End Of Confusion - The positive side of TTP's militancy.
It has come to a head.....
Growing up I was confused. We were taught that the ultimate source of all the virtue and goodness is Islam. This was the sentiment echoed and reinforced by teachers, parents, relatives, Friday sermons at the mosque, and basically everyone you met in a country that is 98% Muslim and highly conformist. But then there were people who took religion to the nth degree. The fundamentalists. We had mixed feelings about them. But more than revulsion, these feelings were of reverence. Selfless beings who sacrificed their own worldly pleasures for the goodness of God. And in many cases this was true. However, the goodness was not necessarily altruistic, but a bribe to the deities for eternal salvation in exchange of glorification of god. Or Allah as we Muslim called it.
Then came the first Afghan war. And the Mujahidins (holy warriors). Glorified by pretty much everyone in the Western and Pakistani media, and trained and funded by CIA and ISI, they added a real life sacrificial component to the persona of a pious Muslim. Someone who not only prays to Allah, but is also willing to lay his (they were mostly men) life for Him. No wonder the country and its citizens became increasingly confused. Children were the biggest victim of this confusion brought about by the increased Islamization of the era.
This confusion persisted through the 2nd Afghan war, but was really solidified by the unjustified Iraq invasion, which fed into insecurities of the Islamic world. Even some otherwise thoughtful Pakistanis told me they believed America's object is to break the will and determination of Muslims so it is easier for the US to subjugate them.
Little wonder that there was such ferocious opposition to drone attacks by US in the tribal areas. PTI, the political party led by ex-cricket star and international playboy (and now born-again Pashtoon Muslim - those are the most convincing kind) Imran Khan swept to power in KP province bordering Afghanistan.
Amid all this hoopla Pakistanis conveniently forgot they had left these tribal areas to their own devices (granted they were also bound by some old treaties) to fester. Incredibly barren, providing little opportunity to earn a livelihood by other than smuggling or drug trading, populated by ultra-militant civilization with deep tribal bonds, and family enmities going back generations, armed to the teeth (the only civilization that perhaps puts America's gun culture to shame), this was a tinder box waiting for a spark. At least this was my impression during my 3 visits as a teenager.
The 2nd Afghan war again lent the spark. Tribal areas soon became the valhalla for every conceivable jihadi around the world. Or as I used to describe to my friends, a brothel on the highway of terrorism. Every aspiring terrorist and jihadi paid a visit. Infuriated over Pakistan government's alliance with the US, even if it was a shotgun alliance, they started attacking Pakistan's army, airforce, infrastructure, and defenseless civilians. They unleashed nothing short of hell.
The army was quick to realize these extremist cannot be negotiated with (they might have funded and supported Taliban, but perhaps they also realized they have now lost control over them). They had tried this in Swat, only to see these medieval barbarians overrun the surrounding area. Some political parties also realized this. But some (most notably PTI) tried to make a case for negotiating with TTP. As if TTP was a legitimate constituency, representing some disenfranchised minority of Pakistani populace. They forgot that these thugs had no electoral mandate and represented no one from within Pakistan, except for a very small number of nihilist who had the twisted notion of establishing an Islamic caliphate, even if they couldn't even agree on the basics of what true Islam is. And many of the TTP ranks are not even Pakistani, but Uzbeks and Tajiks. Negotiations with foreign terrorists in your own country is as ridiculous an idea as one can imagine (of course exception being that you have no chance of fighting them, and are forced to bargain for your life).
Hopefully the carnage in Karachi is a turning point. Most political parties seem to agree now that there is no point of negotiating with TTP. After all what can you negotiate with someone who wants to overthrow the popular will of people and instead impose a medieval savagery parading for Islamic system upon them. Karachi attacks might make it clear to political parties that this a fight for the survival of Pakistan as a civilized society. Hopefully this would end confusion in peoples' minds that anyone parading the name of Islam should be given benefit of the doubt. And they will realize that while religion might be used to help and heal, often it is used to torment and torture. So next time we will all be skeptical of anyone using the name of Islam to push through their own macabre agenda. But then this is just a hope......
Growing up I was confused. We were taught that the ultimate source of all the virtue and goodness is Islam. This was the sentiment echoed and reinforced by teachers, parents, relatives, Friday sermons at the mosque, and basically everyone you met in a country that is 98% Muslim and highly conformist. But then there were people who took religion to the nth degree. The fundamentalists. We had mixed feelings about them. But more than revulsion, these feelings were of reverence. Selfless beings who sacrificed their own worldly pleasures for the goodness of God. And in many cases this was true. However, the goodness was not necessarily altruistic, but a bribe to the deities for eternal salvation in exchange of glorification of god. Or Allah as we Muslim called it.
Then came the first Afghan war. And the Mujahidins (holy warriors). Glorified by pretty much everyone in the Western and Pakistani media, and trained and funded by CIA and ISI, they added a real life sacrificial component to the persona of a pious Muslim. Someone who not only prays to Allah, but is also willing to lay his (they were mostly men) life for Him. No wonder the country and its citizens became increasingly confused. Children were the biggest victim of this confusion brought about by the increased Islamization of the era.
This confusion persisted through the 2nd Afghan war, but was really solidified by the unjustified Iraq invasion, which fed into insecurities of the Islamic world. Even some otherwise thoughtful Pakistanis told me they believed America's object is to break the will and determination of Muslims so it is easier for the US to subjugate them.
Little wonder that there was such ferocious opposition to drone attacks by US in the tribal areas. PTI, the political party led by ex-cricket star and international playboy (and now born-again Pashtoon Muslim - those are the most convincing kind) Imran Khan swept to power in KP province bordering Afghanistan.
Amid all this hoopla Pakistanis conveniently forgot they had left these tribal areas to their own devices (granted they were also bound by some old treaties) to fester. Incredibly barren, providing little opportunity to earn a livelihood by other than smuggling or drug trading, populated by ultra-militant civilization with deep tribal bonds, and family enmities going back generations, armed to the teeth (the only civilization that perhaps puts America's gun culture to shame), this was a tinder box waiting for a spark. At least this was my impression during my 3 visits as a teenager.
The 2nd Afghan war again lent the spark. Tribal areas soon became the valhalla for every conceivable jihadi around the world. Or as I used to describe to my friends, a brothel on the highway of terrorism. Every aspiring terrorist and jihadi paid a visit. Infuriated over Pakistan government's alliance with the US, even if it was a shotgun alliance, they started attacking Pakistan's army, airforce, infrastructure, and defenseless civilians. They unleashed nothing short of hell.
The army was quick to realize these extremist cannot be negotiated with (they might have funded and supported Taliban, but perhaps they also realized they have now lost control over them). They had tried this in Swat, only to see these medieval barbarians overrun the surrounding area. Some political parties also realized this. But some (most notably PTI) tried to make a case for negotiating with TTP. As if TTP was a legitimate constituency, representing some disenfranchised minority of Pakistani populace. They forgot that these thugs had no electoral mandate and represented no one from within Pakistan, except for a very small number of nihilist who had the twisted notion of establishing an Islamic caliphate, even if they couldn't even agree on the basics of what true Islam is. And many of the TTP ranks are not even Pakistani, but Uzbeks and Tajiks. Negotiations with foreign terrorists in your own country is as ridiculous an idea as one can imagine (of course exception being that you have no chance of fighting them, and are forced to bargain for your life).
Hopefully the carnage in Karachi is a turning point. Most political parties seem to agree now that there is no point of negotiating with TTP. After all what can you negotiate with someone who wants to overthrow the popular will of people and instead impose a medieval savagery parading for Islamic system upon them. Karachi attacks might make it clear to political parties that this a fight for the survival of Pakistan as a civilized society. Hopefully this would end confusion in peoples' minds that anyone parading the name of Islam should be given benefit of the doubt. And they will realize that while religion might be used to help and heal, often it is used to torment and torture. So next time we will all be skeptical of anyone using the name of Islam to push through their own macabre agenda. But then this is just a hope......
posted by madinmanhattan | 7:29 PM
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