Pakistan surrenders to the mob
Ten years ago, on Oct. 21, 2007, the cover of Newsweek declared: “The most dangerous nation in the world isn’t Iraq, it’s Pakistan.”
Today, Pakistan is in a worse situation. A group of Islamists, from the Sufi Islamic orders, took the country’s capital hostage. Many believe this was done with the not-so-covert backing of the Pakistan army, triggering the elected civilian government’s surrender.
The recent protests started peacefully when a mainstream Islamic sect descended on the outskirts of Islamabad on Nov. 7, putting up a modern era siege.
Their demand: Defend the honour of the Prophet Muhammad and prevent blasphemy caused by proposed legislation that would not require parliamentarians to swear that Prophet Muhammad was the final prophet.
They blamed Law Minister Zahid Hamid for the change and demanded he resign. The courts intervened, but to no avail.
Eight thousand police were deployed, but were attacked by the protesters, many of whom were surprisingly well armed with guns and tear gas. When the army was asked to clear the ruffians, Military Chief General Qamar Bajwa reportedly refused to accede to the prime minister’s order, claiming he could not clear the protesters, as they were “his people.”
The reaction of the military and its reported refusal to accept the authority of the civilian government was unprecedented. Reaction in western capitals, including Ottawa, was dismal. Not even a shrug of the shoulders.
Pakistan, a nuclear nation, had undergone an unconventional military coup; an Islamic State armed with up to 200 nuclear weapons on intercontinental ballistic missiles aimed at India, Israel and Europe, had given power to a rag tag group of foul-mouthed mullahs.
Not even Canadian legislators who were born in Pakistan protested.
U.S. President Donald Trump may grunt a few warnings, but Army General John Nicholson, Commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said Tuesday he hasn’t seen a change in Pakistan’s support for militants, despite Trump’s tougher line against Islamabad.
To the uninitiated, Pakistan’s latest crisis may seem like a bizarre display of street muscle. But to those who know how Pakistan’s military topples civilian governments, or thwarts elections to forestall liberal or secular political parties, this was nothing new.
The actors and the styles may change, but not the agenda of Islamabad’s military-mullah industrial complex that presides over everything from cornflakes to banks, sugar factories to commercial transportation, washing machines to cosmetics.
In the end the government capitulated to the mullahs, but not before two incidents left a stamp that will define how history views this latest unravelling of Pakistan: a video showing a major general distributing cash among the jihadi protesters who had taken Islamabad hostage; justice of the Islamabad High Court saying he feared for his life and safety after he condemned the Pakistan military.
In 2007, Newsweek concluded that Pakistan had become more dangerous a place than Iraq and Afghanistan.
Last week, in 2017, it declared Pakistan was, again, “Sleepwalking to another surrender.”