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Old Tuesday, January 13, 2009
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Default Editorial: And now the ‘reverse’ jihad

On Sunday, the Pakistan army killed 40 Taliban and wounded scores of them in Mohmand Agency when it repulsed an attack mounted by about 600 fighters from across the Afghan border. The attackers, called “foreigners” by the official spokesman, targeted the Frontier Constabulary positions inside the Agency. The “foreigners” were supported by the local Taliban. In the fight that continued through the early hours, six Pakistani soldiers were martyred.

In the neighbouring Bajaur Agency, the local Taliban known to be supported from outside Pakistan cut off the ears of four private guards. The Pakistan army is deployed in Bajaur, the most dangerous stronghold of the militants who pretend to wage jihad against the state of Pakistan. There too, Pakistan has suffered incursions of “foreigners” from the neighbouring Afghan province of Kunar. Next to Bajaur, in South Waziristan Agency, the Taliban carried out the abduction of a government official obviously with the intent of demanding ransom or release of their cohorts from state captivity.

Our misfortune is that that all sides fighting on Pakistani soil claim the obligation of jihad as their motive for violence. Those who attack and those who defend also claim the status of martyr for their dead. In Swat, the “piety” of the militants is being demonstrated through the courts set up by them, doling out punitive verdicts without much examination of evidence. It is said that there are three types of Taliban operating in Pakistan: the Afghan plus non-Afghan “foreigners” attached to Al Qaeda; the Pakistani Taliban who are demanding a change in Pakistan’s foreign policy and enforcement of their tough sharia; and criminals who enrich themselves through jihad.

The Americans complain that the Taliban cross over into Afghanistan from the Pakistani side to attack the NATO-ISAF forces. The CIA uses drones and missiles to target and kill them in our Tribal Areas. This movement of the militants is supposed to be a hangover from the jihad that went into Afghanistan to support the government of the Taliban against the multinational “invasion” of Afghanistan in 2001. When the rout occurred, many of the Taliban escaped into Pakistan’s tribal belt and Balochistan. Now the movement of militants is from Afghanistan to Pakistan, a kind of “reverse” jihad.

In a recent interview with Der Spiegel, our ISI chief General Ahmad Shuja Pasha was asked a question about the presence of the Taliban in Quetta. If the report is correct, and we hope it isn’t, he is supposed to have expressed an opinion of jihad that indirectly denies the presence of the state: “Shouldn’t they be allowed to think and say what they please? They believe that jihad is their obligation. Isn’t that freedom of opinion?” It is quite surprising to see a concept which is not even consensual among the clergy being given a constitutional status like freedom of expression. Saying that jihad is permissible without the authority of the state is one thing; actually waging jihad when the state is at peace is quite another.

An editorial on Balochistan appearing in a national daily on Monday stated: “Challenging the writ of the Taliban is tricky as it is both difficult and dangerous to confront a grouping that says it is working within the religious constitution of the state — the constitution which has the sharia at its very heart. Few of us would wish to risk the wrath of the extremists by challenging them as they will always counter with the cry of ‘Are you not a Muslim?’” The truth of the matter is that the militant clerics — and most others go along for the sake of their empowerment — claim jihad only by negating the fundamental article of the Constitution: the state itself.

Jurisprudence says jihad is for the state or the “ul-al amr” (ruler) to declare, therefore any jihad declared in a vigilante form is not jihad but “fitna”, a most undesirable state of affairs in an Islamic state. The argument of the clergy in favour of jihad quite clearly rejects the state “because it is derelict in its duty to declare jihad when it has become incumbent on the state to do so”. The inspiration behind the thinking of the clergy comes from Revelation; for the state, the mechanics of waging war depend on the calculus of power. Jihad is an aspiration to martyrdom; war is an expression of a state’s economic and military strength.

When the state gets into the business of waging “deniable” jihad with the help of “non-state actors”, it creates multiple centres of power at the cost of its internal sovereignty. These days, an unhinged war in the form of a “reverse” jihad has engulfed Pakistan. And the only reason why it is raging is the waning of the writ of the state and the empowerment of groups who wish to usurp it. *

Second Editorial: Pak-India cooperation need of the hour

The chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Ms Asma Jahangir, and secretary-general of the South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA), Mr Imtiaz Alam, have just returned from a peace conference in Amritsar, India, and the news they have carried back is good. They told the press on arrival back that the Indian response to their appeal to India and Pakistan to cooperate in this hour of duress was extremely positive. Their appeal that the two countries should abandon their current trend of threatening each other and return to the “composite” peace talks was well received. What is more, the Indian participants criticised the Indian media for creating a warlike hype in the country.

This is the need of the hour. Civil society on both sides, instead of being shanghaied into war hysteria, should become active in starting their own discourse of peace. The aim is not to condone the Mumbai attack but to get to the root of the matter through cooperation. The good news is that SAFMA and HRCP will arrange the visit of a 25-member delegation to New Delhi on the 21st of this month, comprising Pakistani parliamentarians, journalists and people from different walks of life. The aim is to reassure the Indians that all people and all political across the board in Pakistan favour normalisation of relations with India and support the “composite dialogue” currently threatened by bilateral tensions. *


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Last edited by Princess Royal; Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 09:15 PM.
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