Pakistani Christians hold candles during a vigil for victims of the suicide bombing in Lahore, Pakistan on 27th March ©K.M. Chaudary/AP/Press Association Images
The bombing of families and children, Muslims and Christians alike, at the Gulshan-e-Iqbal park in Lahore on Easter Sunday that killed 72 and left 340 seriously injured, has provoked an outpouring of despair in much of the western and some of the Pakistani press. In the Financial Times Fatima Bhutto, niece of the assassinated former leader Benazir, declared that the “Easter carnage” had delivered a “fatal diagnosis” for the country. Pakistan, she claimed, was a failed state. But having just returned from Lahore, I think this reaction is a little extreme.
Obviously the situation is worrying: as the elite enjoy their plush lifestyles behind high walls, and educated liberals feel ignored, one does catch the faintest whiff of St Petersburg circa 1914. Even from their chauffeured four-by-fours it is difficult for the affluent not to notice the Islamist banners and slogans, sported by many motorised rickshaws, demanding piety and an end to the imperialism of the United States. Armed and omnipresent security is also impossible to ignore—though Lahore is not Homeland.
The extreme shock following the Easter bombing reflected just what an unusual event it was. Compared with the frontline against militant Islamism in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) bordering Afghanistan, Lahore, capital of prosperous Punjab, has been relatively peaceful. Indeed, there have been suspicions that Nawaz Sharif, the Prime Minister, whose political stronghold it is, had cut a deal with the Islamists to spare Lahore.
Intensifying this sense that the Islamists are becoming bolder was a recent event relatively neglected in the western press, though to Pakistanis it seemed a more ominous omen of state weakness: the dharna (sit-in) by 2,000 men organised by a different Islamist group, the Sunni Tehreek. Intended to force government retreats on the liberalisation of blasphemy laws and the protection of women from domestic violence, the dharna laid siege to central Islamabad, resulting in a shut-down of government, schools, business and phone networks for four days. The government vacillated and seemed to resist military plans for tough action, and the sit-in ended only after an apparent capitulation by the government on the blasphemy issue.
This appeasing attitude has been compounded by Sharif’s reluctance to allow a military crackdown on terrorists in Punjab. For tough measures against Islamist groups clearly conflict with his political interests, especially in Punjab, where there is a local militancy problem that Sharif would prefer to ignore. Some of these Sunni-extremist militants helped the PML-N (Sharif’s party) in the last election by intimidating opponents; and some PML-N members are closely linked to religious extremist groups. Moreover, allowing the military to take over security in the Punjab would suggest the Sharif government had lost control.
Several liberal Lahoris I met clearly thought an army takeover might not be such a bad thing, but this seems unlikely for the time being, as Sharif seems willing to cooperate within what is a dual civil-military government. This may mean that the situation is more stable than recent events suggest.
There is a saying in South Asia that things are hopeless, but not serious. In Pakistan it may just be the reverse. Fatalities from terrorist attacks have been in steep decline since 2014 as a result of sustained army action. The bombing of soft targets in Lahore may be a sign that extremists are losing the battle. Optimism surrounds the Chinese proposal to build a silk-route super-highway from Xinjiang to Baluchistan which many see as a once in a lifetime chance to revivify the economy.
Moreover what is so striking about Pakistan is that no matter what efforts are made by the state or Islamist factions to “Saudify” society, it stubbornly retains a very South Asian political culture—highly fragmented by community and region. This weakens the power of Islamist groups, who come in numerous ideological and sectarian shades: the Islamabad dharna was led by Barelvi-Sufi Sunnis, bitterly hostile to the Deobandi Sunnis who dominate militant extremism. meanwhile Islamic State-aligned groups pursue internal sectarianism, attacking minority Shias and Christians, while Al-Qaeda groups are more interested in the international sphere and generally refrain from attacks on Shias; and there are the anti-government “bad” Taliban within Pakistan, like the bombers in Lahore, and the “good” government-aligned Taliban, favoured by the military because they help extend Pakistani influence in Afghanistan and Kashmir.
More generally, western commentary often forgets that most Pakistanis are not radical Islamists, and Islamic parties have never won more than 12 per cent of the popular vote. Many are socially conservative and pious, but like the Islamists of Turkey, could probably be brought into sympathy with a broadly conservative religious party, as their vote for Sharif’s PML-N in 2013 suggests.
Yet while social fragmentation may grant a breathing space to politicians, signs are not good that they will use it wisely. While all agree that radicalisation is bred by a deeply unequal society, lack of real economic opportunity, and a vacuum in state education (filled by Saudi-funded madressass), a venal political class lacks the will do much about it, and liberal progressives lack the power.
The best outcome might be the emergence of a moderately Islamist conservative party similar to that of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan—minus the chauvinism—though that would require progress on the geopolitical conflicts in the region, from Afghanistan to Kashmir. But until then Pakistan’s divided elites will cling to their listing vessels as they surf the squalls and storms of Pakistan’s turbulent politics.
