By Amir Zia
Monday, April 29, 2013
The News
Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders should try to shun the ‘Islam under siege’ mentality, which is often twisted, distorted and used by extremist forces to their own benefit. As a Muslim-majority country, we must be confident and sure-footed that there is no threat to Islam or Islamic values in Pakistan
Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is generally known for his careful, restrained and well thought out public remarks and statements. He is not one of those who speak first and think later. His public statements are seen to reflect the collective will and position of the mighty military establishment. Therefore, it is understandable that his April 20 address at the passing-out parade of young officers at the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul created the usual media hype and debate about its timing, essence of the message and intended audience.
Many right-wing analysts and commentators underlined and celebrated General Kayani’s words in which he emphasised the importance of the Islamic roots of Pakistan.
“Pakistan was created in the name of Islam and Islam can never be taken out of Pakistan”, said the army chief as quoted in the media. “However, Islam should always remain a unifying force”, he said vowing that the Pakistan Army would keep doing its best to achieve the dream of establishing a truly Islamic Republic of Pakistan as envisioned by Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah.
For ideologically liberal analysts, General Kayani’s words came across as yet another testimony of the right-wing tilt of the armed forces – especially at a time when Pakistan stands only a few weeks from the general elections scheduled for May 11. They read Kayani’s message from the old paradigm in which Pakistan’s military establishment sponsored and patronised select groups of non-state actors to further its goals on the Afghanistan and Kashmir fronts and weaken democratic forces within the country – especially during General Ziaul Haq’s era and all through the 1990s when some of the generals remained active players in determining the fate of various elected governments.
But between these two opposite reactions is the fact that today the Pakistan Army and paramilitary troops remain locked in a more than a decade-long conflict with extremists and terrorist groups in which around 3,700 security personnel have been martyred and at least 12,000 critically wounded. Add to this the civilian deaths and the figure would jump to a mammoth loss of 50,000 Pakistan lives. The enormity of the pain and suffering of Pakistan can never be conveyed and understood through the rounded figure of 50,000 killings in this religiously-motivated violence and terrorism. It is a colossal loss on both an individual and a collective level in a country where human life has become cheap and the writ of the state is being challenged daily by the Al-Qaeda and it inspired local terror groups.
For any military in the world, confronting this kind of internal challenge offers a nightmarish scenario because often insurgents try to create a narrative that aims to confuse the issue, blur the lines between right and wrong, and win sympathy and support among the masses and the security personnel. The terrorists and their masterminds try to achieve these objectives through well-orchestrated propaganda, half truths, lies and floating misconceptions as they continue with their campaign of hit-and-run attacks and bombings in an attempt to disrupt and weaken the state.
In today’s context, from the Al-Qaeda-inspired terror groups – including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) – to the apparently non-violent, but outlawed Hizb-ut Tahrir, all are trying to undermine the fight against extremism by portraying it as an ‘American war’. Many mainstream religious and right-wing parties such as the Jamaat-e-Islami, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and various factions of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) also echo the propaganda of these militants.
If violent extremist groups like the TTP kill and behead soldiers in organised attacks and openly declare the Pakistan Army and other security institutions, especially the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), as its enemy number one, the mainstream right wing and religious groups by design or default support the extremist narrative by calling Pakistan’s efforts against terrorism a US war. These mainstream parties maintain a criminal silence over the atrocities committed by terrorists and the killing of Pakistani civilians and soldiers and instead press the government to surrender before these non-state actors and compromise Pakistan’s sovereignty. Such a demand implies that terrorists be allowed to use Pakistani territory for global terrorism.
Only novices in politics, statecraft and international diplomacy would suggest such a suicidal course and ask a government and state institutions to surrender before non-state actors who dont just want terrorist safe-havens, but also want to impose their controversial interpretation of Islam in the country.
The situation should be worrying for the army chief, who again on April 20 highlighted the internal security challenge, which remains far graver than any of the external threats faced by the country. By emphasising Quaid-e-Azam’s vision for Pakistan in his speech, Gen Kayani in fact rejected the theocratic and extremist interpretation of Islam done by militants and their cheerleaders in various mainstream religious and right-wing parties. His Kakul message was aimed both at his own institution as well as those distracters who stand opposed to Pakistan’s efforts against the internal threat posed by the Islamic extremists and their terror organisations and use Islam as a dividing rather than ‘unifying’ force.
However, Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders should try to shun the ‘Islam under siege’ mentality, which is often twisted, distorted and used by extremist forces to their own benefit. As a Muslim-majority country, we must be confident and sure-footed that there is no threat to Islam or Islamic values in Pakistan.
Who is attempting to separate Islam from Pakistan? What’s the basis of this fiction that ‘Islam is in danger’ in Pakistan as propagated by certain religious elements since the inception of the country? Even those forces which call for secularism in Pakistan do not intend to undercut its Muslim identity or Islamic values. Their demand for separating religion and politics must be seen in the historical context of the centuries-old divide between Muslim rationalists and Muslim fundamentalists. All the vast Muslim empires since the days of Umayyads in the second half of the 7th century were in their essence monarchies and far from the puritan Islamic system as espoused by the 20th and 21st century ideologues and leaders of fundamentalist forces. The centuries-old divisions among various Muslim sects remain a manifestation of this fact. But despite the absence of an ideal Islamic state in the political sense, Islam as a religion continued to flourish and expand.
Today, Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders need absolute clarity on what is the biggest and gravest threat to the country and its social, political and economic fabric. Of course, this threat comes from the extremists and all those intolerant political groups that want to push the country into anarchy and conflict, using the sacred name of Islam. These misguided ones need to be tackled firmly the way the armed forces did – successfully – in Swat and other regions. But there is a lot more to be done as the terrorists and extremists have fanned from the treacherous mountains of North Waziristan to the urban jungle of Karachi and have apparently been carrying out their activities with impunity.
The nation expects Pakistan’s armed forces to play the role of a vanguard in defeating these terrorists and their extremist mindset, which tries to confuse the ordinary Muslims of Pakistan in the name of Islam. Who else in Pakistan but the armed forces has the ability and capacity to defeat these terrorists? The civilian leaders should support this effort and take ideological ownership of this fight since it is now a question of Pakistan’s survival. The basic problem in today’s Pakistan remains religious extremism and terrorism – which needs to be resolved. All the other debates and issues are secondary.
Monday, April 29, 2013
The News
Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders should try to shun the ‘Islam under siege’ mentality, which is often twisted, distorted and used by extremist forces to their own benefit. As a Muslim-majority country, we must be confident and sure-footed that there is no threat to Islam or Islamic values in Pakistan
Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is generally known for his careful, restrained and well thought out public remarks and statements. He is not one of those who speak first and think later. His public statements are seen to reflect the collective will and position of the mighty military establishment. Therefore, it is understandable that his April 20 address at the passing-out parade of young officers at the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul created the usual media hype and debate about its timing, essence of the message and intended audience.
Many right-wing analysts and commentators underlined and celebrated General Kayani’s words in which he emphasised the importance of the Islamic roots of Pakistan.
“Pakistan was created in the name of Islam and Islam can never be taken out of Pakistan”, said the army chief as quoted in the media. “However, Islam should always remain a unifying force”, he said vowing that the Pakistan Army would keep doing its best to achieve the dream of establishing a truly Islamic Republic of Pakistan as envisioned by Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah.
For ideologically liberal analysts, General Kayani’s words came across as yet another testimony of the right-wing tilt of the armed forces – especially at a time when Pakistan stands only a few weeks from the general elections scheduled for May 11. They read Kayani’s message from the old paradigm in which Pakistan’s military establishment sponsored and patronised select groups of non-state actors to further its goals on the Afghanistan and Kashmir fronts and weaken democratic forces within the country – especially during General Ziaul Haq’s era and all through the 1990s when some of the generals remained active players in determining the fate of various elected governments.
But between these two opposite reactions is the fact that today the Pakistan Army and paramilitary troops remain locked in a more than a decade-long conflict with extremists and terrorist groups in which around 3,700 security personnel have been martyred and at least 12,000 critically wounded. Add to this the civilian deaths and the figure would jump to a mammoth loss of 50,000 Pakistan lives. The enormity of the pain and suffering of Pakistan can never be conveyed and understood through the rounded figure of 50,000 killings in this religiously-motivated violence and terrorism. It is a colossal loss on both an individual and a collective level in a country where human life has become cheap and the writ of the state is being challenged daily by the Al-Qaeda and it inspired local terror groups.
For any military in the world, confronting this kind of internal challenge offers a nightmarish scenario because often insurgents try to create a narrative that aims to confuse the issue, blur the lines between right and wrong, and win sympathy and support among the masses and the security personnel. The terrorists and their masterminds try to achieve these objectives through well-orchestrated propaganda, half truths, lies and floating misconceptions as they continue with their campaign of hit-and-run attacks and bombings in an attempt to disrupt and weaken the state.
In today’s context, from the Al-Qaeda-inspired terror groups – including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) – to the apparently non-violent, but outlawed Hizb-ut Tahrir, all are trying to undermine the fight against extremism by portraying it as an ‘American war’. Many mainstream religious and right-wing parties such as the Jamaat-e-Islami, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and various factions of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) also echo the propaganda of these militants.
If violent extremist groups like the TTP kill and behead soldiers in organised attacks and openly declare the Pakistan Army and other security institutions, especially the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), as its enemy number one, the mainstream right wing and religious groups by design or default support the extremist narrative by calling Pakistan’s efforts against terrorism a US war. These mainstream parties maintain a criminal silence over the atrocities committed by terrorists and the killing of Pakistani civilians and soldiers and instead press the government to surrender before these non-state actors and compromise Pakistan’s sovereignty. Such a demand implies that terrorists be allowed to use Pakistani territory for global terrorism.
Only novices in politics, statecraft and international diplomacy would suggest such a suicidal course and ask a government and state institutions to surrender before non-state actors who dont just want terrorist safe-havens, but also want to impose their controversial interpretation of Islam in the country.
The situation should be worrying for the army chief, who again on April 20 highlighted the internal security challenge, which remains far graver than any of the external threats faced by the country. By emphasising Quaid-e-Azam’s vision for Pakistan in his speech, Gen Kayani in fact rejected the theocratic and extremist interpretation of Islam done by militants and their cheerleaders in various mainstream religious and right-wing parties. His Kakul message was aimed both at his own institution as well as those distracters who stand opposed to Pakistan’s efforts against the internal threat posed by the Islamic extremists and their terror organisations and use Islam as a dividing rather than ‘unifying’ force.
However, Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders should try to shun the ‘Islam under siege’ mentality, which is often twisted, distorted and used by extremist forces to their own benefit. As a Muslim-majority country, we must be confident and sure-footed that there is no threat to Islam or Islamic values in Pakistan.
Who is attempting to separate Islam from Pakistan? What’s the basis of this fiction that ‘Islam is in danger’ in Pakistan as propagated by certain religious elements since the inception of the country? Even those forces which call for secularism in Pakistan do not intend to undercut its Muslim identity or Islamic values. Their demand for separating religion and politics must be seen in the historical context of the centuries-old divide between Muslim rationalists and Muslim fundamentalists. All the vast Muslim empires since the days of Umayyads in the second half of the 7th century were in their essence monarchies and far from the puritan Islamic system as espoused by the 20th and 21st century ideologues and leaders of fundamentalist forces. The centuries-old divisions among various Muslim sects remain a manifestation of this fact. But despite the absence of an ideal Islamic state in the political sense, Islam as a religion continued to flourish and expand.
Today, Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders need absolute clarity on what is the biggest and gravest threat to the country and its social, political and economic fabric. Of course, this threat comes from the extremists and all those intolerant political groups that want to push the country into anarchy and conflict, using the sacred name of Islam. These misguided ones need to be tackled firmly the way the armed forces did – successfully – in Swat and other regions. But there is a lot more to be done as the terrorists and extremists have fanned from the treacherous mountains of North Waziristan to the urban jungle of Karachi and have apparently been carrying out their activities with impunity.
The nation expects Pakistan’s armed forces to play the role of a vanguard in defeating these terrorists and their extremist mindset, which tries to confuse the ordinary Muslims of Pakistan in the name of Islam. Who else in Pakistan but the armed forces has the ability and capacity to defeat these terrorists? The civilian leaders should support this effort and take ideological ownership of this fight since it is now a question of Pakistan’s survival. The basic problem in today’s Pakistan remains religious extremism and terrorism – which needs to be resolved. All the other debates and issues are secondary.
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