The psychological war on Pakistan

By Madiha Batool
September 16, 2011

http://www.weeklypulse.org/details.aspx?contentID=1223&storylist=2

Winning without actual fighting” was what Sun Tzu, the grand master of strategy, advocated more than 2500 years ago; winning without actual fighting is what we are witnessing around us today. The year 2001 has become symbolic of such historical significance that in countries like Pakistan, the year has become more significant than, perhaps, 1965 or 1971 in the history of the country. More important still, have been the impacts of this year on the world. With the international debate swinging from what 9/11 was and what it was not,the fact remains that the very basic facts about 9/11 are still not clear.

When the debate comes down to what happened on ground and what have been its impacts, architects differ, engineers differ and social scientists differ. Thus, the incident that rocked the very edifice of the international society, so to speak, cannot exhibit one single fact upon which everybody agrees. The impacts have also been divergent and enormous. However, one impact that has been uniform throughout the world - though not uniformly spread and uniformly intense – is the psychological impact of 9/11and its subsequent war on terror. Pakistan, the frontline state in the war on terror, has been in the forefronts of being impacted psychologically too as it has not only experienced the feel of“being in the war”but its very presence in the war has spilled over to almost all areas of its social life – threatening its very foundations.

Trauma is the first result of any kind of violence - with its degree being directly proportional to the intensity of the violence. Gone are the days when wars were fought on the outskirts of cities. We have grown in an age when every conflict, every war and every incident is brought to each and every doorstep. While this speaks of the immense power that the media – especially the electronic–exercises, it also betrays the fact that an incident happening to some person, whom I can identify with, is likely to have an impact on me … it might depress me, might create fear in me or might urge me to “do something” to stop it. Thus, ‘trauma’ to one will be a less intense trauma to the other too.

One can well gauge what effect the “collateral damage” in the war on terror has had on the families who have been made to suffer losses. The resentment, the depression, the anxiety and the frustration of those who have suffered such a loss is perhaps unimaginable. Unthinkable also,is the enormity of the losses that Pakistan has suffered in the war on terror and the plight of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’sspeech in May, 2011 talks of loss of “some 30,000 men, women and children and more than 5,000 armed forces personnel”.

An independent study conducted by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism titled “Covert Drone War” states that the total killed in these drone strikes range from 2,309 to 2,880 – with the civilian casualties between 392 and 783. A deeper analysis of the data reveals that collateral damage was the most severe in the year 2006 (97), followed by 2009 (92) and 2010 (82), respectively.Coupling this data with the frequent suicide bombings in Pakistan, one can comprehend what kind of trauma Pakistan has been suffering from, since the past ten years.

Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies (PIPS) puts the civilian casualties in armed conflicts between 2007 and 2011at 12,338 and civilian suicide bombing victims in the year 2010 at 1,049 across Pakistan. Psychiatrists warn of over-simplifying the phenomenon of suicide bombings and focus more on the frustration-aggression hypothesis to explain it. Thus, psychologically speaking, it is a combination of ‘deprivation’ and a ‘threat to personal integrity’ that explains why a person would opt to lose his life this way. These feelings of deprivation and threat to personal integrity have become deeply rooted in the psyche of the Pakistani nation as a result of the war on terror.

What this war has also lent to Pakistan is the identity crisis which the country is facing nowadays. Seeing the country entangled in the quagmire of this war, ethnic conflicts have become the norm of the day – only adding to the already complicated situation. Some even foresee the ‘balkanization’ of Pakistan as a result of it. A centre, weakened by the war on terror, is more prone to succumb to the psychological game that Pakistan has been long subject to. The businesses in Pakistan have also been psychologically affected. News of terror attacks have engendered economic uncertainty in Pakistan and have not only affected the FDI and increased unemployment in the affected areas, but also has had a negative impact on the consumer-investor confidence.

The largest and perhaps the most detrimental psychological effect of the war on terror has been what I would call the “fear syndrome”. This is the effect that raises many questions too – both for Pakistan and for the world at large. How is it that every year the tragedy of 9/11 is “almost re-enacted”? This year too, the New Delhi blast led to a whole new debate on how Pakistan and Pakistan-led groups were involved in terrorism abroad. September 08 UK newspaper headlines read stories like: “Terror alert grounds flight to Manchester”. “California school evacuated over bomb threat” was what happened in the US as this “bomb scare came amid jitters ahead of the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington”.

Every year, this “other-ization” is perpetrated at this time of the year which engenders a vicious circle in Pakistan – making it clear why anti-Americanism is the most selling word in the country. It is for the international media and for these fear perpetrators to answer whether they think they are doing some good to the cause of peace? Is it a well thought-out strategy that is being followed to psychologically “win” the war against Pakistan? Or is it a mere coincidence that such reports always come to the fore at this particular time? Do we feel that Pakistan is subject to a psychological war? And if yes, when will we act and say no to it?