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| Cricket dies in Pakistan | | |
Nihal Singh
Tuesday’s shocking attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore, on their way to the stadium to play, is a tragedy for Pakistan, for Pakistani cricket and for the country’s future outlook. Although Pakistan is distressingly familiar with murders and killings, this is the first time a militant attack has been made on sportsmen, that too on a visiting team that braved Pakistan’s record to decide to play.
For Pakistanis, playing world-class cricket at home has become a rarity. Shunned by Australia and India for security reasons, the opportunity to play a visiting team has ended in bloodshed, although mercifully the visiting players escaped with non-life threatening injuries. It is, in effect, another nail in the coffin of cricket for a people who love the game, in common with their counterparts in other countries of the South Asian region. And this new great shock will probably bankrupt the cricket establishment in the bargain.
There are, of course, other greater issues thrown up by the Tuesday attack against the backdrop of heightened political tension and the controversial ceasefire agreed with the Taliban in Swat Valley. Americans have their own immediate concerns about Pakistan’s ability to concentrate on fighting Al Qaeda and the "bad Taliban". The new twist to the terrorist problem is proof, if proof were needed, that Pakistan’s problems lie within the country rather than with its quarrels with India.
Pakistan’s first order of business must be for President Asif Ali Zardari to resolve the problem with Nawaz Sharif, not by making empty gestures but by offering to rescind the ban on his electoral career, together with that of his brother Shahbaz Sharif, imposed by the Supreme Court whose bonafides have been widely questioned. There are legislative ways of going about it, and such a step would clear the decks for tackling problems of life and death.
Whatever the inner workings of the Army and its spy wing, the Inter-Services Intelligence, militants are biting the hand that fed it. At least at this late stage the Army must take on board the ISI in refusing to assist militant organisations. One cannot expect the anti-India mindset of the Army to disappear overnight, but surely the Army brass must recognise that it can no longer hold the country hostage to settling scores with India.
Pakistan has traditionally lived through tempestuous times in its 60 years, but never before have the complexities and dilemmas been as acute as they are today. The United States is looking at Pakistan largely through the prism of its objectives in Afghanistan. Insofar as the Obama administration has articulated them, these are to concentrate on emasculating Al Qaeda and the "bad Taliban" with the aim of making them incapable of attacking mainland America.
There is recognition now in Washington that anything but the most rudimentary form of democracy is out of Afghanistan’s reach and there is no stomach for a copybook democratic transformation that would take decades of effort. While the Pakistan Army might feel pleased that it would, in a matter of years, perhaps in less than a decade, reclaim its privileged position in its neighbourhood to give it strategic depth against India, intervening events would leave a very different Afghanistan.
For one, the Afghan-Pakistan border is more blurred than it has ever been and the ambitions of various branches of the Taliban and a host of terrorist organisations nurtured by the Pakistan establishment have skyrocketed. If the Army can surrender Swat to buy peace, where does it stop?
If the various elements that go to make up Pakistan’s ruling establishment would want to turn over a new page to save their country’s future, the problem would be where to begin. Indeed, it is important that they get their priorities right.
Only a true reconciliation between the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and sharing of power — something the two had agreed to in a compact — can offer the stage for tackling the Herculean problems of dealing with terrorism at home and fighting Al Qaeda and "bad Taliban".
Can the rulers of Pakistan measure up to the challenge? That must remain an open question. The portents are hardly encouraging, but they must realise the perils of inaction and wrong action. Some reports have been suggesting that Al Qaeda could take over Pakistan’s main industrial city of Karachi. And now in the heart of Pakistan, in its most populous and politically-savvy province, gunmen strike at a visiting cricket team that was doing the country a favour at its will must send shock waves.
By all accounts, many in Pakistan are living in fear about the morrow and this audacious attack that damages Pakistan in more ways than one could hardly bring them reassurance. There is little time to lose. The clock is already striking 10 minutes to midnight.
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