Of phantoms and anarchists

Mir Adnan Aziz
The Frontier Post

Violence as a way of achieving justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. - Martin Luther King.

Time dulls both memory and pain - but then there are times which scar one for life. They engrave a lasting impression and cause so much pain that even the passage of years fail to act as a balm. Events like the Lal Masjid operation are more painful than numerous others which were equally tragic. It is however what we see unfold before our very own eyes that tends to effect us more profoundly.

The horrors of days like May 12 and April 9 leave gruesome images seared indelibly in our collective consciousness. The marauding gunmen and those dead or dying are etched in our memories. Also never to be forgotten is the inexplicably absent state apparatus thus leaving the people at the mercy of those sans remorse.

Horrific acts like these create a culture of death, terror, and violence. Their effects and consequences remain ingrained in the nation's collective memory and above all in the psyche and body of the people themselves.

In the previous regime's tenure the people at large showed extreme restraint and patience. This when living under a cruel, arbitrary regime governed by elite above the law. Day or night, violence and fear stalked us like a shadow. The helplessness was further strengthened by a haunting belief that, if effected, there was no meaningful avenue or responsive authority for redressal of the same.

Our society was facing two fatal deficits in these last years. These were: inability to provide an effective check on power holders, making political power absolute and above the law; and an alienating political process that was not emancipatory but instead legitimized the disempowerment of ordinary people and state institutions.

The President departing on yet another foreign junket, acting as a father figure admonishing an errant child, asked the lawyers not to spread anarchy. During these long years we were endlessly lectured and sermonized on the virtues of 'Pakistan first', writ of the state and the evils of violence. Guiding principles otherwise, they sounded like fallacious clichés from sycophants themselves above the law.

When the law is made by those without legal and moral authority and when made is not equally applied; when it takes away an innocent man's life, injures him or destroys his property and when it sets one at a disadvantage and not another; is this law truly compatible with a free, self-governing society? Is not selective morality and convenient moral outrages extremely repugnant and obscene?

During these tumultuous last years we also became a society mutilated and brutalized, more so those who opposed our Caudillo's policies. The video clips of brutal state power we have seen in these last days are as chilling as they are repulsively shocking. The rule of law was replaced by a rule of power perpetuation at any cost. It was violence devoid of any political ideology. Armed gunmen appeared in the blink of an eye, wreaking havoc by murdering, pillaging, burning, and then disappearing like phantoms, 'unable to be traced'.

That all but the state knew who was doing what on whose behest only highlighted the forced 'visual deprivation' of the powers to be. The state, criminally negligent (by design), totally abandoned its citizens to be mowed down mercilessly. Far more reprehensible than the evil of the violent was the grotesquely hideous face of impotent civil authority. By acting as an immobile entity it became an all too willing accomplice in these gross acts of outrage.

This vitriolic campaign of political violence, intimidation and repression all but destroyed our societal fabric. To retain power in the face of increasing opposition, President Musharraf subverted the democratic process, independence of judiciary, freedom of press and the professionalism of the army.

In his single-minded pursuit of fulfilling America's wishes and perpetuating his power he deliberately stoked societal discord, polarization and political intolerance. In doing so he brought mayhem and economic destitution to the country. Seemingly, in spite of being rejected, he is still brazenly at his old game – that not being bridge is all too evident. Can a parallel not be drawn with Yeats who once wrote: "I took satisfaction in certain public disasters, felt sort of ecstasy at the contemplation of ruin".

Why are we surprised at the savagery of May 12, April 9 and all other such days? They had to happen. All symptoms were recognizable, the components definable. Long-standing grievances and inequities were all too familiar, been left to fester on their own or manipulated by the strong as a means of victimizing the weak. What we had was a nation with guns pointed at their temples in a fatal game of Russian roulette.

The emergence of the bizarre concept of political fiefdoms and domains has deepened the created societal cleavages. It has also, according to a predominant general perception, reinforced the irrational and immoral killing of innocents and the victimization of the people This intolerant drive, like the previous regime's oppressive state brutality generated the most tragic and futile momentum towards an orgy of violence.

What further compounds the pain is the fact that the state has yet to administer any form of justice for the horrific crimes committed. Have we totally become a society where criminal activity goes unpunished and legal redress is not available for illegal harm? We witnessed a total breakdown of the system in these last years with perpetrators of violence operating with impunity fostered by total unaccountability.

It was precisely these reasons of adversity, pain, violence and victimization that the people gave their unanimous verdict. In doing so they demanded a paradigm shift in policy for the restoration of human values that had been brutally subverted. The vote of the people was a cry of help, a prayer for deliverance from the perpetual violence and fear that had their lives in a fatal unrelenting stranglehold.

For the new government to function well and earn the people's trust and respect, it first needs to heal wounds by prosecuting the perpetrators of violence. The people yearn for a just and accountable system of governance assuring political stability and economic recovery. They long for a society in which they can freely exercise their democratic rights with the state acting as a facilitator and protector of these rights.

Each people at some point in history are threatened by great social upheaval. It is usually an accumulation of events big and small. These when manipulated or seen and ignored, become a festering amalgam of injustices that erupt at some later moment - a delayed consequence of history.

Whether the nation plunges into bloodshed and chaos again or begins anew depends on the elected leadership. It is also a test for their political imagination and statesmanship to deal with this delayed consequence of history that has caught up with their present times.

(miradnanaziz@gmail.com)