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Wednesday July 30, 2025

The state of our confusion

States are as viable or unviable as their institutions hold them to be, regarded as artificial or as

By Harris Khalique
October 16, 2013
States are as viable or unviable as their institutions hold them to be, regarded as artificial or as natural as their citizens view them to, and as successful or unsuccessful as their public servants and entrepreneurs make them. Pakistan, in its present form and shape, is viable if our civilian and military leadership sets its domestic and international priorities right. It will be seen as a natural country if it functions for all and services its citizens without prejudice. It will be successful if it offers well-being, decent living, law and order and social stability.
Things are never in black and white. No nation-state is natural, for that matter. If Bengalis, Keralites, Haryanvis, Tamils and Maharashtrians can all be Indians, then Punjabis, Baloch, Pakhtuns, Seraikis and Sindhis are far less different from each other in ethnic, linguistic and cultural terms. Every state is a project in human organisation for people sharing a certain territory. Hence, every state identity is a project identity – a political construct. Some states are aided by an uninterrupted historic process for long, some are not.
Nevertheless, state and society are posed with a challenge to create their own narrative, an ideology (whether they use the term as liberally as we use it in Pakistan or not) and agreed principles of running the affairs of both state and society. While history and tradition may well be interpreted differently by different schools of political thought, a broad ownership and a shared understanding on how to deal with the present and move forward forms the basis of success for any state and society.
While some may argue that there is an absence of a robust narrative for the Pakistani state and society, at best what we have is a completely confused narrative devoid of any sense of history – let alone having different interpretations of it – and any inkling of where to find a respectable niche for ourselves in the comity of nations, grow intellectually

as a people and become prosperous as a country. Lagging far behind in every human development indicator, we somehow think we are special and the world has ganged up against us.
The nature of the Pakistani state and the public messages it conveyed over decades, particularly through curriculum and the media, has ended up creating a unique middleclass – the affluent and not-so-affluent included. Middle classes in any country are considered to be the custodians of the narrative of their state and society, progressive or otherwise. Ours is perhaps one of the most confused, schooled but illiterate. This includes all – politicians, public officials, military officers, media personnel, academics, accountants, engineers, bankers, doctors, teachers, office workers, traders, businessmen.
There is a complete theoretical clarity, even if there is limited possibility of long-term success, among those who challenge the existence of the Pakistani state and the principles upon which it was founded. Therefore, whether it is the Taliban or other extremist outfits, they can’t be blamed for changing their stance at the drop of a hat or harbouring confusion about how they view the world. They offer a narrative, a clear set of goals, an ideology on what state should look like and how society must behave, irrespective of how it will lead to the annihilation of state and society or whether we like it or not. But let us take a few examples from the present and recent past and see how our middle class and the political and social institutions it dominates stand confused and divided.
Malala Yousafzai, the brave girl from Swat who was campaigning for girls’ education at a time when hundreds of girls’ schools were being blown up in her region, survived a Taliban bullet and became their nemesis. The Taliban are clear; they want her eliminated. Malala is clear; she wants education for all children especially girls, an end to war and peace in her homeland. But while some Pakistanis think that she is a western stooge, others desperately wanted her to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Commander of his own faction of the confused brigade, the PTI chief wished Malala to win the Nobel Peace Prize on the one hand and holds the west responsible for the TTP’s war on innocent Pakistani civilians on the other. Fighting combatant soldiers who take you on and killing worshippers in a mosque or women shopping in a bazaar cannot be equated. You have to be utterly confused yourself not to find any contradiction in thinking here. Likewise, the less confused but more expedient prime minister of the country wished Malala well while both his political and media supporters questioned her and her family’s integrity. A PML-N friend argued with me that Gordon Brown, who is complicit in the war imposed on Iraq, has become an advocate of Malala’s cause and therefore her struggle is undermined.
I find this logic a little flawed coming from a PML-N enthusiast. If the chief minister of Punjab sings Habib Jalib, the revolutionary poet whose work stands for everything opposite to what the PML-N’s economic and religious ideology is about, that should have no reflection on Jalib’s poetry, thoughts and deeds. Malala is a brave but fragile young girl; her words, acts and deeds cannot be taken away from her if an international politician decides to support her. Also, just massage your memory a little bit and you would recall that it was the army itself that rescued Malala when she was in a critical condition by flying her out of Swat and initially treating her before sending her off to a UK hospital.
Going further back into memory will take us to the Lal Masjid episode. When the two brothers running the mosque and the seminary started using force and imposing regulations in the city, raided homes, shops and businesses, and occupied a children’s library, the media, affected businesses and the utterly confused civil society clamoured for action against them as they were taking the law into their own hands. The government tried to hold a dialogue with the clerics through politicians and public officials. Some self in the media took it upon themselves to help arbiter a solution and a tedious process of negotiations began.
The process failed. A military operation was undertaken. Why was a military action needed? The reason is simple. The people in the mosque and the seminary were armed and ready to put up a fight against the army. As a result of the gun battles, the army lost the commander of the operation, Lt-Col Haroon Islam. Maulana Rasheed Ghazi was killed in the crossfire after the army had stormed the mosque. Between the two, who is the martyr for Pakistanis today, Islam or Ghazi? Who represents us?
If Gen (r) Musharraf has to be tried for Ghazi’s murder, who will be tried for Lt-Col Islam’s death? How many are they and what are the names of the women and men who were killed as a result of the Lal Masjid operation? Where did they get all the weapons from? Why did they not surrender to the state? The Lal Masjid clerics were clear then and are clear now after the mosque has been restored and handed back to Maulana Aziz. There is utter confusion on the other side, though.
Lastly, Pakistanis queuing up outside the embassies and high commissions of western countries or desperately waiting in their living rooms for visas to arrive grow in size by each passing day. Why do the pious and the faithful among the middle class choose to immigrate to countries run by the profane, impious and sinful?
The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. Email: harris.khalique@gmail.com