A BASIC, though major, error the government has made in the process of dialogue with the outlawed TTP so far is to entirely ignore the narrative war. As far as the government is concerned anything that reduces the level of violence in the short and medium term is an idea worth pursuing, regardless of other — less tangible, though no less important — consequences for state and society. Consider the ideological war that is being fought through propaganda and intimidation by the TTP. The latest audacious move on that front was creating and putting online a website run by the TTP’s media wing, Umar Media. The website was accessible for part of yesterday before apparently being taken down, but thus far there is little clarity whether the blackout was ordered by authorities here or whether the website has been taken offline for violating the terms of use of a foreign website-hosting company. Either way, the very fact that the TTP decided to publicly announce the creation of an official website indicates that the propaganda war is being taken to the next level by the group.

Why do narratives matter to begin with? Consider how the country has once again arrived at the stage where a government finds it easier to negotiate with than to take on the TTP. Even though it had long become clear that the TTP’s ideology is an intolerant and murderous one, the religious and political right continued to hawk the line that the Taliban were simply conservative patriots who resented Pakistan’s assistance in the war on terror — and that once the state’s allegedly misguided policy was reversed, the militants would lay down their arms. Because that narrative was not effectively or forcefully challenged, it eventually became the starting point for dialogue at all costs — regardless of what the TTP itself said about its goals and intentions.

Now, with violence and intimidation of the media having silenced the most vocal critics of the TTP and the government’s policy of appeasement, there is little left by way of a counter-narrative in the public domain. Whether it is via ideological allies in mainstream politics and the media or directly executed by the TTP itself, the Taliban worldview is the one being aggressively hawked — and the only one that is aggressively competing for the hearts and minds of the public. That one-sided battle can have tremendously dangerous effects because it brings more and more concessions to the TTP into the realm of the acceptable as far as public opinion is concerned. What Pakistanis really need to hear, what the government truly ought to be reinforcing is that Pakistan is a democratic, constitutional polity in which individual rights and freedoms are sacrosanct. The alternative is the Taliban worldview — and, again, it’s practically the only one being projected at the moment.