Understanding Imran ,THE REASONS BEHIND HIS support to TTp?

[batmannow]

Understanding Imran

Understanding Imran - DAWN.COM
EVERYONE thinks Khan is nuts. Even folk in his party. Talk to the Taliban? It’s madness, mishegoss, lunacy.

Yet he persists, insists. Few have bothered to ask why though. Why fight the logic of rationality and the truth? Why be Taliban Khan? Why traverse the distance from appeaser to sympathiser to accomplice?

It starts from the beginning. When Imran started out in politics, he knew nothing about politics. He was out to the change the world, or at least his little corner of it, but he didn’t have the slightest clue how.

Unhappily for Khan, his opponents knew exactly what to do to neutralise the World Cup-winning, hospital-building, upstart politician who was a national hero.

In the political arena, Khan became the Jew-loving, secular playboy with children out of wedlock. Every time Khan wanted to talk about politics, his opponents wanted to talk about paternity tests.

It worked. Khan’s politics of opposition were drowned out by the jeering and rumours and salaciousness. His past had followed him into his future; old facts incompatible with new ambitions.

So Imran did the obvious thing: he set about converting Playboy Khan into Muslim Khan.[/I]

By owning religion, by embracing it and carrying a bright, burning torch for it, the godless secularist slowly inched towards safer terrain: the good Muslim.

It took years, but eventually the transformation was complete. Now, every time the mullah tried to shout him down, Khan could roar back.

His born-again credentials were impeccable, his defence of religion strident, his spiritual anchor unshakeable. Khan could get on with the business of politics freed from the distraction of the politics of religion.

Except, somewhere along the way, his re-education made him a believer. Of the personal religious side we can never know, but certainly of the intersection of politics and religion we do know.

If religion could be used to keep a man down, it could also be used to pull a man up. Khan, the victim of the intersection of politics and religion in the beginning, realised, once he had broken through to the other side, just how useful a tool it is to build support.

Folk wanted a new leader who could drag the country in a better direction, but folk had also become a bit more conservative over Khan’s lifetime. New Imran offered the perfect mix: a do-er who wore his religion on his sleeve.

That’s the first part of the evolution into Taliban Khan.

The second part is Khan’s Pakhtun roots: he’s just really, really into them now. He’s come to believe he knows what makes the Pakhtun mind tick, the carrots that appeal to it and the sticks that can work.

The one-time male chauvinist discovered ethnic chauvinism: Khan as a Pakhtun could tap into the Pakhtun psyche, which, for Khan, was the crucial step to understanding the Taliban phenomenon.

There is a deep irony here: for long, the state here has believed that the Pakhtuns could be kept in line, manipulated by one of two levers, nationalism and religion. But the state understood that they are alternating levers, never to be pressed at the same time.

Nationalism had to be discouraged because the Pakhtuns straddle the Durand Line and too much of Pakhtun nationalism could give them funny ideas about carving out a land for themselves.

But the other lever — religion — if pushed too far could create blowback of its own. See, the Taliban, in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

That’s also why there are still incurable conspiracy theorists out there who see the MMA government in KP followed by an ANP government as the state playing its old game of alternating between the religion/nationalism levers.

But Khan is different: he thinks he understands both, religion and nationalism, and wants to apply them both at the same time to his theory of reining in the TTP.

There is a third element in the evolution of Taliban Khan: ignorance. Yes, ignorance of a general kind he’s often accused of, but this particular ignorance is of a specific kind in a specific context.

What lines does Khan have open to the TTP? Who does he have access to, behind the scenes, through discreet and secure channels?

The Sharifs have shown how it’s done. Punjab has been kept relatively safe and away from immediate harm, folk have long suspected, because of their policy of buying off or co-opting militant threats.

But while the contours of that policy can be guessed, the specifics have been much harder to pin down — because the Sharifs are discreet about the behind-the-scenes, back-channel stuff.

Then Mauwiya, he of the Punjabi Taliban fame, let the cat out of the bag, jumping the gun on talks and earning himself a temporary punishment from TTP central.

Khan insists that talks are the only option, but who’s he got on the inside? Who’s the guy who can give Khan the inside track on what’s going on in the TTP, who’s up for talks, who isn’t, who to approach first, whom to be wary of?

Khan has no one. It started to become apparent during the election campaign: if the idea of talks and only talks was a scary enough position Khan had staked out, what was scarier was the realisation that Khan was only speaking to the TTP through his speeches and TV appearances.

After the election, it became clearer still: Khan and co approached various obvious interlocutors and asked several to help put the PTI in touch with the TTP.

Khan has no one on the inside. Which is almost as horrifying as the idea of talks and only talks: Khan not only doesn’t understand the enemy, he doesn’t even know who it is.

He doesn’t know because he doesn’t care. Because he thinks he knows what the real problem is.

Which has created a problem for everyone else: how to rein in Taliban Khan?

The writer is a member of staff.

cyril.a@**********

Twitter: @cyalm

 

[batmannow]

JI MUNNAWAR HASSAN, the inside contact for IK?
under the saudi payroll, they only do backstabing for NAWAZ SHARIF, who is the only distributor of arab funding to the voilent takfiri islam in pakistan?
thats the biggest fact, which IK knows it well, but even that he has no other choices thn JI to trust?

 

[mr42O]

Should we read some thing written under fake name ? lol

 

[batmannow]

Should we read some thing written under fake name ? lol

you dont need too, its on national media, about a fake national hero?
with the jews accounts, to buy pakistani nucks?lolzzzzz

 

[Saleem]

I have stopped reading dawn's editorials and opion pieces since ardashehr cowasjee stopped writing; even then I usually only read him....

this bloke does not seem to have heard anything IK has been saying--in mutiple program over the years--he has been saying exactly this---we dont know the real compositon of these groups so we need to start talking to ppl who claim to be representing them in or to begin sorting out who is who---all experts have said that even local criminals and thugs have taken to calling themselves as these groups just to keep up their "good" works....the ppl doing this include, but are not limited to, genuine "belivers" [in that ideology--the bozo company], people who joined them due to injury, real or percieved, people who joined for the loot [newspapers repotrthey are well paid], as stated above local criminals etc. and finally, the most active and well organized and brutal group sponsered by the neoghbours RAW, WAD etc. [like the muktis in BD, the majority of the actives are in this last group]...........IK wants to identify those who are reconcilable and not party to heinojuls crimes--these cna be broken off and the rest will then be dealt with.....

 

[batmannow]

I have stopped reading dawn's editorials and opion pieces since ardashehr cowasjee stopped writing; even then I usually only read him....

this bloke does not seem to have heard anything IK has been saying--in mutiple program over the years--he has been saying exactly this---we dont know the real compositon of these groups so we need to start talking to ppl who claim to be representing them in or to begin sorting out who is who---all experts have said that even local criminals and thugs have taken to calling themselves as these groups just to keep up their "good" works....the ppl doing this include, but are not limited to, genuine "belivers" [in that ideology--the bozo company], people who joined them due to injury, real or percieved, people who joined for the loot [newspapers repotrthey are well paid], as stated above local criminals etc. and finally, the most active and well organized and brutal group sponsered by the neoghbours RAW, WAD etc. [like the muktis in BD, the majority of the actives are in this last group]...........IK wants to identify those who are reconcilable and not party to heinojuls crimes--these cna be broken off and the rest will then be dealt with.....

may i ask u, how much political & anti -terrorism experince did IK have? none?lolzzz

 

[Saleem]

may i ask u, how much political & anti -terrorism experince did IK have? none?lolzzz

much more than this cyril almeida guy did --and look what a hash the experts made in VN, IQ, AF, NI etc....he has quoted in different interviesws reports byRAND corporation, and noted writers; he has met with successful third world leaders inclding Mahathir mohd of malaysia for direc advice and exchaneg of views .....what has this nit wit cyril done?

so who do you offer as an expert in the pak scene? the fat toad in vilayat who never did an honest days work in his life? or the ganja baradran? or NAP "leaders", or the criminals of PPP? or the generals like tariq who got their men slaughtered in the NW? the excuse of having to reorient their army from india conventional war to CI is just a joke-pakistan has been continually faced with CI threats from muktis in BD to marxists and feudals in Baluchistan and "rural" sindh to urban criminals in urban sindh --if they chose not ot learn anything it is their fault----

 

[Jazzbot]

What kind of crappy article is this?

 

[qamar1990]

Understanding Imran

Understanding Imran - DAWN.COM
EVERYONE thinks Khan is nuts. Even folk in his party. Talk to the Taliban? It’s madness, mishegoss, lunacy.

Yet he persists, insists. Few have bothered to ask why though. Why fight the logic of rationality and the truth? Why be Taliban Khan? Why traverse the distance from appeaser to sympathiser to accomplice?

It starts from the beginning. When Imran started out in politics, he knew nothing about politics. He was out to the change the world, or at least his little corner of it, but he didn’t have the slightest clue how.

Unhappily for Khan, his opponents knew exactly what to do to neutralise the World Cup-winning, hospital-building, upstart politician who was a national hero.

In the political arena, Khan became the Jew-loving, secular playboy with children out of wedlock. Every time Khan wanted to talk about politics, his opponents wanted to talk about paternity tests.

It worked. Khan’s politics of opposition were drowned out by the jeering and rumours and salaciousness. His past had followed him into his future; old facts incompatible with new ambitions.

So Imran did the obvious thing: he set about converting Playboy Khan into Muslim Khan.[/I]

By owning religion, by embracing it and carrying a bright, burning torch for it, the godless secularist slowly inched towards safer terrain: the good Muslim.

It took years, but eventually the transformation was complete. Now, every time the mullah tried to shout him down, Khan could roar back.

His born-again credentials were impeccable, his defence of religion strident, his spiritual anchor unshakeable. Khan could get on with the business of politics freed from the distraction of the politics of religion.

Except, somewhere along the way, his re-education made him a believer. Of the personal religious side we can never know, but certainly of the intersection of politics and religion we do know.

If religion could be used to keep a man down, it could also be used to pull a man up. Khan, the victim of the intersection of politics and religion in the beginning, realised, once he had broken through to the other side, just how useful a tool it is to build support.

Folk wanted a new leader who could drag the country in a better direction, but folk had also become a bit more conservative over Khan’s lifetime. New Imran offered the perfect mix: a do-er who wore his religion on his sleeve.

That’s the first part of the evolution into Taliban Khan.

The second part is Khan’s Pakhtun roots: he’s just really, really into them now. He’s come to believe he knows what makes the Pakhtun mind tick, the carrots that appeal to it and the sticks that can work.

The one-time male chauvinist discovered ethnic chauvinism: Khan as a Pakhtun could tap into the Pakhtun psyche, which, for Khan, was the crucial step to understanding the Taliban phenomenon.

There is a deep irony here: for long, the state here has believed that the Pakhtuns could be kept in line, manipulated by one of two levers, nationalism and religion. But the state understood that they are alternating levers, never to be pressed at the same time.

Nationalism had to be discouraged because the Pakhtuns straddle the Durand Line and too much of Pakhtun nationalism could give them funny ideas about carving out a land for themselves.

But the other lever — religion — if pushed too far could create blowback of its own. See, the Taliban, in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

That’s also why there are still incurable conspiracy theorists out there who see the MMA government in KP followed by an ANP government as the state playing its old game of alternating between the religion/nationalism levers.

But Khan is different: he thinks he understands both, religion and nationalism, and wants to apply them both at the same time to his theory of reining in the TTP.

There is a third element in the evolution of Taliban Khan: ignorance. Yes, ignorance of a general kind he’s often accused of, but this particular ignorance is of a specific kind in a specific context.

What lines does Khan have open to the TTP? Who does he have access to, behind the scenes, through discreet and secure channels?

The Sharifs have shown how it’s done. Punjab has been kept relatively safe and away from immediate harm, folk have long suspected, because of their policy of buying off or co-opting militant threats.

But while the contours of that policy can be guessed, the specifics have been much harder to pin down — because the Sharifs are discreet about the behind-the-scenes, back-channel stuff.

Then Mauwiya, he of the Punjabi Taliban fame, let the cat out of the bag, jumping the gun on talks and earning himself a temporary punishment from TTP central.

Khan insists that talks are the only option, but who’s he got on the inside? Who’s the guy who can give Khan the inside track on what’s going on in the TTP, who’s up for talks, who isn’t, who to approach first, whom to be wary of?

Khan has no one. It started to become apparent during the election campaign: if the idea of talks and only talks was a scary enough position Khan had staked out, what was scarier was the realisation that Khan was only speaking to the TTP through his speeches and TV appearances.

After the election, it became clearer still: Khan and co approached various obvious interlocutors and asked several to help put the PTI in touch with the TTP.

Khan has no one on the inside. Which is almost as horrifying as the idea of talks and only talks: Khan not only doesn’t understand the enemy, he doesn’t even know who it is.

He doesn’t know because he doesn’t care. Because he thinks he knows what the real problem is.

Which has created a problem for everyone else: how to rein in Taliban Khan?

The writer is a member of staff.

cyril.a@**********

Twitter: @cyalm

after giving it some though i realized that once again Imran Khan is correct about the opening of a taliban office. it is the best thing to do. for the following reasons:

1- we will know who we are talking to. (which leadership will we talk ECT. afghani taliban or TTP)
2- we can separate the good taliban from the bad taliban
3- we can conduct operations in the area without worries because the people who don't come to the table to talk through their office will be exterminated.
4- the main reason i believe to really identify the true leadership of the taliban, because TTP claims to be connected with the REAL Taliban, but i can assure you that the Afghan Taliban will not be at that office because they aren't fighting us.

 

[jaibi]

I do not agree that we should talk with the Talibs but seriously, turn on the channel; our PM, police and every offical looks damn near scared of saying something that they should. The PM states, 'Dekhe ji, Talibano ne Peshawar ki zimadari nahi le, nahi li na? Haan, tou ye kaun log hain? Ye konsa hath hai? Ye pata lagane ki koshish kariengaye.'

I mean, seriously, we don't have a taliban problem we have a break-down of the state apparatus. It's hard to tell who's getting into the killing now there are just so many terrorist groups here now.

Anyways, the article lacks any substantial proofs, it's merely opinion. Imran could have gone for an all out rightest approach but he didn't: these are politicians, measure them as such.

 

[pak-marine]

What kind of crappy article is this?

On one hand i am hating Imran khan to the max for not letting law enforcement take revenge for the bloodshed done by extremists however another part of me thinks dont get excited and take a step back may be this whole MAZAKRAT is distraction drama & their is some thing rather very serious which has alarmed Imran khan and may be may be thats why he is very reluctant to authorize action .. Many including hard core PTI members voters ,supporters and littraly the whole countrymen are wondering what is it (i think we all have some respect for the man ) but WTF !?? Muzakarat just doesnt make sense or logic at all !

some of my ( silly may be ) guesses of Imran Khans worries are :

Any operation in KPK will be a start of civil war God Forbid

will such action will give rise to pushtun nationalist and separatist movement

will this result in springing separatist insurgency all across Pakistan ie: Baluch / Pashtun /Sindhi / balti / hazzara / mohajir Nationalists etc etc

 

[batmannow]

after giving it some though i realized that once again Imran Khan is correct about the opening of a taliban office. it is the best thing to do. for the following reasons:

1- we will know who we are talking to. (which leadership will we talk ECT. afghani taliban or TTP)
2- we can separate the good taliban from the bad taliban
3- we can conduct operations in the area without worries because the people who don't come to the table to talk through their office will be exterminated.
4- the main reason i believe to really identify the true leadership of the taliban, because TTP claims to be connected with the REAL Taliban, but i can assure you that the Afghan Taliban will not be at that office because they aren't fighting us.

thanks friend!
after every dam blood bath, peoples keep thinking about him, & when they can satisfied thiemselves yhey all end up like you, cause they dont have someone else?
his unexperincenesss has cost us so many lives, & if you think its brilliant, his idea of giving the terrorists a office & then a sign, like a bomb blast to fight a election next time, all i can say is , pakistan ka alllha hi hafiz!
plz stop asurting me about afghan talibs, or pakistan talibs?
i was in PA so i, know more thn you r jst trying now?

 

[batmannow]

Pain of the dispossessed
Pain of the dispossessed - DAWN.COM

IT may not be possible to submit this as an impersonal narrative. Most of my visits to Qissa Khwani Bazaar, located at a distance of two kilometres from my house, in recent days have invariably been compelled by the spate of bomb blasts occurring there with unexplained frequency. The latest attack, on Sunday, claimed over 40 lives.

I always ensure that I reach the centre of the age-old bazaar of storytellers from its southern side through one of its busiest openings — the Kohati Gate. The bazaar lies within the parameters of the old walled city and is reachable through many gates built in olden times to protect the city against the brazen attacks of tribal marauders.

As one gets past the entrance, the white structure of the late 19th-century All Saints Church — the landmark’s view partly obscured by an ageless banyan tree — comes in sight and then refuses to disappear for a considerable distance.

The church has two gates, the main, bigger gate facing south and the smaller one facing west.

The two suicide bombers blew themselves up close to the main gate on Sept 22, causing the kind of carnage not witnessed since the 2009 Meena Bazaar car bombing, not far from the present site that had killed around 120 men, women and children.

Until just a few days before the recent church bombing, a sentry could be seen guarding the premises languidly at the smaller gate. A white marble tablet with the name of the church and the date of its construction could be seen affixed to the thick boundary wall.

I would almost always stop in front of the tablet to contemplate not just its association with our past but also plan my tentative guided tour of the church. I had considered contacting Albert Godin of Godin Pianos for a reference, but he had to leave Pakistan, not without great pain, to join his family in Canada.

The diminutive Albert is a virtual ecclesiastical encyclopaedia of the erstwhile Northwest Frontier. On his recently concluded last visit, Albert handed me some booklets containing information of all Christian cemeteries in the province with complete details of the tombs of all English civil and military officers and their families, together with the individual inscription on each tombstone.

It was quite a touching and evocative experience, reading all those pages about our past. I learnt about the memorial plaque erected in memory of Sir Herbert Edwardes, the founder of my alma mater, the Edwardes College Peshawar, in the All Saints Church.

It reinforced my resolve to see the church from inside and inform my friends and teachers about it since hardly anybody seemed to know that.

As dusk descended on Peshawar on Sept 22, and as I stood witnessing the dead bodies of the most dispossessed segment of our society being taken out of the Saint John High School opposite the All Saints Church for burial, I was overcome by a feeling of irrepressible pain and fear — fear for what lay in store for us.

My grandfather and my uncles had all studied in the celebrated Saint John High School alongside Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and Parsis in exemplary amity before the pangs of partition separated them.

There are more than a dozen imambargahs inside the Kohati Gate in close proximity to the All Saints Church. Until my early adulthood, I never missed watching Muharram processions pass through the congested bazaars where Sunnis would always outnumber the Shia mourners. Militancy has put a stop to this as Peshawar now experiences a curfew-like situation during Muharram. As I struggled through the gloom that evening, I wondered if an agonising time will come when curfew will be declared in Peshawar on all religious days.

The heart-wrenching evening of Sept 22 brought to mind a similar evening in 2009 after a car bomb had ripped through the Meena Bazaar, frequented mostly by women. Both times, I saw walls covered with scores of posters announcing the funeral timings of those martyred in the bomb blasts, the little difference being in the Muslim and Christian surnames.

During the last few years militants have proved time and again that the Qissa Khwani Bazaar and its adjoining narrow alleys and bazaars within a one-kilometre radius are soft targets for them. They move about in these areas with the ease of hunters in a game reserve.

Mostly lower-middle class people and villagers frequent these areas. The All Saints Church is also where lowly placed Christians go to pray when they get time off the ‘menial’ jobs that they perform for us — in turn, we accost them and call them disparaging names.

After returning home that fateful evening, I found self-important, loquacious politicians and anchors on all television channels still pressing for talks with the militants.

Helplessly, I wondered if these people were just trying to appease an unappeasable enemy that has an insatiable thirst for blood.

The writer is a freelance contributor.

 

[batmannow]

I do not agree that we should talk with the Talibs but seriously, turn on the channel; our PM, police and every offical looks damn near scared of saying something that they should. The PM states, 'Dekhe ji, Talibano ne Peshawar ki zimadari nahi le, nahi li na? Haan, tou ye kaun log hain? Ye konsa hath hai? Ye pata lagane ki koshish kariengaye.'

I mean, seriously, we don't have a taliban problem we have a break-down of the state apparatus. It's hard to tell who's getting into the killing now there are just so many terrorist groups here now.

Anyways, the article lacks any substantial proofs, it's merely opinion. Imran could have gone for an all out rightest approach but he didn't: these are politicians, measure them as such.

godless imran, taught by ISLAMI JAMMIAT TULBAA?

so he became the saint? not yet ? instead he became the politician a liar, a actor who is involved in the maasacre & the killing of the innocents?
while giving offices, & comfort to the killers?

 

[jaibi]

godless imran, taught by ISLAMI JAMMIAT TULBAA?

so he became the saint? not yet ? instead he became the politician a liar, a actor who is involved in the maasacre & the killing of the innocents?
while giving offices, & comfort to the killers?

So you are suggesting that the cup he holds has alcohol? Right? Well, it just as well could be apple juice or grape juice. How can you prove it's anything but that? He has been clear on why he wants peace: he sees this war as a result of our involvement with the US effort, with some justifications. At least he is honest about it: our previous governments have been hypocritical about drone strikes and our involvement.

Politics means appeasement and leverage to certain sentiments in the society. It means not to judge people based on their person as really who are we to do so? Let's stick to the politics and leave their personal side to them.