As global scrutiny intensified, Mr. Sharif vowed to eliminate the distinction between “good” and “bad” militants — a nod to the military’s decades-old policy of fighting some Islamists while secretly supporting others.
Source/Credit: The New York Times
By Declan Walsh December 19, 2014
LONDON — Only a week ago, the Red Mosque seemed a nearly untouchable bastion of Islamist extremism in Pakistan, a notorious seminary in central Islamabad known for producing radicalized, and sometimes heavily armed, graduates.
On Friday evening, though, the tables were turned when hundreds of angry protesters stood at the mosque gates and howled insults at the chief cleric — a sight never seen since the Taliban insurgency began in 2007.
What has changed is the mass killing of schoolchildren, at least 132 of them, slain by Pakistani Taliban gunmen in a violent cataclysm that has traumatized the country. In the months before the shocking assault on a Peshawar school on Tuesday, Pakistan’s leadership had been consumed by political war games, while the debate on militancy was dominated by bigoted and conspiracy-laden voices, like those of the clerics of the Red Mosque.
Now, united by grief, rage and political necessity, Pakistanis from across society are speaking with unusual force and clarity about the militant threat that blights their society. For the first time, religious parties and ultraconservative politicians have been forced to publicly shun the movement by name. And while demonstrations against militancy have been relatively small so far, they touched several cities in Pakistan, including a gathering of students outside the school in Peshawar.
Protest leaders believe that the public will support them. “This will become a protest movement against the Taliban,” one organizer, Jibran Nasir, thundered into a microphone outside the Red Mosque on Friday.
Though there is little doubt that the Peshawar massacre has galvanized Pakistani society, the question is whether it can become a real turning point for a society plagued by violent divisions, culture wars and the strategic prerogatives of a powerful military.
After all, Pakistan has been here before. The country has suffered countless wrenching tragedies — the death of Benazir Bhutto in 2007, as well as attacks on mosques, markets and churches — only for rage to fizzle into nothing. And after the Taliban attack on the teenage rights campaigner Malala Yousafzai, a resulting backlash against Western support for her made her the target of smears and vitriolic criticism.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, seemingly paralyzed for much of the year by political opposition, has promised that this time will be different. He rushed to Peshawar as the school shooting was still underway. As global scrutiny intensified, Mr. Sharif vowed to eliminate the distinction between “good” and “bad” militants — a nod to the military’s decades-old policy of fighting some Islamists while secretly supporting others.
The army, for its part, has been buoyed by a wave of public sympathy, as many of the children killed at the Army Public School in Peshawar came from military families. And other forces, such as Karachi’s M.Q.M. party, have sought to harness national anger for local purposes.
“Crush Taliban to Save Pakistan,” read the banners at a large party rally in Karachi on Friday.
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The tide of outrage has encouraged progressive Pakistanis, increasingly marginalized for years, to speak up.
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Read original post here: Pakistan’s Old Curse
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