Fake debates, rhetorical flourishes

A doughty, decent , hardworking lady and full of common sense, Pervez Musharraf’s mother told a group of journalists more than a decade ago that the family did not have very high expectations of their second son Pervez as he was growing up and, therefore, considered him prime army material. And that it was the elder son, Javed, a ‘book worm’, and subsequently a Rhodes scholar, who seemed more likely to shine.

Legend has it that the elder Sharif – the late ‘Abbaji’ – when asked to spare a son for politics by Ziaul Haq, offered Nawaz and not Shahbaz because the family business could not spare the latter (or words to that effect).

Although neither parent had a high opinion of the talents of their respective progeny, both sons went on to become the country’s rulers. If, therefore, even parents get it wrong, why blame supporters for cussedly believing their heroes would get it right if given another chance? “What makes you think either will succeed today when the problems are infinitely greater and more complex than when they failed?”, I asked a Sharif jiyala and a Musharraf fan before the elections. I did not get a convincing response from either.
Of course, in the case of Pervez Musharraf that question is now superfluous. We need not speculate what his end will be. It can only be further imprisonment, the rope, the victim of a Taliban break-in – which poses a greater danger for inmates in our prisons than attempting to break out of jail – or a short hop to Dubai to resume his exile.

But about Nawaz Sharif we can speculate. Indeed, we should because our lives may depend on it. So, will Nawaz succeed where he failed twice before?

The odds are stacked against him. A soufflé cannot be made to rise twice, what to speak of a third time, as any chef will readily confirm. Besides, Nawaz’s performance in the 90 days or so he has spent in office is dispiriting. Forget the highways and corridors-to-everywhere, and the aerial and underground railways that Nawaz has promised to build – all that is familiar jargon. Forget also his choice of relatives, cronies, chums, neighbours, Lahoris and others from his home province to fill the top positions of the land, and the many other issues that need attention but were ignored in his recent speech.

All that, and much more, would have been forgiven had Nawaz Sharif let on how he intended to tackle the issue of terrorism. But of that there was not a word. We are told the magic potion is still in the making so, I suppose, we must continue to wait and die. But Nawaz did let on that taking with the terrorists was one ingredient in the mix, that is, till his interior minister corrected him the other day and said it’s the ‘only’ way and drew a loud collective gasp from the nation.

So what can we reasonably expect from Nawaz’s parleys with those who he intends to sit across the table from? What’s their mindset?
But before we delve into that let’s take a look at what their mentor Sayyid Qutb, a modernising Egyptian school inspector, who went on to become the pre-eminent Islamic ideologist of the 20th century had to say in his book, ‘In the shade of the Quran’, later abridged into ‘Milestones.’

What is necessary, says Qutb, “is a full revolt against human rulership in all its shapes and forms, systems and arrangements … It means destroying the kingdom of man to establish the kingdom of heaven on earth”. Although Qutb prescribed no specific programme, he made clear that violent jihad had to start at home by ridding the Arab world of those tyrants who rejected (Qutb’s version of) Islam.
Given Qutb’s criteria this meant virtually every Middle Eastern ruler, including Egypt’s Arab nationalists, Lebanon’s western liberals, Syria and Iraq’s socialist Baath party, and Iran’s Shias. Gamal Abdel Nasser who had heard enough hanged Qutb in August 1966, ostensibly for conspiring against the state.

To diverge, Osama bin Laden studied under Mohammed Qutb, the younger brother of the Egyptian preacher while at university in Jeddah in the late 1970s and was deeply influenced by his thinking. And it was Osama who by conflating the 13th and 20th centuries, as Salafis are wont to do, read into the fatwas of a 13th century scholar the permission to kill innocent bystanders if their deaths made it possible to destroy ‘infidels’. This was later expanded to include fellow Muslims considered heretical by Al Zawahiri.

Let’s probe a little deeper into the minds and setup of Qutb’s avid disciples who are wreaking havoc here and with whom Nawaz Sharif is so keen to engage. Here’s my take: the TTP is really a war machine. In other words, the Taliban are a society of a particular kind – a war society. Their existence depends on war (and now loot for the criminals that have joined them). They exist only through combat and confrontation with an enemy.

If there is no enemy they are unable to accept the feeling of existing because they are congenitally unable to mix with the rest of society. In other words they are unable to belong to any community, except the community of fellow fanatics who only have their hate for the rest of us in common. They have never really come to grips with the world, which is why they have no attachment to it. By offering to talk they are merely trying to humanise their vocation for death; and religion is the most convenient pretext for their bloody vocation.

If such are the men Nawaz Sharif proposes to talk to, we can only wish our once would be Ameer-ul-Momineen luck, although the outcome is plain to see. But, alas, it doesn’t end there. There is the danger that if such men are absorbed into society they will, given time and leeway, transform our society and bring about considerable sociological consequences affecting the very structure of society and alter, if not shatter, its undivided being.

In a sense that’s happening already in the manner the upsurge in sectarian violence has been received by the public at large. A shrug of the shoulders, as if to say ‘too bad,’ accompanies reports of such killings. I have heard excuses proffered for what are inexcusable acts of terror. A botched kidnapping in which a young man lost his life elicited the remark from a policeman ‘he shouldn’t have moved about in such a swanky car. You can’t expect the police to do everything’. Actually it’s becoming clear the police – in fact, the state – can do nothing at all.

This is not the Pakistan Nawaz presided over when he was driven out of power in 1999. The content is fast draining out; we exist in mere form. We are a nation in mourning much like the Pakistan Bhutto inherited in 1971. And like Bhutto, Nawaz must lead a rescue operation. The fact is that violence won’t be banished by fake debates and rhetorical flourishes at APCs about being brothers.

Can this be accomplished over cups of tea? No. Is Nawaz Sharif up to it? You must be joking.

The writer is a former ambassador.

Email: charles123it@hotmail.com