PTM and Parkland protests: movements born in tragedy

I almost missed the only good news I have seen about Pakistan lately. How it is possible for a devoted Pakistan watcher in Washington to miss what may turn out to be a defining moment in modern Pakistan history is unclear, but I did. I missed the report of the extra-judicial murder of Naqeebullah Mehsud and the news it had spawned a movement that is called the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), perhaps because neither evoked much press coverage. It seems to have grown swiftly and already conducted a sit-in in Islamabad and rallies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that drew many protesters. When I came recently across the news of the movement and what it was about, I also discovered that its leaders were young, ordinary citizens. And that led me to believe that it was not just another protest that will cause a few traffic jams before it goes away but could be an important new development in Pakistan politics. This is, in part, because it seemed to me that the movement had a dynamic that might make a difference. It reminded me strongly of the similar movement led by young men and women against gun violence in the US that has drawn hundreds of thousands people into the streets of our cities and towns.

The two movements are similar in genesis: they spring out of tragedy, the murder of Mehsud in Pakistan, and another mass shooting in a high school in the US in which 17 students were killed. They are similar in their spontaneity, both having sprung up almost overnight. They are similar in their aims—to effect social change that their elders cannot seem to manage through political action. And they are similar in their makeup, started and led mainly by millennials, supported by a large variety of likeminded people, including their parents and families. Another similarity: in millennial style, they both use social media to their advantage and use social media call signs to distinguish themselves, #neveragain in the US; #PashtunLongMarch2Peshawer in Pakistan.

The PTM leaders are surprisingly effective at organizing and getting through the legal and social hurdles

The US movement sprang up immediately after the mass shooting at a High School in Parkland, Florida. It was the inspiration of the kids of the school, some of them not old enough to vote but whose objective is to influence voters to insist that state Legislatures and the US Congress pass legislation that restricts gun ownership. The absolute right to own any kind of gun in any number has been the third rail of US politics for the past 50 years, with the National Rifle Association (NRA) with its large membership deep and deep pockets seeming an immovable political barrier until now. Pundits gave them no chance at all, but they garnered so much voter support in Florida that the Florida Legislature passed a law that restricts gun ownership. The determination and effectiveness of these young kids, in beating the NRA in Florida of all places where the NRA was supposedly unbeatable, astonished a lot of us older folks.

And these kids are not stopping with Florida; they have mobilized nationwide and are bringing pressure in other states and on Congress, and those over 18 are promising to turn out in droves to vote out incumbents who continue to be in thrall to the NRA and its money. Yes, the movement has been aided by a larger resistance climate, spurred by the election of Donald Trump, whose misogyny and racism/nativism has galvanized a vocal and strong women’s movement, as well as active resistance movements among minority ethnic groups. Added to the millennials, if these groups turn out in large numbers at the November polls, Trump will face a hostile Democratic Congress his final two years in office (if he lasts that long).

But it is the Pashtun movement in Pakistan that is more interesting to me because it looks like a first. And it looks like the real thing—a real protest movement aiming at political change, and which could easily spread to non-Pashtun millennials, and could just as easily widen its political objectives to real political change on the national level. My Pakistan friends will say I am dreaming, and I very well may be, but I prefer to say I am hoping.

The PTM leaders are surprisingly effective at organizing and getting through the legal and social hurdles that usually frustrate wannabe protest group leaders. To organize their rallies and get people to them, they raised funds by tapping the Pashtun professional class and youth as well as the diaspora. Hence, no need to depend on landlords and contractors. As they were ignored by the mainstream media (which is why I and many others missed their launch), they relied on social media to spread the word of the Mehsud murder and the need to seek justice through the PTM. Most importantly, probably, the PTM went after the young Pashtuns, and especially large numbers of young Pashtun women, throughout Pakistan and overseas. They paid particular attention to those associated with the two Pashtun political parties and to the Pashtun middle and professional classes. This enabled them to avert efforts by those parties to keep members from attending PTM rallies and giving other support, and to reject the claim made by some that the PTM is an agent of India or Afghanistan. And the movement has found a popular symbol that unites it—a traditional Pashtun red cap.

The PTM agenda for now looks to be limited to Pashtun rights. And that is a large and important agenda as press stories which have described the multifold ways in which they are treated as inferior citizens are shocking. The most often voiced complaint is arbitrary arrests and the connected issue of missing relatives who have been snatched away by the security forces without notice and anything resembling due process. Ironically, as one reads the many complaints one is reminded of an almost identical list of complaints which are heard from the citizens of Kashmir against the Indian army.

Whether the PTM will eventually find success in improving the lot of Pakistan’s Pushtun citizens (who make up I think about 15 % of the population) can’t be known now. It will depend, critically, on whether the movement has the perseverance and staying power to continue to keep the pressure on the government, to do so without resort to violence, which always makes governments more resistant to listening, and always provokes other parts of the public. It strikes me that the best strategy to succeed in its own aims for Pashtuns would be to broaden its base and its aims to other political problems of other groups which might be included in a popular movement. There are other Pakistanis whose rights are constantly infringed on too.  Women are the best and largest example. Other smaller and more helpless minorities, be they religious or ethnic minorities, should be attracted to a movement which fights for all persons’ rights. The kids in Parkland High School got it right. Movements usually need numbers, large proportions of the population who will benefit from joining in a general movement that fights for the rights of all those who have, in one way or another, had their rights infringed on, or feel their rights are about to be infringed on. The resistance is building in the US, the kids from Parkland joined with women and minorities will be an unstoppable force if they can remain together and work together for the objective of political change that benefits all. Pakistan is not in that place yet, and there are those who say that Pakistanis are too fragmented to ever be there. Gosh, I hope that is wrong and the PTM is the beginning of a young peoples’ movement that reverses that stereotype.

The author is a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC, and a former US diplomat who was Ambassador to Pakistan and Bangladesh