Confusion at the top and frustration below

In the national interest

Monday, May 04, 2009
Kamal Siddiqi

The writer is editor reporting, The News
One is never clear of the messages that are exchanged between our leaders and the leaders of the “developed” world. For example, one day US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expresses worry over the safety of our nuclear assets. Two days later, the American administration indicates that it is satisfied with the arrangements in place to guard them.
Now US President Barack Obama has told the world that he fears for Pakistan’s fragile civilian government. He has requested urgent funding for Pakistan so that the government can fight terrorism on the one hand and to help in providing basic services on the other. President Obama has also stated the obvious: that militants at home are the bigger threat to the country. He has also asserted that the Pakistan Army is gradually waking up to this fact. We can hope.
While all this makes perfect sense, the situation on the ground gets murkier. For example, why are we conducting a military operation in Dir when we are providing safe havens to the Taliban in Swat? Why was Buner the tipping point? Our government is upset, and rightly so, over the fact that when it does not take action the people agitate. And when it does, the people and the media crib and cry over the casualties and damage. But this is nothing new.
In all this, what seems to be missing from the Pakistan government side is a bigger game plan. Our first question and one that we are unable to answer amongst ourselves is: why are we fighting this war? There are many who have taken the stand that this is not our war. Our government and those who are fighting the militants need to know what the answer to this is.
And this is the message that our earnest information minister, Qamaruzzaman Kaira, should repeat ad nauseum from each and every platform. Unlike his predecessor, Mr Kaira seems to have reconciled to the fact that there is no one official spokesperson for the government. Possibly the most prolific spokesman remains Rehman Malik, now finally a minister.
Our next question should be, how should we be fighting this war? We can only wonder and sigh at the quality of discourse that we see on our broadcast media. Our more clueless analysts are being replaced by those who can best be described as lunatics. Such characters incite hate and despair, promote feelings of insecurity and violent behaviour. At this stage, we can see that the war on terror seems to be the problem of the west and the government. And yet, one does not have to look too far to understand how it has affected our daily lives. It is not only the suicide bombings and the elaborate, though somewhat useless, security steps that we see in place. But also, the rise of extremist thought amongst common persons and lay men.
Something is very wrong in a society that eulogizes the Taliban and its leadership. Our people are being pushed into extremism and intolerance not only by religious parties but also supposedly “saner” elements like people in our government, the media and in civil society. The sudden rush towards extremism comes from a lack of sound education and gap in critical thought. Our intellectuals are bankrupt. Our universities have become breeding grounds for incompetence and deception. Pakistani academia produces more plagiarized pieces than original ones. Cheating is rife in our examination centres. Our houses for learning have turned into centres for mediocrity. Marks are given on likes and dislikes or in exchange for money. Degrees are forged. Lecturers are appointed on loyalties. People are looking for short cuts.
Extremism too is a short cut. Such people are reducing Islam to a series of rituals and dress codes. And in this, Pakistanis are becoming more isolated and backward with each passing day. There are many who argue that people have turned to extremism because of frustration with daily life. And this is a valid point. This frustration is being channelized by various forces. Here is where the government comes in and this is what President Obama is referring to. People in Pakistan are worried with the present state of affairs but there is no one who can give them hope.
They are also fed up with the quality of governance. We are fed up with increasing corruption and the ironies that we are faced with on a daily basis. The fact that there is no proper health system in place and that all our leaders and their families manage to go for treatment abroad at state expense. The people are fed up with the unholy alliance between our health ministry and the pharmaceutical industry in which people don’t get cheap medicines, only newer - and more expensive versions of the same. And the government is blind to this.
We are fed up with the rising crime and terrorism and yet the fact that a sizeable chunk of the policemen, their vehicles and weapons have been appropriated by the VIPs One look at the convoys in which our civilian and military leadership travels makes one wonder whether we are a third world country or not. Why is it so that these leaders are able to purchase vehicles at our expense but the government has no money left over for buying public buses that are in a presentable state.
And to add insult to injury, we have our politicians to thank. Minister for power Raja Pervez Ashraf this week told the Senate that a “comprehensive plan” had been chalked out to eliminate power theft. Why does he not start with the theft by politicians and government servants? Senator Nilofer Bakhtiar of the PML-Q told the senate that her party plans to “unite the women of Malakand to fight for their rights.” This from a party that blindly endorsed in parliament the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation. Why do our politicians misguide us so much?
If that is not enough, then we have our bureaucrats. Chairman of the notoriously inefficient and corrupt Federal Board of Revenue recently shared this gem with journalists. Mr Ahmed Waqar said that the government plans to announce a “pro-poor” budget in which taxes will be imposed on the “richer classes”. No plan, just talk. No action, just rhetoric. Waqar should start by cleaning up his organization. We cannot keep on bribing the tax man and evading taxes.
While our leaders were engaged in “being economical with the truth,” Karachi saw an evening of unprecedented violence which the police leadership blames on the MQM. The MQM in turn blames the police leadership of patronizing the drug and land mafia in the city. In between, over 30 people lost their lives. Millions worth of property was destroyed. And yet, the well meaning Chief Minister did not even visit the injured in hospital.
What is most important in this is that the government has remained silent. While the country is in near crisis state, our president flies off to Libya to meet Colonel Qadhafi. The government seems to be moving from crisis to crisis. We have no plan under which we can engage with terrorism and extremism in the country. It is not enough to say that democracy will cure all. We have to have some sort of action plan in place. There is no defence strategy to deal with the issue. If there is, it does not have input from the civilian leadership.
If the US and the Friends of Pakistan give us money, where will we use it so that the frustration of the people is reduced? Will we finally focus on health, education and basic facilities for all or will we let this money also end up in grandiose projects that get us nowhere but make some richer and the rest poorer. If there is time for come clear thinking, it is now. Mere rhetoric will not do. We want assurances and some statement of intent. Otherwise, the battle for the hearts and minds of the people of Pakistan will be lost.

Email: kamal.siddiqi@thenews.com.pk

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Looking beyond Nizam-e-Adl

Monday, May 04, 2009
Kamal Matinuddin

The need for cheap and speedy justice cannot be questioned. The promulgation of Nizam-e-Adl can, therefore, be termed as a step in the right direction. The manner it was achieved, however, was shameful. The provincial government capitulated before those who committed unspeakable brutalities. Parliament passed the bill in a matter of hours and without any debate. The silence displayed by the elected representatives including female parliamentarians was disappointing, to say the least.
It is not a question of only cheap and speedy justice. It is the manner in which it will be administered, which is questionable. Is there one authorized codified book on Sharia, which the Qazis will abide by? Yes there are some punishments specified in the Quran, which cannot be changed. But times have changed. The social environment is now totally different to what it was 1,500 years ago. Many transactions now take place, which were not there in the days of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). Women now have to work in the fields along with their men folk. Girls have to attend schools and colleges to become nurses and doctors. They have to supplement household income by working in homes and offices.
A dress code for Muslim women has not specifically been prescribed in the Holy Book. Nor is there any standard practice in this regard in the Muslim world. Muslim nations have adopted different dresses for women. In Saudi Arabia women cover themselves from head to foot. In Iran, women leave their faces open and are working in all government departments and stores. Indonesian women wear off-the-shoulder gowns on formal occasions. Turkish women have adopted western dresses. In Pakistan different social groups interpret the hijab in different ways.
Religious leaders also differ on whether men should talk to a na-mahram. A young lady doing her PhD in religious studies had to a write a paper on fatwas in Islam. She went to the internationally famous Darul Uloom Haqqania in Akora Khattak. Needless to say she was properly attired. On reaching the seminary she was ushered into a room and asked to sit behind a thick curtain. When the mufti arrived he not only refused to see the girl but also was not prepared to hear her voice. So the young lady was told to write the questions on a piece of paper and slip it under the curtain. The mufti wrote down the answers and slipped it back along the floor. She came out into the room where I was sitting with Anwarul Haq, the son of the renowned religious leader Maulana Abdul Haq. We had an open discussion on fatwas. Who was right? The mufti who was not prepared to hear the voice of a na-mahram or Anwarul Haq? Both I believe must be fully acquainted with the Sharia.
Our religious clerics talk about referring matters to the Council of Islamic Ideology established by General Ziaul Haq. There is an interesting case of what kind of work they were engaged in. Once on my way from Karachi to Islamabad. I was sitting next to the then chairman of the Islamic Ideology Council (CII) in the plane. When I asked him what was the issue presently being undertaken by the CII, he told me that they were working on the issue of whether transplanting a non-Muslim’s kidney into a Muslim person is permitted in Islam.
The owner of a popular Urdu newspaper opines that all those who oppose the Nizam-e-Adl should move to Bharat. I wish he had also said that the members of a religious organisation, which opposed the creation of Pakistan, should also migrate to India and those who addressed Quaid-e-Azam as Kafir-e-Azam should not stay in the land he founded.
The NWFP government gave into the Taliban because they wanted peace. I recall paying a visit to an Afghan refugee camp in Akora Khattak around 1994 during the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. When I asked some Afghan refugees as to why they had left their peaceful abode. They replied that “peace is not enough to fill our children’s stomachs. There is no economic activity in Afghanistan under the Taliban. We have come here to earn our livelihood and send some money back to our family.” Barbers, lawyers, music shop-owners, sellers of CDs, hoteliers, school teachers, all will be out of business in Swat.
Nejla Izzeddin, describing the cause of Muslim stagnation writes in his book The Arab Mind that search for knowledge was smothered under the hard crust of dogmas and fundamentalism. Let this not happen to our country. It will, if we do not look beyond Nizam-e-Adl.

The writer is a retired lieutenant-general and a former director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies. Email kmatin@comsats.net.pk

 

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The government remains in a state of denial

Monday, May 04, 2009
Ghazi Salahuddin

We do have people who, in spite of realities that have manifested themselves in recent weeks, still insist that our war against religious militancy is in fact America’s war that Pakistan has been duped into fighting. But whose war are the Taliban fighting? And in this thickening fog, what are America’s interests and how does it propose to achieve them?
These, of course, are some of the many questions that we keep chewing, like addicts. Meanwhile, the overall situation has continued to worsen. This week, deadly violence erupted in Karachi with more fearful forebodings about the future of the state of Pakistan. In two days’ disturbances, more than thirty lives were lost. What cannot be measured is the fear that such derelictions inspire in the minds of the citizens who have been witness to so much bloodshed in the past.
Again, the complexity of what is happening in Karachi and the potential for disorder that resides in its brutalised psyche are so difficult to comprehend that analysts are tempted to find comfort in conspiracy theories. In the present circumstances, Karachi must also bear with the reverberations of upheavals that have shaken the distant northern areas because of its potent Pashtun identity. Indeed, there are valid apprehensions that what happened this week was merely a preview of something much more sinister to come.
As I have implied, the situation in Karachi has an umbilical connection, across the entire length of this country, with the Frontier province and the tribal areas. The threat of Talibanisation of Karachi is only one dimension of this mystifying bond between culturally the most backward and the most urbanised parts of the country. Not that the urban face of Karachi, as manifested in the politics of the MQM, is any easier to comprehend.
By the way, I saw this front page photograph in a Karachi daily in which two paramilitary personnel are seen standing alert on a somewhat hilly terrain, with low houses of cement blocks spread across a slope. I thought that if it were shown to people, with its caption hidden, it would be possible for some to think that it was, say, Buner and not Karachi.
In a sense, Karachi this week was a distraction. The big story is the military operation underway in Buner. It did take a long time in coming. On Thursday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee held its meeting in Rawalpindi and the top military leaders resolved to support the government in showing “zero tolerance” towards militancy in Malakand division. According to an ISPR spokesman, the military leaders expressed satisfaction over the progress of operations in Lower Dir, Buner and adjoining areas.
But the US officials may still have some doubts about this “zero tolerance” resolve. Bruce Riedel, a senior Obama administration official was even reported as telling a newspaper that Pakistani Army officers are afraid that if they ask the rank and file to fire on the Taliban too much, the whole army might disintegrate. There has not been any dearth of such scary formulations. So much so that commander of US Central Command, Gen David Petraeus was quoted by the Fox News to have told the US officials that next two weeks are “critical to determine whether the Pakistani government will survive”.
This comment was linked to the Pakistan Army’s operation because Gen Petraeus also said that he was looking to see concrete action against the Taliban in the next two weeks before determining America’s next course of action.
In the midst of these apocalyptic prognostications, President Obama’s comments published on Friday do provide evidence of US administration’s close and insightful study of the present state of affairs in Pakistan. During his prime-time news conference on his 100th day in office, Obama said he was gravely concerned about the stability of the Pakistani government, though he also expressed confidence about the security of our nuclear arsenal.
Talking about Pakistan, Obama did not focus on the Taliban or the military’s conduct in operations against militants. This is how he has been quoted: “I am more concerned that the civilian government right now is very fragile and don’t seem to have the capacity to deliver basic services. As a consequence, it’s very difficult for them to gain the support and loyalty of their people”. And he added: “So we need to help Pakistan help Pakistanis”.
How interesting. At the outset, I had referred to people who think Pakistan is fighting America’s war – and that has made all the difference. On the basis of what Obama has said, you may turn this around. Some people may now say that America is fighting on behalf of Pakistan’s people. Of course, Prime Minister Gilani has rejected the Obama claim that Pakistan’s government is fragile. Well, you may find some other word for it. But the heart of the matter is that the quality of our present rulers’ governance is extremely poor. There is a sense of institutional disarray and lack of a sense of direction.
During the past year, no concerted or innovative efforts were made to deal with the fundamental issues of poverty and hunger. Nor was any headway made in the field of education. In fact, with all the resources and expertise at its disposal, this government is not able to hold tests for thousands of applicants who want the job of primary school teachers. Cheating in exams is so rampant that a man was caught in Rawalpindi while appearing in an intermediate exam for a sitting PML-N MNA. The law and order situation is getting worse. There is a general perception that corruption has risen in many departments and that it is linked to top officials.
Ordinary citizens feel cheated and humiliated when they encounter the pompous motorcades of ministers and high officials and when they learn about the lifestyle of the VVIPs. The very size of the cabinets, at the federal as well as provincial levels, is obscene. Off-the-record comments by senior functionaries are no less scary than thoughts expressed by American think tanks. When it comes to whispers, every one seems to have lost hope.
One feature of this government is that it remains in a state of denial. Action on critical matters is generally delayed until it is too late. Look at how Asif Ali Zardari dealt with the lawyers’ movement. Look at how the situation in Swat was criminally neglected for months and months. Look at how the Balochistan crisis was left unattended. There are other examples of how the government lost its writ in large areas and didn’t know what to do about it. No wonder Nawaz Sharif, who is himself a part of the ruling coterie, said this week that the prevailing circumstances were more perilous than they were in 1971. But for our rulers, it seems business as usual.

The writer is a staff member. Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com

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Consequences of Talibanisation

Monday, May 04, 2009
Talat Masood

The army’s operation against the Taliban in Buner and Dir in close coordination with the police and the Frontier Corp was absolutely essential. It has come albeit late when it seemed as though the state had abdicated its responsibility and the military was shy of engaging in counterinsurgency operations. Nonetheless, it is a good beginning that needs to be pursued to its logical end.
Losing to the Taliban is an untenable proposition if Pakistan has to retain its identity as a nation. It would not only mean surrendering territory to a militant group but also losing an ideological battle. The prospect of a Taliban takeover means the collapse of the state. No wonder it raised alarm bells all around the world when the TSNM took over Swat and pushed into Buner.
A worse case scenario of a Taliban takeover would mean the end of all institutions of the state. The army would be replaced by the Taliban militia, civil administration would be taken over by the mullahs, politics would be banned and democracy would be substituted by a fascist, obscurantist ideology. It would be equally devastating for the economy and the country would slide into bankruptcy. Our relations with every country in the world, including our best friends — China, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — would be adversely affected and Pakistan would be politically isolated and economically de-linked from the international economy.
The prospects of the Taliban gaining control over conventional and nuclear arms would be totally unacceptable to the international community and will invite a strong response. With a deeply antagonistic attitude of the Taliban towards education, especially girls’ education, the country will plunge into darkness. All benefits of globalisation will disappear and it would be very difficult to relate to the world. Participation in a globalised economy demands a state to conduct its affairs on the basis of universal principles and recognised norms of behaviour.
Clearly, if the fight against the Taliban is perceived by our people as an extension of our support for the Americans as some of our vernacular press, politicians and commentators would like us to believe, then there is no way that the military will be able to defeat them. Talibanisation is the anti-thesis of Quaid-e-Azam’s Pakistan. If any one is under the impression that the Taliban will bring in good governance, security and justice to the areas that they control he must be living in a world of fantasy. The expeditious passing of the resolution by the National Assembly supporting the Nizam-e-Adl regulation is a clear manifestation of how superficially we are treating issues that are of vital national interest.
Despite the obvious dangers inherent in the expanding influence of the Taliban no one speaks out against, or stands up to, them with the exception of few. The politico-religious parties and religious scholars do not speak out because they do not want to lose the support of radical groups. Also their hatred of the Americans and Indians blinds them from seeing the dangers inherent in this approach. Paradoxically, these elements will be equally marginalised if the Taliban were to continue expanding. The JUI-F has apparently lost ground to the militants and its power base is shrinking.
Politicians from the ANP and the PPP are scared to take a position against the Taliban in public as their lives are threatened and the state cannot protect them, although they are in power. President Zardari appears too preoccupied in consolidating his political position despite the fact that he got elected with a comfortable majority. He has bunkered himself and is over concerned about his personal safety and unable to provide leadership in combating insurgencies and fighting radicalism. Prime Minister Gilani is showing resolve but the rest of the top leadership is weak and lacks ideological and intellectual clarity and this is reflected in the formulation of national policies.
Mr Holbrooke in his recent interview with the New York Times remarked that there is heavy reliance on the US by the current PPP leadership for providing policy direction in counterinsurgency operations. Pakistanis have to own the war against the militants and not fight it as a client state of America. Our leaders have to begin to take a much longer term view of the costs and benefits of the policies and decisions that they are taking in dealing with the militants.
The opposition party’s role in countering radicalism has been equally disappointing. The PML-N and the PML-Q consider it politically expedient to remain silent. Then there are politicians who perhaps have no stake in the system. A few liberal groups are raising their voice but they are not coherent and have failed to make an impact and are being countered by unfair allegations of being lackeys of the west.
The army’s role has been mostly reactive. It has been expecting that the civilian government will give it the necessary orders to undertake operations No doubt, it has undertaken several major operations in Bajaur, Mohmand and Swat and made great sacrifices but lack of coordination between various agencies of the government has prevented it from optimising the gains. Energising the civil society is also crucial for winning the war against the Taliban. It is by mobilising public opinion against them that the tide could turn in our favour.
Then the question that needs an answer is: from where is the money coming to the insurgents? How is it that the Taliban are being paid more than the army personnel? Where are they getting the financial support for procurement of heavy weapons and maintaining a huge logistic infrastructure? Surely it is far more than what the militants could earn from drug transit and by taking hostages.

The writer is a retired lieutenant-general. Email: talat@comsats.net

 

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Our man in Washington

Hit and run

Monday, May 04, 2009
Shakir Husain

Husain Haqqani has always reminded me of Baldrick from Black Adder because he is a man who always has a ‘cunning plan’. Writing an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on April 29, ambassador Haqqani calls for employing the ‘pacification’ model used so successfully in Fallujah in Iraq in Swat. Was it just me or did other people also bat an eyelid? Ambassador Haqqani, Pakistan is not Iraq and Swat is not Fallujah. It gets better though: “The recent spike of international concern about the threat in Pakistan seems to stem from the recent dialogue between the government of the Pashtunkhwa Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan and a local movement that supported Islamic law but did not join the Taliban’s violent campaign. The goal for this dialogue was twofold — first, to restore order and stability to the Swat valley; and second, to wedge rational elements of the religiously conservative population away from terrorists and fanatics.” Ambassador please. Firstly, the ‘spike’ of concern is not just international, it’s within Pakistan as well. Within the last week religious parties, opposition parties, respected clerics and members of civil society have all spoken against the ‘deal’. With the exception of Ayaz Amir and the MQM no politician spoke at the so-called parliamentary debate on the deal. Sherry Rehman and a few others managed to break party lines and speak their conscience. But on the whole our elected representatives let down the people of Pakistan – yet again.
Secondly, ambassador Haqqani has been away from Pakistan a bit too long which has led him to forget much about his motherland – most importantly, the facts. Swat’s local population has never been ‘religiously conservative’ and have never supported the Taliban given that the majority of people earned their living from tourism. The ‘Taliban’ came in from neighbouring areas and when the people of Swat begged the government to step in there was no help or assistance. I’m sure the folks in Swat wondered why they paid their taxes since no law enforcement agency was able to help them. The ‘deal’ seemed attractive to them after months of fighting, murder, pillage, and loot by the Taliban. Not to mention beheadings, floggings, and decapitation thrown in for good measure. What ambassador Haqqani and a lot of his colleagues in Islamabad should know is that a lot of what is happening in Northern Pakistan has absolutely nothing to do with religion; rather a lot of it is about economics, power structures and money. Every criminal gang is now adopting the ‘Taliban’ persona to carry out their business because they know that the state has capitulated to the Taliban; so why not give it a shot? This is not to say that the Taliban do not exist or that their brand of religion doesn’t. But there are several groups who are operating under the banner who have no ideological loyalty to them. Is it a surprise that the emerald mines in Swat were the first spots that the Taliban decided to squat on? Pakistan is dealing with gangsters who happen to have beards and rudimentary knowledge of Islam which they can enforce with their guns in the absence of any opposition.
Ambassador Haqqani speaks about peace with the more moderate elements in his op-ed column. Perhaps it is nostalgia from his days as a card-carrying member of the Jamaat-e-Islami at the Punjab University in Lahore which drives ambassador Haqqani to think that the government can actually negotiate with these thugs we see in action. But these folks are of a different ilk. Gone are the days when the moral police of the Jamiat used to use sticks to enforce their version of morality on college campuses across the country. The folks we are dealing with make the Jamiat look like pot smoking liberals. There can be and should be no negotiation. There should be no illusion that the writ of the state has been rolled back due to negligence, incompetence and corruption. Much has to change for the state to make amends with its disgruntled citizens. And while money can sort some of the problems, most of them have nothing to do with money. How do you buy resolve, backbone and competence?
“Recent developments offer us an opportunity amid crisis. More Pakistanis are now convinced of the need to confront the extremists”, offers Ambassador Haqqani. Pakistanis have always been convinced that the religious parties cannot deliver for them all that they want and need. It is for that reason that religious parties have never gotten more than 10 per cent of the vote in any free and fair election barring the one held under General Musharraf.
The Taliban are using the state’s weaknesses against it to gain popular support blended with their terror tactics. By using Robin Hood tactics they’re taking on feudal structures apart; yet the people are smart enough to know that this is temporary. No Mr Haqqani, the people of Pakistan have always known that this is not the way forward, yet the state has never been able to develop a clear position against the growing extremism in the country. The recent National Assembly session where no major party except one spoke against what’s happening in the country is a testament to this.
Ambassador Haqqani wants the US to give us counter-terrorism training which we have been stonewalling against until very recently. He wants the US to give us night vision goggles. I would like him to know that they are being sold in Peshawar as I write this. It would cost the government of Pakistan $3.6 million to purchase 1,000 AN-PVS 7-3, third generation, night vision goggles. My napkin math tells me that this could be financed by selling 22,500 square-yard plots in Islamabad. He wants equipment to knock out FM transmissions from the extremists, yet he forgets that during the 1971 war, the government of Pakistan was blocking the BBC World Service. Blocking FM transmissions is a high school science project at best. The ROZ’s are another example of the ridiculous. These regional opportunity zones are designed to give market access to these regions.
I want to know which entrepreneur is going to invest his/her own money into areas where even the armed forces are scared to go into. With the melting snows, the summer promises to be hot in more than one way on the Pakistan Afghan Border and I doubt if factories are going to be opening any time soon. Pakistan should be talking about access to US markets so that the people in our cities can find jobs instead of renting themselves out by the day to the Taliban. Just like Rehman Malik keeps appearing on television from Islamabad warning the extremists not to ‘challenge the writ of the state’ without really knowing what’s going on, ambassador Haqqani should also do a better job of positioning Pakistan and its interests in Washington DC.

The writer lives in Karachi. Email: shakir.thenews@gmail.com

 

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Blood Emeralds: Feeding the Taliban in Swat

Urvashi J Kumar
Research Officer, IPCS
e-mail: urvashi@ipcs.org

Afghanistan’s Taliban have poppy’s lucre to fund their operations and their Pakistani brethren have found a friend in emeralds. Swat’s emeralds, some of the finest available in the world and next only to the ones mined in Colombia, are now under the control of the Taliban, who in a span of four months have occupied two of the largest mines in Swat and in a remarkable show of efficiency, have already started round-the-clock mining operations where workers share up to 50 per cent of their daily find with the Taliban. Most emeralds mined here range from just under a carat to over five and fetch anywhere between US$1,000 to over US$100,000 in the international market. What funds like these can do for the coffers of the Taliban is not very hard to imagine. What is hard to imagine is the complete absence of alarm and state inaction over these rich mines being taken over by the Taliban.
Interestingly and rather disturbingly, Pakistan press coverage on the issue has remained low, just like it had been when the Taliban meticulously defaced a 23-foot high statue of a meditating Buddha, dating back to the 7th century, carved in a rock at a Jehanabad village in October 2007 which led to an international outrage. Swat’s emerald mines are seemingly the latest victims of state apathy and media disregard. 
Reports of the Fiza Ghat mines falling in the hands of the Taliban first appeared in the international press almost four months after the takeover and were subsequently published by the Pakistan press as a truncated news item 48 hours later. The Gojaro Killay Amnavi mine takeover was reported by an Indian news agency and found space in Pakistan’s press, exactly as it was published, over 24 hours after the first report; a clear indication of the seriousness or the lack of it attached to these events in Pakistan.
It was about four months ago that the Taliban reportedly took control of the mines in Fiza Ghat, said to hold largest deposits of emeralds in South Asia along with the Panjshir mines in Afghanistan, located in the mountains that ring Mingora. These mines, said to have been under government control before violent unrest swept through the Swat Valley, have in their heyday between 1978 and 1988 yielded a quarter of a million carats of emeralds. The second takeover took place on 1 April, when over 70 armed militants stormed into the mine at Gojaro Killay Amnavi area in Shangla district which had been leased by the Pakistan government to the US firm Luxury International for Rs.40 million a year but the firm discontinued their work at the mine when violence in Swat saw an upsurge. Within a day armed militants reportedly started mining operations after employing about a 1000 local people as workers and have also built trenches and bunkers. 
According to reports, the costs of mining at both locations are being split equally between the workers and the Taliban who run the operations based on Sharia; which translates into clear threat of amputation for theft and harsh punishment for breaking any other rules laid down by the Taliban. This in effect means that only those with strong Taliban sympathies have been allowed to work in the mines, giving the lie to the Taliban argument that the mines have been reopened to ensure employment and a better life for the local people.
These mines now represent another Pandora’s Box of troubles for Islamabad. Not only does it lose out on revenue that is now in the hands of the Taliban for financing their operations, the emeralds now being mined here are nothing less than conflict emeralds and should ideally come under sharp international scrutiny which can only mean more pressure on the Pakistan political top brass. 
Africa’s conflict diamonds resulted in an international campaign that resulted in the Kimberly Process, initiated in May 2000 and finalised in November 2002, proving that consensus can be reached and action taken within a short span of time if the will to do so exists. The vast misuse of precious metals and stones to fund conflict subsequently led to the Madison Dialogue, launched in August 2006 that aims at promoting verified sources of precious metal, diamonds and other minerals. 
Members of the international community and even the Pakistan government have the means and know the ways to take action against what can possibly be as troublesome a thorn as the illegal poppy trade of Afghanistan. Exploitation of these mines and their fine emeralds to fund bloodshed is not a far-fetched plausibility but a reality that needs to be faced and for this the Pakistan media, civil society, government and international community need to come together in a concerted effort to save Swat’s fine emeralds from the tinge of blood.

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Back to arms

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Finally, after a lull that has simply allowed militants to re-group, re-arm and re-plan, a military operation has resumed. In Dir and in Buner, the armed forces seem to have gone after the Taliban militants with full force. President Zardari and General Kayani have met, with the COAS giving an assurance that they can tackle the militants. Once more we see people fleeing homes and villages. Perhaps things could be made easier for them by dealing with the militants once and for all, rather than prolonging the process so that it expands across weeks and months and years. As gun-ship helicopters pound the rugged countryside of Buner and troops regain control of some key areas from the militants, we must ask why decision makers continue to play foolish games. The 'stop and start' tactics serve no purpose at all; this time round they have simply allowed the Swat Taliban to make even louder threats and to strut before TV cameras as 'victors'. Even now, our leaders continue to pretend the 'accord' in Swat is still viable. We have as yet to hear it being criticized for the farce that it is by any major party. The attitude adopted, during TV interviews and elsewhere, is apologetic. It took civil society, whose members turned out in large numbers at the General Post Office in Lahore, to dispatch angry letters to the president questioning the Nizam-e-Adl to forcefully bring out this point of view and end a situation where we spoke of it only in whispers.
It is time we stopped shuffling our feet like hesitant schoolboys. It has become necessary to go after the Taliban with all the force we can muster. This is a fact that must be faced, no matter how difficult it may be to wage war within our own county. The militants have already created havoc through a campaign aimed at creating fear. This time round we must not succumb to the tactics of blackmail. The Swat Taliban has now openly threatened to attack targets across the country if the 'deal' struck with them breaks down. This may, admittedly, not be entirely a bluff – but the fact is that what we know now is no peace either. There is an element of a nightmare in all that is happening. We need to shake it off so that a more pleasant vision for the future can replace it.
To achieve this, the lessons of the past must be learnt. In Dir and in Buner, troops have demonstrated they are quite capable of dealing with the irregular fighters they face. The politicians and the military leadership must now demonstrate they are capable of putting on a true show of team spirit. There must not be any doubt as to who the enemy is or the kind of threat these forces pose. We have heard far too many words – in the form of promises and assurances – over the past few weeks. What we need now is to see action and a demonstration that there is a true willingness to take on the thugs who have been responsible for a wave of crime which they, as yet, have not in any way been penalized for.

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Clear and present danger from the Taliban

Thursday, April 30, 2009
Ikram Sehgal

The nine years' delay in agreeing upon a Constitution for Pakistan was because of ambiguity about what role Islam would play in governance, and how this role could be incorporated into the Constitution. Deciding this in a Muslim-majority state was unprecedented, complicated by 79 members forming the Constituent Assembly coming from different walks of life. Their understanding about what Islam was and how it should be practiced differed substantially.
Detailed discussions resulted in the "Objectives Resolution" being agreed to in 1949. This resolution never attracted criticism or rejection because its understanding of Islam is very broad and inclusive. It was later incorporated into successive Constitutions. It reads: "Whereas sovereignty over the entire universe belongs to Allah Almighty alone and authority which he has delegated to the State of Pakistan through its people for being exercised within the limits prescribed by Him is a sacred trust; This Constitution Assembly representing the people of Pakistan resolves to frame a Constitution wherein the State shall exercise its powers and authority through the chosen representatives of the people; Wherein the principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice as enunciated by Islam shall be fully observed; Wherein the Muslims shall be fully enabled to order their lives in the individual and collective spheres in accordance with the teachings and requirements of Islam as set out in the Holy Quran and the Sunnah."
Unfortunately, the content and meaning of the resolution and its importance thereof was never explained to the people. If Maulana Sufi Mohammad had been educated about the spirit of that resolution in his younger years he probably would have avoided making insulting and false remarks about the Constitution of Pakistan, and about democracy and its institutions.
Composed of people with different ethnic, cultural, religious and social backgrounds, Pakistan is not a country in the European or Western sense. Among Sindhis, Baloch, Pashtuns and Punjabis are urban dwellers, rural and tribal populations, there are also Christians, Parsis and Hindus. Our lawmakers in 1949 obviously understood that fact much better than many of us do today.
The Holy Quran tells us we are not responsible for the beliefs and worship of others, all communities having been created by the same God differently for a reason: so that we may know each other and may recognise that underlying all our differences – religious, ethic and otherwise – we all have something in common which unites us: we are all children of the same Creator. Those who follow a wrong path, who deny the truth will be made responsible for their deeds individually when Judgement Day comes. But in this world God has ordained no compulsion in religion; not even if I think I am right and I know much better than everybody else what is right and what is wrong.
Mullah Sufi Muhammad thinks he alone is right and wants to impose his version of the Truth on everybody. That is wrong, it is un-Islamic, a sure recipe for disaster in a diverse society as the Pakistani one. With corruption a blight on their lives, bereft of inexpensive justice at their doorstep that the Wali of Swat gave them before 1969, worn out by conflict and missing protection from the Pakistani State, the people of Swat welcomed Sufi Muhammad's promise of honesty, elusive peace and justice.
Outside the valley, outside the Pashtun areas and outside the Taliban way of thinking there are millions of other Pakistanis, Muslim and non-Muslims, educated, uneducated, urban dwellers and rural population, rich and poor. They do disagree with the mullah's ideas and understanding. The Holy Quran and the Constitution of Pakistan gave them a right to be different, to think differently, and to live differently. While the Quran and our Constitution are inclusive documents of a diversified but united Islamic civilisation, Sufi Mohammad wants to be exclusive, that all others are wrong and need to be corrected, that he knows much better than all those who disagree. It is Sufi Mohammad who is acting against the spirit of the Quran and the spirit of our Constitution, it is time to tell him this in no uncertain terms.
By attempting the peace agreement in Swat, the ANP government showed real Islamic spirit by conceding that different interpretations of the Sharia have a right to be exercised. They gave Sufi Muhammad the opportunity to demonstrate his version of Islam in Swat, the condition being it should be a peaceful exercise, not a violent one. We are seeing the exact opposite. It exposed Sufi Muhammad camouflaged as a man of peace when he really is a convenient mouthpiece for his brutal son-in-law, Maulana Fazlullah. The Taliban kept their guns, have attacked the FC, looted and destroyed offices of the state and of NGOs, violating not only the peace agreement but also the spirit of the Pakistani Constitution and of Islam. We cannot and should not tolerate this.
The well–intentioned but ill-advised game plan for peace put the Army into a no-win Catch-22 situation, damned for not doing enough when they were in fact on the verge of success, damned as such by some for doing too much. The Army has to wake up as to who is badmouthing them, why, and more crucially, where? A national government can restore the credibility of the state with respect to governance, a democratic "doctrine of necessity" measuring those who govern to be symbols of honesty and integrity. Otherwise, we are playing hypocrisy with the destiny of the nation. Terrorism may be the present focus of our prime attention, priority must eliminate the root causes thereof, corruption and injustice. Anyone who says otherwise does so with ulterior motives.
The concept of a "clear and present danger" enunciated by US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes involved the "freedom of spesech" and licence thereof. A man starts yelling "fire, fire" in a movie theatre, the stampede towards the exits results in injuries (even deaths) among the cinemagoers. Restraining the man or punishing him would technically violate his freedom of speech, allowing such "freedom" would result in injuries and deaths to innocent bystanders, what should be the logical course of justice? When any individual misuses any freedom (in this case of speech), endangering others in any manner, Judge Holmes maintained that the concept of application of justice must recognise the situation as a "clear and present danger" and the individual must be restrained, relying more on the tenets of logic rather than the pure letter of the law.
The Taliban in Swat constitute a "clear and present danger" to the state of Pakistan. That danger needs to be eliminated. (Acknowledging with gratitude research by Dr Bettina Robotka (IBA), Karachi.)

The writer is a defence and political analyst. Email: isehgal@pathfinder9.com

 

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Imagining the Taliban

Set the poll rolling

Thursday, April 30, 2009
Farzana Versey

If you do not look at the candidates, the manifestoes and the daily dose of quotes, then you might begin to think that India is voting in the Pakistani elections. Sorry if this sounds insensitive, but the Taliban crisis is what has made the marketing guys tout these as the most important elections in India.
Of the times I have visited Islamabad, I had never heard of Buner. These days, Indian news channel anchors talk about Buner as though it were something in their exclusive backyards. Is this fear psychosis, the ragged remains of the Mumbai attacks which are raked up by every group with chiffon saree and pearls and cotton-silk kurtas and striped ties? These are women and men who are rolling the word 'Bun-air' blithely and lithely off their tongues.
Isn't that why if we cut through the swathe of national issues, then the real vote is against terrorism? The only terrorism we seem to recognise comes from across the border. The more serious media show us scruffy-looking men, heavily armed and bearded, crossing hills. Their destination, we are told, is India and they are supposedly the Taliban. When they realise this sounds ridiculous, they change it to jihadis. The subtle difference having raised the bar of their consciousness, they become eligible to be considered with more gravitas.
It is shocking to hear intelligent commentators hallucinate that if the Taliban were to reach Karachi, they could threaten us. We now even have a reason: some of the 26/11 terrorists did use the sea route. But are they interested in India? The Taliban, or at least Pashtun elements, have always been an important source of anxiety and anger among the Karachiites. They have business dealings there and this would be a part of their spreading the message and taking over Pakistan agenda, if it is that. India does not matter to them politically or even strategically.
I am, therefore, surprised that a retired colonel joined the bandwagon and sought to write an open letter to General Pervez Kayani stating: "Sir, it is imperative that we recognise our enemy without any delay. I use the word 'our' advisedly – for the Taliban threat is not far from India's borders. And the only force that can stop them from dragging Pakistan back into the Stone Age is the force that you command… the future of humankind in the subcontinent rests with you." This is utterly debasing not only to Pakistani civil society but also to the Indian electorate that is being brainwashed with such damaging information and homilies. Interestingly, the onus is being placed on the army, an army that was sought to be thrown out in democratic elections.
While the army in Pakistan has had running tenures for long periods of time, it is in fact often a puppet in the hands of the democrats. After all, it was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who asked Yahya to arrest Mujibur Rehman. He then took over as leader and promptly released Mujib and arrested Yahya! The only common fallout was that India had to deal with Bangladeshi immigrants and Pakistan with the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet incursion.
Pakistan, and not merely the extreme north, has had to deal with bomb blasts; these were not engineered by the Taliban. There are regional and linguistic issues. How serious can a discourse be if it chooses to use an American newspaper's puff prophecy? The CIA had branded Pervez Musharraf as among the ten worst dictators. None of these certificates or crystal ball gazers bothers to provide even broad definitions of what they mean by 'dictator' and, more importantly, 'collapse'.
The economy has collapsed, starting with the west. Did they anticipate it? Elected governments collapse when they are voted out of power. There is a collapse when Israel puts a blockade around Gaza and denies its people basic facilities. Essential services collapse when there are strikes by trade unions – legitimate dissenters. How many more examples of collapse should be provided to explain in perspective that New York Times cannot be taken at face value?
Pakistan, the Taliban and jihad are catch-phrases that might work, especially during election time, but it is rather tragic that so soon after the Assam blasts and the Naxalites going on a killing spree, we have moved on to the Taliban. There is something called ULFA (United Liberation Front of Asom) that has been in existence for years and they in fact are working on a separatist notion that there is some feeble stipulation for and the Naxal Maoist forces constitute the extreme wing of the left, a big party in the electoral process.
One is waiting for an open letter to our army chief regarding the 100 terrorists who have reportedly 'sneaked into Jammu and Kashmir' (one had no idea they would seek permission!). The only thing in our favour is that we are still a democracy with no constitutional provision for a theocracy. Maybe, the good colonel would like to convey that to those propagating dreams of a Hindu Rashtra.

The writer is a Mumbai-based columnist and author of the book A Journey Interrupted: Being Indian in Pakistan, Harper Collins, India. Email: kaaghaz.kalam@gmail.com

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Stop the Taliban advance

Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Rubina Saigol

The writer is a researcher specialising in social development
While all forms of colonisation and occupation spell disaster for the way of life of the conquered, whose institutions and systems are demolished and replaced by new ones, the most recent colonisation of large parts of Pakistan by the Taliban is by far the most dangerous one, as it seeks to destroy the very basis on which the state and society rest.
The Taliban occupation resembles most other forms of colonial occupation in a number of ways, including: 1) Forcible control over territory and large swathes of the population; 2) use of violence and force to accomplish political aims; 3) imposition of a specific minority version of religion not accepted or followed by the majority; 4) induction of collaborators from among the local people to further their aims; 5) planned demolition of the political, economic and social systems of the defeated; 6) belief in the superiority of the values, practices and systems of the coloniser, coupled with complete disregard for the culture and ways of the vanquished.
1. Forcible control over territory and population: The Taliban established control over large parts of FATA, a territory which was never properly integrated into Pakistan. In the past few months, the Taliban have speedily acquired control over Swat, first through armed violence and finally legally and politically through the Nizam-e-Adl agreement signed by President Zardari on April 13 and supported by Pakistan's elected assembly. As Farrukh Saleem informs us, the Pakistani state has ceded another 5,337 square kilometres of Pakistan adding to the 14,850 square kilometres of Chitral and 5,280 square kilometres of Dir which were already under the control of Sufi Muhammad's Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi. According to Dr Saleem this constitutes around 16 percent of our landmass.
Ecstatic over their triumph in Swat the Taliban quickly moved on to Buner, Shangla and are said to be close to Mansehra and Haripur and about 60 miles from Islamabad. They have openly declared that they will impose their own brand of Shariat on the whole of Pakistan and ultimately the entire Muslim world. Such imperial fantasies of world conquest portend disaster not only for Pakistan but for the world beyond.
2. Use of Violence for political aims: Like many other marauding hordes in history, the Taliban have demonstrated their enormous propensity for violence, brutality and savagery. The reign of terror in Swat before it finally fell involved beheading, murder, public display of decapitated bodies, flogging of women and cold-blooded murder of men and women accused of "immoral" behaviour in the Taliban's distorted code of morality. Those killed, butchered and tortured had not violated any Pakistani law while the Taliban have committed capital crimes against Pakistan's law and Constitution.
3. Imposition of minority religion: Pakistan constitutes a plural and multiple society where different religious groups, sects and beliefs have co-existed for centuries. There are Deobandis and Barelvis, Shias and Sunnis and followers of Sufi saints like Bulleh Shah, Sultan Bahoo, Sachchal Sarmast, Rehman Baba, Ghulam Farid, Khushhal Khan Khattak, Shah Abdul Lateef Bhitai and others. Additionally, Pakistan has a substantial population of Hindus in interior Sindh and Christians all over the country.
Pakistan is a multi-religious society where one single religion cannot be imposed on everyone. The Taliban represent a Wahhabi version of religion to which a tiny minority subscribes. Their notions of the universe represent a grotesque version of religion that carries no moral purpose other than its own imposition, and prohibits no crime, butchery or violence in single-minded pursuit of power, territory and control. Subsidised by the sale of poppy and the underground drug and arms trade, this version of "religion" makes a mockery of religion itself and reduces it to bloodshed, cruelty and barbarism. It is a version that has been rejected by mainstream religious leaders also.
4. Collaboration: Local and national administrations and political leaders of our country have become forced collaborators in the Taliban enterprise of destruction. The failure of our security forces to protect the country and its people has led to the capitulation by the National Assembly and the government to their illegal and unconstitutional demands. The fear generated by the no-holds-barred violence of the Taliban has led to the muting of any critique of their inhuman actions. The civilian government and legislators, dependent upon the police, administration and the army to protect civilians against the occupation of their country, had no choice but to relent when those responsible for protecting the country seemed to be retreating.
5. Demolition of political, economic and social systems: Like all colonisers, who entrench themselves in the society of the colonised and make sweeping changes in local systems and institutions, the Taliban have already threatened to destroy democracy which was only recently wrested from the hands of a dictator reluctant to relinquish control.
The Taliban have declared democracy, the judiciary and the Constitution as being western impositions to be removed by them once they gain power in Islamabad. They are not bothered by the obvious contradiction that they themselves are a product of the same western world that they so despise. Their version of religion comes from a westerly direction and is not an indigenous manifestation of the rich South Asian context.
Their own worldview comes from the west – from west Asia, to be more specific – and has no roots within the subcontinent which boasts syncretic versions of religion that are tolerant of difference and are peaceful in their actions. The Taliban threaten the essential multiplicity of South Asia and the traditional peaceful tolerance of its people by planning to transform the political, economic, social and cultural landscape of the country.
The worst sufferers of the Wahhabi imperialism that they represent will be women and the minorities, as is already evident. The Taliban's insecurities often tend to be focused on cultural and religious policing of the weaker sections of society. The prohibition of women's education and work – as well as of all music, art and higher culture – is as clear a sign of degradation as any and promises a world in which civilisation would become a thing of the past.
6. Belief in superiority: Like the former colonisers, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, the Taliban have a deeply embedded view of their own superiority. They believe that the cultural and social norms and values that they represent are better than those of most Pakistanis, and that it is the Bearded Man's Burden to correct the morals of society and inculcate higher values among the populace.
In spite of the fact that they kill, butcher, cut off limbs and heads with wild abandon and loot and plunder resources mercilessly (demonstrated by the takeover of the Emerald Mines), they project all their vices onto "the other." They accuse liberal and progressive people of lacking virtue, morality and piety. Yet, it is the Taliban who clearly lack any moral compass and have been reared on an ideology of hate, bloodshed and violence.
The onslaught of the Taliban must be resisted with all the resources at our disposal – administrative, political, military, intellectual and cultural. If we have to fight them, we must fight; if we have to dance and sing, we must dance and sing to challenge their Stone Age worldview and to assert our own humanity. It is no use blaming our civilian elected leaders for capitulating to the Taliban under pressure, as disappointing as that may be. The real issue is, why is a 600,000-strong army powerless against them? Why was the army not able to subdue an insurgency in Waziristan before the poison spread to the settled areas?
The Pakistani people give a huge chunk of their hard-earned resources to the army – the largest chunk after debt-servicing. All they want in return is protection, security and not abdication of responsibility. Why is a half-a-million-strong army ineffective against 5,000 marauders, criminals and thugs?
It has become our national pastime to blame only our elected governments when in reality they have no options and have been forced to accept Talibanisation of Swat due to the failures of others. If we do not fight back the Taliban today, we may not even live to regret it, for they will not spare our lives.

Email: rubinasaigol@hotmail.com

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Thank you, Sufi Mohammad

Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Asif Ezdi

NNWFP Chief Minister Amir Haider Hoti announced on April 21 that the government was facing a revolt in the province and that the salaries of the police were being doubled to cope with this threat. Hoti's warning calls to mind a similar foreboding expressed by the king of France at the time of the French Revolution. On July 12, 1789, two days before the storming of the Bastille, when the duke of La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt warned Louis XVI of the state of affairs in Paris, the king is said to have exclaimed, "This is a revolt." The duke's reply: "Non, sire, c'est une révolution." ("No, majesty, it is a revolution.")
In a revolt, only the ruler is toppled as a result of a popular uprising. But in a revolution, the entire ruling class is replaced. In our history, we have only known coup d'états, but neither a revolt nor a revolution. We do not know yet whether we are seeing the beginnings of a revolt or of a revolution in Pakistan. But whatever it is, it is certainly not a law and order problem and it is not going to be stopped by raising the salaries of policemen.
Our newspaper columns, airwaves and cyberspace have been saturated with the bloviations of our "liberal" commentators of different stripes chattering endlessly about the state being threatened by Islamic militants and extremists. In a rare display of unity, the apologists for our political class have also been saying the same thing. Hillary Clinton would be pleased that her call to the Pakistanis to speak out against the Taliban has been heeded.
Following in the footsteps of Musharraf, who not so long ago used to wax eloquent about how his brand of military dictatorship stood for enlightened moderation, the self-appointed protagonists of our hard-won democracy have been lamenting how our modern, enlightened way of life is being challenged by obscurantism and fundamentalism, when actually they are mostly defending only their class interests. Few, if any, votaries of this new enlightened moderation have pointed out that the Taliban movement in Swat has been able to win support among so many young men because the state has failed them, massively and comprehensively.
To portray the ferment in Swat as a medieval backlash against modernism is either a blinkered view or a deliberately misleading one. It ignores or tries to cover up the fact that the wellspring of Islamic militancy in Pakistan is to be found in the alienation of the mass of the population by a ruling elite which has used the state to protect and expand its own privileges, pushing the common man into deeper and deeper poverty and hopelessness. Past governments, whether military or civilian, dictatorial or democratic, have been little more than convenient tools of the privileged few for perpetuation of the status quo.
What has changed now is that people are much more aware of their rights – and their power. The availability of uncensored information on television has widened their horizons. In much of NWFP, the Afghan jihad gave them access to military training and modern weaponry: the Kalashnikov, the rocket launcher and the machine gun. With an annual population increase of four million in the whole country and an economy which is stagnant, there is a fast growing army of unemployed angry young men waiting to be recruited.
The turmoil in Swat and in the adjoining areas is being portrayed by some as a contest between obscurantism and enlightenment, between bigotry and tolerance and between extremism and moderation. Actually, it is more like a movement of the common man against vast disparities in wealth and the failure of the authorities to provide justice, jobs and those essential services like education and health for which governments are supposed to exist. In some areas at least, it has pitted landless tenants against wealthy landlords and there are reports that big landowners are being forced to leave the valley. Once such a movement gains momentum, it acquires its own uncontrollable dynamic. As Joseph de Maistre, a French political philosopher, wrote in 1796, it is not men who lead revolutions, but it is the revolution which employs men.
The appeal of the sharia and Islamic justice gives the Taliban an unparalleled ideological motivation. As the Persian saying goes, ham khorma wa ham sawab ast. There are rewards both in this world and the next. It is this combination of revolutionary and religious zeal which makes the Taliban such a formidable force. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair came close to the truth in a speech on April 22 in which he likened militant Islam to revolutionary communism for its tenacity. It would not of course be the first time that what began as a religious movement also acquired the character of a socio-economic upheaval. Examples can be found in the history of most civilisations.
The Swat deal, it has been said, signifies a retreat from Jinnah's Pakistan, that it is a negation of his vision. A Pakistani journalist has equated the "capitulation in Swat" with the surrender document signed in Dhaka in 1971, incidentally a comparison first made by a retired colonel of the Indian army by the name of Harish Puri in an op-ed in this newspaper. All this is shocking, because it suggests that before the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation, Pakistan was well on the way to becoming the country of Quaid-e-Azam's conception. Nothing could be farther from the truth, because the retreat from Jinnah's Pakistan and the betrayal of his vision began much earlier. It started shortly after his death, continued under successive civilian and military governments and accelerated under military dictators, reaching its culmination with Musharraf. The responsibility for this betrayal lies not with the Taliban or Sufi Muhammad but largely with the same class which is now howling the loudest.
Fundamental to the Quaid's vision of Pakistan was the concept of Islamic social justice. But we have seen none of that in the policies of the government in the last six decades. Instead, the main role of the state has been to enable the ruling class to keep its hold on power, privilege and national wealth. The gap between a thin upper crust of the rich and the vast majority who live in privation is growing. Greed and rapacity have now been officially sanctioned by the NRO. An ordinary Pakistani born into destitution has little chance of breaking the shackles of poverty. The machinery of government, the political system and the upper classes are all arrayed against him.
In most countries, there is a single universal education system for all, which helps to blunt class differences. In Pakistan, not only is the level of school enrolment abysmally low, but there is a stratified school system which replicates and consolidates the class divisions. The elites send their children to the best schools which are beyond the means of the common man and which generally ensure a secure place in the system in later life. For the others, there are either the government schools or the madressas. Even the most talented of those who go to a government school find it hard to break the glass ceiling which keeps them down in the job market. And the most gifted of those educated in madressas become Taliban.
To accuse those who have risen against our exploitative socio-economic system of obscurantism is scandalous. In reality, it is Pakistan's ruling class, desperately clinging to its privileges, that is seeking to preserve an outdated medieval order. They are the ones who stand for obscurantism. We do not yet have a full-blown class conflict but the genie is out of the bottle and it cannot be put back in.
If – and that is a very big if – our ruling elite and the government are smart, they will have been jolted out of their complacency by the Swat deal and will have focussed their minds on issues of social justice. But that is unlikely. At least, they have been warned. Thank you, Sufi Muhammad.

The writer is a former member of the Pakistan Foreign Service. Email: asifezdi@yahoo.com

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Taliban terror

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

In our cities, where there is more and more trepidation over the rapid Talibanization of the country, some comfort is still sought in the fact that the larger urban centres may well be able to ward off a similar threat. But can they? We have evidence in many places of the growing Taliban influence. In the Manga Mandi area of Lahore, local police thrashed in public three couples who they stated had been engaged in 'objectionable' behaviour. Rather than rejoice over this attempt to save them from immorality, local people expressed anger over the beating of women in the streets.
There are other incidents too. From Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad accounts come in of women being stopped in the streets and asked to cover their heads or 'dress decently'. The most dire accounts speak of threats to hurl acid. Co-educational schools, ironically enough even those imparting a religious education whose tiny pupils arrive in veils and caps, have been threatened. Some women drivers have reported harassment from youths on motorcycles. It is quite possible, indeed probable, that not all these incidents are true. But what such rumours do is create an environment of fear. This after all is what the terrorists want above all else. It is time that, as citizens, we fought back for our rights; for our space and for our right to live without constant fear. So far this struggle has not been taken up in earnest. It is time to push back the tide and rescue our nation from a fate that will jeopardize the future of all its citizens.

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Reclaim your country, your religion

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

There has been heartfelt outrage at the goings-on in Swat. The outrage and anger were and are necessary. A bunch of self-appointed mullahs forcing their will by an orgy of lethal violence on their own countrymen warrants repulsion. Thus the opprobrium is entirely deserved on those on which it is heaped. Talibanisation is no longer an abstract concept for Pakistanis, the self-proclaimed 'soldiers of religion', retained by deluded policy makers for 'strategic depth' and continuously flirted with by the religio-political class are proving to be as oppressive and brutal as their Afghan predecessors. Barring the Taliban sympathisers (JI, PTI et al), and the oddity of the PPP and ANP, self-proclaimed secularists, signing off on the deal, the condemnation has been universal. The president, the prime minister, the army chief, the judiciary, civil society, the MQM and even from the PML-N chief.
There is much breast-beating and punditry and parading of the same old excuses of foreign hands and one of the three As that is omnipresent as a reason. (Although one has to ask why would India or Russia wish to have a Caliphate installed in Pakistan?) If the readers of this newspaper and other media outlets are in anyway representative, than it appears that it has finally dawned on the population that there is a serious threat, not only to their way of life but very lives from these gangsters. It also indicates that, at least this constituency does not believe in Mr Sufi Mohammad's version of the religion. A line appears to have been drawn. On one side are obscurantist, violence and demagoguery (and their apologists who have never won their argument in a fair election). On the other side is the rest of Pakistan. All this could prove to be a catalyst for building a consensus about what kind of Pakistan should emerge, after the immediate crisis is diffused. Women have always suffered oppression in Pakistani society, but a vast majority seems to be saying, this far and no further; not even when you invoke religion to falsely justify such oppression. The brave stance of the Women Action Forum, in this regard, should be applauded.
The ideology of obscurantism thrives as others defer because the label of the religion is used as a political tool of subjugation. It is time that this stopped and the monopolisation of religion by all comers in the naked pursuit of power be challenged, without equivocation. At least in the minds of the thinking Pakistanis there should be absolutely no sympathy for this type of violence simply because the perpetrators associate themselves to religion. Similarly, apologists who claim one reason or another to rationalise wanton violence in pursuit of power must also be contested. A favourite argument of the apologists is always that it was the US that created these monsters or that this is the reaction of drone attacks and thus somehow justified. The former is akin to cutting your nose to spite your face and the latter highly dubious, in the case of the TNSM, and inherently perverse. Secondly, it is also important that those on side of humanity, tolerance and believers in the creed of live and let live do not allow the pursuit of the perfect to be the enemy of the good. This means that there has to be a consensus amongst those attempting to combat religious extremism and some compromise on the personal and political differences amongst them.
The government certainly should do more. For starters they should lay out and communicate what is the broad strategy for dealing with the current crisis? What exactly has been promised to the TNSM and how is it to be implemented? If there is no will or possibility of enforcing its writ in Swat and Malakand, the least the government should do is to negotiate a safe passage of refugees and help in their settlement in other parts of the country. The most important thing the government can do to strengthen tolerance and rule of law is to fulfil its manifesto promises of revival of the 1973 constitution and implementation of the charter of democracy. The reason regressive forces appear successful is because progressive elements of society can't seem to distinguish the wood from the trees and are too busy indulging in pursuit of the unobtainable at the cost of relinquishing the achievable.
The fight against obscurantism may yet require force but a more important battle is that of the minds. That is why it is important for the silent, peaceful majority of Pakistanis on the right side of the argument to set their differences aside and make their voices heard to reclaim their country and their religion from the regressive and obscurantist forces.

R Matif
London

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Jinnah vs Sufi Mohammad

Sunday, April 26, 2009
Ghazi Salahuddin

Gradually, it seems, our rulers are struggling to wake up to the threat that the Taliban have posed in Swat and elsewhere. Perhaps the alarm bells that are ringing in Washington and London have penetrated their uneasy slumber, the state in which the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation 2009 was rushed through the National Assembly on April 13. But hasn't this waiting game made the situation more difficult to handle?
According to reports published on Saturday – yesterday – Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has rejected the notion that the peace deal through Sufi Mohammad amounted to a giving any "concession" to the armed Islamists. More significantly, he declared that not only the army had the resolve to take on the militants but "victory against terror and militancy will be achieved at all costs". At all costs?
Anyhow, I have quoted this observation to also underline the major role that Sufi Mohammad is playing in the nation's affairs. It is he who negotiated the peace deal, taking responsibility for the Taliban. One headline on Saturday, in this newspaper, said: "Sufi takes back Taliban to Swat". You see, Sufi or his representatives can come to our rescue when the Taliban take control of Buner, a district adjoining Swat.
And what does Sufi stand for? In the first place, he wants Sharia to be enforced – a dispensation that can only be described as theocracy. In addition, he looks at democracy and the parliament as 'kufr'. Naturally, one would think about what Pakistan was meant to be in the light of the vision of its founder, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. There has been an unresolved debate on whether Jinnah wanted a secular Pakistan, as his August 11, 1947, speech would suggest, or a state rooted in Islamic precepts, as some of his other speeches proposed.
What is certain, however, is that Jinnah was forthrightly opposed to Pakistan being a theocracy. After all, we cannot uncouple the idea of Pakistan from the person that Jinnah was, in terms of the life he led and the values he cherished. Consider, in this perspective, where Jinnah would belong in today's Pakistan. In many ways, a reference to our struggle for freedom and the leadership that Jinnah had provided can serve as a measure of what has gone wrong in this country over the years.
Now, I have not invoked Jinnah's name only in a symbolic sense to accentuate the waywardness of our polity. On Monday, The Jinnah Society launched the second edition of the Jinnah Anthology in a largely attended function in Karachi. On this occasion, the Jinnah Award for 2006 was conferred upon former Air Force chief Asghar Khan and the same award for 2007 was conferred posthumously upon Ahmed Ali Khan, former chief editor of Dawn and my role model in journalism.
The keynote speaker was also a journalist, Najam Sethi. The current situation, particularly the resistible rise of the Taliban, would, of course, be at the heart of any discourse on Jinnah and his vision of Pakistan. Hence, Najam Sethi talked about "two surrender documents": the fall of Dhaka and the Swat deal of this year. He thought that these surrenders were probably making the founder of Pakistan turn in his grave.
One important point that should not be avoided in an analysis of today's Pakistan in the context of its founder's vision is Jinnah's deep admiration for Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey. We know that Turkey is constitutionally a secular state and is also a leading Muslim country we can look up to. Sethi explored this connection and said that the mixing of religion and politics was a great betrayal and it started with 1948's Objectives Resolution.
I was able to attend this function that was co-sponsored by the Oxford University Press. It was a representative gathering of the city's intelligentsia and the mood that reflected in fleeting conversations was one of gloom and anxiety. There is little doubt that those who seek to promote Jinnah's vision are on the defensive. Sufi Mohammad's brigades are trampling over our aspirations for a democratic and progressive Pakistan. Before 1947, Jinnah had triumphed over such orthodox religious elements, the ones who had called him a 'kafir'.
So, what can we now expect from the army's latest resolve, a reiteration of what it has promised a number of times, that victory against "terror and militancy" (why not the Taliban?) will be achieved "at all costs". Our rulers, including the military leadership, do know that the costs continue to rise when you do not attend to an urgent crisis. Even for the peace deal, they waited until the Taliban had bombed not just a few but more than 150 girls schools in Swat. They waited when the Taliban beheaded their enemies and bodies were left hanging from trees. It went on for an excruciating long time.
Meanwhile, the alarm bells that are ringing are about to acquire the pitch of a death knell. Indeed, we are hearing these warnings for quite some time. On Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that Pakistan is now beginning to recognise the severity of the threat posed by growing insurgency that is encroaching on key urban areas. A day earlier, on Wednesday, she said that Pakistan's government had abdicated to the Taliban by agreeing to the Islamic law in part of the country and that the nuclear-armed nation posed a 'mortal threat' to world security.
One scary question that reverberated this week in many statements is: how far are the Taliban from Islamabad? Our own Maulana Fazlur Rehman said on the floor of the National Assembly on Wednesday that the Taliban had reached near Mansehra and may soon reach Tarbela Dam. "They will soon be knocking at the doors of Islamabad", he added.
In Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said: "I think the news over the past several days is very disturbing, the administration is extremely concerned." We are informed that the issue was taking up a significant amount of President Barack Obama's time. Top US military commander Admiral Michael Mullen arrived in Islamabad on Wednesday, for the second time in just two weeks.
All these developments suggest that some headline-making moves are imminent. If the crisis of Pakistan is taking up so much time of the American president, we can assume that our rulers, too, have some time to think about these matters. Yes, there is this photograph of a meeting held at the presidency in Pakistan on Friday night, attended by the president, the prime minister, the foreign minister, the ANP chief and the chief of the Army Staff. One wonders if their deliberation had any sense of what Jinnah had wanted Pakistan to be and how religious extremism has tempered with that vision.

The writer is a staff member. Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com

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Where is the Pakistan army?

Sunday, April 26, 2009
Dr Farrukh Saleem

Five thousand square kilometres of Swat are now under Taliban control -- de jure. Chitral (14,850 sq km), Dir (5,280 sq km), Shangla (1,586 sq km), Hangu (1,097 sq km), Lakki Marwat (3,164 sq km), Bannu (1,227 sq km), Tank (1,679 sq km), Khyber, Kurram, Bajaur, Mohmand, Orkzai, North Waziristan and South Waziristan are all under Taliban control -- de facto. That's a total of 56,103 square kilometres of Pakistan under Taliban control -- de facto.
Six thousand square kilometres of Dera Ismail Khan are being contested. Also under 'contested control' are Karak (3,372 sq km), Kohat (2,545 sq km), Peshawar (2,257 sq km), Charsada (996 sq km) and Mardan (1,632 sq km). That's a total of 16,802 square kilometres of Pakistan under 'contested control' -- de facto. Seven thousand five hundred square kilometres of Kohistan are under 'Taliban influence'. Additionally, Mansehra (4,579 sq km), Battagram (1,301 sq km), Swabi (1,543 sq km) and Nowshera (1,748 sq km) are all under 'Taliban influence'. That's a total of 16,663 square kilometres of Pakistan under 'Taliban influence' -- de facto. All put together, 89,568 square kilometres of Pakistani territory is either under complete 'Taliban control', 'contested control' or 'Taliban influenced'; that's 11 per cent of Pakistan's landmass.
Where is Pakistan army? To be fair, under our constitution law enforcement -- and establishing the writ of the state -- is the responsibility of our civil administration. Yes, under Article 245, the federal government can call in the army "in aid of civil power" but the overall strategy has to be devised by our politicians. Counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency are very specialised operations. Textbook counter-insurgency has three elements: Clear-Hold-Build (C-H-B). The army may be required to 'clear' insurgents from a particular area but every army operation creates a vacuum that has to be filled by a civil-political administration. After the 'clearing' of insurgents it has to be the politicians to 'hold' that area and then fulfil the social contract -- dispensation of justice, municipal services etc -- between the ruled and the rulers (classic counter-insurgency is DDD, disrupt, dismantle and defeat).
At least 11 per cent of Pakistan's landmass has been ceded to the Taliban. Where is the Pakistan army? I Corps is in Mangla, II Corps is in Multan, IV Corps in Lahore, V Corps in Karachi, X Corps in Rawalpindi, XI Corps in Peshawar, XII Corps in Quetta, XXX Corps in Gujranwala and XXXI is in Bahawalpur, In effect, some 80 to 90 per cent of our military assets are deployed to counter the threat from India. The Pakistan army looks at the Indian army and sees its inventory of 6,384 tanks as a threat. The Pakistan army looks at the Indian air force and sees its inventory of 672 combat aircraft as a threat. The Pakistan army looks at the Indian army and notices that six out of 13 Indian corps are strike corps. The Pakistan army looks at the Indian army and finds that 15, 9, 16, 14, 11, 10 and 2 Corps are all pointing their guns at Pakistan. The Pakistan army looks at the Indian army and discovers that the 3rd Armoured Division, 4 RAPID Division and 2nd Armoured Brigade have been deployed to cut Pakistan into two halves. The Pakistan army looks at the Taliban and sees no Arjun Main Battle Tanks (MBT), no armoured fighting vehicles, no 155 mm Bofors howitzers, no Akash surface-to-air missiles, no BrahMos land attack cruise missiles, no Agni Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles, no Sukhoi Su-30 MKI air superiority strike fighters, no Jaguar attack aircraft, no MiG-27 ground-attack aircraft, no Shakti thermonuclear devices, no Shakti-II 12 kiloton fission devices and no heavy artillery.
Pakistan is on fire and our fire-fighters are on the Pakistan-India border. To be certain, none of those Indian tanks can cross the Himalayas into China so Arjun MBTs must all be for Pakistan. Thus, the Pakistan-India border has to be defended. Then, what about this hyperactive insurgency that is snatching away Pakistani physical terrain -- bit by bit? There certainly is no easy way out. America wants the Pakistan army to neutralise threats to the mainland US. The Pakistan army, on the other hand, has to defend the Pakistan-India border. The need of the hour, therefore, is for all organs of the Pakistani state -- the executive, the legislature, the judiciary and the military -- to put their heads together and devise a National Counter-Insurgency Policy.

The writer is the executive director of the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS). Email: farrukh15 @hotmail.com

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Taliban uninterrupted

Saturday, April 25, 2009

The Taliban have now moved into the Shangla and Buner districts in full earnest. Residents report masked militants driving through the streets while loud speaker message warn that no 'un-Islamic' activity will be tolerated. Terrified local people cower within their homes as the Taliban take over towns and hamlets without challenge. What seems to have been a rather half-hearted attempt by the Frontier Constabulary to take up positions in Buner was effortlessly thwarted by militants who ambushed the police vehicle leading the FC Convoy, killing one policeman. The convoy then made a rapid retreat. The apparent connivance of some people in the bureaucracy - the commissioner of Malakand, quoted by several news channels as saying that the Taliban would not interfere with the working of the local administration in Buner, being a case in point - does not help either and one can only wonder under what mandate they are operating against the interests of the nation and the state.
The Taliban are clearly upbeat and confident. Their victory has been decisive. In contrast, our security forces seem confused and undecided, as though they already recognize they are on the losing side. The army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had to forcefully come out with a reassuring statement after a GHQ meeting on Friday but statements alone may not be enough to create a sense of security in the traumatised people of Swat and Buner - and indeed throughout Pakistan. What is reassuring about General Kayani's statement is that the army is determined not to allow the militants to dictate terms and that he is cognizant of the very real danger that the advance of the Taliban pose to the Pakistani way of life. Having said that, so far the matching political will in the government seems to be missing - and if anything, so far only Nawaz Sharif and the MQM have taken the stand that is required of all the country's political leadership. In fact one interpretation of General Kayani's statement could be that the ball is now in the politicians' court: to come up with a concerted and coherent plan of action. When that happens is yet to be seen but the forward march of the Taliban is already making its deadly impact on society. In Swat, and now in Buner, small boys wearing the garb of the Taliban play their own games of war, emulating the victors. One horrible TV image shows them 'flogging' a playmate - emulating what they see all around them. In the future, these games could become all too real. Is this then what we have to look forward too?
Telephone lines between Islamabad and Washington seem constantly to be engaged. There is obviously now very real alarm in the US over the fate of Pakistan and how this will affect relations. The question that runs through minds is what is to be done and how? What is most disturbing is the fact that our own government has as yet failed to work out a strategy of any kind. It is this failure that fills people with most fear. While the PML-N, after refusing to take any kind of stand in parliament against the peace deal in Swat, now seems suddenly to have woken up to a danger that has been present for months, its leaders do not quite say what should be done. They have suggested the prime minister take a lead in the matter - but is there anything to prevent the party from proposing its own solutions? So far it seems they, like other major parties in the country, have none to offer. Some of these forces indeed seem reluctant to condemn the Taliban outright - and this indeed is the core reason for their success.
The Pakistan army statement has underlined the urgency of the situation and it is time that we saw some kind of return to sanity, to wisdom and to good sense. All mainstream parties need to work out a policy that can check the onward march of the Taliban. Let us not forget they stand now close to Mansehra - and not all that many kilometres away from the capital itself. While the government claims there is no threat to Islamabad its credibility is under doubt. Instant action is needed to restore it; an All Parties Conference (APC) should be called; perhaps a broader gathering of civil society groups is in order. We need to develop a consensus on defeating the militants, on driving them back and on ending their strident march. Soon it will be too late to put any kind of check in their way.

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The Swat controversy

By M. A. Niazi | Published: April 24, 2009

Maulana Sufi Nek Muhammad has set the cat among the pigeons by repeating his assertion that laws in Pakistan were not Islamic, and by rejecting the possibility of appeal against the decisions of the Qazis that are to be appointed under the Nizam-i-Adl Regulation. While his claims have caused some controversy, with the prime minister among the many voices raised in condemnation, this seems to ignore the fact that the Maulana is not uttering some wild-eyed pronouncement, but is reciting orthodoxy. This orthodoxy was overturned in the whole Muslim world in the first half of the 20th century, but while Muslims know that it was reversed before they were born, and that modern Islamic parties did not subscribe to this view, they do not know that this reversal was not accomplished by orthodox means, and was carried out by a not-so-strict adherence to the text of the Quran and Sunnah. Also, it was not carried out by experts in Islamic law, and did not fulfil the conditions laid down in any of the schools of thought.
The reversal was part of the modernising project, which suffered from two major flaws: first, it tried to convert Islam into another version of Christianity and Judaism, as 'religion' rather than a complete 'way of life', and second, it left orthodoxy in the hands of ulema, who had received a medieval training, and who did not accept the modernist project, which is still not complete, of converting the Muslims of the world into good capitalists. Because of this, even though the ulema supported modernising, they retained enough of orthodoxy that most (but not all) continued preaching it, and the consequent resistance to capitalism that it meant.

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Life post-Nizam-e-Adl

Sunday, April 19, 2009
Dr Farrukh Saleem

Here are four of our historical, landmark, monumental mistakes. First: in 1947, we accepted that 27,220 square kilometres of FATA -- Bajaur, Khyber, Kurram, Mohamand, North Waziristan, Orakzai, South Waziristan plus FR Peshawar, FR Kohat, FR Tank, FR Bannu, FR Lakki and FR Dera Ismail Khan -- shall continue to be governed under the Frontier Crimes Regulation of 1901. Second: in 1970, Federally Administered Northern Areas (FANA), a total of 72,496 square kilometres -- that includes Skardu, Ghanche, Gilgit, Ghizer Diamer, Astore and Hunza -- was created as a separate administrative unit. Third: in 1997, Ehtesab Act was passed by the Nawaz Sharif government that gave birth to Ehtesab Courts. Fourth: in 1997, the Anti-Terrorism Act gave birth to Anti-Terrorism Courts.
For the past 62 years we have failed to integrate FATA into the rest of Pakistan. For the past 39 years we have failed to integrate FANA into the rest of Pakistan. That's 99,716 square kilometres, nearly 13 per cent of our total landmass, outside the boundaries of the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The results of our follies are for the world to see. On April 13, President Asif Ali Zardari, the 11th president of Pakistan, signed Nizam-e-Adl Regulation 2009 donating an additional 5,337 square kilometres of Pakistan to Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM). The TNSM has already laid its claim to 14,850 square kilometres of Chitral and 5,280 square kilometres of Dir. That would mean 16 per cent of our landmass. Where would it all stop? FATA is beyond Pakistan de facto. Swat is now beyond Pakistan de jure. Pakistan has no writ in most of Balochistan. And, that's a total of 452,243 square kilometres, or 58 per cent of Pakistan, beyond Pakistan's writ. What would Swat now be like? Which one of the 192 member-states of the UN would Swat be like? Which one of the 57 OIC countries would Swat be like? Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan?
Would the 'Switzerland of Pakistan' now be like Saudi Arabia? Saudi Arabia's per capita book readership is one of the lowest on the face of the planet. Saudi Arabia is yet to produce a Nobel prize winner (Israel has produced eight). Saudi Arabia has no more than 5,000 scientists (200 per million) while the US has 1.5 million (4,000 per million). Saudi Arabia hasn't invented anything of consequence for the human civilisation in its 77 years of existence. Saudi Arabia officially practises a comprehensive gender-based apartheid system whereby 14 million Saudi women have different legal rights than Saudi men, an "unequal access to property and jobs, and restrictions on freedom of movement… (Saudi women were not allowed to vote in the municipal elections of 2005)." Would the 'Switzerland of Pakistan' now be like the 'Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan' (as Afghanistan was from 1996 to 2001)? No political parties, no politics, no elections -- and absolutely dictatorial. No TV, no chess, no kites. For women -- restricted employment, no education, no sports, no nail-polish. For everyone else -- no videos, no music, no dancing, no clapping during sports events -- and a beard "extending farther than a fist clamped at the base of the chin." No paintings, no photographs, no stuffed animals -- and no dolls.
Saidu Sharif has the Swat Museum and the Swat Museum has Buddha's footprints. Remember how the National Museum of Afghanistan was torn down with sledgehammers? Swat has Mingora and Mingora has Buddhist stupas. Remember Buddahas of Bamyan? Swat has Kabal and Kabal has a beautiful, beautiful golf course. Swat has Malam Jabba and Malam Jabba has a ski resort (last year, parts of the ski resort were burnt down). What would life be post-Nizam-e-Adl? According to Amnesty International, Nizam-e-Adl means "legitimising human rights abuses" in the Swat Valley. According to McClatchy Company, that publishes 43 different daily newspapers in the US, "A growing number of US intelligence, defence and diplomatic officials have concluded that there's little hope of preventing nuclear-armed Pakistan from disintegrating into fiefdoms controlled by Islamist warlords and terrorists, posing a greater threat to the US than Afghanistan's terrorist haven did before 9/11."

The writer is the executive director of the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS). Email: farrukh1 5@hotmail.com

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