APPEASEMENT of reactionary forces amounts to playing with fire — and, ultimately, to setting one’s own house alight. That reality is once again starkly evident, with dozens of sites in urban areas held hostage by violent mobs suffused with self-righteous rage and, even more dangerously, confident of their power to bring the country to a halt.
Since Monday, TLP activists have been demonstrating against the arrest of their leader, Allama Saad Hussain Rizvi. He was detained after announcing countrywide agitation from April 20 to demand the French ambassador’s expulsion and a ban on imports from France in protest against the publication of blasphemous images in that country. The right to protest is contingent upon doing so peacefully. In the ongoing disturbances however, many people have been injured and several killed.
Sadly, the state has carried out multiple experiments in nurturing or at least tolerating ultra-right elements to achieve dubious short-term gains. The TLP is merely the latest in a long line of such ill-conceived initiatives. Balochistan descended into an orgy of bloodletting after extremist outfits were given virtual carte blanche to carry out their sectarian agenda in return for countering the separatist, and largely secular, insurgency in the province. Even the Pakistani Taliban were handled with kid gloves in the earlier years; ‘peace deal’ after ‘peace deal’ was negotiated. Each one was violated by the militants, but it succeeded in further strengthening their position against the state.
During the Faizabad sit-in in November 2017, the TLP was similarly indulged, perhaps on account of its potential to destabilise the PML-N government and cut into the party’s vote bank. The dharna, based on an entirely specious pretext, saw traffic between Rawalpindi and Islamabad brought to a halt for 20 days, causing huge inconvenience to citizens. The impasse was resolved only after a humiliating climbdown by the government when an army-brokered deal was negotiated with the protesters, who were given envelopes full of cash for ‘travel expenses’. PTI chief Imran Khan, in the opposition at the time, took an equivocal stance instead of condemning the TLP.
If he had paid heed to history, he would have realised that if his ambition to come to power was realised, the ultra-right group would become a thorn in his side as well. But that would have required a far-sighted clarity of thought. Sure enough, when Asiya Bibi was acquitted of blasphemy in 2018, the group led violent protests all over the country. The current unrest is a result of the PTI government having promised TLP last November that they would take up the matter of the French ambassador’s expulsion with parliament. Pandering to demands by reactionary forces only emboldens them further, making the challenge to deal with them ever greater. For the good of the country, and its image as a nation where extremism has no place, such groups must be strictly reined in.
PPP’s formal exit
THE PPP’s formal resignation from all offices of the PDM comes as no surprise after weeks of tension and public acrimony between the various parties of the opposition alliance. PPP leader Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari minced no words in criticising the PML-N leadership for issuing a show cause notice from the platform of the party. In response, PDM head Maulana Fazlur Rehman summoned a meeting of the alliance on Tuesday and afterwards told the media that the alliance would forge ahead regardless of PPP office bearers’ resignations. The alliance’s secretary general Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had earlier said that he did not foresee the PPP remaining in the PDM. The alliance is clearly in the process of becoming dysfunctional.
When all the opposition parties had gathered in Islamabad in September last year to form the PDM, they had drawn up a lengthy charter of objectives. However, the only real agenda that united them in this alliance was to see the back of the PTI government. It was a glue that held them together but within a few weeks it had started to become clear that there were deep divisions between the PPP and PML-N when it came to operationalising this objective. The public rallies and congregations created a certain momentum for what was billed as the final blow to the government through a long march to Islamabad and combined resignations from all the assemblies. The internal contradictions within the parties in the alliance bubbled to the surface before the movement to oust the government could reach a climax. There are competing explanations about who cast the first stone but once the unravelling started, there was not much that anyone could do to stop it. The leadership of the two main parties could have, if it wanted to, confined their disagreements to internal meetings but it is fair to assume now that a deliberate choice was made to go public. Party interests, it appeared, had overwhelmed those of the alliance. The PDM may remain on the political landscape as a hollowed-out structure, but as a political entity it bears little relevance to the situation on the ground. The PPP has made its choice to go it alone and the PML-N will now have no choice but to do the same. With general elections a little more than two years away, both parties have enough time to chart their own directions.
Natanz attack
AS the P5+1 and Iran try to breathe life back into the JCPOA, as the nuclear deal is officially known, it appears that Israel is resorting to subterfuge and sabotage to try and derail any solution and keep the Middle East on a knife-edge. On Sunday, the Iranian nuclear facility of Natanz was targeted by a “small explosion” which Tehran has squarely blamed on Tel Aviv, while sections of the Israeli and American press have also pointed to the Jewish state’s role. Israel has long been trying to neutralise Iran’s nuclear capabilities. In the past, it was believed to have targeted the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme with Stuxnet malware, while a number of assassinations of Iranian nuclear officials — most recently that of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh last year — were also believed to be the handiwork of Tel Aviv. However, such reckless behaviour has its limits, and there is a high possibility that this covert and proxy war may transform into a ‘hot’ war. Already there have been numerous attacks on both Iranian and Israeli vessels in Middle Eastern waters, with each side blaming the other for the incidents.
If the international community, especially Israel’s Western backers, want to truly revive the nuclear deal and prevent a fresh conflagration in the Middle East, they must communicate to their friends in Tel Aviv that the current path of sabotage must be abandoned. Indulging in a cloak-and-dagger game, which Israel has been adept at since its inception, is relatively easy; containing a conflict in a volatile region with multiple battlefronts will be a very difficult task. Therefore, diplomacy must be given a chance to succeed and the parties to the JCPOA must continue their negotiations undisturbed by hostile actors seeking confrontation. And while Tehran should demonstrate restraint, Tel Aviv will bear the brunt of the responsibility should a wider conflict break out. Moreover, this time the front line will likely be drawn from the waters of the Gulf to the shores of the Levant.
