The Enemy Within

By Amir Zia
The News
August 29, 2012

General Kayani’s statement of owning the war against extremism will certainly help in removing the cobwebs in the minds of some of the confused not just within the rank-and-file of the armed forces, but also those civilians who are being duped in the sacred name of Islam by militants and radical Islamists

For any army in the world, the biggest nightmare is when its personnel, installations and assets stand vulnerable to attacks from within its own territory. This is a sign of the erosion of the writ of the state and its failure in resolving the internal contradictions that allows disgruntled small or big armed groups or sections of the population to flout the law of the land and take on the civil and military institutions. It is considered a bigger national security threat compared with the one emitting from abroad or a hostile nation. The decay in the writ of the state creates chaos and lawlessness and the establishment of parallel centres of power. The situation, if allowed to fester for long, often results in the collapse of the state from within or its dismemberment.
Unfortunately, today Pakistan faces a similar grave challenge to its national security and cohesion in which non-state actors not just hold large swaths of land in the rugged northern parts of the country, but are also trying to undermine the country’s most powerful institution – the armed forces – by waging direct assaults on its personnel and bases.
The August 16 attack on the Kamra airbase is just one of the many against the Pakistani security forces by Al-Qaeda-inspired local Islamic militants that underlines the severity of the crisis. The official assertions that preparedness of the security personnel at Kamra prevented any major loss of lives or Air Force assets remain only a small consolation, given the fact that our protectors now stand unsafe in their own backyard.
The ever-looming internal threat is, indeed, more ominous for the armed forces rather than an external one for which they are basically trained and should ideally remain focused.
If these are not the worrying times for the Army Chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and his top brass than what other calamity could they be waiting for? No wonder, in his August 14 Independence Day speech, the general finally declared that the fight against extremism is our own war.
But this war has not suddenly become “our war” following General Kayani’s statement. It has always been “our war” for more than a decade now when former military ruler Pervez Musharraf tried to shift Pakistan’s policy, with limited success, by banning various militant groups in 2002 and starting a selective crackdown on these retrogressive forces which remain bent upon using Pakistani territory not just for terrorism in various parts of the world, but also within the country.
The loss of more than 40,000 lives, including thousands of security personnel, during this period is living testimony to how the local Taliban and their allies brutalised the society and tried to undermine the state in line with their narrow interpretation of Islam.
Yes, there has been frequent wavering in this war against extremism as the civil and military establishment struck doomed peace deals and attempted to neutralize various bands of militants through a policy of appeasement.
This produced only confusion in the minds of many Pakistanis about the legitimacy of this war and gave more space to these non-state actors, creating an international perception that Pakistan is a reluctant partner in the global fight against terrorism and is following a policy of duplicity. As a result, the country suffered on every front – politically, socially and economically. Its international isolation grew, providing an opportunity to the critics of Islamabad to portray the country as an irresponsible state. This negative international perception remains ironic given the fact that the kind of price Pakistan paid in the fight against al-Qaeda and their local allies, both in terms of human lives and financial and economic losses over the last one decade.
The civil and military leadership’s half-hearted measures, an apparent lack of commitment and absence of a cohesive anti-terrorism policy, focusing both at operational details and an ideological narrative, also hurt the overall morale of the country regarding this fight.
Our soldiers need clarity of purpose and conviction to fight and win this war. It is a must to keep the unity and cohesion of the armed forces, which by-and-large have maintained their discipline barring a handful of dissensions at the lower and mid-level when security personnel were found involved in aiding terrorists or themselves becoming part of terror plots.
General Kayani’s statement of owning the war against extremism will certainly help in removing the cobwebs in the minds of some of the confused not just within the rank-and-file of the armed forces, but also those civilians who are being duped in the sacred name of Islam by militants and radical Islamists.
What is now required is to aggressively push and reiterate General Kayani’s message at every level to counter the organised propaganda that this war is not our war. In Pakistan, the army alone has the operational capacity and ability to stand up to and defeat the extremists. The political leadership – both in the government and the opposition – should take the cue and provide an ideological narrative to help build and mould popular public opinion on the need for winning this war and defeating the extremists who threaten the Pakistani state and should be seen as enemy number one.
Luckily, a vast majority of Pakistanis are moderates and they abhor religious zealotry, violence and extremism which also directly hurt their social and economic interests. This remains an encouraging factor.
However, there is also no dearth of those religious and rightwing forces who try to misguide the people by portraying the conflict as an American war. Some of these religious parties have their direct vested economic interests tied to this stance. For supporting and sponsoring militancy has become a huge business empire since the early 1980s when Pakistan decided to join the war in Afghanistan against the former Soviet troops through its proxies and non-state actors with the support of the United States and its allies. It is now big money raised in the name of donations and charity.
For some other forces opposing the fight against extremism, it is just one quick way to fame and tapping into the rightwing vote. They intentionally or unintentionally choose to live in a state of self-denial and find a foreign-hand in our misfortunes, which in fact are of our own doing.
This happened again in the case of the Kamra attack in which many so-called analysts, public opinion makers, politicians and even television anchors were seen trying to find a grand international conspiracy behind the assault, conveniently forgetting all about the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. But this kind of self-denial is always self-defeating.
If one would have listened to the advice and recommendations of Pakistan’s politically astute clerics and closet clean-shaved Taliban, who want the Pakistan Air Force to engage US drones, seal the NATO supplies and give a free-hand to militants to plot terrorism across the world, Pakistan would have long ago been declared a rogue state or gone into a self-destructive war with its neighbours and the world powers. We should thank God that despite our penchant for adventurism in our civil and military corridors of power, somehow a little bit of sanity always prevailed and we managed to avoid the doomsday scenario. But perhaps this is the time for us to shed the weight around our neck once for all and free the country of warlords, militant movements and private armies. For this is now a battle for Pakistan.

Winning The Battle Of Ideas

By Amir Zia
The News
August 24, 2012

Jinnah’s Pakistan is not meant for fanatic clerics, the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, who feel that they serve Islam by killing innocent people, terrorism and blowing up schools. We have to reclaim the Pakistan of our founding fathers from these forces of darkness, operating under the sacred name of Islam.

In its sixty-sixth year of independence, Pakistan’s ideological vision continues to remain blurred and fragmented. There are those radical and militant religious forces, which want to transform Pakistan into a theocratic state in line with the ideology of their respective Islamic school of thoughts. From ballot to bullet, one finds advocates and practitioners of all sorts of tactics among these legal and outlawed groups as they attempt to restructure the society in accordance to their narrow interpretation of Islam, which remains rigid, intolerant, confrontationist and averse to modernity and rational thinking.
Then there are liberals and fringe leftist groups who want to see Pakistan as a secular, modern and egalitarian state. But they appear to be trying to implant borrowed and imported ideas which find few takers among the majority of Pakistanis, who by-and-large are traditionally religious, but at the same time abhor zealotry and extremism espoused in the name of Islam. Therefore, despite their passion for democracy, the Pakistani liberals and leftist hold little ground when it comes to the rough tough politics of the masses. Nonetheless, they make their presence felt in the battle of ideas through non-government organisations, rights and cultural groups and the English-language press in at least the country’s main urban centres.
Between these two extremes, there are traditional mainstream political parties, which stand non-committal, maintaining a deliberate ambiguity in their stance about the ideology and vision for Pakistan. We find them performing a balancing act between Islamists and liberals, but they overwhelmingly tend to strike compromises with the religious forces on vital issues – from establishing the writ of the state to fighting rampant intolerance and various shades of extremism in our society. Important issues relating to women and minorities’ rights, pro-people legislation, including scrapping laws from General Ziaul Haq’s era that allow murderers to go free in the name of qisas and diyat, or framing a modern education system – all are often sacrificed as the mainstream parties try to appease these retrogressive forces. Their lip-service to the cause of Islam is indeed hypocritical but it prevents the genie of Islamic radicals and extremists launching a direct assault on them. These political parties stand more for self-preservation rather than rising up to the challenge of the extremist Islamic mind-set threatening the country’s social and political fabric.
Although the legal Islamic parties have a history of faring poorly when it comes to the politics of ballot, they wield tremendous influence because of their organised radical rank-and-file, which remain directly or indirectly linked to the banned militant organisations. These forces have been dominating the popular political narrative since the 1980s when they were nurtured, supported and groomed by the military establishment for its adventures in Afghanistan and India.
It is ironic that these forces are now at loggerheads with the institution which helped them set-up the private “jihad industry” to confront the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan at the behest of the United States and its free-world allies and monarchs of the Middle East. But that is in the past and cannot be undone.
However, our current predicaments stem from this self-destructive 1980s policy of using religion and non-state actors to stifle the country’s democratic movement and as a foreign policy tool.
Former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf tried to gradually alter this course by banning militant groups, but failed to change the political landscape, given the penetration of these groups in our society, lack of consensus within the establishment on the alternative course of action and absence of counter ideological narrative to the challenge of radical Islam.
The democratic dispensation that followed ignored confronting the fundamental challenge of extremism on political grounds and through reforms as it got entangled in its battle of survival.
The military largely spearheaded this fight, but operational measures and partial battleground victories without an ideological narrative can only be of limited success.
No wonder attacks on security forces such as the recent one in Kamra – the nerve-centre of Pakistan Air Force – and slaughtering of citizens remain in vogue in today’s Pakistan. The Kamra attack was one of countless assaults on security forces and civilians that have consumed nearly 40,000 lives since Pakistan became a reluctant partner in the US-led war on terrorism following the Al-Qaeda strikes on the United States in Sept 2011.
But despite this unprecedented price, the military establishment and the mainstream political parties have ignored the fundamental front on which this battle will either be lost or won – the vision for Pakistan. Without addressing this core question, the country will continue to remain the battleground of rival ideological forces in which many Islamic militants have upped the ante by connecting themselves with global Islamic terror network.
The counter-narrative for Taliban and their likes need not be any foreign import. It can be found in the vision of Pakistan’s founding fathers, who articulated the economic and political rights of the Muslims, which the Hindu-dominated Indian National Congress failed to guarantee in united India. Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah was no myopic, intolerant communal leader, but a man of vision who blended modernity and tradition to achieve the goal of creating the world’s biggest Muslim country of its time. What the so-called secular Congress failed to guarantee in India, the Quaid wanted to ensure for citizens of his nascent state irrespective of their caste, creed, religion or language.
To make his dream a reality, Jinnah had to confront not just the Congress, but also the retrogressive religious forces united against the idea of Pakistan in the form of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, the Jamaat-e-Islami, Majlis-e-Ahrar and others.
But Jinnah was not the lone figure who launched the crusade to unite Muslims of the sub-continent and liberate their minds from religious orthodoxy. It was the socially modern and enlightened Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and his Aligarh movement, which provided genesis for the Pakistani state. He laid the foundation of modern education, rational thinking and enlightenment among Indian Muslims despite bitter opposition by the narrow-minded clerics. Sir Allama Muhammad Iqbal nurtured it by taking on the religious orthodoxy and bigotry both in his prose and poetry.
There is a need to highlight the vision of these national heroes, who blended modernity with the best of tradition of our religion that stands for peace, kindness, forgiveness, justice, human endeavour for a better life and tolerance.
The vision of Jinnah and his team was to create a modern, democratic, welfare state in which rationality and peoples’ will had to be its guiding principles. Their ideas and ideals remain relevant even in today’s Pakistan.
Jinnah’s Pakistan is not meant for fanatic clerics, the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, who feel that they serve Islam by killing innocent people, terrorism and blowing up schools. We have to reclaim the Pakistan of our founding fathers from these forces of darkness, operating under the sacred name of Islam.
To win back the popular narrative and seize initiative from extremists, the mainstream parties and the military establishment must highlight the vision of a modern, democratic and egalitarian country, rooted in its tradition rather than seen banking on foreign implants. Winning the battle of ideas is a matter of life and death in today’s context if we want to prevent Pakistan from sliding into anarchy and chaos.

And Ne’er The Twain Shall Meet?

By Amir Zia
Monthly Newsline
July 2012

The frail democratic system is indeed creaking under the weight of heightening government-judiciary tussle. There are genuine fears not just about its future, but also about the state’s viability and writ that has been shaken to the core due to the many years of misgovernance and misrule and the growing challenge of extremism and terrorism.

It is now a guessing game; how long can Raja Pervaiz Ashraf survive on the wicket as prime minister? If all goes well, though few are likely to bet on it, Ashraf will be in the prime minister’s house for not more than eight months before the hurly burly of elections starts and an interim set-up takes over. But if the judiciary strikes again, which remains the most likely scenario, his days are numbered. His exit could be in a couple of months at the most, or even in a few weeks.
The country’s executive and judiciary have already laid their cards on the table. The new prime minister has categorically announced that he, like his predecessor, will not write to the Swiss authorities regarding the opening of graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari. Yousuf Raza Gilani chose to be disqualified rather than follow the Supreme Court verdict on the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) case. The Supreme Court has now given the new prime minister the deadline of July 12 to formally indicate whether he will ask the Swiss authorities to reopen cases against President Zardari, who, the Pakistan Peoples Party’s constitutional and legal experts maintain, enjoys immunity from prosecution as head of state.
Between these two inflexible positions there appears to be no middle ground. It is either “my way or the highway.” The country is thus destined to remain in the throes of political uncertainty and strife for the foreseeable future, as two of the important state institutions remain openly at loggerheads. Although the other institutions, including the mighty military establishment, declare neutrality, they continue to operate from the shadows, as they have been doing since the return of democracy to the country – sometimes showing restraint and at other times working as a catalyst in determining the course of events.
The opposition – from the Pakistan Muslim League (N) to Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf, and marginal players like the Jamaat-e-Islami – have their daggers drawn for an early ouster of the PPP-led government, even if it means cutting short its five-year term by only a few months. The opposition is the foremost cheerleader of the judiciary, along with the mainstream media which is serving as the main battle tank trying to clear and mould public opinion against the government.
The frail democratic system is indeed creaking under the weight of this heightening tussle. There are genuine fears not just about its future, but also about the state’s viability and writ that has been shaken to the core due to the many years of misgovernance and misrule and the growing challenge of extremism and terrorism.
No wonder Islamabad remains rife with rumours, with political pundits, experts and analysts drawing out different future scenarios for the country – from the ouster of this government through direct military intervention, to its removal through the judiciary and the induction of a set-up comprising technocrats and relatively clean politicians. The buzz around town is that some kind of Bangladesh model is being created. Critics meanwhile, contend that this is doomed to fail having already been tried, tested and found defective. The grinding of rumour mills aside, the underlining point is that most doubt the continuity of this democratic setup.
Zahid Hussain, senior analyst and author, says that the noose appears to be tightening around the PPP. “Zardari has saved the government from falling temporarily, and in doing so has increased the PPP’s reliance on its allies manifold, especially the PML-Q (Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-e-Azam group), but the crisis remains very much there.”
He continues, “Despite compromises, the question is, will this alliance survive in the mid to long run? Zardari accepted the verdict (of Gilani’s disqualification) because of the pressure of his coalition partners. These compromises will lead to other compromises…the situation is tenuous and this critical tight-roping cannot work for long.”
Government circles, however, remain hopeful that they will once again prove successful in defying prophecies of doom as they have managed to do in the past, complete their five-year term, hold elections and return to power. This view may appear almost unbelievably optimistic, but PPP stalwarts say that their support in the rural areas, which consistitutes the majority of the vote bank, remains intact due to this government’s pro-agriculturist and farmer policies and pro-poor programmes. In the urban areas, they maintain they still retain their support base, along with help from their allies.
Meanwhile, the routine conciliatory statements of top government officials towards the judiciary, replete with obsequious vows of respect for its authority, for the rule of law and the desire to avoid a clash of the institutions, appear deceptive as many of the government lawmakers, second-tier politicians and supporters aggressively accuse the superior courts of trying to stage a ‘judicial coup,’ of activism and of infringing on the grounds of the executive.
Perhaps in defence of the abysmal failure of governance witnessed in the past four years, the Pipliyas also keep highlighting the fact that the coalition government has been kept on the ropes since the start of its term, with the judiciary serving at the vanguard of the assault. From the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO)-related cases, that include the implementation of the courts judgment to that of Zardari concurrently holding the two positions of head of state and party co-chairman, the cases against Zardari are being cited by government loyalists as merely the tip of the iceberg that aims to sink the PPP-led coalition. Other roadblocks, which have made it difficult for the government to run even mundane day-to-day affairs, government officials contend, include the scrapping of the executive orders regarding appointments for senior positions, and efforts by the superior courts to micro-manage who should represent the government or investigate high-profile corruption cases against its senior members and their relatives. “The superior judiciary even tried to fix sugar prices rather than leaving it to market forces, and has kept the executive in the dock in regard to various high-profile cases, including that of missing persons, rental power and privatisation,” says one PPP official.
Senior PPP politician Taj Haider contends that Zardari is the actual target of all the attacks, but the PPP has so far managed to divert the frontal assault on him. “Gilani took the shot aimed at him, and we have shown that the PPP and its allies have no dearth of candidates for the slot of prime minister. We are all set to complete our term and Zardari will be president even after the elections. This scenario has made our opponents nervous. They are now getting desperate,” he says.
But the bravado and defiance of the PPP leaders and their allies have failed to impress detractors. They argue that the judiciary’s firm stance against the government’s open efforts to undermine the law, misuse its power and penchant for corruption and nepotism has proved, at least in part, a successful deterrent and prevented the government from going even further overboard in its wanton abuse of power.
As proof of this they cite the NRO case, in which the judgment to strike down the ordinance was announced unanimously by the Supreme Court judges in December 2009, and the government confessed in writing that the controversial ordinance was indefensible and unconstitutional.
“Despite having a two-third majority at that time, the government failed to have the NRO validated by parliament because it was discriminatory and unconstitutional,” says former law minister Iqbal Haider. “This shows that the Supreme Court judgment on the NRO had constitutional and political backing.” Ironically, legal experts say, the government filed a review petition in the NRO case even though it had admitted that it was “unconstitutional.”
Former Supreme Court judge Wajihuddin Ahmed maintains that during the NRO case hearing the Supreme Court did not insist on the implementation of its decision.
Lawyers agree that it was only after the dismissal of the review petition that the Supreme Court directed Gilani to implement the court order by writing to the Swiss authorities, but he defied the orders, which led to the contempt of court proceedings against him and his disqualification.
“The Supreme Court should be asked why it delayed doing this for so long,” says Ahmed. “The government filed a review petition in the NRO case, but it never asked for any stay, and if you don’t ask for a stay none is granted. Despite that, the judiciary showed utmost restraint, given the fact that in review petitions the success rate is usually less than one percent as the fundamentals of a case do not change.”
Experts say that even in the Lahore High Court verdict pertaining to Zardari’s holding of two offices of president and party chief, restraint has been demonstrated. The president has been given the option to choose either one of the two offices, and has been given time till September 5 to decide, which demonstrates that the judiciary does not want to undermine the democratic system and wants its continuity, they contend.
“But look at the government’s conduct on the other hand,” says Wajihuddin Ahmed. “After Gilani’s removal, they first tried to bring Makhdoom Shahabuddin in as premier – a man tainted by the ephedrine scandal along with Gilani’s son, Ali Musa Gilani. Once warrants were issued against him, they came up with Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, against whom there are also serious corruption allegations in the rental power case.”
PPP backers, unsurprisingly, insist that the allegations of corruption against their party members are fabricated. Taj Haider cites Zardari, who was imprisoned for 10 years, but not a single case was proven against him. “There is a clear bias towards the PPP and its leaders,” he says. “My question is, why it is only the PPP government which is being kept under the microscope? What about the performance of other institutions, including the judiciary, which failed to address the issue of hundreds and thousands of pending cases, to provide justice to the common man or even make appointments to vacant positions? “Therefore,” says Haider, “we propose to restructure the judicial system of the country and make four provincial Supreme Courts and a Federal Court in line with the charter of democracy, and ensure the accountability of judges as well”.
As the tussle between the two camps drags on, it is becoming ever more personalised, with a lot of mud-slinging from both sides. In an attempt to undermine the judiciary, the PPP and its allies point fingers toward Chief Justice Chaudhary Mohammed Iftikhar’s son, Arslan Iftikhar, who allegedly took bribes from real-estate tycoon Malik Riaz, promising to get him relief from his father’s court.
The chief justice’s supporters say that Arslan may have erred, but there is not a single case in which Malik Riaz’s Bahria Town has been provided relief by the court his father presides over.
Athar Minallah, a leading lawyer who was in the forefront in the pro-chief justice campaign during the days of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, describes the situation as complex. “As an institution, the authority of the judiciary is at stake… some sections are trying to push the judiciary into the political arena. The question is, how can the judiciary step back on the NRO issue after Gilani’s disqualification?” The challenge is to ensure the sanctity and authority of the judiciary as well as to avoid the clash of institutions in which the ultimate loser will be Pakistan and its democratic system,” he says.
In this highly volatile and explosive situation, however, neither side appears to be backing down. In fact, each seems to be upping the ante rather than finding a workable middle ground.
“Politicians – be it in the government or the opposition – should have acted with more responsibility and maturity, rather than putting everything in front of the judiciary to decide,” Minallah says. “They should use parliament to decide contentious issues and seek political solutions in a rational manner. But, unfortunately, the country’s political forces have failed to do so.”
After Gilani’s dismissal, the judiciary indeed appears more confident and there are clear indications that the Supreme Court will further increase pressure on the beleaguered government, which seems to be fast running out of options as the opposition mounts the pressure for early elections.
One possible way out for the government is to call early elections, but this seems easier said than done. So far there has not even been an agreement between the government and the opposition on the composition of the interim set-up that could ensure free and fair polls. And even if they manage to cross this river, holding elections in this highly charged and polarised situation will be no mean challenge.
As political rivals and institutions lock horns, issues which are critical for the country are being placed on the back burner. The government has long abandoned the much-needed reforms vital for the battered economy, caught in a vortex of low growth and high inflation for the last four years. As feared by experts, the new budget 2012-13 (July-June) fails to address the structural flaws of the economy including expanding its narrow tax base, slashing the widening budget deficit which hovers at above 6.0 % in fiscal 2011-12, and reforming the energy sector and loss-making public sector enterprises which remain a huge drain on the economy.
In all the political turmoil and in the run-up to the elections, these urgent issues will have to wait to be addressed, which the country can ill afford. Simultaneously, the spectre of terrorism and extremism and the weakening writ of the state in different parts of the country pose a huge internal security challenge which is directly impacting Pakistan’s foreign relations and resulting in estranged ties not just with its neighbours, but also with the United States and other western powers. Given the government’s dismal performance on this front too, Pakistan’s future is becoming increasingly bleak. The government battles for the survival of its rule, but does so at the expense of the country.

A New Radical Challenge

By Amir Zia
The News
August 8, 2012

The recent conviction of a brigadier and four majors by a military court for their links with Hizb-ut-Tahrir underlines the fact that this pan-Islamist group means business in its objective of seizing power in Pakistan

They are indeed a different breed of Islamic radicals, who are armed with modern education and pursue professional careers. Many of them are returnees from England and the United States, if not born there. Even after living in Pakistan for years, they still speak Urdu with a foreign accent, with the vocabulary loaded with English words. In the sweltering summers of Pakistan, some wear suits when they go out with missionary zeal to meet their contacts and potential supporters.
Hizb-ut-Tahrir (Liberation Party) is still considered a relatively new Islamic fundamentalist group that officially started operations in Pakistan in 2001. But it was banned barely three years later – in November 2003 – by the Musharraf government when Pakistan came under international pressure to rein in militant groups operating from its soil.
The secretive group – formed in Jerusalem in 1953 – abhors Western values and the capitalist economy. It has not been banned in Britain, from where many second-generation British Muslims, including Pakistanis, fan out to their respective countries of origin with the aim of toppling the governments there. Perhaps the British government does not want Hizb members to operate in a clandestine manner and is content with the fact that its activities remains focused on Muslim nations rather than the Western world.
The dream of its members – who are part of the international Islamic movement operating in more than 40 countries – is to establish a pan-Islamic state on the model of the caliphate as it existed in the early days of Islam. Democracy is not their cup of tea and they harbour ambitions for a worldwide Islamic revolution.
They do not recognise Pakistan’s Constitution and its institutions, and aim to mobilise people to get rid of what they call a “pro-US” state structure in Pakistan.
To seize power, its members say, they do not want to resort to violent methods or an armed struggle. Instead, they target influential people of society, including military personnel, leaders of public opinion, professionals and government officials so that they can bring down the system from within and seize power.
The group entered the muddle of Pakistani politics through these second-generation young Pakistanis living mostly in England and the United States. Some of these people have been in and out of Pakistani prisons a number of times, for what are perceived as anti-state activities that include holding small anti-government meetings and rallies and distributing propaganda literature.
Unlike the traditional legal religious parties in Pakistan or militant groups – affiliated with various mainstream Islamic sects or schools of thought – the Hizb members stay away from intra-Islamic ideological debates. They are also not into wearing skullcaps or being dressed in the traditional shalwar-kameez, or flaunting long beards. But when it comes to rejecting the West or its alleged allies in Muslim countries, their long political monologues, laced with religious concepts, are as radical as those of other Islamic radicals. Their group wants these countries united under one supra-state. This makes them distinct from other local Islamic legal and outlawed groups operating in Pakistan.
However, the Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which still remains an unknown commodity for many Pakistanis, has hitherto been seen as a lightweight when it comes to the overall monolith of Islamic forces in the country.
But the recent conviction of a brigadier and four majors by a military court for their links with Hizb-ut-Tahrir underlines the fact that this pan-Islamist group means business in its objective of seizing power in Pakistan.
This is the first time that military officers have been convicted and handed down prison terms for their affiliation with this banned group, whose members never hide the fact that they want to capture power through unconstitutional means. And in Pakistan the shortest way to do this is by infiltration into the armed forces. Several low-ranking armed forces personnel have been working in league with other outlawed groups and masterminding terrorist assaults, including those on Gen Pervez Musharraf. These small defections within the Pakistani armed forces emerged after Pakistan joined the US-led international effort against Al-Qaeda and its associate groups following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States.
The conviction of five military officers for their links with Hizb-ut-Tahrir can be an isolated case, which may not necessarily reflect the outfit’s deep penetration into army ranks. So are other such episodes in which armed forces personnel, including those of the air force, were found involved in terrorism and links with Islamic extremist groups. But these isolated defections manifest the efforts of Islamic radicals to win support among the rank and file of the armed forces, which so far have a history of high discipline and loyalty to their institution and the country. However, it remains a lurking danger that needs to be closely watched 24/7-no matter how small this threat may appear.
In a highly polarised and politically divided country, where democratic institutions remain weak, dysfunctional and swamped by allegations of corruption, it is easy for radical groups to influence individuals and sell their utopian models of an Islamic state, an effort that is inspired by Islam’s past glory. The discontent and disillusionment of many Pakistanis with the ruling elite, its perceived corruption, misrule and mismanagement and the ever-weakening writ of the state allows radical groups to thrive and make inroads into the ranks of people angry and frustrated over the current state of affairs.
One answer to this challenge is that the mainstream political parties and the elected representatives get their act together and raise the bar of their performance.
Challenging these fringe forces on ideological grounds is also as important. This is one front where the mainstream parties have been found wanting. They have failed to produce a counter-narrative containing answers to modern-day challenges and the complex nature of a 21st Century state and have allowed those who want to revert to the mediaeval political institutions under the garb of Islam to dominate the discourse.
The concept of caliphate and establishment of a supra-Islamic state may appear a pipe dream of young Islamic radicals who, in all honesty and sincerity, may be only articulating grievances about the present state of affairs in many Muslim countries. But the solutions they propose are in negation of history and do not stand up to the test of times. The golden era of Muslims they refer to-barring the first four Caliphs who led the followers of the nascent religion after Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be upon Him) culminated in the creation of monarchies in the name of caliphates, modelled on the pattern of the great empires of their times. In their writings, many Muslim scholars and historians have already highlighted this fact.
Even the pattern of the selection of the first four Righteous Caliphs varied in each case. How that selection process can be applied in today’s state and who will have the stature to apply it remain fundamental questions.
Many mainstream Islamic parties have found the answer to this in elections, winning popular will and operating in a modern-day state. From Pakistan to Egypt and Indonesia to Turkey, we have examples that Islamic parties participate in elections to get into power, rather than resorting to violent, conspiratorial and other unlawful means.
The militant groups, however, are a different story, which can be dealt with through a combination of steps including democratisation, de-radicalisation, good governance and strong action against individuals resorting to violence and unlawful means.
Radical groups like Hizb-ut-Tahrir may appear small marginal players now, but state institutions can ignore them only at their own peril. They have the potential at least to create destabilisation and anarchy even if they do not succeed in their goal of establishing a supra-Islamic state and caliphate. They need to be tackled more through the state addressing the simmering discontent in society and resolving its internal contradictions in the mid- to long term rather than by banking on oppressive measures. For such young and radical minds could only be a step away from raising the gun. 

The Inscrutable Mr. Shaikh

By Amir Zia Money Matters
The News
August 6, 2012

“Our finance minister is an honest and above-board person; he doesn’t seem fond of protocol – the police escorts and hooters blaring with his cavalcade. He prefers to go on drives in his old car along with his wife and sweetly waves to acquaintances or well-wishers on the road,” said the official. “The problem is that he is also not into hard work nor does he want to make a name for himself. One wonders why he chose to become a minister.”
Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh must be in a celebratory mood. Last week, the United States finally released the $1.118 billion due to Islamabad under the Coalition Support Fund (CSF), ending Pakistan’s balance of payments worries for at least the next two to three months. The fresh US inflows, which were stalled for nearly 18 months, are likely to keep the State Bank of Pakistan-held foreign exchange reserves around the $10 billion mark, despite repayments to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) worth $420 million due in August and another $760 million-plus by the end of the year.
This also means that if the executive-judiciary developments do not spin out of control, the PPP-led coalition government will be able to complete its term without a balance of payments crisis.
Shaikh has one more reason to celebrate: the Pakistan-US deadlock over the resumption of Nato supplies to Afghanistan was broken by his expert negotiating skills. When it came to the final round of talks, it was the easygoing, laidback finance minister – not the star Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar – who brokered the deal. To many political commentators, this underlines the fact that Shaikh enjoys the confidence of not just his political bosses but, more importantly, of the real source of power in Pakistan: the mighty military establishment.
Finally, with record remittances worth $13.186 billion dollars in fiscal 2011-12; the much-vaunted return to ‘single-digit inflation’ (9.6 percent in July 2012 compared with 12.4 percent during the same month a year ago) as well as a slight improvement in economic growth (3.7 percent during FY12, up from the three percent in FY11), Shaikh and his team have a few numbers worth flaunting as the PPP’s innings draw to a close.
However, the question that needs to be asked is how representative these ‘achievements’ are in the context of the Pakistan economy. Are we really headed out of the low growth, high inflation cycle we’ve been caught in for the last four years?
While the minister and his coterie paint a rosy picture, the tidings for the future remain ominous with most independent economists predicting much tougher days ahead.
With the budget deficit predicted to range between eight and nine percent for the last fiscal (official figures are yet to be released); continuously declining foreign direct investment (down to $812.6 million in the last fiscal as against $5.4 billion in 2007-08 fiscal); a crippling energy crisis; a poor domestic and business environment (due to continued lawlessness, terrorism and political instability); financial hemorrhaging of key public sector entities and corruption scandals, the performance of the PPP-led coalition on the economic front will go down as wasted years in our recent history.
Call it feat or failure, the government has managed to run the show without any economic vision or commitment to reform. All the promises Shaikh made when he took charge of the Finance Ministry in 2010 were, apparently, meant for the gallery as the government – despite repeated promises to the IMF – took no meaningful steps to implement its stated reform agenda.
The tax base has not been expanded nor has agriculture income been brought into the tax net; the budget deficit hasn’t been curtailed, neither by the slashing of expenses nor by the mobilisation of fresh resources.
The government has not been able to create a business- and investment-friendly environment nor has it managed to reform the loss-making public sector entities (which alone cost a mammoth Rs 900 billion in annual subsidies to the national exchequer, including the subsidies given to the ailing power sector.)
Interestingly, even the officials within the Finance Ministry are no better informed. “Don’t ask us about the government’s economic vision; even we don’t know what it is,” says a senior Finance Ministry official requesting anonymity. “It is all about superficial day-to-day management. There are no mid- to long-term goals. All crucial decisions remain pending for months and reforms have been put on the back-burner.”
According to most accounts, the problem stems from two factors. First, the political bosses of the PPP have never been interested in taking the tough decisions vital to putting the economy back on track. Even when they had time, in the first two years of their term, party stalwarts never saw eye-to-eye with their ever-changing economic team, which comprised people overwhelmingly borrowed from here and there. The first finance minister Ishaq Dar was on loan from the PML(N), Shaukat Tarin was a professional banker and Shaikh was once a key member of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf’s team. As such, the PPP lacked an economic team and vision of its own and the ‘outsiders’ carried no weight within the party, which saw the tough IMF-backed reforms as unpopular and contrary to its grain.
The second problem has to do with Shaikh himself. According to ministry insiders, Shaikh isn’t seen as the tough taskmaster who will push himself and his team for results, set goals and give vision. “The minister usually starts his day at noon and is a master procrastinator; files remain on his desk for weeks and sometimes even months,” says the official. “Issues that need efficient and hands-on handling are treated sloppily; decisions such as timely and sufficient release of funds are kept pending.”
According to him, the state-run institutions, which can be revived with a large, one-time injection of funds and structural reforms – PIA, Pakistan Steel and Pakistan Railways – are kept barely alive by providing small chunks of money, which do no good to them or the economy. “They just keep booking losses and further burdening the national exchequer,” he says. “In Pakistan, people crave cabinet slots for three reasons,” says another official at the Finance Minister, requesting anonymity. “Either they want to make quick money or they enjoy the protocol and the perks or they want to make a name for themselves by doing big things,” he says.
“Our finance minister is an honest and above-board person; he doesn’t seem fond of protocol – the police escorts and hooters blaring with his cavalcade. He prefers to go on drives in his old car along with his wife and sweetly waves to acquaintances or well-wishers on the road,” said the official. “The problem is that he is also not into hard work nor does he want to make a name for himself. One wonders why he chose to become a minister.”
Dr Ashfaque Hasan Khan, a former Finance Ministry adviser and one of the main critics of the government’s economic team, thinks that Shaikh and a few like him choose important portfolios in order to boost their CVs.
However, the fact remains that the ineffectiveness and lethargic attitude of the economic team is hurting the country. Unlike his predecessor Tarin or former State Bank governors Saleem Raza and Shahid Kardar who decided to quit when they saw the PPP bosses were paying little heed to their suggestions and advice, Shaikh has decided to stick it out.
The Finance Ministry itself is in a state of paralysis because of the frequent changes of the team members and the corresponding lack of institutional memory. And, says Khan, matters are compounded by equally weak teams at the Planning Commission and other related departments and institutions.
The only reasons Pakistan’s economy is still surviving are the parallel informal economy and the resilience and dynamism of its people who never say die despite the odds they face. Will a new government post-elections or a caretaker government with a long-term assignment (an option pushed by many political pundits and wheelers and dealers in Islamabad) bring the much needed ‘economic vision’ for Pakistan? Let’s keep hoping and praying.

Sindh’s Political Cauldron

By Amir Zia
The News
Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Whatever short-term electoral goals Sharif and his nationalist allies should have, some analysts see their coming together as a positive development and a step towards creating national cohesion by providing a chance to Sindhi nationalists to join mainstream politics.


The Sindhi nationalist forces, despite all their thunderous sloganeering and radical programmes ranging from the outright secessionist aspirations to demands of maximum provincial autonomy and restructuring the federal state into a confederation, have so far remained marginal players when it comes to electoral politics. Veteran nationalist politicians – from G M Syed to Rasool Bux Palijo – failed to win their own seats as the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) has squarely dominated Sindh’s electoral politics since the early 1970s.

Even during its bad days – which have been numerous – when the establishment kept propping up anti-PPP politicians and engineering elections, the Bhutto legacy proved too strong to be routed especially in the rural parts of Sindh.
Will this pattern change after the merger and formation of an electoral alliance with some of the nationalist forces and Mian Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), which is again trying to make inroads in Sindh?
This time, the PML Nawaz is not just banking on the traditional anti-PPP feudal and tribal politicians, but also trying to reach out to the Sindhi nationalists. All shades of anti-PPP elements are joining the PML-N bandwagon.
Some of the traditional pro-establishment and anti-PPP politicians, who quit the PML-N after its ouster from power in the bloodless military coup of 1999 and jumped into the folds of the PML Quaid-e-Azam – the King’s party – are already back in Sharif’s camp. Liaquat Jatoi, Hamida Khuhro, Marvi Memon, Sardar Manzoor Panhwar, and the Pir of Ranipur are just a few of these politicians. The PML-N now eyes few more powerful families, including the Sherazis in Thatta, Unars in Larkana, Magsis in Tando Allahyar and former Sindh chief minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim in Tharparkar in an attempt to give a formidable opposition to the PPP – at least in some parts of rural Sindh.
But the support of the traditional anti-PPP forces in Sindh is not seen as being enough by Sharif and his team members, who in their home province of Punjab face the challenge of its division in the name of Seraiki province – one of the rallying slogans of the PPP and its allies for the coming elections. Therefore, to increase pressure on the PPP in its power base and give an added punch to its arsenal, the PML-N is trying to rope in the Sindhi nationalists, who have mainly based their politics on what they perceived as Punjab’s hegemony over the country’s economic and political pie.
Mumtaz Bhutto, after years and years of advocating restructuring of the state into a confederation and aggressively speaking for the economic and political rights of Sindh, has already merged his Sindh National Front with the PML-N in May this year. For Sharif, showcasing an estranged Bhutto – once known as the “talented cousin” of PPP’s founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto – in his cupboard during the hurly-burly of elections could offer a few scoring points. Although Mumtaz Bhutto himself failed to make much of an impact in Sindh’s politics after his disassociation with the PPP, he may prove of symbolic importance as the PPP will enter the election fray under the command of Asif Ali Zardari and without what its opponents say is “a true Bhutto heir.” The 2008 elections, which came soon after Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, they say, gave the added advantage of a sympathy vote to the PPP.
Another recent development is that of Jalal Mohammed Shah – the grandson of G M Syed – who has steered his Sindh United Party (SUP) into an electoral alliance with the PML-N. For some radical Sindhi nationalists, Shah has never been a serious advocate of Sindh’s rights, but the seven-point understanding between the two parties includes a promise of maximum provincial autonomy as guaranteed in the Constitution and the implementation of the water accord of 1991.
The move is symbolically significant for both the PML-N and its new Sindhi nationalist friends, who do not see eye-to-eye on several key issues – from the distribution of water resources and construction of Kalabagh Dam to that of continued migration of people from the north to Sindh and the sharing of economic resources. In a way, both sides have taken a gamble which may be seen as a climbdown by their supporters from their stated positions on these sensitive issues.
These new strange bedfellows of our national politics also underline the lack of choice, especially for the Sindhi nationalists who are desperate to carve out a niche in electoral politics, and on their own stand little chance of making any impact. No wonder the SUP went solo and entered into an election alliance with Sharif by parting ways from its other nationalist allies – Dr. Qadir Magsi’s Jeay Sindh Tarraqi Pasand Party and Palijo’s Awami Tehreek, which is now led by his son Ayaz Latif Palijo.
These three nationalist parties have remained part of the Sindh Progressive Nationalist Alliance since 2010 with an aim of running in the elections, but now this plan stands in jeopardy given the new political alignments.
Sharif’s wooing of the nationalist politicians also aims to exploit the possible disgruntlement of many rural Sindh voters, who are unhappy over the PPP’s alliance with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). Sharif’s repeated assertions and promises to the nationalist forces that Sindh’s division will not be tolerated is aimed at whipping up this sentiment, though the issue is hardly taken as a serious demand because the MQM itself remains opposed to the idea – at least when it comes to its stated political position.
But whatever short-term electoral goals Sharif and his nationalist allies should have, some analysts see their coming together as a positive development and a step towards creating national cohesion by providing a chance to Sindhi nationalists to join mainstream politics.
It also allows Sharif and his party to understand the point of view of the small but emerging Sindhi middle and lower middle class, which often gets attracted to nationalist politics at least in their youth.
But Sharif’s new political alignments in Sindh do not in any way mean that the PPP, despite its baggage of poor governance and allegations of corruption and inefficiency, is down and out in its powerbase.
The PPP under Zardari has tried to consolidate its position among its traditional rural vote bank not just by giving incentives to the agriculture sector which has created liquidity, but also through the targeted pro-poor Benazir Income Support Fund. For many voters in Sindh, the PPP, despite its weakness, remains the only choice as they do not see the Punjab-based PML-N or the nationalists as a viable option.
Although the party is without a Bhutto, it will go on the front-foot in an attempt to recreate the magic by using the names of its slain leaders during the election campaign. While the political landscape of 2013 will be different from past elections, the Bhutto legacy will remain the one mega-card for the PPP in its powerbase. The Bhutto name gives the PPP a head-start in rural Sindh barring select traditional constituencies where it should expect a close contest – unless the voters’ last minute verdict produces a major shocker.