Saturday 26 December 2015
Friday 21 September 2012
Women and Veil. From Quranic point of view
The Veil & Islam. By Justice Qazi Faez Isa, Chief Justice, BHC
A member of the provincial assembly of the NWFP has introduced a resolution requiring that wearing a veil should be made compulsory for every girl above 12 years of age (Dawn, May 2). Without citing any Quranic text in support of the resolution, Pir Muhammad Khan of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal assumes that Islam ordains the veil for women. Anis. I have read and circulating.
If God directs women to veil their faces, then Muslims have no option but to abide by this command. But if on the other hand our Benevolent Creator has not imposed any such injunction, no man can impose it. An attempt to add to the commands of God Everlasting is an abomination and completely unacceptable in Islam. No matter how well intentioned a man may be such desire cannot be substituted for God's law and it is not permissible to diverge from the truth.
God commands to judge among them by what Allah has revealed, and follow not their vain desires, diverging away from the truth that has come to you. To each among you, We have prescribed a law and a clear way (5:48). And again in the chapter entitled 'The Clear Evidence' (Al-Bayyinah) after referring to the purified pages of the Quran, God the Eternal tells us that the Quran contains right and straight laws (98:3) thereby removing any discretion to add or subtract therefrom.
Those advocating the veiling of women do so by prescribing the hijab. Hijab is the Arabic word for 'veil' and may also be used to describe a screen, cover(ing), partition, division, mantle, curtain, drape or divider. The word hijab appears seven times in the Quran, five times as hijab and twice as hijaban. Let us commence by examining each of these verses wherein the term hijab or hijaban appears in the Holy Quran.
The term hijab is used as a barrier or screen separating the dwellers of Paradise from the dwellers of Hell in verse 46 of Surah Al-Araf. How to behave in the Prophet's (pbuh) house is contained in verse 53 of Surah Al-Ahzab, which states that when you ask for anything you want, ask them from behind a screen (hijab). Forgetting the time for prayer and the imagery of (the sun) hidden in the veil (hijab) (of night) is used in verse 32 of Surah Sad. The term hijab is used as an analogy in verse 5 of Surah Fussilat; those who have not opened to the truth say - "Our hearts are under veils from that to which you invite us; and in our ears is deafness, and between us and you is a screen (hijab)".
In the Surah which follows (Ash-Shura, verse 51) the Creator informs us that He does not speak to any human being unless by Revelation, or from behind a veil (hijab). God places an invisible veil (hijaban) between the Prophet (pbuh) and those who do not believe in the Hereafter (verse 45 of Surah Al-Isra). Maryam (Mary), the most revered amongst ladies, placed a screen (hijaban) from them when God sent His Ruh to her, we are told in verse 17 of the Chapter of the Quran named after this great lady.
In none of the aforesaid seven verses the word hijab is used to indicate a dress code for a Muslim lady. Allah the Merciful in His Infinite Wisdom did not use the word hijab for women's apparel or dress code but Man did and having done so insinuated the veil. These men use the word (hijab) out of context, and in a context that God Himself does not, and then its meaning (veil) is applied to women's dress, a meaning that the Creator does not.
The application of the word hijab to women's attire is all the more surprising since the Quran uses specific terms to describe what is appropriate dress and such description does not use the word hijab. The word khomoorehenna is used in verse 31 of Surah An-Nur to describe how women should dress. In this verse God requires women to conceal their bosoms with a cover. The term khomoorehenna is derived from the word khumar (plural khimar) and could be a shirt, shawl, blouse or any other covering. Again the verse stipulates the covering of the bosom and not the face, head or the hair. The word used is juyubihinna, derived from the word jayb (plural juyub), meaning bosom. If the intention of the Creator was to impose the veil there was nothing stopping Him from mentioning the face and the veil in this verse. But the verse does not use the Arabic word for face (wajh, wujah, qubul), head (raas) or hair (shaar) nor uses the word veil (hijab).
The aforesaid verse may also suggest that the face should not be covered since women may not show off their adornment except that which is apparent. If there is any part of the human body which in the words of the Quran is apparent it is the face. The face is required to be exposed since through the nose one breathes and smells, from the mouth one breathes, drinks and eats, through the eyes one sees and from the ears one hears. Both sight and hearing is impaired if the eyes or the ears are even slightly covered. Eating or drinking is also not possible if the face is covered and eating and drinking are not practised in a closet. The use of the veil constitutes a difficulty and our Merciful Creator tells us that He has not placed in religion any difficulties (22:78).
The only other verse specifically dealing with women's attire is verse 59 of Surah Al-Ahzab. This is addressed to the Prophet (pbuh) and he is directed to tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to draw their jalabib over their bodies. The word jalabib is the plural of jilbab and means a shirt, covering or a cloak. The question arises whether the meaning of this word (jalbib / jalabib) can be extended to mean covering the face or being veiled. Clearly not, because God, the Wise, would have used words stating so, after all if the ocean were ink for the Words of my Lord, surely, the ocean would be exhausted before the Words of my Lord would be finished (18:109). Again the context in which the word (jalabib) is used excludes such possibility.
Women are told to cover their bodies so that they should not be molested and that they should be known. If a woman's face is veiled she cannot be known. The only apparent part of the body by which everyone is distinguished and recognized or known is the face. All other methods of identification whether by finger or genetic printing or retina examination are only possible with the aid of extraneous tools.
There is not a single verse in the entire Quran that requires women to veil their faces. The Holy Quran is significantly silent. In fact the above cited verses may be interpreted to even mean that a veil must not be used, because these verses stipulate that women must be apparent and known and if their faces are concealed by veils they are neither apparent or known. Even in present day strictly veiled Saudi Arabian society, the true faith is witnessed during the Hajj, when no face can be concealed. If the Hajj is an exception, as the veil-lobby contends, it is inexplicable and a contention that is not supported by the words of the Quran.
The beauty and majesty of the Quran is limitless. Through it God, Most Kind and Most Gracious, tells us that the intention of the believer is very important. O children of Adam! We have bestowed 'libas' (clothing or raiment) upon you to cover yourselves and as an adornment; and the raiment ('libas') of righteousness, that is better (7:26). And the only judge of the raiment of righteousness is our Creator. The matter is therefore taken away from man's nitpicking ways and laid for consideration before the Master of the HighestKingdom.
Those who want to blacken the faces of women and reduce them to mere objects must remember that God the Omnipotent directs believing men to lower their gaze (24:30). If women were veiled there would be no need for men to lower their gaze. The Commandment to lowering one's gaze is often brazenly flouted. Would it then not be more appropriate to legislate for affixing blinkers on men's eyes, like those on a mule or donkey, rather than having the effrontery to put rags on the faces of 12-year old-girls?
Sunday 13 May 2012
STILL SEARCHING
Published: May 14, 2012
As the Supreme Court continues its effort to recover persons who have gone missing in Balochistan, it has noted that the province had turned into a kind of war zone —— a situation that adds to the chaos prevailing there and consequently makes it difficult to recover those who have disappeared. Clearly frustrated, the three-member bench of the Court, headed by the Chief Justice, has shown its displeasure at the Frontier Constabulary (FC) in its last hearing and asked who had given it the right to pick up persons at their homes.
The Chief Justice was also displeased with the IGFC’s non-appearance in Court despite having been summoned. At a previous hearing, the Court had shown similar displeasure at the failure of the heads of the ISI and the MI to appear in it, and noted that had police officials possessed the courage to speak the truth, the task of recovering missing persons would have been easier.
We all know why the police are reluctant to speak out. The distortions of power that exist in our country mean there are few who would be willing to speak out against those responsible for these disappearances. To do so would be to invite trouble. This issue of secrecy has emerged as a key factor in our failure to recover missing persons. While human rights monitors have repeatedly pointed to their involvement, there are few who dare question them. People, too, are apparently being kept in the dark, with the advocate-general Balochistan seeking an in-camera discussion for a briefing on some cases. The Court has agreed to the suggestion, expressing the hope that this will help recover missing persons.
What is most frightening of all is that even as the hearings continue, the pattern of disappearances has also continued. This is evident by the fact that in a previous hearing the Supreme Court was told that seven people who were picked up in Quetta had reappeared at their homes a few days ago. No doubt they, like others before them, will have been asked to maintain silence about their disappearance. Meanwhile, other people continue to be picked up; the basic problem remains unchanged and this is not a comforting thought at all.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 14th, 2012.
Tuesday 14 June 2011
Pakistan after Osama
By Pervez Hoodbhoy
June 2011
The killing of Osama bin Laden could provide Pakistan an opportunity to reverse its downward slide, though changing course will not be easy. The country must decide whether to decisively confront Islamist violence, or continue with the military’s current policy of supporting jihadi militants with one hand even as it slaps them with the other.
Righteous wrath: Watching news of the death of Osama bin Laden in Lahore, 79-year-old Baba demands, ‘How is it possible that we have nuclear bombs, nobody can trespass in our airspace, but then helicopters from Kabul can come and no one notices?’
The most intensive manhunt in history ended on 2 May 2011 with the killing of Osama bin Laden. When an elite squad of helicopter-borne US Navy SEALs slipped into Pakistan from Afghanistan, they returned with the body of al-Qaeda’s founder-king. To the relief of many around the world, the man who had attacked and physically eliminated all he perceived as enemies of Islam – Soviets and Americans, Iraqis and Pakistanis – was dispatched to his watery grave.
Initially, the Pakistani government claimed cooperation in the operation. But this was flatly rejected by those who had laid and executed the intricate plans. John Brennan, assistant to President Barack Obama for homeland security and counterterrorism, said, ‘We didn’t contact the Pakistanis until after all of our people, all of our aircraft were out of Pakistani airspace … we were watching and making sure that our people and our aircraft were able to get out of Pakistani airspace. And thankfully, there was no engagement with Pakistani forces.’ The director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Leon Panetta, hinted at Pakistan’s complicity with al-Qaeda when he said, ‘It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis might jeopardise the mission: they might alert the targets.’ Significantly, President Obama did not thank Pakistan.
For Pakistan it was, as columnist Ayaz Amir put it, the mother of all embarrassments. For years, the country’s military and civilian leaders had flatly denied bin Laden’s presence in the country. Some had slyly suggested he might be in Sudan or Somalia. Others confidently claimed that he had died from a kidney ailment, or perhaps was in some intractable area protected by nature and terrain, and thus outside of the effective control of the Pakistani state. But as it turned out, of course, the world’s most famous and recognisable terrorist’s abode was within walking distance of the famed Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul, a short distance from Abbottabad, where, just days earlier, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had declared that ‘The terrorist backbone has been broken and inshaallah we will soon prevail.’
Pakistanis, who think of their military as a fine fighting force, were angry and appalled that the American invaders got away with the raid scot-free. The military consumes a huge chunk of Pakistan’s national resources; it had just purchased sophisticated AWAC aircraft, continues receiving delivery of modernised US F-16s, and has a nuclear arsenal that could soon rival Britain’s in size. But the hugely expensive system proved unable to detect, much less confront, the five slow-moving helicopters that flew in south from Jalalabad. Two of these landed and stayed for 40 minutes almost next to the brigade headquarters of the Second Division of the Northern Army Corps in Abbottabad. They left without engagement. It was only when the Americans had exited Pakistan’s airspace that air defences were scrambled.
For multiple reasons, bin Laden’s killing has become a bone stuck in the throat of Pakistan’s establishment, which despises the Americans but is formally aligned with them. This bone can neither be swallowed nor spat out. To approve of the Abbottabad operation would infuriate the Islamists, who are already fighting the state. To protest too loudly, however, would suggest that Pakistan had willingly hosted the king of terrorists.
Subservient civilians
One clear consequence of the US operation was to put into stark relief the humble subservience of Pakistan’s civilians to their military masters. As the story broke on Pakistani news channels, the elected government quaked. It was too weak, corrupt and inept to take initiatives. Thus, there was no official Pakistani reaction for hours after President Obama had announced the success of the US mission. A stunned silence was finally broken when the Foreign Office declared that ‘Osama bin Laden’s death illustrates the resolve of the international community including Pakistan to fight and eliminate terrorism.’ Hours later, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani described the killing as a ‘great victory’. Thereupon, Pakistan’s high commissioner to the UK, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, rushed to claim credit: ‘Pakistan’s government was cooperating with American intelligence throughout and they had been monitoring [bin Laden’s] activities with the Americans, and they kept track of him from Afghanistan, Waziristan to Afghanistan and again to North Waziristan.’
This welcoming stance was reversed almost instantly. A stern look from the military, which had finally decided to condemn the raid, took a few hours in coming. Praising the killing of the world’s most wanted terrorist was now out of the question. In its moment of shame, the government furiously twisted and turned. Official spokespeople babbled on, becoming increasingly senseless and contradictory. Without referring to the statement he had made that very morning of 3 May, High Commissioner Hasan abruptly reversed his public position, now saying: ‘Nobody knew that Osama bin Laden was there – no security agency, no Pakistani authorities knew about it. Had we known it, we would have done it ourselves.’
Tongue-tied for 36 hours, president and prime minister awaited pointers from the army, following them dutifully after they were received. But simple obedience could not satisfy the army. Gen Kayani announced his unhappiness with the government: ‘Incomplete information and lack of technical details have resulted in speculations and misreporting. Public dismay and despondency has also been aggravated due to an insufficient formal response.’ The threat was barely veiled: the government must proactively defend the army and intelligence agencies, or else…
Thus prodded, a full eight days after the incident Prime Minister Gillani broke his silence. He absolved the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and army of ‘either complicity or incompetence’. Before an incredulous world, he claimed in a statement that both suggestions were ‘absurd’. Attempting to spread the blame, he declared in Paris, before his meeting with President Sarkozy, ‘This is an intelligence failure of the whole world, not Pakistan alone.’
mage: Phil StearnsPrime Minister Gillani, more loyal than the king, had somewhat overstretched himself. Even the head of the ISI, Lieutenant-General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, was not confident that he had done a good job. In appearing before an in-camera session of the Parliament, Pasha broke a long tradition of being unanswerable to civilian authorities, but it is said his offer was met with dead silence. Servitude to power runs thick in the blood of Islamabad’s politicians, which is why they wrote, some decades ago, into the Pakistan Constitution that it is a crime to criticise the armed forces of Pakistan or to bring them into disaffection.
Though the incompetence of the civilian government is legendary, the responsibility for the present debacle lies squarely with the military. Except when the military has itself been the government, Pakistan’s strategic decision-making has been entirely invented and executed by generals who consider their interests to be synonymous with that of the country. Pakistanis have good reason to fear their army. Although it might not have won any war against India, it has been victorious on all four occasions when it moved against civilian governments. It is unsurprising that on nuclear weapons, Kashmir, India, Afghanistan and Pakistan-US relations, the army alone makes the decisions.
Bin Laden’s killing presented a rare opportunity for Pakistan to reclaim some of the powers snatched by its army. But the government chose the status quo instead. Over forty years ago, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who had before him a weakened army that he had rescued from ignominy, made the mistake of restoring the army’s former status, rather than make it respect the supremacy of the Parliament. Eventually that same army hanged him. As mere survivors, the Zardari/Gillani government has little interest in history or the future of Pakistan, content as they seem to be to whitewash the army and let it off the hook.
Untamed warriors
Why was Pakistan’s warrior class never tamed by civilian rule? The answer must be sought in the foundation of Pakistan and the state of confusion into which it was born. Beyond the simplistic notion that Hindus and Muslims were incapable of living together, the idea of Pakistan was unclear from the outset. Although he made many speeches, Mohammad Ali Jinnah left no manifesto and authored no book before his untimely death. Critical questions were thus left unanswered: Would the new state be capitalist or socialist, liberal or theocratic, modern or tradition-based? On what basis would power be distributed between its different regions? How would defence, education, science, health, etc be prioritised?
With no clear answers, and lacking a clear basis for legitimacy or direction, the state quickly aligned with the powerful landed class: the army leadership and the economic elite joined forces to claim authority in a nation without definition or cohesion. The Kashmir dispute gave reason for the military to become powerful and to make the acquisition of modern weaponry an overriding priority. The Americans happily obliged, given the burgeoning cold war. A fatal attraction for guns steadily drew Pakistan into the US orbit.
Still, it is easy to blame the military for Pakistan’s deepening failure as a state. But the responsibility must be shared with the wider ‘establishment’ that runs Pakistan. Stephen P Cohen, a political scientist, calls this establishment a ‘moderate oligarchy’ and defines it as ‘an informal political system loosely bound together that ties together the senior ranks of the military, the civil service, key members of the judiciary, and other elites.’ Membership in this oligarchy, Cohen contends, requires adherence to a common set of core beliefs.
These beliefs can be easily enumerated. Members of ‘the establishment’ must believe that India has to be countered at every turn; that nuclear weapons have endowed Pakistan with security and status; that the fight for Kashmir is the unfinished business of Partition; that large-scale social reforms, such as land redistribution, are unacceptable; that the uneducated and illiterate masses deserve only contempt; that vociferous Muslim nationalism is desirable but the Sharia is not; and that Washington is to be despised but fully taken advantage of.
In such a situation, the absence of a blueprint meant that Pakistan could have gone in many different directions. The one actually chosen by history resulted in its becoming a client state of the US. This trend became stronger after the 1958 coup by General Ayub Khan, when the US was keen to cultivate allies against communism during the Cold War. Pakistan was invited into the SEATO and CENTO alliances (covering Southeast and West Asia, respectively) and, to quote arch anti-communist John Foster Dulles, became America’s ‘most allied ally’. The embrace became tighter with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The American strategy for defeating the ‘Evil Empire’ required marshalling the forces of Islam from every part of the world. With General Zia-ul-Haq as America’s foremost ally, and Saudi Arabia as the principal source of funds, the CIA openly recruited Islamic holy warriors from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Algeria.
Radical Islam went into overdrive as its superpower ally and mentor funnelled support to the mujahideen. The strategy worked. In 1988, Soviet troops withdrew unconditionally, and the US-Pakistan-Saudi-Egypt alliance emerged victorious. A chapter of history seemed complete, and hubris defined US policy for another two decades. But the true costs of this victory did not take long to surface. Even in the mid-1990s – long before the attacks of 11 September 2001 – it was clear that the victorious alliance had unwittingly created a new entity that had gone beyond its control.
This, in a nutshell, is the history of how Pakistan became host to the current array of radical Islamist groups. These pathological social and religious formations have developed divergent goals. Some target the American empire, which is why Pakistan was the country of choice for bin Laden. Other groups focus on the more limited goal of ‘liberating’ Kashmir. Still others, such as Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba, are largely anti-Shia. Gradually, Pakistan morphed into Jihadistan, attracting a multitude of Islamists from Europe to West and Central Asia to Indonesia. But Jihadistan is a messy place these days, a far cry from the simple bastion of anti-communism in the 1980s. Today the military must kill some of its former protégés and some radicals even as it secretly supports others.
Collective psychosis
Twenty-five years ago, the Pakistani state pushed Islam on its people as a matter of ideology. Prayers were made compulsory in government departments, punishments were meted out to those civil servants who did not fast during Ramadan, selection for academic posts required that the candidate demonstrate knowledge of Islamic teachings, and jihad was propagated through schoolbooks. Today, government intervention is no longer needed because of the spontaneous groundswell of Islamic zeal that has been the result of the years of grooming. A generation of poisoned minds that holds the external world responsible for all the country’s ills has led the country into collective xenophobia and psychosis. Signs suggest that a fascist religious state may be just around the corner.
A necessary condition for fascism – a sense of victimhood, mass delusions and a disconnection with reality – has now been met. A majority of all Pakistanis believe that 9/11 was a Jewish conspiracy, think the dynamiting of schools and suicide attacks on shrines are the work of Blackwater (the US defence contractor now called Xe), see India’s hand behind Pakistan’s deepening instability and, refuse to accept Pakistan’s responsibility in the Mumbai attacks of November 2008. Many welcomed the murder of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer in January, despite the fact that his only ‘crime’ was to protect a poor peasant Christian woman against charges of blasphemy. Surveys also show that a majority believes that senior army officers do not support the Taliban, and think that peace will return to Pakistan once the US leaves Afghanistan.
Those holding such distorted views of the world greeted the news of bin Laden’s killing with outright disbelief and denial. Pakistan’s capacity for self-deception should not be underestimated. An online survey conducted two days after the operation by a global opinion pollster revealed that a staggering 66 percent of Pakistanis thought the person who was killed by US Navy SEALs was not bin Laden. Participants in satirical TV shows burst into peals of laughter as they poured scorn on America and its claims. The supposed killing of bin Laden was nothing but high drama, said popular TV anchors. General Mirza Aslam Beg, former army chief and the formulator of the notion of ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan, fully agreed. He wrote: ‘Osama’s look-alike prisoner from Bagram was picked-up and brought to Abbottabad and killed in cold blood, in front of his family members, who were living there. In fact, Osama had been killed in Afghanistan some time back and his body may still be lying in a mortuary in Afghanistan.’ Beg says it was all a ploy to defame the Pakistan government, the Pakistan armed forces and the ISI.
Rent-a-country
Over decades, Pakistan has adapted to its changing strategic circumstances by renting itself out to powerful states. Territory and men are part of the services provided. Payment comes not just from the US, but Arab countries as well. For fear of public criticism, the arrangements have been kept hidden. Pakistan’s supposedly vibrant press has chosen to steer off such controversial issues. But post bin-Laden, the clatter of skeletons tumbling out of Pakistan’s strategic closet is forcing some secrets out into the open.
Questioning by angry Pakistani parliamentarians has been particularly revealing. They wanted to know from Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman just how US helicopters had entered Pakistan and escaped without detection. Where did US drones fly from? Was it Shamsi air base in Balochistan, as some foreign newspapers had alleged? His answer left them stunned: Shamsi base was not under the control of the Pakistan Air Force but, instead, of the United Arab Emirates. Why would the UAE want the base? Ostensibly because wealthy Arabs have many land investments in Pakistan, and often travel to the country in their own planes for purposes such as hunting expeditions. As for not detecting the incursion, the air chief conceded that Pakistan’s radar defence had not been jammed at the time of the Navy SEALs incursion. ‘I do not know from where the helicopters who participated in the Abbottabad operation that killed Osama bin Laden came,’ he said. In another country it is hard to see how an air chief could have kept his job.
The army’s indignation over the violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty by the bin Laden operation is phony; it is a dispute over the amount of rent, not over principle. US drones have targets inside Pakistani territory and some take off from bases within Pakistan. But even as drone attacks are given a wink and a nod, the military simultaneously makes a formal protest to the US. However, one does not hear expressions of indignation at the loss of Pakistan’s sovereignty to Arab fighters and the Taliban in Waziristan, Kurram, Parachinar and other tribal areas.
Post-bin Laden, stung by criticism from the general public and seeking to raise morale, Gen Kayani has been stumping the garrisons. Meanwhile, he has been asked why the invaders were not challenged and destroyed. Who sheltered bin Laden if we are actually fighting al-Qaeda? The Express Tribune quotes an unnamed young military officer who made a stinging comment before the army chief: ‘Sir, I am ashamed of what happened in Abbottabad.’ Replied Gen Kayani, ‘So am I.’ He promptly went on to hold the government responsible for allowing Pakistan to get such bad press.
The golden goose
Osama bin Laden was found sheltered in the army’s backyard. Though caught red-handed, the army denied that it knew of his presence. A counter propaganda blitz followed, with street banners and pamphlets proclaiming that the army and ISI are the veritable pillars of Pakistan. Supporters and commentators were instructed to make the case that this was part of a great grand conspiracy against Pakistan, and to deny that bin Laden had been the army’s guest.
The results of the blitz have been mixed. Even the ferocious General Hamid Gul (retired), a self-proclaimed jihadi who advocates war on America, did not buy the army’s denial, remarking that bin Laden being in Abbottabad unknown to authorities ‘is a bit amazing’. Aside from the military, he said, ‘there is the local police, the Intelligence Bureau, Military Intelligence, the ISI – they all had a presence there.’
The army’s supporters, on the other hand, claim that there was no reason for it to harbour bin Laden. What would Pakistan gain? they ask. On the face of it, this seems like a strong rhetorical rebuttal. But years ago, Gen Pervez Musharraf had unwittingly provided a clear and cogent explanation. The back cover of his 2006 autobiography, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir, reads:
Since shortly after 9/11 – when many Al-Qaeda leaders fled Afghanistan and crossed the border into Pakistan – we have played multiple games of cat and mouse with them. The biggest of them all, Osama bin Laden, is still at large at the time of this writing but we have caught many, many others. We have captured 672 and handed over 369 to the United States. We have earned bounties totaling millions of dollars. Here, I will tell the story of just a few of the most significant manhunts.
Musharraf was army chief in 2005, when bin Laden’s specially fortified compound in Abbottabad was being constructed. At that time, political chatterers were wont to speculate about which al-Qaeda or Taliban leader would be miraculously captured or killed on the eve of some important US military or political leader’s visit to Pakistan. Indeed, like the proverbial rabbit pulled out of the magician’s hat, a high or middle-ranking leader was usually produced around that time. Important arrests included those of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Kuwaiti-born senior al-Qaeda leader who was arrested in Rawalpindi, and Mullah Baradar, a Taliban leader arrested in Karachi. The Americans visitors generally took satisfaction as they departed.
This line of thought suggests that bin Laden was the army’s golden goose – the ultimate trophy to be traded in at the right time for the right price, whether in dollars or political concessions. I do not wish to insinuate that the army was in secret collusion with al-Qaeda. Indeed, this was scarcely possible, given the hostility al-Qaeda had expressed against Pakistan’s army leadership. Restricted to his hideout, bin Laden could not have been effective in directing operations. Without telephones or Internet in his house, and communications limited to the occasional courier, bin Laden was now the army’s virtual captive. At some point, the army started seeing him as their cash cow.
An examination of the computer drives seized from bin Laden’s lair will ultimately reveal the degree of the army’s involvement. Until then, to be rigorous, one must not foreclose the possibility that the army and ISI leadership were ignorant of bin Laden’s whereabouts. So let us momentarily accept that there had been a genuine intelligence failure, as stated by the ISI chief before the closed session of Parliament.
If true, this would say two things. First, that the intelligence failure was that of the ISI leadership but not necessarily that of the entire organisation. As in the case of the Mumbai attacks, where two lower-level ISI officers were disciplined for their involvement, information channels could have been deliberately designed so as to keep information away from the senior leadership, following a policy of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’. This would give the senior military leadership greater deniability. (In this instance one need not distinguish between ISI and army, even though the ISI formally reports to the prime minister rather than the army chief.) Second, it says that the ISI and military are playing high-stakes Russian roulette. In seeking to destroy the enemy, they are using a weapon that fires equally often forward and backward. This was revealed with stunning clarity when the army headquarters in Rawalpindi was attacked in 2009, and the ISI headquarters in three cities were destroyed by suicide bombers. All attacks were traced to insider involvement.
Rent-a-jihad?
While Pakistan’s military rulers are said to have some attraction to wads of money, those who are out to kill Pakistani soldiers and generals in the name of religion appear to have no less. This is suggested by the bizarre absence of jihadist reaction to bin
Laden’s killing.
Of course, this is not wholly true. A suicide bombing in Charsadda on 13 May, eleven days after the bin Laden operation, killed 69 Frontier Constabulary paramilitary soldiers and responsibility was claimed by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as revenge for bin Laden’s death. But it is unclear whether this was indeed a revenge attack, or if it was instead intended as punishment for the ongoing army operations in the district of Mohmand Agency and elsewhere in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). In any case, in a country where suicide attacks are near-daily occurrences and Frontier Constabulary personnel are considered to be cannon fodder, the matter disappeared from public attention after just a day or two.
One expected far more protest. Pakistan, after all, is a country where bin Laden t-shirts and posters were sold on street corners before and after 9/11. But the demonstrations shown on TV were uncharacteristically thin. The largest reported was of about 4000 people who turned up at a rally organised by Hafiz Saeed, the head of the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD). Noticeably absent were Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam chief who lays claim to be the father of the Taliban, and Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, head of the banned Harkatul Mujahideen. They did not offer funeral prayers for bin Laden. Even mainstream Urdu papers referred to the halakat (killing) of bin Laden rather than his shahadat (martyrdom). Shockingly, in referring to its former hero, the Islamist right-wing newspaper Nawa-i-Waqt used the disrespectful word uss (he) rather than the respectful unn.
What on earth had happened? Why did the acclaimed hero of jihadism die virtually un-mourned? And what makes some extreme rightwing commentators describe bin Laden’s mission as that of spreading fasaad (internal strife) rather than jihad, holy war?
Bushels of Saudi riyals did the job. Mainstream Sunni jihadist groups in Pakistan are now increasingly projecting themselves as praetorian guards of the Saudi regime, which in turn finances them. When a radicalised bin Laden turned violently against the country of his birth, Saudi Arabia, he initiated a deep rift between al-Qaeda and some Pakistani jihadist groups. Amir Rana, a noted terrorism expert, remarks that publications of the Jamat-ud-Dawa, whose affiliate carried out the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, now sing praises of the Saudi kingdom. The JuD is actively working to defuse the anti-Saudi campaign by pro-Shia elements in Pakistan who had launched rallies and demonstrations against Saudi Arabia’s recent military intervention in Bahrain. More recently, a pro-Saudi demonstration in Karachi turned into an armed clash.
Pro- and anti-Saudi divisions have become so deep that Saudi interests in Pakistan are now open targets. There is a deep split between the TTP, which fully uses suicide bombings as a tactic, and the pro-Saudi Lashkar-e-Toiba, which disapproves of their use against Muslim targets (although they are allowed against others). Until a while ago, these two groups had been allies. But within days of the bin Laden operation, grenades were being lobbed over the walls of the Saudi embassy in Karachi. Subsequently, the Pakistani Taliban expressed its ‘full support’ for the shooting death of a Saudi diplomat in Karachi on 16 May this year, the second attack against Saudi officials in the city in less than two weeks. Like Western diplomats, who had moved their families out of Pakistan many years ago, the Saudis are relocating their families back home. Jihadistan is no longer safe, even for the funders of jihad.
The un-mourned passing of Osama bin Laden has merely confirmed the old adage: He who pays the piper calls the tune. Saudi money has weaned support away from al-Qaeda, and towards those groups that are both pro-Saudi and pro-Pakistan. Indeed, the Saudi and Pakistani establishments have much in common. They agree on the definition of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ jihadis; both are formal US allies with a strictly transactional master-client relationship with Washington DC; both use extra-state actors in pursuing their foreign-policy goals; both are anti-Shia and strongly pro-Wahhabi; and both are relieved that al-Qaeda has been decimated.
A prognosis
At this point, my cracked crystal ball suggests the following five points:
First, Pakistan’s generals will remain in thrall of their own irrational logic of selectively encouraging militancy. They are red-faced today, but their high-stakes game is not over. In the past they survived the adventure of secretly sending militants and soldiers across the Line of Control in Kargil, profited from A Q Khan’s sale of nuclear wares in the open market, and gave tacit permission to the Lashkar-e-Toiba’s military preparations and the Mumbai operation. While damaging, these revelations did not prove fatal.
Second, the status quo will reign on Pakistan’s eastern border. Abbottabad could well inspire some Indians to dream about doing an operation in Muridke or Bahawalpur against the Jaish-e-Mohammed or Lashkar-e-Toiba. But the Indians know that, should their forces engage in a similar SEALs-type mission, the Pakistani response would be different and disproportionate. In a situation where nuclear-tipped missiles are poised for flight across contiguous borders, it is wise to avoid fatally foolish fantasies. The failure of Operation Parakaram, India’s response to the attack on the Indian Parliament on December 2001, represented a 10-month-long mobilisation of nearly half a million soldiers and deployment of troops along the border. When Parakaram fizzled out, Pakistan claimed victory and India was left licking its wounds. For this, India should blame no one but itself. Having aggressively initiated the nuclearisation of Southasia, it inadvertently levelled the playing field and made Pakistan the winner.
Third, US military and economic aid to Pakistan will continue. Until the US fully or largely withdraws from Afghanistan, it will remain dependent upon Pakistan both for allowing NATO supplies to be trucked across its territory, as well as for limiting the operation of the Haqqani network in North Waziristan. The chorus of voices in the US Congress against continuing aid to Pakistan will die down, while conditionalities on aid will escalate. Zalmay Khalilzad, former US ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan, has written an article that gives a preview of these potential conditionalities:
First, we should formally present any information about Pakistani complicity in shielding Bin Laden to Pakistan’s leaders. Then we should follow up with demands that Pakistan break the backbone of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan by moving against figures like Ayman al-Zawahiri; remove limits on the Predator drone campaign; uproot insurgent sanctuaries and shut down factories that produce bombs for use against American and Afghan soldiers; and support a reasonable political settlement in Afghanistan.
Pakistan will continue to play its current game – and suffer periodic embarrassments as with the recent WikiLeaks revelations – because it cannot afford a total break with the US. For all the current bluster of ‘breaking the chains’, its economy is dependent upon US largesse. Pakistan will therefore keep running with jihadi hares while hunting with the American hounds. Furthermore, Islamabad senses that strategic depth in Afghanistan now lies within the realm of possibilities. But this requires US acquiescence, or at least that there be no active opposition. All things considered, neither side feels it can afford to upset the applecart. The working military-to-military relationship will therefore not end.
Fourth, Pakistan-China relations will grow warmer. Upon his arrival in Shanghai two weeks after the bin Laden raid, Prime Minister Gillani declared China his country’s ‘best and most trusted friend’. The hope in Pakistan is that, as and when relations with the US sour, it will have another major power to which to turn. China had already conveyed to the US that it does not condone the US’s violation of Pakistan’s airspace to attack bin Laden. The 5 May editorial of the Urdu newspaper Jang complemented China ‘for daring to stand against the Western forces’, and stated that ‘China is the only hope for countries like Pakistan.’ Yet while China is often referred to in Pakistan as an ‘all-weather friend’, this friendship does come at a price: the Pakistani market has been flooded by cheap Chinese goods that have driven small local industries out of business. Its trade with China is largely one-sided, with Pakistani exports being of raw materials and foodstuffs. It is said that China has hugely benefited from opaque mining deals in resource-rich Balochistan. Still, Pakistan-China trade stands at only USD 8 billion, and is minuscule compared to India-China trade of about USD 70 million at present.
And fifth, the bin Laden episode is sure to harden Pakistan’s nuclear stance. For the world, the fact that its most-wanted fugitive was hidden in an army town puts the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons into doubt. Logically speaking, there are only two possibilities. If the military was actually unaware of the world’s most-wanted terrorist being virtually under its nose, then its claims about Pakistani nuclear weapons being unassailable become questionable. On the other hand, if it was playing a game using bin Laden as a pawn, then it is not to be trusted with nuclear weapons. Suggesting either possibility infuriates Pakistan’s security establishment. The Strategic Plans Division, which has custody of Pakistani nuclear weapons, dismisses the chance of a mutiny in nuclear quarters and chooses to ignore the numerous insider attacks upon the military and ISI.
Stung by such suggestions in the aftermath of bin Laden’s killing, the army released an emphatic statement: ‘As regards the possibility of similar hostile action against our strategic assets, the forum reaffirmed that unlike an undefended civilian compound, our strategic assets are well protected and an elaborate defensive mechanism is in place.’ Like nuclear North Korea, Pakistan feels secure. It knows that international financial donors are compelled to keep pumping in funds. Otherwise, a collapsing Pakistan would be unable to prevent its hundred-plus Hiroshima-sized nukes from disappearing into the darkness. For this purpose, more nukes are better.
Where does Pakistan go from here as a country? With bin Laden gone, the military has two remaining major strategic assets: America’s weakness in Afghanistan, and Pakistani nuclear weapons. It will surely move these chess pieces around adroitly to extract the maximum advantage. But this will not assure the peace and prosperity that Pakistanis so desperately crave. These will not give security to Pakistan, solve the country’s mounting electricity and water crises, move its citizens out of dire economic straits, give them justice and opportunity, or protect them from suicide bombers. Until the military sorts out its own internal matters, and the conviction comes about that Pakistan will deal with terrorists as terrorists should be dealt with, the country will not be at peace with itself or with the world.
Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy is chair and professor in the department of physics at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan, where he has taught for 38 years.
June 2011
The killing of Osama bin Laden could provide Pakistan an opportunity to reverse its downward slide, though changing course will not be easy. The country must decide whether to decisively confront Islamist violence, or continue with the military’s current policy of supporting jihadi militants with one hand even as it slaps them with the other.
Righteous wrath: Watching news of the death of Osama bin Laden in Lahore, 79-year-old Baba demands, ‘How is it possible that we have nuclear bombs, nobody can trespass in our airspace, but then helicopters from Kabul can come and no one notices?’
The most intensive manhunt in history ended on 2 May 2011 with the killing of Osama bin Laden. When an elite squad of helicopter-borne US Navy SEALs slipped into Pakistan from Afghanistan, they returned with the body of al-Qaeda’s founder-king. To the relief of many around the world, the man who had attacked and physically eliminated all he perceived as enemies of Islam – Soviets and Americans, Iraqis and Pakistanis – was dispatched to his watery grave.
Initially, the Pakistani government claimed cooperation in the operation. But this was flatly rejected by those who had laid and executed the intricate plans. John Brennan, assistant to President Barack Obama for homeland security and counterterrorism, said, ‘We didn’t contact the Pakistanis until after all of our people, all of our aircraft were out of Pakistani airspace … we were watching and making sure that our people and our aircraft were able to get out of Pakistani airspace. And thankfully, there was no engagement with Pakistani forces.’ The director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Leon Panetta, hinted at Pakistan’s complicity with al-Qaeda when he said, ‘It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis might jeopardise the mission: they might alert the targets.’ Significantly, President Obama did not thank Pakistan.
For Pakistan it was, as columnist Ayaz Amir put it, the mother of all embarrassments. For years, the country’s military and civilian leaders had flatly denied bin Laden’s presence in the country. Some had slyly suggested he might be in Sudan or Somalia. Others confidently claimed that he had died from a kidney ailment, or perhaps was in some intractable area protected by nature and terrain, and thus outside of the effective control of the Pakistani state. But as it turned out, of course, the world’s most famous and recognisable terrorist’s abode was within walking distance of the famed Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul, a short distance from Abbottabad, where, just days earlier, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had declared that ‘The terrorist backbone has been broken and inshaallah we will soon prevail.’
Pakistanis, who think of their military as a fine fighting force, were angry and appalled that the American invaders got away with the raid scot-free. The military consumes a huge chunk of Pakistan’s national resources; it had just purchased sophisticated AWAC aircraft, continues receiving delivery of modernised US F-16s, and has a nuclear arsenal that could soon rival Britain’s in size. But the hugely expensive system proved unable to detect, much less confront, the five slow-moving helicopters that flew in south from Jalalabad. Two of these landed and stayed for 40 minutes almost next to the brigade headquarters of the Second Division of the Northern Army Corps in Abbottabad. They left without engagement. It was only when the Americans had exited Pakistan’s airspace that air defences were scrambled.
For multiple reasons, bin Laden’s killing has become a bone stuck in the throat of Pakistan’s establishment, which despises the Americans but is formally aligned with them. This bone can neither be swallowed nor spat out. To approve of the Abbottabad operation would infuriate the Islamists, who are already fighting the state. To protest too loudly, however, would suggest that Pakistan had willingly hosted the king of terrorists.
Subservient civilians
One clear consequence of the US operation was to put into stark relief the humble subservience of Pakistan’s civilians to their military masters. As the story broke on Pakistani news channels, the elected government quaked. It was too weak, corrupt and inept to take initiatives. Thus, there was no official Pakistani reaction for hours after President Obama had announced the success of the US mission. A stunned silence was finally broken when the Foreign Office declared that ‘Osama bin Laden’s death illustrates the resolve of the international community including Pakistan to fight and eliminate terrorism.’ Hours later, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani described the killing as a ‘great victory’. Thereupon, Pakistan’s high commissioner to the UK, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, rushed to claim credit: ‘Pakistan’s government was cooperating with American intelligence throughout and they had been monitoring [bin Laden’s] activities with the Americans, and they kept track of him from Afghanistan, Waziristan to Afghanistan and again to North Waziristan.’
This welcoming stance was reversed almost instantly. A stern look from the military, which had finally decided to condemn the raid, took a few hours in coming. Praising the killing of the world’s most wanted terrorist was now out of the question. In its moment of shame, the government furiously twisted and turned. Official spokespeople babbled on, becoming increasingly senseless and contradictory. Without referring to the statement he had made that very morning of 3 May, High Commissioner Hasan abruptly reversed his public position, now saying: ‘Nobody knew that Osama bin Laden was there – no security agency, no Pakistani authorities knew about it. Had we known it, we would have done it ourselves.’
Tongue-tied for 36 hours, president and prime minister awaited pointers from the army, following them dutifully after they were received. But simple obedience could not satisfy the army. Gen Kayani announced his unhappiness with the government: ‘Incomplete information and lack of technical details have resulted in speculations and misreporting. Public dismay and despondency has also been aggravated due to an insufficient formal response.’ The threat was barely veiled: the government must proactively defend the army and intelligence agencies, or else…
Thus prodded, a full eight days after the incident Prime Minister Gillani broke his silence. He absolved the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and army of ‘either complicity or incompetence’. Before an incredulous world, he claimed in a statement that both suggestions were ‘absurd’. Attempting to spread the blame, he declared in Paris, before his meeting with President Sarkozy, ‘This is an intelligence failure of the whole world, not Pakistan alone.’
mage: Phil StearnsPrime Minister Gillani, more loyal than the king, had somewhat overstretched himself. Even the head of the ISI, Lieutenant-General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, was not confident that he had done a good job. In appearing before an in-camera session of the Parliament, Pasha broke a long tradition of being unanswerable to civilian authorities, but it is said his offer was met with dead silence. Servitude to power runs thick in the blood of Islamabad’s politicians, which is why they wrote, some decades ago, into the Pakistan Constitution that it is a crime to criticise the armed forces of Pakistan or to bring them into disaffection.
Though the incompetence of the civilian government is legendary, the responsibility for the present debacle lies squarely with the military. Except when the military has itself been the government, Pakistan’s strategic decision-making has been entirely invented and executed by generals who consider their interests to be synonymous with that of the country. Pakistanis have good reason to fear their army. Although it might not have won any war against India, it has been victorious on all four occasions when it moved against civilian governments. It is unsurprising that on nuclear weapons, Kashmir, India, Afghanistan and Pakistan-US relations, the army alone makes the decisions.
Bin Laden’s killing presented a rare opportunity for Pakistan to reclaim some of the powers snatched by its army. But the government chose the status quo instead. Over forty years ago, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who had before him a weakened army that he had rescued from ignominy, made the mistake of restoring the army’s former status, rather than make it respect the supremacy of the Parliament. Eventually that same army hanged him. As mere survivors, the Zardari/Gillani government has little interest in history or the future of Pakistan, content as they seem to be to whitewash the army and let it off the hook.
Untamed warriors
Why was Pakistan’s warrior class never tamed by civilian rule? The answer must be sought in the foundation of Pakistan and the state of confusion into which it was born. Beyond the simplistic notion that Hindus and Muslims were incapable of living together, the idea of Pakistan was unclear from the outset. Although he made many speeches, Mohammad Ali Jinnah left no manifesto and authored no book before his untimely death. Critical questions were thus left unanswered: Would the new state be capitalist or socialist, liberal or theocratic, modern or tradition-based? On what basis would power be distributed between its different regions? How would defence, education, science, health, etc be prioritised?
With no clear answers, and lacking a clear basis for legitimacy or direction, the state quickly aligned with the powerful landed class: the army leadership and the economic elite joined forces to claim authority in a nation without definition or cohesion. The Kashmir dispute gave reason for the military to become powerful and to make the acquisition of modern weaponry an overriding priority. The Americans happily obliged, given the burgeoning cold war. A fatal attraction for guns steadily drew Pakistan into the US orbit.
Still, it is easy to blame the military for Pakistan’s deepening failure as a state. But the responsibility must be shared with the wider ‘establishment’ that runs Pakistan. Stephen P Cohen, a political scientist, calls this establishment a ‘moderate oligarchy’ and defines it as ‘an informal political system loosely bound together that ties together the senior ranks of the military, the civil service, key members of the judiciary, and other elites.’ Membership in this oligarchy, Cohen contends, requires adherence to a common set of core beliefs.
These beliefs can be easily enumerated. Members of ‘the establishment’ must believe that India has to be countered at every turn; that nuclear weapons have endowed Pakistan with security and status; that the fight for Kashmir is the unfinished business of Partition; that large-scale social reforms, such as land redistribution, are unacceptable; that the uneducated and illiterate masses deserve only contempt; that vociferous Muslim nationalism is desirable but the Sharia is not; and that Washington is to be despised but fully taken advantage of.
In such a situation, the absence of a blueprint meant that Pakistan could have gone in many different directions. The one actually chosen by history resulted in its becoming a client state of the US. This trend became stronger after the 1958 coup by General Ayub Khan, when the US was keen to cultivate allies against communism during the Cold War. Pakistan was invited into the SEATO and CENTO alliances (covering Southeast and West Asia, respectively) and, to quote arch anti-communist John Foster Dulles, became America’s ‘most allied ally’. The embrace became tighter with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The American strategy for defeating the ‘Evil Empire’ required marshalling the forces of Islam from every part of the world. With General Zia-ul-Haq as America’s foremost ally, and Saudi Arabia as the principal source of funds, the CIA openly recruited Islamic holy warriors from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Algeria.
Radical Islam went into overdrive as its superpower ally and mentor funnelled support to the mujahideen. The strategy worked. In 1988, Soviet troops withdrew unconditionally, and the US-Pakistan-Saudi-Egypt alliance emerged victorious. A chapter of history seemed complete, and hubris defined US policy for another two decades. But the true costs of this victory did not take long to surface. Even in the mid-1990s – long before the attacks of 11 September 2001 – it was clear that the victorious alliance had unwittingly created a new entity that had gone beyond its control.
This, in a nutshell, is the history of how Pakistan became host to the current array of radical Islamist groups. These pathological social and religious formations have developed divergent goals. Some target the American empire, which is why Pakistan was the country of choice for bin Laden. Other groups focus on the more limited goal of ‘liberating’ Kashmir. Still others, such as Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba, are largely anti-Shia. Gradually, Pakistan morphed into Jihadistan, attracting a multitude of Islamists from Europe to West and Central Asia to Indonesia. But Jihadistan is a messy place these days, a far cry from the simple bastion of anti-communism in the 1980s. Today the military must kill some of its former protégés and some radicals even as it secretly supports others.
Collective psychosis
Twenty-five years ago, the Pakistani state pushed Islam on its people as a matter of ideology. Prayers were made compulsory in government departments, punishments were meted out to those civil servants who did not fast during Ramadan, selection for academic posts required that the candidate demonstrate knowledge of Islamic teachings, and jihad was propagated through schoolbooks. Today, government intervention is no longer needed because of the spontaneous groundswell of Islamic zeal that has been the result of the years of grooming. A generation of poisoned minds that holds the external world responsible for all the country’s ills has led the country into collective xenophobia and psychosis. Signs suggest that a fascist religious state may be just around the corner.
A necessary condition for fascism – a sense of victimhood, mass delusions and a disconnection with reality – has now been met. A majority of all Pakistanis believe that 9/11 was a Jewish conspiracy, think the dynamiting of schools and suicide attacks on shrines are the work of Blackwater (the US defence contractor now called Xe), see India’s hand behind Pakistan’s deepening instability and, refuse to accept Pakistan’s responsibility in the Mumbai attacks of November 2008. Many welcomed the murder of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer in January, despite the fact that his only ‘crime’ was to protect a poor peasant Christian woman against charges of blasphemy. Surveys also show that a majority believes that senior army officers do not support the Taliban, and think that peace will return to Pakistan once the US leaves Afghanistan.
Those holding such distorted views of the world greeted the news of bin Laden’s killing with outright disbelief and denial. Pakistan’s capacity for self-deception should not be underestimated. An online survey conducted two days after the operation by a global opinion pollster revealed that a staggering 66 percent of Pakistanis thought the person who was killed by US Navy SEALs was not bin Laden. Participants in satirical TV shows burst into peals of laughter as they poured scorn on America and its claims. The supposed killing of bin Laden was nothing but high drama, said popular TV anchors. General Mirza Aslam Beg, former army chief and the formulator of the notion of ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan, fully agreed. He wrote: ‘Osama’s look-alike prisoner from Bagram was picked-up and brought to Abbottabad and killed in cold blood, in front of his family members, who were living there. In fact, Osama had been killed in Afghanistan some time back and his body may still be lying in a mortuary in Afghanistan.’ Beg says it was all a ploy to defame the Pakistan government, the Pakistan armed forces and the ISI.
Rent-a-country
Over decades, Pakistan has adapted to its changing strategic circumstances by renting itself out to powerful states. Territory and men are part of the services provided. Payment comes not just from the US, but Arab countries as well. For fear of public criticism, the arrangements have been kept hidden. Pakistan’s supposedly vibrant press has chosen to steer off such controversial issues. But post bin-Laden, the clatter of skeletons tumbling out of Pakistan’s strategic closet is forcing some secrets out into the open.
Questioning by angry Pakistani parliamentarians has been particularly revealing. They wanted to know from Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman just how US helicopters had entered Pakistan and escaped without detection. Where did US drones fly from? Was it Shamsi air base in Balochistan, as some foreign newspapers had alleged? His answer left them stunned: Shamsi base was not under the control of the Pakistan Air Force but, instead, of the United Arab Emirates. Why would the UAE want the base? Ostensibly because wealthy Arabs have many land investments in Pakistan, and often travel to the country in their own planes for purposes such as hunting expeditions. As for not detecting the incursion, the air chief conceded that Pakistan’s radar defence had not been jammed at the time of the Navy SEALs incursion. ‘I do not know from where the helicopters who participated in the Abbottabad operation that killed Osama bin Laden came,’ he said. In another country it is hard to see how an air chief could have kept his job.
The army’s indignation over the violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty by the bin Laden operation is phony; it is a dispute over the amount of rent, not over principle. US drones have targets inside Pakistani territory and some take off from bases within Pakistan. But even as drone attacks are given a wink and a nod, the military simultaneously makes a formal protest to the US. However, one does not hear expressions of indignation at the loss of Pakistan’s sovereignty to Arab fighters and the Taliban in Waziristan, Kurram, Parachinar and other tribal areas.
Post-bin Laden, stung by criticism from the general public and seeking to raise morale, Gen Kayani has been stumping the garrisons. Meanwhile, he has been asked why the invaders were not challenged and destroyed. Who sheltered bin Laden if we are actually fighting al-Qaeda? The Express Tribune quotes an unnamed young military officer who made a stinging comment before the army chief: ‘Sir, I am ashamed of what happened in Abbottabad.’ Replied Gen Kayani, ‘So am I.’ He promptly went on to hold the government responsible for allowing Pakistan to get such bad press.
The golden goose
Osama bin Laden was found sheltered in the army’s backyard. Though caught red-handed, the army denied that it knew of his presence. A counter propaganda blitz followed, with street banners and pamphlets proclaiming that the army and ISI are the veritable pillars of Pakistan. Supporters and commentators were instructed to make the case that this was part of a great grand conspiracy against Pakistan, and to deny that bin Laden had been the army’s guest.
The results of the blitz have been mixed. Even the ferocious General Hamid Gul (retired), a self-proclaimed jihadi who advocates war on America, did not buy the army’s denial, remarking that bin Laden being in Abbottabad unknown to authorities ‘is a bit amazing’. Aside from the military, he said, ‘there is the local police, the Intelligence Bureau, Military Intelligence, the ISI – they all had a presence there.’
The army’s supporters, on the other hand, claim that there was no reason for it to harbour bin Laden. What would Pakistan gain? they ask. On the face of it, this seems like a strong rhetorical rebuttal. But years ago, Gen Pervez Musharraf had unwittingly provided a clear and cogent explanation. The back cover of his 2006 autobiography, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir, reads:
Since shortly after 9/11 – when many Al-Qaeda leaders fled Afghanistan and crossed the border into Pakistan – we have played multiple games of cat and mouse with them. The biggest of them all, Osama bin Laden, is still at large at the time of this writing but we have caught many, many others. We have captured 672 and handed over 369 to the United States. We have earned bounties totaling millions of dollars. Here, I will tell the story of just a few of the most significant manhunts.
Musharraf was army chief in 2005, when bin Laden’s specially fortified compound in Abbottabad was being constructed. At that time, political chatterers were wont to speculate about which al-Qaeda or Taliban leader would be miraculously captured or killed on the eve of some important US military or political leader’s visit to Pakistan. Indeed, like the proverbial rabbit pulled out of the magician’s hat, a high or middle-ranking leader was usually produced around that time. Important arrests included those of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Kuwaiti-born senior al-Qaeda leader who was arrested in Rawalpindi, and Mullah Baradar, a Taliban leader arrested in Karachi. The Americans visitors generally took satisfaction as they departed.
This line of thought suggests that bin Laden was the army’s golden goose – the ultimate trophy to be traded in at the right time for the right price, whether in dollars or political concessions. I do not wish to insinuate that the army was in secret collusion with al-Qaeda. Indeed, this was scarcely possible, given the hostility al-Qaeda had expressed against Pakistan’s army leadership. Restricted to his hideout, bin Laden could not have been effective in directing operations. Without telephones or Internet in his house, and communications limited to the occasional courier, bin Laden was now the army’s virtual captive. At some point, the army started seeing him as their cash cow.
An examination of the computer drives seized from bin Laden’s lair will ultimately reveal the degree of the army’s involvement. Until then, to be rigorous, one must not foreclose the possibility that the army and ISI leadership were ignorant of bin Laden’s whereabouts. So let us momentarily accept that there had been a genuine intelligence failure, as stated by the ISI chief before the closed session of Parliament.
If true, this would say two things. First, that the intelligence failure was that of the ISI leadership but not necessarily that of the entire organisation. As in the case of the Mumbai attacks, where two lower-level ISI officers were disciplined for their involvement, information channels could have been deliberately designed so as to keep information away from the senior leadership, following a policy of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’. This would give the senior military leadership greater deniability. (In this instance one need not distinguish between ISI and army, even though the ISI formally reports to the prime minister rather than the army chief.) Second, it says that the ISI and military are playing high-stakes Russian roulette. In seeking to destroy the enemy, they are using a weapon that fires equally often forward and backward. This was revealed with stunning clarity when the army headquarters in Rawalpindi was attacked in 2009, and the ISI headquarters in three cities were destroyed by suicide bombers. All attacks were traced to insider involvement.
Rent-a-jihad?
While Pakistan’s military rulers are said to have some attraction to wads of money, those who are out to kill Pakistani soldiers and generals in the name of religion appear to have no less. This is suggested by the bizarre absence of jihadist reaction to bin
Laden’s killing.
Of course, this is not wholly true. A suicide bombing in Charsadda on 13 May, eleven days after the bin Laden operation, killed 69 Frontier Constabulary paramilitary soldiers and responsibility was claimed by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as revenge for bin Laden’s death. But it is unclear whether this was indeed a revenge attack, or if it was instead intended as punishment for the ongoing army operations in the district of Mohmand Agency and elsewhere in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). In any case, in a country where suicide attacks are near-daily occurrences and Frontier Constabulary personnel are considered to be cannon fodder, the matter disappeared from public attention after just a day or two.
One expected far more protest. Pakistan, after all, is a country where bin Laden t-shirts and posters were sold on street corners before and after 9/11. But the demonstrations shown on TV were uncharacteristically thin. The largest reported was of about 4000 people who turned up at a rally organised by Hafiz Saeed, the head of the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD). Noticeably absent were Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam chief who lays claim to be the father of the Taliban, and Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, head of the banned Harkatul Mujahideen. They did not offer funeral prayers for bin Laden. Even mainstream Urdu papers referred to the halakat (killing) of bin Laden rather than his shahadat (martyrdom). Shockingly, in referring to its former hero, the Islamist right-wing newspaper Nawa-i-Waqt used the disrespectful word uss (he) rather than the respectful unn.
What on earth had happened? Why did the acclaimed hero of jihadism die virtually un-mourned? And what makes some extreme rightwing commentators describe bin Laden’s mission as that of spreading fasaad (internal strife) rather than jihad, holy war?
Bushels of Saudi riyals did the job. Mainstream Sunni jihadist groups in Pakistan are now increasingly projecting themselves as praetorian guards of the Saudi regime, which in turn finances them. When a radicalised bin Laden turned violently against the country of his birth, Saudi Arabia, he initiated a deep rift between al-Qaeda and some Pakistani jihadist groups. Amir Rana, a noted terrorism expert, remarks that publications of the Jamat-ud-Dawa, whose affiliate carried out the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, now sing praises of the Saudi kingdom. The JuD is actively working to defuse the anti-Saudi campaign by pro-Shia elements in Pakistan who had launched rallies and demonstrations against Saudi Arabia’s recent military intervention in Bahrain. More recently, a pro-Saudi demonstration in Karachi turned into an armed clash.
Pro- and anti-Saudi divisions have become so deep that Saudi interests in Pakistan are now open targets. There is a deep split between the TTP, which fully uses suicide bombings as a tactic, and the pro-Saudi Lashkar-e-Toiba, which disapproves of their use against Muslim targets (although they are allowed against others). Until a while ago, these two groups had been allies. But within days of the bin Laden operation, grenades were being lobbed over the walls of the Saudi embassy in Karachi. Subsequently, the Pakistani Taliban expressed its ‘full support’ for the shooting death of a Saudi diplomat in Karachi on 16 May this year, the second attack against Saudi officials in the city in less than two weeks. Like Western diplomats, who had moved their families out of Pakistan many years ago, the Saudis are relocating their families back home. Jihadistan is no longer safe, even for the funders of jihad.
The un-mourned passing of Osama bin Laden has merely confirmed the old adage: He who pays the piper calls the tune. Saudi money has weaned support away from al-Qaeda, and towards those groups that are both pro-Saudi and pro-Pakistan. Indeed, the Saudi and Pakistani establishments have much in common. They agree on the definition of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ jihadis; both are formal US allies with a strictly transactional master-client relationship with Washington DC; both use extra-state actors in pursuing their foreign-policy goals; both are anti-Shia and strongly pro-Wahhabi; and both are relieved that al-Qaeda has been decimated.
A prognosis
At this point, my cracked crystal ball suggests the following five points:
First, Pakistan’s generals will remain in thrall of their own irrational logic of selectively encouraging militancy. They are red-faced today, but their high-stakes game is not over. In the past they survived the adventure of secretly sending militants and soldiers across the Line of Control in Kargil, profited from A Q Khan’s sale of nuclear wares in the open market, and gave tacit permission to the Lashkar-e-Toiba’s military preparations and the Mumbai operation. While damaging, these revelations did not prove fatal.
Second, the status quo will reign on Pakistan’s eastern border. Abbottabad could well inspire some Indians to dream about doing an operation in Muridke or Bahawalpur against the Jaish-e-Mohammed or Lashkar-e-Toiba. But the Indians know that, should their forces engage in a similar SEALs-type mission, the Pakistani response would be different and disproportionate. In a situation where nuclear-tipped missiles are poised for flight across contiguous borders, it is wise to avoid fatally foolish fantasies. The failure of Operation Parakaram, India’s response to the attack on the Indian Parliament on December 2001, represented a 10-month-long mobilisation of nearly half a million soldiers and deployment of troops along the border. When Parakaram fizzled out, Pakistan claimed victory and India was left licking its wounds. For this, India should blame no one but itself. Having aggressively initiated the nuclearisation of Southasia, it inadvertently levelled the playing field and made Pakistan the winner.
Third, US military and economic aid to Pakistan will continue. Until the US fully or largely withdraws from Afghanistan, it will remain dependent upon Pakistan both for allowing NATO supplies to be trucked across its territory, as well as for limiting the operation of the Haqqani network in North Waziristan. The chorus of voices in the US Congress against continuing aid to Pakistan will die down, while conditionalities on aid will escalate. Zalmay Khalilzad, former US ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan, has written an article that gives a preview of these potential conditionalities:
First, we should formally present any information about Pakistani complicity in shielding Bin Laden to Pakistan’s leaders. Then we should follow up with demands that Pakistan break the backbone of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan by moving against figures like Ayman al-Zawahiri; remove limits on the Predator drone campaign; uproot insurgent sanctuaries and shut down factories that produce bombs for use against American and Afghan soldiers; and support a reasonable political settlement in Afghanistan.
Pakistan will continue to play its current game – and suffer periodic embarrassments as with the recent WikiLeaks revelations – because it cannot afford a total break with the US. For all the current bluster of ‘breaking the chains’, its economy is dependent upon US largesse. Pakistan will therefore keep running with jihadi hares while hunting with the American hounds. Furthermore, Islamabad senses that strategic depth in Afghanistan now lies within the realm of possibilities. But this requires US acquiescence, or at least that there be no active opposition. All things considered, neither side feels it can afford to upset the applecart. The working military-to-military relationship will therefore not end.
Fourth, Pakistan-China relations will grow warmer. Upon his arrival in Shanghai two weeks after the bin Laden raid, Prime Minister Gillani declared China his country’s ‘best and most trusted friend’. The hope in Pakistan is that, as and when relations with the US sour, it will have another major power to which to turn. China had already conveyed to the US that it does not condone the US’s violation of Pakistan’s airspace to attack bin Laden. The 5 May editorial of the Urdu newspaper Jang complemented China ‘for daring to stand against the Western forces’, and stated that ‘China is the only hope for countries like Pakistan.’ Yet while China is often referred to in Pakistan as an ‘all-weather friend’, this friendship does come at a price: the Pakistani market has been flooded by cheap Chinese goods that have driven small local industries out of business. Its trade with China is largely one-sided, with Pakistani exports being of raw materials and foodstuffs. It is said that China has hugely benefited from opaque mining deals in resource-rich Balochistan. Still, Pakistan-China trade stands at only USD 8 billion, and is minuscule compared to India-China trade of about USD 70 million at present.
And fifth, the bin Laden episode is sure to harden Pakistan’s nuclear stance. For the world, the fact that its most-wanted fugitive was hidden in an army town puts the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons into doubt. Logically speaking, there are only two possibilities. If the military was actually unaware of the world’s most-wanted terrorist being virtually under its nose, then its claims about Pakistani nuclear weapons being unassailable become questionable. On the other hand, if it was playing a game using bin Laden as a pawn, then it is not to be trusted with nuclear weapons. Suggesting either possibility infuriates Pakistan’s security establishment. The Strategic Plans Division, which has custody of Pakistani nuclear weapons, dismisses the chance of a mutiny in nuclear quarters and chooses to ignore the numerous insider attacks upon the military and ISI.
Stung by such suggestions in the aftermath of bin Laden’s killing, the army released an emphatic statement: ‘As regards the possibility of similar hostile action against our strategic assets, the forum reaffirmed that unlike an undefended civilian compound, our strategic assets are well protected and an elaborate defensive mechanism is in place.’ Like nuclear North Korea, Pakistan feels secure. It knows that international financial donors are compelled to keep pumping in funds. Otherwise, a collapsing Pakistan would be unable to prevent its hundred-plus Hiroshima-sized nukes from disappearing into the darkness. For this purpose, more nukes are better.
Where does Pakistan go from here as a country? With bin Laden gone, the military has two remaining major strategic assets: America’s weakness in Afghanistan, and Pakistani nuclear weapons. It will surely move these chess pieces around adroitly to extract the maximum advantage. But this will not assure the peace and prosperity that Pakistanis so desperately crave. These will not give security to Pakistan, solve the country’s mounting electricity and water crises, move its citizens out of dire economic straits, give them justice and opportunity, or protect them from suicide bombers. Until the military sorts out its own internal matters, and the conviction comes about that Pakistan will deal with terrorists as terrorists should be dealt with, the country will not be at peace with itself or with the world.
Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy is chair and professor in the department of physics at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan, where he has taught for 38 years.
Tuesday 3 November 2009
Bring back Jinnah’s Pakistan
Hello everybody,
Here is the latest piece of article from Mr. Ardsher Cowasjee. It is worthwhile reading.
Mohammed Hassanali
By Ardeshir Cowasjee
Sunday, 01 Nov, 2009
Had the Mideast and S.Asia heeded Jinnah’s advice on religion and state the world may have been in better shape today. —Photo by AFP
Of late, amidst the murder and mayhem accompanied by an absence of government or any signs of governance, a group of citizens has been circulating an email message exhorting whoever to ‘bring back Jinnah’s Pakistan’.
Now, to bring back something that existed for a mere moment in the life of this nation is more than difficult at a time when the national mindset is what it is.
Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s Pakistan was denounced six months after his death when the Objectives Resolution was passed, negating the words he had so eloquently spoken to his constituent assembly on Aug 11 1947: ‘... You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the state.’ Thus, willy-nilly, the state was made the custodian of religion.
In the early 1950s, the British writer Hector Bolitho was commissioned by the government to write an official biography of Jinnah. It was published in 1954. Such was the moral dishonesty and hypocrisy that had taken a firm hold and rooted itself in the country’s psyche that the ruling clique of the day perverted Jinnah’s words, and printed in the book was this version of the quoted sentence: ‘You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state.’
In April 1962, the days of President Gen Ayub Khan, came a lessening of the prevailing hypocrisy and the government press department published a collection of Jinnah’s speeches as governor general of Pakistan. The Aug 11, 1947 speech was printed in full in its original version. (These speeches were reprinted by the government of Benazir Bhutto and released for sale in 1989.)
In 1984, when wily Ziaul Haq ruled, came the finest biography of Jinnah so far written. Prof Stanley Wolpert’s well-researched book, Jinnah of Pakistan, was published in the US by Oxford University Press and 500 copies were sent to Pakistan to be released for sale.
Prior to its release, two copies were sent by OUP to the information ministry seeking permission to reprint locally. The minions of this pernicious ministry, which should not exist, took exception to certain passages in the book in which our founder-maker’s personal tastes and habits were mentioned.
The 498 copies of the book lying with OUP were removed from their storeroom and reprinting of course denied. To top this crass idiocy, Wolpert was approached and asked to delete the offending passages so that it could be reprinted and sold. Naturally, Wolpert’s response was that as a scholar he was unable to compromise on basic principles and any deletion/amendment was out of the question.
Thus the book effectively remained banned in Pakistan until in 1989, when, to give full credit to Benazir and her government, permission was given to OUP to reprint and the book was released for sale. Zia’s was an exercise in pure futility.
Our large neighbour also has blinkered intolerant elements in its midst. There is a long list of books that are banned in India, amongst them Stanley Wolpert’s ‘factional’ novel on the assassination of Gandhi, Nine Hours to Rama, which was banned by the government in 1962. And now, this August, two days after its release the government of the Indian state of Gujarat saw fit to issue a notification ‘forfeiting’ and ‘prohibiting’ Jaswant Singh’s Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence (Mr Singh was also expelled by his party, the BJP).
The book was banned with immediate effect and in the wider public interest because it was alleged that its contents are highly objectionable, against the national interest, misleading, distort historical fact and that it is defamatory in regard to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who is largely regarded as the architect of modern India.
Mr Singh swiftly approached the Indian Supreme Court challenging the ban on the grounds of the violation of fundamental rights. The court issued a notice to the Gujrat government. In the meantime, an appeal was submitted to the Gujrat High Court which struck down the ban. With the Gujrat government prevaricating, the matter remains before the supreme court.
Now, to the bringing back in totality of Jinnah’s Pakistan — that we can never do as half of his Pakistan was shorn by the collusion of our politicians and army generals, the deadly mixture of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Gen Yahya Khan who threw away East Pakistan through a lust for power coupled by incompetence and insensitivity. What can be saved, if we had the leadership to do so, is the spirit of Jinnah’s Pakistan as expressed by him on that distant August day.
Had a large part of the Middle Eastern region and parts of South Asia been able to heed Jinnah’s words that religion, caste and creed ‘has nothing to do with the business of the state’ the world may well have been in better shape today. It is possible that the extremism that has galloped away in these areas would not have taken root had various states not been allowed to force upon the world their dangerously distorted version of a religion.
As for Pakistan, the Objectives Resolution forms the preamble to ZAB’s constitution and was additionally inserted as an annex by Ziaul Haq. Then we have ZAB’s second amendment to his constitution which reinforces bigotry and intolerance. No government has been strong enough to take on the mullah fraternity whose grip has strengthened with the years. To bring us back to Jinnah’s Pakistan, we must have a revolution — a revolution of the national mindset and a latter-day Ataturk to ensure that it is successful.
Tuesday 13 October 2009
Bullying ‘bloody civilians’
Here is another masterpiece of article from this distinguished journalist which shows the real face of otherwise a well respected (self declared) Field Marshal Ayub Khan who lead the first of a series of coup-d'état in a 60 year history of Pakistan
By Kamran Shafi
Tuesday, 13 Oct, 2009
I have read the complete text of the Kerry-Lugar Bill four times. I find nothing in it that impinges on Pakistan’s sovereignty, which went out the window with the Pakistan Army’s first steps towards forming a symbiotic, but completely inferior, relationship with the United States military.
I give below verbatim (parenthesis mine) an exact copy, but slightly abbreviated, of a Top Secret but now declassified (vide NND 959417 14/1/93) letter written by Gen Mohammad Ayub Khan, C-in-C of the Pakistan Army, to Admiral Arthur Radford, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, Pentagon [sic], Washington D.C. (Please read at
http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/pakistan/ayubkhan27sept1955.htm)
‘General Headquarters
Rawalpindi
[Pakistan]
27th Sep ‘55.
D.O. No. 7/36/C-in-C.
My dear Admiral Radford,
Considering that you have been such a good friend, I thought you would be interested to know how the affairs of military aid stand looked at from our angle … which to say the least is gloomy.
2. In early 1954, we were informed that Meyer’s Mission was coming out to Pakistan to negotiate details of military aid with us. In order to prepare our appreciation and plan for presentation to this Mission, we made several approaches to Pentagon [sic] to give us an indication of the scope of the aid. On failing to get any reply we prepared our case on the following basis.
In the event of major aggression against Pakistan, determine the forces required to:-
(a) Defend it.
(b) Launch a counter-offensive from it.
The result of appreciation on the above basis gave us an estimate of the additional effort to be put in by USA. [sic] after deducting our maximum effort on one or both scores, depending on how far America was prepared to go. It was not till the end of our briefing we were told [sic] that … the Mission had come out to find out our deficiencies in nuts and bolts and no more.
3. Then came our meeting in Washington in October ‘54. On it [sic] we were told
that America would be prepared to complete one ½ Division of our Armour and four Divisions of Infantry, and as we were spending the maximum we could on Armed Forces, apart from weapons etc required our additional
internal expense [salaries, staff cars?] would also be covered for these Formations. The programme was to take three years to complete. Thereafter our dealings began with the USMAAG.
4 .Now that the target was set, I thought the things will move smoothly so long as a sound working arrangement was evolved between the American Staff and our Staff. So, I issued a directive to my staff that they will work in close collaboration with the Americans, who were also asked to work more or less on a joint staff basis with our fellows. Unfortunately I failed to obtain American cooperation on this with the result that when our staff presented our requirements list it was objected to on the ground that our Divisional strength was in excess of theirs, which could not be supported. In any case no more than 40,000 additional men could be catered for. Our figure was 56,000 men. When asked for the working of the figure of 40,000 men, no satisfactory answer could be given.
5. Thereupon the whole thing was put in the melting pot and our staff went to work again. We reduced our establishments to remain within 40,000 men additional permissible limit with the following effect:-
(a) Reducing of officer strength by 20per cent.
(b) Reduction of JCO and OR strength by 10per cent.
(c) Conversion of A/Tk units to Fd Arty Units.
(d) Conversion of two 5.5’ gun units to 155 mm How units.
(e) Non-activation of certain units.
(f) Deletion of expansion in Schools & Centers [sic].
6. Our requirements based on above [sic] were then worked out and submitted to USMAAG and presumably accepted by the Department of the Army, who allotted certain amount of funds for internal use for the fiscal year 1954-55. Incidentally the allotment for a certain set of accommodation [!] estimated to cost 16.64 crores [sic] rupees was 7.40 crores and so on. Meanwhile, the whole of Pakistan Army [sic] in general and especially the five ½ Divisions earmarked for completion are being churned up and re-organised to conform as far as practicable to American establishments.
7. Then came the bomb-shell in the form of the message from the Head of the USMAAG … shorn of its verbiage it reads that as far as the Army is concerned the ceiling of military aid is 75.5 million dollars and that all talk of balancing five ½ Division [sic] is revoked.
8. Forgive me for being frank, but I would be failing in my duty if I did not tell you that our people are completely frustrated. They think they have been given an enormous amount of work unnecessarily and that they have been let down. They are in a mood not to accept an American word however solemnly given. This is sad in that it does not augur well for our future good relationship which was one of the things I had been hoping to develop.
9. What the political repercussions be [sic] when this news gets known, and after all you cannot conceal facts indefinitely in a Democracy [this is really rich coming from the grand-daddy of coups d’état in the Land of the Pure!], I do not know. But one thing I do know that [sic] this government will come under tremendous pressure and fire from within and without.
Hope you are in very good health.
With best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
M.A. Khan’
So, gentlemen, why the discourteous, nay rebellious reaction to the Kerry-Lugar bill? Bullying the ‘bloody civilians,’ eh? After all your great forebear even gave out the TO&E (table of organisation and equipment) of the Pakistan Army in such detail? Surely the bit about the secretary of state certifying ever so often that the bloody civilians in Pakistan ‘exercise effective control of the military…’!?
I can only appeal to President Obama not to change a single word in the bill except ‘or the reallocation of Pakistan’s financial resources that would otherwise be spent for programmes and activities unrelated to its nuclear weapons programme.’
For that is our money. Otherwise tell ‘em to take it or leave it. Our Rommels and Guderians are not about to alight from their top of the line BMWs and Mercedes and climb into Suzuki Mehrans.
Sunday 11 October 2009
Can beggars be choosers?
Hello everybody,
Here's another masterpiece from Mr. Ardsher Cowasjee on the topic of the famous American aid bill known famously as KLB or Kerry Lugar Bill.
By Ardeshir Cowasjee
Sunday, 11 Oct, 2009
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The Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani presiding over the 122 Corps Commanders Conference held at General Headquarters on Wednesday. —ISPR
THE news as far as our media is concerned has been subsumed by the outcry, somewhat comically national, against the Kerry-Lugar bill and the perceived conditions it seeks to impose upon this client country.
It has taken over and it seems will not die until some resolution is found — grumble but accept it under protest, or return to sender.
There have been the usual fatal bomb blasts here and there, the continuing rape of minors, the Americans and British bewilderment over how to stay in or get out of Afghanistan, and a rallying cry from some responsible women parliamentarians, one being Sherry Rehman, asking that the noxious blasphemy laws be repealed.
Fortunately, the non-issue of bringing Pervez Musharraf to trial and then hang him has been overtaken. The US and Saudi Arabia having spoken, that is that on that issue, it has been put aside, as is all when it comes to matters pertaining to the sovereign state of Pakistan. Outside guidance, or instruction, is mandatory.
The Enhancement Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009, has both civil and military Pakistan jumping up and down in what they term righteous indignation. This is no surprise for it has forever been America’s stated policy to act only in its own national interest and that is exactly what the contentious act has done.
What it also does do, most illustratively, is to highlight the perception of Pakistan held by the US and surely by the rest of the demo- cratic world to which Pakistan aspires.
The act is subject, in each of its five years’ duration to certification by the secretary of state, 'under the direction of the president', [‘please, teacher...] that the Pakistan government is continuing its cooperation with the US and its 'efforts to dismantle supplier networks relating to the acquisition of nuclear weapons-related materials, such as proving relevant information from or direct access to Pakistani nationals associated with such networks'. There is no need for excessive grey matter to work that one out.
Not only is the Republic perceived as being a nuclear underworld trader but also as a hotbed of terrorist activities, towards which it is expected to make significant efforts not only to combat but to cease to support. 'Elements within the Pakistan military or its intelligence agency' are suspected of rendering support to Al Qaeda, the Taliban and such groups as the Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-i-Mohammed' which carry out cross-border attacks into neighbouring countries (no guesswork needed here either).
The Republic, as history has it, is prone to interference by the military in its political affairs, and as this trend may persist, any direct cash security-related assistance or non-assistance payments will only be provided or made to civilian authorities of a civilian government. That puts the army in its place, at least temporarily. Though no doubt, in case history does repeat itself, suitable amendments will be made.
The army and its chief are naturally angered by the clause that specifies an American assessment of the 'effective' control exercised by the government — this pathetic government — over all military matters, including its budget, chain of command, promotion process and involvement in civilian affairs. With the historic power the generals wield, they cannot be expected to take such language lying down.
The implications are not clouded. A Sept 29 editorial in the Washington Post has summed it up neatly: 'In contrast to last April, when many in Washington feared that Pakistan was in danger of collapse as a secular state, the civilian government and the army have rallied ... and public support for the anti-Taliban offensives has been strong. Closer cooperation between US and Pakistani forces has produced a stepped-up tempo of US missile strikes in Pakistan....
'...Though willing to tackle the ethnic Pakhtun Taliban when its forces threatened the country’s heartland, the army still declines to invade the areas where the Taliban operations against Afghanistan are based. Ethnic Punjabi Islamic extremist groups that have mounted attacks on India, possibly with backing from the intelligence services, remain intact. The government of President Asif Ali Zardari remains inefficient and unpopular; its opponents claim it has returned to the corruption that in the 1990s earned Mr Zardari the sobriquet of ‘Mr Ten Per cent.’ Even the recent gains could come undone if civilian and military authorities are unable to establish a competent administration and policing force in Swat and other recaptured areas.'
And on the Kerry-Lugar bill: 'As much as feasible, the administration must direct this aid to specific projects, rather than simply dump it into the Pakistani government’s coffers.' As it is, with corruption where it is, whether the US monitors the annual $1.5bn or not chances are that most of it will find its way into the deep pockets of politicians and bureaucrats with a mere trickle getting to the beloved awam.
As for the president of the Republic, we know that much flouted visit to the States and the UN last month was neither here nor there. What happened would have happened whether he had been in New York or on Baffin Island. What would be of interest, in the context of the contentious act, is to know what arrangements or deals were made with Asif Zardari when the US gave him the green signal to go ahead and oust Musharraf.
Questions: can beggars afford to be choosers? Can we pay our own bills or must we rely on handouts? What are our priorities and direction — are we prepared to give up our stand against terrorism and violence and allow suicide bombers the run of the country?
The show must go on.
Sunday 16 August 2009
The Seige Within. Will it take a war to focus on Swat’s problems?
Here is a new post by Mr. M.J.Akbar, distinguished journalist of The Times of India where he explains why are there the problems in Swat in particular and in Pakistan in general. He also brings to the light the American manipulation.
I don't think the State of Pakistan is unaware such tricks as these shouldn't be anything new for them but the question is 'WHY AREN'T THEY TAKING ANY ACTION'?
Being a Pakistani, it is a good lesson for me.
The Seige Within
Will it take a war to focus on Swat’s problems?
M J Akbar Sunday August 16, 2009
There is a foolproof way of gauging mainstream America’s interest in the rest of the world: through the New York Times crossword puzzle. On August 11, the clue for 17-Across (three letters) was “Islamabad’s land: Abbr.” The discovery of Pakistan has begun. India is an older, but static and occasional story, glimpsed occasionally through “Agra”, routed either via the Taj Mahal or Slumdog Millionaire. Wondrously, Nehru still remains on the iconic shortlist, but the presence is fading.
Credit must go to the military obstinacy of the Taliban and the linguistic dexterity of Richard Holbrooke for widening American consciousness, in perhaps the same way that Saddam Hussein and George Bush made ‘Eyeraq’ part of the American language. It seems a bit odd that you need a war to become famous but that is the way with superpowers. Britain became a household word in Roma only after Julius Caesar dropped by to say hello. Swat will probably be the next name to worm its way into puzzles, and very useful it would be for anagrams as well.
What are the odds that in 10 years the Swat valley, often called the “Kashmir of Pakistan”, will be the favoured American destination in “Incredible Pakistan”? Perhaps, realism demands a reframing of that question. In 2019, will Swat be Kashmir or will Kashmir be Swat? God knows, of course, but He is strangely uncommunicative these days.
The Pakistan army will prevail in this year’s battle for Swat, but we are discussing the war. The Pak army is motivated by the most effective impulse in war, self-interest. A Taliban victory would destabilise the institutions that share power in Islamabad, and radically alter the character, objectives and strategy of the Pak armed forces. Its officers are content with the status quo. They want to use the mullahs when they need them; they have no intention of being used.
But it is already evident that Islamabad has not understood a fundamental fact of its civil war. Irrespective of the outcome of the conflict this year or the next, the ground, and therefore the battleground, has shifted. The Taliban revolt has not emerged merely out of sentiment for religion. It is also a struggle for a reorientation of the oppressive economic relations in Pakistan, the worst of which is the land-peasant equation. Muhammad Sufi and Baitullah Mehsud found support because they challenged the landlords who have enslaved the Swat valley and so much else of Pakistan. After over six decades of independence, Pakistan still has not had land reforms. Independence has not translated into freedom for the peasant. Islamabad, like the Bourbons, seems to have forgotten nothing and learnt nothing. Now that the Army has taken control of many parts of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) Islamabad is inviting back the landlords who were driven out by the Taliban.
In October 1949, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, founder-leader of the National Conference, called a special session of his party to confirm the provisional accession of the state to the Union of India. At the top of his agenda for a “New Kashmir” was land reforms. The twomillion-plus acres of cultivable land in the state was mainly in the possession of elitist Dogras and their jagirdars. A land ceiling of 22.75 acres was established. Farmers’ debt was brought down from over Rs 11 million to around Rs 2.5 million. Peasants who had been forced to mortgage their property because of high usury rates regained their rights; sharecroppers saw their share increase from half to two-thirds, while productions costs were now shared.
Jawaharlal Nehru, a Kashmiri Hindu, gave fulsome support to Sheikh Abdullah because, for him, poverty had no religion. Poverty alleviation and economic equity were the fulcrum of his secular, modern, dynamic “New India”. Nehru knew better than anyone else in Delhi that Hindus were the landlords of Kashmir. But for him the Hindu rich were no different from the Muslim rich, and the Hindu poor as deserving of positive discrimination as the Muslim poor. This is why he could force through land reform in large parts of India — although vested interests, and the inevitable compromises inbuilt into electoral democracy, sabotaged him at every step. The Nehrus and Abdullahs have been partners four times: in 1949, in 1975, 1987 and in 2009. The political relationship has veered from exhilarating promise to unmitigated disaster, although the personal equation has sustained itself well enough. Omar Abdullah and Rahul Gandhi are the fourth set in a chain. They might consider a commemoration of the 60th anniversary of October 1949, not to recall the poisons that seeped into their politics, but the purity that gave us land reforms.
The mood of the moment is governed by self-satisfied establishments that have for gotten a basic pillar of nation-building, economic equity. Today’s talent hunt throws up those who have cleared crores of rupees, not created crores of jobs. This week, Delhi and Islamabad celebrated their 62nd birthday with salvos and speeches, while a different kind of gunfire echoes in Balochistan, Swat, and the Naxalite highway that began as a corridor. Enjoy the first, but learn from the second
Sunday 17 May 2009
The Deluge triggered by Corrupt Pakistani Leadership and Ostriches of the Nation
Here is an article by Retired Air Commodore Sajad Haider. He talks about the vision of Pakistan that Jinnah had and what it has become now after 62 years
We need to mobilize if we want to see a tomorrow. The critical mass has reached for Pakistan's integrity and the matrix of time and action have passed. Now it is a dire emergency requiring emergency action. The govt. is planning an exit strategy, not for you and I but just their cabal. It is beyond a wakeup call. ‘The hyenas are coming around and down the mountain when they come’. Here is a piece I have just written as an angry response to Qazi Hussein Ahmed's hyperbole and contravention.
A Rejoinder to Qazi Hussain Ahmed’s ‘Islamisation and Islamic Ideology’
The article by Qazi Hussain Ahmed “Islamisation: Cure of all evils” has drawn much attention despite the existential peril the country faces. The content of his sermon is misleading diatribe, rather than any solutions to the present quagmire which lies at the door of MMA epoch in NWFP, no less than all other factors involved. I would say” No” Mr. Mr. Qazi”, Islamisation is not as old as independence; it came centuries ago. It had little to do with Quaid-e-Azam’s vision of Pakistan’s raison d’etre. The struggle for Pakistan by that man of steel will and sterling character Jinnah was for the oppressed Muslims of India so that they could live by the values ordained by Allah and practiced by his Prophet (PBUH), but emphatically not a to be a theocracy. Mullah and bigots had been stoutly excluded from any space or role except to lead prayers. It is indelible part of history that Mr. Maudoodi and his zealots in addition to the Ahrars and Khaksars had inextricably and virulently opposed the creation of Pakistan, calling it Na Pakistan and its great founder and father, the saintly Quaid-e-Azam, Kafir-e-Azam. So, none of the religious political cabal or the rabid congressite of Frontier and Baluchistan have any legitimate claim to the philosophy behind the creation of Pakistan. My father was a pioneer and a leading light of Quaid’s Muslim League in Baluchistan (The original one which was buried with the Quaid). I had participated in the Pakistan movement as a 12 year old member of the Muslim Student Federation in Baluchistan, and remember well the role of India’s villainous religious bigots and Ghandi disciples in Peshawar and Quetta, who were under the Mahatma’s oxymoronic Khilafat movement.
The Quaid had incontrovertibly and comprehensively stipulated on 11th August, 1947 as the President of the constituent assembly that Pakistan will not be a theocratic state but a secular one. He had unambiguously reiterated that to the Reuter’s Correspondent in Delhi in 1946, and in his address to the American and Australian people. So, touché sir, any other perception about Islamisation and ideology of Pakistan is a manufactured ruse. Mr. Qazi should also know that Ideology is “Rigidly held dogma”, not rooted in Faith. Islam is a monotheist powerful Faith as enunciated and spread by the Prophet of Allah (PBUH) is at much higher levels than an ideology- Communism is an ideology, which runs in a rigid groove denying human mind, intellect and activity any flexibility. Islam provides its believers infinite capacity of thought and action; of acquiring knowledge to capture the elements of nature as is ordained by God. Islam is spirituality so powerful that neither the west with all its might nor the Hindu with all their demons can harm. But it is unsafe in the hands of Mullah and their Jahil (illiterate) disciples. They even beat the devil in malevolence. The nation of 170 Million watches in terrified animation how the sanctity of Islam has been contorted by primordial cavemen. The process gathered impetus in Zia-ul-Haq’s pique epoch and imposed during MMA’s unpopular rule in the frontier, courtesy Gen. Musharraf. Their holistic defeat in the fairest elections should be a bitter reminder how the nation holistically rejected the MMA. Their defeat was owed to corruption, lack of development and intrinsically its ritual centric interpretation of religion, transcending the edict that “there is no compulsion in Islam” in rather than [Salihât] oriented code of conduct in the ephemeral existence.
To put the record straight, the word ‘Islamic ideology’ or ‘Ideology of Pakistan’ was never uttered for 15 years after its creation. It was in 1962, during Ayub Khan’s era, that one sole Maulvi Abdul Bari, an Ayub Khan fan from Jamaat Islami, uttered the word Ideology of Pakistan and Islam being the Ideology. No one in the meeting had the guts to question when the word Islam was mentioned. Half a century later, similar lily livered and frail men and women have passed the controversial Adl bill for Swat from the dread of the vulgar threat of apostasy given by a half-literate Moulvi. In Pakistani the fault lines and fissures to the true spirit of Islamic faith run through the type certification of Wahabi and other dispensations which spawned seething hatred for each other. Ironically, the actual enduring, and now up close, danger to Islam always emanated from religious fundos and extremists that fit Allama Iqbal’s aphorism “Do Rakat ka Moulvi”. I, as millions of others, grew up in the thirties and saw Islam living and vibrant, at its best, in our homes as much as in the mosques and at work. Our parents and siblings lived by the ideals and values of Islam and were the proud followers of the greatest man of the last century - Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the sole creator of Pakistan. He was a special man of God, who alone changed the history and geography of the world. The greatest hurdle challenging the idea and concept of Pakistan as conceived by Allama Iqbal and during Jinnah’s struggle for its fruition was not as much from Ghandhi and Nehru as from the fierce Maulana Maudoodi (J I), Attaullah Shah Bokhari (Ahrars) and the schoolmaster politician of negativity, Allama Mashraqi (The head of Khaksars movement) who aped the Nazi SS men with steel helmets and sharpened spades. He even made an ugly attempt on the life of founder of Pakistan, the Quaid-e-Azam. All of them had obdurately opposed the creation of Pakistan tooth and nail. So whose ideology and which hue of Islamisation are we reading about?
No, there was no such thing as “Islamic Ideology as old a s independence”, Mr. Qazi is marketing today as the raison d’etre of Pakistan. His claim holds no water about “Islamisation” of strong believers, pious and practicing Muslim majority in what became Pakistan. It sounds so oxymoronic because Islamisation of Muslims was never uttered by any leader struggling with the great leader, the Quaid-Azam. What Maudoodi and his disciples wanted (and continue unabated) was to peddle Wahabi dispensation through threat and intimidation as he had declared that those not converting to his type certified version were Kafirs (Infidels). Up until then Islam was safe and living in our mind, heart and soul and expressed resolutely in our code of conduct. The Quaid had vociferously and unambiguously propounded about the values and traditions of Islam, not dogmatic theocratic interpretation by multitude sects (with 72 Sects in Islam at the time) calling each other Kafirs and culpable of apostasy and hence could be murdered. In 1947, after they discovered that Ghandi and Nehru had no space for them, these religious fundamentalists crawled in to what they had contemptuously referred to as Palidistan (land of the impure) and Na Pakistan. That was the cardinal reason why the Quaid wanted religion and the state as emphatically separate issues. We were true and united Muslims till the Quaid’s early demise. Soon thereafter Islam was exploited as a political weapon by the fundamentalists and this nation lost its stature and became a mob; to be led by mobsters.
That was when peaceful Muslim society came under threat from these imports and Pakistan was pushed in to the abyss of religious bigotry and the Unity of the nation delivered a blow which is today looking like Pakistan’s nemesis. Here I come to Mr. Qazi’s claim that the nation was screaming for Objectives Resolution. Nothing could be farther from truth! That deceptive resolution was to become Pakistan’s Achilles heel.
Allegedly, Choudary Mohammad Ali, a rabid disciple of Maudoodi convinced Liaqat Ali Khan to introduce the divisive and controversial “Objectives Resolution”. It was not the demand of the masses at all as has been blatantly claimed. It was introduced as a deceptive alternative to giving the nation a constitution based on Jinnah’s profound vision of a parliamentary democracy. It was done to capitalise on the religious emotions of the new nation to create a constituency for Liaqat Ali Khan, who had none at the time. Bigots caught the Islamic content of the resolution in the air, as Liaquat Ali was murdered. Elections were avoided by Liaquat Ali Khan just for the specific reason that he was uncertain to win in elections. Objectives Resolution was a dagger pushed deep in to Quaid-e-Azam’s dream of a liberal, egalitarian Pakistan where equality and justice for all Pakistanis transcending religion, faith, creed and colour was to be supreme and the bigoted Mullah had no place except the pulpit. The platitudes about the Quaid in Mr. Qazi’s article convince no one.
This is a long debate how Pakistan was steered away from becoming a progressive state on the basis of values of Islam and not the rituals which have little substance. We are paying a traumatic price for those blunders of history because our leaders did not learn from its lessons, nor did the nation learn to differentiate between a fakes, impostors, plunderers, bigots from real good men of God. How big a price we will finally pay is no more a guessing game even for scores of millions of super-ostriches inhabiting what was Jinnah’s Pakistan? The forebodings are like sirens screaming, “Wake-up Pakistanis”, and if you do not, then one day, God forbid, you will have no where on earth to go or even hide. I hope intellectuals of upscale stature like Mr. Mehdi Hassan; Ayaz Amir (AA), Shireen Mazari and Anjum Niaz would enlighten the people on issues that are threatening Quaid’s Pakistan and shout out that it is better to die standing for a cause than to live a hundred years on your knees in supplication to hoards which render Halaku Khan a sissy. AA, a plea to you; please spare us the (N) alternative, notwithstanding your party loyalty. Rise above this mediocre mumbo-jumbo cabal. Your profound articulation becomes soggy when you market and innocuously promote mediocrity between your lines, which is not at all convincing, let alone the solution.
Only Quaid’s vision of Pakistan can cure all evils, nothing else will. It is not an option any more and only unity, grit and courage by the nation and its defenders can save us. Inexorably, the pretenders of Pakistan’s destiny hunkered in and hiding in the white houses are not consumed by the threat to your and my security. Have no doubt they are right now busy finalising plan “Exit” followed by the track and destination, when the deluge descends down the Margalla hills. As for Mr. Qazi, the country’s integrity is in dire peril and not Islam. So please change tack and propound unity across all schisms. We have even crossed the critical mass and the deluge will be descending down the Margallas sooner than you can say Jack Robinson.
S Sajad Haider
Monday 4 May 2009
Questions about burning
An interesting article on what is the perception of Islam by today's Muslims and I hate to say even by the highly educated ones.
At the end of this article, I have put in some of my comments as well.
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Questions about burning
Posted by Nadeem F. Paracha in Featured Articles, Pakistan on 04 30th, 2009 | 246 responses
Nadeem Farooq Paracha gets into another tricky conversation.
Recently I happened to meet a young man who was born and raised in Manchester, in the UK. He had returned to his parents’ country with his siblings in 2006, some seven months after the dreadful 7/7 episode. He approached me while I was returning from the parking lot opposite my office building.
‘Aslamalaikum!’ he said, smiling widely and brightly.
‘Walaikumaslam,’ I replied, noticing a hint of that Manchester accent in his greeting.
‘Brother, where can I find a mosque here?’ he asked, that accent now all-to-prominent. I told him about the two mosques in the area and guided him how to get there from the place were we stood.
‘Thank you, brother,’ he said, smiling brightly again.
‘My pleasure,’ said I, making my way towards my office building. But long before I could reach it, I heard his voice again.
‘Brother!’
‘Yes?’ I turned around.
‘Which of the two mosques should I go to?’ he asked.
I shrugged my shoulders, thought for a moment and told him any of the two mosques should suffice.
‘Oh, okay,’ he said. ‘But which one do you go to?’ he asked.
‘Err … none,’ I replied.
‘Do you go to any other mosque here if not these two?’ he asked, politely enough for me to allow him an answer.
‘No,’ I said, with a vague smile. ‘I haven’t been to a mosque in a long time.’
‘But why, brother?’ He asked, still smiling brightly.
‘Well, I … ‘
Before I could finish answering the question, he interrupted: ‘Why don’t you join me in prayers, brother?’
This got me interested. I walked towards him. ‘You’re not from here, are you?’ I asked.
‘No, brother, I was born and raised in England. My name is Ashfaq,’ he said, shaking my hand.
I offered him a cigarette. ‘No, brother, I do not smoke,’ he said.
‘Ashfaq, I am Nadeem. Do you mind if I smoke?’
‘Not at all, brother.’ He smiled.
I invited him to have a cup of tea with me at a nearby dhaba. He agreed. We both sat and ordered some tea and biscuits.
‘For how long have you been here?’ I asked.
‘A year and half, now. I’m studying economics at a university in Karachi.’
‘So, how has Pakistan been treating you so far?’
‘It’s nice. It’s my country,’ he proudly said.
‘Yes,’ I smiled. ‘But very violent too.’
‘Yes,’ he said, laughing. ‘I’ve gotten my cell phone stolen twice.’
‘Haven’t we all,’ I said. ‘The crime and violence have rocketed in the last many years.’
‘Yes, I have heard some horror stories,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘And yet our mosques are always full of pious worshippers!’ I said.
He started at me, then looked down at his cup of tea, finally cutting a knowing smile: ‘Is that why you do not visit mosques?’
‘Partly, yes.’ I said.
‘But, brother …’
‘You can call me, Nadeem,’ I politely interrupted.
‘Alright,’ he said. Then folding his arms in front of his chest he began: ‘Brother Nadeem, praying is one of the most important pillars of Islam and …’
‘Are you a part of the some preaching group?’ I asked.
‘Do you say this because of my beard or the way I speak?’
‘Both,’ said I.
‘Is that a problem?’ he inquired.
‘Should it be?’ I asked.
‘You tell me,’ he said.
‘Brother Ashfaq,’ I said, now folding my arms in front of my chest. ‘Don’t you think that had the Muslims spent more time philosophically and rationally determining and investigating the message of the Qu’ran instead of reducing the intellectual discourse in this regard to the matters of ritual and outdated dogma handed down to us by some rigid old men, the sight of full mosques could have then really meant something more than mere ritualism?’
Ashfaq unfolded his arms: ‘Brother Nadeem, what do you mean by rational investigation? The Qu’ran does not need any investigation.’
‘It needs a fresh interpretation,’ I said. ‘It needs to be interpreted according to the needs of Muslims in this day and age. It is full of metaphors and allegories. It is meant to be interpreted, isn’t it? That’s what most rational Islamic scholars have been trying to do for so long.’
He listened with utmost attention, then spoke: ‘This still doesn’t mean you stop going to the mosque, brother Nadeem.’
I laughed and that surprised him. ‘What’s so funny, brother?’ he asked.
‘Can’t you see, Ashfaq?’ I said. ‘That’s all that matters to you. Who is going to the mosque and who isn’t. Then, when you do find someone who does visit a mosque your next question will be about the way he is praying, or if he is wearing the right praying clothes.… What about the more intellectual and philosophical debates within Islam? They need to be addressed a lot more urgently, don’t you think?’
Ashfaq went into a thoughtful trance of sorts, running a finger around the tips of his cup of tea. Then he spoke, quietly, as if speaking to himself: ‘But such ideas create confusion.’
‘Confusion?’ I inquired, genuinely surprised. ‘I think what you mean is that such ideas create Muslims like me!’ I smiled.
‘How can you be a Muslim if you do not pray?’ he asked.
‘Volia!’ I threw my arms in the air. ‘My being or not being a Muslim begins and ends in my head. I am more concerned about the answers we Muslims are giving to those who are accusing us of violence and destruction. The state of Muslim intellectualism is the pits these days. We are collapsing inwards with outdated talk about laws constructed hundreds of years ago by inflexible men and their followers who would like to see Muslim societies turn into static totalitarian societies! What is our intellectual response to all this? Is it science, philosophy and reason, or is the response only about nice, brightly smiling Muslims like you who are only obsessed about cramping as many Muslims in a mosque as possible? The intellectual and political space in Islam is being filled by theological dogma, self-righteous antics and mere ritual. Wake up!’
Ashfaq smiled: ‘Brother Nadeem, calm down. All I asked you was to come pray with me. Why so much anger?’
I smiled back: ‘Tell me brother Ashfaq, how did you respond to the 7/7 event in Britain?’
‘I prayed for the well being of all Muslims,’ he said proudly.
‘Of course, you did,’ I said, with a smile of resignation. ‘But, being a good Muslim, did you also pray for the non-Muslims who died in the suicide attacks?’
Ashfaq went into the trance mode once again. ‘Brother Nadeem …are you by any chance a non-Sunni?’
I laughed out loud: ‘Brother Ashfaq, are you by any chance an idiot?’
Ashfaq went all serious: ‘You don’t have to get offensive, brother.’
‘Ashfaq, what sort of a question was that?’ I said. ‘Am from this sect or a that sect of Islam? I was talking about something a lot more meaningful than sectarian.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Islam is for all mankind.’
‘Fine,’ I replied, ‘but how do you plan to prove this? Wouldn’t you rather set a more reasonable and intellectual example in this respect rather than a ritualistic one, or worse, a violent one, like that of the fanatics?’
‘I am not a fanatic,’ he said, his eyes now ogling repressed anger.
I offered him a cigarette.
‘I told you I don’t smoke,’ he said, politely pushing away the offer.
‘You may as well now,’ I said. ‘You have already missed your prayers.’
He worriedly looked at his wrist watch: ‘That’s correct. I did.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I smiled. ‘You wont burn in hell for this.’
‘You are right, brother, I wont …’ he replied, and then in a quiet but foreboding tone, added: ‘But you will.’
Hello everybody,
I fully agree with the views of Nadeem Paracha.
There are 2 very basic questions that have to be answered in my opinion in order for Muslims in general and us Pakistanis or let’s say Muslims of Indian-subcontinent particularly to get back to the right path
• What religion did Rasulallah Sallallaho Alaih-e-Wa-Aalehi bring as a message of Allah to the humanity? Was it Islam or one of the many variants that we find today?
• Hazur-e-Akram PBUH brought with him the message of Allah in the form of Quraan-e-Kareem which is supposed to be (and I have a firm belief in it) the source of guidance for the humanity and until the day of judgement. The question is just what Nadeem was trying to say in his article ie how is possible that today, after 1400 years, we Muslims do not find guidance from it AND who is responsible for it.
Strange thing about it is that non Muslim researchers from all walks of life, specially scientific researchers very frequently consult the the Quraan-e-Kareem and find things that we, the Muslims went over millions of times and never had a clue as to what we were and are reciting, that is if and when we do recite. The others, in their own manner, find guidance that we the Muslims, because of our own ignorance and illetracy, have completely missed.
We Muslims need to ponder on this if this isn’t the curse sent upon us all?
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