There is a debate going on in regard to a statement made by Imran Khan on the 16th of October:
‘We have local affiliates and supporters. Sure, I can give big statements against the Taliban but that would make them Taliban targets.’
Imran Khan evidently thinks the security of his party workers is a legitimate enough reason not to take stand against Pakistani Taliban’s terrorism. But, I don’t think fear for the safety of his party’s workers is the primary reason he has constantly shied away from condemning terrorists, and prefers to rage against foreign and Pakistani forces instead. More importantly, I think that:
1) Imran Khan truly believes the Taliban bear at most a minimum portion of the blame; and,
2) Since the vast majority of Pakistanis prefer to blame the army or the Americans (instead of examining their own social, cultural or religious flaws) his rhetoric is politically expedient.
In the face of mounting moral and logical criticism from the small but noisy Westernized class (spurred by the Malala attack) he was, however, forced into a corner, and was—like all stubborn people incapable of self-correction—grasping at straws. Consequently we have this ill thought out statement. What is surprising is that he has implicitly admitted that it’s not morality but fear that dictates his political rhetoric.
I think criticism directed at him in light of this is legitimate.
I would like to address a
counter-argument made by one of his supporters. Mr. Kasuri related an incident in which a burglar held him at gun-point and demanded entry to his house. Mr. Kasuri refused but reflected in his article that he would have agreed had the gun been pointed at his family. He then attempts to draw a parallel between his selfless concern for his family and that of Imran Khan’s purported concern for his party members.
Though I applaud Mr. Kasuri for his bravery, his attempt to equate his potential personal circumstances on that day to Imran Khan’s political posturing is completely flawed. The reason for this is simple:
Imran Khan is a politician aspiring to ultimate public office whose policies affect the safety and prosperity of citizens in the whole country; whereas Mr. Kasuri is simply a husband whose responsibility that day would have been only to his wife. Complying or not complying with the criminal’s hypothetical demand would have been a circumstantial decision with absolutely no bearing on anyone save himself and any family in the immediate proximity; not even on that particular criminal’s ability to harm others some other time. However if Mr. Kasuri was to allow harm to befall another family despite having the power to prevent such harm simply because inaction spares his family then I would have called him a coward, among other things.
A more appropriate metaphor would be that of a police officer or army commander in a position of authority, leading policemen or soldiers who—like the officer—are there because they want that particular responsibility. If such a person decided to avoid a band of Taliban militants entering Peshawar for fear of his unit taking casualties then that would be considered cowardice and dereliction of duty because, firstly, it would be against an implicit code of soldiery; and secondly, because those Taliban would then discharge their violence on others in the city, probably civilians. Thousands of such Pakistani officers and jawans have suffered injury, disfigurement, death and not to mention mutilation at the hands of these militants exactly because they are not cowards, and because they know and honor their responsibility as public servants, even when they get little or no recognition from the public whose lives they undoubtedly save. Is it too much to ask that politicians also inject a bit of selfless morality into their otherwise opportunist politics, especially of a politician who claims to be so uncompromisingly righteous? After all, don’t Imran Khan and his ilk aspire to be the ultimate commanders of Pakistan’s armies? One can’t help but wonder about the point of having commanders with this level of moral courage.
No one is asking Imran Khan and his followers to go fight the militants physically. But as an authoritative figure in the all-important political realm his refusal to make a stand against terrorism undermines the war against the TTP in a critical way. Ironically, Mr. Kasuri tries to justify Imran Khan’s refusal to stand up to militants by claiming it is because the army cannot provide his party sufficient security. Well, the army cannot provide anyone (including themselves) such security since:
• Doing so would require preemptive action against militant infrastructure (training camps, bomb making factories, hideouts, etc) which the military cannot take; because,
• Such action is not feasible without widespread and unwavering public support which, despite the tens of thousands of Pakistani lives lost, is missing; because,
• Public figures like Imran Khan—and the leaders of the PPP, ANP, PML-N, MMA and JI—refuse to invest politically in the war for reasons of nativity, expedience and cowardice.
Instead, politicians feed confusing, counter-productive narratives that further undermine the military’s ability to act, by blaming the army for:
• Supporting the militants through its secret intelligence services for ideological reasons; or,
• Encouraging militancy by inflicting casualties in operations for ‘dollars from America’; and,
• Even a mixture of the above two contradictory claims.
In other words the army cannot provide security to anyone, including the PTI, because Imran Khan undermines their ability to do so, and NOT the other way around. Pakistan’s army chief has not only explicitly owned up to the war on numerous occasions but is pleading for political backing on a regular basis. That is, unfortunately, beyond the capacity of the politicians who have chosen to stick to their sickeningly banal and myopic rhetoric.
PTI supporters such as Mr. Kasuri like insist their leader does take a stand against terrorism by quoting his statements like ‘
those responsible for the attack on Malala are unworthy of human beings let alone Muslims’. I find this to be disingenuous. We know he is not taking a stand against the TTP through these verbal acrobatics but is, instead, being entirely self-serving. He is merely:
1) Dodging criticism by seemingly condemning an indefensible act of barbarity; while,
2) In actuality feeding the poisonous conspiracy theory that the real culprits were ‘not Muslims’ but CIA or ISI agents out to malign the Taliban; thus,
3) Protecting himself and his followers from the wrath of the Taliban who are unlikely to attack someone who refuses to believe their organization can do any wrong even when they themselves have admitted to it; and instead practically acts as their biggest propaganda mouthpiece in regard to their problem with drones and military operations.
Lastly, a legitimate question is if Imran Khan would apply this moral logic to the fight against government dictators. Musharraf was hardly the most brutal of Pakistani leaders so perhaps that explains why the PTI was quite willing to campaign against his government so voraciously without fear of backlash. But what if it were Z. A. Bhutto or Zia-ul-Haq—both known to use widespread violence against their political opponents—or maybe some other brutal authoritarian leader in the future? Would Imran Khan give the following statement?
‘We have local affiliates and supporters. Sure, I can give big statements against [insert dictatorial regime] but that would make them government targets’.
I don’t think so. Then why is the safety of his supporters only a concern in relation to the Taliban? Because unlike the Musharraf regime or any other potential authoritarian government the Taliban do not stand in the way of him and high office. This means I don’t consider Imran Khan a coward, atleast no more than I do other politicians in Pakistan, but his selfish opportunism does make him something else, something worse. He constantly attacks politicians on their lack of morality, when he is evidently on the same moral plain himself, and that makes him a hypocrite.
Why do I write this article about Imran Khan and not the others? Because the other politicians are what they are: barely educated, feudalistic, violent, morally bankrupt thugs for the most part. But Imran Khan is destroying my hopes for the rising middle class and the new generation.
