Editorial
Growing Taliban threat in Pakistan
A civic-military response should prove positive
THE Pakistan army has for the past few days been locked in fierce battle with the Taliban in Buner town just a hundred kilometers from Islamabad. The government's report that fourteen militants have been killed has now been followed by new reports of the Taliban kidnapping a number of Pakistani security personnel. The army claims that the Taliban have been holding residents of Buner hostage in their skirmishes with the soldiers. These images of a dangerously developing situation speak of the realities Pakistan is faced with today.
In recent times, two particular tendencies have been noted in Pakistan where its religious political elements are concerned. The first is the exploitation of religion as a way of making inroads into politics. It is a job these fundamentalist fringes appear to have done rather effectively. That has been followed (and this is the second tendency) by the new and strongly manifested desire of these elements to seize power through the barrel of the gun. Obviously, it is now a fraught situation that Pakistan confronts, a clear affront to democracy and highly destructive to the cause of democratic political liberalism. Just how ugly the face of religious extremism can be has now been exposed through the doings of the Taliban in Buner. It is now a condition of Pakistan beating the Taliban out of its territory or the Taliban gaining bigger swathes of territory and power in Pakistan. The latter happening, if it comes about, will destroy Pakistan, with wider ramifications for the entire region.
And yet out of the gloom comes encouraging news. Civic consciousness in Pakistan has now been aroused to a point where people have demanded that the army save the country from the looming threat of religious extremism. It may sound ironic, given that the army has been busy trying to stay away from politics. But the bigger reality is that in Pakistan's eerie circumstances today, a combination of civic and military responses to the Taliban is a positive development. If it proves effective, there will yet be light at the end of the tunnel for Pakistan.
Let the position be clear. While religion and all the freedom that comes with it must be defended to the hilt anywhere and everywhere, the exploitation of religion as a way of seizing political power and strangling citizens' normal flow of life and enjoyment of basic civic liberties is reprehensible and unacceptable. Which is why the Taliban must be resisted in Buner and everywhere else where it has crept in.
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