New Feature: Polls

At the bottom of the left margin is a poll: take it. There will be new ones every so often.

This is an open thread for discussion of the poll.

Pakistan’s Rhetorical Disadvantage, Part 2: Is This the Best We’ve Got?

First of all let me mention my utmost regard for the soldiers who are risking their lives in this war. The institution of the army in Pakistan is not without blame, but at this moment we must support the military. The soldiers in this war are risking their lives for our freedom and security, and I am deeply grateful to them for that. That being said, I believe the government’s rhetoric is so severely lacking, that its inability to construct an effective narrative in this war might literally be the death of this country.

Perhaps I am being uncharitable with the government of Pakistan. It is not up to them to create a narrative that is not in line with the culture of Pakistan and its history, and the myths used in its founding. But whatever the case, we have no choice but to be optimistic and try whatever might work, and I urge the government and the people of Pakistan to adopt a more appropriate war-time narrative than the ones we are used to hearing in the media and from the government.

The neoconservatives, however misguided they may be otherwise, rallied sentiment against Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations by using a simple, effective and elegant narrative: ‘they are evil and we are good; evil tries to corrupt and destroy the good, but the good must triumph. The enemy is inhuman, uncivilized, lacking conscience. It needs to be destroyed by the Holier forces, to be displaced and in their stead erected something inherently more valuable, more good, and closer to God. Anyone who fails to do this is part of the problem.’ Such a narrative is so brilliant in its simplicity, so ingenious in its understanding of human psychology — or at least the Western, post-Christian mind — that one cannot but admire it even when it comes out of the mouth of George Bush Jr.

But in Pakistan, in a situation that calls for such a story better than any I can think of in the contemporary world, it has not occurred to anybody to tell it. Instead they are telling stories that are lukewarm and pusillanimous, that lack moral strength, and that do not have the ability to rile up sufficient anti-Taliban sentiment. In fact, to my shock, some people are still debating whether the Taliban are the bad guys!

What are the lukewarm stories the Pakistani government and others are telling? There are two so far, both of which fail:

1. The Taliban challenge the writ of the government. This is clearly not a good enough story. First of all, many groups challenge the legitimacy of the government and the Pakistani state, including Baloch nationalists, every criminal who violates the law (violating the law undermines the law, and sends a message of disregard), and every Pakistani who doubts that the creation of Pakistan was a good idea. The Taliban are not comparable to any of the above, as they are not merely behaving inconveniently or questioning a prevailing ideology: they are genuinely evil. They are psychopathic and delusional; they have created a cult of death and hyper-masculinity, and have not yet learned even the vaguest meaning of the value of human life. They feel no discomfort in decapitating people and in hanging corpses from posts. For a person to be psychologically capable of an act like decapitation requires a state of inner disharmony so severe, that it can only be called demonic.

   It is also well-known that they consider women sub-human, and will go to every length to control women’s bodies and ensure that all public space is male only; and, of course, that they will destroy every marker of civilization in their sight, like a deathly scourge. One might say they are a stupider version of ancient pagan societies; but at least the pagans had a taste for beauty. The Taliban represent all the negative forces of human nature present at one place, with none of the positive. Surely there is more to the wrongness of them than their mere disregard for the government’s authority.

2. The Taliban misinterpret Islam. This one is worse than the first. It would be funny it was not so tragic. To misinterpret Islam is no sin, and in fact the Taliban would argue that the ones making the remark are misinterpreting Islam. But supposing that the Taliban are in fact misinterpreting, if that is the worst the Taliban are doing, then every Tom, Dick and Harry who is less capable of Arabic comprehension than the clever ones who make such remarks, or less familiar with the complexities of literary and theological exegesis, is at the same moral level as a group of misogynistic, violent, delusional, and psychopathic terrorists and rapists! That is an absurd claim that only Pakistani Muslim ‘intellectuals’ would make.

   I have a radical suggestion: maybe the reason why the Taliban deserve to be destroyed has nothing to do with Islam? Maybe, for once, something happening in Pakistan needs to be analyzed through a non-Islamic lens? Think about it.

There are a number of reasons I can think of behind why those two pathetic narratives are the only ones you see in the public discourse on this subject. One hypothesis is that Islam does not distinguish between good and evil, but between just and unjust, which are inherently problematic concepts. Pakistan, being a Muslim country, has inherited an obsession with ‘justice’ that is in any event only in theory and not in practice, but even in practice I can’t imagine how anything good could result. In truth there is no such thing as justice, there is only love, kindness and goodness, and the absence thereof. The idea of justice is only the product of a neurotic temperament that feels it has been robbed, and desires to take from those who have what it itself does not have. Every time ‘justice’ has been the moral basis of a movement, the bad has outweighed the good; examples include communism and the French Revolution, both of which resulted in a reign of terror and bloodshed.

There are other explanations too. Perhaps the division of the world into Muslim and non-Muslim as a substitute for a division based on more ultimately valuable criteria such as civility or gentleness, is part of the problem. But whatever it is, there is a frustrating absence of proper rhetoric when it comes to the Taliban issue.

I urge everyone reading this to condemn the Taliban in harsher terms. This is a war, and these people cannot be reasoned with. The U.S. is not the enemy, regardless of whether it abandoned us in the past. We are entitled to our lives and our country, but we are not entitled to receiving aid from other countries. If the U.S. provides us with aid, it does it to secure its own interests and perhaps out of generosity; but whatever it provides is something more than what we are owed. To direct more outrage at the U.S. for simply not doing everything that we might find remotely convenient or satisfying, than to the Taliban who are slaughtering our own people, shows such a thorough lack of moral clarity that it makes me wonder if Pakistan does not deserve what it is getting.

(Cross-posted to Yes and No.)

State and Ideology: The Cultural Holocaust

Shaheryar Ali

Some Theoretical Considerations: Death of Pluralism  

This article is intended to be the first part of a series of articles on the suppressed cultural identities in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, a Pakistan you never knew. One on the fate of Pakistani Jews has already been published and can be reached here.

A couple of years back I was reading a research report by a very intelligent Pakistani academic, Dr. Samina Ahmed of the International Crisis Group, on the rise of sectarianism in Pakistan. Being trained in the progressive tradition myself, I was familiar with the theoretical framework in which Dr. Ahmed operates: the state and its origin, adaptation of the ideologies of the state, cold war and Jihad etc. What struck me, and in fact fascinated me, was a passing remark by her on the working ideology of all sectarian groups of Pakistan: they operate on the ‘principle of exclusion.’

This is a remarkable observation if one wants to understand the ideology of sectarianism and a sectarian state. States are not just material institutions of economy and violence; the state has an ideological aspect as well. Structures of the state have significant influence on the superstructure of the society on which it is maintaining control. This means that through different ideological institutions, states create cultures and patterns of thoughts which help the state to keep control (Gramsci and Althusser). It has been explained as a mental condition in which a slave takes his/her slavery to be a state of ‘freedom’. This examination of ideology or ‘ways of thinking’ became the obsession of Western Marxists who were trying to understand the failure of revolutions to happen in Western Europe. A series of new disciplines emerged, like critical theory and cultural studies, which focused on the ideological and cultural aspects of the state and/or capitalism.

As postmodernism became more influential in the universities of Europe and North America, the critique was extended to a similar analysis of ‘reality’ (Baudrillard) and alterations in human perception by capitalism and the state/super state. The ideological foundations of the Pakistani state (not to be confused with official ‘Pakistan ideology’) lie in the communal/nationalist strife (Saigol, Rubina) which presumes an ‘absolute difference’ between Hindus and Muslims. Jinnah put forward an argument that utilized ‘cultural difference’ as the basis of civilization, and differentiated Indian Muslims from Indian Hindus with whom he shared the same ethnicity and language (he was of Bengali speaking, Hindu background). ‘Hindu’ and ‘Muslim’ emerged as grand identities which were rhetorical, as demonstrated by the work of the great Indian historian Romila Thaper. Before British colonialism, the terms ‘Hindu’ and ‘Muslim’ were rather meaningless, i.e. they did not construct a unified socio-political identity. With the professed anti-clericalism and modernism of the founding fathers of Pakistan, ideological intervention became all the more important and a unified cultural umbrella needed to be constructed to legitimize the claim of ‘distinct civilization’. This logically meant the suppression of ethnic, national and indigenous identities to construct a ‘Muslim identity,’ through which the survival of Pakistan was envisioned.

A study of the discourses emerging from the ruling elite of Pakistan, the Pakistan Muslim League and the colonial administration they inherited from the British, suggests a focus on the themes of monism as opposed to pluralism. Jinnah’s slogan of ‘Unity, Faith and Discipline’ itself speaks of the need to unify and control. The slogan resembles the ideologies of totalitarian regimes such as Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany, more than the liberal tradition of Western Europe in which Jinnah is said to be trained. Ethnic identities became the ‘others’ of Muslim identity and as a result were seen as an existential threat to the new state. The question of national rights was diverted by Jinnah’s stern warning against the ‘evil of provincialism.’ The need to construct a ‘unified culture’ was so strong that a man as modern as Jinnah, who took up the case of Muslim socio-cultural rights in India, stood in Dacca and thundered “Urdu, Urdu and only Urdu!” a language which was not the language of even 0.2% of Pakistanis at the time. Those who demanded the equal status of Bengali alongside Urdu were called traitors and communists.

After Jinnah’s death things became worse, and the PML – which lacked any popular base in East and West Pakistan — joined hands with the clerics and Islamic fundamentalists whom Jinnah thoroughly despised. Jinnah’s handpicked Prime Minister, Nawabzada Khan Liaqat Ali Khan, who was a member of the aristocracy, passed the Objectives Resolution, and the state acquired an ideological character. The ideological apparatuses of the state in the form of the media, mosques, universities and colleges started molding the minds of people. Considering oneself to be Bengali or Punjabi was something like treason, and it was the same with being Muslim.

In British India ‘Muslim’ was a broader and looser cultural identity which related more to the practice of circumcision and burial of the dead. Different sects of Muslims existed, but due to the neutrality of the state it did not operate on the principle of exclusion. The party which took up the issues of Muslim socio-political and cultural rights in British India, the All India Muslim League comprised of “Muslims” who were distinguished by their heterodoxy, not their orthodoxy. Sir Aga Khan, the president of the All India Muslim League, was also the Imam of the Ismailies: a sect engaged in a bloody struggle against the Sunni and Twelver Shias for hundreds of  years, and who were considered apostates by clerics of both mainstream sects. Muhammed Ali Jinnah also belonged to the Ismaili faith but later converted to the Twelver Shia faith; however, he was a non-practicing Muslim by all standards. Many important leaders like Raja Sahib of Mehmoodabad were Twelver Shias. Sir Zaferullah Khan was Ahmedi or Qadiani. Dr. Allama Muhammed Iqbal was a revivalist who was opposed by the Sunni orthodoxy, and was rumored to be an Ahmedi as well. The controversy ended when he denied these claims by writing an article in the Statesman condemning the Ahmedi faith. Controversy still exists over whether he was Ahemdi for some part of his life, and even after condemning the Qadiani faith he considered the Lahori group of this faith part of the Muslim community.

Nawab Bahadur Yar Jung       

Nawab Bahaduryar Jang, another prominent leader of the All India Muslim League, belonged to the Mehdivia sect. This sect is similar to the Ahmedies: it considered the pious saint Syed Muhammed Jonpuri to be the Mehdi. Due to the heterodoxy and professed modernism of the All India Muslim League, the Muslim clerics were bitterly against it. But this was to change when the movement ended in the formation of the ‘Muslim Homeland’ (not the intention of Jinnah according to some historians, most notably Dr. Ayesha Jalal). With the formation of the Muslim Homeland the question, ‘Who is Muslim?’ acquired great importance. Before partition, Muslims had an opposing ‘other’: the Hindus. After the partition of India on 15^th August 1947, all this changed. Muslim identity lost its contrasting ‘other’, a ‘moth eaten Pakistan’ meant that its founding fathers were already insecure about its survival. The land which they got was a hub of forces which opposed the partition of India. Punjab was firmly in the grip of feudal lords, with which Jinnah forged an alliance to make Pakistan. The All India Muslim League lacked support and organization in Punjab, as the salariat class which was motivating the struggle for Pakistan was weakest in Punjab (Alavi, Hamza). The NWFP – the province of overwhelming Muslim majority — despite the best efforts of Jinnah stood with Bacha Khan and the Indian National Congress. The 1946 elections, which were held to decide the issue of Muslim representation, saw the defeat of the Muslim League despite support from the British in the NWFP. In Bengal, the Muslim League had a popular base but it was due to independent minded progressive leaders whom the central leadership did not trust: Hussein Shaheed Soherwardi, A.K. Fazel-e-Haq and Molana Bhashani were all to be purged along with the popular base! Jinnah had to lean heavily on socialism (he went as far as declaring Islamic Socialism to be the guiding ideology of Pakistan in Chittagong) to gain currency in Benagal; but his negotiations with the Americans in 1946 had already decided Pakistan’s future alignment with the anti-socialist block.

Bengali was suppressed, the NWFP government dismissed, the party banned and its newspaper, the Pakhtoon, suppressed (the beginning of press censorship in Pakistan). The party headquarters were bulldozed and the police opened fired on unarmed party workers at Barbra, killing hundreds of Pushtoons; this despite Bacha Khan’s oath of loyalty to Pakistan. In Sindh, G.M. Syed had already left the Muslim League, depriving it of much popularity; and the loyal faction of Sindh League was disenfranchised when Jinnah dismissed the Sindh government. This would be the start of a never-ending Sindhi-Mohajir conflict. Balochistan had to be annexed by force when the upper and lower houses of Parliament in the State of Qalat explicitly rejected proposals to join Pakistan. Khan of Qalat signed the document of accession, but wrote himself that he did not have the authority to do so.

The events that took place in the first couple of years of Pakistan, unfortunately counterpoised Muslim identity against the local identities which also represented political opposition to Pakistan’s ruling elite. It became a rule to suppress any expression of cultural identity other than the official ‘Muslim’ one. This is what I call the ‘death of Pluralism’ in Pakistan. After deciding the fate of national identities, the project of defining ‘Muslim’ entered the agenda. The death of Jinnah accelerated the process, and the state’s alliance with fascist theorist, Abul ala Maudaudi, emerged. He gave a series of lectures on Radio Pakistan on the subject of Muslim Nationalism. The Objectives Resolution was passed, later anti-Ahmedi agitation started, and the anti-clerical vanguard in the country tried for the last time to resist the clerics. Justice Munir’s report, for example, tried to put clerics in their place; but it was too late. A unified and oppressive Muslim identity emerged which put all heterodox Muslim sects in a constant state of fear. The irony of history is that with this move most of the founding fathers of this country also joined the ranks of ‘apostates’. All alternative cultural expression vanished from the country: the Hindus, the Jews, Homosexuals, Heretics, Nationalists: all had to face ‘cultural Holocaust’. After Ahmedies, Shias were targeted, and now Bravelies are trying to protect their ’Islam’ from Muslims.

Sir Zafrullah Khan

Southern Punjab: Terror’s Training Ground

‘Terror’s Training Ground’, written by Ayesha Siddiqa, is as comprehensive an article as one will find on the problem of extremism and indoctrination in Southern Punjab. It was hoped that because of the insecurity caused by such elements over the last few years, the Pakistani establishment would have learned its lesson. However, the reality of the situation in Southern Punjab suggests that the Pakistani establishment still continues to not only ignore but also foster extremist elements in this region. In short, nothing has substantially changed. I have taken the liberty of reproducing a fairly long excerpt.

“In recent history, the gap created due to the non-performance of Sufi shrines and Barelvi Islam, or the exploitative nature of these institutions, has been filled partly by the Deobandi and Ahl-e-Hadith madrassa conversion teams and groups, such as the Tableeghi Jamaat, and militant outfits. This alternative, unfortunately, is equally exploitative in nature. Sadly, today the shrines and Barelvi Islam have little to offer in terms of “marketing” to counter the package deal offered by the Salafists for the life hereafter, especially to a shaheed: 70 hoors (virgins), a queen hoor (virgin queen), a crown of jewels and forgiveness for 70 additional people. This promise means a lot for the poor youth who cannot hope for any change in a pre-capitalist socio-economic and political environment, where power is hard to re-negotiate. Furthermore, as stated by the former information minister Mohammad Ali Durrani, who had been a jihadi from 1984-90, a poor youth suddenly turning into a jihadi commander is a tremendous story of social mobility and recognition that he would never get in his existing socio-economic system. More importantly, the Deobandis and Ahl-e-Hadith offer a textual basis for their package, which is difficult for the pirs to refute due to the lack of an internal religious discourse in the Islamic world. The modern generation of pirs has not engaged in an internal discourse to counter this ideological onslaught by the Salafis. The main belief of Salafism is that all Muslims should practice Islam as it was during the time of Prophet Muhammad. The religion at that time, according to them, was perfect. Salafism – which pre-dates Wahhabism – is often used interchangeably with Wahhabism, which is actually an extension of Salafism.

Punjab offers a different pattern of extremism and jihadism. The pattern is closer to what one saw in Swat, where Sufi Mohammad and his TNSM spent quite a few years indoctrinating the society and building up a social movement before they got embroiled in a conflict with the state. South Punjab’s story is, in a sense, like Swat’s in that there is a gradual strengthening of Salafism and a build-up of militancy in the area. The procedure of conversion though, dates back to pre-1947. Still, the 1980s were clearly a watershed, when both rabid ideology and jihad were introduced to the area. Zia-ul-Haq encouraged the opening up of religious seminaries that, unlike the more traditional madrassas that were usually attached with Sufi shrines, subscribed to Salafi ideology. In later years, South Punjab became critical to inducting people for the Kashmir jihad. The ascendancy of the Tableeghi Jamaat and such madrassas that presented a more rabid version of religion gradually prepared the ground for later invasion by the militant groups. Two reports prepared around 1994, firstly by the district collector Bahawalpur and later by the Punjab government, highlighted the exponential rise in the number of madrassas and how these fanned sectarian and ideological hatred in the province. These reports also stated that all of these seminaries were provided funding by the government through the zakat fund.

The number of seminaries had increased during and after the 1980s. According to a 1996 report, there were 883 madrassas in Bahawalpur, 361 in Dera Ghazi Khan, 325 in Multan and 149 in Sargodha district. The madrassas in Bahawalpur outnumbered all other cities, including Lahore. These numbers relate to Deobandi madrassas only and do not include the Ahl-e-Hadith, Barelvi and other sects. Newer estimates from the intelligence bureau for 2008 show approximately 1,383 madrassas in the Bahawalpur division that house 84,000 students. Although the highest number of madrassas is in Rahim Yar Khan district (559) followed by Bahawalpur (481) and Bahawalnagar (310), it is Bahawalpur in which the highest number of students (36,000) is enlisted. The total number of madrassa students in Pakistan has reached about one million.

Everyone has been so focused on FATA and the NWFP that they failed to notice the huge increase in religious seminaries in these districts of South Punjab. According to a study conducted by historian Tahir Kamran, the total number of madrassas in the Punjab rose from 1,320 in 1988 to 3,153 in 2000, an increase of almost 140%. These madrassas were meant to provide a rapid supply of jihadis to the Afghan war of the 1980s. At the time of 9/11, the Bahawalpur division alone could boast of approximately 15,000-20,000 trained militants, some of whom had resettled in their areas during the period that Musharraf claimed to have clamped down on the jihad industry. Many went into the education sector, opened private schools and even joined the media.

These madrassas play three essential roles. First, they convert people to Salafism and neutralise resistance to a more rabid interpretation of the Quran and Sunnah in society. Consequently, the majority of the Barelvis cannot present a logical resistance to the opposing ideology. In many instances, the Barelvis themselves get converted to the idea of jihad. Secondly, these madrassas are used to train youth, who are then inducted into jihad. Most of the foot soldiers come from the religious seminaries. One of the principles taught to the students pertains to the concept of jihad as being a sacred duty that has to continue until the end of a Muslim’s life or the end of the world. Lastly, madrassas are an essential transit point for the youth, who are recruited from government schools. They are usually put through the conversion process after they have attended a 21-day initial training programme in the Frontier province or Kashmir (see box “A Different Breed”).

State support, which follows two distinct tracks, is also instrumental in the growth of jihadism in this region. On the one hand, there has generally been a link or understanding between political parties and militant groups. Since political parties are unable to eliminate militants or most politicians are sympathetic towards the militants, they tend to curb their activities through political deal-making. The understanding between the SSP and Benazir Bhutto after the 1993 elections, or the alleged deal between the PML-N and the SSP during the 2008 elections, denote the relationship between major political parties and the jihadis. Currently, the SSP in South Punjab is more supportive of the PML-N.

The second track involves operational links between the outfits and the state’s intelligence apparatus. As mentioned earlier, some of the outfits claim to have received training from the country’s intelligence agencies. Even now, local people talk of truckloads of weapons arriving at the doorstep of the JeM headquarters and other sites in the middle of the night. While official sources continue to claim that the outfit was banned and does not exist, or that Masood Azhar is on the run from his hometown of Bahawalpur, the facts prove otherwise. For instance, the outfit continues to acquire real estate in the area, such as a new site near Chowk Azam in Bahawalpur, which many believe is being used as a training site. Although the new police chief has put restraints on the JeM and disallowed it from constructing on the site, the outfit continues to appropriate more land around the area. Junior police officials even claim seeing tunnels being dug inside the premises. The new facility is on the bank of the Lahore-Karachi national highway, which means that in the event of a crisis, the JeM could block the road as has happened in Kohat and elsewhere. Furthermore, the outfit’s main headquarters in the city is guarded by AK-47-armed men who harass any journalist trying to take a photograph of the building. In one instance, even a police official was shooed away and later intimidated by spooks of an intelligence agency for spying on the outfit. Despite the claim that the SSP, the LeJ and the JeM have broken ties with intelligence agencies and are now fighting the army in Waziristan, the fact remains that their presence in the towns of South Punjab continues unhindered.

Is it naivety and inefficiency on the part of officialdom or a deliberate effort to withhold information? The government claims that Maulana Masood Azhar has not visited his hometown in the last three years. But he held a massive book launch of his new publication Fatah-ul-Jawad: Quranic Verses on Jihad, on April 28, 2008, in Bahawalpur. Moreover, JeM’s armed men manned all entrances and exits to the city that day – and there was no police force in sight. The ISI is said to have severed its links with the JeM for assisting the Pashtoon Taliban in inciting violence in the country. Sources from FATA claim, however, that the JeM, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) and LeT are suspected by the Taliban for their links with state agencies.

In addition, intelligence agencies reportedly ward off anyone attempting to probe into the affairs of these outfits. In one case, a local in Bahawalpur city invoked daily visits from a certain agency after he assisted a foreign journalist. Similarly, only six months back, a BBC team was chased out of the area by agency officials. In fact, intelligence officials, who had forgotten about my existence since my last book was published, revisited my village in South Punjab soon after I began writing on militancy in the area and have gone to the extent of planting a story in one of the Urdu newspapers to malign me in my own area. In any case, no serious operation was conducted against these outfits after the Mumbai attacks and the recent spate of violence in the country. Hence, all of them continue to survive.

The Deobandi outfits are not the only ones popular in South Punjab. Ahl-e-Hadith/Wahhabi organisations such as the Tehreek-ul-Mujahidden (TuM) and the LeT also have a following in the region. While TuM, which is relatively a smaller organisation, has support in Dera Ghazi Khan, the LeT is popular in Bahawalpur, Multan and the areas bordering Central Punjab. Headquartered in Muridke, the LeT is popular among the Punjabi and Urdu-speaking Mohajir settlers.

There are obvious sociological reasons for LeT’s relative popularity among these people. The majority of this population represents either the lower-middle-class farmers or middle-class trader-merchants. The middle class is instrumental in providing funding to these outfits. And the support is not confined to South Punjab alone. In fact, middle-class trader-merchants from other parts of the Punjab also feed jihad through their funding. This does not mean that there are no Seraiki speakers in Wahhabi organisations but just that the dominant influence is that of the Punjabis and Mohajirs. The Seraiki-speaking population is mostly associated with the SSP, LeJ and JeM, not to mention the freelancing jihadis that have direct links with the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP).

The LeT’s presence in South Punjab is far more obvious than others courtesy of the wall chalkings and social work by its sister outfit, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Despite the rumours of friction between the LeT and the JuD leadership, the two segments operate in unison in South Punjab. Three of the favourite areas of recruitment in South Punjab for all outfits are Cholistan in Bahawalpur, the Rekh in Dera Ghazi Khan, and the Kacha area in Rajanpur. The first two are desert areas known for their poverty and underdevelopment, while the third is known for dacoits. However, another known feature of Kacha in Rajanpur is that the clerics of the Lal Masjid come from this area and have partly managed to push back the dacoits. Local sources claim that the influence of the clerics has increased since they started receiving cooperation from the police to jointly fight the dacoits.

Organisations such as the LeT have even begun to recruit women in the Punjab. These women undergo 21 days of ideological and military training. The goal is to ensure that these women will be able to fight if their menfolk are out on jihad and an enemy attacks Pakistan.

The militant outfits are rich, both ideologically and materially. They have ample financial resources that flow from four distinct sources: official sources (in some cases); Middle Eastern and Gulf states (not necessarily official channels); donations; and the Punjabi middle class, which is predominantly engaged in funding both madrassas and jihad for social, moral and political ends. With regard to donations, the militant outfits are extremely responsive to the changing environment and have adapted their money-collection tactics. Gone are the days of money-collection boxes. Now, especially in villages, followers are asked to raise money by selling harvested crops. And in terms of the Punjabi middle class, there are traders in Islamabad and other smaller urban centres that contribute regularly to the cause. These trader-merchants and upcoming entrepreneurs see donations to these outfits as a source of atonement for their sins. In Tahir Kamran’s study “Deobandiism in the Punjab,” Deobandiism (and Wahhabiism) is an urban phenomenon. If so, then the existence of these militant outfits in rural Punjab indicates a new social trend. Perhaps, due to greater access to technology (mobiles, television sets, satellite receivers, etc), the landscape (and rustic lifestyles) of Punjab’s rural areas has changed. There is an unplanned urbanisation of the rural areas due to the emergence of small towns with no social development, health and education infrastructure. Socially and politically, there is a gap that is filled by these militant outfits or related ideological institutions.

Fortunately, they have not succeeded in changing the lifestyles of the ordinary people. This is perhaps because there are multiple cultural strands that do not allow the jihadis to impose their norms the way they have in the tribal areas or the Frontier province. This is not to say that there is no threat from them in South Punjab: the liberalism and multi-polarity of society is certainly at risk. The threat is posed by the religious seminaries and the new recruits for jihad, who change social norms slowly and gradually. Sadly nothing, including the powerful political system of the area, which in any case is extremely warped, helps ward off the threat of extremism and jihadism. Ultimately, South Punjab could fall prey to the myopia of its ruling elite.

So how does the state and society deal with this issue?

Deploying the military is not an option. In the Punjab this will create a division within the powerful army because of regional loyalty. The foremost task is to examine the nature of the state’s relationship with the militants as strategic partners: should this relationship continue to exist to the detriment of the state? Once this mystifying question is resolved, all militant forces can be dealt with through an integrated police-intelligence operation.

This, however, amounts to winning only half the battle. The other half deals with the basic problems faced by the likes of those young jihadis-in-training from Bahawalpur who said, “We don’t see anything” in our futures. Presently, there is hardly any industrialisation in South Punjab and the mainstay of the area, agriculture, is faltering. The region requires economic strengthening: new ideas in agriculture, capital investment and new, relevant industries. This is the time that the government must plan beyond the usual textile and sugar industries that have arguably turned into huge mafias that are draining the local economy rather than feeding it.

Investment in social development is desperately needed. A larger social infrastructure that provides jobs and an educational system that is responsive to the needs of the population can contribute to filling the gaps. The message of militancy is quite potent, especially in terms of the dreams it sells to the youth, such as those disillusioned boys from my village. Jihad elevates youngsters from a state of being dispossessed to an imagined exalted status. They visualise themselves taking their places among great historical figures such as Mohammad bin Qasim and Khalid bin Waleed. It is these dreams for which the state must provide an alternative.”

Read the complete article here.

Bab’Aziz

Movie and soundtrack found on Inspirations and Creative Truths.

This film is about being lost and finding one’s way home. It portrays the characteristic urge of philosophies of ascent, of returning to one’s original home in God, and having faith that He will guide your way back to Him. It also shows the sensual and social side to being spiritual, the former of which is most embodied in Sufism, I feel. To the Sufi spirituality can be simultaneously erotic and pious. And of course, there is excellent music:

Maryam

Poem of the Atoms

Dream of the Palace

And in this scene, I highly recommend forwarding to 2:34 minutes.

Lastly: an interesting review.

(Cross-posted with modification to Yes and No.)

The Cult of Harun Yahya

Harun Yahya, whose real name is Adnan Oktar, is someone I have despised ever since I came into contact with one of his creationist booklets. I tried to find out as much as I could about who he was but there wasn’t much written about him at that time. My search led to an article written by the Koranist Muslim Edip Yuskel on the website 19.org which alerted me to his shady character. Over the last few years Harun Yahya has become synonymous with the Muslim creationist movement and globally his  profile has risen exponentially. This has also brought with it increased scrutiny of him and his followers. The following is an excerpt from an article in the New Humanist:

Throughout the 1980s and early ’90s, Oktar built up his community. Followers were especially active in the swanky summer resorts along the shore of the Sea of Marmara. A friend of mine, who spent most of her holidays in the late 1980s at her parents’ summer flat in the area, recalls how the followers’ targeting worked: “They bought flats there and singled out attractive girls and boys. The boys were very good-looking, boys who can easily charm you. I guess this is why they started with the boys. Once the girls entered the cult, they had to give up sexy fashion, so they wouldn’t be able to attract new members. But for the boys, the rules were more relaxed, so that they could continue recruitment.”

The social organisation within the group was becoming rigidly hierarchical and, as is common in messianic cults, sexual relations were tightly controlled, with the putative messiah given access denied to others. Oktar considered all female members his legitimate possession. Berk, a recent defector after seven years, describes the groups: “There were sisters (bacilar), concubines (cariyeler) and brothers (kardesler), the male members. The brothers were allowed to marry the concubines, while the sisters were all married to Adnan Hodja.” Of course these marriages were not legal, but they were treated as such within the group. As with Scientology, discipline was maintained through humiliation, the threat of expulsion and physical violence. “I know personally,” Berk told me, “that Oktar beats the sisters.”

Okatr also insisted on uniformity in dress, behaviour and even home furnishings. “Everyone had to be the same,” says Berk. “The hairstyle, the shoes, the jackets. It had to be the most expensive brands, like Versace and Gucci, and it had to be exactly how he wanted it to be. Even our communal flats had to be furnished according to his taste. It had to be heavy antiques, all with gold leaf and dark wood.” Video cameras were installed in the communal apartments, which allowed Oktar to exercise control over his followers and outsiders. As the criminal indictment vividly illustrates, young girls were lured into sex parties with the promise of being admitted to the group, but ended up having to perform sexual acts with men of influence, whom the group needed for its economic and political success. The encounters were filmed and used to coerce the men in question to act in the group’s interest. In witness statements, the models Tugce Doras and Seckin Piriler give detailed accounts of how members of the group treated them as “sex slaves” and how Oktar and his followers compelled them to perform oral sex and other sexual favours.

No matter how bizarre the rules, Oktar was able to provide them with apparent legitimacy through his reading of the Koran and Islamic history. Concubinage was justified by reference to the Ottoman harems, while passages of the Koran were recited to justify the practice of severing the ties of the young followers to their families. As a leading legal scholar involved in some of the court cases against Oktar puts it: “In [Oktar’s] reading, the love for mother and father is an offence to God. Parents are seen as the executors of God’s will to raise the child. Once the child reaches adulthood, their role is fulfilled. If the parents happen to join, they are considered pious and may become fellow comrades. If they remain ‘infidels’, they are considered enemies.” It was with this justification that the followers cut off relations with their parents, on whose financial and social resources, however, the group ultimately depended. The indictment details the way in which followers were encouraged to plunder their parents’ bank accounts and sell their assets.

I recommend reading the complete article . It can be found here.

Religion Chart

(Cross-posted to Yes and No.)

Held by the Taliban

That’s right folks: this is a cult of death and hyper-masculinity.

Friday Humor: PTA calls strike against lewd females

This incisive satirical piece is brought to you courtesy of  Maila Times. Maila Times is an online satirical newspaper with a Pakistani slant .

Karachi, Pakistan: The Pakistan Transport Association (PTA) has called for a ‘payya jam’ throughout the country tomorrow to protest against the immoral, un-Islamic and rude behavior of female passengers who use public transportation. Sardar Mazhar Awan, chairman of the PTA, said that the strike will continue indefinitely until the government takes action against the women passengers. Men across the country welcomed the call for the strike, calling for the government to issue an official statement condemning the lewd behavior displayed by female passengers, as many of them feel perpetually violated and feel uncomfortable when commuting or shopping in public.

Abdul Wahid, a resident of Pak Colony in Karachi, told Maila Times that these days, it’s almost impossible to travel by bus in the city – not because of the traffic, but because of lurking and lust-filled eyes. He said that even though women sit separately in front of the bus, most women will turn back and look flirtatiously at the men sitting behind them. He also said that many of the women would high five each other and whistle whenever he would walk by. “I feel disrespected and do not appreciate being treated like a piece of meat,” said Mr. Wahid. Several mini-bus conductors who were interviewed by our reporters corroborated Abdul Wahab’s claims. Whenever the conductors try to collect fees from female passengers, the female passengers would make sure to ‘accidently’ touch the conductors and would constantly look below the conductor’s waistlines. “It is very awkward having them stare at me in that way,” said one mini-bus conductor. “I don’t feel comfortable being in public anymore. Humein sharam aata hai.”

Asghar Lahori, a wagon owner in Rawalpindi, was livid and threatened to kick out any women who showed ‘questionable characteristics.’ “We live in an Islamic and conservative society, but these women think they can get away by sexually harassing men. I cannot send my 20 year old son to college by bus anymore, in fear that a woman may try to molest him,” he said.

Shop keepers on Tariq Road are also feeling the negative effects of the women’s indecent antics, and have expressed their approval of the strike organized by the PTA. Jibran Junaid, a shopkeeper on Tariq Road, says that there are always groups of females sitting outside his shop, lurking around and waiting for young innocent men to pry on. “They hoot, they holler, and in some cases they even subtlety try to go and grab an ass,” said Mr. Junaid. Pasha Khalid, another store owner who sells pirated CDs and hair combs from his push-cart, said that he has seen a 60% drop in sales the past couple of years due to the ‘revitalization of the feminine sexual drive.’ “If something is not done to keep these maila women out, then we’ll all go out of business,” said Mr. Khalid. “The way that they stare…it’s as if they’ve never seen a man’s ankle before.”

Iconochasms, from Political Compass

Through this political compass test, I have discovered the following:

- Lawrence Summers said that dumping toxic waste in Africa makes economic sense as the life expectancy there is so low that the cancerous effects will not have time to take hold.

- Al Gore (who I already disliked quite severely, what with him being a fear-mongering narcissist and hypocrite, and thoroughly uncharming) “in 1997 championed the privatisation of California’s National Oil Reserve, and the subsequent drilling by Occidental that resulted in serious environmental damage, destruction to a sacred Indian burial ground and a windfall for his family trust’s Occidental stocks? (Occidental also put a pipeline through the Colombian rain forest.)”

- Thomas Jefferson proposed that “Whosoever shall be guilty of rape, polygamy, or sodomy with a man or woman, shall be punished; if a man, by castration, a woman, by boring through the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch in diameter at the least.”

And: “I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature…..Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make half the world fools and half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the world.” I disagree with him, of course .

- Gandhi, being the neurotic spider that he was, disowned his own son for the ‘crime’ of wanting to get married (!!), and said: “How can I, who has always advocated renunciation of sex, encourage you to gratify it?”

And: “I do not consider Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted. He is showing an ability that is amazing and seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed.”

And our beloved yet again, blessing us with his pearls of wisdom: “Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.”

- Ayn Rand was a homophobe.

- Adam Smith warned us against businessmen proposing laws, since they “have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public.”

- Winston Churchill: “I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes … to spread a lively terror.”

And: “If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as admirable (as Hitler) to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.”

(Cross-posted with modification to Yes and No.)