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Connecting their revolution with the resistance against Zionist genocide is a profoundly exhilarating transformation in the political consciousness of Pakistanis.
By JUNAID S AHMAD
‘From the scenes we saw, it looked like the war between Palestine and Israel. A bloody game has been played and brutality is too small a word for what these sadistic scoundrels are doing. When we ran away from there, there were dead bodies under our feet. Police forces are just randomly and continuously firing now.’
Students from the International Islamic University – Islamabad (IIU-I)
The riveting developments over the past 48 hours in Pakistan, and specifically in the capital Islamabad, are still waiting for serious coverage from the world.
The martial-law-all-but-in-name regime has failed to stop protesters from all across the country from marching to and entering Islamabad. Despite having to actually import thousands upon thousands of shipping containers to cordon off the city and block people from entering the capital, the military establishment failed in preventing their entry. Nevertheless, the deluge of incessant prevarications emanating from the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the propaganda wing of the military, has nauseatingly continued unabated.
The ferocity of state savagery has temporarily paused the protest movement. Former Prime Minister Imran Khan has consistently demanded that not only should his Movement for Justice be entirely pacifist itself but should also desist in situations where there is the likelihood of its own blood being shed at the hands of this violent regime.
Nevertheless, in addition to the battles on the street, there is a fierce war of narratives on the airwaves.
The dominant portrayal is that the state is confronting mobs violently assaulting security forces. As is often the case in such mass uprisings of the people, the true story is actually the absolute opposite.
Not only have the federal police indiscriminately unleashed tear gas and rubber bullets on the hundreds of thousands who have entered Islamabad but have now begun firing with live bullets. Thousands have been injured and at least dozens have been killed. Credit goes to Al Jazeera and a few other outlets who have made the effort to actually show on the streets the omnipresent bullets fired.
The Pakistan Doctors Forum, the Red Cross and the Red Crescent are pointing out that one of the primary functions of the police forces at this point is to prevent food, essential medicines, and medical necessities from reaching those who have made it into the capital – especially supplies essential for now the thousands injured, some fatally so.
Yet we are expected to believe that completely unarmed demonstrators (not a single image shown to prove otherwise) are the ones inflicting the violence.
In fact, and incredible considering the sheer magnitude of the scale of these protests, not a single property has actually been damaged or destroyed. The only ‘confrontation’ with property that has taken place is people actually climbing onto the containers and just protesting – and dancing! – from there.
At this critical stage, the next few days will be pivotal in the most immediate demand of the nationwide mobilisation: the release of former Prime Minister Imran Khan as well as the tens of thousands of other Movement for Justice activists from prison.
There are a few crucial aspects of the people’s putsch – as well as the national security state’s response – to highlight at this point, much of this information being leaked by brave officers and soldiers in revolt themselves:
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1) The notoriously venal Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is devoting one hundred percent of its manpower and efforts at infiltrating and itself conducting vandalism and murders that is then attributed to the protestors. In fact, there have been dozens of ISI agent provocateurs caught red-handed, as reported by both Al Jazeera and CGTN. Even before this latest phase of mass civil disobedience, the ISI has spent around 80-90 percent of its attention at domestic ‘civil disturbances.’ In fact, so many ISI personnel have resigned for being disgusted at spending their entire time in the agency’s ‘Fifth Generation Warfare Unit’ – essentially, monitoring Twitter/X all day, at least when it’s not banned in the country.
2) Though the protestors have come from far-flung areas of the various provinces of the country. It’s clear that a majority hail from ‘Pashtun-land’ – the province of KPK and especially the tribal areas (FATA) that border Afghanistan. It seems that things have come full circle. Those upon whom was inflicted widespread slaughter and mass displacement by US-NATO forces and the Pakistani military during the ‘War on Terror’ years, those whom Khan consistently stood by and championed in the face of state terror – have now descended upon Islamabad with a vengeance.
3) The Pakistani generals crave to enact another 1971 bloodbath – as was perpetrated against the then East Pakistanis (now Bangladeshis). But the two provincial ethnic groups that predominantly compose the army – Punjabis and Pashtuns – are not as trigger-happy as their seniors would want them to be. The reluctance of Pashtun soldiers and their refusal to assail the women and men of their country, as alluded to earlier, derives from knowing fully well the immense suffering endured by their communities during the ‘War on Terror’.’As for Punjabis, being from the province that has traditionally been the most pro-military – they have undergone an astoundingly rapid metamorphosis of their socio-political sensibilities and awareness since the ouster of Khan in the Washington-backed regime change operation in April of 2022. As argued elsewhere, this has been the most unforgivable ‘crime’ in the eyes of military elites – the fact that Punjabis have gone from loving or at least respecting to now despising them – and this is what explains the state’s diabolical ruthlessness over the past two and half years now.
What was obvious to many of us, especially those of us who had students as mid-rank and junior military officers, is now fully transparent: soldiers – and officers – are ignoring orders and refusing to fire.
It became clear that the majority of officers, and overwhelming majority of soldiers, if not completely on the side of Khan, were at least utterly contemptuous of the tyrannical behaviour of their superiors. This is why the military top brass is directly turning to and commanding the poorly paid police forces to wreak havoc and do their dirty work.
The generals have shown no hesitancy in openly proclaiming their ‘shoot-on-sight’ orders. Unable to block the entry of the hundreds of thousands entering the capital, the Pakistani military high command is deploying any and all security personnel still willing to follow its orders to defend the Adyala jail cell in the twin city of Rawalpindi, where the wildly popular former prime minister is imprisoned.
One of the most heartening images in this alarmingly precarious and perilous – yet simultaneously exciting and hopeful – political moment is the omnipresence of Palestinian keffiyehs amongst the protestors. They became even more pervasive over the past few months after Israel’s assassinations of Ismail Haniyeh, Hassan Nasrallah, and Yahya Sinwar.
Connecting their revolution with the resistance against Zionist genocide is a profoundly exhilarating transformation in the political consciousness of Pakistanis.
- Junaid S Ahmad is Professor of Law, Religion and Global Politics and Director at the Centre for the Study of Islam and Decolonization (CSID), Islamabad, Pakistan.
