UstaadKhan Blogs

  

As democrats we should be setting limits on the moral, practical and budgetary boundaries of the military rather than insisting that this is the wrong time to curtail it.

Some themes (and actors) just keep on repeating themselves in the political landscape of Pakistan. This is partially due to tensions between unresolved old debates and the new imagination that is looking to fill the vacuum.

It seemed that last year, the military versus civilian leadership debate had come full circle. All sympathy for the liberal military dispensation that took the reins of power in1999 was reversed. After the lawyers’ movement and the unchecked militancy in Fata, it seemed that the military was the most unpopular institution in the country. But rather than drive that final nail in the coffin, current opportunists and fearful decision-makers prefer to delay the message that the army is not above accountability under democratic governance.

The concern is not ‘revenge’, nor even the moral pursuit of ‘accountability’. It’s more to do with how commentators tend to analyse socio-political opportunities. Hence, not only is it assumed that the military is reinventing itself because it has begun operations in Fata and parts of the NWFP, but suddenly this institution has absolved itself of its past sins and is being feted as the undisputed defender of the nation!

Bleeding hearts want to pin a ribbon for every terrorist killed on the uniforms of soldiers. Editorials wax lyrical about how the army has finally got it ‘right’ and headlines declare that on average 42 ‘militants’ are killed in every operation.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and independent observers are voicing concern at the ‘collateral damage’ and the presence reportedly of mass graves. Yet there is no panic to compel us to demand a national accountability or monitoring cell to assess the extent of the success, failure or indeed the sustainability of these operations. Everyone’s just relieved that somebody’s doing something to supposedly keep us safe in the cities.

This is not to say that there is no militancy. We can’t deny its tentacles and the severity of its impact on women and the vulnerable. (And yes, one has been to the conflict zones … if stepping out of our drawing rooms gives us the right to opine more authentically on the state of the affected areas.)

However, it’s another matter to adulate an institution that is now countering the blowback of its own making. It is also dangerous to invest such patriotism in the very institution that has been responsible for the damage done to the country’s political institutions and for taking extreme punitive actions against its civilian, elected leaders.

If today the army is compelled to put the genie back in the bottle that it uncorked itself then we should not applaud it. We need a new set of analytical tools rather than fearful political accommodation or indeed misplaced praise and rewards.

The military must bear the burden of reinventing itself today. As democrats we should be setting limits on the moral, practical and budgetary boundaries of this institution rather than insisting that this is the wrong time to curtail it. When was it ever the right time? If the next time there is a conflict involving resources such as water, the army will once again be called in to save us from ourselves.

A second contradictory trend that is linked to this is the alarming growth in social conservatism that seeks to fill in the spaces in society and that is fast gaining currency. A new generation is coming of age. It is fed on a new media and has memories of one of the most violent decades of our history. Some amongst them seek to expand secular spaces to express themselves in a freer manner and look for new relationships with institutions. Meanwhile, within the same generation are the ‘new age mullahs’ who wish for us to return to a religious past free from modernity, one that has no colonial master and, apparently, guarantees Muslim hegemony and global peace. The central identity issue of Pakistani nationalism continues to plague it.

While we are catapulted unprepared into the globalised market, interest groups wish to anchor us to this past. The unsubtle Arabisation of society has included names, language and social graces that reveal a lack of self-confidence where our national identity is concerned. There is a desperate quest for a borrowed one. This identity is based on a non-democratic, authoritarian, oppressive and unequal order and one that is obsequious to the West in a way that we never were.

The military, mullahs and monarchy of the Middle East need to understand that Pakistanis will not accept this imposition without a fight. It is precisely the above tensions that define the hope in a democratic order and in representative politics, and that may just turn things around.

A belief in democracy, a reinvented market identity and pride in a South Asian heritage where one can hold on to secular politics while respecting the faith and diversity of all people is possible because increasingly democratic Pakistanis want to have a say in their future.