It has been seven terrible years that Pakistan complied with demands of cooperation underlined by threats from the up in arms sole superpower. By no means a model prosperous state, Pakistan was at relative calm before the madness started. Today, however, the incidents of terrorism in Pakistan are splashed more across the headlines than similar incidents taking place in the United States – as a matter of fact, there is no comparison.
The voices asserting that the war on terror is our war are, therefore, not mistaken. The growing violence is indisputably worrisome and needs to be fought. However, our perception of and war against the threat of terrorism is different from that of the United States. For United States, it might be a question of prestige, for us it is a matter of survival. For the United States, it might be a clash between competing worldviews, for us it is a domestic quarrel.
The different positions in the war call for different strategies against the threat of terrorism. The international politics is essentially considered to be an activity wherein a favorable change in the position of one actor brings about an adverse change in the position of another. Therefore, it is perfectly understandable for us why the United States perceives Islamist terrorism a threat. There is a growing belief in the policy circles of the US that Islam – or as they put it ‘political Islam’ – has replaced communism as the primary threat to the world order US desires to establish.
On the domestic level, however, the rules of the game are a lot different. No one can deny the validity of the argument that the use of force becomes an imperative at a certain point, even in the domestic politics. However, we should also bear in mind that the point arrives only after all other channels of rectification have genuinely been tried without success. Domestic response to an issue cannot be as arrogant and merciless as we saw for all these years in the case of the response of a global hegemon. In a domestic situation, the defeat of one party to a conflict does not always mean the success of the other. Therefore, understanding the causes of a problem at the domestic level is the first step in the counteractive process.
In reality, the growing extremism in Pakistan is caused by two major trends: first, the socio-economic polarization in the society has produced a generation of lower-middle class youth that is disenchanted with the direction of the society and by their marginalization in it. They feel that they have no bearing whatsoever on the orientation of the state. The class is absolutely out of calculus when we analyze them in relation to the strides that Pakistani society has made in the process of economic growth.
Second, the failure to achieve cultural desalinization had created a friction in the society that has been made ever so wider by the process of cultural globalization. A German friend who was visiting Pakistan after a gap of 14 years was startled to see the westernization of the media and a section of Pakistani society. However, he was even more surprised to note that the anti-westernization forces were also stronger than ever before. The cultural divide in the society seems unbridgeable and this cultural misunderstanding makes the resolution of intra-society almost impossible. The fact that people standing on both sides of the divide are affected by the dangerous delusion of self-righteousness is not helping the cause of a resolution either.
Our anxiety, therefore, springs from a far deeper source than that of the United States. History has more than ample evidence to suggest that the United States has time and again left its assignment incomplete, and there is no basis for a belief that it would not repeat the same this time. But if the United States does that, Pakistan may find itself in a deeper hole than it is located in now. For that reason, it is for us to open our eyes to the fact that our fight against the extremist forces should be on different lines.
Legal reforms and policing have been quite effective in dealing with terrorism in the United States, but the same cannot be adopted in Pakistan. In our fascination of the United States, we should not put out of our mind the truth that such actions were possible for the United States to take for the reason that it was fighting an enemy that it considered to be an outsider. The registration of Muslims and a more proactive anti-terrorism police system were effective for the reason that they were aimed at people that could be easily distinguished, and the United States government was not much concerned even if these people were aggravated in the process.
In Pakistan, however, the potential terrorists cannot be distinguished from the rest of the population, because they are a part of the population. It may sound hopeless, but keeping a close watch on the whole population is hardly an option available to us. Although, we should acknowledge the fact that government has to tackle terrorism through security-oriented measures, and expecting it to do wonders in our context may constitute wishful thinking.
The second reason for which the United States has been able to avert the incidence of terrorism is its geography. It does not border with a state that may be a potential stronghold of Al-Qaeda. In our case, the war through the use of force becomes a lot more complicated because of our proximity to Afghanistan. Moreover, the border between the two countries is so porous that it hardly leaves a chance for us to control the cross-border flow of goods or people, hence making policing almost ineffective.
The torrid times that Pakistan is going through and the attitude of the United States towards Pakistan’s role in the war should serve as an eye-opener for our policy makers. Pakistan has recently been blamed for being extravagant in the use of the funds that have been made available to it by the United States for war against terrorism. Pakistan has come under heavy fire from different quarters for being supportive of Taliban while pretending to be a frontline ally in the war against terrorism.
Pakistan should frame its own counter-terrorism policy rather than employing an imposed dysfunctional strategy. If the United States is far from winning a war after spending, according to Joseph Stiglitz, three trillion dollars, how can Pakistan expect to win the war with meager domestic and foreign assistance resources? The best way for Pakistan would be to formulate the counter-terrorism policy in line with its domestic conditions without treating the local Taliban and other such elements as an alien threat. Despite the use of furious power, they are knocking at the gates of our major cities. If there was any time for us to take an independent stance, it is now.
