Fear, despair and doubt

A wave of gloom pervades across the country. Just over a week on, the countrywide condemnation of dastardly attack on Malala Yousufzai remains relentless, and it's largely without prejudice to the positions taken by various political parties and schools of thought on militancy in tribal areas of Pakistan. But no more; lying low for the first few days the parties and groups, who claim Pakistan is fighting America's war, have returned to the public platform insisting that too much of her adulation is not without a hidden agenda.
The agenda, as JUI (F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman said on Sunday, is to garner public support ahead of the launch of a military action in North Waziristan. "We have some reservations about the Malala incident because the army and the government want to use this issue to launch an operation in Waziristan," he said while addressing a public meeting at Sukkur. As to why far more gruesome incidents, including the bombing of seminaries, in which scores of children lost their lives were not condemned with a matching concern - he wants to know. If Maulana Rehman's assertion lacked stridency it was made up by speakers at a gathering held under the aegis of Defence of Pakistan Council (DPC). Calling Malala as his daughter, DPC chairman Maulana Samiul Haq claimed the 'innocent Swat girl has been used as a tool to pave the way for an operation in South and North Waziristan'. If any such thing as operation in North Waziristan is in the offing there is no detectable sign, yet. While the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) directorate says operation in North Waziristan is "going to be a political decision" the government is conspicuously quiet on it - though there is no paucity of overt resolution on the part of elected houses and government functionaries to root out terrorism.
In a nutshell, the public opinion is unanimous that the murderous attack on Malala Yousufzai is bestial and un-Islamic. But should this unanimity of public opinion and widespread condemnation of attack crystallise into triggering a prompt military operation in North Waziristan there is controversy, not very different from the one that's already in the field. The fact is that Pakistan's position on the urgency to take on militants in North Waziristan is quite at variance with that of the US-led coalition, as the two tend to embrace a perceptional mismatch on it. The coalition thinks all its troubles in Afghanistan are because of the militants who it believes are safely ensconced in North Waziristan. And if they are put out of action by the Pakistan military their headache would be over. But, on the other hand, already Pakistan has on its hands a full-blown militancy all over the country and obviously an action in North Waziristan would add to its complexity. More precisely, the United States wants Pakistan to take care of the Haqqani network which has its presence in parts of North Waziristan. But, Pakistan does not see that group making any trouble for it. So, not only a strong, vocal section of Pakistani society is against military action in North Waziristan the government too is not in agreement with the coalition leadership. Then there is this mysterious absence of action on the part of the coalition and its host Kabul government to stop the Pakistani Taliban, particularly from Swat, who occasionally carry out murderous forays into Pakistan territory - like the one leading to target-shooting of Malala Yousufzai.
The attack on Malala has undoubtedly hurt the soul of the nation. One would like to think if Taliban leadership had any inkling of the amount of anger and revulsion the attempt on the life of the 14-year-old child rights activist would generate in Pakistan and abroad, the Taliban might have desisted from going for it. If it required some brainstorming on the part of the Taliban leaders the government of Pakistan too has to do some hard thinking on how it should react to the hype created for an urgent action in North Waziristan. Somehow, the lingering curse of terrorism hasn't received quality attention which it deserved. Instead of seeking a political solution, the need for which has once again acquired great urgency, the challenge was labelling a law and order situation and task of dealing with it was passed unto the armed forces. And the forces can do only as much as they have. There is, therefore, the need to cast a fresh, and incisive, look on the issue of terrorism keeping in view facts on the ground and to hammer out a programme that's actionable. For one, it should be pointed out that terrorism in the country is the handiwork of only one or two groups of Taliban. And that they are mainly based in South Waziristan and the Malakand-Bajaur salient, as the rest dozen or so constituents of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) may be fighting on other fronts. At the same time, as proposed in a recent op-ed by Munir Akram, former Pakistan ambassador to the United Nations, the "military option against this core of TTP can be accompanied by talks with the tribal leadership of the (South Waziristan-based) Mehsuds and other clans involved". But the question is: Does our political leadership, overwhelmed with fear, despair and doubt and engaged earnestly as it is in the deadly power struggle, have the required time at its disposal to analyse and forge a pragmatic approach to deal with the challenge of terrorism?