In a move that has simultaneously infuriated human rights groups and provided the UK Foreign Office with its most vigorous afternoon of tutting since the Brexit negotiations, Pakistani authorities have jailed a prominent activist for the audacious crime of demanding to know what happened to a bunch of people who mysteriously vanished. The activist, whose name I shall not utter lest I trigger a diplomatic incident involving a strongly worded letter and possibly a slight stiffening of the upper lip, has been sentenced for attempting to hold the state accountable for its missing citizens. It is, if you will, the sort of behaviour that gives activism a bad name: namely, effectiveness.
The Foreign Office, in a statement that could have been penned by a particularly agitated parrot, has demanded 'due process' and 'full consular access.' One imagines the missive was composed on a crisp white sheet of linen paper, accompanied by the fragrant aroma of Earl Grey and the quiet, mournful clink of a teaspoon. The statement is the diplomatic equivalent of a parent sighing from another room while a child smashes a window. It is firm. It is principled. It is absolutely, utterly impotent.
Let us examine the sheer, surrealist comedy of this situation. Pakistan, a nation that has turned the phrase 'disappeared persons' into an art form, has decided that the most pressing threat to national security is a man with a clipboard and a sense of moral outrage. The activist is guilty of the heinous crime of 'anti-state activities.' This is a charge so vague it could be applied to a man wearing the wrong colour socks on a Tuesday. The 'disappeared' are not gone; they are merely taking an extended, state-sponsored holiday from habeas corpus. And the UK, a country that once colonised half the world and now specialises in gentle remonstrance, has asked politely for a bit of fairness. How delightfully British.
I can picture the Foreign Office mandarins now, huddled around a mahogany table, their faces a perfect Venn diagram of concern and constipation. 'We must issue a carefully worded demarche,' one will declare, adjusting his monocle. 'Perhaps a strongly worded telephone call to the Pakistani High Commissioner? With a spot of lunch, of course.' The response from Islamabad will no doubt be a ritualised dance of reassurance: 'We value our bilateral relationship. We are investigating. The activist will receive a fair trial. Now, about those trade agreements…'
The activist, meanwhile, will sit in a cell that smells of stale cumin and despair, his only consolation the knowledge that his plight has generated exactly 4.7 column inches in The Guardian and a tweet from an MP whose constituency is 3,000 miles away. The 'disappeared' will remain disappeared, their families left to wonder if their loved ones are in a ditch or a torture chamber. And the UK Foreign Office will continue to do what it does best: expressing grave concern while offering absolutely nothing of substance.
This is theatre. The activist is the tragic hero, the Pakistani state the villain with a lazy eye, and the UK the audience that boos but remains firmly in its seat. We cluck our tongues, we sign petitions, we feel a fleeting sense of moral superiority as we sip our lattes and scroll past the next atrocity. But nothing changes. The disappearances continue. The jails fill. And the Foreign Office, that great bastion of well-meaning uselessness, will keep demanding due process until the last disappeared man has been turned to ash and the last activist has been silenced.
So raise a glass, if you will, to the brave man in a Pakistani cell. And another to the Foreign Office, for providing us with such a magnificent, hollow pantomime of concern. The show must go on, after all, and there is no audience quite so satisfied as one that has paid for its ticket with a broken conscience.
