Why Pakistan Produces Jihadists
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DAWN.COM | Columnists | Our combined failure
Our combined failure By Ardeshir Cowasjee
Sunday, 16 May, 2010 Husain Haqqani, our ambassador in Washington, ends his book: “Pakistan was created in a hurry and without giving detailed thought to various aspects of nation and state building ... Both Pakistan’s elite and their US benefactors would have to participate in transforming Pakistan into a functional, rather than ideological state.” - Photo by AP. A common reaction to the almost universal conclusion that one of Pakistan’s main exports is terrorism — bolstered by the latest would-be hero of Times Square who fortunately failed — is that the larger majority of the Pakistani nation and its would-be leadership exist in a state of denial.
Apart from the fact that most deny historical fact with impunity the trend is to ignore the mote in one’s eye and focus on how mean and nasty is the rest of the world by its censure of many of the country’s inadequacies. By far the most sensible reactions to the incompetent bomb-maker (by design or accident one does not know) come from Pakistanis in America, many naturalised US citizens.
They are puzzled as to why a seemingly well-educated well-settled man, albeit of apparently modest means, would be prompted to attempt to kill and maim fellow citizens — or to even merely make a statement (if that is what he was doing).
One e-mailer this week has it that “the biggest problem is we are a group of people, not a nation, who are ruled by well-known and well-qualified thieves. We have been deprived of everything of which an educated person such as Faisal Shahzad and other Pakistanis can be proud of or have respect for. We are embarrassed in front of the entire world by the deeds of our leaders, past and present. Our identity is deformed and distorted. Thus we can easily be trapped by the so-called mullahs into ‘serving’ our religion.”
This from a young expatriate Pakistani — he went on to say that Pakistanis now living abroad, when applying for jobs, often declare themselves to be Indian or of Indian extraction to avoid being turned away. Not a happy situation
There are, of course, some who in line with the current fashion squarely put the blame for the spread of terrorism and the adoption of its methods by the young men of Pakistan on to the western world, particularly the US, for its ‘use’ of Pakistan, its attitude and its superiority in so many fields — resentment is a great spur towards senseless reaction. They ask why the Americans are doing what they are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, why are they there? (Strangely, there has been no mention of Palestine.) What one needs to ask these expatriates is why are they in the US.
From a man of Pakistani descent who has been working and living in the US for 30 years came valid comments, that it took Pakistan an inordinately long time to acknowledge that terrorism did exist; for years those who killed and destroyed bore the euphemism ‘freedom fighters’. It was not until the bombs started going off in the heartland of Pakistan that we began to acknowledge that, yes, terrorism does exist, it was not until we saw killings and bombings in the house of God that we stopped in our tracks and realised something was wrong. To this gentleman both Pakistan and America have failed as far as Pakistan is concerned — the Pakistanis, generals and politicians, because of their corruption, incompetence and double-dealing and their failure to deal with the US.
“We failed miserably,” he wrote, “our military failed in properly analysing the threat level and future assessment of the damage our incompetence and lack of action would do. We all thought of it as a game, our military and politicians toyed around with the Americans with sporadic arrests, selling men for $500 a head, and we failed to understand or look at the larger picture. ...We have failed our children, we have failed to instil in them the unique identity of being a Pakistani first and foremost, and until we do that our boys will run around like rudderless boats seeking causes which have nothing to do with their identity.”
The younger writers are less thoughtful, they are angry, disillusioned and clueless as to where their allegiance should lie. They have no nexus with their nationhood, simply with the religion they have been taught from a very young age, a religion that has been distorted by the politics Pakistan has adopted and its firm denial, through fear of clerical vengeance, of its maker’s exhortation that religion is not the business of the state.
Too many of our youth, within and without the country, may have roots in Pakistan but thanks to 63 years of political and religious dishonesty combined with bungling, they have no cause when it comes to their country of birth or descent.
And these present politicians? Last Wednesday in the Senate cries of ‘shame’ were raised about a Newsweek article which had quoted from Husain Haqqani’s book, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military, published in 2005. Haqqani tells “how the government’s jihadist connections date to the country’s creation as an ideological, Islamic state and the decision by successive governments to use jihad both to gain domestic support and to hurt its perennial rival, India. Describing the military’s distinction between terrorists and ‘freedom fighters’, he notes that the problem is systemic. ‘This duality ... is a structural problem, rooted in history and a consistent policy of the state. It is not just the inadvertent outcome of decisions by some governments’.”
To deny this is foolish as it factually sets out one root cause of why we are what we are today. Haqqani, our ambassador in Washington, ends his book: “Pakistan was created in a hurry and without giving detailed thought to various aspects of nation and state building ... Both Pakistan’s elite and their US benefactors would have to participate in transforming Pakistan into a functional, rather than ideological state.”
arfc@cyber.net.pk
Our combined failure By Ardeshir Cowasjee
Sunday, 16 May, 2010 Husain Haqqani, our ambassador in Washington, ends his book: “Pakistan was created in a hurry and without giving detailed thought to various aspects of nation and state building ... Both Pakistan’s elite and their US benefactors would have to participate in transforming Pakistan into a functional, rather than ideological state.” - Photo by AP. A common reaction to the almost universal conclusion that one of Pakistan’s main exports is terrorism — bolstered by the latest would-be hero of Times Square who fortunately failed — is that the larger majority of the Pakistani nation and its would-be leadership exist in a state of denial.
Apart from the fact that most deny historical fact with impunity the trend is to ignore the mote in one’s eye and focus on how mean and nasty is the rest of the world by its censure of many of the country’s inadequacies. By far the most sensible reactions to the incompetent bomb-maker (by design or accident one does not know) come from Pakistanis in America, many naturalised US citizens.
They are puzzled as to why a seemingly well-educated well-settled man, albeit of apparently modest means, would be prompted to attempt to kill and maim fellow citizens — or to even merely make a statement (if that is what he was doing).
One e-mailer this week has it that “the biggest problem is we are a group of people, not a nation, who are ruled by well-known and well-qualified thieves. We have been deprived of everything of which an educated person such as Faisal Shahzad and other Pakistanis can be proud of or have respect for. We are embarrassed in front of the entire world by the deeds of our leaders, past and present. Our identity is deformed and distorted. Thus we can easily be trapped by the so-called mullahs into ‘serving’ our religion.”
This from a young expatriate Pakistani — he went on to say that Pakistanis now living abroad, when applying for jobs, often declare themselves to be Indian or of Indian extraction to avoid being turned away. Not a happy situation
There are, of course, some who in line with the current fashion squarely put the blame for the spread of terrorism and the adoption of its methods by the young men of Pakistan on to the western world, particularly the US, for its ‘use’ of Pakistan, its attitude and its superiority in so many fields — resentment is a great spur towards senseless reaction. They ask why the Americans are doing what they are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, why are they there? (Strangely, there has been no mention of Palestine.) What one needs to ask these expatriates is why are they in the US.
From a man of Pakistani descent who has been working and living in the US for 30 years came valid comments, that it took Pakistan an inordinately long time to acknowledge that terrorism did exist; for years those who killed and destroyed bore the euphemism ‘freedom fighters’. It was not until the bombs started going off in the heartland of Pakistan that we began to acknowledge that, yes, terrorism does exist, it was not until we saw killings and bombings in the house of God that we stopped in our tracks and realised something was wrong. To this gentleman both Pakistan and America have failed as far as Pakistan is concerned — the Pakistanis, generals and politicians, because of their corruption, incompetence and double-dealing and their failure to deal with the US.
“We failed miserably,” he wrote, “our military failed in properly analysing the threat level and future assessment of the damage our incompetence and lack of action would do. We all thought of it as a game, our military and politicians toyed around with the Americans with sporadic arrests, selling men for $500 a head, and we failed to understand or look at the larger picture. ...We have failed our children, we have failed to instil in them the unique identity of being a Pakistani first and foremost, and until we do that our boys will run around like rudderless boats seeking causes which have nothing to do with their identity.”
The younger writers are less thoughtful, they are angry, disillusioned and clueless as to where their allegiance should lie. They have no nexus with their nationhood, simply with the religion they have been taught from a very young age, a religion that has been distorted by the politics Pakistan has adopted and its firm denial, through fear of clerical vengeance, of its maker’s exhortation that religion is not the business of the state.
Too many of our youth, within and without the country, may have roots in Pakistan but thanks to 63 years of political and religious dishonesty combined with bungling, they have no cause when it comes to their country of birth or descent.
And these present politicians? Last Wednesday in the Senate cries of ‘shame’ were raised about a Newsweek article which had quoted from Husain Haqqani’s book, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military, published in 2005. Haqqani tells “how the government’s jihadist connections date to the country’s creation as an ideological, Islamic state and the decision by successive governments to use jihad both to gain domestic support and to hurt its perennial rival, India. Describing the military’s distinction between terrorists and ‘freedom fighters’, he notes that the problem is systemic. ‘This duality ... is a structural problem, rooted in history and a consistent policy of the state. It is not just the inadvertent outcome of decisions by some governments’.”
To deny this is foolish as it factually sets out one root cause of why we are what we are today. Haqqani, our ambassador in Washington, ends his book: “Pakistan was created in a hurry and without giving detailed thought to various aspects of nation and state building ... Both Pakistan’s elite and their US benefactors would have to participate in transforming Pakistan into a functional, rather than ideological state.”
arfc@cyber.net.pk
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Pakistan is not the reason for Faisal Shahzad
Mosharraf Zaidi
May 20. 2010
With each new piece of information revealed to the press in the ongoing investigation of Faisal Shahzad, the failed Times Square bomber, more and more scrutiny has turned to the state of Pakistan where Shahzad was born and raised in an elite, secular environment, and to whose loosely governed tribal areas he returned last year. There, apparently already under the grip of religious radicalism, he sought training in the dark arts of bomb-making.
Since Pakistan has, for the past few decades, been home to a motley crew of terrorist groups both home-grown and imported this intense scrutiny is not just merited; it is necessary. But as the West quickly concludes that Pakistan itself is to blame for Faisal Shahzad and his ilk, its time to leaven this scrutiny with a little realism. Securing our children and loved ones against the threat of terrorism whether outside the enormous Toys R Us in Times Square, the Hamleys in Dubai Mall, or anywhere else is a critical task, but we must remain humble about what we know and do not know, and about what we can and cant know of its perpetrators and their motives. All the enterprising journalists in the world still cant entirely explain all the factors that transformed Shahzad from an insignificant immigrant in the suburbs of Connecticut into a failed terrorist.
Those attempting to draw a simple and direct connection between Pakistan and Shahzads deeds have produced two distinct but related accounts, both of which substitute oversimplified speculation for facts to assert that the sheer force of Pakistani anti-Americanism tells us everything we need to know about Shahzad.
In the first, Shahzad is a lone wolf acting on the basis of his own rage the perfect caricature of an angry young Pakistani man. His cup runneth over with Islamist ideology, which he is presumed to have absorbed simply by growing up in Pakistan, home to schools that are nothing but jihad factories. His anger and bitterness coalesce into religious radicalism as he glares angrily at whisky drinkers, and his violent genetic code is stirred into action by the casualties of George W Bushs war on terror. His radicalisation doesnt take place in Pakistan, but the stain of the Islamic Republic is clearly visible.
Shahzad, of course, may not have been a lone wolf at all, and more recent news accounts have pursued the idea that he took orders from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who seized the opportunity to send a fighter with clean skin to strike New York City. This second account is no less a caricature, featuring a vulnerable young man, conditioned by his upbringing in the global epicentre of terrorism, who follows what we are supposed to believe is a common path for disaffected Pakistanis visiting home, and heads for Waziristan to train as a martyr. Given the rampant and unabashed anti-Americanism on the streets of Karachi and Lahore, his compass turns naturally to Pakistans home-grown terrorists. From there, all it takes is a few routine training operations, and the next thing you know hes trying to blow up Times Square.
Of course, the fact that his links to the TTP appear tenuous at best, that he is not a dispossessed or poor rural youth schooled in a Deobandi madrasa, and that he fits few of the stereotypes of low-level foot soldiers in the global jihad doesnt diminish the danger represented by Faisal Shahzad and others like him. In some ways his radicalisation may portend a much more sinister danger laying ahead, one that cant be fixed simply by dumping aid money into Pakistan or assassinating more al Qaeda and Taliban leaders. The serious threat represented by unmoored young men who turn their vague frustrations into violent acts means we need to exercise more, rather than less, care in understanding the problem. Citing the mere word Pakistan offers the great comfort of simplicity; adding anti-American has the almost magical effect of tieing the whole thing into a neat bow.
But like all magic tricks, this is an illusion. Anti-American sentiment certainly does contaminate public discourse in Pakistan, but to imply that the presence of this sentiment will lead Pakistanis to drive car bombs into Times Square is a real stretch. Just like the pathetic and endangered species of mullahs who peddle anti-Americanism because they have no real political ideas of their own, those who try to construe Pakistani anti-Americanism as the real cause of Faisal Shahzads acts are in the throes of irrational desperation. Without saying so directly, they mean very much to imply that Pakistan is so saturated with hatred for the United States that even perfectly normal boys feeding at the teat of the American dream remain potential terrorists.
The irony could not be richer. The nearly 180 million ordinary Pakistanis demonised by such suggestions are the primary targets of the TTP and its blood lust. Since it came together as an umbrella coalition of terrorist groups in December 2007, the TTP has killed more than 5,000 innocent Pakistanis. It has not spared any kind of target: women, children, the infirm and the disabled. It has struck hospitals, universities, supermarkets, and mosques. The TTP has no public support in Pakistan. According to Gallup, only four per cent of all Pakistanis feel the Taliban are a positive influence, and in Shahzads home province, that number is one per cent. On Main Street in Pakistan, the TTP represents the countrys lunatic fringe.
Do Pakistanis unanimously agree on the solution to this cancer? Not at all. At the broadest level, there is real disagreement even about what the very character of Pakistan should be. Some Pakistanis believe that Islamist terror is alien to Islamic Pakistan a schism introduced here by Afghan refugees, Indian spies and lorry-loads of CIA cash. Other Pakistanis believe that the expression of Islamic values in public life in Pakistan is at the root of this terror and such expression needs to be muzzled altogether.This kind of escapism isnt just a generic explanation of why Pakistan is beset by terrorism. It permeates into the details too.
Americas use of unmanned aerial vehicles to pursue and target suspected terrorists in Pakistani territory is a perfect reflection of the contradictions within Pakistans re-emerging democratic norms. Though they are used to pursue and target suspected terrorists in Pakistani territory, drones are unpopular. Official policy is to deny that drone attacks are sanctioned by the Pakistani government. But official policy is also to work closely with the CIA, which manages the drone programme for the US government.
Many Pakistanis believe the drone attacks are a disgrace; some also believe that drone attacks are a necessary instrument of war against savages. The rich irony of wanting to retain a veneer of national pride, while also wanting to zap terrorists out of the holes that they hide in is part of the political economy of Pakistans struggle with terrorism.
Within the diversity and richness of the Pakistani discourse, anti-American feelings are but one among a host of stimulants. Pakistanis are engaged in fierce public debates about corruption, about water scarcity, about electricity and power generation and about the cricket scores that night. They are trying to sort through the morass of 63 years of poor governance that has created dysfunctional schools, illiterate teachers, unhealthy hospitals and dangerous medicines.
The TTP and terrorism at large both loom ominously over the entire spectrum of policy and politics in the country. It should hardly be surprising that Pakistanis are confused and internally contradicted about some of the implications of fighting terror. A tsunami of suicide bombs, fedayeen attacks, car bombs, IEDs, and mines has washed over Pakistan since 2003, with more than 10,000 innocent Pakistanis losing their lives in these attacks. The spike in terrorist violence that began in 2007 is widely attributed to the storming of the Lal Masjid is Islamabad that July an oft-ignored national calamity that remains deeply embedded in the countrys collective memory. Many wonder how much worse, or better things may have been if Lal Masjid had been handled differently.
Neither Pakistani ambivalence about how to fight terrorism, nor Pakistani unease at the rapidly growing count of innocent civilians killed by American drone strikes or Pakistan Army artillery are the same thing as widespread support for terrorists. When cheap monikers like jihadist factory are bestowed on Pakistan, the lines are not simply being blurred. They are being erased.
The ambivalence and unease in Pakistan are actually good things. They demonstrate a vibrant plurality of opinion in the country. The fact that these nuances need to be explained at all is exactly why labeling this large, complex and troubled country as a suicide vest packed with anti-Americanism is so dangerous.
The notion that anti-American sentiment in the country is so gripping that it is driving Pakistanis to the madness demonstrated by Faisal Shahzad says nothing about Pakistan, or Pakistanis. Instead it demonstrates how desperate many people are for a simple one-liner to explain the kind of complexity that can rationalise mass murder. In trying to understand the smoke coming out of the 1993 Nissan Pathfinder at Times Square on May 1, complexity and nuance may be luxuries, but they are luxuries we cannot do without.
Mosharraf Zaidi is a columnist for The News in Pakistan and has advised governments and NGOs on aid policy in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Mosharraf Zaidi
May 20. 2010
With each new piece of information revealed to the press in the ongoing investigation of Faisal Shahzad, the failed Times Square bomber, more and more scrutiny has turned to the state of Pakistan where Shahzad was born and raised in an elite, secular environment, and to whose loosely governed tribal areas he returned last year. There, apparently already under the grip of religious radicalism, he sought training in the dark arts of bomb-making.
Since Pakistan has, for the past few decades, been home to a motley crew of terrorist groups both home-grown and imported this intense scrutiny is not just merited; it is necessary. But as the West quickly concludes that Pakistan itself is to blame for Faisal Shahzad and his ilk, its time to leaven this scrutiny with a little realism. Securing our children and loved ones against the threat of terrorism whether outside the enormous Toys R Us in Times Square, the Hamleys in Dubai Mall, or anywhere else is a critical task, but we must remain humble about what we know and do not know, and about what we can and cant know of its perpetrators and their motives. All the enterprising journalists in the world still cant entirely explain all the factors that transformed Shahzad from an insignificant immigrant in the suburbs of Connecticut into a failed terrorist.
Those attempting to draw a simple and direct connection between Pakistan and Shahzads deeds have produced two distinct but related accounts, both of which substitute oversimplified speculation for facts to assert that the sheer force of Pakistani anti-Americanism tells us everything we need to know about Shahzad.
In the first, Shahzad is a lone wolf acting on the basis of his own rage the perfect caricature of an angry young Pakistani man. His cup runneth over with Islamist ideology, which he is presumed to have absorbed simply by growing up in Pakistan, home to schools that are nothing but jihad factories. His anger and bitterness coalesce into religious radicalism as he glares angrily at whisky drinkers, and his violent genetic code is stirred into action by the casualties of George W Bushs war on terror. His radicalisation doesnt take place in Pakistan, but the stain of the Islamic Republic is clearly visible.
Shahzad, of course, may not have been a lone wolf at all, and more recent news accounts have pursued the idea that he took orders from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who seized the opportunity to send a fighter with clean skin to strike New York City. This second account is no less a caricature, featuring a vulnerable young man, conditioned by his upbringing in the global epicentre of terrorism, who follows what we are supposed to believe is a common path for disaffected Pakistanis visiting home, and heads for Waziristan to train as a martyr. Given the rampant and unabashed anti-Americanism on the streets of Karachi and Lahore, his compass turns naturally to Pakistans home-grown terrorists. From there, all it takes is a few routine training operations, and the next thing you know hes trying to blow up Times Square.
Of course, the fact that his links to the TTP appear tenuous at best, that he is not a dispossessed or poor rural youth schooled in a Deobandi madrasa, and that he fits few of the stereotypes of low-level foot soldiers in the global jihad doesnt diminish the danger represented by Faisal Shahzad and others like him. In some ways his radicalisation may portend a much more sinister danger laying ahead, one that cant be fixed simply by dumping aid money into Pakistan or assassinating more al Qaeda and Taliban leaders. The serious threat represented by unmoored young men who turn their vague frustrations into violent acts means we need to exercise more, rather than less, care in understanding the problem. Citing the mere word Pakistan offers the great comfort of simplicity; adding anti-American has the almost magical effect of tieing the whole thing into a neat bow.
But like all magic tricks, this is an illusion. Anti-American sentiment certainly does contaminate public discourse in Pakistan, but to imply that the presence of this sentiment will lead Pakistanis to drive car bombs into Times Square is a real stretch. Just like the pathetic and endangered species of mullahs who peddle anti-Americanism because they have no real political ideas of their own, those who try to construe Pakistani anti-Americanism as the real cause of Faisal Shahzads acts are in the throes of irrational desperation. Without saying so directly, they mean very much to imply that Pakistan is so saturated with hatred for the United States that even perfectly normal boys feeding at the teat of the American dream remain potential terrorists.
The irony could not be richer. The nearly 180 million ordinary Pakistanis demonised by such suggestions are the primary targets of the TTP and its blood lust. Since it came together as an umbrella coalition of terrorist groups in December 2007, the TTP has killed more than 5,000 innocent Pakistanis. It has not spared any kind of target: women, children, the infirm and the disabled. It has struck hospitals, universities, supermarkets, and mosques. The TTP has no public support in Pakistan. According to Gallup, only four per cent of all Pakistanis feel the Taliban are a positive influence, and in Shahzads home province, that number is one per cent. On Main Street in Pakistan, the TTP represents the countrys lunatic fringe.
Do Pakistanis unanimously agree on the solution to this cancer? Not at all. At the broadest level, there is real disagreement even about what the very character of Pakistan should be. Some Pakistanis believe that Islamist terror is alien to Islamic Pakistan a schism introduced here by Afghan refugees, Indian spies and lorry-loads of CIA cash. Other Pakistanis believe that the expression of Islamic values in public life in Pakistan is at the root of this terror and such expression needs to be muzzled altogether.This kind of escapism isnt just a generic explanation of why Pakistan is beset by terrorism. It permeates into the details too.
Americas use of unmanned aerial vehicles to pursue and target suspected terrorists in Pakistani territory is a perfect reflection of the contradictions within Pakistans re-emerging democratic norms. Though they are used to pursue and target suspected terrorists in Pakistani territory, drones are unpopular. Official policy is to deny that drone attacks are sanctioned by the Pakistani government. But official policy is also to work closely with the CIA, which manages the drone programme for the US government.
Many Pakistanis believe the drone attacks are a disgrace; some also believe that drone attacks are a necessary instrument of war against savages. The rich irony of wanting to retain a veneer of national pride, while also wanting to zap terrorists out of the holes that they hide in is part of the political economy of Pakistans struggle with terrorism.
Within the diversity and richness of the Pakistani discourse, anti-American feelings are but one among a host of stimulants. Pakistanis are engaged in fierce public debates about corruption, about water scarcity, about electricity and power generation and about the cricket scores that night. They are trying to sort through the morass of 63 years of poor governance that has created dysfunctional schools, illiterate teachers, unhealthy hospitals and dangerous medicines.
The TTP and terrorism at large both loom ominously over the entire spectrum of policy and politics in the country. It should hardly be surprising that Pakistanis are confused and internally contradicted about some of the implications of fighting terror. A tsunami of suicide bombs, fedayeen attacks, car bombs, IEDs, and mines has washed over Pakistan since 2003, with more than 10,000 innocent Pakistanis losing their lives in these attacks. The spike in terrorist violence that began in 2007 is widely attributed to the storming of the Lal Masjid is Islamabad that July an oft-ignored national calamity that remains deeply embedded in the countrys collective memory. Many wonder how much worse, or better things may have been if Lal Masjid had been handled differently.
Neither Pakistani ambivalence about how to fight terrorism, nor Pakistani unease at the rapidly growing count of innocent civilians killed by American drone strikes or Pakistan Army artillery are the same thing as widespread support for terrorists. When cheap monikers like jihadist factory are bestowed on Pakistan, the lines are not simply being blurred. They are being erased.
The ambivalence and unease in Pakistan are actually good things. They demonstrate a vibrant plurality of opinion in the country. The fact that these nuances need to be explained at all is exactly why labeling this large, complex and troubled country as a suicide vest packed with anti-Americanism is so dangerous.
The notion that anti-American sentiment in the country is so gripping that it is driving Pakistanis to the madness demonstrated by Faisal Shahzad says nothing about Pakistan, or Pakistanis. Instead it demonstrates how desperate many people are for a simple one-liner to explain the kind of complexity that can rationalise mass murder. In trying to understand the smoke coming out of the 1993 Nissan Pathfinder at Times Square on May 1, complexity and nuance may be luxuries, but they are luxuries we cannot do without.
Mosharraf Zaidi is a columnist for The News in Pakistan and has advised governments and NGOs on aid policy in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
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VIEW: The real culprits Yasser Latif Hamdani
As the second most populous Muslim nation state after Indonesia, our dilemma is no different from the confessional states of Europe that over time became the staunchest defenders of civil liberties and secularism
Rakesh Mani was kind enough to mention my article Faisal Shahzads radicalisation, (Daily Times, May 10, 2010) in his article The University of God (Daily Times, May 20, 2010). While I agree with most of his observations about Islamic organisations on American university campuses, I must raise a note of dissent in so far as his treatment of Pakistan and Pakistanis is concerned.
First of all, Pakistans fixation with faith has nothing to do with the creation of Pakistan, which was in any event not on the basis of religious ideology. This is a moot point for most objective historians studying the creation of Pakistan. Indeed the champions of religious ideology were entirely opposed to the creation of Pakistan. Jinnahs references to Islam few and far between were to reinforce the idea that a pluralistic constitutional democracy is indeed a cardinal principle of the dominant religio-cultural system to which his constituency belonged.
Mani makes an important point when he speaks of a Bengali being Bengali before he is a Muslim or a Hindu or a Punjabi being a Punjabi before he is a Muslim or a Hindu. I am sure he would be surprised to say the least that those were the exact words that the founding father of Pakistan used when explaining to Mountbatten why Bengal and Punjab ought to be kept united as late as mid-May in 1947. The Leagues Two Nation Theory was a counterpoise to Congresss One Nation Theory and not regional identities. The great irony of the partition of India is that it was the Congress that insisted on dividing Punjab and Bengal on religious lines and not the Muslim League. Indeed Mr. Jinnah endorsed Sarat Chandra Boses plan to keep Bengal united as late as June 3 but it was vetoed by Nehru. Unfortunately, this is one of those nuanced realities that nationalist mythologies on both sides cannot grasp or articulate.
This is not to say that through the Objectives Resolution and beyond we have not mixed the state and religion. The crowning glory of the Islamist project is the 1973 Constitution, which restricts freedom more than it protects it (precisely why actions like a blanket ban on Facebook is possible constitutionally in Pakistan). However, it is here that Mani errs again. The most fanatical Muslims are not almost exclusively Pakistani. Indeed Pakistan contributes proportionally a far fewer number of fundamentalists, extremists and terrorists than the Arab world for example. Roughly 16-20 percent of the terrorists in recent times planning an attack in western countries have been Pakistanis. Somalia a much smaller country contributes a higher number of extremists and terrorists.
On the other hand, it is no doubt a very interesting fact to put out that Indian Muslims, only a few million less than Pakistans total population, contribute even fewer terrorists in the West. Indian Muslims in the West come across as much more conservative and religious minded than the Pakistanis and yet hardly any terrorists have come from it. There are in my opinion two possible reasons for it. One, if the Muslim diaspora was ever studied, it would show that Pakistanis in the West outnumber Indian Muslims by 20 or 30 to 1. Secondly, Pakistan has inherited the legacy of the Afghan War, not India. This second point is at the heart of the issue.
The important thing that Mani should have noted is not how Pakistanis tend to be more fanatical, which is not true after all Manis friend from Karachi who he mentions in his article as being a clubbing type party girl is also a Pakistani but how every terrorist plot finds a connection to Pakistans northwest. The issue here is not that Pakistanis are terrorists, but Pakistans government has tolerated far too long militancy and terrorist organisations on its soil. And then there is a broader issue. A great majority of terrorists are not Pakistani. They are global jihadists informed and indoctrinated by the ideology of Ikhwanul Muslimeen and Hizbut Tahrir, two organisations whose roots are firmly outside of Pakistan. By focusing on Pakistan and forgetting that 15 out of the 19 hijackers on September 11 were Saudis and none of them were Pakistanis, by forgetting that the mastermind of 9/11 was an Egyptian working in an organisation led by the Egyptians and the Saudis, Mani is glossing over the real causes of Islamist terror worldwide. By singling out Pakistan and feeding a misperception about its history, the real cause, i.e. the last hurrah of revivalist Islamism, is obscured. It is the Qutbian-Maududian Islamist ideology that needs to be taken to task and the failure to recognise that will only lead to more heartbreak.
Pakistan as a constitutional democracy with a rising Muslim bourgeoisie is the greatest hope against this riding tide of Islamist revival. Democracy has always ensured that Islamists are kept out of the power equation. The great battle for the soul of Islam is being fought in our streets, our assembly halls and our courts. Pakistan is going through the pangs of rebirth and with it will come a reformation of the Islamic world itself. As the second most populous Muslim nation state after Indonesia, our dilemma is no different from the confessional states of Europe that over time became the staunchest defenders of civil liberties and secularism. Only in our case, the information age has accelerated the speed of this evolution. This also explains the knee-jerk reaction of the pillars of our state to Facebook, but that is a whole different issue.
Yasser Latif Hamdani is a lawyer based in Islamabad. He can be reached at yasser.hamdani@gmail.com
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The Americans made a mistake with Pakistan. Pakistan made a mistake with America. America has the muscle to right that mistake and extricate itself slowly but surely from the mess it co-created. Pakistan unfortunately hypothecated its muscle to America a long time ago. Not so much out of choice but more by the grim necessity of survival in the face of a much bigger and stronger hostile neighbour over the past six decades. The goal post changed. And Pakistan blamed America squarely for moving its cheese. But does Pakistan really have a choice anymore? Sure there are many well meaning Pakistanis who realise where and how they went wrong. But they are powerless in the face of the radicals on one side and the army on the other, with a corrupt ineffectual and self-serving civilian polity in between. Guys like Shahzad may not be creations of the system, but a growing reaction of frustration and helplessness in the face of it.
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Rightly said, even then the response on the thread by lot of Pakistani members has been rational , very little or no troll i'd say. It shows that majority is now in not anymore in denial mode, which is first step to cure.
seekers
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These foreign funded madrasass working not only in Pakistan.They also doing their job secretly in mosque through tabligh(missionaries) in US. and Europe.
Certainly they are using young Pakistani immigrants through brainwashing because these immigrant has more assesses to target in US. and Europe.Faisal iqbal is one of this example.
Only solution is to stop the fundings of these madrassas.US. and Europe has knows very well who are funding these madrassas but their oil demand and Billions of bank reserve in US.unable to investigate 8 out of 9 hijacker of 911 from that country or stop funding.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are field of their proxy war.
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Another article on the same topic in DT today :
Jihadi public schools? Ali K Chishti
Unnecessary and often misplaced emphasis on religious education is nothing more than a clever ruse to deflect attention from the real issue: the general state of education in Pakistan
One of the misconceptions
about the jihad phenomenon is regarding the role played by the madrassa in propagating the jihadi culture inside Pakistan. While there is no doubt that madrassas sponsored by certain countries in the past have played an important role in inculcating hateful vehemence among their students, they were not alone in their endeavours. The public and private schools have been equally involved in the propagation of jihad as a concept. Shifting the blame onto the madrassas alone is politically convenient for the government, as madrassas also lend themselves to an intellectually easy analysis and explanation of the phenomenon. But this analysis ignores the social, economic and political dimensions of militant Islam and the role played by the state in promoting a militant culture and mindset in the country. Moreover, the use of jihad by the state for the achievement of foreign policy goals is also glossed over by giving undue attention to the proliferation of madrassas and focusing on them as nurseries of terror. It is a fact that for every militant thrown up by a madrassa, there are dozens who never got even close to religious education. Instead, they were just plain criminals before they chose to elevate themselves to the status of jihadis. Talking of a crackdown on madrassas may make eminent sense, but it offers very little in terms of actually getting to grips with the problem. In fact, unnecessary and often misplaced emphasis on religious education is nothing more than a clever ruse to deflect attention from the real issue: the general state of education in Pakistan.
There is no doubt about how a specific religious ideology is being propagated that explicitly promotes hatred, violence and prejudice towards various sects within Islam as well as non-Muslims and how the entire public and private school curricula are designed to promote, inculcate and incite the spirit of jihad and hatred among children as young as five. In a recent report by the UN that helps us understand the jihadi indoctrination of three generations of Pakistani students, we are told how and why cosmetic measures like teaching liberal subjects and science in madrassas will hardly make any difference to the jihadi culture that has taken root in Pakistan.
The age-old analysis that madrassas alone breed the hate and irrationality that results in international jihad is itself a distorted worldview. The educational material in most secular and so-called English-medium schools is, at times, equally hateful. Parts of their textbooks tell lies, craft hate, and incite readers for a new world order called pan-Islamism, hence ideologically confusing the students who already suffer from a serious identity crisis. Faisal Shahzad, the failed Times Square bomber, an upper middle-class English speaker, who never even attended a madrassa, was himself a product of these English medium schools in Pakistan.
Interestingly, the theme of hatred and militancy in the curriculum can be clearly distinguished between the pre- and post-1979 educational contexts. There was no mention of these in the pre-Islamisation period curricula, while the post-1979 curricula and textbooks openly eulogise war and militancy and urge students to become mujahideen and martyrs. But the target is not only India or Hindus. The curriculum targets all non-Muslims and countries and seeks to teach a particularly virulent version of radical and militant Islam to Pakistans children. The most significant problems with the current curriculum and textbooks are: i) insensitivity to the religious diversity of the nation; ii) incitement to militancy and violence; iii) perspectives that encourage prejudice, bigotry and discrimination towards fellow citizens, especially women and religious minorities and other nations; and iv) the glorification of war and the use of force.
All this hatred and indoctrination should also serve as a reality check for those who delude themselves into believing that, somehow, India and Pakistan can live together in peace. This is not possible until there is a complete overhaul of the educational curriculum in Pakistan and the process of reverse indoctrination is completed. Going by what is being done to the Pakistani children not only in madrassas but also in schools runs by the Pakistani state the entire educational curriculum needs to be seriously monitored and altered on a war-footing.
Jihadi public schools? Ali K Chishti
Unnecessary and often misplaced emphasis on religious education is nothing more than a clever ruse to deflect attention from the real issue: the general state of education in Pakistan
One of the misconceptions
about the jihad phenomenon is regarding the role played by the madrassa in propagating the jihadi culture inside Pakistan. While there is no doubt that madrassas sponsored by certain countries in the past have played an important role in inculcating hateful vehemence among their students, they were not alone in their endeavours. The public and private schools have been equally involved in the propagation of jihad as a concept. Shifting the blame onto the madrassas alone is politically convenient for the government, as madrassas also lend themselves to an intellectually easy analysis and explanation of the phenomenon. But this analysis ignores the social, economic and political dimensions of militant Islam and the role played by the state in promoting a militant culture and mindset in the country. Moreover, the use of jihad by the state for the achievement of foreign policy goals is also glossed over by giving undue attention to the proliferation of madrassas and focusing on them as nurseries of terror. It is a fact that for every militant thrown up by a madrassa, there are dozens who never got even close to religious education. Instead, they were just plain criminals before they chose to elevate themselves to the status of jihadis. Talking of a crackdown on madrassas may make eminent sense, but it offers very little in terms of actually getting to grips with the problem. In fact, unnecessary and often misplaced emphasis on religious education is nothing more than a clever ruse to deflect attention from the real issue: the general state of education in Pakistan.
There is no doubt about how a specific religious ideology is being propagated that explicitly promotes hatred, violence and prejudice towards various sects within Islam as well as non-Muslims and how the entire public and private school curricula are designed to promote, inculcate and incite the spirit of jihad and hatred among children as young as five. In a recent report by the UN that helps us understand the jihadi indoctrination of three generations of Pakistani students, we are told how and why cosmetic measures like teaching liberal subjects and science in madrassas will hardly make any difference to the jihadi culture that has taken root in Pakistan.
The age-old analysis that madrassas alone breed the hate and irrationality that results in international jihad is itself a distorted worldview. The educational material in most secular and so-called English-medium schools is, at times, equally hateful. Parts of their textbooks tell lies, craft hate, and incite readers for a new world order called pan-Islamism, hence ideologically confusing the students who already suffer from a serious identity crisis. Faisal Shahzad, the failed Times Square bomber, an upper middle-class English speaker, who never even attended a madrassa, was himself a product of these English medium schools in Pakistan.
Interestingly, the theme of hatred and militancy in the curriculum can be clearly distinguished between the pre- and post-1979 educational contexts. There was no mention of these in the pre-Islamisation period curricula, while the post-1979 curricula and textbooks openly eulogise war and militancy and urge students to become mujahideen and martyrs. But the target is not only India or Hindus. The curriculum targets all non-Muslims and countries and seeks to teach a particularly virulent version of radical and militant Islam to Pakistans children. The most significant problems with the current curriculum and textbooks are: i) insensitivity to the religious diversity of the nation; ii) incitement to militancy and violence; iii) perspectives that encourage prejudice, bigotry and discrimination towards fellow citizens, especially women and religious minorities and other nations; and iv) the glorification of war and the use of force.
All this hatred and indoctrination should also serve as a reality check for those who delude themselves into believing that, somehow, India and Pakistan can live together in peace. This is not possible until there is a complete overhaul of the educational curriculum in Pakistan and the process of reverse indoctrination is completed. Going by what is being done to the Pakistani children not only in madrassas but also in schools runs by the Pakistani state the entire educational curriculum needs to be seriously monitored and altered on a war-footing.
seekers
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Capt.Popeye
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Thanks.
Interesting view-points; all Pakistani ones at that.
The SC
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Was there any "terrorism" in Pakistan before the US Afghan invasion?
Was there any "terrorism" before the US Iraqi invasion?
This is the real question to be asked, there is one obvious common denominator who was used as a shield and proxy to destabilize powerful Muslim countries, on behalf of the obvious Zionism and maybe playing the new Hindzionism card too.
Was there any "terrorism" before the US Iraqi invasion?
This is the real question to be asked, there is one obvious common denominator who was used as a shield and proxy to destabilize powerful Muslim countries, on behalf of the obvious Zionism and maybe playing the new Hindzionism card too.
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