Last week when the Inter Services Public Relation (ISPR) gave us the good news of having arrested the alleged attackers of Malala Yousafzai – the teenage champion for education who was attacked by the Taliban on October 9, 2012 in her home town while coming home from her school – we were relieved. Many saw this step as evidence of the military’s commitment to restore complete peace in Swat.
The arrests are really a slap in the face of those (and they are many in Pakistan) who thought the heinous deadly attack on Malala was a self-constructed plot to defame Pakistan. These people wanted to shroud the young and brave daughter of Swat in a mist of conspiracies because she stood against the terrorists and refused to take their diktat. Thanks to ISPR these Taliban apologists were proven wrong.
Although amid the indecisive long sit-ins in Pakistan many Swatis didn’t notice the good news yet those who have somehow kept themselves immune to the sit-ins and the artificial impasse imposed in the country welcomed the good news with visible applause.
Swatis are optimistic about a lasting peace but the incessant target killing of the members of the peace committees and the skirmishes shatter their trust. The recent target killing of members of the peace committees – which went unnoticed by the popular media – once again deepened this fear among the people.
Another news that stirred the non-partisan thinking lot in Swat and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and of course in the rest of Pakistan, was the apparent renouncement of attacks by the Punjabi Taliban inside Pakistan. The news of renouncement of violence by a militant militia is no doubt good news but given the long history of having terrorists as assets in Pakistan with Fata and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as the epicentre, questions are raised which need answers. But nobody in Pakistan is ready to regard these questions as worthy of being answered because the majority of the questioners belong to either Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or Balochistan.
The Pakistani state has always had double standards regarding the citizens of Pakistan. Many events, past or current, ascertain this policy. The current political theatrics in Pakistan are also suggestive of the double standards for the ‘national interest’.
In the so-called Red Zone in Islamabad two men have been demanding the toppling of an elected government using the force of their rowdy followers who have virtually attacked the buildings of the ‘civilian institutions’ – the Supreme Court, parliament and the state-owned Pakistan Television. True, protest is the democratic right of every citizen of Pakistan but in Pakistan some people are always considered first among equals. One wonders whether such month-long rowdy sin-ins would ever be allowed in Swat, Fata or Balochistan.
For a few thousand people who demanded just a slight change in a design of a hydroelectric project army soldiers along with hundreds of policemen were called to take positions at the strategic places lest the people agitated. None but the ex-provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa did this. Similarly when the people of Swat came out of their houses for a peaceful protest back in 2009 against the 500-hour long curfews the security forces arrested hundreds of them. In the same way when a few hundred people in Kalam raised their voice against the alleged land grabbing by certain officers in the military the protesters were arrested and detained for days.
In Islamabad, despite the imposition of Article 245, no action was taken against the protesters and their leaders despite the obvious incitement of violence and vandalism.
If speculations are to be believed, as Imran Khan wants us to believe, there are many in circulation especially among the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other similar ‘lesser’ important provinces. Hundreds of leaders and workers of the Awami National Party were killed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. The ANP and PPP were not given a level playing field in the May 2013 elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This raises eyebrows amidst Imran Khan’s furore of rigging in the last elections.
Given the history – and as the secret script unfolds – one can conjecture that what was going in today’s Pakistan was planned long before the May elections. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the ANP and PPP were handcuffed whereas the Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf was given an edge to win the elections in the province. This may not be true but maybe someone of the scriptwriters will disclose it after a few years as in the case of the Islami Jamhuri Itihad (IJI) under Nawaz Sharif; and the agglomeration of the six religious parities under the banner of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) during the era of General Musharraf.
People now ask what the reaction would of the state institutions if the leaders of the sit-ins in Islamabad were the ANP, PPP, BNP, MQM or PMAP, parties usually regarded centre-left. The two leaders who are let free to use any kind of foul language against parliament, constitution or the courts belong to Punjab while any defiant voice from Balochistan is forcefully shut. Both Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri are the new blue-eyed boys and have a centre-right posture.
The attackers of the PTV building were tenderly asked to retreat while no peaceful protests are tolerated on the roads of Swat or Balochistan and are instead met with batons and detention.
It is not that one wants terrorism or violence in Punjab. Punjab is a part of Pakistan and not less dear than Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or Balochistan. But our state institutions, both military and civilian, need intensive deliberations to learn to equally treat all the citizens of Pakistan irrespective of their ethnicities, class or ideological tilts.
The writer heads IBT, an independentorganisation dealing with education and
development in Swat. Email: ztorwali@gmail.com
The arrests are really a slap in the face of those (and they are many in Pakistan) who thought the heinous deadly attack on Malala was a self-constructed plot to defame Pakistan. These people wanted to shroud the young and brave daughter of Swat in a mist of conspiracies because she stood against the terrorists and refused to take their diktat. Thanks to ISPR these Taliban apologists were proven wrong.
Although amid the indecisive long sit-ins in Pakistan many Swatis didn’t notice the good news yet those who have somehow kept themselves immune to the sit-ins and the artificial impasse imposed in the country welcomed the good news with visible applause.
Swatis are optimistic about a lasting peace but the incessant target killing of the members of the peace committees and the skirmishes shatter their trust. The recent target killing of members of the peace committees – which went unnoticed by the popular media – once again deepened this fear among the people.
Another news that stirred the non-partisan thinking lot in Swat and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and of course in the rest of Pakistan, was the apparent renouncement of attacks by the Punjabi Taliban inside Pakistan. The news of renouncement of violence by a militant militia is no doubt good news but given the long history of having terrorists as assets in Pakistan with Fata and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as the epicentre, questions are raised which need answers. But nobody in Pakistan is ready to regard these questions as worthy of being answered because the majority of the questioners belong to either Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or Balochistan.
The Pakistani state has always had double standards regarding the citizens of Pakistan. Many events, past or current, ascertain this policy. The current political theatrics in Pakistan are also suggestive of the double standards for the ‘national interest’.
In the so-called Red Zone in Islamabad two men have been demanding the toppling of an elected government using the force of their rowdy followers who have virtually attacked the buildings of the ‘civilian institutions’ – the Supreme Court, parliament and the state-owned Pakistan Television. True, protest is the democratic right of every citizen of Pakistan but in Pakistan some people are always considered first among equals. One wonders whether such month-long rowdy sin-ins would ever be allowed in Swat, Fata or Balochistan.
For a few thousand people who demanded just a slight change in a design of a hydroelectric project army soldiers along with hundreds of policemen were called to take positions at the strategic places lest the people agitated. None but the ex-provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa did this. Similarly when the people of Swat came out of their houses for a peaceful protest back in 2009 against the 500-hour long curfews the security forces arrested hundreds of them. In the same way when a few hundred people in Kalam raised their voice against the alleged land grabbing by certain officers in the military the protesters were arrested and detained for days.
In Islamabad, despite the imposition of Article 245, no action was taken against the protesters and their leaders despite the obvious incitement of violence and vandalism.
If speculations are to be believed, as Imran Khan wants us to believe, there are many in circulation especially among the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other similar ‘lesser’ important provinces. Hundreds of leaders and workers of the Awami National Party were killed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. The ANP and PPP were not given a level playing field in the May 2013 elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This raises eyebrows amidst Imran Khan’s furore of rigging in the last elections.
Given the history – and as the secret script unfolds – one can conjecture that what was going in today’s Pakistan was planned long before the May elections. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the ANP and PPP were handcuffed whereas the Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf was given an edge to win the elections in the province. This may not be true but maybe someone of the scriptwriters will disclose it after a few years as in the case of the Islami Jamhuri Itihad (IJI) under Nawaz Sharif; and the agglomeration of the six religious parities under the banner of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) during the era of General Musharraf.
People now ask what the reaction would of the state institutions if the leaders of the sit-ins in Islamabad were the ANP, PPP, BNP, MQM or PMAP, parties usually regarded centre-left. The two leaders who are let free to use any kind of foul language against parliament, constitution or the courts belong to Punjab while any defiant voice from Balochistan is forcefully shut. Both Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri are the new blue-eyed boys and have a centre-right posture.
The attackers of the PTV building were tenderly asked to retreat while no peaceful protests are tolerated on the roads of Swat or Balochistan and are instead met with batons and detention.
It is not that one wants terrorism or violence in Punjab. Punjab is a part of Pakistan and not less dear than Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or Balochistan. But our state institutions, both military and civilian, need intensive deliberations to learn to equally treat all the citizens of Pakistan irrespective of their ethnicities, class or ideological tilts.
The writer heads IBT, an independentorganisation dealing with education and
development in Swat. Email: ztorwali@gmail.com
Published in The News: http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-273485-The-state’s-double-standards
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