The split screen carried two distinct realities.
As opposition protesters were being chaotically pushed back, the Prime Minister was staging an elegant agreement-signing with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko in the same city. This juxtaposition revealed the widening disconnect between important state priorities and urgent ground realities.
The Prime Minister’s government had worried the PTI’s Nov. 24 protest in Islamabad would undermine the state visit. It need not have been. Lukashenko, “Europe’s last dictator,” is a practiced hand at putting down dissent, his wide-scale suppression admired by aspiring authoritarian regimes. Lukashenko’s three days here went swimmingly.
In this latest battle, the PTI and Islamabad sank themselves in an all-or-nothing dilemma. Each, with screeching hyperbole, eroded its credibility further. But jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s side of the saga seems slightly more compelling.
“[Information Minister] Attaullah Tarar said there had been no firing on PTI protesters and no fatalities,” The Guardian reported on Nov. 27. Citing unnamed official sources, the British publication confirmed fatalities on both sides, and said it saw “at least five patients with bullet wounds in one hospital, which was surrounded by police.” The report included a claim by an attending emergency doctor: “All records of dead and injured have been confiscated by authorities. We are not allowed to talk. Senior government officials are visiting the hospital to hide the records.”
Appearing on live TV last evening from the streets of Islamabad, Tarar fawned over Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, who was by his side, for enduring their own government’s shoot-and-shell orders. Relieved but taunting, he said security forces, including from the Army, went soft on the protesters, using only rubber pellets and teargas to repel the march. “That woman…” said Tarar of Mrs. Khan, wanted “dead bodies” as martyrs. This inhumane ambition, he said, was thwarted.
“They are using slingshots!” Tarar said of the tens of thousands PTI followers who breached cordons and entered Islamabad. He held up bullet casings and marbles to the cameras as evidence of the marchers’ violence. More proofs, he said, would be laid bare “at an appropriate time.”
Both men folded in added otherizing. They claimed some 2,000 of the protesters were either wanted criminals or Afghan refugees, including a 16-year-old boy who had been arrested, and that these foreigners would be made examples of. “We will not talk to refugees!” They dared “cowardly and crying” Khan supporters to make another move.
Moving global opinions, international coverage has been noticeably anti-Goliath. So Tarar attempted a reputation-rescue mission at this press appearance. Switching to English he made an “appeal” to foreign media. “You are trying to portray that the government is coming down hard on a peaceful protest,” he said. “Please. I have [allegedly protester-pelted] shells and marbles in my hand.”
His mission appears to have failed. Richard Grenell, foul-weather ally of Trump, posted of Pakistan: “Their Trump-like leader is in prison on phony charges and the people have been inspired by the U.S. Red Wave.” On the Democrat side, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was harsher: “The brutal suppression of protesters in Pakistan and growing political violence is an attempt to suppress democracy and human rights. I stand with the brave Pakistanis who are rising up and protesting for change.” Such remarks will sharpen global scrutiny of Pakistan’s domestic unrest and environment, threatening diplomatic fallout.
Khan’s zealously loyal supporters—reeling, like others, from an unending cost-of-living crisis and worried about their prospects—made their point by evaporating barriers in effortless unity, with ropes and push and adrenaline, making themselves heard and felt.
Scenes from Tuesday afternoon were remarkable. Soldiers stationed on top of stacked shipping-container barriers in front of Parliament helped hoist some protesters aloft. They embraced and took selfies. Later, at the same spot, another set of troops shoved a protester offering his prayers off the three-decked container barricade. It all went viral. These contrasting moments—solidarity and hostility—capture the unpredictability of our volatile political landscape, dissected by split realities.
Let’s not seed any more rebellion. The Army, and the government, should not take this demonstration as affront and keep any dangerous desire for retribution checked. If this quarrel continues it will keep the government far from attaining economic stability—an aspiration that is used as argument to keep unpredictable Khan imprisoned. Unresolved, it won’t just be split screens showing different realities that furrow brows—it will be an increasingly split nation keeping Pakistan up at night.
Ahmed is the editor of this news platform. This piece was updated on Nov. 28 for additional clarity.