Hate Content On Social Media

By Amir Zia
November 2020

Monthly Hilal 

Hate content, which can never, ever pass the stringent filters of the traditional media even today, spreads like wildfire on the social media. And the irony is that authorities and regulators can do little to curb it in a timely manner.  

Dissemination of hate content on the social media has remained a lingering challenge for Pakistan. But in recent weeks and months, there has been a sharp surge in the availability of such material on various social media platforms. 
Short video clips, ridiculing and attacking religious beliefs, sacred personalities and customs of one or the other sect are being widely and systematically circulated on social media in an attempt to stoke sectarian hate and violence in the country. At times, video clips from the speeches of prominent religious scholars and clerics are edited in such a way that they appear to convey totally the opposite of what was actually said. Again the aim is to widen fissures among Muslim sects and pitch their zealots against one another. 
Just ahead of Muharram – the first month of the Muslim calendar – ‘hate trends’ were created on Twitter condemning and calling for action against a particular sect. Similar counter trends and provocative defiant messages were hurled from the other side too. 
Some clerics added fuel to the fire through their insensitive, controversial and hateful remarks, which were disseminated by their friends and foes alike on the social media. 
The communication revolution and social media platforms indeed serve as a blessing for a vast majority of people, who use them to communicate with their loved ones, build groups of like-minded individuals for different causes, share information, to educate, to learn and build and expand their businesses. But the biggest downside of these platforms remains the free-flow of hate material that threatens the very fabric of many of the ethnically and religiously heterogeneous societies, including that of Pakistan. 
Hate content, which can never, ever pass the stringent filters of the traditional media even today, spreads like wildfire on the social media. And the irony is that authorities and regulators can do little to curb it in a timely manner.  
Indeed, the challenge of curbing hate-material is a complicated one. It is like a double-edged sword which can cut both ways. For those who hold freedom of expression close to their heart, any attempt to regulate social media platforms means a direct assault on their fundamental rights. The small, but organized and influential minority of activists remain skeptical of any legislation aimed at regulating the new media platforms and say that the government will ‘exploit’ it to stifle what they call the legitimate voice of dissent in the country.
But even a bigger challenge than these activists are the giant global social media platforms. They operate from abroad and have little regard for Pakistani laws and cultural and religious sensitivities. They may cooperate with Pakistan’s request on blocking a certain post or they may choose to sleep over it for a while or ignore it altogether. The decision and the power to act is in their hands. 
The huge quantum of hate-material churned out on an hourly and daily basis also makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the authorities to identify each and every such post and raise red-flag with the concerned social media company in a prompt manner. By the time authorities move against any hate-post, the damage in most cases has already been done. 
Then, there are many other “ifs” and “buts” in dealing with global social media giants, some of whom now operate regional offices from India – a traditional foe. Obviously, when Indians are working for these social media platforms, they are the ones who call the shots in certain cases or at least are responsible for the execution of decisions, especially regarding the blocking of hate and religiously sensitive material and anti-Pakistan content. Yet, at the same time, they are fast in suppressing any voices, which highlight the legitimate freedom struggle in the occupied Kashmir, and the plight and targeting of Muslims living in India by the extremist Hindu nationalists. 
The huge clout of these companies, which operate under the umbrella of Asia Internet Coalition (AIC), has made framing and implementation of effective social media rules difficult. Facebook, Twitter, Google, Airbnb, Amazon, Apple, Expedia, LinkedIn, LINE and Rakuten – the member companies of the AIC – have so far ignored Pakistan’s requests that they open their regional offices here. At the same time, these companies have by-and-large showed an insensitivity towards Pakistani concerns regarding the use of their platforms by the extremist elements. 
According to Maulana Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi, chief of the All Pakistan Ulema Council and special representative to the prime minister on religious harmony, the “misuse of social media poses a greater threat to the state compared to enemy tanks, missiles and other sophisticated weapons.”
“The irresponsible use of the social media is putting relations among the followers of various sects at stake,” he said.
And Maulana Ashrafi’s concerns have solid grounds. 
For instance, during last Muharram Pakistani authorities identified a sectarian hate trend, which was promoted by more than 5,000 users. On investigating, it was found out that only 70 of the 5,000 users fanning this trend were operating from Pakistan, while the rest were from abroad, especially India. But the target users of this trend were Pakistanis and the aim was to trigger a conflict among followers of different sects. 
This is what is being defined by the security experts as the hybrid war, which has been imposed on Pakistan by its enemies with an aim to sow confusion and division among Pakistanis in a way that it results in violence, chaos, anarchy and instability within the country. And many Pakistanis facilitate the enemy objectives by design or default. Their words become their actions. 
For example, the All Pakistan Ulema Council forwarded to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority a list of 100 or so YouTube channels which were involved in fanning hate on sectarian and religious ground. But, according to Maulana Ashrafi, the PTA expressed its limitations in dealing with such material effectively as it remains the prerogative of the YouTube if and when they remove such content. 
“Freedom of speech is important… but it does not mean attacking and ridiculing other peoples’ beliefs, customs and sacred personalities,” Maulana Ashrafi said.
In the same spirit, Prime Minister Imran Khan on October 25 wrote a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, to ban Islamophobia just as it banned questioning or criticizing of the holocaust. “Given the rampant abuse and vilification of Muslims on social media platforms, I would ask you to place a similar ban on Islamophobia and hate against Islam for Facebook that you have put in place for the Holocaust. The message of hate must be banned in total…”, Prime Minister Khan wrote. 
While there is a broader issue of Islamophobia and hate material against Muslims, which has a potential of leading to active hostilities and violence, Pakistan’s immediate challenge is also to curb the use of social media which is being used to incite sectarian hate and violence. 
How to meet the challenge of unsocial, extremist and criminal attitudes and activities on the social media? Finding an answer to this question is easier said than done. 
To begin with, the government must expedite framing of the social media rules, which remain pending since February this year when Prime Minister Khan directed the Information Technology Ministry to initiate this process. 
The government would have to adopt a multi-pronged strategy to streamline the social media that must include incentives for the global companies to open shop in Pakistan as well as bringing their income under the tax net. At the same time, the government should ensure swift and efficient punitive action against those found involved in using social media platforms for fanning hate material. Right now even if laws are there against the hate-speech and misuse of social media, they are not being implemented.
If there is a need to further strengthen these laws it must be done on a war footing. Pakistan can borrow a page from Turkey on how it manages the social media, which if left unregulated, results in intensifying polarization and discord in the developing countries.   
Engaging stakeholders is important, but this engagement should be done with a firm deadline and in no way mean that the state and its institutions surrender before the organized, and in some cases, west-sponsored rights’ groups, which advocate and demand unregulated freedom on both the social and traditional media. 
The government also needs to explore the possibility of making licenses, NOCs or declaration mandatory for setting up YouTube channels and websites operating from Pakistan. Setting up a news channel or bringing out a news publication remains a lengthy and cumbersome business in Pakistan, but opening up media platforms on social media and creating websites and YouTube channels remain only a click away. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the government should make establishing the later platforms as difficult as that of traditional media, but the social media platforms need to be streamlined and regulated. At the same time, government should ensure easier processes for setting up new traditional media outlets which need to be encouraged and boosted to stand against the tide of fake news, propaganda, outright lies and hate content spread through the new media.
Freedom of expression is important, but it must come with responsibility. No one should be allowed the freedom to wreck the harmony of our society or damage the state and its institutions.

Ends

  

The First - Generation Pakistanis

By Amir Zia

August 2016

Monthly Hilal

As the nation marks its 70th Independence Day, Pakistan continues to swing between despair and hope. Yet, the grand idea of a stable, peaceful, prosperous and strong Pakistan still throbs and vibrates in the hearts of majority of Pakistanis. Despite many challenges and ups and downs in its history, Pakistan has come a long way, but the country has yet to achieve its full potential. Can we and the generation next be able to take the country to the next level?

First-generation Pakistanis are now a fast-dwindling minuscule group. Almost 69 years after the creation of Pakistan, elders, who witnessed the Freedom Movement, the Partition, its aftermath and the country’s formative years, are hard to find. Those of us born post-Independence – between ‘50s and the early ‘80s – may have learnt their first lessons of history not from Pakistan Studies’ textbooks but from these very elders, most of whom shared a few common traits.

For instance, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammed Ali Jinnah ruled their hearts and minds. Those, who had the honour of meeting or even shaking hands with him, considered it the biggest event of their lives. Many others took pride in catching a mere glimpse of the ‘Great Leader’ in a rally, or a public meeting, at a railway platform or his visit to their educational institution. Those, who never saw Quaid-i-Azam in person – from near or from far – still lived under his spell because it was only he, who articulated their dreams and aspirations, and had the iron-will to transform them into reality.

Jinnah’s cold aloofness during political, social and public interactions, his overtly westernized demeanour and limitations in communicating with the masses in Urdu-language did not prevent him from being the undisputed leader of the majority of Muslims of the sub-continent. The reason; people had blind faith in his integrity, honesty, political acumen and sagacity. His followers knew that their ‘Great Leader’ could not betray them or compromise on principles. For Jinnah represented the ethos of a modern Muslim – current, forward-looking, yet rooted in history and tradition.

All of today’s corruption-tainted politicians need to learn and emulate the basics of leadership from Quaid-i-Azam, though it’s an altogether different debate whether they possess the capacity, ability or will to appreciate and absorb his politics, leadership qualities and principles.

Another collective love of those, who witnessed Pakistan Movement, remains Allama Muhammed Iqbal – the philosopher and the poet of the East. It was Iqbal, who first gave the outline of Pakistan. It was Iqbal who inspired Muslims to dream big to explore the world and to regain their lost position. It was Iqbal who challenged the orthodoxy, conservatism and narrow-mindedness of the clerics of his days. It was he, who questioned the slumbering Muslim mind and forced them to critically think on all issues – from religion to politics and from the eternal paradox of being to that of vastness of the universe. Iqbal was larger than life for his contemporaries. The passage of time only added to his stature. Children sang Iqbal’s works in schools and their elders punctuated discussions with his couplets. Iqbal and his thoughts were the idiom and diction of the educated-Pakistan all through the initial decades of its Independence.

But the organized and systematic degradation of Urdu – the national-language – by the country’s ruling elite, the mainstream media, centrifugal regional forces and private educational institutions have sidelined Iqbal. The national poet, his poetry and the message has been reduced to some of its sprinkling in textbooks. Barring the superfluous official lip-service given to Iqbal, he is no longer in the cultural mainstream. A vast number of Pakistan’s so-called elite schools do not focus on teaching the basics of the national language, let alone Iqbal and his poetry. The successive governments, rather than improving and modernizing Pakistan’s education system, allowed imported curriculum and examination system to hijack and capture the young Pakistani-mind. Students churned out of this borrowed system are often rootless. Pakistan’s muddled provincial governments’ run education, which allows rival systems to co-exist – from seminaries to substandard government education institutions and various types and layers of private systems – in itself has become a dividing force rather than help in building national cohesion.

Compare today’s rudderless educational system with that of the 19th century reformist and educationist Sir Syed Ahmed Khan’s, who single-handedly brought a sea-change in the thinking and social and economic uplift of the Muslims through his educational movement. Sir Syed’s Aligarh Muslim University and its affiliated schools inspired the establishment of similar educational institutions for Muslims in the sub-continent and became the founding stone of Pakistan. The Aligarh University and its founder held a special place in the hearts of many first-generation Pakistanis whether they studied there or not. In his bid to educate Muslims, Sir Syed had to launch a crusade against myopic and narrow-minded mullahs as well as the feudal mindset, who wanted to cling to the old ways that brought the downfall of the Muslims. He promoted modern education, including science – long abandoned by the Muslims. Sir Syed’s ideas were rooted in tradition and he did not merrily ape the west. Students of Aligarh played a crucial role in advancing the idea of Pakistan. They fanned all across the sub-continent – from Muslim-minority to majority provinces creating awareness for a separate homeland. Wave after wave of ‘Aligarhians’ responded to their Quaid’s call in the freedom struggle and the formative years of Pakistan.

Almost all the elders could share the first-person impressions and accounts of the great historical events unfolding at the rapid pace in 1947. If some of them would endlessly lament on how the Muslim-majority districts of Gurdaspur and Ferozepur – where All India Muslim League flags fluttered – were handed over to India by the unjust Boundary Commission, other would give a blow-by-blow account the way Muslim-majority state of Kashmir was forcibly occupied by the Indian Army. The strong British bias favouring Congress and the annexation of the princely States of Hyderabad and Junagadh were also subjects of emotional debates and discussions as well as the way Indians tried to stifle Pakistan by blocking its share of funds after the Partition.

They articulated perhaps in much better terms than many so-called scholarly and biased books of history the fear in the hearts and minds of Muslims of permanently living under the rule of a hostile, vindictive and narrow-minded majority. They faced discrimination at every step – from separate water taps at railway stations to that of denial of jobs and economic and social uplift opportunities. The Hindu-majority Congress did not want to give any constitutional guarantees to Muslims to prevent the Partition. Those who question the justification of Pakistan need to look at the present day political and social landscape of India, where a vast number of Muslims remain oppressed, denied of basic social, political and economic rights. The continued occupation of the disputed region of Kashmir and atrocities committed by Indian forces there, is yet another manifestation of the extremist Hindu mindset.

The dawn of Independence on August 14, 1947 was soaked in blood and tears. There were organized massacres of Muslims in India, resulting into similar attacks on Hindus in Pakistan. An elder would tell you that he doesn’t know to-date the whereabouts of his sister kidnapped in some village near Jalandhar. Another one would narrate the hair-raising tale of the escape of his or her family from the slaughter grounds of Ludhiana. How the entire trains entered Lahore filled with blood and bodies. How Muslims were hounded, hunted and killed in cities including Delhi, Lucknow, Bombay and Calcutta. How Muslim women were abducted and raped. Those who saw Pakistan emerging on the world map have had countless of such sad and tragic stories, which oceans of ink cannot fully narrate.
The first-generation Pakistanis have played their innings. They had their share of triumphs and failures. And like them, Pakistan as a state had its high and many low points, which stemmed mainly from the poor-quality of leadership. A challenge that mars the country even today.

As the nation marks its 70th Independence Day, Pakistan continues to swing between despair and hope. Yet, the grand idea of a stable, peaceful, prosperous and strong Pakistan still throbs and vibrates in the hearts of majority of Pakistanis. Despite many challenges and ups and downs in its history, Pakistan has come a long way, but the country has yet to achieve its full potential. Can we and the generation next be able to take the country to the next level? Yes, given Pakistan’s enormous natural wealth and resources and resilient people, we can and we should. The starting point, however, remains empowering the people, cleaning the stables and ensuring that only the capable and honest get to the top slots. Doing this is not a tall order at all.

The Haunting Shadows

By Amir Zia

May, 2016

Monthly Hilal

The challenge of corruption needs immediate attention as it is weakening the state and the society from within....The authorities need to take-on corruption on a war-footing and in tandem with fight against terrorism and extremism as they feed one another.

What are the two core issues that hurt the country and ordinary Pakistanis the most? Most likely, there will be an instant and overwhelming consensus that reining in terrorism and corruption remain the biggest challenges.

Other issues – for instance a weak economy, absence of quick and affordable justice, poor governance and misrule – stem from these two fundamental challenges. If a government aims to fix economy, the utmost important steps needed to achieve this goal would be provision of a secure and a corruption-free environment.

Similarly, ensuring justice, good governance and an efficient government also require – as a prerequisite – the rule of law and a proper system of checks and balances to prevent corruption and hold the corrupt accountable.

The future of Pakistan depends on how the military and civil leadership address these challenges. Any delay, lackluster approach or failure in tackling terrorism and corruption remain harmful for the future stability, security and unity of the country.

The credit must go to the military leadership that on both fronts it took the initiative and leads by an example.

Although Pakistan’s fight against terrorism and extremism is far from over, there have been major gains on this front. The ongoing Karachi operation and Zarb-e-Azb have been successful in containing this threat and putting terrorists, extremists and criminals on the back foot.

Pakistan’s military leadership took the initiative of taking the fight to the terrorists at a time when many civilian leaders were wavering either due to political expediency or the fear of a possible adverse fallout. However, they eventually extended support to the crackdown – first in Karachi where an operation was launched in 2013 and then for the Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan and other tribal areas in 2014.

Following the massacre at the Army Public School Peshawar, military and civil leaders agreed on the National Action Plan in January 2015 to counter the threat of extremism and terrorism in a holistic manner. But since then, implementation on NAP has been painfully slow. This damages prospects of a decisive victory in this war in mid-to long-term and the civilian leaders must focus on taking decisive actions to implement NAP in totality.

The challenge of corruption also needs immediate attention as it is weakening the state and the society from within just like termite. The authorities need to take-on corruption on a war-footing and in tandem with fight against terrorism and extremism as they feed one another.

Yes, corruption is deterring Pakistan’s progress and economic turnaround. It is stoking injustice and offsetting efforts to establish the rule of law. And it is hurting and biting the common man on a daily basis.

It is ironic that eradicating corruption – which makes the life of majority of Pakistanis miserable and denies them good and honest governance – is not on the agenda of many of our mainstream political parties, including those in power at the center and the provincial level.

Mostly lip-service is paid to this cause when some mega-corruption scandal hits the headlines, but seldom any such case gets to a closure. These scandals disappear from the media and slip out of the public mind without a whimper. This has happened countless times and the cycle keeps repeating itself.

Whenever there is a growing public pressure to hold someone accountable, the accused and his supporters start pointing fingers at others. As a result the main issue is lost in a barrage of allegations and counter-allegations and political bickering.

So far the successive governments have failed to establish an effective mechanism to hold the corrupt accountable in a fair, just and swift manner. The accountability process is usually driven by vendetta and marred with political pressures and interference. No wonder anti-corruption organizations, including the National Accountability Bureau and the Federal Investigation Agency have either become a handmaiden of rulers for the victimization of political rivals or unable to do the job because the corrupt enjoy patronage and support from powerful quarters, including various lobbies within the government.

If the prosecution system is weak, corrupt, inefficient, unprofessional and subject to political interference, the judicial system also remains flawed. Over-burdened courts are perpetually short of judges. The legal system itself is skewed in favour of the rich and the powerful. Executive authorities and interest groups manage to manipulate it to punish the innocent and provide relief to the guilty. Despite all these flaws – which are an open secret – judicial reforms are nowhere on the agenda.

Whenever there is a call for accountability, organized campaigns are launched by power players to tarnish the image of rivals, deflecting the pressure and diluting the issue. And in 99.9 percent cases, these attempts are successful. Like a villain of Shakespearean tragedy, the real villains of our society are seldom punished. The just exit from the stage amidst public uproar and manage to make a grand re-entry after a hibernation period.

In recent years, there has been a growing trend that when any past or serving government officials – whether elected or unelected – are being held accountable for corruption, various parties, interest groups, a section of the media start crying that it is only politicians who get targeted. They directly or indirectly try to imply that the personnel of the armed forces remain out of the ambit of accountability. And this they do, ignoring the fact that Pakistan Armed Forces have an internal mechanism of checks and balances and the military personnel, under the law, cannot be tried by the civilian courts.

World over, the accountability of soldiers and officers for violation of rules and regulations, any unbecoming behavior, or corruption is a serious affair with other security related implications and is being carried out within the institution.

However, lack of publicity does not mean that the process of accountability is taken lightly within the institution, which takes pride in its discipline and professionalism. But a particular lobby and their friendly media continue to tell half-truths and distort facts in an attempt to paint white as black. This propaganda campaign gained momentum in recent weeks in an organized manner both on the traditional and social media in the backdrop of some big corruption scandals that has hit the headlines.

Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif, however, again set the tone and direction on taking on this termite when he said that the war against terror cannot be won unless “the menace of corruption is uprooted.”

On a visit to the Signal Regimental Centre Kohat on April 19, he underlined the need of “across the board accountability”, calling it “necessary for the solidarity, integrity and prosperity of Pakistan.”

“Pakistan’s Armed Forces will fully support every meaningful effort in that direction which would ensure a better future for our next generations.”

Within days of the statement, the Army Chief dismissed several senior officers, including a lieutenant general from service on corruption charges. By making the accountability process within Armed Forces public, the military leadership not just set an example but gave a clear signal that they mean business.

Pakistanis overwhelmingly welcomed Army Chief’s statement and action against corrupt officials amidst expectations that it will put pressure on the civilian leaders to contribute their bit in this effort.
And as the action against the corrupt was taken regardless of the seniority in the Armed Forces, there are expectations that our elected representatives will also do the same.

It is a known fact that any meaningful effort against corruption must start from the top for maximum impact and result. If the authorities manage to set an example by holding the most powerful accountable, this message resonates at every level.

Many elected representatives – realizing the gravity of the situation – have been calling for the accountability of the corrupt. But this must not be done on a one-time basis or to target few individuals. Our institutions, including the Parliament, must work to create a sustainable, independent and just accountability process which remains autonomous and free from political pressures and manipulations. This should be the top item on the agenda because a system, which cannot auto-correct itself and purge the corrupt from its ranks, not just fails to deliver but likely to implode sooner or later.

It is in the enlightened self-interest of the people’s representatives to help establish a just, fair, independent and autonomous accountability mechanism. This is vital to sustain institutions, ensure betterment of the masses and to take the country forward. The sooner it is done, without any fear or favour, the better.

War Of Narratives

By Amir Zia

Monthly Hilal

The Pakistan Armed Forces' Magazine

September, 2015

The pseudo liberals criticize Pakistan and its security establishment for the alleged support to the religiously-motivated Afghan militants, while the religious extremists condemn and target the country exactly for the opposite reason; for fighting the Al-Qaeda-linked or inspired militants and destroying the safe havens of all foreign terrorists.

Two small, but motivated rival forces have long been trying to rule the public opinion in Pakistan. They are zealously pushing their competing narratives in schools, colleges, universities and seminaries to capture young minds. They are battling it out with each other in the mainstream media in an attempt to thrust their agendas. And they are trying to exploit the reach of the new media to propagate views and put across their messages. Despite deep fissures and countless variances within each of these forces, the westernized pseudo liberals and the religious extremists are two distinct groups, struggling to seize the national narrative.

But their ideological differences apart, these rivals also share some common traits.

For example, they both in their essence remain opposed to Pakistan and its basic idea apparently for conflicting reasons, yet aiming to achieve the similar outcome. If the so-called liberals think that the creation of Pakistan and the partition of British-India was a slip of history, the religious extremist, too, think in the same manner albeit under a different pretext. The religious extremists denounce the Freedom Movement and its achievement – Pakistan – because it clashes with their parochial, intolerant and theocratic worldview. Their rivals – the pseudo liberals – try to undermine the demand for a separate Muslim homeland in South Asia as a mere British conspiracy aimed at dividing India. By this naïve assertion, they ignore the strong demands of political, economic and social rights of Muslims, which culminated with the creation of Pakistan. The two rivals also appear on the same page in their criticism of Pakistan’s founding fathers and heroes of the Freedom Movement – from Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Sir Allama Muhammad Iqbal to Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. If for the religious extremists these leaders were too open-minded, progressive and modern, their rivals declare them conservative, communal and pro-British.

In today’s context, these forces remain bitterly opposed to the Pakistan Armed Forces. For pseudo liberals, the security forces are the main stumbling block in their designs to make frontiers between Pakistan and India irrelevant. They justify their argument in the name of the so-called shared values, culture and history between the two states. The religious extremists stand at the other side of the pendulum and propagate that the armed forces are allies of the West and therefore, resorting to acts of terror against them remain justified.

The pseudo liberals criticize Pakistan and its security establishment for the alleged support to the religiously-motivated Afghan militants, while the religious extremists condemn and target the country exactly for the opposite reason; for fighting the Al-Qaeda-linked or inspired militants and destroying the safe havens of all foreign terrorists.

One can draw several other such parallels and dig deeper into the ideological stances of these two extreme views, which in a nutshell may appear contradictory, but aim to weaken and destroy Pakistan.

Many pseudo liberals, who also have been joined in by the leftists of yesteryears, will certainly raise eyebrows on what they might say the “audacity” of drawing similarities between them and their violent ideological rivals. Some can rightly say in their defence that unlike the religious extremists, they do not stand guilty of resorting to suicide bombings, explosions and acts of terrorism and sabotage, while others may like to draw attention toward their services for the EU-inspired human rights causes.

All this may be true, but the thrust of the argument is to highlight the commonalities of the two rivals. As far as actions are concerned, besides ideology, they are the result of many other factors, including strategy, the class and social backgrounds of activists, their political orientation and commitment.

The pseudo liberals overwhelmingly comprise mainly of the westernized and well-off middle, upper middle and elite classes, while the religious extremists draw most of their foot soldiers from the lower classes, especially from the rural areas and bank on select motivated individuals from the middle and upper-middle class as their ideologues, masterminds of complicated operations.

Both these rivals enjoy much more reach and clout in the traditional and the new media than their actual size in the society. For instance, pseudo liberals dominate the English-language press, which despite the small size, is seen influential because of its reach in the corridors of power. The so-called liberals freely run propaganda campaigns against the core national interests from undermining the Kashmir cause to that of the criticism on the country’s nuclear programme mainly in the English-language press, which serves as the main vehicle to highlight their small protests, conferences and other activities. They resort to propaganda against the country’s security agencies and the armed forces and try to portray them as rouge institutions. They also indulge in foreign-inspired advocacy campaigns in the name of human rights – by which they basically mean rights of criminals and terrorists. The organized, EU-backed campaign against the resumption of death penalty after last December’s barbarity at the Army Public School Peshawar is a case to point. As the national consensus stood solidly behind awarding capital punishment, the self-styled rights’ groups launched a drive to save the life of the child killer Shafqat Hussain by twisting facts and distorting evidence to prove that he was a juvenile when he kidnapped a seven-year-old boy and murdered him after sexual abuse. Their aim was to undermine Pakistan’s judiciary. Due to public pressure, the child killer was finally hanged to death in Karachi after evading death warrants at least half-a-dozen times.

Although the religious extremists do not have a direct clout on the traditional media, their apologist and allies in the mainstream religious and political parties help support their narrative. They urge for talks with terrorists – responsible for killing thousands of Pakistanis, including officers and soldiers of the armed forces – in the name of peace. There also are blatant attempts in the media to justify taking up arms against the state and arguments to support the policy of appeasement and reconciliation with the local and foreign terrorists, trying to run a state within the state. Such voices have bigger influence on the Urdu-language media, which has become a tool to propagate hate speech, intolerance, conservative ideas and ideals and twist the vision of Pakistan by attempting to paint it as a theocratic state. Such ideas are also reinforced by many pulpits and seminaries as well as big and small religious groups. Their narrow, myopic, flawed and confrontationist interpretation of the sacred religion of Islam creates favourable ground where extremist ideas breed and grow.

The extremists also have an organized propaganda machinery of their own and have mastered the art of using the new media. They are not just banking on the written word to disseminate propaganda, but use audios, videos and photographs through dedicated or third party websites and countless fake accounts on the social media. If any of these accounts get blocked, a new one is created under another fake identity.

However, the pseudo liberals and the religious extremists remain a minority in this country of more than 180 million people. Yet they have managed to create a lot of dust, which tarnishes Pakistan’s image and creates despondency, negativism and anger in the society. Ironically, the rational Pakistani nationalist narrative is missing from both the traditional and the new media. Even if it exists, it is disorganized and finds little space, though it articulates the aspirations and will of overwhelming majority of Pakistanis. What does this nationalist narrative mean in a nutshell given Pakistan’s present day challenges?

Firstly, it represents modernity rooted in our tradition, culture and religion. The same way, Pakistan’s founding fathers conceived and articulated it by investing in the modern education starting from Aligarh, Sindh Madrassatul Islam, Islamia College Peshawar and other modern education institutions, which in turn became the vanguard of the freedom struggle.

Secondly, it means rising above the bigoted sectarian, ethnic and provincial divide and promoting national cohesion and unity. This again remains the crux of the message of Pakistan’s founders, who managed to unite Muslims of South Asia for a single cause regardless of their class, ethnic, sectarian or provincial background.

Thirdly, it is establishing the writ of the state and rule of law in the country. This means zero-tolerance for armed groups and bands of non-state actors operating under any pretext. The state should ensure its monopoly over violence. The Operation Zarb-e-Azb and the crackdown on criminals and terrorists in Karachi are aimed at achieving this goal. Support to these causes is vital in the battle of ideas to achieve the goal of a peaceful and stable Pakistan as envisioned by its founders.

Fourthly, it should aim at making Pakistan’s defence impregnable against any direct aggression as well as the indirect soft invasion diluting our national cohesion and unity. This means unflinching support for the guardians of Pakistan’s frontiers – the armed forces – and countering those individuals, commercial organizations and media ventures working against Pakistan’s core interests.

And fifthly, it should promote the idea of economically prosperous, progressive and strong Pakistan to ensure not just the wellbeing and upward social mobility of citizens, but also guarantees peace and stability in the region. This was the dream of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali and his companions. The first key to achieve these goals is to aggressively and unapologetically dominate the battle of narratives and counter those tiny organized minorities of pseudo liberals and the religious extremists, who are trying to weaken Pakistan. It is time for the Team Pakistan to rise, make a difference and win this battle.

No Other Option

By Amir Zia

Monthly Hilal

June 2014

The lingering economic crunch has been manifesting itself on all the key fronts, including the defence allocations, which are on a steady decline in relation to the GDP and the total current expenditure since fiscal 2000 

At a time when Pakistan remains stuck in a low-to-modest growth and relatively high-inflationary cycle since fiscal 2008, allocation of resources for the country's vital needs – from development to defence – remains a challenging task. The proposed budget for 2014/15 (July-June), with a total outlay of 3.936 trillion rupees, reflects this harsh reality.

In the coming fiscal, the government has earmarked almost one-third of the total proposed expenditure of 1.325 trillion rupees just to pay interest on foreign and domestic loans. This allocation alone is enough to highlight the battered state of economy and constraints in the budget making exercise. No wonder, the combined allocations for the two other important heads -- the Public Sector Development Programme at 525 billion rupees (federal share) and Defence at 700 billion rupees -- are lower than what Pakistan spends on its interest payments alone. 

Pakistan's crippling energy crisis, the continued political instability, poor security environment, terrorism, and rampant crime in major cities, including the commercial hub of Karachi, have emerged as the biggest impediments in luring foreign and domestic investments that remain vital to boost economic growth and increase the size of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The lingering economic crunch has been manifesting itself on all the key fronts, including the defence allocations, which are on a steady decline in relation to the GDP and the total current expenditure since fiscal 2000.

In real terms, Pakistan's defence allocations remain more or less capped since early 2000-01 despite the traditional security challenges vis-à-vis India on the eastern front and the new unprecedented internal security threat in the form of the Al-Qaeda-linked-and-inspired foreign and local militants, who want to bring down the state and see the armed forces as their number one enemy as it is the main obstacle that can thwart their designs.

According to the latest Economic Survey of Pakistan, all through the 2000s, Pakistan defence budget has remained pegged at 3.1 percent of the GDP, compared with 5.6 percent during the decade of 1990s and 6.5 percent during the 1980s. 

If in the fiscal 1992-93 – during Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's first stint in power – the defence allocations were at the 6.3 percent of GDP, they are now hovering at around 3.0 percent. The pattern of this downward slide in defence spending started during the former military-led government of Pervez Musharraf, who slashed it to 3.9 percent of the GDP during the initial years in power and later to 3.3 percent. By the time he resigned from the office, Pakistan's defence budget was 2.9 percent of the GDP in fiscal 2008. This was done during the times of robust economic growth which was hovering at 7.0 percent on an average for five consecutive years from 2003-07. 

In terms of the current expenditure, the defence budget has been around 15 to 16 percent since fiscal 2009, though in the proposed budget for the coming financial year, it is at 20 percent.  

“It is a myth that the defence gets the lion's share… the fact is that it has been on the decline both in relation to the country's GDP and the current expenditure,” said Dr. Ishrat Husain, former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan. “It is the debt servicing which devours the bulk of the country's resources, leaving little for development, and other important sectors including health and education,” said Husain, who is now the dean and director of the prestigious Institute of Business Administration, Karachi.

In the rupee term, the annual increase in defence allocations only offsets the impact of the double-digit inflation and the rupee's decline against the dollar. This annual increase aims to sustain and maintain the existing level of the armed forces' operational capacity, leaving little to modernize its weapons or invest on the strategic development.

However, defence spending remains at the centre of intense public debate and scrutiny with many analysts questioning whether a cash-strapped country like Pakistan be spending that much on its armed forces. There is no dearth of those academics, civil right activists and politicians who advocate slashing the defence budget and diverting resources to the development and social sectors even when the country is in a state of war with the extremist forces.

One can empathize with this view, but unfortunately the campaigners for defence budget cuts miss the overall security challenge, which Pakistan faces both on its external and internal fronts.

On the external front, while the desire for peace with neighbours, including India, is the cornerstone of Pakistan's foreign policy, the state has to maintain a minimum deterrence to safeguard its frontiers against any possible aggression. Unilateral lowering of guards by slashing defence budget is not an option when the country's traditional rival is spending a seven times higher amount to modernize and equip its armed forces with a focus on Pakistan. The challenge has become graver with the victory of Hindu hardliner Narendra Modi in the recent Indian elections.

It is not the question of taking a plunge into a never-ending conventional arms race with its big neighbour, which is also responsible for introducing nuclear weapons in South Asia. Rather, Pakistan has been forced to respond to these extreme external security threats in a measured manner. Indeed, India, with its sheer size of the economy and high growth rate in recent years, remains better placed in its bid to modernize and equip its armed forces, but Pakistan even in these difficult economic times has to maintain the delicate balance, which is fast titling in New Delhi's favour.

The answer to this predicament in the mid to long-term is in fixing the economy, increasing the size of the GDP, boosting growth by creating an environment conducive for foreign and domestic investment, developing the human resource and thus making more resources available for development and the social uplift as well as for defence. This also requires controlling the staggering transmission and distribution losses of the electricity worth nearly 300 billion rupees alongwith stopping the financial hemorrhage in the loss-making state-run institutions including the PIA, Steel Mills and Pakistan Railways.

The government also needs to improve the country's tax-to-GDP ratio, which remains at a dismal nine percent ; the lowest in the region.

However, the goal of economic turnaround will remain unattainable if the government fails to tackle the unprecedented internal threat of terrorism and extremism on a war-footing. This issue is directly linked to the security and has a heavy price tag – not just in the form of operational expenses needed to fight the elusive terrorists from the rugged mountainous region up in the north to the major cities and towns, but also in the form of the lost economic, business and investment opportunities and damage to the infrastructure. The latest economic survey quantifies these direct and indirect losses suffered during the last 13 years at the staggering figure of $102.51 billion.

Pakistan remains unable to exploit its economic potential and huge reservoir of human resource to the maximum mainly because of the grave law and order crisis. When foreign and local investors and business – people feel insecure even travelling to, or within, Pakistan, all the talk of pushing the economy in the realm of high growth trajectory remains nothing but a pipe-dream. Incidents such as terror attacks on vital defence installations, security personnel or the latest one on the country's largest airport in Karachi, have indeed tarnished the brand Pakistan and transformed it into one of the World's most dangerous places.

To restore the 'brand Pakistan,' and make it attractive for investment and business, Pakistan has to defeat the scourge of terrorism and extremism at every cost. And in this make-or-break fight to defend Pakistan, restore peace, establish the writ of the state and the rule of law, security forces remain not just our main stay, but the real vanguard.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, considered a pro-business leader, should know it best that peace and stability are the prerequisite for economic revival, growth and the overall prosperity of the nation. How his government manages to support the armed forces and the other security agencies in this war for Pakistan is the question. Pakistan needs to invest on its defence if it wants to win this internal war, guard against the possible external threats and revive its economy. There is no choice other than to make our defence impregnable.