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Pakistan: When The State Loses Control

Christian Caryl

AP Photo/B.K. Bangash

Supporters of Pakistani religious party Sunni Tehreek chanting slogans in favor of Mumta

Qadri, alleged killer of Salman Taseer, and throwing rose petals while waiting for him outsid

an Anti-Terrorist Court in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, January 6, 2011

In his great book of reportage on the revolution in Iran, Shah of Shahs , Rysza

Kapuscinski describes that mysterious tipping point when a demonstrator loses h

fear of the Shahs security forces and refuses to listen when the once all-powerfu

police order him to step back. Suddenly, all involved realize that the power of the stat

to cow people into obedience has been broken. I was reminded of that episode by th

tragic January 4 murder of Salman Taseer, governor of Pakistans Punjab Province, b

a member of his own security detail, in a public shooting just a mile from th

presidential palace in Islamabad. As with Kapuscinskis demonstrator, the killinseemed to mark an epochal shift in the political landscapethough here the poles ar

reversed. In the case of modern Pakistan, it is now the tyranny of fear that is reachin

into the heart of the political system. It has become extremely hard to see how anyon

can pull the countrys political culture back from the brink.

Its not just that Taseer was an advocate of a secular, pluralistic Pakistan who stoo

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Salman Taseer talking to reporters after meetin

with a Pakistani Christian woman, Asia Bibi,

a prison in Sheikhupura near Lahore, Pakistan

November 20, 2010

up, on a number of occasions, to the forces of intolerancea man who was, on variou

occasions, imprisoned, tortured, and beaten for publicly defending the rights o

minorities and the urgent need for freedom of expression. Its not just that he was th

head of Pakistans richest and most populous province. And its not just that he wa

an example of someone from humble origins who managed to rise to one of th

highest offices in the country by dint of his own hard work.

No, whats particularly worrisome about this case is the failure of the Pakistan

political system to protect one of its own. When the state surrenders its monopoly o

violence to those who stand outside of it, it can no longer be described as

functioning state. Pakistans political institutions are supposed to represent the man

different parties and groups that participate in the countrys civic life, yet now stat

power is succumbing to the demands of an exclusionist view of the world that ca

benefit only a particular few. In the weeks and months preceding his assassinatio

Taseer had been courageously campaigningin the face of direct threatsto overturan anti-blasphemy law that had been frequently abused to condemn people o

minority faiths.

Yet no one within Taseers own political partythe

Pakistan Peoples Party, whose members include the

current president, Asif Ali Zardari, and which is

supposedly a bulwark of this systemhas defended

his efforts in any meaningful way. (Zardari did noteven attend his funeral.) Five hundred scholars of the

Barelvi movementthe branch of Sunni Islam

followed by many Pakistani muslims that has often

claimed to stand for a more tolerant vision of Islam

and has condemned Taliban violence in the past

have greeted his killing by praising his assassin.

As a member of Taseers own elite security detail, his murderer, Malik Mumtaz Qadrwas a man who decided that his oath to protect an official of the state was supersede

by a higher oath that commanded him, instead, to kill. That Qadri had be

assigned as a bodyguard to Taseer despite his dismissal several years ago from

police unit because of his extremist views raises yet further questions. All of this

why I find myself agreeing with Huma Imtiaz: This is the end. There is no goin

back from here, there is no miracle cure, there is no magic wand that will one da

http://humaimtiaz.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/rip-governor/

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make everything better.

I am not a Pakistani. But I cant help feeling that the killing of Salman Taseer is

calamity for everyone who lives in the countryincluding the people who are now

strewing flowers at the feet of the man who allegedly pulled the trigger. Those wh

support the takfiri worldview dont seem to understand that this is an ideology tha

cedes the definition of true Islam to the self-declared defenders of religionand tha

these definitions shift according to the political wind, to selfish agendas and narrow

factional interests, rather than to the uncorrupted dictates of faith. And that mean

that those who consider themselves right-minded believers today can easily fin

themselves on the wrong end of a Kalashnikov tomorrow.

The West, and especially the United States, should also take notice. It is time fo

policymakers in Washington to understand that Pakistan is not simply a vexin

sideshow to the war in Afghanistan. Pakistanpopulous, chaotic, and nuclear-arme

needs to be taken seriously in its own right. An imploding Pakistan promise

immense pain and turmoil to itself and the world at large. Lets hope that th

realization doesnt come too late.

An earlier version of this post appeared on Gandhara , Radio Free Europes blog abo

Afghanistan and Pakistan.

January 6, 2011 12:45 p.m.

http://www.rferl.org/archive/Gandhara/latest/3429/3429.html