COMMENT: Our own muddle

[fatman17]

COMMENT: Our own muddle —Shahzad Chaudhry

After the usual round of condemnation following the blasts, what has emerged as a national political response is even more tragic. The PPP found it most opportune to zero in on the PML-N’s reluctance to accept Punjab as a hotbed of domestic terrorism

Mian Nawaz Sharif, the twice elected former prime minister and leader of the party in power in Punjab, the PML-N, could only make it to Data Darbar, the unfortunate site of the July 1st blasts that killed 44 devotees and injured over 150, on the fifth day after the blasts.

This, when he is located in Lahore, the city housing Data Darbar as well as his party headquarters. His younger brother, Shahbaz Sharif, heads Punjab as its chief minister; so much for sibling support, or perhaps security concerns, and even more damaging and misplaced political expediency. The prime minister, belonging to the PPP, the party in power at the Centre, did however visit the shrine the next day after the tragedy. This was a smart political move.

There are, without doubt, two extremely dangerous long-term threats to Pakistan’s integrity: terrorism and the religious divide.

Terrorism, a devouring, fire-spewing monster, feeds on the religious divide with equal relish, and that is why acts of violence are targeted to fan intolerance, hatred and heighten the acute sense of religious ethnicity. Recourse to this primordial sense generates its own response cycle, bringing death and fire into the cities of Pakistan.

Who would do such a thing? If the answer must be based on political logic, it has to be an entity desiring Pakistan’s eternal unravelling. That is when one hears, immediately after such destructive events, the popular recourse to blame India’s RAW, the US’s Blackwater and therefore the CIA, and Israel’s Mossad — the KGB and the Afghan KHAD having retreated into their shells. Credence is implicit because of Lahore’s unique location smack on the border with India, and thus a natural article of interest. What more may an enemy ask than to paralyse the heart of Pakistan, Lahore, and debilitate Karachi, the financial and economic capital of Pakistan. Both are under this terrible wave of tragedy, Lahore more so, Karachi, of a different nature. The theory of disabling Pakistan’s vitals, therefore, seems plausible giving strength to the most popular and most believable sentiment of a trans-frontier conspiracy by RAW. In the conspiratorial frame of contemporary Pakistani thinking, this all seems pretty probable.

The other party interested in pushing Pakistan towards a battle of reverse front — diverted from the main front of war and focused in the rear hinterland of its own base of power — should be none other than the insurgent groups, the TTP-affiliated groups such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), who have formed a conglomerate of interests ever since Pakistan decided to turn its back on groups that were earlier alleged to carry some official nod. These groups, in alliance with the TTP in FATA, are threatened with elimination or, at the very least, a seriously diminished capacity to operate and therefore are in a battle of survival with the state. These same groups were in the forefront when the GHQ came under attack, and come into the forefront when other icons of national or state power in Lahore get targeted. It is not some glorious ideological underpinning or an elevated sense of purpose that they pursue; it is a plain and simple fight to keep their turf of influence and power. Money has badly infested these groups and power is necessary to secure it as well as to keep it coming; hence the desperation. What it might do to the national cause, or the security of both the state and the nation, does not bother them. It does, however, keep them in play and relevant to the scene for spoils.

Regardless of who may be behind it, both Lahore and Karachi burn — Lahore in a conflagration and Karachi at a steady boil. If this is not serious business, what is?

After the usual round of condemnation following the blasts, what has emerged as a national political response is even more tragic. The PPP found it most opportune to zero in on the PML-N’s reluctance to accept Punjab as a hotbed of domestic terrorism, even though there is a history of Shia-Sunni divide that has marred harmony in southern Punjab now for decades. When there was nothing else in terms of terrorism, there was this sad and lamentable Shia-Sunni fight claiming its own share of blood. Talk about stonewalling. The PML-N rebounded with allegations of a lack of strategy and policy at the Centre. Just as it seemed that a Centre-province divide might ensue, the prime minister brokered peace yet again. He agreed to Nawaz Sharif’s proposal to hold an All-Parties Conference (APC) on the issue of terrorism and seek a consensual policy and strategy. Immediately after, he invited the four chief ministers and their law-enforcement officials for a security moot and declared official peace between the Centre and the provinces. Discussion on security measures and better coordination must have accompanied. It was also agreed to hold the APC but no dates were given. Neither was the agenda identified. It is quite clear now that the Centre is unlikely to follow up the APC proposal because it would not like to be seen as kowtowing to the PML-N’s dictation. Nothing much is expected from such politically driven measures.

Terrorism is not a new threat; it has only grown as the ultimate threat. While the army fights insurgency, attention to its twin sister, terrorism, goes a-begging. The government first needs to understand that these are two different beasts and defeating insurgency in FATA will not automatically mean the elimination of terrorism too. The government did well in instituting the National Counter-Terrorism Authority (NACTA). It is about time we put it to work. Without there being a clear conception and understanding of the nature of a threat, you can neither have the requisite resources — manpower, equipment, training, intelligence, legal instruments, investigation and prosecution expertise — nor a resolute commitment to eliminate what is likely to unravel the idea of Pakistan.

But is it really a lack of intellectual capacity to appreciate what spells doom or a clear and deliberate aversion to take on what will also translate into the ultimate fight? Politics supersedes any sense of foreboding. Southern Punjab is where the political control of the province will be wrestled for in the next elections. Anyone carrying the south is expected to carry Punjab — the north pretty much neatly carved — and when you have Punjab, you have more than half of the national election resolved. The prominent political leadership of both the PML-N and the PPP, in the current milieu, comes from southern Punjab, and is unlikely to ruffle feathers there. That is why the blame game between the two while Punjab and Pakistan burns. This is manna for the southern Punjab militants who continue to operate at will and weaken the foundations of Pakistan.

The 18th Amendment circus, the NAB/NRO fracas, fake degrees, attacks on the media and the Irfan Qadir letter instead rule the roost and retain the focus in evening talk shows. These issues take away from serious failures of governance and inadequacies in conception and resolve to fight what threatens Pakistan eternally. Our politicians remain masters in obfuscation.

Shahzad Chaudhry is a retired air vice marshal and a former ambassado

 

[fatman17]

VIEW: Will the Pakistani state prevail? —S P Seth

The most insidious result for Pakistan has been the growth of its own Taliban movement that seeks to subvert the Pakistani state and replace it with a Pakistani version of the Taliban government in Afghanistan

Things are happening thick and fast in Pakistan, though not for the good of its people. The recent bombing in Lahore at a religious shrine was heart-rending. The sufi stream is the most heartening feature of Islam with a consensual subcontinental culture. To see this being attacked with such ferocity leaves one with a sense of utter helplessness. And coming as it does after senseless attacks on the Ahmedi community, it is felt as a terrible tragedy.

What is the agenda of these extremist elements? These are obviously disparate elements united in their common hatred for all those branded as the ‘enemies’ of Islam. These include domestic as well as foreign enemies. These enemies are seen everywhere by the militants. Inside the country, they constitute a majority of the people who have, by and large, stayed away from political parties aligned with religious extremism. The electoral history of Pakistan will show that these parties have always been in a minority when it comes to voting, though they have lately gained some traction because of the volatility of the situation within Pakistan.

If that is the case, why have they not been isolated and dealt with accordingly? This has to do with the country’s political and economic development since its creation. Although Pakistan has made some economic progress, it has not filtered down in any appreciable way, if at all, to the mass of the people who need it the most. The feudal class still wields political power, with an added layer of industrial barons.

Indeed, a symbiotic nexus developed between them, with the new industrial class, at times, wielding the baton both as feudal lords and industrial barons. And on top are the military brass sharing power and, most often, sidelining the civilian political elite.

What this means is that the clerical establishment of the country has often felt left out of the political equation. That was not a bad thing since their electoral weight was minimal. But, as self-appointed guardians of the country’s Islamic character, they believe that Pakistan has lost its way.

As Pakistan made its way into the 1980s, two things happened. First, having gotten rid of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the late 1970s, General Ziaul Haq made his political base among the country’s religious orthodoxy. He promulgated ordinances to legitimise some outdated laws and won favour with the clerical establishment. This changed the character of Pakistan’s polity. It also started to introduce a certain religious fervour in the lower and middle ranks of the military.

These internal developments coincided with Pakistan’s induction as a US ally to beef up the Afghan mujahideen’s armed struggle to expel Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Pakistan became the conduit for funnelling US arms into Afghanistan. Apart from being a national struggle, the Afghan mujaheedin’s military campaign was also a crusade of sorts against the godless Soviet Union. And the US found its religious overtones quite useful as a motivating factor.

Ziaul Haq’s attempts to make Pakistan into a crypto-religious state mingled with the US’s anti-Soviet strategy in Afghanistan. With the US as Pakistan’s major ally and the source of its large military and economic aid, such intermingling of their interests gave Zia great latitude within the country. In other words, Zia’s internal and external policies were greatly influenced by the dictates of US prescriptions for Afghanistan.

The mujahideen’s armed struggle against Soviet occupation in Afghanistan seemed too successful, with the Soviet Union forced to withdraw. It emphasised that it was possible to defeat a powerful enemy by the deployment of irregular and highly motivated (especially with religious overtones) forces.

For Pakistan, the results of the Afghan War, and the subsequent civil war in the country, were mixed. On the positive side, the Pakistani establishment was happy to have a friendly Taliban government in power. This was supposed to give Pakistan an edge against a military threat from India.

Pakistani intelligence had also established close contacts with the Taliban at different levels, as well as (presumably) with foreign (mostly Arab) elements that had thronged to fight with the Afghan mujahideen. Another important segment of these volunteers were some Pakistani nationals fighting on the Afghan side. With the Soviets out of the picture and the Cold War coming to an end, all these elements suddenly found themselves deprived of their moral crusade.

Not long after, the Arab volunteers (with Osama bin Laden at the helm) found refuge with the new Taliban government in Afghanistan. And they started planning a global crusade against the US, encouraged by their successes against the Soviet Union. This led to the spectacular attack on the World Trade Centre in New York. It was a dramatic announcement of a global terror campaign against the US and its allies, with the avowed purpose of eventually creating an Islamic caliphate.

Instead of providing strategic depth in Afghanistan under a friendly Taliban government, Pakistan ended up being a frontline state of the US war against the Afghan Taliban.

However, the most insidious result for Pakistan has been the growth of its own Taliban movement that seeks to subvert the Pakistani state and replace it with a Pakistani version of the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Reportedly, there are close links between the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban, as a good number of them have been the product of the madrassas in Pakistan.

By encouraging extremist religious elements as a strategic tool in Afghanistan, and against India, Pakistan spawned the Taliban and other extremist elements. When the Pakistani state sought to dissociate itself from these elements and then turned against them under US pressure, the intricate linkages between them and some state and military instrumentalities were already too deeply embedded to make a clean break. There is a sense that these elements might still be useful after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The point though is that these forces have acquired their own momentum. Through terror they seem determined to make the state do their bidding rather than the other way around. In this tug of war, the Pakistani people are increasingly becoming hostage to both sides.

Will the state prevail? The problem is that the Pakistani establishment is not only fractious, but is given to adhocism. And though many people would like some semblance of security and economic opportunities, they are not enamoured of their rulers. Indeed, many people regard them as self-serving and corrupt, engaged in their own power games. There is, therefore, widely prevailing apathy. Against this backdrop, the Taliban alternative, invoking a state based on Islamic precepts and doctrines might not seem all that bad to the common man with deep faith in his religion.

Pakistan thus finds itself in a state of flux. And the state, such as it is, lacks the willpower and the unity of purpose to go after the militants.

The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia

 

[hillman32]

Strength of any nation lies in the quality of its people and the government they form.


Civil and Military Dictatorship have retarded the progress in Pakistan.

Leaders and Government of Pakistan mostly slaves of West or Other establishments like WB and IMF. Condition of Common man is very pathetic.

Muslims have all the wealth of the World and superb manpower but no a single Petro-Dollar was ever spent for creating institutions like Jamia-Ul-Azhar, Oxford/Cambridge and even Harvard and MIT.

If wish the Mughals have not constructed Taj Mahal and they had spent that money for creating something like Oxford/Cambridge Universities. Interestingly, Taj Mahal and Oxford/Cambridge Universities were constructed at same time by spending almost equal amount of money.