TUESDAY’S earth-shattering killings in Peshawar took place on the 44th anniversary of the Pakistani surrender in Dhaka. Coincidence it might be, but what a poignant one.

Tragedy can precipitate momentous change. The government-commissioned Hamood-ur-Rahman report confirmed that a sweeping overhaul was necessary if what remained of Pakistan was to emerge on the other side of 1971 bolder, better, and more just. In short, we had an opportunity to write a new script, to come to terms with the fact that the hitherto conceived ‘Pakistani nation’ was a myth that just did not correspond to our existing material reality.

Sadly, although in hindsight, predictably, we decided only to reassert our ‘Islamic’ essence with greater vigour than before. One argument is that the roots of ‘Islamisation’ can be traced to the early 1970s, before the coming to power of the Zia junta, when a thoroughly demoralised military establishment initiated a covert programme to finance and train guerrilla fighters — those who soon afterwards became known as the mujahideen.

Tragedy can lead to crucial changes.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Burhanuddin Rabbani and others who would become prized ‘strategic assets’ — all had been patronised by the Pakistani security apparatus for years before the Soviet ‘invasion’ of Afghanistan. The politics of jihad was not a defensive reaction to the communist superpower, it was a well-thought-out, long-term strategy to change the face of the region, and indeed Pakistani society itself.

In the final analysis, then, the depths plunged between March and December 1971 did induce change. More than four decades later, there can be no gainsaying just how much the jihadi infrastructure and ideology have transformed our lives.

Yet, predictably, we simply refuse to acknowledge the historical choices and political-economic structures that have given rise to a form of violence that is eating away at our collective psyche. Within hours of the attack on Tuesday, everyone and sundry was chanting the standard slogans about wiping out the last of the terrorists, and backing our heroic soldiers.

We have heard it all before, and it is very likely that we will hear it again. Only two weeks ago I wrote on these pages about the need to critically interrogate what the North Waziristan operation has truly achieved. That half a dozen men dressed in paramilitary uniforms marching into an army-run school in broad daylight and killing more than 130 children in cold blood only induces nationalistic refrains about taking ‘Zarb-i-Azb’ to its logical conclusion is an indicator of just how emaciated our political imagination has become.

The truth is that we refuse to see the political economy of jihad for what it is. There are dozens of political organisations in the mainstream — including those in elected government — that cobble together a statement or two in the wake of such incidents, but never venture further because to do so would be to implicate themselves.

Lest we forget, it was only a few short weeks ago that the former emir of the Jamaat-i-Islami Munawwar Hasan announced that ‘Qital-fi sabilillah’ is mandatory for all pious Muslims. Many would see this as an invocation to the types who carried out Tuesday’s attack.

Most implicated, it would appear, are the men in khaki themselves. I do not feel the need to be politically correct and avoid criticism of our esteemed top brass just because it was an army-run school that was the scene of Tuesday’s horror. Indeed, it is precisely the fact that too many of us remain silent about the military establishment’s patron­age of the politics of jihad that allows the jihadi infrastructure to strengthen further with each passing day.

One day something will have to give. In the media, in our schools, on the floor of parliament, maybe even within military barracks — the historical myths and ideological edifices of ‘Pakistaniat’ will have to be subjected to public censure. We will have to explode the falsehood that is Pakistani exceptionalism. We will have to call a spade, a spade.

Till now, the only language in which this dialogue has taken place is that of violence. Whether it is the violence of the ‘terrorists’ or the violence of the state, both claim legitimacy in the name of Islam. They are two sides of the same coin.

Only when religion is separated from the affairs of the state will there be hope of stopping the carnage. This does not amount to a conspiracy against Islam, as the mullahs scaremongering always suggests. It means only to say that religion does not have to be the source of all legitimacy, particularly in the realm of politics.

Jihad has been mainstreamed by the generals and their ideologues across the length and breadth of society. And it is in the trenches of this brutalised society that the decisive phase of this battle must be fought.

The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2014