This is a wrong question that is often raised and debated in the media, academic and political circles. Why it is a wrong question? Friendship between and among states has a different quality to it, and has more substance and meanings than the conception of friendship between people. And it is not really friendship between states, but the totality of relationship — its nature, extent, diversity, depth and commonality of objectives — that matters. Otherwise all countries with which a country might have diplomatic ties could qualify as ‘friends’, with very rare exceptions.

Relations among states have many dimensions and depths, and are motivated less by moral considerations and more by how the two sides in the relationship can benefit from what they do together on issues of peace, security or economic cooperation.

What really matters then is the issue of benefit. It is assumed that all states are rational actors, and those who govern them think rationally about the interest of their states and forge relationships to achieve national objectives. This may sound a bit academic and theoretical, but it is necessary to spell out what generally the operating assumptions of any country’s foreign policy are.

It is equally true that politicians and others types that control the states may fail to understand what the real interest of their states could be in a given situation. This could be due to false or incomplete information or due to some personality factors — any perceptual or emotional defects that may stand in the way of fully understanding and appreciating the dynamics of power politics or other forces that shape modern nation states.

All types of states, in disregard to their internal political configurations, are driven by self-interest. But self-interest in a globalised world requires cooperation with other states; no state can help itself, achieve progress or peace without the cooperation of other states. Yes, there can be serious questions about who gets how much and when out of cooperative enterprises among states, with so many layers of non-state actors like the multi-national corporations opening many paths and adding to the complexity of interactions.

Relations between states, however, cannot be zero-sum games; there are obvious and objective reasons for shaping them and there are benefits to be drawn. Never are such relations one-way traffic, at least not since the end of colonialism, with benefits flowing in one direction and costs accumulating on the other side.

We need to have some clarity about how the world system functions and how states form cooperative relationships in order to answer the question we have raised above.

It is not just our relationship with the United States but with other states as well that requires a degree of pragmatism and some basic knowledge of the operating principles and realities of world politics. Much of this knowledge is lost when one takes an ideological position on who can be a friend and who cannot be in the world arena.

The national debate on our relationship with the United States has interesting points that show how ideology and emotions have shaped it more than any clear ideas about what we have gained in different areas of national life.

This is not to discount the fact that this relationship has been controversial and remains so in the context of the current war in Afghanistan and our support to the international coalition to defeat the Taliban. And there have been hidden costs and negative consequences on our political landscape with great impact on the balance between political forces and state institutions.

But such costs are as much a result of our own state weaknesses, internal political confrontations, institutional conflicts and the character of ruling groups as the rentier quality of our state. No state can think of operating in an ideal environment, let alone Pakistan with so many internal problems and a highly complex regional security environment.

We need to apply a rational approach to the debate on our relations with the United States, with a full understanding of our objectives and how best we can realise them in an imperfect world with self-centred and competing states. This perspective is unfortunately lacking when we try to understand and explain state-to-state relations in personalised terms.

In the contemporary world, given our vital interests and multiple internal and external vulnerabilities, no other relationship for us can be more important than the one we have with the United States today. The question is how best we can turn this relationship to the benefit of Pakistan. We have in the past on many occasions protected our vital interests, like the nuclear programme, without yielding any ground, no matter what the amount of pressure.

Today, we seem to be divided not on the quality of relationship with the United States but essentially on whether or not Pakistan should be extending the support it is to the international coalition, mainly the US, in Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban insurgency. There is a section of Pakistani society that feels that the Taliban in Afghanistan are justified in resisting what they call a foreign occupation, and argue that Pakistan must stand neutral in this conflict.

That is not possible. Perhaps they don’t realise that the Tehreek-e Taliban of Pakistan is inspired, guided, funded, and controlled by the Afghan Taliban. The two have the same ideology and worldview, and believe in using violence to capture state power. It is however debatable what the best strategy is to deal with the issue of non-state actors and how can we peel local populations away from them.

Pakistan and Afghanistan face similar internal security threats but at varying degrees as state capacities are different. The war in Afghanistan, the current phase and its earlier cycles, have affected Pakistan very badly. Pakistan’s security and peace hinges on the success of the international effort to secure and rebuild Afghanistan.

The United States has come to occupy a central position in the strategic environment of Afghanistan and Pakistan. This may not be an ideal situation for us but that is the reality. Our rational self-interest in this situation dictates that we help rebuild a stable Afghanistan, help end the war and deepen our relationship with the United States, taking it beyond the contingencies of Afghanistan. There is genuine interest in the US and other world capitals in stabilising and normalising Pakistan by giving it a democratic and developmental orientation. It depends on us how best we leverage our position and advance our national interests.

Dr Rasul Bakhsh Rais is author of Recovering the Frontier State: War, Ethnicity and State in Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 2008) and a professor of Political Science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. He can be reached at rasul@lums.edu.pk

Will Afghanistan live up to its history and tradition of defeating foreign armies that invaded it to shape its politics and foreign policy in the ongoing war?

This question is important as shadows of gloom extend over the capacity, political will and resource-sustainability of the United States and its NATO allies to achieve the objectives they set for themselves nearly eight years ago.

They have neither won nor have they lost the war entirely. At best, it appears to be a mixed picture, and maybe it is not anymore as the question of when troops return home becomes politically significant in the United States and other countries involved in the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Americans have increasingly started questioning the wisdom of continuing with a war that seems to have no exit strategy, or any clear idea about when the Afghan state and its institutions will be able to stand on their own.

The question now is about the ownership of the war, its objectives, costs and whether or not Americans will succeed in establishing a preferred state structure, a security order and peace by defeating the forces it has been at war with for the last eight years. Recent surveys clearly indicate that American society is exhausted and not willing to support this adventure endlessly.

And it is not just public opinion in the US or other countries that is turning against the war; it is also the breakdown of consensus among American political elites from the Democratic and Republican parties, and even within their ranks. In industrial democracies, no party or leadership can pursue an unpopular set of policies for too long or without seriously damaging its support base. That is a cost that pragmatic politicians never pay. They try to convince the population, invoking responsibility and national interest, but when they fail, as appears to be the case in the US today, they undertake path correction.

Will President Barack Obama change American policy toward Afghanistan in the face of some hard facts? The Taliban are on the rise, their attacks against coalition forces have increased and so has the casualty rate of American and British soldiers in war zones.

The characterising of the war by President Obama as a ‘war of necessity’ smacks of defeatism. Without some moral foundation, wars like the one in Afghanistan can neither be fought effectively nor can they sustain the necessary support from the people back home. Much has changed over the past eight years in the US and in the theatre of war in Afghanistan. A rational approach, at least at the popular level, has replaced the national emotions generated by the tragedy of 9/11 in the United States.

Unpopularity of the war in the US and in NATO countries that have sent forces in Afghanistan has encouraged the Taliban insurgency. The basic assumptions of the Taliban about the war are undeniably rational and right on the money. They are right in assuming that time is on their side and not on the side of invading forces that cannot stay on the ground and fight an unpopular war; that they can ‘win by not losing it’; and that they can rely on the time-tested strategy to use Islam and nationalism to portray foreign forces as occupiers, thus demanding Afghans to help in the liberation of their homeland.

In a climate of ethnic divisions, however, not all Afghans today share the views of the Taliban or have responded to their call for war. The country is sharply divided between old foes: the Taliban rooted in the Pashtun ethnicity, and the Tajiks and others that have supported the American-led war for their own liberation from Taliban rule.

Much to the advantage of the Taliban, the security and political situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated and the reconstruction of the Afghan state and building up of its security forces lag far behind the benchmarks set.

The members of international community that have sent their forces to secure Afghanistan or have committed economic resources to rehabilitate its infrastructure are increasingly becoming pessimistic about the political capacity of the Afghan government to deliver any goods to the society. Frequent reports of corruption, infighting among leaders, rigged elections and a heavy cloud of illegitimacy hanging over the presidency may not inspire much confidence about stability and political cohesion.

There is growing sentiment within Afghanistan and around the region that the United States cannot politically and economically sustain this war, let alone decisively win it. What may matter now is when foreign forces will withdraw and what kind of state and society they will leave behind.

Even if the Americans and the British redefine their role and stay on as watchdogs, shifting greater responsibility to the government in Kabul to fight the Taliban, they may not be able to prevent the outbreak of all-out civil war among the ethnic groups. That would mean more bloodshed, and territorial fragmentation of Afghanistan along ethnic lines and regional rivalries.

While American planners think more about the surge, dump more weapons and launch more operations, they must also think about what they have achieved so far through war. If the purpose was to defeat the Taliban, they have not accomplished this task beyond removing them from power. All indications are that the Taliban are a rising force. People, particularly in the Pashtun-dominated regions, are alienated, insecure and unwilling to risk their lives by supporting foreign forces. The important point is that siding with foreign forces against local militias is simply not a Pashtun tradition; it is against their values of honour and national obligation.

The United States is the third great power that has invaded Afghanistan, though for very different reasons and under different circumstances as compared to what confronted the British in the 19th century and the Soviet Union in the 1980s. There is no hope that Washington will succeed where others failed. There is great likelihood, as the unfolding of events in Afghanistan suggests, that the country may prove once again to be a ‘graveyard of empires’. The war may also prove another point: conquest through overwhelming force may come easy but not the effective control of a society with a long martial tradition and a strong myth of resistance.

Dr Rasul Bakhsh Rais is author of Recovering the Frontier State: War, Ethnicity and State in Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 2008) and a professor of Political Science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. He can be reached at rasul@lums.edu.pk

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CSS 2009, 2010, 2011 Qualifier

Gender and politics are today two of the most debated issues worldwide, but have not drawn significant attention in Pakistan. There is now a greater degree of female activism in our country, both in terms of scale and quality, which has yet to acquire a critical mass to change traditional thinking on gender equality and the transformative role women can play in social and economic change.

The fundamental question is how to challenge inequality among sexes, which in our society is rooted in more than one source — tradition, religious beliefs and a social construction of gender roles that doesn’t favour women.

The good thing is that international civil society moments can, and have, influenced social movements, including those concerned with gender and power issues, throughout the world. As feminist activists the world over have begun to question political inequality among the sexes, the issue cannot remain unsettled forever in Pakistan.

Contemporary feminism has raised fundamental questions about the essence of the male-dominated democratic system in which women find themselves formally or informally excluded from political power. In recent decades, they have focused on the vital issues of empowerment, rights, social and political equality, and the end of discrimination in its all forms.

The feminist movement, even in a male-dominated, socially conservative society like Pakistan, has brought into sharp focus more or less the same issues about social status and adequate representation in the political power, as well as participation in politics.

There are similarities in the challenges women face at the structural level, but they have a different sense of issues due to cultural variation. However, the feminist movement around the world startlingly reached the same conclusions on the issue of gender and political power.

Although women in different parts of the world face different problems and confront different challenges and the feminist movement has many shades and strands, all of them, disregarding the nature of the societies they live in, share some common beliefs about the structure of societies: males dominate and control politics and power; women are co-opted and work in subordinate roles; and male dominance is not a natural but cultural thing that must change.

Therefore, how to change gender relationships, empower women and get the first principle of democracy — equality — accepted are some of the questions that are at the centre of women’s political movements. Pakistan is no exception to this global process.

While women in other parts of the world have made great progress, Pakistani women remain greatly disadvantaged mainly due to social and cultural conditions. Their struggle, perhaps as old as the country itself, has not evoked the same responses as elsewhere in the world and not achieved the same results either.

Although they have long way to go, what is heartening is that women in Pakistan are getting more organised; their activists are highly educated, skilled and very articulate. And all women’s groups have a clear vision, a convincing agenda and more forward-looking politics than similar women’s groups in other Muslim societies. Yet, they have to travel a long distance before they get equal rights or increase their share in different professions or in political power.

What holds women in Pakistan back? Why do so few women, compared to their substantial numbers (roughly fifty percent of the population), exercise or seek to exercise political power? These questions have been the subject of many theories, much conjecture and several sociological explanations in different countries.

Many of the factors that work against equality of women in both developed and developing countries are more deeply ingrained in Pakistani society. At a general level, women in politics face similar problems everywhere — cultural and role constraints, and male domination.

But in explaining the low participation of women in the political process of our country, we have to account for variations and relatively greater influence of some factors than others, and look for what is unique and so different from other situations.

In Pakistan’s case, one must fully comprehend the cultural constraints and how they have reinforced the subordinate social role of women. The social structures that are at the base of any type of political process consist of power relations and relative positions of individuals; groups establish identities and determine roles. The larger question about sex and power can only be understood in terms of the social structures and how they distribute values in society.

Looking at the general values, social structures, and cultural orientation of the Pakistani population, one finds Pakistani women as the most oppressed social and political class. Dependence, passivity, low self-esteem and denial of even some basic rights characterise their general status.

At the same time, we find great variations in the status and roles of women depending on their social circumstances. Educated and professional women in urban areas and from the upper classes of the society enjoy much better status and rights than illiterate women in rural areas. Women in the tribal areas of Balochistan, the NWFP and remote areas of southern Punjab and interior Sindh live in more adverse social conditions than women in the urban parts of the country.

In less developed areas, honour killings, domestic violence and discrimination by male members of families are too common, but not confined to these areas alone. Our argument is that exclusion from the political process or even voluntary low participation of women are culturally and socially determined traits; and that the state in the political culture of the traditional male-dominant society of Pakistan has done very little to meaningfully empower women.

The low social status of women because of the customs of the largely feudal and tribal culture of the society poses the biggest barrier in the way of women’s involvement in public affairs of society in general and electoral politics in particular.

So many studies on political participation have repeatedly demonstrated the relationship between social status and participation in electoral politics and engagement in civic and public affairs. The real question then is how to change the status of women, and who will be the agent of that change. Education, and social and economic development takes a longer time. In some areas like protection of rights and empowerment, state policy can be the catalyst.

The formal measures that the democratic government may take to end discrimination against women and protect their rights are the necessary first steps. But real change will come when the social barriers gradually come down.

Dr Rasul Bakhsh Rais is author of Recovering the Frontier State: War, Ethnicity and State in Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 2008) and a professor of Political Science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. He can be reached at rasul@lums.edu.pk

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CSS 2009, 2010, 2011 Qualifier

Pakistan faces several complex internal security challenges today that require a comprehensive, holistic and national response. Not addressing these challenges immediately, in a serious and consistent fashion, may land the country and its peoples in serious trouble. So what are these challenges; wherein lie their roots; what can be done to tackle them efficiently and effectively?

Taliban militancy and organised violence against the state and society presents the most serious threat to national security. The grimness of this threat lies in its religious roots and radical worldview. The Taliban movement is a variant of political Islamism that has renounced democratic, constitutional and political paths to power and instead believes in the theory and practice of conquest in the image of medieval adventurists. The problem is that the national and international atmosphere today is different. We now live in territorial nation states and bounded political communities. The Taliban and their allied religious groups reject the territorial state and maintain transnational political and ideological links that spread across the globe. They have a mutual support system, sanctuaries, and common sources of funding and share a common vision and project of terrorising, defeating and replacing the present state structure, which in their view doesn’t represent Islam or the ‘real’ interests of Muslims. Their narrative of historic grievances against the local and global order and critique of the national ruling classes ‘naturally’ facilitates their political communication with the disempowered, unskilled, and unemployable youth in the socially and economically depressed regions of Pakistan.

Social structures that shape power relations, determine the social significance of individuals and groups and allocate political roles are neither just nor based on prudence and rationality. Dominant groups like the land-owning class, caste and tribal elites and the gadinasheens have monopolised the social and political spaces of value. They could continue in their privileged positions, without a major challenge, were they to fulfil the role that similar conservative, status quo social groups in other societies have performed; being responsive to society and responsible in their exercise of power while pushing society forward through an emphasis on equity and equality. Even members of the middle class, which play a subordinate role in the dynastic party system, have joined in the rapaciousness of the ruling groups. This doesn’t send a message of hope to the disenfranchised youth and disillusioned social classes. The frustration of these classes has thus proved a fertile ground for the Taliban insurgency and Islamic radicalism.

Our focus on contemporary violence and its optics shouldn’t divert our attention from a larger and more complex issue of the sociology of violence; the social conditions that promote and breed violent beliefs and practices.

The second and equally dangerous category of security challenges comes from sectarian groups. Communalism and sectarianism are rooted in the intolerance of difference and diversity of faiths. Much of the religious violence in the subcontinent and its more frequent eruption and persistence in Pakistan is rooted in unarticulated but easily discernable form of religious fascism.

The irrational logic that animates this universal brand is absolute self-righteousness and denial of the religious authenticity of other religious sects within Islam. Unfortunately, theological and philosophical debates around these issues have become politicised; so have the sectarian leaders who use sect and sectarian mobilisation to maintain power within the country and abroad. Sectarian groups live, hide, plan and execute sectarian violence from deep within society. They work in multiple organisations, and it is the complex web of their relationship with ‘ordinary’ members of society that makes the security situation so intractable.

Militant ethnic movements in Karachi and Balochistan pose yet another set of internal security challenges. Ethnic feelings are natural and mobilisation of ethnic identity to stake a claim on national power and resources is neither an uncommon strategy, nor out of the fold of normal political discourses or processes. But this can be done legitimately within the limits of law and the framework of peaceful political struggle. Violence by any ethnic group and any attempt to hold local populations political hostage must provoke a national security response. We have seen much ethnic violence in Karachi in the past and sporadically in Balochistan. Violence, ethnic or religious, starts when there is no room for argument; when the political process is seen as flawed or inadequate.

There are relatively easy remedies for ethnic violence. These remedies lie in the political realm; in understanding the ethnic and cultural pluralism of Pakistani society and devising a political order that accommodates the legitimate aspirations of all social groups.

The elected government at the federal level has not realised the seriousness of militant ethnicity and has failed to bring about constitutional reforms on which there is national consensus to grant greater rights to the provinces. The lopsided distribution of power and resources between the centre and the provinces must not be allowed to linger on. Federalism is a dynamic process, and must be so especially in conditions of ethnic diversity, where adjusting and balancing the requirements of national cohesion with demands of the units for adequate power and resources is a pressing issue.

Another factor that has greatly multiplied troubles in Pakistan is the thirty-year-long war in Afghanistan, first against the former Soviet Union and now the United States. Contestation between foreign powers, apparently helping to rebuild Afghanistan, and the forces resisting them, has influenced Pakistan’s national security in more ways than one. Our role in mobilising religion and nationalism to defeat the Soviets under Washington’s cold war strategic outlook is now become the albatross around our neck.

To solve its multiple security threats, Pakistan needs to evolve a long-term strategy of social and political reconstruction; invoking national spirit and solidarity must rest at the centre of such a strategy. The focus must be on political institutions, openness, rule of law, and accountability of the political class.

Dr Rasul Bakhsh Rais is author of Recovering the Frontier State: War, Ethnicity and State in Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 2008) and a professor of Political Science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. He can be reached at rasul@lums.edu.pk

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CSS 2009, 2010, 2011 Qualifier

In recent weeks, we have seen a spate of comments and editorials in some English dailies on the issue of public displays of affection at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), where I have been working for the past seven years. Having lived on campus and been part of the LUMS community, which includes students, faculty and staff, I have some claim to knowing the place inside out, and feel obliged to comment on campus life at LUMS.

We can describe academic life at LUMS with two simple but very meaningful words — diversity and pluralism. LUMS is reflective of the diverse character of Pakistani society at large. There is hardly any region, ethnic and linguistic group, or religious stream that is not represented at the university. Also, LUMS, with its national and international reputation, has grown very rapidly over the last two decades in the number of academic programmes, students and faculty, including foreign faculty. This further places these values higher on the list of institutional priorities.

Naturally LUMS, and for that matter all academic institutions, have a particular academic culture and a campus life of their own. Patterns of academic life and culture become rooted in traditions that evolve over time and depend on the vision, values and internal processes of universities.

While diversity may be a universal characteristic of all universities of Pakistan, pluralism may not. We shouldn’t confuse diversity with pluralism, which is often done without understanding the latter in intellectual and sociological terms. Diversity essentially means people with different religious and ideological orientations living and working together.

What is important is that difference is something natural and is a universal characteristic of human societies. But that cannot be turned into ‘Us and Them’ or the basis for determining superiority or inferiority, as is the case in normal social situations. Every individual has a right to experience life the way he or she wants to, and each of us has a natural right to be what we want to be. This also extends to the realm of values, beliefs and the social choices we make as responsible and rational individuals.

This is the attitude that separates the modern world from the old one built on conformity, loyalty and deference to peers. Pakistan is a transitional society. As such, we are caught between the old world that pulls us towards conformity and the modern world that allows us freedom to think for ourselves and make independent choices.

The real difficulty however is how to cultivate pluralism in transitional society where the forces of the old order, with their social hierarchies and rigid beliefs and social attitudes, are strong. Tolerance of diversity and respect for an individual’s choice of values, though conditioned by the general norms of society, still leaves a big space for the individual to pursue an ideological line or make social choices away from the normal spectrum.

At a time when religious militancy surrounds us and identity issues dominate in a complex world contextualised by globalisation, individualism and liberty to pursue social goods or different ideological lines are obviously under threat in Pakistan. But one place where we can preserve a culture of pluralism and celebrate diversity is the university. We have lost a lot of social ground to extremist religious and ethnic groups in all public universities, where student bodies are controlled through sheer terror and fascist tactics.

I am glad to say that LUMS has escaped that fate. No student or faculty group has ever tried to capture LUMS and turn it to its little fiefdom, the fate unfortunately many public universities have met. The reason it continues to be a genuinely pluralistic place where all religious beliefs and social outlooks exist in mutual tolerance is strong roots in liberal values.

These values must not be taken to mean an absence of social norms, but more in the philosophical sense: the freedom of an individual student or a faculty member to pursue his or her own truth; and all truths and pursuit of religious beliefs and ideologies deserve equal respect.

The idea of a university is about being universal and holistic in exploring different ideas and judging them critically. Neither meaningful higher learning nor production of knowledge is possible without liberal values that place intellectual curiosity and cultivation of free, thinking individual quite high in the hierarchy.

Recent media comments have not captured the essence of diversity and pluralism in the debate among LUMS students on public displays of affection; rather, they have focused on ‘tension’ and ‘conflict’, which may imply an uneasy relationship among students with different cultural and religious orientations on campus. Debate and discussion, tolerance of opposite views and giving equal respect and social space to the self and the other are hallmarks of progressive thinking and forward looking societies.

LUMS, in this respect, is comparable with some of the best institutions in the world.

Academic life at LUMS is very different from popular misperceptions of it as a social island and a walled-in-life, standing in contrast to the more conservative society outside. Going by the optics of things may be deceptive and may take one’s attention away from the actual strengths of an academic institution like LUMS toward trivial or non-issues.

LUMS is truly a great institution of learning and a path-breaking experience in institution building not just for the reason that its graduates are accepted in some of the best universities around the world or they have better marketability, but also for its vision, values and pursuit of excellence.

But the work on institution building and further development never ends; it requires perpetual re-evaluation of where we are and how we can do better.

We are involved in an internal debate on how effectively we are pursuing our vision and how we can do better. LUMS is not a perfect institution; nor does it claim to be one. But on all issues, from religious practices to social attitudes, it does reflect a reasonably mature degree of pluralism.

LUMS should also solicit and welcome outside comments and evaluation from the society, media commentators and educationists. That would help us identify mistakes and things we may have overlooked. Universities grow with the rest of society and must have deep connections with the community outside. For this matter, we must receive with open hearts what others write about LUMS, but I wish it was about larger, more significant issues of academic culture, programmes and quality of instruction, and not just “pecks on the cheek”!

Dr Rasul Bakhsh Rais is author of Recovering the Frontier State: War, Ethnicity and State in Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 2008) and a professor of Political Science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. He can be reached at rasul@lums.edu.pk

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CSS 2009, 2010, 2011 Qualifier

Afghanistan is a dry country, but it seems that coalition forces are stuck in the mud and more they try to pull themselves up, more they sink in. A marsh is a more apt description of the situation because it reminds everyone of America’s Vietnam experience.

The Vietnam War is one of those uncomfortable truths that American society has lived with for almost a generation. The American establishment and the leaders at that time thought they had a global responsibility to defend the ‘free world’ and resist by all means the ‘evil’ forces of communism.

But what has Vietnam got to do with Afghanistan today?

The American-led war in Afghanistan today has a great deal of resemblance with Vietnam, except for the place, time and actors. No two wars are the same, and perhaps never will be, but analogies can be drawn on several counts.

The first and foremost common factor is war in other time zones, far away from the homelands. It may be said that all foreign wars, from ancient times to the colonial era, were fought in distant lands. True, but those didn’t last eight, ten or fifteen years, and the citizens of the homeland were not directly affected. Rather, domestic support for atavistic and economic reasons was stronger both in the ancient times and the age of colonial empire building.

The Soviet Union, despite being geographically contiguous to Afghanistan through its Central Asian republics, and with easy land access, couldn’t win its last colonial war against the Afghans. The Americans were the first to recognise that Afghanistan could become the Soviet Union’s Vietnam. And it did.

Who turned Afghanistan to the Soviet Union’s graveyard? American and Saudi Arabian money and the superb insurgency strategy of Pakistan played a great role in defeating the Soviets. No doubts about that. But it was finally the Afghan’s sacrifice, his suffering, his blood and his deep love for his country that forced the Soviet Union out. Make no mistake about who really defeated the Soviet superpower.

Mercenaries do not fight wars of national liberation; they can be hired only to suppress such wars by providing intellectual or material support.

The irony of history is that the Americans have become trapped in Afghanistan in more or less like the Soviets. Both had a new vision for Afghanistan according to their own respective ideological templates. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan to defend and consolidate a socialist regime that they helped cultivate. They interpreted events in the country as all invading countries do: they wanted the world and their own citizens to believe that only a minority, backed by foreign powers, mainly Pakistan and the United States, supported the Afghan Mujahideen.

And the Soviet cast the their war with the Afghans in ideological terms — against feudal tribal culture and reactionaries that wanted the clock of progress and history to be turned back. They presented themselves in exactly the same way as during their colonisation of Muslim regions of the Caucasus and Central Asia: in the name of progress and civilisation.

This is an old beaten argument and has no resonance in modern times when we place European colonisation in some international context. Nor had this view any popular acceptance in old times beyond the local collaborators.

The American-led coalition has similar ‘noble’ and ‘altruistic’ objectives — peace, state- and nation-building, and above all freedom and democracy in Afghanistan. I doubt if this was the original intent. If it was, the Americans and other Western powers that supported the Afghan resistance should have stayed back and rebuilt Afghan state and society after the war with the Soviets.

Freedom and democracy are good selling points at home to obtain public support and resources to fight such long wars. More than democracy, it was and continues to be a national security debate that shaped the American decision and will be a factor as Afghan security experts and commanders on the ground assess the situation and advise President Barack Obama on reworking the US strategy in Afghanistan.

The war in Afghanistan started in the wake of 9/11 tragedy, as Washington found the fingerprints of Al Qaeda leaders hiding in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan all over it. The primary objectives were to displace the Taliban regime, arrest or destroy the Al Qaeda leadership and their transnational network operating from Afghanistan.

The first objective was achieved sooner than expected because there was really no match between the US war machine and the Taliban militia. The Taliban rather conserved their manpower and resources by melting back into the population, mostly comprising complex but supporting networks of tribes and sub-tribes.

The Americans in their hubris and triumphal sentiment lost lot of capital and good will in Afghanistan by courting the warlords, against whom the Taliban movement had in fact emerged more popular, in the beginning at least. The American political roadmap for Afghanistan, beginning with the Bonn conference, began to be shaped by ethnic warlords from the non-Pashtun regions that acted as the ‘true’ victors against the ‘vanquished’ Taliban.

Playing one ethnicity, particularly the minorities, against the majority, is an old game of foreign powers, and the Americans couldn’t escape this trap because of its convenience: they had non-Pashtuns and obviously some prominent Pashtuns already on their payroll. The post-Taliban state and nation building has alienated the Pashtuns and good number of them have seen only military operations, bombardments and collateral damage; and very little on the ground in terms of development, peace and security.

The resurgence of the Taliban over the past four years, and more so in the past couple of years, is a consequence of many failures, mostly political and relating to state and nation building.

Today, the question is: can this eight-year-old war be won? Not any time soon, and not with the present level of troops and resources. The follow-up question then is how long can the Americans and their international coalition partners stay in Afghanistan and fight this war? The political and public answer is: as long as it takes and as much resources as it requires.

The political reality in the home countries of the troops fighting in the ‘marshes’ of Afghanistan and on the ground is very different. The Taliban insurgency is stronger and growing at a time when the popular support for the war is declining fast. This may impose difficult choices, each with not so pleasant consequences.

Going back to the hearts-and-minds strategy may save American pride and peace in Afghanistan — less war and more development, and people see it happening in their lives. And it is time to get serious about negotiating with the Taliban leadership. But for that to happen, the Americans will have to change their lenses that see the Taliban and Al Qaeda not as two, but one entity.

Dr Rasul Bakhsh Rais is author of “Recovering the Frontier State: War, Ethnicity and State in Afghanistan” (Oxford University Press, 2008) and a professor of Political Science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. He can be reached at rasul@lums.edu.pk

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CSS 2009, 2010, 2011 Qualifier

very nice collection of articles

thanks

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I know who am I but here is still need to know what am I ? (A.N)

It is hard to contest the growing view that in recent decades, the social trends in Pakistani society have changed a bit for the worse in becoming less respectful of diversity. The question is, is it accommodative of or tolerant toward the religious difference as it used to be about three decades back? Our tentative answer is that it is not.

What is then the trend? The trend is toward seeking conformity to the dominant views on religion and religious values. There are many causes for this, but one of the salient ones is the failure to develop educational institutions into places of free debate and inquiry. We cannot expect it to happen with poor quality of academic leadership. And of course another reason is political expediency guiding the policies of governments that have lacked a vision and a practical programme to restore true spirit of learning and reflection in the colleges and universities.

We need to focus more on modern institutions than on other factors is for obvious reason; the primary function and the historical identity of the academy is associated with the training of free thinking, rational, tolerant and open individual that develops himself to respecting others and giving equal value and respect to beliefs of others. Sadly, our colleges and universities that churning out graduates in thousands and the majority of those who are imparting them modern knowledge lack some of the essential qualities of modern man.

Let me also discuss briefly two other reasons for growth of extremism and violence. The first is the worsening quality of governance at all levels. Contrary to official claims, our system of governance, including all branches has deteriorated. There are so many elegant philosophical and political debates, mainly in the western societies, about the purposes of the government.

These debates are open to everyone, and are part of collective human heritage; our rulers will greatly benefit by opening some pages of literature on why the government was created. Even if we take the first principle, law and order, being the primary responsibility of the government, we see a poor record of the Islamic Republic.

Most of the questions about law and order become centred on the fundamental rights of the individual—life, property, and in the Lockean sense, pursuit of liberty. Property rights are poorly enforced; life, if not short and brutish, its fullness and self-actualisation is uncertain and problematic; and liberty is hostage to tradition, conservative religious values and hybrid of feudal authoritarianism. The combination for these forces overtime has created an intolerant society. Because all elements of the iron triangle—mullah, bureaucracy and the feudal by their class interests and organisational culture seek conformity and punish dissent.

Whether or not the ruling classes help create a pluralistic social order would depend on what is their vision of the society and what institutions they create to resolve conflicts and help create a pluralistic social order. To gauge their capacity we need to look at their own socialisation or social learning. In the end it is culture of our ruling elites and their being insensitive or sensitive to larger question of social injustice violence against women, religious minorities that would increase tolerance or intolerance.

Our debate about the failure of the state in dealing with religious, ethnic and sectarian violence often revolves around its capacities. That is true, but not enough an explanation. The general mindset of three major groups that I have referred to above and their attitudes, values and orientation toward accommodation of difference need to be looked at closely to understand ineffectiveness of the government.

Intolerance stems from arrogance, from a belief that a person’s religion and ideology are true while all else is false. But above all intolerance grows from an individual taking responsibility for scrutinising and guarding the beliefs and practices of other and passing a final judgement on them.

The numbers of men and women who think it is their primary religious duty to make other Muslims believe and behave like them seem to be growing. They are possessed with an artificial sense of certitude, authenticity and being on the right-path to influence others’ religious and social choices.

A good number of them have become self-appointed soldiers of God, His judges and executioners. Violence motivated by sectarian considerations is not so infrequent and takes many forms of humiliation, physical assault and target killings of prominent individuals—religious scholars, professionals and community leaders of rival sects.

Religion is part of life and society and will remain so even in post-industrial societies, though it may take different forms. Religion has a great value in answering questions about the mystery of existence and giving a positive and purposive direction to a person’s life.

But we cannot rely on religion alone to create a peaceful, orderly and tolerant society. An individual made up of greed, ambitions and lust for power cannot be tamed by religious values alone. This role has to be played by the state through its strong arm of law. But then, law cannot be strong enough without the rule of law. Here we are back to the basics.

Never will intolerance and violence disappear from Pakistani or any society for that matter with sermons, speeches and florid statement of religious and political leaders. We must start a reform process in the governance, accountability of ruling political groups that have alternated in power.

We need to build tolerance by reforming the education system. A public education system that functions and has quality and public trust will go a long way toward cultivating young persons in modern values of respecting diversity and an opposite point of view.

The process of promoting social change and cultivating modern rational attitudes of tolerance of difference is a long-term developmental issue. No matter how difficult and long this social journey might be but we must set ourselves on this path by investing more in social development and by making calculated interventions through law and public policy into the structures of our social and political life.

Tolerance is dependent on culture, religious orientations and general social framework of the society. Our tradition cultural values both in social and religious realms were tolerant of other communities and accorded respect to the beliefs and practices of other religions and sects within Islam.

Unfortunately, the traditional social pluralism has been under constant threat for the last thirty years mainly because of militancy among some of the religious sects. This trends must be reversed, but it is not going to happen without major reforms, good political, better governance and rule of law regime.

Dr Rasul Bakhsh Rais is author of “Recovering the Frontier State: War, Ethnicity and State in Afghanistan” (Oxford University Press, 2008) and a professor of Political Science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. He can be reached at rasul@lums.edu.pk

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CSS 2009, 2010, 2011 Qualifier

What determines political affiliations and capacity to participate in any political action or articulate local, community interests? The answer — maybe tentative — is position in the social system, at least in the agrarian society that we have. There is a deep-seated social hierarchy and ranking of all castes. There are privileged and under-privileged or higher or lower castes. The lower castes are not well equipped to participate. And they are not sensitised to their citizenship rights, or even granted opportunities to move out of the old social relationships. The lower castes are a true subject of our feudal culture, completely devoid of their essential humanity.

The conception of civil and political rights is alien to the millions of lower caste individuals, families and groups. Under social oppression for who knows how long in the old world of the Indus, they have grown fatalistic about their fate, living conditions and low status conferred upon them by other social layers above them. They carry a heavy social burden of a lot of conforming to a standard of behaviour that the feudal lords imposed on their forefathers. We have seen remarkable social and economic mobility among the lower castes but only in cases when they had the gifts of modern education and professions. The lives of those who are stuck up in the rural environment and dependent on their traditional professions have not changed much.

Democracy, human rights, equality and civil liberties are as alien notions to the lower castes as they are to their lords. Most of them are just pushed to polling stations on election day to cast their votes by the local lords. Free will and self-determination, the well-known principles of democracy, are idealistic propositions in the traditional, caste and class-based society of Pakistan.

Caste differentiation, though not the same as in India, remains strong as a social marker. The lower castes of Pakistan have many groupings. The first category consists of those who are engaged in hereditary menial professions like shoemaking, carpentry, hairdressing, pottery, and weaving. Salient but less recognised in the lower castes are working on agricultural farms and in the households of major landowners. They are not wage earners, but get some grain at the end of each crop and very little cash for clothing and other necessities. They survive mainly as semi-slave dependents of the feudal lords. In the agriculture sector, there is also the pervasive phenomenon of bonded labour, with entire families working to pay back the loans they took to either feed themselves or procured for social or other reasons. Household servants both in the urban and rural areas of Pakistan are a much understudied and under-observed social category.

The question of the political rights of these castes and social groups is very important. Their dependent economic and social status makes them just a political appendage of the lords that they serve. They cannot think of any other political opinion or exercise a choice different from the lord. It was only during the populist era of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, though himself a feudal lord, that the lower classes had their first awakening through his mobilisatory politics. He gave them a sense of dignity, pride, and a feeling of worth. They defied their lords for the first time in the 1970 elections to vote for the candidates of Bhutto’s party. His populist appeal, charisma and style of politics stirred an electoral revolt of the oppressed against their masters. That spirit and sense of freedom among the lower castes and classes did not last very long after the elimination of the founder of the people’s struggle in Pakistani politics.

The discrimination against the lower castes is deeply rooted in society and takes place at an informal level. Along with economic bondage is the fear of the state agencies like the police that their masters and lords use to keep them in servitude. Even a slight sign of rebellion is suppressed with the most severe punishment, which may take many forms, stealing of animals, theft, registration of false case in police stations, harassment by the lord’s tough guys, and in more severe cases, abduction of women. Illegal confinement and even jailing of lower castes in the private jails that still exist in the interior of Sindh and Balochistan is not too uncommon. Their unconditional social and political obedience is a condition for social and economic survival where the state laws and institutions are too weak to protect them.

Political liberty and exercise of free will in elections, let alone contesting elections, would be an unrealistic expectation from the lower castes in the feudal agrarian conditions of Pakistan.

Even with the harsh and oppressive environment in which the lower castes are kept, their masters have not earned their trust. Rather, they are always suspect for doing something different from what is expected. To make sure they would turn up for casting their votes, they are hauled early in the morning to the polling stations with families and minors. They remain under close vigil by the workers of the lords until they have cast their votes and departed back to their villages. Let me say this on the basis of my own observation and many reports that most of them vote due to fear and intimidation rather than exercise a real choice.

Quite often elections put the lower castes in a real dilemma when they are caught between many influential local rivals. They essentially make a choice between more harmful and less harmful and tend to vote for the one who might have greater capacity to do evil to them in case of their disobedience. They do not have effective legal remedies, local institutions to protect them, or independent economic means to move away to better places.

Physical movement and relocation is a part of economic and social mobility. There is a visible trend in the lower castes among others to move to major towns and industrial cities for better economic opportunities. Many families that have done so have shown others the way. A real transformation, however, has yet to take place, and that would depend on how the economy of the country performs in the coming years. That is the only way to end discrimination in the rural setting of a village.

Even the dominant castes in terms of numbers resort to feudal means of intimidation, physical abuse and trapping the innocent members of the lower castes in civil and criminal cases. Theft of property and animals are the weapons of choice in Punjab and Sindh. The land ownership pattern in Southern Punjab and Sindh, where big landowners also represent a particular tribe or caste, allows discrimination in all forms to be widely practiced.

In our view, it is generally the feudal political culture that has sustained oppression and discrimination against the lower castes. Will this change? My contention is that until the quality of democratic governance improves, the political and social conditions of the feudal age would continue to determine class and caste relations in our society. But once democracy and rule of law become consistent functional political patterns, a new political culture of equal rights would emerge that would provide for political space and institutional remedies to lower caste groups against discrimination and exploitation.

Dr Rasul Bakhsh Rais is author of “Recovering the Frontier State: War, Ethnicity and State in Afghanistan” (Oxford University Press, 2008) and a professor of Political Science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. He can be reached at rasul@lums.edu.pk

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CSS 2009, 2010, 2011 Qualifier