DAWN: Nadeem Paracha: OP-ED: When on December 18 leaders from more than a dozen radical religious parties, certain down-and-out politicians, one very verbose former ISI chief and the son of a bygone and dead dictator graced the ‘Defend Pakistan’ rally organised by the controversial Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD), I wondered, was the military touched by this gesture? Were the military’s top cats elated by the sight of some very loud and angry beings saluting the country’s army, all the while spitting venom at the government and, of course, a Hindu India along with the US crusaders? Or was the military embarrassed?
I mean, the cat has certainly not popped out of the bag so openly before. In other words, there has always been talk of how the military — ever since Yahya Khan’s misadventures in the former East Pakistan, and especially ever since the reactionary Ziaul Haq dictatorship — has been playing footsie with radical Islamist parties to undermine any force supposedly threatening the country’s sovereignty. Of course, sovereignty in this specific context usually means safeguarding the political and institutional hegemony and influence of the establishment and of ‘Pakistan ideology’, manufactured by the establishment (with the help of the once anti-Jinnah ulema and their urbane ideologues) from the 1970s onwards.
Editor’s Note: This opinion peace by Nadeem Paracha, highlights what is really the ultimate danger to Pakistan’s existence. And that is the short sighted, almost stupid and obsessive involvement of Pakistan’s army and ISI with the extremist militants in Pakistan. It was Pakistan’s army that presided over the first breakup of Pakistan, will it be the one that will see the second breakup too? May Allah save us from our saviors.
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