Understanding the Jihadi Mindset




By Dr Tariq Rahman


RECENTLY two incidents have sent shockwaves among ordinary Pakistanis as well as western observers. In the first one, militants, using the name of Islam, burst into a school in Tank and tried to persuade students to go with them for jihad. The principal of the school resisted only to be abducted from his house and released, after being traumatised in the process, two days later.

In the second, women students of the Jamia Hafsa, a madressah in Islamabad, tried to close down video and audio shops and then, in a mood of defiant vigilante militancy, kidnapped three women on charges of running a brothel. Now, they have set up a court to legitimise vigilante action.

We keep hearing, with deepening dismay, of bombings, suicide bombings and fighting in the name of Islam by militants who are called by various names including ‘jihadis’. But what is a jihadi? How does he (or she) think? What circumstances or ideas create the jihadi mindset? These are questions which bother most of us.

Psychologist Sohail Abbas has provided answers to them in a book entitled ‘Probing the Jihadi Mindset’ (2007). The book has been published by the National Book Foundation and is easy to read. Although it is a survey, the answers are accessible to the ordinary reader with no specialised training. The survey is based on 517 jihadis divided into the Peshawar group (198 people) and the Haripur group (319 people). Both groups comprise men ranging between the ages of 17 and 72 years. These men went to Afghanistan to fight against the Americans after 9/11.

In the Peshawar sample, however, some were already present in Afghanistan. The defining feature common to both groups is that they believed and participated, or wanted to contribute to, in what they believed was a jihad against foreign, non-Muslim, aggressors.

Most jihadis (74.1 per cent) were below 30 years of age and many were from Punjab. The majority came from Pashto-speaking backgrounds (48 per cent) while the percentage of Pashto-speakers in the population of Pakistan is only 15.4. This implies that the Pashtuns have been affected most by religious fervour.

However, in this case they may have joined the war because the Taliban, who are Pashtuns, were under attack. Urdu-speaking Mohajirs, whose share in the population is only 7.6 per cent, contributed 10.6 per cent of jihadis. This means that, despite the ethnic appeal of the MQM, the urban areas of Sindh are still prone to potential religious violence.

The jihadis were not completely uneducated. Whereas the illiterate population of Pakistan is 45.19 per cent, among the jihadis 44.3 per cent were illiterate. In the Haripur sample, however, only 23.2 per cent were illiterate.

Even more interesting is the fact that, contrary to common perception, most jihadis had not been educated in madressahs. While 35.5 per cent did attend madressahs they stayed there mostly less than six months (indeed merely 14 per cent stayed beyond that period). In the Haripur sample, 54.5 per cent had received no religious education while 45.5 per cent had — but again, even those who did receive religious education received very little of it. In short, as Dr Sohail Abbas concludes: ‘They were recruited largely from the mainstream of the Pakistan population. Their literacy level is above the average of the general population’.

This, indeed, is what reports on 9/11 tell us. Those who join radical Islamic groups are predominantly educated in technology and science. They do not necessarily belong to madressahs though, considering that the proportion of these religious seminaries to state educational institutions is so small, there is a proportionately large number of madressah students in radical Islamic circles in Pakistan.

According to the survey, 48.5 per cent of jihadis said that their families were more religious than those around them. However, they were not motivated for jihad by the family. In most cases (59.6 per cent in Haripur and 39.7 in Peshawar), they were motivated by religious leaders.

The peer group also had a strong influence and, of course, there was self-motivation. Indeed, not surprisingly, the jihadis saw themselves as the most religious member of the family. Some tried to change the family’s religious orientation stopping others from going to the tombs of saints because they believed it was forbidden.

Another interesting aspect of the jihadis’ attitude towards their families is that they did not bother about hurting or worrying their families. Nor, in the case of married men, did they think as to who would look after them. In short, ideology was so strong in their minds so as to break family bonds which are otherwise powerful in Pakistan.

These people also appeared to be less sociable than other Pakistanis. About 49 per cent reported limited social contacts. Maybe, in the absence of places for socialisation, the mosque filled in that gap in their lives. In any case, according to the survey, they were more emotionally unstable (29 per cent) than ordinary men (only nine per cent). Villagers, it appears, are more stable than the inhabitants of urban slums possibly because the villages are still rooted in a strong kinship network and tradition. In the city one is living in a void and feels rootless.

Most jihadis (65.5 per cent) were not sure that Osama bin Laden was involved in 9/11 but were sure that the Americans attacked Afghanistan because they wanted to destroy Islam (79.3 per cent) and that Islam was in danger (69 per cent). They wanted the glory of Islam from jihad (73.7 per cent) and many (39.4 per cent) also wanted to harm the Americans in the process. They had strong views and, in most cases, these remained unchanged although they were jailed in the end.

The book contains eight stories based on the lives of jihadis whose names have been changed to hide their real identities. These make for touching as well as harrowing reading. Basically, these are confused men without much knowledge of international or national events. They live lives of appalling misery and deprivation. Religion and, or the opinion of significant others, give value and meaning to their lives.

Jihadis lack entertainment and are fed by prejudices by their school textbooks, TV, radio and friends. Then, at some stage in life, they are persuaded to join the jihad by a religious figure, friend or relative. This gives them fresh enthusiasm and a new meaning in life. Instead of being treated like the scum of the earth the way poor people are treated in Pakistan, they are treated like heroes — even if it is temporarily.

Moreover, they are convinced that, whether they live or die, lose or win, they will have an exalted other-worldly reward as well as high reputation in their reference group in this world. Thus they risk everything to join jihadi movements. The survey contains much more which is of interest to those who want to understand Islamic extremism and militancy in Pakistan.

Perhaps the risk-taking attitude of the Jamia Hafsa students as well as the militant aggression of the Pakistani Taliban will become clear if we use these insights to study them. This survey needs wider dissemination and serious study by all concerned citizens who value tolerance, peace and democracy in Pakistan.

But what are we to do now that vigilante groups have started operating in the name of Islamisation even in Islamabad? In my opinion, the press and civil society must protest in clear terms that nobody can take the law into their own hands. The government, which cracks down on protests of other kinds, must impose the law on these vigilante groups too.

However, for doing so the government must have the moral legitimacy which comes out of fairness and strict adherence to the law itself. It is obvious to citizens that the law is bent and the judiciary insulted whenever it suits the rulers. For a long time the officials of the state — military, intelligence agencies, police and civilian bureaucracy — have been thrashing up ordinary citizens whenever they have annoyed them. Is this the way for creating respect for the law?

If evenly and fairly applied, the law is there to protect everybody including madressah students. For it is among them that people are picked up and sent to unknown and illegal prisons; it is for people of their kind that the Guatanamo Bay kind of horror holes are made.

The humanitarians of the world have a big struggle ahead of them — the struggle to re-establish the rule of law, habeas corpus, civilised values of tolerance and peace and democratic freedom with full freedom to minorities and dissidents for all. In this struggle, besides a strong and fair government, only a good educational system teaching humanitarian values can help.

Source:http://www.dawn.com/2007/04/10/op.htm#2

Language Question in Education



By Zubeida Mustafa


LANGUAGE controversies have been a sensitive issue in Pakistan. Half the country was lost in 1971 when, among other things, we could not concede the right to the people of East Pakistan to use Bangla, their own language, in the affairs of the state.

In 1972, language riots took place in Karachi when the “new Sindhis” were unwilling to recognise the right of the people of Sindh to use Sindhi as the language of the government. The alienation that was caused ran deep and has still not been bridged.

Now we are heading towards another disaster induced by an ill-advised language policy. This time the policymakers want to use language as a tool to deprive the masses of Pakistan of the right to acquire good education and, by virtue of that, good jobs and a respectable status in society. How? The government is determined to teach English from class one upwards and use it as the medium for teaching science and mathematics at the secondary level.

For the common man this means that he should forget good education for his children who will never be able to grasp the various concepts they are taught in a foreign language they are not too familiar with.

The federal education minister, Lieutenant General (retd) Javed Ashraf Qazi, has made up his mind on this count. He initiated the process of consulting the stakeholders to make recommendations for informed decision making.

For that purpose he set up a national education policy review team under Javed Hasan Aly. When the stage was reached for formulating recommendations, the minister instructed the team leader not to suggest anything that ran counter to the minister’s policy. As could have been expected Mr Aly resigned and the education policy and the White Paper have been left in the doldrums.

The federal minister insists that all children should begin to learn English from class one and from class six onwards the medium for teaching science and maths should be English.

The revised white paper, unlike the first draft, also recommends this, albeit conditionally. It states, “Such compulsory education of English should only start after suitably qualified and appropriately trained teachers for the English language are available to staff positions in all primary schools of the country to ensure that the benefit is assured to all the citizens, and not just the elite.”

What we have at present is a dual system based on a class divide. Since the children of the elite are exposed to English at home and also outside, they acquire proficiency in the language fast and derive advantage from it. The private schools they attend use English as the medium of instruction and their familiarity with the language enables them to understand to some extent the concepts they are taught.

On the other hand, we have the vast majority for whom English is an alien language. Many of them have had no exposure to it at all. At a time when their minds are beginning to understand a variety of concepts, which a good system of education should ensure are explained in the child’s mother tongue, is it fair to load the children with the burden of learning a language that makes little sense to them?

Worse still, the teachers who teach the children of the poor are the products of a system that has been in decay for quite some time now. They are not fit to teach English. The children learn by rote whatever they are taught in the name of English.

In the process, Pakistani society is being stratified and the gulf between the classes is growing. The policy of ignoring the mother tongue is having a negative impact on the culture of the various regions and the ethnic chasm is widening. It is time the language issue was addressed seriously, scientifically and dispassionately.The revised White Paper takes note of the hurdles that will be faced in adopting the mother tongue as a medium of instruction in the early years of learning. It concedes that “a number of local languages, including Punjabi and Balochi, have never been formally used as medium of instruction and, therefore, it would take some time and effort to get them on the ground, especially the preparation of textbooks in these languages will take some doing.”

The most sensible recommendation made by the White Paper is that a national language commission must be set up to help operationalise “the policy options and cater to the demand of the development of regional languages.”

The problem is that when one argues for teaching a child in his mother tongue, the critics of this approach misconstrue it as an attack on English. This is not the case. We do want our children to learn English but as Zakia Sarwar, the honorary director of Spelt, so aptly observes, “Ten years of teaching bad English cannot produce a proficient English learner.” She also emphasises that for three years a child must be taught in his mother tongue if he is to make a good start.

“It has been scientifically proved that it is a myth that a child can learn a language only up to the age of six,” Sarwar says. A language can be learnt at any stage provided the resources and the environment are provided, she adds.

Farida Akbar, the director of Pakistan Montessori Training Centre who understands the working of a child’s mind very well, is worried that teaching a child in a language he is not familiar with restricts his vocabulary and understanding. “That amounts to limiting his mental horizons since ideas are directly linked with language and words, and a child learning in a foreign language does not have a vast repertoire of words to express ideas,” she says.

Tailpiece: An education department functionary when asked from where will we get good English language teachers was overheard saying, “We can import them from Sri Lanka.”

Sourceawn.com,On10th of April,2007

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Yasser Chattha

Industrialisation will Lead to Democracy

IN his letter (April 6) S.M.H. Rizvi writes, "The first stumbling block in the way of real democracy is feudalism, which does not permit 70 per cent people to freely exercise their right to vote. This can be rectified by giving permanent tenancy rights' to the tillers through an executive order.

The diagnosis is correct, but the remedy he has suggested cannot be applied because of the existing socio-economic and political conditions. How can an assembly where 75 per cent of the members come from the feudal class be expected to axe their roots that nourish their lifestyle and prosperity? Each military regime in Pakistan's history has found it necessary to establish some kind of mutual support agreement with the feudal class to enable it to rule the country. Therefore, an executive order -- even by the most dictatorial military regime -- cannot be issued and implemented.

The remedy lies in full blown concentration and action by the government and the people to bring about an industrial revolution in the country through self-effort. Improvements in technology and economic systems should be conceptualised, experimented and implemented by Pakistanis themselves.

Dependence on foreign technology is a matter of shame and an index of lethargy and intellectual bankruptcy of the academia and intelligentsia of the nation.

Expanding industrial, educational and other professional service sectors will attract the agricultural workers way from agriculture into higher income industrial and professional services job raising common man's standard of living. Manpower shortage in agricultural field will make an economic sense for the smaller farmers to join together into farming co-operatives and bring in the economies of large scale mechanised farming.

The feudals will be deprived of tenants and landless tillers to enjoy their toil and use them as their vote bank. They will have to work themselves on their large tract of agricultural land to improve productivity or sell their idle agricultural and virgin land with the objective of increasing their income to be able to maintain their standard of living.

Purchasers would be the newly emerging industrial entrepreneurs with a scientific and engineering background.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of newer cities and towns will spring up around the clusters of industrial and professional services centres. Larger proportion of population will shift from rural to urban areas carrying their voting power away from the reach of the feudals.

Newer urban areas, demarcated into newer constituencies, would be able to elect their representatives and send them to the National Assembly. The hold of the feudals over the National Assembly will be over, enabling the newer assembly members representing industrial labour and professional people to function in a true democracy.

HUMAYUN ZAFAR
Toronto, Canada
Source: http://www.dawn.com/2007/04/12/letted.htm#1

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Yasser Chattha

When Enough is EnoughIF the guardians of Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa had commissioned a mission of mercy, attempted to resolve sectarian divides, taken up cudgels against illiteracy or poverty, or simply initiated a local cleanliness drive, the silent majority would have taken up their call with fervour.

But what hopes can we pin on people who themselves dwell in illegally occupied property, perched atop moulds of garbage, with a twisted sense of justice and morality?

They forget that every person will lie in his or her own grave and will be answerable for their own deeds. Individual sins are a person's own concern. They are a matter between God and the sinner and it is for Him to impart justice.

Before pointing accusing fingers, these people should look at their own deeds and truthfully decide whether they are pious enough themselves to judge others.

Their ranting and raving on loudspeakers and their incessant singing of praises devoid of melody or tune, is totally without concern not only for students trying to study or sick people needing tranquility but also for any other person who wants to read the Quran or pray quietly to God.

The government and these ulema might have their own vested interest in all this mess but the sufferers are the common people of Pakistan. Let the silent majority not remain silent any more and say enough is enough.

We are not morons and can make our own decisions and choices.

Everyone should just live and let live. God has blessed us with the intellect and power of reasoning.

If anyone wants to preach Islam, they should do so by self-example and by this I do not mean five times prayers only. I mean justice, fair play, tolerance, kindness, cleanliness and moral integrity.

Let them clean up their own act first. When they understand the true essence of Islam themselves, they will automatically attract followers - not rowdy troublemakers but silent true Muslims who will come willingly and not due to threats.

NIGHAT KAMAL AZIZ
Islamabad
http://www.dawn.com/2007/04/12/letted.htm#2

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Yasser Chattha

Obstacles in anti-Polio Drive
AS pointed out in a Dawn report some days ago, there are several factors obstructing the progress of inoculations against polio in Karachi. A major reason is the reluctance of families to allow vaccination teams to enter their houses in the absence of male members of the family. There is also wariness regarding the vaccine and the credentials of the person administering it. All this delays the process of ensuring that each child is vaccinated against the dreaded disease. Very often inoculation teams return to the base tired and frustrated at not being able to administer the drops to the number of children they had targeted. In a city like Karachi where medical outlets are aplenty, parents can easily take their children to a hospital or clinic to get them vaccinated. Nevertheless, the polio teams should not take this for granted. Instead, efforts should be reinforced to ensure door-to-door administration of the polio drops.

Medical teams have asked the government that their timings be rescheduled to weekends and evenings so that the children and the men folk are at home. This is a sensible demand which, if implemented, could help the vaccination teams achieve the desired results. What the teams should also be looking at is greater coordination with the building management of residential high-rises and mohallah committees. Announcing the arrival of the teams in advance and setting up makeshift vaccination camps nearby would encourage mothers to bring their children to be inoculated, especially as this would allow them more time to consult their husbands. The sight of other women bringing their children would also strengthen their faith in the medical team. There is less resistance to polio drops in the urban areas than in far-flung villages, and a determined effort to spread polio awareness among the people there and help them cast off their doubts and superstitions can yield positive results if the exercise is carried out in an intelligent and coordinated manner.
http://www.dawn.com/2007/04/16/ed.htm

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Yasser Chattha

Why not Pakhtunkhwa?

Importnat points:
1**Pashto became the identity symbol of the Pakhtuns during the British period.

2**Pakhtun ethnicity actually declined in intensity as Tahir Amin pointed out first in his pioneering study of the ethno-national movements of Pakistan.

3**I would like to go a step further and propose that, like India, we too should go for more states identified, as far as possible, by ethnic identity based upon language.
Dr Tariq Rahman


A NUMBER of letters in the press and statements from the Awami National Party leaders make it clear that the Pashto-speaking people of the NWFP, or at least the supporters of ANP, want that the province be renamed Pakhtunkhwa.

Another possible name would have been ‘Pakhtunistan’ – ‘tan’ being used for ‘the land of’ — but the Pakistani establishment has reservations about it since it was associated with an irredentist movement of that name in 1947. Both names are connected with ethnic identity, so let us refer to that in passing.

Pashto became the identity symbol of the Pakhtuns during the British period. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan used this in his anti-British movement. He published a journal called the Pakhtun from 1928 onwards and in this he kept emphasising that a nation is recognised by its language. By calling the Pashto-speaking people a ‘nation’, Khan Ghaffar mobilised them as a group. They were supposed to transcend tribal, or local, loyalties, and language was a means of doing so. The ordinary Pakhtun, of course, was proud of being a Pakhtun — of Pakhtunwali — and the pride of language must have grown in this period.

Khan Ghaffar became associated in Pakistani eyes with Afghan irredentism — the Afghan claim to Pakistani territory. Khan Ghaffar had, indeed, demanded an autonomous Pakhtunistan earlier but on September 4, 1947, he said that he only wanted a loose confederation of the ‘six settled districts’ of the NWFP. Later on, the National Awami Party went even beyond that — all it wanted was more power, more autonomy but all within the federation of Pakistan.

Pakhtun ethnicity actually declined in intensity as Tahir Amin pointed out first in his pioneering study of the ethno-national movements of Pakistan. I, too, reached the same conclusion. As the Pakhtuns got jobs in the army and the bureaucracy and got into business, they did not want to separate from Pakistan. What they wanted was that they should be recognised as a nationality in their own right and for this they wanted their living place to be given their name — Pakhtunkhwa. It was not a small matter for them because pride, self-esteem, identity and related issues are never trivial. So why the opposition?

The reasons for the state’s opposition are given in many books. Briefly, the ruling elite of the centre believes that Pakistan can become stronger by denying the various ethnic identities (and so languages) of the people of this land. Among the symbols of integration which the state emphasises are Islam and Urdu. The idea is that the creation of a Pakistani identity involves the suppression of other identities. It is this thinking which sets alarm bells ringing as soon as an innocuous proposition like the renaming of the NWFP comes up.

But this alarmist thinking is gradually giving place to accommodation. The ANP is, after all, part of the ruling coalition and people seem to have understood that Pakistan’s imposition of Urdu on Bangladesh was a mistake. Now the major opposition seems to be from the people who speak Hindko, Khowar and so on. First, there are minorities in all other provinces of the country — Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan — which already carry the names of the language of the majority community, so this should not be made out to be an impediment in the case of the NWFP alone.

I am suggesting this because one argument against the name Pakhtunkwa is that it does not represent the other major languages of the NWFP which are Hindko and Khowar. Pakistan has 72 languages listed against its name in the Ethnologue. However, personally I believe the figure is 55. This means that the NWFP in common with the other provinces has more than one language.

Indeed, the fact is that there is hardly any country or province with only one language. France has over 30 languages (some that are spoken by a very small section) and not only French. For Germany, about 27 languages are listed (two being dead ones). Greece has 15 (two are extinct). In India, every linguistic state, including Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Punjab, have many languages besides the ones which give these states their name.

In short, giving a name to a piece of land with reference to a language does not mean, nor has it ever meant, that that should be the only language spoken in it. The name is a reflection of the democratic will of the majority. Of course, the language rights of the minority should be protected by law as they are in French-speaking Quebec, the Catalan-speaking parts of Spain or the Romansch-speaking cantons of Switzerland.

However, I would like to go a step further and propose that, like India, we too should go for more states identified, as far as possible, by ethnic identity based upon language. If this happens the NWFP will lose the Hindko and Khowar-speaking provinces but will gain the Pashto-speaking part of Balochistan.

Punjab, too, will have to become smaller since a Seraiki province will be carved out of it. This would mean that Punjab will no longer dominate politics and this will reduce the friction between the federating units. The aim is to have justice and peace and it is with reference to these ends that this solution is proposed. But such solutions are subject to the will of the people. Referendums may be one way of finding out what their will is.

In the NWFP, however, there is another ironical twist — the oldest inhabitants of the cities are Hindko-speaking people. But this should be a minor problem considering that Karachi has a huge Pakhtun population. People will learn to live with each other but I see no reason for denying them the legitimate name of their province on the grounds that this will increase ethnic tension. On the contrary, if anything, it will defuse the existing tension.

Courtesy: Dawn.com

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Yasser Chattha