The failing Muslim world
By Najmuddin A. Shaikh
wednesday,June 20,2007
RECENT developments in the Muslim world have further fragmented Muslim states and exacerbated the sectarian and ethnic divides that are increasingly becoming the dominant determinant of politics in these countries. It has happened most dramatically in Palestine. In place of a united struggle for a Palestinian state we now have a Hamastan and Fatahstan in Gaza and the West Bank respectively.
Ridding Gaza of Fatah elements is now underway. In the West Bank, frustrated Fatah fighters are searching out and eliminating Hamas supporters. An amnesty for Fatah declared in Gaza is not likely to hold because Gaza, cut off from the rest of the world, finds itself starved of funds and foodstuff.
Egypt, the neighbour best placed to help Gaza, will be reluctant to do so, given its fears of a Hamas leadership that owes much to its indoctrination by Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. In any case, the border currently remains closed and will reopen only when EU observers return and can satisfy Israel that weapons and other objectionable material are not being shipped into Gaza. Iran and Syria might want to help but their ability to do so will be limited. Islamists — many of them billionaires — in the Gulf might want to give Hamas their zakat but will have difficulty converting their cash donations into the essentials of life that Gaza needs.
One part of the American response to this development was an announcement that the US would contribute 40 million dollars to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which has been providing food and other aid to the Palestinians. Possibly much of the UNRWA assistance will now focus on Gaza and its one and a half million inhabitants, but even so the spectre of famine looms large. The principal source of food will be UN handouts.
Reports now emerging suggest that given clan and local loyalties among Palestinians and the long period for which Israeli policies minimised interaction and movement between Gaza and the West Bank, the residents of the two areas have become two different people. The current separation is only an implementation of a reality that had come into being.
There is talk in Washington, as reflected at the Condoleezza Rice’s press conference that now the Israelis will have a negotiating partner in President Mahmoud Abbas and that progress can, therefore, be made towards the talks that the roadmap had visualised. But Israeli settlements now cover 40 per cent of West Bank territory, and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is in no position to concede the evacuation of even a small part of these settlements.
Fragmentation in the Muslim world has had its first concrete manifestation in Palestine. Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan may well be in line to fall victim to this so-called “separatism” in Palestine. Is this an exaggerated fear?
In Iraq, the second bombing of the holy shrines of Imam Ali Al-Hadi and Imam Hassan Al-Askari in Samarra has led to the destruction of at least 13 Sunni mosques, including a particularly revered one in the Shia city of Basra. Moqtada Al-Sadr has issued a call for the Shias to march to Samarra next month to protect the shrines. Such a procession will pose a daunting security challenge to the beleaguered Iraqi security forces and the Americans since it will pass through a Sunni-dominated area where passions are running high following the attacks.
Other unresolved problems such as the revision of the constitution to give the Sunnis a fair share of power, the adoption of the law on the division of oil revenues, the rescinding of the current law on debaathification, etc remain as contentious as ever.
On the Kurdish front, the deadline for deciding the fate of oil-rich Kirkuk is fast approaching and the Kurds appear intent on ensuring that it is made part of Iraqi Kurdistan along with large swathes of what were Kurdish majority areas in Nineveh province. The reaction of the Sunnis in Mosul is indicative of the fierce resistance such a step would face.
There is no doubt that these fissures existed in Iraqi society since long. There is also no doubt that until the Americans at the end of Desert War in 1991 incited the Shias to rise against their oppressor, relative sectarian harmony prevailed in Iraq.There is no doubt that the Kurdish question has bedevilled Iraq since it was created but there is also no doubt that the current state of affairs came about only because in the aftermath of the 1991 Desert War the Americans created and enforced the no-fly zones. Following the 2003 invasion, they did nothing to check the growth of the peshmerga as the Kurdish army and the acquisition by the Kurds of all the trappings of an independent state.
No other group is as beholden to the Americans in Iraq as the Kurds. No other group feels that it can call upon the Americans, in return for the assistance they provided pre- and post-2003, to help the Kurds realise their aspirations, despite what the Americans may feel they owe to Turkey.
There is now a civil war in Iraq and fragmentation is only a matter of time. The Americans, even if they had the staying power and the will, would not be able to prevent it. Neither would Iraq’s neighbours, who, although they recognise the dangers of such fragmentation, distrust one another and cannot agree to cooperate.
In Lebanon, divisions over the question of an international tribunal to investigate the assassination of former Prime Minster Rafik Hariri have led to a virtual paralysis. The fight against the extremist groups in the Palestinian refugee camps has now exacerbated the Sunni-Shia divide within the Lebanese population. Sunni secularists led by late Prime Minister Hariri’s son find themselves more and more dependent on extremist Salafist groups as they contend with what has become a monolithic Shia movement led by Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah.
A return to the era of fiefdoms seems to be around the corner with the Maronites, the Druzes, the Shias and the Sunnis each carving out their own areas of influence and the Palestine refugee camps becoming a haven for extremist forces from all over the Muslim world. Syria, of course, will try and retain its influence while the French and the Americans will support the factions that they have been associated with in the past.
In Afghanistan, the paucity of “boots on the ground” has led to more and more civilian casualties in the south and southeast of the country, encouraging the belief that the war on the Taliban is, in fact, a war on the Pashtuns. In the north, Rashid Dostum is now reasserting his influence. He was responsible for ethnically cleansing the north of the Pashtuns (who had been settled there for many generations) on the ground that they were Taliban supporters.
Now he has raised the banner of revolt against the Pashtun governor. The central government is apparently unable to cope with the situation. In Herat, an influx of refugees thrown out by the Iranians — about 100,000 in the last few weeks — has not yet affected the prosperity that this province has enjoyed thanks to Iranian generosity. The perception is growing that for Herati Tajiks, an association with the Iranians and a sundering (if necessary) of ties with the rest of Afghanistan may be the best path to economic development.
What lessons does this have for Pakistan? Do we have the same vulnerabilities and can they be similarly exploited by external forces or exacerbated by our own short-sighted policies? Let’s face it. If Iran has problems in Sunni Balochistan and Seistan or in Iranian Kurdistan we have an alienated Balochistan where the situation is exacerbated by the ethnic divide between the Baloch and the Pashtuns on the one hand and the locals and settlers on the other.
In the Frontier, as also in the Pashtun belt in Balochistan, extremism is no longer confined to the tribal areas but is spreading to the settled districts with alarming rapidity. No success seems to have attended the efforts at development in the area despite the announcement of large grants for the purpose, including one of $750 million over a five-year period promised by the Americans.
Thousands of people have thronged the streets in support of the Chief Justice as a symbol of the Pakistani people’s desire for the implementation of the rule of law and for an end to army rule. It is a movement of the urban middle class. It is a movement that has so far avoided being seen as the tool of political parties. It is a movement that has belied cynics who have often stated that the Pakistani people lack political maturity and that their emotions usually take a turn towards violence because of their intolerance of dissent or disagreement.
If these demonstrations are seen as an expression of the will of the people then it would seem that free, fair and transparent elections with full accountability would represent the answer to Pakistan’s problems. All the issues we have require political solutions and wise leadership by popularly elected leaders.
But, there are also some unfortunate ground realities. In the early phase of such democratisation, the politicians would require the full support of the institutions that have hitherto ruled the country directly or indirectly.
Changing the mindset of extremists who pose the greatest threat to Pakistan’s existence as a moderate state must be preceded by a change of mindset in the institutions that have wittingly or unwittingly fostered extremism and which continue to see it as the guarantor of their continued exercise of power.
On the other side, the powers that be must also recognise that a new force has emerged in Pakistan. If Pakistan is to be preserved, the validity of the demands of this new force must be acknowledged. Failing to do so or resorting to opportunism of the past will make us yet another in the number of Muslim countries ready for fragmentation.
It may be of interest that a recent article in Foreign Policy gives a detailed analysis of the countries that a group of experts have determined can be regarded as “failing states”. This places Pakistan at 12th position while Afghanistan ranks eighth with Sudan and Iraq topping the list. Even Bangladesh is at the 16th position. We can dismiss this as anti-Pakistan propaganda, but even if we do, we should see what we can do to address the kernel of truth on which this assessment is based.
The writer is a former foreign secretary.
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