[DAWN] The narrative of those who so zealously deliver the 'peace talks with bad boys' mantra, now stands as a rather questionable proposition.Vicious terrorist attacks against civilians and military personnel have witnessed a rude and sudden rise in the last few months especially, as compared to episodes of bad boy violence before the May 2013 general election.
Whereas bad boy violence before May 2013 had already been on the rise during the PPP-led coalition regime (2008-2013) -- that also included the country's two other liberal parties, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement
...English: United National Movement, generally known as MQM, is the 3rd largest political party and the largest secular political party in Pakistain with particular strength in Sindh. From 1992 to 1999, the MQM was the target of the Pak Army's Operation Cleanup leaving thousands of urdu speaking civilians dead...
(MQM) and the Awami National Party (ANP) -- analysts suggest that attacks on civilians, politicians and soldiers by the bully boyz have witnessed a disconcerting 40 per cent rise within the last few months.
The irony of it all is that the rise in this violence has taken place after the two main moderate right-wing and 'pro-peace-talks' parties, the PML-N and Imran Khan
... aka
Taliban Khan, who ain't the brightest knife in the national drawer...
's Pakistain Teheek-e- Insaf (PTI), were able to sprint past parties belonging to the previous elected government in the May 2013 election.
Nawaz Sharif... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
's PML-N swept the polls in the country's largest province, the Punjab, and at the centre, while Khan's PTI won big in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
(KP).
PMLN formed governments at the centre and the Punjab, and PTI in the KP province.
During their respective election campaigns, both the parties had denounced the 'hawkish attitude (towards bad boys)' of the PPP, MQM and ANP, and insisted that peace talks with the bully boyz were the only way to resolve the issue of terrorism in Pakistain.
Their narrative in this respect went something like this: The war against extremism was imposed upon Pakistain by the Americans and (thus) it is not our war. Extremists are slaughtering Paks because the Pak state is an ally of the US that breaches Pakistain's illusory sovereignty with drones and incites Dire Revenge™ attacks from the bad boys.
Though a majority of Paks were indeed in favour of a peaceful resolution, most experts were always sceptical about the narrative, believing it to be based on a simplistic and even apologetic understanding of the conflict.
Eight months after the 'peace-talkers' finally managed to enter the corridors of power, the constant recycling of their narrative in this context has rapidly worn thin, now seeming to be almost entirely superficial and ill-informed in the face of the unprecedented rise in bad boy attacks.
Even though this realisation is fast becoming prominent in the PML-N government at the centre, and experts are now expecting the PML-N to gradually shift its narrative, PTI is still stubbornly holding on to it.
Though one has observed Khan's growing frustration with the violence, last week when the bully boyz slaughtered over 20 soldiers in KP, he reiterated his claim that things like suicide kabooms were unknown in Pakistain before 2004 (or when the US first began to use drone missiles to take out Pak and non-Pak gunnies hiding in the tribal areas of the country).
Khan's critics have continued to accuse him of distorting history and confusing a large number of his young supporters.
The critics are correct in pointing out that the episodes involving religious bully boyz hell-bent on inflicting violence on the people and military of Pakistain have been a pre-2004 phenomenon that cannot be squarely blamed on drone attacks.
In October 2001, 18 Christians were bumped off when six assailants opened fire inside the St. Dominic Church in Bahawalpur. The dead included women and small children. The attackers claimed to be sympathisers of the Afghan Taliban.
In May 2002, a jacket wallah rammed a car full of explosives into a Pakistain Navy bus, as it was leaving a local five-star hotel in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
. 14 people were killed. A Pak bad boy outfit associated with the Al Qaeda took responsibility.
In June 2002, a suicide bomber attacked the US Consulate in Karachi, killing 12 persons, all of them Paks.
In July 2003, 53 people were killed and 57 injured when two men opened fire, and one went
kaboom!in a Shia mosque, in Quetta, during the Friday prayers.
All these attacks involving suicide bombers took place before 2004 and/or years before the word drone became so common in this country, usually used by conventional right-wing parties to explain the rise of terrorism and the growth of bad boy outfits in Pakistain.
Parties like the PTI and their firmest allies, the fundamentalist Jamat-e-Islami, must realise that their stand against drone attacks and a military operation against militancy will continue to sound suspicious if based on distorted facts.
The stand should be taken on its own merits without finding the need to be fattened by a narrative based on selective and voluntary historical amnesia. The stand then becomes nothing but an act of damaging dishonesty.