Jihad and the state
Thursday, 09 Jul, 2009
TWICE this week President Zardari has spoken about the root of Pakistan’s problems with religious extremism and militancy. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, the president said that the military’s erstwhile “strategic assets” were the ones against whom military operations were now required. And in a meeting with retired senior bureaucrats in Islamabad on Tuesday, Mr Zardari was reported in this paper to have said that “militants and extremists had been deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives”. The president is right, and we would add the policy was wrong then and it is wrong now. It cannot be any other way. How is it possible to rationally explain to the people of Pakistan that the heroes of yesteryear are the arch-enemies of today? The militants’ religious justifications remain the same; what’s changed is that the militants were fighting the state’s ‘enemies’ yesterday but have turned their guns on the state and its allies today.
Perhaps more than anything else impeding the defeat of the militants today is the inability of the security establishment to revisit the strategic choices it made in the past and hold up its hand and admit candidly that grave mistakes were made. Should we have ever used jihadi proxies to fight the Russians in Afghanistan? Should we have ever supported the idea of armed jihad in Kashmir? Should we have ever sought to retain our influence in Afghanistan through the Taliban? If any of those choices ever made sense, then we should have no complaints about the rise of Talibanisation in Pakistan because we created the climate and opportunity for them to run amok. Blaming the US’s invasion of Afghanistan is no good — the first and foremost responsibility of the state is to ensure the security of Pakistan, and allowing an internal threat to create a space for itself is anathema to that idea. Whatever the catalyst, the fact remains that it was because a jihadi network was allowed to flourish inside the country that we were left exposed to its eventual wrath against us.
The fault is of course not ours alone. The US, obsessed with the Soviet enemy, happily colluded in the creation of Muslim warriors. Our Middle Eastern and Gulf allies were happy to create a Sunni army to counter the ‘threat’ from post-revolution Shia Iran. But, at the end of the day, it was Pakistani soil on which they were primarily nurtured. Because they were raised in our midst we should have always been wary of the extreme blowback we are now confronted with.
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Trouble in Xinjiang
Thursday, 09 Jul, 2009
THIS week’s ethnic violence in China’s Xinjiang region — the worst case of political disturbance in that country since Tiananmen Square in 1989 — has come as a serious jolt to the People’s Republic. At a time when it has been trying to effect a smooth political and economic transition to a controlled democracy with a semi-market economy, internal instability is the last thing Beijing would want on its agenda. Hence its concern when the street protests staged by the Uighurs in Urumqi turned ugly and more than 150 people, most of them apparently Han Chinese, were killed, followed by rioting by the latter and a crackdown by the authorities. This was not an iso- lated incident of Turkic Muslim Uighurs clashing with the Han Chinese. Last month the two communities had been locked in violence in Shaoguan over a rumour of ethnic assault. Hence the allegations by the authorities that the riots were instigated by Uighur separatists abroad might appear a bit far-fetched, though one cannot deny that the community enjoys the support of its compatriots scattered all over the world.
Ethnic tensions between the Uighurs and the Han Chinese predates the founding of the People’s Republic. Although in 1955 Beijing attempted to pacify the Uighurs by making Xinjiang an autonomous region it didn’t help much because real political power was exercised by the Communist Party that was controlled by the Han Chinese. Moreover internal migration later changed the ethnic ratio and the Uighurs no longer constitute a majority in Xinjiang. Far more disturbing for them is the fact that the Han Chinese who have moved to Urumqi and other cities are better educated and fluent in Mandarin that gives them an advantage in the race for jobs. This has left the Uighurs disgruntled. Some separatist voices have been raised by elements seeking to exploit the situation for political gains. More explosive could be the religious issue, especially complaints by Uighurs that restrictions have been exercised by the Chinese government on their practice of Islamic rites.Given the rise of Islamic militancy in the region, one can understand Beijing’s fears. But it would do well to investigate the matter before reaching a hasty conclusion.
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Plight of the disabled
Thursday, 09 Jul, 2009
IN a country where employment and economic opportunities are a struggle for most people, the plight of disabled people is often neglected. These citizens face discrimination from society at large, where the lack education combined with low levels of awareness about disabilities leads to the handicapped being viewed with anything from derision to fear. Meanwhile, the support offered by the state and its institutions is minimal. Consider that the chief justice of the Lahore High Court recently took suo motu notice of the fact that disabled people were not being appointed to posts in federal and provincial government departments, although a two per cent job quota had been fixed from them. Subsequently, the deputy attorney general informed the court that 800 vacancies in various departments would be filled “soon” against the quota for the disabled, while just over 1,300 people had already been appointed. Meanwhile, the Punjab Social Welfare director stated that committees had been formed for the recruitment of disabled people in 31 districts of the province, and that such committees would soon be formed in the remaining districts.
While this is a step in the right direction, it must be asked whether the federal and provincial governments would have acted similarly if they had not been answerable to the courts. Moreover, merely appointing disabled persons to jobs that are their right under the quota is insufficient. Greater efforts are needed to include the disabled in the mainstream in terms of education and vocational training opportunities. This must be underwritten by a move to change societal attitudes and spread awareness about the capacity of the disabled to participate within the mainstream. Earlier efforts have resulted in the country’s active participation in sporting events for the disabled, such as the Special Olympics and cricket for the blind. Such participation much be widened beyond the arena of sport.
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OTHER VOICES - Middle East Press Task of rebuilding
Thursday, 09 Jul, 2009
WHEN President Rajapaksa … declared victory over the Tamil Tigers in May, he had announced that the war was not against Tamils in the country but against terrorists, and that everyone in Sri Lanka would now have equal rights. It was a war in which he had received widespread support both at home and abroad, since the LTTE was branded as a terrorist organisation by most countries. But more than six weeks after the Tigers defeat, scepticism is running high among the country’s Tamils. The reason: Rajapaksa has done little to convince the country’s three million Tamils — and also the 74 million-strong diaspora — of the sincerity of his intentions. The government still has not allowed the UN staff and aid workers unfettered access to the 300,000 ethnic Tamil refugees in army-run internment camps and the government has not announced any rehabilitation package for the Tamil refugees.
Reports paint a grim picture of the plight of refugees in camps — of misery, diseases and an utter sense of desperation and hopelessness. There are also reports that the authorities are building permanent camps to house many of the 300,000 refugees….
The government says that it has set … Aug 8 for elections to representative bodies in the Vavuniya and Jaffna areas, as part of a broader plan to democratise the Tigers’ former territory. The elections will be meaningless if nothing is done to improve the lives….
This is not to say that the Sri Lankan government is oblivious of the plight of Tamils in the country and that it has no plans to rehabilitate them. But the government is losing precious time to win the confidence of Tamils and assure them of its sincerity. One of the root causes of Tamil insurgency was the sense of alienation among the Tamil community and the feeling that their future would be secure only in their own hands.
However erroneous this feeling could be [for] the government, the onus is now on the Rajapaksa administration to make sure that the Tamil community feels secure and confident in the post-war period…. — (July 4)