Harnessing Talibans

Other day I had a chance to listen to another Maulana. This great man ( Ala Hazrat ) belonged to JUI ( Fazlur Rehman Group ). His sacred words were something like this, “Military should leave Malakand soon and dialogue must be started with Taliban”. Very well. Dialogue and discussion are the ways of the civilized world. However Maulana Fazlur Rehaman, his leader’s, statement a couple of weeks ago still echoes in my mind where he warned Pakistani nation that Taliban are marching towards Islamabad and are near the Tarbela Dam area. Essentially he meant ‘do something’. What a hypocrisy. First when you incite the security apparatus and later when they start operation you start shedding crocodile tears! As for as history goes, this whole saga is full of tales of betrayals and hypocrisy. But for us, lets keep some facts straight. JUI( Fazal-ur-Rehaman) and JUI ( Sami-ul-Haq ) along with ever green Jamat Islami are the incubators for all sorts of fanaticism in Pakistan. Well, not all sorts, only religious as we also have linguistic fanaticism too, but that is a different story.

It would be pertinent to have a look at the role these kind of parties played in bringing petty sectarian disputes to a scale where entire armies of Jihadis has been formed. Though in this whole scanario, the dinosaurs of the feudal structure of Pakistan are also responsible for this state of affairs to some extent. Their high handed approach for their working class created resentment against them, for centuries, and hatred against them transferred genetically to the subsequent generations. The religious scavengers and non-representative and oppressive regimes, in the name of salvation from these very feudals, targeted and lured the poor peasant class’s boys in various parts of Pakistan. Most conspicuously it started with Jhang where feudals were challenged with their rival sects recruits from peasant class. Those kids were then coerced to do heinous deeds from murder to dacoities and their ruthless patrons meanwhile created black mailing stuff against them. Left those religiously motivated kids with no choice but to place them at the point of no return. Of course it is not a one way show, those recruits also enjoyed their new found status. They found importance and the guys who saw their parents perpetually living from hand to mouth, actually got a lot more and even some of them became members of the parliament during turbulent 80s and 90s era. And during this whole time, security agencies served as the father figure for JUI(F), JUI (S) and JI and their splinter groups. The Pakistani establishment and ruling elite wanted to overcome the geographic limits and expand Pakistan horizontally so that we could keep our nukes and missile system at a farther distance from the Indians. This policy was called strategic depth finding mission. So everybody from religio-political parties to Pakistani ruling class rolled their dice over the head of these recruits for various reason. Sometime the interests of their masters converged but other time these were poles apart. However, none of the patrons had any issues with its respective share of force pie. Thanks to the prevailing poverty in Pakistan their was never a dearth of recruits for these ‘glorified’ causes.

In this whole episode, those rural poverty hit kids whom, now we know with different exotic names like Taliban, “Suicide bombers” and Jihadis became disposable commodity and were used as and when their masters pleased to use them. They were the fodder of the Afghan war, they were used to eliminate political rivals and all sorts of nasty business where security ‘high-ups’ didn’t want to leave their fingerprints on. This thesis can go long but I am of the opinion that these so-called Maulanas should be the one to be spanked and not the recruits. Though I have no sympathy for the recruited kids after what they have done in Pakistan but factually they are just zombies who know nothing about the beneficiaries behind their acts.

Now let us have a glimpse at the beneficieries. For instance just look at these so-called Maulans life style. Sufi Muhammad like ignorant who may not even win two times bread with his IQ and knowledge level, travels in a parade of Prado SUVs. Along with the top Taliban politburo members who used to be daily wages seekers are now affluent and resourceful people. Maulana Fazal, okay he may be an exception, as his dear departed papa, Maulana Mufti Mehmood might have left something for him, but even then he earned himself the title of Maulana Diesel, may be there is some truth behind this title. The point is that these guys have nothing to with religion, they are politicians who use the religion to win status, public office and comforts for theirselves and their kin. It is bitter thing to speak but this is the turth.

If we need to fix this whole messed up scenario, put the above mentioned Maulanas on trial in retrospect and the strategic depth finders on media, rest will follow in the due course of time. Everybody who does politics, religious, non-religious or secular should be asked to justify his/her means because there are people who spent their entire lives working on their craft ( studying science, medicine and technology etc. ) cannot still earn a decent livings then how come these parasites who not only survive but thrive even without nominal education? Accountability for everybody and only transparent accountability will guarantee that next time before joining politics one would be required to clean his backyard otherwise do something else. But who is going to do it? Nobody and this tamasha will go on forever.

As a parting note, these religious parties are not the only one who are responsible for this state of affairs, there are even more to it. Notably so-called liberals, drawing room intellectual and a whole generation of political class is involved. No body, really no body cared about Pakistan. The political midgets and their short sightedness has wrecked havoc on the Pakistani civil society fabric. But that is a material for more debate and better left for future analysis.

Published in the daily THE NEWS May 22, 2009

American War, Is it?

“Pakistani Army is fighting American’s War in Swat”, said Munawar Hassan, the newly knighted Amir of Jamat Islami. No sir, Mr Hassan, as of now, it is certainly not an American war, anymore. This is Pakistan’s own war with terrorsim against Pakistan written all over it. If somebody hurl a grenade at FC controlled check post, blow off Hotels, attack visiting foreign cricket team, attack police training centers or suicide attackers blast in the mosque where Army troops offer prayers, you still call it an American War? Imagine if all of the above was carried out by Indians, what would have been our response? It doesn’t really matter if attack comes from invader or insider, you need to match the response.

Let me tell you Mr Hassan the war that you guys fought with all the zeal and zest in Afghanistan in 80s was surely America’s war. And right now Pakistani nation is trying to clean the debris of that folly. Why Jumat Islami and other religious groups owned the first Afghan war, in the first place? We had nothing in common with Afghanis at that time. All the holy men of that time, without a tweak, embraced the dictator Zia and his self serving interests. At that time Jumat could not differentiate that actually it was a war of one super power to settle the score of Vietnam disaster agaist the other one.

Precisely this is the reason clergy is loathed in Pakistan and the religio-cum-political parties never, in the history of Pakistan, won the votes or confidence of the general public out there. Their double edged policies have wrecked the Pakistani nation manifold. It is time for us to set our priorities straight and political point scoring should be left for some other time. Army is facing the most cruel enemy. The enemy who uses ten year old children, pregnant women as human shield. Pakistani security forces needs moral boosting at this time and not the statements of Jumat kind with twisted standards. Perhaps time has come to ask such kind of parties, are you with us or against us? Everybody should be clear that chemistry of Pakistani nation is not like Afghani or Jihadi. Pakistan was nurtured as a modern state not a lump of orthodox Mullahs sanctuary. We can’t and shouldn’t allow any barbarian to destroy the academic institutions or flog poor and helpless girls in the middle of the road. Those who think that these are the ways of Islam, should better join their ranks and abandon all the modern facilities that they enjoy by virtue of the progress Pakistan achieved by its sheer merit and industrious people. We don’t need parasites who eventually sting us back.

There is one more interesting rhetoric of the Taliban apologists. They blame the Pakistani political leadership failure and post 9/11 US presence in Afghanistan as raison d’etre for Pakistani Taliban emergence. What I blame is the Afghan Jihad of 80s, responsible for all the current day evils that have plagued the Pakistan. And that was the real American war, for sure, and all of our so-called ‘ulema’ endorsed that one, for God knows what reasons and on what grounds. But the present military operation is certainly not America’s war, but it is a global war that Pakistan is fighting against those who want to turn the wheel of the time backward and cherish the medieval life style. We certainly cannot let them do that.

Tail piece: After writing this article I ran spell check and it suggested me to replace ‘Munawar’ with ‘unaware’ but I hit the ‘ignore’ button. How true!

Published in daily THE NEWS May 15, 2009

A Human Tragedy in Making!

In Malakand, the recent operation against Taliban by Pakistani Security forces is justified but I must say it was worst planned. The internally displaced people are now exceeding 1.5 Million. According to UN this is biggest mass human migration in last 15 years. They are living in the worst possible scenario where they are placed in the tents that convert into hot air balloons during the day time. And the summers of Pakistan means a temperature that exceeds 40 degrees Celsius. But apart from that we need to keep some statistics in mind. The total population of Malakand division is 5 million and still more than 3 million people are trapped in the war zone. There are no medical facilities, no food supply and if somebody wants to sneak out, the transporters are exploiting them by charging more than a $1000 per bus for travelling only 80 km to nearby Mardan or Swabi. The children, elderly and pregnant women are the worst hit of this whole scenario.

Government has proved totally inept while doing its preparations for this kind of operation. There is no reflection from civil society, wealthy individuals and NGOs during this whole tragedy. I appeal to everybody to support to the Red Cross, Edhi foundation and other genuine relief origination to take care of these poor people who have been displaced in their own country. I would analyze the political aspect of this whole episode later but right now these poor Swati people need our help. After all, we all want a peaceful, stable, moderate and vibrant Pakistan and now it needs help. If we don’t act now, it might kill more people from starvation and disease than actually from extremists whom we want to save them from!