The Miscreants From Malakand

Re-branding of an enemy

I find it amusing when sometimes a single word, phrase or even a sight brings back memories from a distant past. Recently I was re-introduced to an old word after an absence of a couple of decades. The last time I heard this term was when my 2nd grade teacher was scolding one of my classmates, who had been caught sticking chewing gum to the chair seats of other unsuspecting students in the class. Lately this term is being employed to describe the armed militants in the once idyllic and peaceful valley of Swat. Looking back now, I am having a hard time in somehow linking the two with each other. The little mischievous 2nd grade kids of my yesteryears, even though little terrorists in their own right could hardly pass for the cold-blooded murderers of the Swat valley today, also known as the Taliban of Pakistan (TTP). There is no comparison, by any stretch of imagination.

This brings me to my current state of puzzlement. Why are these terrorists and murderers being placed in the same category as the 6 year old gum-chewing-and-sticking-to-seats brats?

I have looked and asked around but have been unable to get a satisfactory answer to this enigma of sorts. However, I am not alone in this quandary. BBC's correspondent, Barbara Plett, who had spent the last 4 years in Pakistan, covering the recent conflict was equally confused on the subject. She noted that most of the Pakistanis she has met speak excellent English, and also admitted that some speak it even better than her. However when she tried to explain to an official spokesman for the Pakistan government that the term 'Miscreants' is used to describe a villain or a bully which is a far cry from the armed and ruthless militants waging untold misery on the local population, she was met with a polite rebuff.

Is this a re-branding of an old product, or is this the marketing of an entirely new merchandize? Is it to differentiate between the old and proven, and the new and improved? Or is it to safeguard a known commodity from irreparable damage, which was at one time, a best seller? Like major corporations, all modern armed forces have their own public relation apparatus. This PR machine is used not just to inform, but also to tout the achievements, assets and future forecasts of the army as a whole. Pakistan army's PR machine, Inter Services Public Relations or ISPR, is one such entity. Major general Athar Abbas has conducted countless press briefings and sat on many interviews, and consistently has referred to these TTP militants as the 'Miscreants'. When I watch the senior army officers on TV talk shows and current affairs programs, they all address the TTP terrorists as the 'Miscreants' as if quoting from an official memo circulated throughout the ranks of the army officer's corps. Why this change? Why discard the use of the old and commonly used moniker of the 'Pakistani Taliban'? At first I thought I had missed out on some new development or was there a concerted effort to add to the limited and well used vocabulary of the army officers. But when I failed to detect any trace of sarcasm in the statements, the only plausible explanation was the intentional and institutionalized re-branding of the TTP by the Pakistani establishment.

It seems that the army in general and the intelligence community in particular wants to make a distinction between the so-called 'Good Taliban' and the 'Bad Taliban'. To further this agenda, by calling them the 'Miscreants' the goal is to wean the public away from the phrase 'Taliban' altogether and marginalize these militants into a form of petty thugs and criminals. In some respects this could prove to be a good move but the important question is will the ISPR be able to carry out this PR coup effectively?

While any PR campaign can fizzle out and fail to achieve the desired results, sometimes due to poor planning, sometimes due to bad timing, and yet sometimes due to bad research. I have faith in the army's PR arm to successfully accomplish this change of labels. My biggest concern however, is that this strategy could backfire just as well. There is a real danger that this might, in a way soften the ruthless and cold-blooded-murdering image of the TTP. The hard-line image that the TTP has worked so hard to establish for itself, as an intolerant and barbaric entity accomplished by back to back PR disasters, took a long time to accomplish. One after another, these PR catastrophes, which included the video of the public thrashing meted out to the little girl in the street of a Swat village, summary execution video of a couple accused of adultery, and the gruesome videos of beheadings of civilians and army soldiers, have exposed the TTP for what it truly is, a bunch of radical terrorists.

I have no doubt in my mind that the Pakistan army can and will defeat these criminals. Whatever the reasons for the changing of the label, be they cosmetic or strategic, the army must ride the high tide of public support against the TTP and not become an unintentional party to the softening of the TTP’s ruthless image. This must not happen at any cost and the media in general and the ISPR in particular must understand that it is equally important to win the PR war as it is necessary to win the military side of the conflict.