From the very inception of our state, the Establishment has shown itself unequal to the task of building a democracy. In 1947-48, Bengali Pakistanis were vilified and punished for demanding, as 52% of the population, that Bengali be declared ONE of the national languages of Pk
Newspapers were flooded with reports of ‘men in loongis’ coming from across the border (i.e., West Bengal) to create ‘disunity’ and ‘weaken the foundations of the state’. The Constituent Assembly Reports are filled with these debates.
In 1952, the issue of the place of Bengalis in the new nation-state now worsened rather than resolved, peaceful protestors - students, academics, etc. - were fired on with live ammunition in Dhaka. This event was immortalized as ‘Ekushey’ in East Bengal/Pakistan.
It became the inspiration for the UN’s Mother Language Day, which should serve as an annual occasion for our Establishment to hang its head in shame. But of course it’s useless to expect that those who are by definition shameless can be shamed.
In 1971 - following the nation’s FIRST national elections, TWENTY-THREE years after ‘independence’ - rather than let the democratic process play out, which would have meant a Bengali Prime Minister, this Establishment chose the path of mass rape and genocide.
Ahmed Faraz called out our ‘great’ uber-institution as a ‘paishawar qatil’. He would definitely have been abducted and charged with sedition today. I wonder whether the poetry of dissent of that time qualifies as ‘3rd gen warfare’ or ‘4th gen warfare’ 🤔
The lesson here is that this uber-institution has *always* put its interests above those of the people of Pakistan. It sees every demand for basic civil rights - including the right not to be abducted, tortured, humiliated, the right to equal citizenship- as an existential threat
Now I leave it to you, gentle reader, to decide what to call an institution of the state that has always seen its interests as above those of the people of the nation it is supposed to serve, & who can only see their democratic demands as existential threats.
Because this institution is repeatedly and clearly telling us - through its words and actions - that demands for civil rights are automatically a threat to its survival in its present form.
Simple logic tells us that that is the same as saying that in its present form, the existence of the Pakistani military establishment is inimical to our civil rights. This makes it a self-declared *enemy* of the people.
This is why it cannot stand the existence and popularity of the PTM - bevause the PTM lays bare all the Establishment’s sins against the people of Pakistan. Its proxy (war-)games played with our blood, its endless appetite for all our resources - land, food, minerals,
...its role in destabilizing the region (in cahoots with American imperialism with which it has a contentious relationship, but only bc the US cannot brook its hired goons having agendas of their own), its responsibility for genocide of our brothers & sisters in 1971 ...
...its insatiable hunger for power, its willingness to sell us all down the river (do you know of the men rounded up & sold to the CIA by Musharraf to languish in Bagram?), the way it has cunningly created and then capitalized on ‘terrorism’ (the ultimate ‘protection racket’)...
So the PTM, even more than other dissenters, cannot be allowed to spread its deeply democratic message. The PTM’s avowed use of peaceful tactics is precisely what makes it such a threat - because it undermines the lies that the Establishment has carefully cultivated ...
...about the ‘fanatic Pashtun’, the ‘extremist Pashtun’, the ‘violent Pashtun’.(By the way, these were lies that many progressive non-Pashtun elites happily internalized for years). This means that despite all its propaganda about ‘5th generation warfare’ it knows it’s in trouble
This explains what appears to be the ridiculous over-reaction of the Establishment in arresting Manzoor Pashteen & other PTM leaders & members & then those who protested against these arrests & now those protesting the arrests of the protestors. It’s desparate.
Our belief in democracy, in the idea of government for, by & of the people, in the idea of the inalienable civil rights of citizenship, have no choice but to demand that the military establishment be defanged and sent back to the barracks. We all see through this PTI farce.
