Tell your politicians, tell the military

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

I don't understand why people are still trying to debate whether the Swat girl's flogging video was fake or genuine or that they are doing things that the poor would want of the government. The fact is that there should be no ambiguity over the fact that the Taliban indulge in violent and brutal acts and that such acts are well-documented. Also, they enforce their terror on the masses at large and this means, by and large, the poor. Their slogan is simple: 'Join us or die'. And hence even if many people are present at their rallies, as was the case in Mingora on April 19, that is not a true measurement of their popularity.
The question is not if the Swat incident happened or not but that how we are to confront the Taliban and their nefarious and violence-driven agenda. The first step is to condemn their system. We should highlight the fact that the Taliban have flogged many men and women in the past, and that tomorrow we all could expect to be flogged if we did not comply with their orders.
We also need to highlight the fact that Sharia as defined by the Taliban is anathema to most Pakistanis. They do not want to have such a Sharia imposed on them at any cost, and they need to drive this message to their political leaders and, equally if not more importantly, to the leadership of the Pakistan army – because the latter is the one institution which can fight the Taliban and bring them to heel. Also, I might add, there is an increasing perception that the military establishment is dithering simply because it wants to warn America of what could happen to Pakistan if America interferes too much in our domestic affairs or if it begins to take sides with India. Also, the government and the military establishment need to realise that there is no such thing as 'good Taliban' and 'bad Taliban'.

Farhan Raza
Karachi