Extremism is a thin line

SEVERAL commentators have expressed their concern and disbelief in the media, over the growing violence and escalating socio-political changes observed in Swat in the past few months.

While one can understand the common citizen’s empathy and outrage against the injustices committed by the militants, it is surprising why social scientists who are writing in the papers are a) wondering why the militants are waging such a successful war beyond the tribal areas; and b) why the Muslims of Pakistan are not protesting enough against such a blatant misuse of the Islamic agenda.

Never mind the obvious critique of how the peripheries have been ignored by the federal centre with regard to development, basic necessities and complete disregard for national inclusivity or participatory autonomy. Also let’s leave behind the sheer number of years of absence of the northern areas from the collective conscience of Pakistanis. Some elites actually wax nostalgically about the loss of a tourist destination in the fall of Swat.

There is also a certain irony in the activism of those liberals who protest the bombing of schools in Swat but never before have been troubled enough to campaign against the fact that thousands of school buildings lie empty around the country in the absence of teachers or enforcement of a decent curriculum, some right outside the cities we live in. Most have also accepted gender-segregated schooling as a necessary ‘cultural’ requirement.

In other words, it is only when extreme action is taken that our social conscience awakens temporarily only to succumb to an apolitical death. Meanwhile, we pretend that this extremism has taken place in what was otherwise normalcy. Also ignored is the fact that such social change emerges within a broader political environment that either sanctions or prohibits the momentum of such movements.

Under the masquerade of a liberal dictatorship, the last decade has witnessed the blatant project of the MMA to promote their political Islamisation programme. In exchange for their collaboration with Gen Musharraf, they earned the freedom to change the very political landscape of the NWFP. This was not only through the political access given to them by Musharraf to operate as a ‘legitimate’ government in the province but through an aggressive campaign to change its very social culture.

The MMA government delivered no development but did implant a conducive theocratic environment that is reaping benefits today, albeit for another and far more radical force sympathetic to the Taliban cause. It is naïve then to hope that censure from the supposed ‘moderate’ mainstream religious parties will somehow convince and counter the Taliban offensive anywhere in the country.

So today the federal government appeals to the mainstream religious leaders (some for a price) to declare that suicide bombing and prohibiting girls’ education is not the preferable way to legitimately pursue the Islamic agenda. However, the very cultural agenda of such parties, demonstrated over the last few years in the NWFP, institutionalised prohibitively restrictive gender roles, domestication of women and dress/appearance codes for even men.

They also were complicit in campaigns pitted against female enfranchisement and the drive for the systematic removal of women from all public visibility (including female forms such as mannequins!). The intolerance for entertainment such as music and movies as un-Islamic has logically led to the destruction of CD shops and attacks against women artists and activists. It is imperative to understand that these Islamist parties are not following some archaic agenda but are very much the product of a modernist politics and hence pursuing their vision accordingly.

Given this chain of events it is unrealistic to call upon religious parties to condemn such acts of violence. Such a strategy merely gives opportunists, such as Fazlur Rehman and Sufi Mohammad, credence as legitimate voices for the cause of ‘authentic’ Islam as opposed to the allegedly perverted version practised by the Taliban.

Indeed, such demands from troubled liberals of civil society are merely reinforcing the state policy of appeasing and negotiating with the more ‘moderate’ Islamists to counter the radical ones. This parley between what are essentially two faces of the same coin is political mockery. That’s the problem with moderates too — they want the coin alright, just the right side up. The political reality is, however, that conservatism whether in the form of religion or politics, will challenge and can easily displace the tolerant, liberal and moderate values unless the state enforces its own liberal identity categorically and uncompromisingly and civil society organises secular resistance.

Finally, what and to whom are we protesting? When the imposition of the Hasba bill was attempted in the NWFP; when Zill-e-Huma was murdered for her visibility as a woman in public service (almost as a precursor for Benazir Bhutto’s assassination); when Farhat Hashmi and other women preachers promote their own brand of privatised religion; when women running marathons is considered an aberrance; when minorities are harassed and the media is censored — all under the guise of acceptable conservatism, then it is only a fine definitional difference that qualifies the Taliban’s acts as extreme.

This concept regarding ‘writ of the state’ may be understood legally. However, how does a writ enforce itself culturally and sociologically? Even if militancy was curbed in some way, form or manner, do we really believe that the political articulation of religion is not going to continue to influence and dominate in the absence of any secular resistance?

Forget the state, most liberals are squirmish about the word and connotations and discussion of secular alternatives in Pakistan today. There is little or no possibility that some moderate reformist socio-religious formula is going to undo the conservative backlash that has just taken on an extreme expression. The question remains for those anxious Muslim reformists and revivalists whether they honestly believe the thin line between moderate, conservative and extreme interpretations of religion will ever remain adequately balanced.

What India should do

THE terrorist attacks in Mumbai have reignited a tiresome and dangerous blame game in India. Opinion leaders are having a field day making Pakistan look bad and India look good.

The terrorists have tarnished Pakistan’s image and the Indians can exult in their Mumbai moment if they wish. But if that is all that they do, they will be doing a grave disservice to the scores of people who lost their lives and were wounded.

In Pavlovian fashion, Pakistan’s opinion leaders continue to disavow any involvement in terrorism. However, international observers are convinced that the terrorists had Pakistani ties. Indeed, many suspect that their handlers were directly or indirectly connected with Pakistan’s intelligence agencies which have long been fighting a proxy war with India.

There is little doubt that if Pakistan is to survive as a nation-state, it needs to expunge terrorism from its strategic culture. But what is equally true is that India, if it is to attain greatness in the decades to come, needs to rethink its strategic culture. India’s leaders should see the Mumbai attack as a wake-up call. They are heirs to a long intellectual tradition of introspection. One hopes they will engage in a meaningful debate on the assumptions that gird their nation’s domestic and international policies.

But will India’s leaders engage in what is likely to be a painful process? It is hard to say. Since it gained independence from Great Britain in 1947, India has related to its smaller neighbours with magnanimity at certain times and with stinginess at others. The face of India which the world sees oscillates between generosity and hubris. Its diplomatic history is coloured by the contradictory comments of leadership and hegemony.

What are the false assumptions in India’s policies that need revisiting? First, that Indians can prevail in a limited war with Pakistan. Between two nuclear powers, a limited war is inherently limitless.

Second, that it can continue to be an economic powerhouse without resolving its congenital dispute with Pakistan. The dispute has led to a costly diversion of resources from productive to unproductive sectors in both countries. While keeping its economy on a war footing has devastated Pakistan, it has also held India back from realising its true potential. Foreign investment will not flow to India under the shadow of a nuclear war.

Third, that the dispute with Pakistan can be resolved bilaterally and does not require international mediation. Given the imbalance in political and military power between the two countries, the problem has defied a solution for six long decades. It is time to involve another power, one that both countries can trust. The US, now under a new president who brings no historical baggage to his role, is best suited to this task and should be invited in. The creation of the Taliban was linked to Pakistan’s desire to create strategic depth for itself in the event of an Indian invasion. The war against terror in Afghanistan, which largely revolves around the Taliban, cannot be won without resolving the Indo-Pakistani dispute over Kashmir.

Fourth, that India has well-trained security forces that can thwart a future terrorist attack. The sophistication of the terrorists in Mumbai was matched by the ineptness of India’s security forces. New Delhi’s weaknesses in this regard are the focus of a new report from the RAND Corporation which recommends numerous improvements.

Fifth, that there is no political or human rights problem in Jammu and Kashmir. New Delhi continues to argue that the state is an integral part of India and that it is governed democratically. So why is it that even the casual visitor to Kashmir finds himself or herself stranded in a garrison state? While estimates vary, the combination of military, paramilitary and police forces deployed in that state is probably in excess of half a million. The figure would dwarf the population which lives there, estimated at less than one per cent of India’s population.

Sixth, that India is a secular democracy where minorities are treated equally with the majority community. In this regard, the Rajindar Sachar Committee report on the status of Indian Muslims prepared in 2006 on behalf of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is a must read. But it is not just the Muslims who get the raw end of the deal in India. There have been many instances of Christians being treated poorly and of Catholic missionaries being burned alive. It is time for India to rein in the fascist influence of those who espouse Hindutva.

Seventh, that for India to be viewed as a great power, it also needs to become a military power with an ability to shoot ballistic missiles across the seven seas. Such power play hearkens back to the past. It does not beckon to the future. It is sad to see yesterday’s philosophy trumping tomorrow’s, as those who voice a view of greatness premised on hard power appear to have prevailed over those who propose a view based on soft power.

Eighth, that India has purged its polity of all economic and social ills and that it is a rising and shining power, an ‘Incredible India’. Just witness the howls of protest that were reported in the Indian media when the film, Slumdog Millionaire, got global recognition.

The story, seen through the eyes of a Muslim child who was orphaned when murderous Hindu gangs went on a rampage in the slums of Mumbai, was a timeless tribute to the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. It could have been written by Charles Dickens or Victor Hugo. Instead of absorbing the film’s lessons, a segment of the Indian elite expressed their contempt for the film’s raw depiction of the squalor and misery in India’s slums where millions eke out an existence. If they had their way, films would put the spotlight on India’s new economy, its Silicon Valley and its lunar rocket programme.If India’s leaders revisit these eight assumptions, they can ensure that one day in the future India will be recognised as a great power. And if they don’t, India will continue to be, as only Nirad C. Chaudhuri could have put it, a ‘Continent of Circe’, the Greek goddess who used a magical potion to transform her enemies into pigs.

The author is an associate of the Pakistan Security Research Unit at the University of Bradford.

faruqui@pacbell.net

Can we stand a Gaza-like blitz?

CAN a Pakistani city stand a Gaza-like blitz by an enemy for 24 hours much less three weeks at a stretch? Do we as a people have the pluck and the nerve the 1.5 million Gazans demonstrated, packed as they are in a strip of land at best six miles deep at its widest and 24 miles long?

They suffered 1,300 dead, which comes to less than 0.1 per cent of the population. Estimating the population of the nation’s biggest city to be a minimum of 10 million, Karachi could be asked to handle over 8,000 dead, with twice that many injured, besides colossal destruction if an enemy pours its fire at the level done by Israel. I pray to God such a day never arrives, but are the medical services in our big cities — Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi-Islamabad — equipped with men and material and hospital space to handle a humanitarian disaster of such magnitude?

Mind you, Gaza has been under an Israeli blockade for the last 18 months. The ‘disengagement’ fraud perpetrated on the world by Ariel Sharon in August 2005 left Gaza’s land, air and sea exits in Zionist control. Besides, in his infinite wisdom Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak keeps the Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only link with an Arab country, closed. Food and medical supplies even in ‘normal’ times are below the minimum requirement; during the 22-day blitz all supplies ceased as Israeli artillery and air force rained phosphorus bombs and depleted uranium on homes, hospitals, schools, mosque, refugee camps, UN relief centres and on the tunnels which are Gaza’s life line.

Yet, hats off to the Palestinian men, women and children! There was no panic, there was no looting of the available stuff in such shops as were there, and volunteers joined medical services in helping the victims buried under tonnes of rubble, dying, shrieking and writhing in agony.

Pakistani cities are well stocked with food. You only have to go through our bazaars and shopping centres to see that they are overflowing with edibles and goods and imported stuff of all sorts. Are we sure that in times of emergency these goods will still be available and not buried and stashed away from those who would need them?

The Bengal famine during the Raj killed millions of people. Who was to blame? In Blood Brothers, his autobiography in novel form, M.J. Akbar writes a dialogue that takes place between the ‘natives’ and the British officers of a given company. The natives, Hindus and Muslims, blame the British, holding them responsible for the death from starvation of millions of their countrymen.

What the Britons said can be paraphrased like this: was the rice crop this year less than usual? No. Was there a sudden increase in the number of mouths demanding rice? No. All that took place was an air raid by the Japanese on Calcutta, and suddenly rice disappears. Before the air raid, rice was selling for three rupees a maund; it went up to five rupees, then 10, then 20 then 100 rupees a maund. Who was responsible? Not the British, for it is the Indian traders and Marwaris and the seths who hid the rice stocks and made their compatriots die in millions.

There is no doubt the British had a point, for the South Asians have this inhuman streak in them. What was the relationship between Benazir’s assassination and the disappearance of wheat flour? Benazir is murdered, presumably by Baitullah Mehsud’s men in Rawalpindi, and wheat flour disappears from markets in Quetta and Karachi and Peshawar. And then for months, when flour is finally available, it is of poor quality with a lot of rotten stuff mixed in, and the price is raised.

As a citizen and journalist who has lived through Karachi’s orgy of mob violence, gun battles, religious frenzy and arson for decades, I have noticed that in such crises as bomb blasts or even a minor inconvenience like rain our people add to the crisis instead of trying to mitigate it. Barriers go up at gas stations, transport disappears, restaurants close early, car owners are desperate to reach home as if war has broken out, they create traffic jams and, as divine justice would have it, get trapped themselves.

Decades of ‘training’ have given our people a mob psychology. They do not have the mental make-up of a nation united in spirit and action. In times of crisis even the behaviour of the educated is irrational. This is a serious reflection on the kind of philosophy preached by most political parties. The politicians have seldom preached tolerance and restraint. They have not taught us discipline; instead they have inculcated in us the virtues of learning the art of wheel-jam strikes, stoning and arson. Cartoons are published in Denmark, and 200 vehicles go up in flames in Lahore, and the Punjab Assembly building is attacked in a manner that it suffers structural damage. Often, the political parties congratulate themselves and the nation for making a nationwide wheel-jam strike a success.

The religious parties could have occupied a moral high ground if they had set a noble example. Instead their sermons and the religious idiom in which they couch their political rhetoric have made the people think such strikes are sacred and that you if destroy and burn and kill you do no harm to yourselves or to humanity. Perhaps they should remember Benjamin Disraeli’s words spoken in the 19th century: “We must educate our masters, the people, or else we would be at the mercy of a mob masquerading as democracy.”

Fewer guns, more provinces

THE best soap opera writers could not write a script matching our political on-goings. Our politicians are carrying out serious backroom negotiations about party alliances, contemplating crossing the floor for personal gains, while reminding us of their ethical values in their undying support for their party.

The media has done a wonderful job of reporting whose car was spotted in whose driveway, and which drawing room hosted members from another party. This at a time when the country stands at a dangerous crossroads.

Our posturing with India for more and yet more evidence may well have been a stance aimed at underlining the absence of any government involvement. Do we really need more evidence for undertaking an exercise in self-evaluation? A cursory glance at the current state of affairs shows a dismal, deteriorating picture.

The basic problems of infrastructure aside, we are facing a serious social breakdown in many areas. Chief among these is the proliferation of guns. Add elements such as tribalism, abject poverty, lack of education, ethnic tension, and antiquated systems, and we have the makings of a perfect storm.The horrible images imprinted in our memories, just over the past year, include bombings and violence witnessed in Peshawar, Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi, Multan, Quetta, Swat, Dera Ismail Khan — did each name bring back a dreadful memory? I remember seeing the carnage that followed soon after the American invasion in Iraq. It was sickening at first, and splashed across the front pages of newspapers.

After a few months, the coverage moved to the second page, and reading about suicide bombings and sectarian violence was not even news to me anymore. It was almost as if I had gotten used to it, and it saddened me deeply to think that I had become so impervious to tragedy. The news coming from Pakistan is starting to feel the same way.

Government officials are quick to show that they are dealing with the aftermath, and working on apprehending those involved. They are only focusing on dealing with the mayhem currently at hand. What is desperately needed is a comprehensive strategy to tackle the underlying problems. It may sound a bit clichéd, but the solution lies in strengthening institutions dealing with law and order, education and re-aligning our political house.

There are some steps which the government can take which will go a long way towards a solution, such as truly dismantling militant groups (be they Lashkars or Jaishes), systematically confiscating and removing guns and weapons from society (whether they belonging to watchmen or hoodlums), and transforming the Federally Administered Tribal Areas into provinces. The case for each is easy to make.

I ask the politicians, would they encourage their sons to join a clandestine Jaish or Lashkar? I think if we are all true to ourselves, we would like to see our country defended by a strong disciplined army, and do away with clandestine militant groups. The point goes beyond whether India’s accusations are true or false. The time has come to move beyond the rhetoric of banning them, as ex-President Musharraf did only to see them re-group under different names, and dismantle them completely.

The Federally Administered Tribal Areas are facing a warlike situation unprecedented since the partition of the subcontinent.

It is high time we moved to create provinces such as North and South Waziristan, with provincial capitals, elected provincial officials, set up provincial institutions, and collected federal taxes. Yes, traditionally, they have lived in a tribal system, and until today it has served them well. Change is neither easy to acknowledge, nor implement. But at times it is necessary. It is time to split Fata into provinces and set up provincial legislatures.

Time is not on our side. A burgeoning population, dwindling basic resources such as water, acute power shortages, the rising cost of living, unemployment, under-employment, illiteracy and failing healthcare are all leading to a dangerously volatile situation. The little lines of text running swiftly across the bottom of our television sets are showing the tip of the iceberg. This is going to get worse before it gets any better.

It may sound simple to remove guns and add more provinces, but the truth of the matter is that such undertakings require immense political commitment. They require a leader with a vision and resolve to fulfil it. Anyone out there?

‘Hazaroen saal nargis apni benoori pay roti hai, Bari mushkil se hota hai chaman mein didavar paeda.’