View from Pakistan: Is coercive consensus okay?

Karachi: While pygmies running Pakistan traffic half-baked inane ideas of saviour-hood, one can feel sand slipping through the fingers. Some events slap you out of the complacency. The assassination of Sabeen Mahmud was one such event. This is the latest reminder of how abusive the relationship is between the state and citizens.

The Pakistani state urgently needs to undergo a behavioral change and reimagine its relationship with its citizens as one of care and compassion. That it is loath to do. A false narrative has been sold to Punjab-dominated Pakistan that a strongman with a big hammer and the will to use it can transform this land into heaven. The approach to statecraft that cultivated violent non-state entities as assets and state institutions as a means of coercion is still in play.

While a functional state must retain its monopoly over violence, the use of violence by the state must always be subject to rules. If the use of force by the state isn’t according to rules, the distinction between state and non-state violence disappears. Then it is simply a fight between two mafias.

The dilemma of the vocal citizen opposed to violence of all sorts is that s/he doesn’t know who to fear more: the state or non-state actors. It is open hunting season in Pakistan for this endangered species. If you’re against religion inspired savagery, the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan or one of its cousins can kill you. If you’re against sectarian violence, the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi or one of its cousins can kill you.

If you contest the state’s version of “patriotism”, chances are you are also opposed to the TTPs, LJs, obscurantism and state oppression. In such case anyone can kill you. But here is why holding the state responsible is justified. It is the state’s obligation to uphold citizens’ right to life and liberty and bring to justice criminals. There is suppression of civil liberties during wartime. But how will the required subsequent expansion take place if you literally kill all dissenting voices? The state is a suspect in Sabeen’s murder because Pakistan has a well-entrenched tradition of shooting the messenger. If Mama Qadeer’s talk at Lahore University of Management Sciences had not been stopped and it wasn’t common knowledge that the ISI is averse to giving him airtime, would people still wonder about the state’s role in Sabeen’s death?

Is there any contradiction in opposing the state’s kill-and-dump policy while also opposing Baloch separatists killing Punjabis and others in Balochistan? Or in supporting Zarb-i-Azb against the savage TTP while also supporting due process of law for terrorists captured alive in military operations? Or in supporting a law-enforcement operation against militants, extortionists and criminals in Karachi while opposing any scheme to dismantle MQM as a party?

The hammer is a useful tool. But our problems are more complex than nails. The Army is certainly the most powerful institution in Pakistan today. But is that enough for a stable Pakistan? The Army can use its power to marshal temporary coercive consensus on certain issues.

What it can’t do single-handedly is foster a genuine conformist consensus among citizens. That limit is manifest in all military operations. What is Pakistan’s Balochistan policy beyond killing as many separatists as possible? Where is our plan to mainstream Fata once the fighting is over? Will leaked JIT reports, Saulat Mirzas and halfwit SSPs be sufficient to erode the genuine support the MQM enjoys amongst Mohajirs?

Castigating as traitors those suspicious of the state’s role in attacks on Sabeen Mahmud or in relation to missing persons, doesn’t help. If the citizen isn’t sure whether the state is the protector or the perpetrator, who is to blame, the citizen or the state?

By arrangement with Dawn