Though the intensity of the protests is now much more severe than what was noticed in Feb-March, the US doesn’t seem to be working overtime to douse the fires directly with an apology from President Barak Obama. Conventional wisdom is that the White House quickly steps in to assuage the hurt Pakistani feeling as it did when Raymond Davis, the American sleuth on contract work for the CIA found himself at the receiving end of the Pakistani intelligence and police. But it has not thus far. Probably because it had witnessed during the Davis saga that anti-American protests in Pakistan are a unique phenomenon.

Medieval practice it may be but Raymond Davis and his American handlers were happy to do as advised, and the judge quickly accepted the ‘money for death’ deal. The lawyer who represented the victims was absent in the court as he was ‘prevented’ from reaching the judge’s chambers. The victims’ family and the Judge himself ‘disappeared’ from Lahore after Davis won his freedom. And Lahore the home of Jamaat-ud-dawa, which is Lashkar-e-Taiba’s new incarnation returned to normal even as the Cessna plane carrying Davis was getting ready for take off.

This quick recap of ten-month –old protests is essential to put in perspective the reaction to the Salala attack. Thousands of students in Lahore and other cities have been staging mass protests over the US raid.  The organiser of the protests is Maulana Samiul Haq, chairman of Difa-e-Pakistan and chief of his own faction of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam. Formed on October 12, Difa-e-Pakistan is a platform for over 40 different religious groups and parties notably Ahl-e-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat (ASWJ, the new incarnation of banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan) and Jamatud Dawa (JuD). In short, it represents the Sunni orthodoxy and is bound by hatred for America and India. According to Maulana Sami-ul Haq, their gatherings are a clear message to US and a referendum for the government of Pakistan to immediately review its relations with America and other western allies.

One of the first acts of DPC was moving the Supreme Court against the NATO attack on Pakistani border posts.  Maulana Samiul Haq filed the petition four days after the Salala assault, seeking disclosure of secret agreements on drone attacks and the Shamsi airbase. “People of Pakistan are completely ignorant of the nature of understanding between Pakistan and the US. The federal government should make public all the secret agreements and contracts with the US”, he said in his petition filed through Advocate M. Muazzam Butt, and requested the court to direct the government not to allow any space (land, airspace or territory) to any country or their armed forces for launching operations inside or outside Pakistan.

The federal government of Prime Minister Gilani did not throw any spanner in the DPC works. It cannot afford to alienate the religious right in an election year. More over, the Gilani’s Pakistan People Party is no babe in the woods when it comes to exploiting religion.  The party–founder, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, not withstanding his liberal credentials, made the four-million Ahmediays of Pakistan, a non-Muslim minority, despite their great contribution to the country.  

Today, Ahmadis are faced with social boycott, and suffer silently like other religious minorities though Ahmadis claim to practice Islam in its pristine form; In fact, Ahmadiyya movement was founded with the motto of   revitalization of Islam.

Targeting India at the rally was a concession DPC accorded to JuD, which is India centric in all its manifestations. The perpetrator of mayhem in Mumbai in 2008 will not countenance any trade concessions to India when one of its foot-soldiers is awaiting execution in India’s most happening city. The ISI and the Army have no problem with MFN status to India. For them the open trade borders with India offers a much more cost effective means to target India. And their representatives were on the teams that had held discussions with India on trade liberalization, particularly transportation logistics.

Lahore rally held on Dec 19 saw ‘Defenders vow jihad against West, India’, as a headline in sedate Karachi daily Dawn said. Notwithstanding the presence of 40 odd outfits, the gathering was primarily a Jamaat-ud-Dawa-Jamiat-i-Ulema-Islam-S show, said the daily reported and went on to say “A grouping of right-wing parties swearing by jihad threw their bit into the political furnace in the country with a big public meeting at the historic Minar-i-Pakistan on Sunday (Dec 18)”.

The days ahead will see DPC turning into a touring jamboree moving from one city to another inciting people till the GHQ Shura signals ‘enough is enough’ for the present. That signal will be in the works only when the larger strategic objective is met. DPC can end up as Pakistan version of Muslim Brotherhood and herald Pakistan’s very own spring. But DPC is no MB and unlike MB, DPC lives on regulated supplies of Oxygen and the supplies depend on the prescription, which is not legible to the uninitiated.
 

Pakistan army, on its part, has outright rejected the regrets and condolences from NATO, US army and the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. It gives the impression that it is in no mood ‘to forgive and forget’. At least for the present.   The political leadership is going along with the army’s thinking. This is clear from the loud protestations from the floor of Parliament and the noises in the standing committee dealing with national security.

Experience shows that Pakistani protestations vis-à-vis the United States have limited shelf life. Mutuality of interests will bring them together sooner than the cynics can expect. History bears testimony to this truism