Author: Ayaz Amir
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: December 1, 2001
Introduction: As Pakistan mocks
the rout of the Taliban it forgets that whereas the Taliban are still holding
out, its vaunted army laid down arms in East Pakistan in 1971 without so
much as a decent fight
Accepting our weakness and bowing
to the inevitable is one thing. But can we please stop pretending that
by acting the way we have done in this Afghan crisis. We have somehow rescued
Pakistan's defences?
Last week General Musharraf said
Pakistan's stance on Afghanistan had been vindicated by events. If this
is vindication, what would defeat look like? This week he says, "Pakistan's
importance in relation to Afghanistan is a matter of geography, which cannot
-be changed." If our importance is so self-evident, why are we proclaiming
it from the housetops?
Thanks to Afghanistan, General Zia
ul Haq enjoyed nine years in the sun, General Musharraf a mere two months.
Our name is mud both in Kabul and Kandahar. This is what military wizards
past and. present have managed to achieve by playing the great game in
Afghanistan. Given this record of unrelieved failure anyone in our place
would draw a curtain of 'forgetfulness around Afghanistan, letting the
pieces fall where they will and letting a. new equilibrium arise in that
war-tom land.
But old habits die hard. We who
are taking no small pride in the defeat of the Taliban choose to forget
that whereas the Taliban have taken nearly two months of the most ferocious
punishment imaginable, without surrendering or deserting, we succumbed
before a single telephone call from Colin Powell. He himself has said as
much in an interview with the New York Times, saying that he delivered
a virtual ultimatum to General Musharraf: "Mr President, you have a choice
to make."
As we mock the rout of the Taliban
We forget that whereas, the Taliban are still holding out, defiant to the
last, our vaunted army laid down its arms in East -Pakistan in 1971 without
so much as a decent fight in an encounter that lasted no more than a fortnight.
Since September 11, Pakistan's ruling
circles, supported by the country's 'moderates', have become the world's
leading exponents of pragmatism. Their mantra: Pakistan had no choice.
No one cares to answer a simple question. What would we have lost if we,
had chosen to negotiate the fine print of our cooperation with the US?
Would we have been declared international terrorists if we had negotiated
with some toughness instead of being dazzled by the sudden attention we
started getting?
Now of course all the rage in Pakistan
is for settling matters with the 'extremists'. In a TV interview Musharraf
has said the extremists stood exposed and now was the time to move against
them. By extremists he means the religious parties which rallied to the
support of the Taliban when the American bombing of Afghanistan started.
What is the guilt of these parties? They expressed a point of' view which
represented the views of a wide section of public opinion in Pakistan.
If anything, they showed more spirit than General Musharraf's so-called
'silent Majority'.
There is no cause to move against
them except if the aim be to rock the foundations of the Pakistani state.
The religious right is part of our landscape. It has always existed and
will always exist and while it certainly does not speak for the majority,
to move against it is to move against a limb of Pakistan. While it is possible
to disagree with the Jamaat-I-Islami and the JUI, these and other religious
parties add to the richness of whatever political discourse exists in this
country. For 20 years these parties were in the vanguard of official ideology.
Now, Pakistan's official ideology has undergone a complete somersault-the
military jehadis of yesterday becoming the secularists of today-the religious
parties are being spoken, of as some kind of outcasts.
We are extremists in everything.
Let us at least be moderate in our inconsistencies.
(Dawn)
