The conduct of liberals

Asif Haroon Raja

Enlightened moderation espoused by most unpopular and controversial President Gen. Musharraf opened floodgates of obscenity and vulgarity and paved the way for secularization of society. It delighted the liberals but consternated the Islamists and in turn ignited Islamic extremism as a reaction to secularism. Issuance of repulsive NRO by Musharraf absolved the senior leadership of PPP and bureaucrats of corruption charges and workers and leaders of MQM of heinous crimes. National Accountability Bureau was defanged and records of corrupt senior leaders of PPP burnt. Society has got contaminated with social evils such as gang rapes, kidnappings for ransom, target killings, daylight robberies, car lifting, mega scandals of corruption, immorality, unholy wheeling and dealing to gain more political power, dishonoring public commitment, murder of merit, absence of justice and rule of law. Law enforcers and criminals scratch each others back. In most rape cases, police is invariably an involved party. 5^th columnists, anti-social elements and paid writers have multiplied who readily play the game of enemy to harm Pakistan interests.

Prolonged power outages, spiraling prices of daily commodities, unemployment and increase in poverty graph has made life of downtrodden segments of society pitiable. Concept of accountability in Pakistan against the elites is almost dead. Only chief justice Iftikhar is trying to keep it alive. Supreme Court historic decision declaring 3/11 emergency and ordinances issued up to December 2007 illegal has been hailed but there is skepticism whether these would be implemented by the government in letter and spirit. Ethics, morality and sublime values have become stories of the past. Amidst the polluted environment and decayed morals, the army is keeping its ethico-honor code intact and making huge sacrifices to free the country from scourge of terrorism fomented by our adversaries. Mindful of its responsibilities, it has braved the insinuations heaped on it by vested groups and after dismantling well-organized defences and network of Fazlullah led militants in Malakand Division as well as adjacent restive areas, it is now busy mopping up pockets of resistance offered by left over militants to allow uninterrupted return of IDPs. Waziristan is kept under tight control and militant leaders are on the back foot. It has conducted an army level war game exclusively aimed at dealing with internal and external threats and has befittingly streamlined its responses.

Band of west and Indian loving writers, anchors and intellectuals are busy spreading gloom at the behest of their foreign patrons and also championing cause of secularism. Singing has been dubbed by liberals like Farhat Taj as a cultural jihad. She vociferously admonished Swat Taliban for persecuting Pashtun singers from undertaking cultural jihad and for advocating jihad in the name of Allah. Seculars in their desire to kill all Islamic extremists and terrorists greet the drones and decry those making noise about loss of sovereignty because of drone attacks. They want the macabre dance of death and destruction to continue without a pause as long as militants are getting killed. Farhat is also a strong advocate of drone attacks in FATA and propagate the tutored theme that people of FATA love drones. She went to the extent of saying that people of Swat prayed for US drone attacks against Taliban.

What a weird and absurd logic and height of hypocrisy. Over 90% people killed by drones were innocent men, women and children. She claims to be an expert on FATA and consider others as nincompoops devoid of reality. Like many other liberals who miss no opportunity to defame the army, she too claimed that FATA and Swat had been occupied by Al-Qaeda and Taliban after it was willfully surrendered to them by the army. Going by her logic 120,000 troops stationed in FATA since mid 2002 and 15000 in Swat since November 2007 had either joined hands with the militants or had laid down their arms. I wonder what she has to say now after the army turned the tables on Swat Taliban.

Army bashers ridiculed the army when it fought the militants in FATA and Baluchistan and wailed that it should stop butchering its own people. Whenever the army compelled the militants to sign a peace agreement and both sides adopted a restraining posture, army was derided that it was incapable of protecting the nation from threat of militancy. In their bid to malign the army, liberals distort historical facts by claiming that Britain refused to surrender territory to the Irish while negotiating with IRA. Belfast Agreement inked in April 1998 devolved powers from the British parliament. Prisoners were exchanged and IRA was given over two years to de-commission their weapons. Notwithstanding that North Ireland is part of UK, it is not under its control and has its own constitution. During insurrection, British army could not venture into areas of Northern Ireland controlled by IRA. Moral of the story of Good Friday Agreement duly facilitated by USA which ended the conflict, is that peace was restored through dialogue and not through military force.. Enforcement of a Sharia based judicial system is not tantamount to giving up all rights by the government in the region as propagated.

In his write up in The News dated July 8 titled "˜Ties with India'; Zafar Hilaly futilely defends Musharraf's Kashmir policy and his cockeyed out of box solution.  Instead of censuring him for inflicting a mortal blow to Kashmir cause and ditching Kashmiris, he acclaims him saying that his decision was sane. Hilaly goes a step further by praising Zardari for pursuing Musharraf's policy on Kashmir boldly and forthrightly. He laments that Mumbai carnage and loss of credibility of Zardari has put him in a tight situation to make a deal with India on Kashmir (and settle it on Indian terms).  He mocks at Indophobes who censure perfidious role of Musharraf.  Had Kashmir front been active, India would never have dared to meddle into Pakistan so blatantly.  

There is a dichotomy in perceptions of secular writers and English newspapers with regard to Taliban and Baloch extremists. Former are severely castigated while the latter supported. One major reason for this variation towards Baloch nationalists vis-à-vis Islamists by the seculars, human rights organisations, NGOs and the west is that former espouse secular values and latter advocate Islamic principles and Jihad against infidels. Kamila Hayat in her article in The News dated 30 July, "˜Bombers, borders and Balochistan', sees everything good in Baloch nationalists. She castigates the government for blocking their websites spewing venom against Pakistan and terms it as denial of basic rights but she and her likes soared their throats condemning use of FM radio by Fazlullah in Swat. She says it is foolhardy to ignore Baloch nationalists and strongly supports talking to them including Brahamdagh. Latter is organising acts of terror from Kandahar and Helmand provinces of Afghanistan through members of banned BLA in Balochistan at the behest of RAW, RAAM and CIA.

Conversely, there is not a grain of mercy for Baitullah Mahsud, Gul Bahadur, Maulvi Nazir and Fazlullah despite the fact that none has ever talked of independence or overtly sought support of foreign powers. Seculars are allergic to having any talks with militants in northwest and want them to be eliminated. Kamila is deeply worried about Taliban making a base in Balochistan but considers dangerous designs of Baloch nationalists openly espousing separation and indulging in target killings of settlers particularly educationists in Balochistan harmless. Seculars and liberals are least bothered about looming external threat and covert operations launched at a huge scale in Balochistan, FATA and Malakand Division. Belligerence of USA and India doesn't bother them. What bother them is the threat posed by Islamists since they show them the mirror that lifestyle of the seculars is akin to western culture and alien to Pakistani and Islamic culture.  

The News editorial of 30 July denounces secret efforts by the army and government to negotiate with Baitullah. It has readily accepted jaundiced version of BBC, Daily Telegraph, Washington Post and New York Times that army is purposely proceeding slowly in Waziristan to be able to strike a deal with Baitullah. It laments that so far no high profile militant leader has been nabbed and opposes inking another dud deal. Jang newspaper has published a special edition on Balochistan supporting the cause of separatists and lending strength to Indo-US themes. One fails to understand on what moral grounds champions of morality and moderation are crying hoarse for accountability and severest punishment to the Islamist militants who had indulged in criminal acts when the track record of the liberals as well as secular Baloch nationalists is equally dismal if not more.     

The writer is a defence and political analyst based at Rawalpindi and author of several books.Email:ah.raja@yahoo.com