Our demons of past blunders are arising from the in-caving rubbles of Peshawar Mosque. We are sad, and Our hearts are bleeding for our fallen KPK police heroes.
Being clueless and mortally traumatised after the ignominious debacle of east Pakistan(1971), our establishment was insecure and shaky about remnants of West Pakistan, further Balkanisation (Pukhtoonistan) by teaming Pushtoon nationalists across from Durand trench.
Playing an opportunistic gambit, it was concluded that a foray into the Soviet-Afghan war was the best thing with many fold dividends, diverting and diluting Pushtoon nationalism, monetary gains from the west, image rehabilitation of a demonic ruthless dictator (Zia ul Haq) to the wider world; wannabe righteous leader and founding father of new fanatic Vichy upon the fresh tombstone of slain Bhutto, also complementing strategic partnership with Ronald Reagan. After the 1971 fiasco, this was the single most colossal blunder and irrecoverable short-sightedness, cascading fateful events culminating in current economically and socially regressed Pakistan, on the edge of a financial precipice.
The fault lines into this insane bloodshed run much deeper. Terrorist organisations groom psychosocially deprived and vulnerable individuals in the name of Islam and everlasting heavenly grandeur. In tandem with the Pakistani security apparatus, we have to be vigilant to lurking monsters among us. It needs more cooperation with security agencies in vetting and pre-empting such horrible future incidents.
Secondly, we all know that Pakistan is a cash-strapped country with meagre resources. Let’s be honest ISI is not CIA with unlimited resources to pre-empt every single terrorist attack. Pragmatically we can rely on our security apparatus to a certain extent. Hence, our everyday citizens need to shoulder some responsibility when it comes to public security/ safety. I am not glorifying street vigilante culture. Nevertheless, there are illustrious examples of courage and bravery from the past. Once upon a time, our beloved late Afzal Khan Lala from Swat was a single-man army standing tall against the tyranny of the Taliban across from the chipping dusty walls of his garden under the torrent of gunfire.
Western governments and politicians are scrupulous only because the public is fully aware of the fundamentals of their rights and civic responsibilities. Otherwise, Western elites would have been as duping and corrupt as any third-world country; the only difference is the social acumen of their citizenry. On the contrary, we are acting like a big chaotic mass.
Thirdly, there are no magic inroads until and unless our military establishment comes out from this faux pas that Afghanistan is our strategic lake in the Pakistani tribal backyard. It’s a pure delusional myth. We need to decouple Afghanistan from our memories and only focus inward on Pakistan. Historically neighbours struggled to maintain a symbiotic relationship with Afghanistan. Even with NATO spending a whopping 40 billion USD in civilian aid to uplift Afghanistan in 20 years, it turned out to be a sheer sand castle when the Taliban triumphantly marched into Kabul presidential palace in the summer of 2019.
They are an ethnically fractured nation, recalcitrant to nation-building until and unless enlightened Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara, and Kabul elites(Pushtoons) make total victory over southern holy warriors and narco warlords.
Pushtoons are themselves innocent victims to this gory push and ferocious onslaught from the south (the nursery of the Taliban), where rampant poverty and tribalism underpin this whole cataclysmic vicious cycle. They are ardent adherents of ancient tribal codes. The current violence is like transitional birth pangs from the old to the newer world until this vicious cycle abates. Afghanistan is far from a true peace perspective.
Of course, there were external factors as well, like the Soviets, NATO incursion, and North Alliance-Indian heyday with gruelling Pakistan, once embroiled in the Afghanistan quagmire and fuelling instability and intra-ethnic war mongering, nevertheless still I believe that major fault lines are intrinsic to poverty, economic disparity of southern tribes mainly perpetuating this unfortunate recurring violence. The concept of power-sharing and the strength of mainstream diversity becomes an enigma the moment you have to choose tribal loyalty above all.
It is too complex and multifactorial. Unfortunately, there is no easy solution in the foreseeable future, for good or for bad; Afghanistan and Pakistan are interwoven and immutable. Perhaps the key to Afghanistan’s stability also lies in the internal peace and economic viability of Pakistan. Maestro Ashraf Ghani missed countless opportunities to alleviate Pakistan’s perennial anxiety before fleeing to sky scrapped Arabian desert kingdom. He missed once in a lifetime opportunity to uptick Afghanistan’s bright outlook by staying antagonist to Pakistan throughout when he was at the top helms of the Kabul regime. Probably this was too late dawning on him, as the rotoring sound of a lone gunship chopper was fading away from the skies of Kabul, scurrying a distinguished gentleman, once a hope of the whole world, considered to be the right man for a top Kabul job and steering Afghanistan’s upscale journey.
- The Massacre of Peshawar - 09/02/2023
- Full on Populist Politics - 28/04/2022
