is being
supported in a conflict that has turned to war.
It is customary to justify an act of violence by labelling it
inevitable and then predicating it with the phrase "regrettable as such acts
are". However, when such utterances are made, it should leave no ambiguity in
the listener’s head if the speaker is emphasising the inevitability of such acts
over their property of being tragic. And it is left to the audience to decide
whether it gives primacy to the tragedy or to the inevitability.
In times of war a politician must first offer reasons to justify
his chosen side in a conflict. Pakistan’s right-wing politicians have evolved a
crude technique of deception. This entails a contradictory wish of having it
both ways. They think that in order to popularise their closet view on jihad
they need to trick listeners by doing two things. First, to separate the jihadi
from his violence; and second, by exploiting a well-grounded and infinitely more
justifiable anti-imperialist sentiment that exists in large parts of the globe
today.
Imran Khan (cricketer turned politician and chairman of the
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party) seems more of an apologist for the Taliban, just
as (former prime minister and chief of the Pakistan Muslim League-N) Nawaz
Sharif does. Of course, they can and should change their minds on this matter.
Even holy positions are not sacrosanct. Sharif seems to be doing so, perhaps
because he is coming closer to office in Islamabad. His condemnation has
recently become louder and his apology for the killers somewhat softer. But
strangely – now that we have a war situation in the Frontier – Sharif wants to
focus on the disenfranchisement of the Baloch. Yes, as journalist, Ayaz Amir
says, it is all connected; but the priority in a war situation ought to be the
war, not regional inequality.
The anti-imperialism of Imran Khan stems more directly from his
orientalist soft corner for an imagined Taliban and perhaps because he is a
Pakhtun migrant settler in Punjab. He often asks, with a profoundly naïve
expression reminiscent of a child’s discovery of arithmetic, the ahistorical
question: Why were there no Taliban in Pakistan before 9/11? He should perhaps
try to answer why he was not a brazen anti-imperialist before 9/11? I mean, he
was nearly 50 years old then so he was definitely grown-up. And presumably his
vast scholarship on the Pakhtuns, with its astounding sweep from the times of
Alexander, also existed then?
It is wholly invalid to suggest that since these men are
politically popular perhaps a large section of the population of Pakistan shares
their disguised views on jihadi violence. I think significant parts of the
population that supports them would cease supporting them if they came out of
the closet and actively stated a pro-jihad position. Sharif and Khan may well
have a popular vote bank but their position on jihadi terrorism seems to be
deliberately ambiguous. There are deeper and more substantive historical reasons
for this romance.
It would be curious if after a bomb blast with civilian deaths,
you either kept quiet or began to invoke the political conditions which led to
the psychological state in which the killer acted. Such behaviour could be
diagnosed as a deeply apologetic neurosis. In other words, you cannot bring
yourself to condemn the murderers without qualification precisely because you
believe in the grand cause of the criminal.
The mainstream Right in Pakistan does not have the courage to
embrace what the Taliban are doing in the Frontier and they call it "armed
struggle" for fear of losing public sympathy. They know that many amongst
Pakistan’s Muslim population may not vote for a person or party that
consistently smokescreens jihadi killing by only talking about the reasons why
Abdul became a suicide bomber.
It is like saying immediately after a US drone attack that kills
innocents in Pakistan’s tribal areas: "reprehensible as it is, we must
appreciate the pain that 9/11 has caused the US".
The problem in public discussion in Pakistan is that as soon as
one starts suggesting that there is a deep-seated problem of jihadist apologia
embedded in the neuroses of sections of Pakistani political classes, you
encounter hysteria and get labelled an agent of imperialism.
Let me illustrate. In a recent television talk show, Pervez
Hoodbhoy suggested to Imran Khan that he should perhaps be more forthright in
his condemnation of jihadi violence. He also suggested that this was a distinct
issue from condemning US wars and violence, on which many people would be in
agreement with him. He raised a critical issue that goes right to the heart of
the dithering that we observe in political parties in this time of war. And
wartime it is. Mr Khan, on being cornered, tried to distract attention,
revealing precisely the logic that goes into this apologetic make-up. He
basically tried to accuse Mr Hoodbhoy of being in the pay of the Americans!
The larger question put to Imran Khan is still a valid one and
it is applicable to others too. And, I repeat, there is no shame in changing
one’s mind. Pride amongst the Pakhtuns may well be proverbial but it is written
nowhere that they are incapable of swallowing it in moments of truth.
