A THRONG of men encircle leaping flames. They are energised, holding mobile phones aloft to capture the moment. By now, we all know what they are filming, and we are shocked, sickened, scared. Those who feel distanced from this horrific violence — immune by virtue of their class privilege or majority status — should look again. This is what state failure looks like, and it affects us all.

Mob violence is ascendant in Pakistan. And when mobs gather to beat, break and burn, the public focus is on how the state failed in the moment; how it failed to anticipate the violence, defuse the situation or use law-enforcement tactics to control the mob. Police officials are re-posted and inquiries launched, but often to no avail. And so we also recognise impunity as a form of state failure — from Joseph Colony to Jaranwala, none that have joined mobs have faced the legal consequences.

What we have not yet fully acknowledged is that state failure is evident not only in the state’s inability to control and punish mobs, but in their very existence. The truth is the mob exists because the state is weak and compromised enough that it needs the mob to survive, to perpetuate its power. In her work on Vigilantes and the State, Rebecca Tapscott argues that........

© Dawn