An alternative discourse

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 02 Oct, 2009

A Few months ago, I met a three-member team from a UK-based think tank called Quilliam. Based in London, the organisation claims to be the first counter-terrorism think tank in the world. It was started by two young Muslims, Ed Hussain and Maajid Nawaz, who were formerly part of the Islamist organisation Hizbut Tahrir (HT). They are now dedicated to weaning Muslim youth away from global jihad and towards peace.

It was interesting listening to Maajid Nawaz who had come to Pakistan to talk about his experience as a member of HT. He said he used to visit Pakistan to recruit people in the military and in government for the global jihad. It was during a period of incarceration that Nawaz said he saw the light and decided to wean people away from jihad.

Luckily for the two men, the British government was able to provide funding to set up Quilliam. Now they both go around the world with a missionary zeal to spread another kind of message. Their aim is also to bridge the gap between the Muslim world and the West.

The Quilliam team’s trip to Pakistan was aimed at visiting universities where Maajid Nawaz spoke to students about how he was wrong in supporting global jihad. Earlier, the organisation had funded a conference of the vice-chancellors of various Pakistani universities to convince them of the project that Nawaz later undertook.

The organisation is certainly an interesting idea. But it might not take off in the Muslim world because of its inherent shortcomings. To start with, the think tank has no input from within the Muslim world, which makes it a foreign concept. The problem is that a foreign idea tends to attract negative attention. Quilliam seems to represent the foreign frustration at the lack of an alternative discourse in the Muslim world. It has tried to start the discourse by providing these former HT members with a forum.

However, the lack of real contacts inside the Muslim world turns this into a venture without depth. For instance, in their eagerness to establish contacts and work amongst the youth, Quilliam has partnered organisations in Pakistan with little or no credibility. Another noticeable flaw is that since it is unable to get respectable names from the Muslim world on board, the organisation will not be able to achieve much to please its donors. Besides the two names mentioned earlier, there is no significant name on Quilliam’s team that would generate positive attention.

It would be foolhardy to pretend that there is no scope of an alternative debate of ideas in the Muslim world or people are not capable of doing that. Quilliam could, in fact, build itself as a neutral forum to develop ideas across the Muslim world or even between the Muslim world and the West. Surely, a well-funded organisation can make better use of its resources than just telling the HT story.

At a conceptual level there are two issues worth considering. First, an alternative discourse to curb violence will have to see that rebellion within the Muslim world is partly (if not entirely) driven by a post-colonial discourse, especially where the Muslim population is faced with brutality and is struggling for survival. People in such places cannot be dissuaded from fighting militarily until and unless there is also a new discourse on the other side regarding the solution of the problem.

More importantly, in many places the post-colonial discourse dovetails into an anti-imperialist debate. The problem is that religion becomes a tool that people don’t want to abandon because of the absence of an alternative ideology or set of ideas.

Second, it goes without saying that there is a real need for a new discourse within the Muslim world on numerous issues starting from the concept of the state, war and peace to social norms and economic life. Historically, the Muslim world was progressive due to the independence of academic institutions when it came to arriving at new concepts. Even in the recent past institutions like Al Azhar in Egypt were to be taken note of for encouraging new ideas.

However, it is also a fact that the formulation of ideas in the Muslim world has stopped or taken a peculiar direction as far as political thought is concerned. The bulk of the interpretation of religious texts has been driven by the post-colonial ethos of societies and thinkers.

At this juncture, there is an urgent need in the Muslim world to think anew about a lot of issues, not to appease the West, but to contribute to the internal political discourse. Issues such as the link between religion and politics in an Islamic state or war and conflict involving a Muslim state, or the position of non-Muslims in an Islamic state are matters which require a rethink.

It is not that finding a new direction is not possible. For instance, there have been Muslim scholars in the past such as Abd Al-Razik at Al Azhar who came up with revolutionary ideas regarding the political character of a Muslim state, especially in the context of the link between religion and politics. Though his ideas in the 1930s were not pursued as they were considered too revolutionary, there are newer thinkers who have contributed fresh input to the concept of an Islamic state.

It is unfortunate that most of this discussion is taking place outside the Muslim world by Muslim scholars. It needs to be brought into and made part of the mainstream.

Perhaps organisations such as Quilliam could become a forum for the exchange of ideas, rather than just doing what many might regard as a foreign conspiracy. But then, one is also forced to wonder why, despite the riches of the Muslim world, we are unable to create a forum that would allow Muslims to talk amongst themselves and voice new ideas.

Of course Muslim states in the Middle East and the Gulf fund research initiatives at foreign universities such as the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. However, it is important to bring new ideas and discussion to the heart of the Muslim world if a change is to be brought about or if the social and political development of Muslims is the goal. Until new ideas are generated and discussed, Muslims can hardly hope to flourish or progress.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

Jihad and the state

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 09 Oct, 2009

Pakistan’s support today is central to winning the war on terror. Hence, American aid is meant to encourage the political government and, to a certain extent, the military to cleanse the country of the thousands of jihadis that have been in Pakistan since the 1980s.

The strategy might work to a degree in eliminating some groups. Indeed Pakistan’s support is critical in reducing the size and subsequently the threat posed by terror networks like Al-Qaeda. The current assessment is that the terror outfit has in fact reduced in size and is partly relocating to Africa.

But this is not an indicator that the battle has been completely won. To vanquish the faceless enemy, the US and its allies have to achieve the harder goal of winning hearts and minds without which the war on terror is not winnable. This is because terror networks are difficult to locate, especially when they have society’s support. The problem right now is that while people in Pakistan might be anxious regarding some Taliban groups on a killing spree in the country, neither they nor the state in its entirety have complete faith in America’s war on terror or its presence in the region.

While institutions of the state have problems due to the manner in which the US chooses to fight the war, a common perception is that the Taliban imposed the war on Pakistan due to the US presence. So, to many the Taliban and jihadis essentially represent a struggle against American imperialism in Afghanistan. What, of course, goes hand in hand with such perceptions is the view that 9/11 was an American conspiracy to invade Afghanistan, the key to Central Asia. These are interesting times when the religious right begins to look like the left.

The battle for hearts and minds is essentially a part of the exercise of making the war legitimate. Currently, the argument presented by some in Pakistan, including certain prominent televangelists, is that America’s war essentially represents a clash of civilisations and is being imposed on Pakistan by an illegitimate government on behalf of the US. Notwithstanding the general suspicion regarding the US, there are two issues that need attention when it comes to the debate on what a ‘just war’ is in the Muslim world.

Firstly, what is a just war in Islam? According to some, a just war is one which is fought for the defence of Islam or for extending the religion to other parts of the world. The thinking goes that since the war on terror has been imposed by the US by falsely accusing Al Qaeda for 9/11, the struggle against it is legitimate. It would certainly add to everyone’s knowledge if Pakistani authorities disclosed how Khaled Sheikh Mohammad, who was interrogated by Pakistani forces before being handed over to America, confessed to his involvement in the bombing of the World Trade Centre.

Those that oppose the war on terror create the same categories as those that support the war of the ‘bad’ Taliban versus the ‘good’ Taliban. The latter are those fighting American hegemony in South Asia or other parts of the world. The bad ones are those that attack Pakistan on the behest of the US or Indian intelligence agencies. It becomes imperative for all Muslims to fight the US, which is threatening the survival of the Islamic civilisation, while Pakistan is considered the citadel of Islam.

So, people are caught between their dislike for violence imposed internally and the message coming from certain quarters that this violence is actually caused by the American presence in the region. Consequently, the situation would improve after America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Such perspectives received greater support after Washington’s needless expansion of the war to Iraq.

But then there is no consensus on what a just war is. Over the years, the concept of jihad has been through several interpretations depending on the times. Today, there is no consensus amongst the community of believers regarding the legitimacy of war. One of the important issues pertains to the question of who has the authority to wage a war. Is it the state or the individual’s responsibility? This question is not easy to answer as it is directly connected with another equally complex matter regarding the nature and legitimacy of the state.

The fact is that most religious opinions on war involving the individual citizen pertain to times when scholars had responded to external invasions and considered their own governments to be lacking in legitimacy to represent the people. The current times, unfortunately, don’t appear very different. However, the issue requires further thought even if the US left the region.

This brings me to the second issue of what a legitimate Islamic state is, a matter that has a direct bearing on whether the public would support the war or not. For the US, the battle to win hearts and minds becomes even more problematic considering that people in most countries of the Muslim world are not happy with their governments. This is certainly true in Pakistan where there is a lot of confusion about who has the right to govern.

The rampant corruption of the leadership adds fuel to the fire of the arguments of those who believe and profess that democracy is not suited to an Islamic system of government. Some televangelists in Pakistan, who are gaining popularity amongst the educated middle-class youth, argue that democracy as a system is foreign to Islam and hence must be abolished. Naturally, a state established on what they consider the wrong principles does not have the right to decide on which side of the fence it wants to fight.

These self-appointed preachers present a specific view on the politics of the state as if there is no space for any other perspective. Indeed, there is an ongoing debate on the relationship between politics and religion. While the concept of caliphate was supported historically, modern Muslim scholars such as Al Razik and Abdullah An-Na’im talk about the possibility of the separation of religion and politics which would allow for newer methods of selecting a government.

A debate on the aforementioned issues is no guarantee that the situation would immediately turn around for the US in Afghanistan. But it may save the world from protracted conflict on other fronts. The clash of civilisations is an ugly phenomenon and discussion in Muslim societies will help world peace.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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On different wavelengths

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 16 Oct, 2009

THE recent attack on GHQ and yesterday’s attacks in Lahore and Kohat and the government’s response to these incidents reminded one of the days after the terrorist attack on Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel.

There were some in the government who referred to the incident as Pakistan’s 9/11. While that particular date in American history can be interpreted in several ways, its greatest significance lies in the fact that it brought the state and society in the US on the same page as far as fighting the war against terror was concerned. Did we manage to achieve this consensus on Sept 20 last year? Perhaps not.

But this is where the catch lies. The enemy is far more intelligent than what some of our television commentators would like us to believe. In the GHQ case, the terrorists not only understood the strategic value of attacking at the heart of the army’s power base, they also appeared to understand the chasm between the state and society and within the state at several levels. The attackers understand the civilian-military divide better than a lot of people who talk about a new era of civilian-military relations in the country and boast about the two sides being on the same page.

They probably understand that the civilian government might pretend to be powerful but that it depends on externally borrowed power and that in the case of friction between the two centres of power, it is the civilians who would back off. This was most obvious from the fact that instead of raising some critical questions after the attack on GHQ, all that the president and prime minister could do was congratulate Gen Ashfaq Kayani on the excellent handling of the crisis.

There is no doubt that the nation is saddened by the death of unarmed officers and soldiers, and supports any action to punish those who carried out the attack. But the entire event ought to be discussed threadbare without any mudslinging. Why was it that 10 men penetrated a highly guarded area and remained ensconced in GHQ for about 19 hours, especially when the army’s high command was in the premises?

There are two important issues here. First, the Pakistan Army, which is trained mainly in conventional warfare and fighting state forces, is not well trained in counter-insurgency operations. This explains why despite being armed with G3s and other types of infantry equipment the force guarding GHQ could not respond properly. Hence, this capacity must be beefed up at the earliest.

Second, the connection of the key planner Aqeel, alias Dr Usman, with the army medical stores is a reminder of the problem that could perhaps prevail in pockets inside the rest of the military. This pertains to the religio-political inclinations of individual civil and military officials and officers that directly or indirectly support the jihadis.

Aqeel’s is not a unique case. Earlier there was Major Haroon Ashiq alleged to be involved in the murder of Gen Faisal Alavi. He was linked with one of the Punjab-based militant outfits. His capture led the police and agencies to other retired officers who had split from the Lashkar-i-Taiba and were waging ‘jihad’ on their own. We must also not forget the air force officials and officers involved in the first attack on the former president Gen Pervez Musharraf. Reportedly, the agencies were forced to go deep within the PAF in search of people connected to different militant outfits or the tableeghi jamaat.

At this point, how sure are we that all older links between the jihadis and individuals

in the police or military have been snapped? Instead of eulogising the army, parliament should be carefully looking at and questioning the old linkages from the perspective of having a handle on the problem of ‘jihadism’ and what it means for the state.

ISPR director general Maj-Gen Athar Abbas stated that the attackers had planned to use the hostages to negotiate the release of about 100 terrorists. Reportedly, there are about 400 terrorists in different jails. Some of the more high-profile detainees are believed to include Malik Ishaq, head of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) and Qari Saifullah Akhtar, head of the Hizb-ul-Jihad Islami. The government must now look at its preparedness and the capacity to protect its high-value detainees.

Although the military and government now seem inclined to consider other reasons for the attack, such as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan trying to avenge Baitullah Mehsud’s death, the rescue of high-value terrorists seems to be the primary reason, which must not be ignored at any cost. It must not be forgotten that the attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore was also meant to take hostages who could then be exchanged for top jihadis. Sources even claim that the LJ’s Malik Ishaq was involved in the earlier case and had decided to use the attack to get himself freed after the elected Punjab government failed to deliver on a mutual agreement between LJ and the PML-N leadership.

What’s equally interesting is the fact that there is an effort by those in power to ignore or divert attention from areas which are as infested with extremist militants as Fata and the tribal areas. The sudden effort to get policemen from most districts of south Punjab to deny the existence of the jihadi problem in their areas is a reaction similar to when the government denied the Pakistani connections of the Mumbai attackers even before investigating the matter. The denial is strange since most of the attacks in Punjab or the federal capital are believed to be provoked or carried out by Punjabis or Punjab-based militant outfits.

Perhaps the fear is that this might divert international attention towards Punjab or make ordinary Pakistanis think about the reasons why jihadis have spread terror across Pakistan and not confined themselves to the tribal areas as the authorities would like us to believe. Interestingly, even the ISPR’s emphasis is that the attack might have involved Punjabis but that it was carried out at the behest of the Pakhtun Taliban.

It is indeed important to fight militants in Waziristan who are influenced by Al Qaeda, but why does it have to be at the cost of ignoring the Punjab-based outfits who are proving to be good hosts for the terrorist network? Sources believe that Al Qaeda has trickled into areas bordering Punjab. These outfits operate beyond the Pakhtun-inhabited tribal areas and their threat is evident from the sectarian killings in Dera Ismail Khan and other places.

There is a possibility that the civilian government might lose the initiative in an urge to appease the military and the latter might just lose the initiative to act against those that were part of the GHQ attack for unexplained strategic reasons. This raises the question of how much bloodshed would there be before strategic re-evaluation.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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Diet of negativity

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 23 Oct, 2009

As the government fights its battle against terror, different trends are emerging which will shape society. It would be fair to argue that the current battle being fought by Pakistan, the way it is being fought and its eventual outcome will determine whether society remains liberal, marginally liberal or tips over in the other direction.

It is important to point out what these terminologies mean. The term ‘liberal’ has nothing to do with western values. It refers to the notion of tolerance and multi-polarity which were once the hallmark of the entire South Asian region. The opposite of this is not necessarily extremism but an attitude that varies between conservatism and extremism, in which there is little space for an alternative viewpoint and where society becomes extremely inward-looking. This, in turn, means a society that has little or no capacity to learn from history or review its own behaviour towards others.

In perhaps the next decade or so we will be looking at a new generation of leaders comprising today’s youth. The capacity of this generation to understand liberal values in their true spirit has dwindled. It is assumed that being liberal means pursuing western values, which is a wrong interpretation. However, youth who do not subscribe to the above have moved in a confused direction. Where are they headed? Is it social conservatism or conservative nationalism?

The new generation may turn out to be xenophobic, inward-looking and negatively nationalistic. This means their ability to review their own behaviour, especially at the national level, would not be adequate. They would not consider their own flaws with the perspective of correcting them. They would feel they are facing a hostile world which has to be fought. They may not believe in peaceful coexistence and tolerance.

Would such behaviour be considered odd? Probably not, because this is what they have learnt. Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, the youth are frustrated by years of corrupt rule and poor governance and the negative reputation the country has acquired in the past couple of decades and more.

When they try to understand what is happening to them and the country, there are influenced by those who would like them to believe that Pakistan is a target of an international conspiracy to destroy it and take away its crown jewels: the state’s nuclear weapons. For them, the Kerry-Lugar bill and the interaction between ‘white’ foreigners and local people fit into the heinous plan. The conditions in the bill (now an act) — particularly the terms pertaining to civilian control of the military — are a ploy to weaken the country’s only institution.

The military subscribes to this conspiracy theory as well because, as suggested by the grapevine, there are those in the organisation who believe that the president would like to destroy the institution to strengthen himself. But even if we imagine this to be true, the fact is that most national leaders (barring the religious right) believe that strengthening civilian rule is directly proportionate to weakening the military, at least politically. Even Nawaz Sharif, whose effort to limit the milita

ry’s power led to a confrontation with the then army chief, subscribed to this belief.

The conspiracy theory mentioned above trickles down to the youth as well, which is natural due to society having become militaristic. But the more important thing is that the new heroes of the upcoming generation take the shape of rabid evangelists who do not draw upon a positive or constructive plan but build their case on past failures.

In some cases there is constant reference to the golden days of Islam. Indubitably, there were many renowned scholars who were Muslim. However, what is not told to today’s youth is that these scholars were individuals who could thrive due to the general level of tolerance and multi-polarity in society, which allowed these people to excel.

Otherwise empires are neither Muslim, Christian or of any other religion. It’s just that the rulers use religion to manipulate people and gain legitimacy. A nation’s greatness is not something that passes down from generation to generation. It depends on its ability to motivate people to create and be generally innovative. A society that does not have tolerance loses the ability to be creative in the positive sense.Moreover, states have rivals. In view of the realist paradigm states try to maximise their gains by building power, which leads to confrontation and the desire to minimise the power of others. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that foreign powers would want to influence some of Pakistan’s political decisions, especially those that affect the interests of others.

However, Pakistan’s destruction does not benefit anyone. A compliant state entity is easier to manage than a chaotic and fragmented polity. Taking control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons is too high a risk for anyone. But it is also a reality that driven by their need to have compliant decision-making by Islamabad, foreign powers have traditionally partnered governments and encouraged bad governance and corruption. This is done without understanding that such governments can only deliver in the short term and no more.

Hence, foreign stakeholders can be accused of harbouring short-term relationship plans for Pakistan. But then the issue is that this happens due to the Pakistani leadership’s inability to focus on a long-term vision for the state. This attitude has resulted in people losing a sense of ownership in the state, which is the main cause of the prevailing disarray and bleak scenarios.

Unfortunately, the youth have been raised on such negativity. Just like the generation that grew up during Gen Zia’s days, the generation that has grown up on negative images, corruption and biased opinions might prove to be equally depressed and myopic.

Surely, our political leadership must be blamed for the situation. But why not include others as well who have contributed in equal measure to the mayhem?

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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The nature of the beast

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 30 Oct, 2009

The series of recent terrorist attacks call for a close analysis of the militant threat and the formulation of a strategy to ward off such tragedies. At the moment, we seem to be jumping from one target to another, fighting some enemies and denying the existence of others. Hence the plan lacks strategic depth as the state appears to pursue one type of enemy leaving out others.
It will help to explain that the state of Pakistan is confronted with three enemies that are closely intertwined. Firstly, there is Al Qaeda, which comprises Arabs, Uzbeks and a select group of Pakistanis. Then there is the Taliban who consist of different branches including the Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan. The latter are ideologically connected to the group known as the Pakistani Taliban who, although they consider Mullah Omar their ameer-ul-momineen, are engaged in fighting a battle inside Pakistan to capture the state.

This is considered essential to establish a system that could then be taken to the rest of the world. A glance through Farzana Sheikh’s recent book Making Sense of Pakistan demonstrates that some modern Muslim thinkers such as Abul Ala Maududi and Allama Iqbal also considered the state as a forum. However, this is not to suggest that these two thinkers advocated using violence in the same way as the Taliban.

Then there are the Punjab-based Salafi-jihadi groups wrongly termed as the Punjabi Taliban. Actually, Taliban is a term that has a certain historical context and can only be used in the case of the Afghan Taliban. Nevertheless, the Punjabi jihadis are ideologically-driven and keen to take on the state.

The various Punjab-based groups or those connected with Punjab assist others in Waziristan and Swat. They even use the tribal areas as a hideout. For example ‘Commander’ Ilyas Kashmiri, who heads the 313 Brigade of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-ul-Islami (Huji), took refuge in Waziristan in 2005 after he developed problems with Pakistan’s military. Then there is the Amjad Farooqi group, which was also involved in the assassination attempt on Pervez Musharraf.

The above description is meant to demonstrate that since the enemy is diverse, it cannot just be seen through the single lens of the Taliban. Unfortunately, the state has buried its head in the sand by arguing that while there is a problem in Waziristan, there is hardly anything to worry about in Punjab. The Punjab government in particular seems to deny the fact that there are Punjabis involved in religious militancy. The Punjabi jihadis, in fact, are crucial because they mingle easily with the crowd in places where the attack is to be carried out.

The attackers must reconnoitre the target in advance before chalking out a plan. An outsider can be spotted easily. Thus the dependence on Punjab-based militants to carry out attacks in the capital or Lahore. Recently, it was claimed that the mastermind of the Marriott bombing and the GHQ attack was caught from Bahawalpur.

Reading such reports one wonders why the Punjab government is going on the defensive, withholding information about the presence of militants in Punjab, especially southern Punjab. Naming southern Punjab as a possible place for jihadi recruitment does not mean that youth from other places such as Faisalabad, Gujranwala or Lahore are not involved. However, the concentration of religious militants is in this region.

This fact is logical because of the link between three major militant outfits in southern Punjab. One could argue that the government might not want people to concentrate on this region because of the presence of outfits which do not fight the state, such as Jaish-i-Mohammad or Lashkar-i-Taiba, and that the problem is only with the breakaway factions, as ISPR spokesman Maj-Gen Athar Abbas recently argued. But the fact is that no one can control individuals or groups breaking away from the mother organisation and linking up with the Taliban or Al Qaeda.

It is amazing the extent to which the government can go to withhold information about the seemingly ‘friendly’ groups. For instance, recently during a television programme Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah went out of his way to suggest that the Jaish-controlled madressah, which is also the outfit’s headquarters, is not a no-go area. He even tried to make a lame excuse when informed that a team from a local channel was attacked when they tried to take shots of the area from the outside.

More interestingly, the minister immediately accused me of using a western lens to look at the situation, an accusation also made by Jaish-i-Mohammad in its weekly magazine Al Qalam. The article was written with the specific purpose to incite people against me. The writer had twisted words and facts from one of my previous articles and presented them in a way that made me appear as an enemy. This was immediately brought to the knowledge of the interior ministry, which promised to provide help. Intriguingly, it took the Bahawalpur DPO more than three hours to make the first contact. The lapse might have been at either end but considering that I could survive for three hours I declined their help.

In any case, one does not expect sympathy from a district administration that has lately been going out of its way to hide the activities of an outfit. The game is that you are not allowed an opportunity to prove anything because the evidence suddenly disappears once you raise a hue and cry.

The Punjab government’s attitude reflects political expediency. A lot of big traders in southern Punjab and other parts of the province who are constituents of the different factions of the Muslim League are believed to finance the outfits both directly and indirectly. This is not to suggest that other political parties are any better.

However, the bottom line is that while as an individual one feels unprotected by the state, it is sad to think that the authorities believe they can deal with religious militancy on a piecemeal basis. A holistic strategy is necessary, not to protect western interests but to safeguard the state and its citizens.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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Political no man’s land

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 06 Nov, 2009

WITH the start of military operations in Swat and Waziristan and an increase in suicide attacks across the country, some other pressing concerns seem to have slipped to the periphery of the radar screen in the last six months. The Balochistan issue is a case in point.

Unfortunately, the region is a political no man’s land. The dictionary definition of ‘no man’s land’ is unoccupied land separating two opposing forces. This means that since opposing forces are unable to deliver anything concrete in terms of a viable policy for Balochistan, the situation there makes it analogous to a geographical no man’s land.

For years the state has been unable to properly develop the region, which state functionaries argue is not the fault of the federal government but that of tribal leaders and provincial politicians. The state has always been iniquitous in taking development to peripheral regions. And the division between the mainland and the periphery is not something based on geographical terminology but on concentration of power.

Resultantly, the main stakeholders do not necessarily bother about areas that do not appear on their radar screen due to a lack of interest. Besides Balochistan, another example of an abandoned area is the Thar region of Sindh, where the dire situation of people suffering from famine is hardly ever noticed. I remember the days of famine in Ethiopia, which was sufficiently projected on national television and radio. What did not receive any attention at all at the time was a crippling famine in Thar. Even now the water shortage and widespread hunger in that area is not being adequately reported by the national media.

Referring to the Balochistan issue, the problem right now from the state’s perspective is that powerful stakeholders do not want to see it as anything other than a national security issue. The reported evidence of New Delhi funding some Baloch nationalists or Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s links with the militants’ leadership is excuse enough for Islamabad to pick up hundreds of Baloch people and not bat an eyelid because it is a matter of national security.

The bigger problem with ‘national security’ in Pakistan is that the military seems to have sole ownership of policymaking related to such issues. Political solutions, as was obvious from the fate of negotiations with Baloch leaders conducted by Messrs Mushahid Hussain and Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, do not necessarily have to be implemented.

The perspective of the ‘deep state’ is that these forces, which apparently have links with India and Afghanistan, are tribal and coercive and can only be dealt with by force. Before Gen Pervez Musharraf’s time the state played ball with the same actors. The fundamental shift that took place over the last decade was that the deep state thought of exploiting regional resources on its own without paying higher costs to the local regional partners.

Not that the policy of malleable local partners was abandoned. In fact, the state went on to replace people who played tough with those that could do the job in a less costly way. Thus Nawab Akbar Bugti was killed and replaced by another tribal leader, who was provided weapons and allowed concessions in line with the old system. Such an approach basically means that the deep state does not allow for long-term investment in the socio-political and socio-economic development of the region.

Islamabad never tried to befriend the Baloch middle class that occupies the political no man’s land between the Pakistani state and the Baloch tribal leaders. For instance, instead of giving this educated middle class a stake in provincial development, especially real estate, land was given to the chief minister for distribution amongst his cronies.

The problem with Balochistan being a national security issue is that neither the political government in Islamabad nor GHQ in Rawalpindi seems keen on looking for a political option. One could even argue that the option for a political solution – which could be brought about by using the services of Asif Ali Zardari, who has close links with many of the Baloch sardars – is lost due to the perceived internal battle between the military and the president.

There is no concrete plan for the region on the other side of the divide as well. Those that want to ‘liberate’ the Baloch people from the shackles of Islamabad’s domination do not have a constructive plan either beyond creating mayhem or killing innocent people in the province.

The people of a federating unit have a right to choose their destiny. Considering John Stuart Mill’s principle of the state being for the greater happiness of the people, if the people of Balochistan want to go their own way they have a right to. The problem, however, is that the leadership of the separatist movement seems clueless about building a consensus for their struggle amongst the other ethnic communities of the province. Balochistan today has a multi-ethnic population and killing ethnic minorities is not a sustainable option if the separatist leadership wants to go beyond extorting the right price from Islamabad.

The Baloch nationalists do not have dominant control over the region like the Bengalis did in former East Pakistan, for a favourable military/guerrilla initiative. At best they can disrupt normal life and divide people even further. The fact which does not get fully reported in the national media today is the number of Hazaras and settlers getting killed in Balochistan. The dissident leadership probably does not appreciate that such aimless killing does not create sympathy for their political cause, nor will it benefit them during the process of negotiating transfer of assets (if we were to imagine that they manage to succeed in making a separate state).

They also do not exhibit any clear-cut political and socio-economic plan beyond extorting rent from global players for resources inside Balochistan. Even if they succeed in attaining their objective, they might not do better than the sheikhs of the Gulf states. This means seeking rent for natural resources, the price of which will in any case be determined by the international market and external pressures.

Sadly, the majority of the population in Balochistan continues to suffer between two extremes. The only solution for the Balochistan issue lies in following the political path, which might not happen in the foreseeable future.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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The threat within

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 13 Nov, 2009

A few days ago I came across a letter to the editor in Dawn in which the writer had protested against the use of the word ‘Taliban’ to describe the brutal killers currently terrorising the nation.
In the writer’s view, such people should be termed ‘zaliman’. I thought I would advise the writer to watch more television and read newspapers to get rid of his anger against the Taliban.

Perhaps the writer would have benefited tremendously by watching a programme aired recently on a TV channel in which three distinguished maulanas — including Jamaat-i-Islami leader Fareed Paracha — argued that the Taliban were being needlessly maligned since there was no evidence available to prove that the attacks were being carried out by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.

Furthermore, it was said that the TTP’s claiming responsibility for terrorist attacks inside Pakistan did not add up to much since anyone could make those calls just to malign the organisation of non-state militants.

The above interview came a couple of days after the army claimed to have found evidence of India’s involvement in the conflict in Waziristan. Islamabad should take the evidence to the International Court of Justice since it does not hope to get a fair hearing from anyone else in the world, certainly not the US. Since India and America are viewed as being ‘hand-in-glove’, Pakistan cannot afford to share the above information with Washington as New Delhi did in the case of the Mumbai attacks.

The evidence of India’s involvement should be sufficient to put the aforementioned letter writer’s mind at rest. Now we no longer need to search for internal sources of violence.

Since the responsibility of the conflict in the region is now the responsibility of the US followed by India, we need not even look at the fact that Pakistan witnessed about 45 terrorist attacks before 9/11 which many in this country view as the sole cause of strife and bloodshed in the entire region. We can no longer argue that 9/11 just expedited the process of bringing to the surface all those elements or networks that later caused violence in the region.

I would go further and apprise the writer of another crucial fact that technically, there are no home-grown terrorists in Pakistan since there has never been any conviction in a major case of terrorism. The significant names that are associated with extremist terrorist activities such as Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, Riaz Basra and Malik Ishaq of the Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP)/Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ), Qari Saifullah Akhtar of Harkat-ul-Jihad-ul-Islami (HuJI) or Masood Azhar of Jaish-i-Mohammad (JM) and many others are foreign concoctions.

The country’s legal system is such that the onus of proving an individual or organisation’s responsibility in an act of terror lies on the state. So, if the police are unable to bring concrete evidence before the court it is difficult to convict those accused of terrorism by the law-enforcers. Moreover, the legal procedures take so long that the prosecution (being the state) is unable to hold on to witnesses. They either die, are killed or are too scared to give evidence against organisations and individuals with a particular reputation.

Technically, it is but fair to let people go if nothing can be proven against them. This was essentially the position which Pervez Musharraf took for not pursuing action against those who were swapped for the hostages of Indian Airlines flight IC 184 which was hijacked to Kandahar in 1999. Why arrest someone if even the enemy had failed to convict the people after keeping them in jail for so many years?

Hence, it is not surprising that there are hardly any convictions. In a couple of cases where this has happened, as in the case of American journalist Daniel Pearl’s murder, the death sentence has not been carried out.

We now know that Khaled Sheikh Mohammad of Al Qaeda and not Omar Saeed Sheikh committed the murder. Probably, it was in appreciation of Sheikh’s innocence that his jailers in Hyderabad allowed him access to several SIMs and mobile phones that he then used for very naughty activities, which we will not report here as acts of potential terrorism.

One might just wonder about the killings of Shias in the country, which have been going on since the mid-1980s when the SSP was reportedly established to fight the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Fiqh-i-Jafria by the state. We hardly notice that last year there were systematic killings of Shias in Dera Ismail Khan and before that of Shia doctors in Karachi. The killing of Shias in Balochistan by the Taliban also goes unnoticed by the media and the authorities.

Surely one cannot discuss Balochistan at all where there is much more serious evidence of India’s involvement. The maulanas might argue again that sectarian violence in Balochistan is an Indian/American conspiracy.

The person who wrote the letter might decide to respond to this piece and might argue that the behaviour pattern of the Pakistani establishment and the bulk of the people remains the same. We accused the East Pakistanis of being Indian agents and said the civil war was caused by Hindu teachers in collusion with the Indian state. Any signs of India’s involvement very naturally mar our ability to look at other possibilities or threats.

In East Pakistan’s case, for instance, the internal crisis had nothing to do with the unfair treatment of the Bengalis by the West Pakistani civil and military establishment. The only truth about that era was that the Mukti Bahini was trained by Indian intelligence.

We in Pakistan are coming close to a point where we can comfortably forget that we have elements within that want to take over (perhaps not physically) the state in pursuance of their pan-Islamic agenda. The war being fought by Pakistan due to international pressure is what has caused all the violence.

I would like to refer to the golden words of Punjab’s Law Minister Rana Sanaullah in response to the allegation of south Punjab turning into a hub of extremism and terrorism.

The minister felt there was no training taking place in the region and if people were getting recruited to fight in Afghanistan or other places, how could the government stop this. After all, we live in a free country.

Under the circumstances, my only advice to the writer of the letter is that if he begins to feel unsafe vis-à-vis the presence of the ‘zaliman’ within, he/she should build additional bunkers outside the house.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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Perils of policing

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 20 Nov, 2009

IT doesn’t take a genius to notice the mounting pressure on the PPP government and President Zardari, especially after former partner PML-N decided to adopt an aggressive policy towards the ruling party. This approach includes criticism of everything that happens under the PPP watch.

Recently, even the Islamabad police seem to have been dragged into the fray when the PML-N leadership in parliament reacted sharply to the story of the killing of a potential suicide attacker by the police at a security picket in the capital earlier this month. It is claimed that it was actually a fake encounter staged to improve the IG’s reputation.
A hue and cry continues to be raised despite the fact that the police was exonerated by an inquiry conducted by the Islamabad Capital Territory Administration. The police also say that no one came forward to claim the body before it was finally buried after two days of waiting.

However, the PML-N leadership in parliament continues to raise the issue. Perhaps the government needs to take them seriously since the party leadership is quite familiar with extrajudicial killings, which have always been common in Punjab. They would probably know better how judicial inquiries are managed in such cases. Given a chance to hold an inquiry themselves the said parliamentarians might have revealed more as some might have greater knowledge of extrajudicial killings. After all, it was about six months ago that Nanu Goraya lost his life in a fake encounter in Gujranwala.

The Punjab government had kept violent militant outfits like Sipah-i-Sahaba-i-Pakistan (SSP) and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi in check during the late 1990s reportedly through extrajudicial killings with the objective of controlling crime and violence in the largest province. It was the use of this methodology which resulted in the SSP’s retaliation in the form of an assassination attempt on then prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

Policing in our peculiar socio-cultural environment — particularly the capital city — is not easy. Islamabad is a mini-Pakistan where one can find a concentration of power, cliques, opposing forces, and all those socio-cultural vices that put additional burden on the law-enforcers. The IG police and his staff have to cater to approximately 1.5 million people. Given our VIP culture it is probably easier to take care of ordinary people than cater to hundreds of parliamentarians who constantly go in and out of the city and would be least forgiving if there was any letup in their personal security.

Besides, there are about 81 embassies, 76 ambassadors’ residences, 22 UN offices, 14 hospitals, 20 universities, 1,044 schools and colleges, 77 markets and 305 madressahs which have to be guarded with a police force of 10,332. The police also have to run around protecting the head of state and government and other dignitaries that visit the capital.

The presence of diplomats and foreigners does not make things any easier. What adds to the burden is the government’s indecision on other related issues such as the placement and management of 305 madressahs located within different sectors. The Lal Masjid incident indicated the dangers that could emanate from these seminaries. There is no system or policy to monitor people who come and stay in these madressahs from outside the city. While it is the government and parliament’s responsibility to decide on this critical issue, it is the police which face the consequences due to being placed on the front line.

The police force, which generally has a bad reputation and represents the authoritarian and barbaric face of the state, is also the force which has played a vital role in the past couple of years in the war against terror. While people eulogise the hard work and commitment of soldiers who have laid down their lives in the fight against terror, it is unfair not to remember the unsung heroes from the police who are often the first ones to lose their lives during a terrorist attack. Approximately 22 police officials have lost their lives in terrorist attacks in Islamabad. There have been five attacks in 2009 alone.

It is heartening to see lower-ranking police officials in Islamabad doing their duty in such tough times without the necessary wherewithal for their personal protection. These men don’t have bullet-proof jackets, sniffer-dogs, or explosive detection equipment. The police do not have equipment for communication intercepts, which is critical for tracking both criminals and terrorists and homing in on a potential suicide attacker. The ability to track mobile phone calls alone helps tremendously in tracking down criminal and terror networks.

Given the level of communication and competition amongst various government agencies, the police remain uncertain of the cooperation provided by various intelligence agencies. The fact that terrorists manage to attack the capital, move around with large amounts of explosive material and even sneak inside GHQ and the adjoining areas indicates a breakdown of intelligence. Parliament would benefit by probing the issue of the dearth of actionable intelligence. The police and ordinary citizens face the consequences of the failure of actionable intelligence. Better intelligence would also help sort out the problem of multiple pickets in Islamabad or other cities which are meant mainly to impede the movement of a potential terrorist towards a high-value target. But the cost is borne by ordinary people who are frustrated due to long queues.

The judicial system does not help either in cleaning up the current mess. The fact that there are today 13,000 criminal cases pending in the lower courts in Islamabad speaks volumes about the slackness of the judicial system. This is not just the case in the capital but throughout the country. It is a major burden on law-enforcement if criminals and terrorists continue to walk free due to the slackness of the judicial system. The case of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi’s Malik Ishaq getting acquitted by the courts from cases in which he was accused of committing over 80 murders is a prime example of the sorry state of affairs.

Not to mention the fact that the top brass of the police — unlike that of the intelligence agencies or other official outfits — also has to deal with the consequences of proactive higher courts and present themselves before the various parliamentary committees almost on a daily basis. While it is good to hold the police accountable, it also raises the issue of cutting into time which could be spent on improving security.

We know that we do not have the ideal police force. But due encouragement and appreciation of what the law-enforcers face could add to better security.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst. ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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A requiem for freedom

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 11 Dec, 2009

One is often asked whether or not Pakistan will survive the current crisis. You tell them that, yes, Pakistan will survive. After all, territories don’t grow feet to walk away with.

There is a sigh of relief and those asking the question happily walk away despite one’s attempts to draw their attention to the fact that there is something fundamentally changed about Pakistan.

In fact, there are some seriously sad things happening around us that do not grab people’s attention because all they are bothered about is the survival of the physical. Saving the soul is not an idea that catches the public’s attention.

I wonder how many people notice the rapidly changing world around them. Suicide attacks and bomb blasts add to the din created by those who are busy establishing a new brand of nationalism which has no shade of tolerance, pluralism or multi-polarity. There are young bloggers who believe that all forms of dissent especially those that challenge their version of nationalism must be silenced. One would not be surprised if they use uncivil methods to achieve their objective.

Another set of people believes that killing is justified as long as it happens in other countries. Conceptually, there is no difference between the thinking of this lot and others who have been murdering innocent people in this and other countries. After all, terrorism is a byproduct of extremism.

Two decades after Ziaul Haq the general is still remembered for changing the nature of state and society. We have not even begun to think about the generation that is being fed on erroneous dreams of attaining national and civilisational glory through brute force. They are being fed tales of Pakistan and the Mujahideen defeating the communist superpower. They hope to perform a similar feat.

Just imagine what will happen inside Pakistan after the US forces begin to withdraw in 2011 — in fact, how about a withdrawal from Afghanistan accompanied by a drastic reduction in America’s financial power which is already happening? This is not to say that the Americans should remain there but that there are elements who will don the victor’s mantle and trample on the rest of society in Afghanistan, and try to do the same in the rest of the world. Choosing sides is no longer an easy task.

Such people, who subscribe to the ideology of Hameed Gul — Pakistan’s indigenous version of Osama bin Laden — see the battle in terms of a clash of civilisations. From the point of view of such people, the world is back to the days of the Crusades except that this time it is the Muslim world up in arms against all other civilisations. Therefore, an American withdrawal would be tantamount to the supremacy of one race over another. Sadly, they are not alone in their adventure.

It is sadder to observe some of those, who were formerly from what was deemed as the liberal left in Pakistan, arguing that the Taliban should not be pushed until the Americans are out. Such an argument is made without recalling that the partnership between the liberal left and the extreme right in Iran was at the cost of the former. The left represented by Ali Shariati didn’t realise how fast it was taken over and swallowed by its partners.

Mention must also be made of the centrist liberals in Pakistan who believe that the right can and must be eliminated. In a nutshell there is a general lack of imagination in creating alternative ideological narratives that are easily comprehensible and can be acted upon. No wonder the Sufi-pop music beat has not caught up with ordinary people.

However, my lament is not just for Pakistan but for the rest of the world as well where labels and ideologies entrap people. Terms like ‘Islamophobia,’ ‘Islamofascism’ and others represent the absolute absence of imagination. Or perhaps this is an easier method to keep the ordinary population engaged and look the other way while the corporate world saps states and societies.

It is interesting to read blogs on the Internet or get email messages from ordinary folk who believe that the only problem with the world is Islam and its ideology.

Such emails are welcome because at least there are some who would like to engage rather than get enraged without communicating with those on the other side of the ideological divide. Their comments reflect ignorance of their own religious history.

The other Semitic religions (even others) have had their fair share of their own version of the Taliban. The Taliban, for example, would envy what transpired between the Catholics and the Protestants in Ireland.

It is not that one religious ideology is inferior or superior to others. But bloodshed becomes the fate of societies once religions are monopolised by the ruling elite or used to enhance the power of some versus others. The killing of Jews by those that converted to Christianity is another good example of the abuse of religion for the sake of power.

An understanding of their own religious histories by adherents of other faiths would perhaps help them sympathise with Muslims who are at the moment caught between an angry world and an unimaginative religious interpretation and discourse by their own priestly class. A religion that came about to bring a social transformation must not fall prey to those who don’t understand its basic spirit and use it for their narrow power interests.

At this time religion must be reinterpreted, not to make it acceptable to the rest of the world but to breathe life into the Muslim world itself. The fact that this will improve relations with other communities is something that will follow naturally. To present the current crisis as a Judeo-Christian onslaught against Islam or vice versa is criminal. States and societies must understand that such an argument is a trap which can only take the common people towards disaster. As for Pakistan, I hope my readers can empathise with my lament for a country that is receding very fast like the dim lights dotting a distant shore. I don’t see this one being rescued. However, a new one where there is room for all to coexist must be imagined.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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After the NRO

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 18 Dec, 2009

Now that the NRO problem has apparently been resolved people are jumping with joy. There are some commentators who believe that this represents the strengthening of the system and democracy, that the Supreme Court verdict is a warning for presumptuous, overly ambitious and corrupt politicians.

The decision certainly is a milestone, but what does it mean for the overall learning process of the various stakeholders in the country’s power politics? And will it influence the future of Pakistan’s politics? These are two basic points to ponder.

Although it can be argued that the NRO was always controversial and people were eager to sort the matter out soon after it came into existence, there was always the possibility of the issue getting sidelined due to workable political arrangements.

It cannot be ruled out that if relations between Asif Zardari and the PML-N — more precisely, the Sharif brothers — had been better there might have been a possibility of an agreement being reached. Or perhaps if the president had not made the fatal mistake of trying to change the balance of civil-military relations and getting caught in the act, the different forces might not have aligned against him so cohesively.

Not that the present decision is not welcome. However, it is also a fact that some hidden forces were making a point of exposing the president’s questionable behaviour and decisions and hiding that of many others.

No wonder Asif Zardari cooperated in the NRO case and did not really try to hold back information. After all, there are others who were part of the NRO as well, including the MQM. Though the NRO pertained to cases of financial corruption, military dictator Pervez Musharraf had also included in the NRO criminal cases that did not technically belong there.

It will now be interesting to see if the Supreme Court actually takes the matter to its ultimate conclusion by also questioning those who pushed forward the NRO. Surely, it will take Musharraf and those of his close aides who had cobbled this questionable law together to task. Since the highest court has jumped into the fray of supporting state institutions before they crumble forever, the task should be completed.

One cannot undermine the significance of public perception. It is equally important for people to have faith in a judgment and not see it as driven by any political or other bias. Building faith in the judicial system is vital and calls for accountability of all other state institutions as well to strengthen the perception that the decision on the NRO was in good faith and to strengthen the rule of law.

But if a question is asked about whether the decision signifies the strengthening of the democratic process and civilian institutions, the answer must be in the negative. Since the perception regarding the decision is that it strengthens the armed forces and their ability to manipulate political stakeholders, it is not possible to see a major shift in the balance of power.

The decision does coincide with the growing anger of the security establishment against the civilian government for becoming ‘too big for its boots.’ Given the friction between Islamabad and GHQ over the Kerry-Lugar law and other issues, the military is certainly coincidentally, if nothing else, a prime beneficiary of the Supreme Court decision. A humiliated president has lesser possibilities with which to tackle a rival institution.

The presidency-GHQ tension denotes a third critical attempt by the political class to curtail the military’s power. The first attempt was made by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who inherited a relatively weak army and had ample room to reduce its relative power. He partly tried to do it through building institutional mechanisms such as the joint chiefs of staff committee and the defence ministry and putting all service chiefs under the supreme command of the prime minister. However, he did not put spirit into his reforms and ended up strengthening the military.

Nawaz Sharif was the second leader to get a similar opportunity. It was hoped that he could make headway because he belonged to the most powerful ethnic group and had managed to infiltrate the higher rungs of the officer cadre. Probably the reason that the army views Nawaz Sharif with suspicion is due to his ability to partially and temporarily divide the officer cadre. The appointment of Gen Ziauddin Butt as the new army chief replacing Gen Musharraf appeared to be accepted by a number of senior army officers. However, Sharif blew the chance because of his final rash move.

Most recently, Asif Zardari also thought of undercutting the phenomenal power of the military by convincing the United States to support the civilian set-up versus the military. Zardari was instinctively right in assessing that he had time on his side in making the move. The army was seen in a bad light due to a decade of Musharraf’s rule and people were talking about strengthening political institutions and decreasing the power of the armed forces. Zardari’s formula: it would take the Islamabad-Washington partnership to do the job.

But President Zardari seems to have fallen victim to his lack of understanding of the military, its institutional dynamics and the importance of creating internal partnerships and institutional protective barriers to achieve this objective. For instance, he did not realise that the same civil society that protested against the military would stand up to defend the ISI and oppose provisions in the Kerry-Lugar bill to defang the military. Nor did he understand the worth of putting life into the available institutions if the power balance had to be corrected.

In fact, what numerous politicians have failed to understand is the need to put life into the ministry of defence, to build its capacity and ‘civilianise’ its power or decision-making structure. Since the defence ministry is the only institutional cushion between the political government and the military, its capacity is critical. Politicians in Pakistan fall prey to their insecurity regarding lack of time and miss the point.

Now, the president can think about extending the deadline for repealing the 17th Amendment to be able to play a role in the extension or appointment of the army chief. That’s his last but temporary lifeline. He could buy some time by giving a cold shoulder to the US, but these are temporary mechanisms. It will be a while before another opportunity comes along for the civilian stakeholders.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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