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Terrorism in Pakistan and the

discourse of denial

Asher John

Perpetrators of terrorist activities are presented as devoid of any social or religiousaffiliations and hence become the part of an abstraction that leads to more confusionand ambiguity

Language is one of the most powerful and creative human tools. The most basicfunction of language is to pass information, but language is also used to communicate

emotions, feelings, desires, ideas, opinions, and beliefs. These later functions with thehelp of mass media have become very important in modern times. Mass media hasbecome an effective tool in the hands of politicians and ideologues for exploiting and

manipulating language to propagate their respective agendas and ideologies.Ideologies, in turn, organise specific group attitudes and these attitudes are used in theformation of personal and group opinions that are expressed in everyday discourse.Linguists and cognitive scientists agree that our discourse is not only shaped by theworld we live in but also shapes the world for us.

The use of language for molding public opinion in the backdrop of a terror-riddencountry can be best seen in the discourse of right wing politicians, a number of religious

leaders (these have a soft corner towards the perpetrators of terrorist activities), andsympathisers of Taliban in mass media. This article attempts to shed some light on theuse of discourse to confuse and mislead the populace by apologists and appeasers of

terrorist activities that are openly and brazenly committed and claimed by Tehreek-e-

Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its affiliates throughout Pakistan and beyond.

There is a list of words that is used to refer to the Taliban. The list includes words likeour children, our people, stakeholders, hurt party, drone victims, reactionaries,and misguided youth. These are the words that carry positive, neutral, and non-

negative connotations, and hence represent these murderers of innocent citizens in anacceptable manner to the public. Many in the public take these words seriously andaccept this representation as reality and in spite of being very angered and shocked atthe frequent occurrences of terror attacks refuse to blame the Taliban.

Another category (collocations or groups of words) that is used to refer to perpetratorsof the terrorist activities uses words that have no solid or tangible referents, and the

actors referred to cannot be pinpointed. One of the favourites and top of the list in thiscategory is namaaloom afraad (unknown people). This is the term that is used to refer

to any kind of killers from Himalayas in the north to Karachi in the south. Then thereare words like non-humans, secret hand, foreign element, saboteurs of peaceefforts, people with no religion,conspirators, and foreign agents. These are all

words that are very abstract because so far not a single person has been arrested andshown to be a foreign agent or a person with no religion.

Another tool in the hands of the defenders of Taliban is the usage of certain phrases

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and sentences that are used to refer to the acts of terror and the terrorists involved inthese events. Perpetrators of terrorist activities are presented as devoid of any social or

religious affiliations and hence become the part of an abstraction that leads to moreconfusion and ambiguity. Top of the list in this category is: No Muslim can do such athing, and is followed by many like The perpetrators of such crimes have no religion,

The basic reason for terrorism is following the agenda of foreign forces, Taliban are

not involved in terrorism, Taliban are just being maligned, The acts of terrorism arecommitted by foreigners backed by Mosad, RAW, and CIA, Acts of terror are a

conspiracy by the foreign forces to destroy our national unity, There is a foreign handinvolved in the acts of terror, Its an international conspiracy against Islam, Its aconspiracy against the citadel of Islam, and last but not least, It is a conspiracy tograb our atom bomb. Once again all these utterances have no solid grounding in therealities of life in Pakistan. So far Pakistan has not officially claimed that any foreignhand or hands are involved in the acts of terror and suicide bombings in the country. If

any foreigners are involved they are the ones who are members of al Qaeda and guestsof Taliban in FATA.

As a result of this discourse of denial our public stands confused and divided on the

issue of terrorism and this confusion and obfuscation can prove to be a big stumblingblock in any government initiative regarding terrorism. If Pakistan has to win its war

against terror it will have to wrest back the narrative and respond very effectively tothis discourse of denial. The response will require clear thinking and framing of the

narrative in very concrete and specific terms. A good start will be calling a spade aspade and telling the public truth and naming the criminals behind acts of terror. This isthe only way that the government can have masses at its back when it decides toconduct a military operation against the Taliban.