In the maze of December

In most of the rest of the world, these concluding days of the year are lit by festivity and hope. Season’s greetings are fondly shared, marking the advent of Christmas and the New Year.

But there are reasons why the mood in Pakistan remains so subdued – even gloomy. And this year, at this time, there is this palpable sense of depression because of the mounting economic and political uncertainties.

Friday, to be sure, was the day of reckoning. It was the date, actually – the 16th of December. Anniversaries do not normally excite much emotion, except in a ritualistic sense. But this day of our infamy, with its twice-inflicted wounds, stirs thoughts that we are generally not able to contend with. Every year, we make some gestures. Do the drill, so to say. There is hardly any evidence of trying to find the courage to exorcise the demons of our history.

Initially, of course, the 16th of December marked, 51 long years ago, the breakup of the country that was founded in August 1947. There are a number of uncomfortable truths about the war and the Fall of Dhaka that have not been confronted and the majority of the citizens of the present Pakistan, born after the creation of Bangladesh, have no awareness of how the eastern half of the country was lost.

But what happened on the 16th of December in 2014, eight years ago, is alive in the memories of a large number of Pakistanis. It does seem uncanny that two of the most upsetting tragedies of our history took place on the same date of the calendar.

While the unbearable outrage of the surrender in Dhaka had taken place in a faraway place and the news was largely kept from the censored media in West Pakistan in a world that had not yet become digital, the nation was able to witness the massacre of the schoolchildren in the Army Public School (APS) of Peshawar and the pain of it continues to rankle.

But, again, many of the questions raised by that terrorist attack have not adequately been answered. Details of the APS carnage in which 132 children were massacred, with the total number of fatalities being around 150, would shatter the nerves of any sensitive person. It is hard to believe that human beings would be capable of such acts of brutality.

Yes, the terrorist attack shook the nation and a 20-point National Action Plan was devised to root out terrorism and extremism from Pakistan. There was reasonable expectation that the tragedy would transform this country. Has that happened? Is Pakistan now not the same that it was before the APS bloodbath?

I have referred to the economic and political troubles that afflict the country at this time. Equally alarming is the trouble brewing on our western frontier, in the wake of the revival of terror activities by the TTP in the tribal region. A number of civilians had died when the Afghan forces opened fire at the Chaman border. There has been a marked increase in the exchange of fire between the Afghan and Pakistani security forces.

In a larger context, the threat of extremism has not subsided in Pakistani society and the radical measures that would totally change the national sense of direction have not been initiated. One obvious impediment in reimagining Pakistan, “nearer to the heart’s desire”, is our inability to learn from history – or our inability to even read history and try to understand its message.

That is how every December we skirt around the anniversaries of the 1971 breakup and the APS massacre in a rather perfunctory manner, in the absence of any serious and scholarly analyses of the facts of our history. At best, some rather crude declarations are made by someone in authority to endorse a particular point of view.

In one of his farewell meetings, the former chief of army and now retired general Qamar Javed Bajwa had sought to blame the country’s politicians for the 1971 Bangladesh debacle. In a meeting, he said: “1971 was not a military but a political failure”, adding that the Pakistan army had fought courageously in East Pakistan.

We know that this observation would not kick off an informed and fact-based discussion in the media or on the campuses of our universities. If such a conversation were possible, it would be relevant to quote from a clip of what Gen Yahya Khan, the then military president of Pakistan, had told a foreign correspondent in the midst of the crisis. This clip was recently posted on YouTube.

Replying to the charge that he may be out of touch with what was happening in East Pakistan, Gen Yahya Khan said: “I know East Pakistan like the palm of my hand… I know East Pakistan more than East Pakistanis know themselves”.

When we find our rulers with such delusions, there is no use in engaging them in any discourse on the destiny of Pakistan. Yet, we will continue to be swept by the historical realities of our times. Every December, then, we will pause for a while and grieve for what is not.

Incidentally, I have focused on the 16th of December but there is one more anniversary this month – which will fall on the 27th. It can be said that what happened on this date in the year 2007 stands on a par with the two other tragedies of Pakistan. Again, it does not seem possible to recall that assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi and not be overwhelmed by emotion.

We are still more than a week away from the anniversary of the loss of the glory that was Benazir Bhutto. There is, though, a connection between the APS carnage and the assassination of the first woman who was elected to head the government of a Muslim country. She was killed by the forces of terror and extremism that somehow were nurtured in this country. Will we allow this to happen to Pakistan itself?

The writer is a senior journalist. He can be reached at: ghazi_salahuddin @hotmail.com