Asim Rafiqui: There is a question that is often left unasked: what purpose do these executions – of children, of the mentally ill, of the tortured and the poorest of Pakistan’s citizens, say about the structures of the State and its legal arm? Personally, I think we have to move past the conventional arguments about the cruelty of this practice, or the suspect nature of the judicial process (bribes, corruption, etc.), and examine more closely the place of executions, and general state violence, in the State’s attempt to project power, control, process and legitimacy towards a citizenry that has never quite accepted its right to any of these things!
Capital punishment reflects the divisions within Pakistani society and the fundamental lack of democratic political discourse in the country. Performative acts such as executions – and they are performative in that most supporters claim that they ‘deter’ crimes and discourage people against violence – are also a reflection of the relationship the State wants to and needs to maintain with the populace. It reflects the deeply hierarchical, layered and fragmented nature of the society. Capital punishment is largely aimed at the poorest members of our society, and the most vulnerable – the very people most distant from power and membership in the law. It re-instantiates the presence of political power, and sheds light on who holds the power of life and death. It reminds us that the State is all powerful, and can take your life. The law in Pakistan, particularly the use of the law for capital punishment, is less an act of justice and more an act of vengeance and control. It is an announcement that there are powers that can act, and do so with no need or desire to hear or understand the people the violence is being committed against.
Also note, capital punishments are unleashed on the poor and the weak on the basis of popular arguments that have nothing to do with them. The War Against Terror has been used in Pakistan to justify this latest round of State sanctioned murders. They are killing people who have nothing to do with the reasons because of which the death penalty was reinstated. And that is what they are – useless murders that offer not justice, but a sense of ‘action’ to a State bereft of any other form of action within its reach. Much like the decision to simply murder people in Waziristan, or disappear them in Baluchistan, the use of violence by the state reflects a terrible admission of helplessness, and an acknowledgement of distance and disengagement with the very society it claims to represent.
To oppose the death penalty – and there are many fantastic reasons to do so including the fact that the judicial process is flawed, that it is discriminatory against the weak, that it is cruel and inhumane – is to also ask for greater democratic participation and rights. It may seem disconnected, but if you think about it, you will see that it isn’t. To oppose the death penalty would be to begin to not only engage with the individual accused, but to also engage with the system of society that may have created the act of violence in the first place. From a greater resort of rehabilitation and psychological support, to the courage to understand the root causes of capital crimes (property disputes, female inheritance denial, etc.) would require the State to move closer to society, and for the society to have a greater responsibility towards preventing such crimes and recognising that murder isn’t a just response to murder. The ability to kill citizens happens in the prisons, just as it happens in Waziristan and Baluchistan. Capital punishment reflects a deeply hiearchical, non-democratic, divided society – the state lords it over the people, killing at will (exploiting the law), to make a point of its superiority in power and means. Capital punishments are meant to silence the people, and demonstrate the awesome power of the state over them.
What we lack is an intelligent discussion about the role of the state and its relationship to its citizens. A state that kills its citizens announces that it sits beyond the citizens, and that citizens are simply beholden to its dictates. The state can murder, without penalty and this we are to believe does not lead to disorder or greater use of murder by other state arms. The citizen however cannot murder because that leads to chaos and encourages others to kill. The State has to move closer to the citizens, and the citizens have to become closely involved in the penal system i.e as advisors, doctors, volunteers, psychologists, psychiatrists, rights advocates, care givers and care takers. That is, the State has to see criminals as citizens, and the citizens have to see the penal system as not apart from our society, but an inherent part of our society. The part that works towards reducing the levels of violence that today surrounds us, and that focuses less on draconian, English-boys-school like punishment, but one where its opens itself up to greater participation by the people.
Of course, our colonial legal heritage is quite evident here – if not in the actual laws, but in the idea of what the law is there for: all institutions have an ethos and a set of values around which their operations are designed and towards which these operations deliver results. Colonial law delivered control and domination. This ethos remains embedded in the Pakistani legal system, where the structures and operations of the law continue to be about domination and control. And killing. To question the death penalty then is also to question the failure of democratic structures in Pakistan. To demand the end of the death penalty then is also a people’s attempt to have a greater say in the functioning of the State – to have greater democratic participation, given that the State remains so singularly committed to it. It is a people’s need to have a dialogue with a State that has no interest in such a dialogue. In the mean time, we mourn the killing of this young man, and yet again wonder if there will be a moment when as a people, and as a society, we will progress beyond confusing killing as justice, and find a way to reduce violence in our society, and a State that actually sets this example by withdrawing its tools of death, its weapons of war, its militaries of occupation, and begins to engage and connect. More here.