We are at war with Afghanistan.
More appropriately, the Pakistani state is at war with the Taliban regime, who control the Afghan people.
If it weren’t unsurprising and a continuation of what is ‘normal’ in Pakistan’s border towns, we would be formally acknowledging the two states are militarily engaged.
Pakistani social media is flooded with disgusting, racist and ethnocentric videos trying to show bravado against the Afghans; this suggests this was also a preplanned offensive. An unsophisticated script is being pushed on all public communication platforms through the usual mouthpieces and then some. This too will harm Pakistan further. It will fracture the federation.
What is missing is local, authentic reporting from the dozens of border towns, which remain permanently vulnerable to the war with Afghanistan and the war within Pakistan. The permanent violence here, and more so now. This past month alone has seen missiles, bombing, suicide attacks and general loss of lives by all unnatural means, in Khyber, Bajaur, Chaman, Pishin, Bannu and many other towns. But does the rest of Pakistan care?
How these Pakistanis are faring should be the question most people should be asking and exploring. Instead, we have slick videos trying to humiliate war-torn Afghans for the wars imposed on them. Taking absolutely no responsibility for Pakistan’s role in the destruction of Afghanistan is only going to worsen a terrible situation. False bravado doesn’t win wars, Twitter or otherwise.
Reporting in Pakistan has become limited and controlled to the extent that voices from the districts are literally non-existent. Anywhere else in the world, the theatre of war and violence would be where the information comes from: the reporters are physically present, the images come from there through credible independent journalists, the locals are the centre of the conversation and information, which informs the rest of the country. But here, Pindi and Islamabad and a handful of Lahoris decide what is happening and what Pakistanis think.
If we are to remain a federation of many peoples, living under one flag and within a single border, we must respect and protect all of us equally
Let me burst this bubble: Pakistan doesn’t exist. There is more than the Lahore–Pindi version of Pakistan and Pakistani. If we continue this nonsense, we will have no country left. A few Urdu–Punjabi videos won’t keep this federation afloat nor win hearts or minds or wars. More walls and bulletproof cars will be required to keep the teeming masses from the truth of the matter. Perhaps the recently bought jets are a well-thought-out plan for an exit strategy for the unwelcome.
If Pakistan wants Pakistanis to be proud and stand for a common destiny, all Pakistanis must feel it.
The war against the Taliban was long overdue.
“I told you so” sounds so…
But it isn’t enough that the Pakistani state managers have decided to attack the Taliban regime in Afghanistan militarily; but is this war also against Talibanisation?
The Taliban is not a political party, undesirable like PML-N and PPP in Pakistan; it is a sickness, a product of permanent war and violence. It is a disease which human beings have become, having known nothing but violence and therefore only understanding violence. They were always going to go to war; that is all they know.
In a modern polity, they would be institutionalised to heal and rehabilitated so that they may not harm themselves or anyone else. We knew this, and everyone else knew this; when the state of Pakistan chose to recognise this publicly was a matter of time. Who bore the cost of this folly has always been the citizens of Pakistan, especially those in KP and Balochistan.
Pakistan nurtured this pain, deprivation and enabled these children of war, witnesses to unbearable horrors, which created these creatures we call Taliban. Now that these creatures have turned on those who enabled them, all Pakistani citizens are expected to fall in line without question, or accountability for all that pain and loss of lives Pakistanis have had to bear? This is unacceptable.
What were Manzoor Pashteen and the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement telling us? When they said stop funding and protecting the Taliban and its ilk (Haqqani group and all the alphabets in between), they were branded as traitors and anti-Pakistani.
Today, the Pakistani military establishment’s government has found it inconvenient, if not humiliating, that these Taliban are hand in glove with India and Israel, no less. I think this is a serious moment of reflection for us as a nation. What kind of governors are we allowing to run amok?
If we are to remain a federation of many peoples, living under one flag and within a single border, we must respect and protect all of us equally. The value of a child, a woman, an elderly person in Tirah, Bannu, Chaman, Torkham, Parachinar, Arandu, Drosh, etc., must mean the same as in Pindi.
Do Pakistanis ever hear stories from these towns and villages? Not in my living memory. All we know, sitting in Islamabad, is when a bomb blast occurs in Bannu, but never what Bannu wallahs are thinking. What is our insight or knowledge about these areas, yet we call them Pakistanis? This needs to change.
How many schools are in these towns? Are they functional? Why are women invisible in these towns? Does the police and magistrate system work, and is it available to all citizens here fairly? Why aren’t there theatres, music halls, cricket stadiums, volleyball and football grounds, universities, and general 21st-century amenities for these millions of citizens? What do they think about issues? What are their culinary cultures? What makes them who they are? Humanise them. Own them as Pakistanis. When was the last time a chief minister, a prime minister, or a federal minister ever visited and spent any time in these areas? Never. Their land is not Pakistan; they are Pakistanis.
Pakistan cannot demand allegiance to an alien people when Pakistani state managers have no clue about these communities. What binds Pakistanis together? I think it is time we find out and invest in what binds us together while we can.
Will this war continue or end?