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Anyone who is witness to the Swat Taliban’s rise must have been stunned to watch Sufi Muhammad walk free out of prison and straight onto TV screens, speaking like a virtuous detractor of his erstwhile ideological children – including his notorious son-in-law, Fazlullah, who is currently hiding in Afghanistan.

The man in question provided the original thrust for his so-called movement to impose his version of Islamic law in Dir and Malakand, which then led to much mayhem and killing. His small desires included seeing the traffic run on the right side (because the left side is impure); his bigger plans included abolition of the democratic system and the creation of a Caliphate of the sort that Al-Baghdadi was to demand many years later in Mesopotamia.

Enthused by a flickering state writ, Sufi Muhammad also generously contributed to the then ongoing Afghan war and got a large number of the youth to move into Afghanistan with their hammers and swords and sticks to fight the infidel. The resultant death and destruction of life forced him back to his homeland, and thus began his journey of becoming the grand daddy of the Swat Taliban whose militant wing was managed by Fazlullah while Sufi Muhammad was the chieftain of the ideologues.

What happened next is history. This is a history that, despite its hellish toll on innocent lives and precious resources, is now so forgotten that Sufi Muhammad can be easily portrayed as a repentant old man who has been given a new lease of decent life by the law and who has since been behaving like a true patriotic Pakistani, showering praises on the army and condemning the Taliban. Our ability to recall what he stood for is zero. We don’t remember exactly how his brigade caused one of the most extraordinary takeovers of Pakistan’s mainland, and how after years of dilly dallying the state finally responded with tremendous resolve to wrench back the lost territory. This is truly tragic.

The Malakand insurgency, which was later joined in by insurgencies in Bajaur, Mohmand, South Waziristan and the rest of the Fata agencies, was both our national shame and our greatest moment. The fact that the state allowed areas like Dir and Swat to slip away from its control and let innocent lives become hostage to brutal killers was shameful. That the state was able to conduct swift and totally successful military operations, writing unimaginable chapters in military heroism and changing the fundamentals of urban counter-insurgency operations, was our greatest hour. One of our highest points of nationhood was when millions had to be evacuated from Swat and the surrounding areas, and they were hosted with open arms and generous hearts by their fellow citizens for long weeks.

Malakand was the centre of Sufi and his son-in-law’s intrigue. Most GOCs posted there told me during my countless visits how the insurgents had been provided with remarkable weapons and planning maps that could only have come from outside forces backing them. I witnessed battles and murders in the streets; one of my colleagues (still part of my team), Raza Aga, almost died when he was hit by shrapnel close to the abode of Fazlullah. He still has a permanently damaged arm with hampered functionality.

We saw dead bodies hanging in the infamous ‘Bloody Chowk’; the Taliban would not let anyone go close to them for burial, wanting to create a regime of fear and terror – which they did with great success. We recorded interviews of relatives of women who were killed by the Swat Taliban because they were ‘characterless’ and students’ parents who perished in suicide attacks. We saw schools being shut down or blown to pieces in their hundreds as Sufi Muhammad issued fatwa after fatwa in favour of such acts, emboldening the militants to carry out their cleansing of all traces of civilisation and modernity from this land.

We saw the royal family of Swat suffer as they tried to survive this onslaught of terror knocking at the very doorsteps that had once been the barometer of good governance in the Subcontinent. We saw and documented the valiant struggle of the likes of Afzal Khan Lala who refused to leave his native village as hordes of the Taliban repeatedly attacked his ancestral home which he himself along with a few others at times had to protect on their own.

The regime of horror that took over Malakand could only be dismantled when a national-scale war effort was mounted and which was to be fought in the streets, in the valleys, on the highest peaks, from dawn to dusk and even in the dead of the night.

The recapture of Malakand was the beginning of the rollback of Taliban power in the northwest of Pakistan. The military models that were tried and tested in these areas were to become the standard operating procedures in battling militants in other parts of the country. The nightmare of Swat and the unspeakable suffering of its people was the turning point in our national resolve to decide once and for all who will call the shots in the Islamic Republic. It became the basis for forging all anti-extremism strategies in the years to come. Internationally, the state of Pakistan held up the Swat operation as a prime example of the ability and capacity of the state to battle out the militants and win hands down. This was unique also because, despite many US offers, the military command at that time did not accept any foreign assistance in carrying out the operations – something that made the happenings in Malakand strikingly Pakistan-owned and Pakistan-led.

But then we have a way of spoiling our own broth and tainting our own stars. We have done it not once but repeatedly. The debate in the post-Swat operation revolved around what actions the state would follow to reassure a sceptical population that something like this would not be allowed to happen again. In this debate, the most important aspect was the prosecution of those who had rebelled against the state and had become enemy combatants. The idea of the ‘de-radicalisation’ of those who had been forced into believing that the TNSM and its Swat Taliban extension were fighting some sort of a divine-mandated war for the glory of Islam also hinged on the symbolism of the state telling its citizens ‘never-again’.

This was important because the rise of the Swat Taliban, like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and other groups, was made possible on account of the failure of the state to act decisively in time, and also because it nurtured some of these groups for silly regional projects.

It is on account of this symbolism that the return of the Sufi is most unfortunate. It shows in clear terms to the millions of direct victims of militancy that the state – for all its achievements against the militants – still makes way for the likes of him. Earlier, it was Ehsanullah Ehsan whose deodarised version of a good repentant Muslim was released. There are dozens of others who once killed without mercy and are now in safe custody without ever being asked to explain their misdeeds in court, much less be punished. Why do we do it? No one knows. Who makes these decisions? We don’t want to know for truths are often truly disturbing.

It is true that Pakistan has come a long way on the road to success against organised terror and we are light years away from the situation where these groups can even attempt to take over chunks of our land again. However, the war against terrorism is not about territory but about hearts and minds. At least, this is what we are told day in and day out. That is why when old symbols of organised terror are feted by the state, the silent message that beams across is lethal. We allow Khadim Hussain Rizvi to take Islamabad hostage and strike a national accord of humiliation; we allow Sufi and Ehsanullah Ehsan media space and make them look like acceptable commodities, and then we say we have a narrative. Not even fools will buy this narrative.

If truth be told, what we really have is not a narrative against terrorism, but utter confusion. The fault is not with Sufi Muhammad or Ehsanullah Ehsan but with those who welcome them back without any sense of our recent history.

The writer is former executive editor of The News and a senior journalist with Geo TV.

Email: syedtalathussain@gmail.com

Twitter: @TalatHussain12