Pakistan Speaks

Article By Hussain H. Zaidi .

TERRORISM has become the bane of the Pakistan society. As the Marriott Hotel, located in the most heavily guarded region of Islamabad, incident shows, no one nowhere is safe.

Many argue that the surge in terrorism in Pakistan is the result of the country’s role of a frontline ally of the United States in the campaign against terrorism. Therefore, the argument goes, the only way to rid the country of this menace is to shun the alliance with the US. Is it really so? No doubt, suicide terrorism has struck Pakistan only in the wake of the country’s post-9/11 alliance with the US, the roots of the malady lie much deeper. The terrorism that we are facing is largely an embodiment of religious extremism, which earlier expressed itself in sectarian killings. The bottles may be new but the wine is old.

To trace the roots of terrorism, one need to go to Pakistan’s involvement in the US led war against its prime antagonist, the USSR in Afghanistan. In 1979, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, the US deemed it to be a move in the USSR global strategy — expansion of communism. The invasion of Afghanistan coincided with the advent of the revolution in Iran whereby the pro-American monarchy was abolished and an anti-US Islamic regime set up.

The change in Iran struck at US influence in the region. Hence, when the USSR dispatched its troops to Afghanistan, the US reaction was prompt and tough. Washington wanted to secure the support of neighbouring countries of Afghanistan, so that it could launch an effective anti-Moscow campaign. The US could not get the support of India and Iran for different reasons: India was an ally of the USSR, while Washington-Tehran relations were on the ebb. However, in Pakistan the US found an ally and it was through the former that the latter found its war against the USSR in Afghanistan.

How the government of Pakistan could justify its involvement in the Afghan war? The answer is: by giving the war a religious meaning. Hence, the Afghan war became a jihad and the Afghanis on the US side mujahideen. The illegitimate Ziaul Haq regime, which itself was desperately looking for legitimacy as well as political and economic support, welcomed the Islamisation of the Afghan war. The people were made to believe that the communist USSR invasion of Afghanistan had endangered Islam and therefore it was the religious duty of the government and people of Pakistan to fight in the war on the side of America, which was fighting for Islam.

However, with the decline in the USSR’s superpower stature, before its eventual disintegration, and realisation on the part of the Soviet leadership that their Afghan adventure had been a failure, Moscow decided to pull out from Afghanistan. With that the US involvement in Afghanistan fizzled out. Hence, in 1989 when the Soviets left Afghanistan, the Americans also said good-bye to the Afghans. The US closed its embassy in Kabul because of “security concerns” leaving the warring Afghans to sort themselves out their problems. The US departure showed that its interest in Afghanistan was purely strategic dictated by its national interest and not born of its concern for Islam or the Afghans.

photo credit: Photocology

However, for Pakistan the impact of the Afghan campaign was disastrous. The Afghan war resulted in massive supply of arms and money to Pakistan. But this money was spent not on the welfare of the people but on recruiting militants and rewarding generals. Since the Afghan crisis was portrayed as a conflict between Islam and kufr, activists of many religious outfits fought in the war, who were provided money and arms in a generous way. These militants knew only one way of living — living by the sword. They also needed an enemy. If the enemy was not a Russian, it could be a Muslim of the rival sect. Hence, the training and arms which the militants had received were later used against rival creeds resulting in enormous sectarian violence.

Pakistan’s involvement in the Afghan war also strengthened the notion that Pakistan should be made the citadel of Islam and that it is the duty of Pakistanis to actively support Muslim resistance movements all over the world. The Soviet humiliation in Afghanistan also made the jihadis believe that they can defeat an adversary however strong. Hence, the jihadis made their way into India, China, Chechnya and elsewhere. In turn, Pakistan received militants from different parts of the world. The jihadis’ infiltration into China was the main reason why Beijing stopped supporting Pakistan on the Kashmir issue.

The jihadis would also have us believe that Islam provides only for a monolithic society in which different cultures or sub-cultures cannot co-exist; rather they have to be merged with the “Islamic” culture. If preaching cannot effect that merger, force can, and it must be used. If such an interpretation of Islam were to be accepted, then the use of force to remove cultural diversity would become legitimate and freedom of conscience, which underlies all moral freedom, becomes meaningless. There would be only one creed and one moral code, not by choice but by force.

Such an interpretation of Islam would not only divest society of all ethical freedom but also breed mayhem and chaos as jihadis would wade through blood if need be to purge society of what they consider to be un-Islamic beliefs and practices.

In breeding and nurturing religious militancy, the madressahs have played a lethal role. The pen is bloodier than the sword and this is perfectly applicable to our madressahs. The madressahs teach negation, and hence repudiation of doctrines, rituals and moral standards different from theirs. Hence, those who profess a different creed or have a different moral standard are looked upon as an evil. Women who do not put on veil or men who do not have a beard are considered impious. Men and women who mix with one another are regarded as essentially wicked. Those who listen to music commit a grave sin. All such wicked or impious people have to be reformed — by the use of force if need be.

The education imparted in the madressahs instead of inculcating in students a dispassionate quest for truth or at least enabling them to take to some socially useful profession, indoctrinates in them hatred for other creeds. The students are taught that only their creed is based on truth, whereas the rest are an incarnation of evil whose elimination is the most sacred duty of theirs. The reward of performing that duty, they are taught, is an everlasting life of pleasure in the paradise.

Most of the students owing to their impressionable age come to believe this stuff. Hence, when they leave their institutions, their hearts are filled with the strong desire to carry out their “sacred” duty. The madressahs also churn out sectarian propaganda in the form of inflammatory literature, which denounces followers of rival creeds as kafirs, who must either be coerced into conversion or exterminated.

It is such an erroneous view of Islam that lies behind religious extremism in Pakistan, which has expressed itself in sectarian violence, suicide blasts, burning of schools and video shops, and incidents like the Lal Masjid episode in Islamabad last year. No doubt, growing injustices in society, poverty and illiteracy have also contributed to terrorism. But one needs to be mindful of the fact that terrorism also has an ideological basis and in case of Pakistan the ideological basis is provided by the monolithic-cum-militant view of Islam.

Blaming America for the instability and violence in Pakistan would not solve the problem. Nor should we expect Washington to change its strategy for the sake of Pakistan. No country will do that. The US Afghan policy is dictated by what it perceives to be its national interest. At best, we can try and convince the Americans that their tactics, such as raids in the Pakistani territory, will weaken efforts to defeat militancy. But the basic responsibility for defeating militants remains our own.

In order to achieve these objectives, the government will have to fight on many fronts. Strong action needs to be taken against the militants who do not surrender. There has to be a real fight against poverty and injustices, so that people do not become a tool in the hands of terrorist outfits out of desperation and frustration. The government should also fight religious extremism on ideological front. The view propagated by successive governments and even today by religious parties that Pakistan was meant to be a theocratic, monolithic state and a citadel of Islam and that it is our duty to practically support Muslim resistance movements all over the world needs to be corrected. It is largely because of such misleading views that Pakistan has become a fortress of terrorism, upon which religious extremists from all-over the world look as their refuge.

Originally published in 27th September Encounter, Dawn.

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