MQM’s targeted killing strategy- By Jan Assakzai
Almost on daily basis Pakhtuns are killed in Karachi and there is a complete silence in the media to the plight of the beleaguered community. And the victims are dismissed as workers of ANP as if their blood is cheap.
The knowledge that how the MQM’s military wing is undertaking the killings of political opponents, police officers and the Pakhtuns is in public domain- a fact even acknowledged by the government’s own interior ministry report (May 23, The News) with input from all the official security stakeholders in Karachi, including the Sindh Police, Special Branch, IB, ISI, Rangers and the Interior Ministry. So what is the strategy of the MQM behind these targeted killings of the Pakhtuns?
Those carrying out this war has two goals: the first is to create sympathy in Karachi and throughout the country for Urdu speaking community to portray the picture as if they are being driven by the Pakhtuns from their homes parallel to what happened to their forefather over six decades ago in communal riots in the united provinces prior to partition.
Second, they have sought to portray their war against the Pakhtuns as a struggle against the land mafia, the Taliban and and extremism. The Pakhtuns are being portrayed as aggressors toward the Urdu speaking community. The Urdu speaking community is portrayed as patriotic Pakistanis fighting the Pakhtuns much as the their forefathers had fought against communal rioters.
It is a brilliant strategy. By focusing on the alleged victimhood of Urdu speaking community and on the alleged aggression of the Pakhtuns , the MQM strategists defined the battle as being mainly against the Pakhtuns, with the Sindhis and Balochs of Karachi playing the role of people trying to create the second phase of the “Muhajir” victimhood. The goal is to vilify the Pakhtuns and to position the Urdu speaking community with other nationalist groups whether in rural Sindh or Balochistan rising against the Pakhtuns.
Not to mention the sub text that sends a message to other Pakhtuns who intend to come to Karachi to think twice as their properties: transport, push carts, huts will also be brunt down.
The precise truth or falsehood of this portrayal didn’t particularly matter. For most of the country, the Pakhtun issue in Karachi is poorly understood and is not a matter of immediate concern. The MQM intends to shape the perceptions of a the public with limited interest in or understanding of the issues, filling in the blanks with their own narrative. And they have succeeded by portraying the Pakhtuns as the Taliban and extremists.
The success is rooted in a political reality. Where knowledge is limited, and the desire to learn the complex reality doesn’t exist, public opinion can be shaped by whoever generates the most powerful symbols. And here the media spinning machine of the MQM works 24/7 in conjunction with the elements of mainstream Punjab and Karachi based media who is not prepared to accommodate alternative narratives on Karachi’s underlying issues, militancy, terrorism, India and Afghanistan relations. And on a matter of only tangential interest, governments tend to follow their public’s wishes, however they originate.
There is little to be gained for government in resisting public opinion and much to be gained by giving in. By shaping the battlefield of public perception, it is thus possible to get governments to change positions.
In this way, the MQM’s ability to shape public perceptions of what is happening in Karachi (to demonise the Pakhtuns and turn the question of Pakhtun issue into a MQM-ANP tussle) shapes the political decisions of a range of governments at centre and the province. It is not the truth or falsehood of the narrative that matters. What matters is the ability to identify the victim and victimiser such that Pakistani public opinion caused both in Karachi and central government not directly involved in the issue to adopt political stances advantageous to the MQM.
It is in this context that we need to view the silence of the PPP and other political parties over the plight of Pakhtuns in Karachi. It is weired that the PPP are tacitly supporting the MQM, in latter’s policy to drive Pakhtuns out of Sindh or in case of Sindhi nationalists staying neutral thus by default if not by design, punishing the poor Pakhtuns. But the PPP representing the Sindh vote bank and other Sindhi nationalists better understand that the MQM’ is not going to stay a 3 city party in Sindh and they would expand to rural Sindh.
As far the state of Pakistan, it is in Islamabad’s interest to check the policies of the MQM towards Pakhtuns and other ethnic minorities in Karachi also balance the monopolising politics of the group. At the end, it is only Pakhtuns that are between Jinnapur and Pakistan checking the lingering ambition of the MQM for its own separate fiefdom. Besides, economically vibrant and a peaceful Karachi is only conceivable if it survives as politically pluralistic, multi cultural and multi ethnic cosmopolitan city with the State of Pakistan as neutral arbiter in between various communities.
Notwithstanding, the Pakhtun community is well integrated in Pakistan and its political voices including the ANP and PKMAP have never been a centrifugal force-except merely accused by the establishment at time when Pakistan was feeling its way forward in Afghanistan, attempting to find the means to increase its geo-political stature through elements of Mujaheddin later the Taliban across the border and develop new tools of influence in Pakhtun areas through religio-political forces including the MMA and Suadi-funded religious seminaries.
But If Pakhutns are driven out of Karachi and Sindh, they have their ancestral land from the mountains of Chitral in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the plains of Sibi in Balochistan which will take them back when they the need it.
However, the biggest losers would be the PPP, ethnic Sindhis and the State of Pakistan if the MQM’s march towards ethnic cleansing and demographic engineering were left unchecked, aside the ordinary Urdu speaking population reeling under the yoke of the MQM.
The MQM’s demographic engineering and stocking ethnic riots comes at a most precarious time. Pakistan has already arrived at crisis point as the militant insurgency continues to spiral out of control and floods devastated the nearly 100 years of savings of Pakhtuns. Stoking ethnic unrest in Karachi for political reasons exacerbates the security dilemma confronting the state and provides a greater opportunity for the militants to thrive.
With Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA under the grip of terrorism and floods and the Pakhtuns in northern Balochistan being discriminated against, the 40 million Pakhtuns see least prospects for any livelihood in the foreseeable future. The only way the MQM can get rid of 7 million Pakhtuns of Karachi (Source: Wikipedia, and ”Front Line World”-Focus- a report produced in association with the New York Times”) is to drive them into Arabian sea. Otherwise, they can not replace their Pakhtun neighbours no matter how many of them (the Pakhtuns) they target kill.
janassakzai200@gamil.com
Saturday, August 07, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Fighting against Terrorism: ANP loses 485 diehard activists- by Javed Aziz Khan | Let Us Build Pakistan
Fighting against Terrorism: ANP loses 485 diehard activists- by Javed Aziz Khan
The News
PESHAWAR: The Awami National Party (ANP) lost about 485 diehard activists during the ongoing ‘war on terror’ for its tough stance against militants in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and tribal areas over the last many years.
Most of the casualties were from Malakand division where the party leaders and workers remained on the hit list of terrorists since 2006. The latest blow was the assassination of Mian Arshad Hussain, the only son of the Provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain, who had been declared by the militants as their “enemy number one” for his harsh statements against them.
The nationalist party suffered another blow when a suicide bomber blew himself up near the residence of the information minister in Pabbi when hundreds of women were there to offer condolences to the family and men were offering Fateha in the nearby mosque.
Mian Iftikhar is not deterred but ready to sacrifice even his own life. “We all are to die. I am proud of the martyrdom of my son,” the outspoken minister told journalists on Tuesday. “Two of our MPAs have been killed in the bomb attacks. Alamzeb, MPA from Peshawar, was killed in January last year in a roadside blast. Another was Dr Shamsher from Swat, killed in a suicide attack three days after Eidul Azha last year,” said Zahid Hussain, a former nazim of Landi Arbab and the ANP Peshawar chapter office-bearer.
Several were lucky to escape unhurt in terror attacks. They include ANP head Asfandyar Wali Khan, who escaped a suicide attack at the family house, Wali Bagh, in 2008. Four people were killed and several wounded in the attack.
Afzal Khan Lala proved to be the main source of courage for his party activists. The elderly politician survived rocket attacks on his house and hujra and bombings and firing on his car when he refused to leave Swat at the time when the elite of the valley shifted to safer places.
Senior Minister Bashir Ahmad Bilour has survived two suicide attacks. The first one was outside Qayyum Sports Complex when he along with Mian Iftikhar Hussain was coming out of the stadium after attending the closing ceremony of the Inter-provincial Sports Gala in 2008. Four people including gunman of the senior minister were killed in the explosion.
Another attack occurred in Namakmandi in Peshawar when he was inspecting the site of development projects. Two bombers and six locals were killed in that attack. Bilour’s house near the US Consulate had also been damaged in a rocket attack.
ANP Provincial President Senator Afrasiyab Khattak survived a suicide bombing at his rally in Charsadda during the campaign for the 2008 general elections. Brothers of two Swat MPAs, Wajid Ali Khan and Waqar Ahmad Khan, were among those killed during the violence for almost three years in the district.
“Two of our MPAs from Peshawar, Aurangzeb from PF-1 and Alamgir Khalil from PF-6, survived separate bomb attacks for being leaders of the ruling nationalist party. There are a large number of MNAs, MPAs and nazims, who have experienced bombings and firing in Malakand division,” said Naseer Khan, secretary of the ANP, Hazarkhwani-II.
There were reports that threatening letters were sent and phone calls made to a large number of nationalist leaders and activists all over Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. However, many leaders of the party are still firm that they will continue fighting the militants. Bashir Bilour termed this ‘war on terror’ as the “Third World War” during the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly session on Monday.
Fighting against Terrorism: ANP loses 485 diehard activists- by Javed Aziz Khan Let Us Build Pakistan
The News
PESHAWAR: The Awami National Party (ANP) lost about 485 diehard activists during the ongoing ‘war on terror’ for its tough stance against militants in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and tribal areas over the last many years.
Most of the casualties were from Malakand division where the party leaders and workers remained on the hit list of terrorists since 2006. The latest blow was the assassination of Mian Arshad Hussain, the only son of the Provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain, who had been declared by the militants as their “enemy number one” for his harsh statements against them.
The nationalist party suffered another blow when a suicide bomber blew himself up near the residence of the information minister in Pabbi when hundreds of women were there to offer condolences to the family and men were offering Fateha in the nearby mosque.
Mian Iftikhar is not deterred but ready to sacrifice even his own life. “We all are to die. I am proud of the martyrdom of my son,” the outspoken minister told journalists on Tuesday. “Two of our MPAs have been killed in the bomb attacks. Alamzeb, MPA from Peshawar, was killed in January last year in a roadside blast. Another was Dr Shamsher from Swat, killed in a suicide attack three days after Eidul Azha last year,” said Zahid Hussain, a former nazim of Landi Arbab and the ANP Peshawar chapter office-bearer.
Several were lucky to escape unhurt in terror attacks. They include ANP head Asfandyar Wali Khan, who escaped a suicide attack at the family house, Wali Bagh, in 2008. Four people were killed and several wounded in the attack.
Afzal Khan Lala proved to be the main source of courage for his party activists. The elderly politician survived rocket attacks on his house and hujra and bombings and firing on his car when he refused to leave Swat at the time when the elite of the valley shifted to safer places.
Senior Minister Bashir Ahmad Bilour has survived two suicide attacks. The first one was outside Qayyum Sports Complex when he along with Mian Iftikhar Hussain was coming out of the stadium after attending the closing ceremony of the Inter-provincial Sports Gala in 2008. Four people including gunman of the senior minister were killed in the explosion.
Another attack occurred in Namakmandi in Peshawar when he was inspecting the site of development projects. Two bombers and six locals were killed in that attack. Bilour’s house near the US Consulate had also been damaged in a rocket attack.
ANP Provincial President Senator Afrasiyab Khattak survived a suicide bombing at his rally in Charsadda during the campaign for the 2008 general elections. Brothers of two Swat MPAs, Wajid Ali Khan and Waqar Ahmad Khan, were among those killed during the violence for almost three years in the district.
“Two of our MPAs from Peshawar, Aurangzeb from PF-1 and Alamgir Khalil from PF-6, survived separate bomb attacks for being leaders of the ruling nationalist party. There are a large number of MNAs, MPAs and nazims, who have experienced bombings and firing in Malakand division,” said Naseer Khan, secretary of the ANP, Hazarkhwani-II.
There were reports that threatening letters were sent and phone calls made to a large number of nationalist leaders and activists all over Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. However, many leaders of the party are still firm that they will continue fighting the militants. Bashir Bilour termed this ‘war on terror’ as the “Third World War” during the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly session on Monday.
Fighting against Terrorism: ANP loses 485 diehard activists- by Javed Aziz Khan Let Us Build Pakistan
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Mian Iftikhar Hussein showed his greatness
@ Anwar Jalal July 27 at 6:09pm
Agony of such person can be well imagined who’s only son is killed in tragic way by brutal crazy terrorists and again on the very next day his house is attacked by suicide bomber killing and injuring further people including his close relatives
Often such person get smash psychologically But Main Iftikhar Hussein has showed that he is unbreakable and unbeatable and is not an ordinary soul In the composed manner he .addressed a press conference today and reiterated his determination not to be bowed to the terrorists but would continue the struggle against them with the HUSSEINI spirit and gallantry prove his ( Main Iftikhar ) courage, fortitude , and commitment with the cause he is pursuing He is really a great and worthy of highest admiration.
@ Pakhtunkhwa Peace Forum
Main Iftikhar Hussein showed his greatness : "A great leader with a strong will power and a big heart where sorrows can not dominate to to scare him and divert his attention from righteousness. A man with wisdom and a lover of peace..May Allah bless you and all your family.........Our sympathies, love and prayers are w...ith you.... Inshallah the coward will not let you down and you made a history. Pashtuns will not forget your sacrifices" Watch and reflect:
Salute to Mian sahib upon the supreme sacrifice in the glorious tradition of Bacha Khan's followers. 
@ Muhammad Arif
Today Pakhtun nation give birth to another leader of gigantic stature. Let's stand by Mia Iftikhar Hussain.
The target killing of our dear one, the son of our courageous leader Mian Iftikhar Hussian is unforgivable.
@ Pashtun Unity July 27 at 6:35pm
A great leader with a strong will power and a big heart where sorrows can not dominate to to scare him and divert his attention from righteousness. A man with wisdom and a lover of peace..May Allah bless you and all your family.........Our symapthies, love and prayers are with you....Inshallah the coward will not let you down and you made a history. Pukhtuns will not forget your sacrifices.
@ Abdul Basit Khan
Mian Iftikhar Sb, Our hearts are with you and your family. Death is a reality and so is life, But Your son's story is incredibly shocking and
nothing you could have anticipated since, The message was clear: if you
talk, you'll be killed but you were willing to fight and goes to the
places where others fears!!!
We admire the father's c...ourage his attitude and perseverance!!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
د نر پښتون ميان افتخارحسين ځوے شهيد کړے شو
The target killing of our dear one, the son of our courageous leader Mian Iftikhar Hussian is unforgivable.
Monday, July 19, 2010
In defence of Pakhtun nationalism
In defence of Pakhtun nationalism
Jan Assakzai
Some pro-Taliban writers have said on the Internet media that Pakhtun nationalism as a political movement is against Islam that nationalist leadership both in Pakistan and Afghanistan do not enjoy the backing of the people and that they are a small clique who are western stooges whereas Pakhtuns are following political Islamists. But this discourse refutes that Pakhtun nationalism is anti-Islam and argues that Pakhtun nationalism is not only alive in Pakistan but also thriving in Afghanistan and is the only guarantee in the long run that can help prevent mayhem in both countries and the repeat of Sept 11.
Pakhtun nationalism as political ideology despite its shortcomings has always been there on both sides of the Durand Line. However, there might be some differences in emphasis and scope. Another distinction is that one may be a political Islamist, not a nationalist or communist but may take nationalist stance on some issues. So the definition may not be as absolute as one may understand by the word “nationalist”.
Pakhtun nationalism as a political phenomenon has its roots in Pakhtun history. The various uprising of Pakhtuns/Afghans against different invaders had nationalist connotations: be that the struggle of Khushal Khan Khattak against the Moguls, the three Anglo-Afghan wars in the nineteenth century, the uprising of Faqir of Ipi in North Waziristan, Bacha Khan and Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai’s non-violent movements against British Raj so on and so forth. Majority of Pakhtuns: around 40 million, live in Pakistan and roughly 15 to 17 million constitute Afghanistan’s Pakhtun population out of 30 million if the current census estimates are to be believed. Political nationalist currents and their underlying dynamics amongst the Pakhtuns on both side of the Durand Line have both similarities and dissimilarities. (For me Pakhtun, Afghan and Pathan are interchangeable that define the same ethnic group, so just for clarity I will often use the word Pakhtun). Nationalism is sometimes reactionary, calling for a return to national past, and sometimes for the expulsion of foreigners. Other forms of nationalism are revolutionary, calling for the establishment of an independent state as a homeland for an ethnic underclass. But after the end of British Empire and emergence of Pakistan as a nation state, Pakhtun nationalism has been progressive and within the confines of Pakistan’s boundaries and has also by and large not sought pan-Pakhtun nationalism despite the stereotyped views of many non-Pakhtun and oriental writers. It has also not been based on ethno-nationalism: a belief in the superiority of one ethnicity over others, and never supported ethnocentric protectionism or ethnocentric supremacy of Pakhtuns over other ethnic groups. Whereas Islam as religion is concerned, I think almost 99 per cent Pakhtuns would believe in some sort of interpretation of Islam at philosophical/metaphysical, societal or functional levels. Yes, if one has more divisive or sectarian interpretation of religion, may term fellow Muslims as non Muslims, Shias, Kafirs, Murtads etc.
But vast majority of Pakhtuns do not subscribe to these divisions except a fringe group that may have got influence from Wahhabism or Pakistan’s mainstream sectarian extremist outfits. As there is no religious authority/body in the Islamic world who for example could issue certificates for who being a bonafide Muslim. However, there had been a tiny number of Pakhtuns who happened to be adherents of left political ideology of communism and did also adopt different metaphysical beliefs about God, and views on religion propagated by the founders of the ideology.
But with the collapse of communism as political system, and the collapse of its philosophic/metaphorical leftist political liberalism all over the world, their numbers have come to a negligible figures. Majority of Pakhtuns, including nationalists practise Islam as religion and have a Islamic religious outlook for all metaphysical questions, some how. But historically, Pakhtun traditions have been so strong that they have always kept religion subservient to traditions. In other words, Pakhtun traditions and religion is blended, to the consternation of Wahabbis. Some may disagree as to what constitute Muslim, depends on his/her degree of observance of religious rituals in its totality. But it is again a matter of interpretation and one cannot deprive one of his/her use of religion to fill in one’s spiritual, philosophical voids.
There is another political current among Pakhtuns who use religion for political purposes I call them as political Islamists, some dub them as extremists. Political Islamists’ beliefs and actions may not necessarily be in line with the tenets of Islam as a religion. Their second type is the Jihadists who not only believe in political Islam but also believe that in order to impose their interpretation of political Islam, they should use violence and intimidation not only in their own territories but if possible throughout the world - a view which runs against the spirit of Islam (and is not the scope of this discourse for further exploration). Political Islam has largely been represented by the erstwhile Islamist Mujaheddin and the Taliban among Pakhtuns particularly in Afghanistan and to a lesser degree in Pakistan. Back in 1979 when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Pakistan’s then generals worried that Moscow would expand its footprint in the Pakhtun heartland and pose a direct threat to the unity of Pakistan, they began a covert programme of funding, training, and equipping Afghans willing to take on the Soviet Army It is now open secret that how political Islam was cultivated on both sides of the border over past three and half decades and how proxy Mujaheddin were sponsored and imposed on Pakhtuns/ Afghans by the CIA’s trainings, Pakistan’s logistical help, and Saudi petrol money, latter how their political successor, the new proxy, the Taliban were introduced to the scene. US policymakers relied on intelligence agents, diplomats, and experts who in the past had worked closely with the Pakistan’s intelligence agencies.
These individuals bought into Islamabad’s line that Pakhtun/Afghan nationalists needed to be sidelined and the focus needed to be on the political Islamists who were being trained in their thousands in Pakistan. Indeed, these nationalists who were patriotic people, soon found themselves unwelcome in Pakistan, and nearly 1.5 million migrated to Gulf, Europe, North America and India. While the sponsors of the political Islam defeated Afghan nationalism and thought in Pakhtun areas but failed to wipe out in Pakistan. But what is precisely Pakhtun/Afghan nationalism? First, Afghan nationalism is slightly different from Pakhtun’s ethnic nationalism in Pakistan. I call Afghan nationalism as “civic nationalism”. “Civic” nationalism compared to “ethnic” nationalism emphasises on loyalty to a kind of “cosmopolitan” state rather than ethnicity. “Civic” nationalism defines the nation as an association of people with equal and shared political rights, and allegiance to similar political procedures.
Why it is different in emphasis is because in Afghanistan, Pakhtun /Afghan situation is sharply different from their counterparts in Pakistan. Pakhtuns in Afghanistan form the largest ethnic group and for many they are the majority ethnic group as well. Pakhtuns have substantive political representation in the state institutions, they are the major stake holders and hence their pragmatic needs are different form those of their Pakhtun cousins in Pakistan.
There might be issues of neglect of language or culture at the hand of Persian speaking Pakhtun and non- Pakhtun elite in the past or now. However, there has been no second class status reserved for Pakhtuns except at marginal levels. Thus Pakhtun is a kind of big brother in Afghanistan, not a small minority. From Pakhtun perspective, there are other minorities who have to be part of its view of nationalism which implies that the allegiance have to be to state more than to individual ethnic groups. In other words, according to the principles of “civic” nationalism, the nation is not based on common ethnicity or ethnicites , but is a political entity, whose core is not ethnicity.
As a result of “civic” nationalism, Afghan identity though being historically interchangeable with “Pakhtun” and “Pathan” has also evolved to include other ethnic groups who are quite happy to call themselves as Afghans. The integration of Pakhtuns/Afghans with other ethnic groups has been far greater compared to Pakhtuns in Pakistan. As far as “ethnic” nationalism among Pakhtuns in Afghanistan is concerned, there were/are some elements who have been highlighting the “excesses” of non Pakhtuns towards Pakhtuns for exmaple, “Afghan Milatian”. But they did not find much following among the Pakhtuns. Pakhtuns either Islamists or civic nationalists could not afford to be ethnic nationalists due to political cost, yet they remained “civic” nationalists in their political outlook. Thus political (civic) nationalism has always been there in Pakhtuns/Afghans throughout history whether they were communists, Islamist Mujaheddin or political hardline Taliban.
Meanwhile, another dynamic related to political Islam is a legitimacy question that hang over them not only in Afghanistan but world over. They have always been wary of elections and in seeking votes from people in order to get their support. This is why most of the countries in the Islamic world who practise political Islam as political ideology abhor free elections and getting mandate of the people to rule them.
This has also been the case with Mujaheddin in Afghanistan and the Afghan Taliban of today as well. Thus assuming that they automatically enjoy the support of Pakhtuns/ Afghans for having fought against the Soviets now fighting the US and NATO forces is simply not true as there is no statistical basis in terms of ascertaining the people’s opinion regarding their past/present role or regarding the question whether they should rule Afghanistan. In other words, there has never been vote to prove that Pakhtuns want political Islam of either Mujaheddin or the Taliban in Afghanistan. Out of nearly 12 million registered votes, overwhelming majority supported moderate civil Pakhtun/Afghan (civic) nationalist leadership of Hamid Karzai in the past three successive presidential elections. Whereas in Pakhtuns of Pakistan, “ethnic” nationalism is the by product of a geo-political state’s policy of promoting a different kind of thinly-veiled ethnic nationalism by design under the name of Islam. The sole aim of this project in practice means keeping the dominance of Punjab as an ethnic group in all the state institutions including bureaucracy, Army, Parliament and others, while being less than majority before 1971 and dubious and controversial majority of around 50 per cent of the total population after the fall of East Pakistan. Though officially the state policies deny that it is preserving Punjabi dominance in every walk of life and claims instead it is promoting a kind of Pakistanisation which I call “cosmopolitan nationalism”: all citizens are Muslims and Pakistanis; we are all Pakistanis; and no one is Pakhtun, Baloch, Punjabi, Sindhi etc. But in reality some are more equal than others.
They have also promoted Urdu language which is the language of nearly six per cent of the population, at the cost of neglecting other languages, including Pakhtu, which is being spoken by between 35 to 40 per cent of Pakistan’s population if fair census of Pakhtuns is held. And Pakhtuns consider their language and culture as heritage. In Pakistan, Pakhtun nationalism have been wary of Pakistan’s “cosmopolitan nationalism” which they equate with eradication of diverse national cultures, and languages while ending up promoting a single largest ethnic group and it rejects such important nationalist values as ethnic identity and loyalty, language, culture etc.
This is why nationalists are deeply suspicious of “state’s cosmopolitan attitudes”. Why the type of nationalism in Pakistan has been more of “ethnic” nature is because they are five distinct ethnic groups with different languages, different geographically, linguistically based provinces and areas, with minor exceptions though. So those who do not agree with state’s policy and have less stakes in the polity are nationalists by design or default. Whatever term you may coin, their opposition can only be categorised as political nationalism.
Thus Pakhtun nationalist forces in Pakistan have been demanding an end to exclusion of other minority population including Pakhtuns, Baloch, Sindhis and Siraikis in the state institutions. As far as the masses are concerned, if we were to know the level of their support, one has to count the votes as it is the only relatively fairer method to gauge one’s popularity among the people. But in Pakistan out of nearly 62 years there have been direct army rule and all elections were oftenly rigged. While due to mullah-military historical alliance, Islamist parties won the elections of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa which were accepted as rigged elections even by Gen Pervez Musharaf’s own admission. In the last elections of 2008, Pakhtun nationalists got move that 50 per cent of the vote polled. In Balochistan Pakhtun areas, though Pakhtun nationalists boycotted, historically they have garnered majority share of the votes polled despite rigged elections. They have also made electoral gains in Karachi showing Pakhtun nationalists have the mandate of the majority Pakhtun people.
As far as religion is concerned, it has never been a hurdle in the political evolution of Pakhtun nationalism. However, political Islam’s role has been controversial. During the foreign invasions of Pakhtun territories throughout history, it has often been used as supporting tool by Pakhtun nationalists to fight against the invaders. But in twentieth century it has been promoted by foreign sponsors as part of their geo-political rivalry played out on Pakhtun territories in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The West including the US, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and China used political Islam as a tool to defeat Soviet Union and contain “ethnic” nationalism in Pakistan and “civic” nationalism and progressive thoughts in Afghanistan. Following the abandonment of the US from the Afghan scene regional actors particularly Pakistan again cultivated a new proxy the Taliban while using political Islam as ideological underpinning. Yes, in the process political Islam also got some adherence in Afghanistan.
Even today particularly Pakhtuns in Afghanistan were not offered alternative socio-economic and socio-political alternative by the West thus they are being forced to accept the proxy Islamist Taliban as the only alternative. Though it is not yet proved how many Afghans support political Islam which is only possible to know if the practitioners of political Islam participate in elections, until then all claims of Pakhtuns supporting the Islamist Taliban have no credibility. But to say that Pakhtun “ethnic” nationalism in Pakistan or Pakhtun/Afghan “civic” nationalism in Afghanistan have no followings among the Pakhtuns is far from reality. Pakhtun nationalism is alive and kicking despite being on the wrong side of the establishment of Pakistan, and of the west during the cold war era.
However, the West particularly the US paid heavy price for its mistake of backing Islamabad to cultivate political Islam at the cost of Pakhtun nationalism on either side of the Durand Line: the most vicious expression of the price was September 11, 2001 and as of today, the resolve of the West in Afghanistan is faltering, only a fool will be satisfied that there will be no repeat of Sept. 11 attacks. But for the world peace, and the people of both countries, the only insurance policy in the log term will be the passing over of carefully nurtured political Islam in favour of Pakhtun nationalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan with iron clad guarantees for the territorial integrity of both the nation states, and the strategic involvement of the international guarantors particularly, the United States, to check bilateral infighting of the regional states played out on Pakhtun territories, particularly the policy expressed in Road-to-Kabul-goes-through-Srinagar Mantra. janassakzai200@gmail.com
http://www.thefrontierpost.com/News.aspx?ncat=ar&nid=1287
Jan Assakzai
Some pro-Taliban writers have said on the Internet media that Pakhtun nationalism as a political movement is against Islam that nationalist leadership both in Pakistan and Afghanistan do not enjoy the backing of the people and that they are a small clique who are western stooges whereas Pakhtuns are following political Islamists. But this discourse refutes that Pakhtun nationalism is anti-Islam and argues that Pakhtun nationalism is not only alive in Pakistan but also thriving in Afghanistan and is the only guarantee in the long run that can help prevent mayhem in both countries and the repeat of Sept 11.
Pakhtun nationalism as political ideology despite its shortcomings has always been there on both sides of the Durand Line. However, there might be some differences in emphasis and scope. Another distinction is that one may be a political Islamist, not a nationalist or communist but may take nationalist stance on some issues. So the definition may not be as absolute as one may understand by the word “nationalist”.
Pakhtun nationalism as a political phenomenon has its roots in Pakhtun history. The various uprising of Pakhtuns/Afghans against different invaders had nationalist connotations: be that the struggle of Khushal Khan Khattak against the Moguls, the three Anglo-Afghan wars in the nineteenth century, the uprising of Faqir of Ipi in North Waziristan, Bacha Khan and Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai’s non-violent movements against British Raj so on and so forth. Majority of Pakhtuns: around 40 million, live in Pakistan and roughly 15 to 17 million constitute Afghanistan’s Pakhtun population out of 30 million if the current census estimates are to be believed. Political nationalist currents and their underlying dynamics amongst the Pakhtuns on both side of the Durand Line have both similarities and dissimilarities. (For me Pakhtun, Afghan and Pathan are interchangeable that define the same ethnic group, so just for clarity I will often use the word Pakhtun). Nationalism is sometimes reactionary, calling for a return to national past, and sometimes for the expulsion of foreigners. Other forms of nationalism are revolutionary, calling for the establishment of an independent state as a homeland for an ethnic underclass. But after the end of British Empire and emergence of Pakistan as a nation state, Pakhtun nationalism has been progressive and within the confines of Pakistan’s boundaries and has also by and large not sought pan-Pakhtun nationalism despite the stereotyped views of many non-Pakhtun and oriental writers. It has also not been based on ethno-nationalism: a belief in the superiority of one ethnicity over others, and never supported ethnocentric protectionism or ethnocentric supremacy of Pakhtuns over other ethnic groups. Whereas Islam as religion is concerned, I think almost 99 per cent Pakhtuns would believe in some sort of interpretation of Islam at philosophical/metaphysical, societal or functional levels. Yes, if one has more divisive or sectarian interpretation of religion, may term fellow Muslims as non Muslims, Shias, Kafirs, Murtads etc.
But vast majority of Pakhtuns do not subscribe to these divisions except a fringe group that may have got influence from Wahhabism or Pakistan’s mainstream sectarian extremist outfits. As there is no religious authority/body in the Islamic world who for example could issue certificates for who being a bonafide Muslim. However, there had been a tiny number of Pakhtuns who happened to be adherents of left political ideology of communism and did also adopt different metaphysical beliefs about God, and views on religion propagated by the founders of the ideology.
But with the collapse of communism as political system, and the collapse of its philosophic/metaphorical leftist political liberalism all over the world, their numbers have come to a negligible figures. Majority of Pakhtuns, including nationalists practise Islam as religion and have a Islamic religious outlook for all metaphysical questions, some how. But historically, Pakhtun traditions have been so strong that they have always kept religion subservient to traditions. In other words, Pakhtun traditions and religion is blended, to the consternation of Wahabbis. Some may disagree as to what constitute Muslim, depends on his/her degree of observance of religious rituals in its totality. But it is again a matter of interpretation and one cannot deprive one of his/her use of religion to fill in one’s spiritual, philosophical voids.
There is another political current among Pakhtuns who use religion for political purposes I call them as political Islamists, some dub them as extremists. Political Islamists’ beliefs and actions may not necessarily be in line with the tenets of Islam as a religion. Their second type is the Jihadists who not only believe in political Islam but also believe that in order to impose their interpretation of political Islam, they should use violence and intimidation not only in their own territories but if possible throughout the world - a view which runs against the spirit of Islam (and is not the scope of this discourse for further exploration). Political Islam has largely been represented by the erstwhile Islamist Mujaheddin and the Taliban among Pakhtuns particularly in Afghanistan and to a lesser degree in Pakistan. Back in 1979 when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Pakistan’s then generals worried that Moscow would expand its footprint in the Pakhtun heartland and pose a direct threat to the unity of Pakistan, they began a covert programme of funding, training, and equipping Afghans willing to take on the Soviet Army It is now open secret that how political Islam was cultivated on both sides of the border over past three and half decades and how proxy Mujaheddin were sponsored and imposed on Pakhtuns/ Afghans by the CIA’s trainings, Pakistan’s logistical help, and Saudi petrol money, latter how their political successor, the new proxy, the Taliban were introduced to the scene. US policymakers relied on intelligence agents, diplomats, and experts who in the past had worked closely with the Pakistan’s intelligence agencies.
These individuals bought into Islamabad’s line that Pakhtun/Afghan nationalists needed to be sidelined and the focus needed to be on the political Islamists who were being trained in their thousands in Pakistan. Indeed, these nationalists who were patriotic people, soon found themselves unwelcome in Pakistan, and nearly 1.5 million migrated to Gulf, Europe, North America and India. While the sponsors of the political Islam defeated Afghan nationalism and thought in Pakhtun areas but failed to wipe out in Pakistan. But what is precisely Pakhtun/Afghan nationalism? First, Afghan nationalism is slightly different from Pakhtun’s ethnic nationalism in Pakistan. I call Afghan nationalism as “civic nationalism”. “Civic” nationalism compared to “ethnic” nationalism emphasises on loyalty to a kind of “cosmopolitan” state rather than ethnicity. “Civic” nationalism defines the nation as an association of people with equal and shared political rights, and allegiance to similar political procedures.
Why it is different in emphasis is because in Afghanistan, Pakhtun /Afghan situation is sharply different from their counterparts in Pakistan. Pakhtuns in Afghanistan form the largest ethnic group and for many they are the majority ethnic group as well. Pakhtuns have substantive political representation in the state institutions, they are the major stake holders and hence their pragmatic needs are different form those of their Pakhtun cousins in Pakistan.
There might be issues of neglect of language or culture at the hand of Persian speaking Pakhtun and non- Pakhtun elite in the past or now. However, there has been no second class status reserved for Pakhtuns except at marginal levels. Thus Pakhtun is a kind of big brother in Afghanistan, not a small minority. From Pakhtun perspective, there are other minorities who have to be part of its view of nationalism which implies that the allegiance have to be to state more than to individual ethnic groups. In other words, according to the principles of “civic” nationalism, the nation is not based on common ethnicity or ethnicites , but is a political entity, whose core is not ethnicity.
As a result of “civic” nationalism, Afghan identity though being historically interchangeable with “Pakhtun” and “Pathan” has also evolved to include other ethnic groups who are quite happy to call themselves as Afghans. The integration of Pakhtuns/Afghans with other ethnic groups has been far greater compared to Pakhtuns in Pakistan. As far as “ethnic” nationalism among Pakhtuns in Afghanistan is concerned, there were/are some elements who have been highlighting the “excesses” of non Pakhtuns towards Pakhtuns for exmaple, “Afghan Milatian”. But they did not find much following among the Pakhtuns. Pakhtuns either Islamists or civic nationalists could not afford to be ethnic nationalists due to political cost, yet they remained “civic” nationalists in their political outlook. Thus political (civic) nationalism has always been there in Pakhtuns/Afghans throughout history whether they were communists, Islamist Mujaheddin or political hardline Taliban.
Meanwhile, another dynamic related to political Islam is a legitimacy question that hang over them not only in Afghanistan but world over. They have always been wary of elections and in seeking votes from people in order to get their support. This is why most of the countries in the Islamic world who practise political Islam as political ideology abhor free elections and getting mandate of the people to rule them.
This has also been the case with Mujaheddin in Afghanistan and the Afghan Taliban of today as well. Thus assuming that they automatically enjoy the support of Pakhtuns/ Afghans for having fought against the Soviets now fighting the US and NATO forces is simply not true as there is no statistical basis in terms of ascertaining the people’s opinion regarding their past/present role or regarding the question whether they should rule Afghanistan. In other words, there has never been vote to prove that Pakhtuns want political Islam of either Mujaheddin or the Taliban in Afghanistan. Out of nearly 12 million registered votes, overwhelming majority supported moderate civil Pakhtun/Afghan (civic) nationalist leadership of Hamid Karzai in the past three successive presidential elections. Whereas in Pakhtuns of Pakistan, “ethnic” nationalism is the by product of a geo-political state’s policy of promoting a different kind of thinly-veiled ethnic nationalism by design under the name of Islam. The sole aim of this project in practice means keeping the dominance of Punjab as an ethnic group in all the state institutions including bureaucracy, Army, Parliament and others, while being less than majority before 1971 and dubious and controversial majority of around 50 per cent of the total population after the fall of East Pakistan. Though officially the state policies deny that it is preserving Punjabi dominance in every walk of life and claims instead it is promoting a kind of Pakistanisation which I call “cosmopolitan nationalism”: all citizens are Muslims and Pakistanis; we are all Pakistanis; and no one is Pakhtun, Baloch, Punjabi, Sindhi etc. But in reality some are more equal than others.
They have also promoted Urdu language which is the language of nearly six per cent of the population, at the cost of neglecting other languages, including Pakhtu, which is being spoken by between 35 to 40 per cent of Pakistan’s population if fair census of Pakhtuns is held. And Pakhtuns consider their language and culture as heritage. In Pakistan, Pakhtun nationalism have been wary of Pakistan’s “cosmopolitan nationalism” which they equate with eradication of diverse national cultures, and languages while ending up promoting a single largest ethnic group and it rejects such important nationalist values as ethnic identity and loyalty, language, culture etc.
This is why nationalists are deeply suspicious of “state’s cosmopolitan attitudes”. Why the type of nationalism in Pakistan has been more of “ethnic” nature is because they are five distinct ethnic groups with different languages, different geographically, linguistically based provinces and areas, with minor exceptions though. So those who do not agree with state’s policy and have less stakes in the polity are nationalists by design or default. Whatever term you may coin, their opposition can only be categorised as political nationalism.
Thus Pakhtun nationalist forces in Pakistan have been demanding an end to exclusion of other minority population including Pakhtuns, Baloch, Sindhis and Siraikis in the state institutions. As far as the masses are concerned, if we were to know the level of their support, one has to count the votes as it is the only relatively fairer method to gauge one’s popularity among the people. But in Pakistan out of nearly 62 years there have been direct army rule and all elections were oftenly rigged. While due to mullah-military historical alliance, Islamist parties won the elections of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa which were accepted as rigged elections even by Gen Pervez Musharaf’s own admission. In the last elections of 2008, Pakhtun nationalists got move that 50 per cent of the vote polled. In Balochistan Pakhtun areas, though Pakhtun nationalists boycotted, historically they have garnered majority share of the votes polled despite rigged elections. They have also made electoral gains in Karachi showing Pakhtun nationalists have the mandate of the majority Pakhtun people.
As far as religion is concerned, it has never been a hurdle in the political evolution of Pakhtun nationalism. However, political Islam’s role has been controversial. During the foreign invasions of Pakhtun territories throughout history, it has often been used as supporting tool by Pakhtun nationalists to fight against the invaders. But in twentieth century it has been promoted by foreign sponsors as part of their geo-political rivalry played out on Pakhtun territories in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The West including the US, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and China used political Islam as a tool to defeat Soviet Union and contain “ethnic” nationalism in Pakistan and “civic” nationalism and progressive thoughts in Afghanistan. Following the abandonment of the US from the Afghan scene regional actors particularly Pakistan again cultivated a new proxy the Taliban while using political Islam as ideological underpinning. Yes, in the process political Islam also got some adherence in Afghanistan.
Even today particularly Pakhtuns in Afghanistan were not offered alternative socio-economic and socio-political alternative by the West thus they are being forced to accept the proxy Islamist Taliban as the only alternative. Though it is not yet proved how many Afghans support political Islam which is only possible to know if the practitioners of political Islam participate in elections, until then all claims of Pakhtuns supporting the Islamist Taliban have no credibility. But to say that Pakhtun “ethnic” nationalism in Pakistan or Pakhtun/Afghan “civic” nationalism in Afghanistan have no followings among the Pakhtuns is far from reality. Pakhtun nationalism is alive and kicking despite being on the wrong side of the establishment of Pakistan, and of the west during the cold war era.
However, the West particularly the US paid heavy price for its mistake of backing Islamabad to cultivate political Islam at the cost of Pakhtun nationalism on either side of the Durand Line: the most vicious expression of the price was September 11, 2001 and as of today, the resolve of the West in Afghanistan is faltering, only a fool will be satisfied that there will be no repeat of Sept. 11 attacks. But for the world peace, and the people of both countries, the only insurance policy in the log term will be the passing over of carefully nurtured political Islam in favour of Pakhtun nationalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan with iron clad guarantees for the territorial integrity of both the nation states, and the strategic involvement of the international guarantors particularly, the United States, to check bilateral infighting of the regional states played out on Pakhtun territories, particularly the policy expressed in Road-to-Kabul-goes-through-Srinagar Mantra. janassakzai200@gmail.com
http://www.thefrontierpost.com/News.aspx?ncat=ar&nid=1287
Sunday, July 04, 2010
Pashtuns counter militancy through the arts
Pashtuns counter militancy through the arts
By Zia Ur RehmanFor CentralAsiaOnline.com2010-07-03
PESHAWAR - Art and cultural activities can help turn back militancy and radicalisation in Pakistan’s Pashtun areas, art scholars said at a cultural event at the Pakistan National Council of Arts last week.
The event ended a six-week intensive training programme in arts, crafts, folklore and performing arts organised by the Baacha Khan Trust Education Foundation (BKTEF). Students from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas participated.
“The Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists have been making concerted efforts to isolate, control and disrupt the socio-cultural institutions of the Pashtun society, and they have already created a vacuum that they tried to fill with their own ideological and strategic structures”, said Khadim Hussain, managing director of BKTEF and organiser of the event.
The training was organised under a BKTEF project titled ”Promotion, Protection and Preservation of Arts, Crafts and Heritage in Pakhtunkhwa”, which focuses on youth in the target areas, Khadim said. Artists, poets, instrumentalists, writers, members of cultural arts councils and students and teachers at BKTEF’s schools participated in the programme.
“The need for promoting and preserving the culture, arts and heritage of the Pashtun lands was never as severe as it is now”, said Jamal Shah, executive director of Islamabad’s Hunerkada College of Visual and Performing Arts and Pashtun performing artist and a technical advisor to the project.
“Hunerkada not only trains selected community activists in visual arts, crafts, performing arts, folklore and other cultural aspects”, said Shah, “but is also expected to help BKTEF in arranging cultural events and establishing linkages with artists, craftspeople and artisans”.
Pashtuns have suffered from the militancy in the region during the past three decades, Khadim said. “The ongoing extremism and hostility toward arts and culture have created a vacuum that has been filled by extremist forces, violence or foreign vulgarised cultural interventions like Arabisation”, he added.
“The ‘culture for social change’ programme can be seen as a soft but powerful weapon against the Taliban”, Khadim said. “The Pashtun belt is blessed with an attractive cultural heritage whose importance and potential have never been given a serious thought by the decision-makers”.
“The Pashtun inhabiting Pakistan’s tribal areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa harmoniously intermixed Buddhist and Islamic values with their own Pashtun customs and traditions and formed a society based on love, peace and tolerance”, said Syed Aqil Shah, provincial sports and culture minister.
By supporting such programmes, the present government is working to promote cultural and artistic activities in the province as an anti-militancy weapon, he said.
The Taliban attacked the liberal cultural tradition of Pashtun society, said Amjad Shehzad, a journalist and singer, who sang at the ceremony.
“Music is an integral part of Pashtun society, which has a rich musical and literary heritage”, Shehzad said, “The militants want to close the doors of artistic expression and create an environment in which extremism prospers”.
He recalled the worst abuses by the Taliban before the 2009 military operation drove it out.
“Hundreds of singers, musicians, poets and dancers have fled the province since the Taliban’s attack on music”, he said. “Young singer Sardar Yousafzai survived an assassination attempt (in 2008) … but his colleague Anwar Khan was killed. Female singer Shabana was brutally killed (in 2009), and her corpse was thrown on a street with her CDs”.
Such violence caused many artists to flee and to abandon their arts, he said.
Hundreds of music shops throughout the province have been bombed since 2006 and shopkeepers in areas under Taliban control are allowed to sell only Taliban-released jihadi propaganda CDs, he said.
“The previous Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal government in the province struck the first blow to Pashtu music when it banned musical gatherings and closed Peshawar’s Nishter Hall, the sole cultural centre of the provincial metropolis”, Shehzad said. “The ban compelled Pashtun singers to take shelter in other parts of the country”.
The event ended with a concert in which young musicians from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa captivated the audience.
Gohar Nangial, a young community activist from the Swabi District, underwent training at the programme. Organising such cultural and artistic activities among Pashtun communities is the need of the hour, he said.
Militants have destroyed the country’s Buddhist heritage, especially in the Swat Valley, he said. “This was the worst time for archaeology”, he added.
The Taliban twice sought to imitate its Afghan brethren, who infamously destroyed the Bamiyan Buddha statues in 2001, by blowing up 7th-century relics. The insurgents failed, but they did damage a rock engraved with Buddha likenesses in the Swat Valley that pilgrims have visited for centuries.
Insurgents were trying to Arabise Pashtun society by attacking its cultural institutions, Nangial contended. “Before the rise of the Taliban, no one had ever heard of attacks on music shops and musicians”, he added.
He vowed to spread his artistic knowledge he to his community, saying it could play a vital role in stemming radicalisation of youth.
By Zia Ur RehmanFor CentralAsiaOnline.com2010-07-03
PESHAWAR - Art and cultural activities can help turn back militancy and radicalisation in Pakistan’s Pashtun areas, art scholars said at a cultural event at the Pakistan National Council of Arts last week.
The event ended a six-week intensive training programme in arts, crafts, folklore and performing arts organised by the Baacha Khan Trust Education Foundation (BKTEF). Students from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas participated.
“The Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists have been making concerted efforts to isolate, control and disrupt the socio-cultural institutions of the Pashtun society, and they have already created a vacuum that they tried to fill with their own ideological and strategic structures”, said Khadim Hussain, managing director of BKTEF and organiser of the event.
The training was organised under a BKTEF project titled ”Promotion, Protection and Preservation of Arts, Crafts and Heritage in Pakhtunkhwa”, which focuses on youth in the target areas, Khadim said. Artists, poets, instrumentalists, writers, members of cultural arts councils and students and teachers at BKTEF’s schools participated in the programme.
“The need for promoting and preserving the culture, arts and heritage of the Pashtun lands was never as severe as it is now”, said Jamal Shah, executive director of Islamabad’s Hunerkada College of Visual and Performing Arts and Pashtun performing artist and a technical advisor to the project.
“Hunerkada not only trains selected community activists in visual arts, crafts, performing arts, folklore and other cultural aspects”, said Shah, “but is also expected to help BKTEF in arranging cultural events and establishing linkages with artists, craftspeople and artisans”.
Pashtuns have suffered from the militancy in the region during the past three decades, Khadim said. “The ongoing extremism and hostility toward arts and culture have created a vacuum that has been filled by extremist forces, violence or foreign vulgarised cultural interventions like Arabisation”, he added.
“The ‘culture for social change’ programme can be seen as a soft but powerful weapon against the Taliban”, Khadim said. “The Pashtun belt is blessed with an attractive cultural heritage whose importance and potential have never been given a serious thought by the decision-makers”.
“The Pashtun inhabiting Pakistan’s tribal areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa harmoniously intermixed Buddhist and Islamic values with their own Pashtun customs and traditions and formed a society based on love, peace and tolerance”, said Syed Aqil Shah, provincial sports and culture minister.
By supporting such programmes, the present government is working to promote cultural and artistic activities in the province as an anti-militancy weapon, he said.
The Taliban attacked the liberal cultural tradition of Pashtun society, said Amjad Shehzad, a journalist and singer, who sang at the ceremony.
“Music is an integral part of Pashtun society, which has a rich musical and literary heritage”, Shehzad said, “The militants want to close the doors of artistic expression and create an environment in which extremism prospers”.
He recalled the worst abuses by the Taliban before the 2009 military operation drove it out.
“Hundreds of singers, musicians, poets and dancers have fled the province since the Taliban’s attack on music”, he said. “Young singer Sardar Yousafzai survived an assassination attempt (in 2008) … but his colleague Anwar Khan was killed. Female singer Shabana was brutally killed (in 2009), and her corpse was thrown on a street with her CDs”.
Such violence caused many artists to flee and to abandon their arts, he said.
Hundreds of music shops throughout the province have been bombed since 2006 and shopkeepers in areas under Taliban control are allowed to sell only Taliban-released jihadi propaganda CDs, he said.
“The previous Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal government in the province struck the first blow to Pashtu music when it banned musical gatherings and closed Peshawar’s Nishter Hall, the sole cultural centre of the provincial metropolis”, Shehzad said. “The ban compelled Pashtun singers to take shelter in other parts of the country”.
The event ended with a concert in which young musicians from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa captivated the audience.
Gohar Nangial, a young community activist from the Swabi District, underwent training at the programme. Organising such cultural and artistic activities among Pashtun communities is the need of the hour, he said.
Militants have destroyed the country’s Buddhist heritage, especially in the Swat Valley, he said. “This was the worst time for archaeology”, he added.
The Taliban twice sought to imitate its Afghan brethren, who infamously destroyed the Bamiyan Buddha statues in 2001, by blowing up 7th-century relics. The insurgents failed, but they did damage a rock engraved with Buddha likenesses in the Swat Valley that pilgrims have visited for centuries.
Insurgents were trying to Arabise Pashtun society by attacking its cultural institutions, Nangial contended. “Before the rise of the Taliban, no one had ever heard of attacks on music shops and musicians”, he added.
He vowed to spread his artistic knowledge he to his community, saying it could play a vital role in stemming radicalisation of youth.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Western myths about Pakhtuns and Taliban insurgency
Western myths about Pakhtuns and Taliban insurgency
Jan Assakzai
The narratives Washington and other western allies are following is like the Taliban embody Pakhtun nationalism that is hell bent to expel foreign troops from Afghanistan. In other words the Taliban constitute the reaction of Pakhtuns to imperialist US as part of their alienation. As a result of this conclusion, the US and other western strategic thinkers have started connecting the Taliban with Pakhtun culture. Thus the West has nearly given up on efforts to defeat the Taliban. Of course the ideological underpinnings of this policy came from the narratives of these “experts”. In practice this policy means Washington divested its fight against the al-Qaeda and from that of the Taliban and gradually started treating the Taliban as “indigenous movement”. Though it is challenging to get into the heads of these experts on Afghanistan, it is worthwhile to try what they really think about the Taliban phenomenon. It would also help us understand the popular myths the West has adopted about Pakhtuns in general and the Taliban in particular. The policy decisions on Afghanistan in the Western capitals are often made after the input from its strategic and geo-political thinks tanks. Any policy pursued must base itself on some sort of narratives advanced by these “experts” and analysts which are in thousands in Washington, London and other Western capitals. These “experts” analyse issues from a variety of angles and then advise policy makers based on their conclusions. This is how a policy is formulated for execution. Some of these experts are so “experts” that they have never been to the region. Often, many spend couple of months visiting some advisers, officials and contacts in these countries to recommend policy advice in their papers to politicians, military leaders and other policy executioners. I was really amazed at a recently held workshop “Rethinking the Swat Pathan” in London. Some of the experts had not been to Swat for at least three decades and were analysing the situation obtaining today. Interestingly out of over two dozen experts there was no Pakhtun perspective on issues surrounding the Taliban and Pakhtuns. I was struggling to get a minute time to speak and challenge the stereotypes of these “experts” on Pakhtun culture and “extremism”. The only impression I gathered was of “colonial arrogance’” syndrome: “we are the experts, we know every thing, who the hell you think you are” etc. For simplicity, the narrative of these experts about the Taliban insurgency and Pakhtun cultures go like this: There is an ethnic sub culture which is part of general Pakhtun culture that is driving the Taliban insurgency. The code of Pakhtunwali is itself extremist and thus the idea that extremist ideology of the Taliban has been imported from abroad is wrong. It is because of the conservative socio- economic background that sustains the Taliban insurgency. The west call them extremists but the Taliban is native, indigenous struggle within their culture, where there has been a struggle between the modernists and conservatives. The insurgency also represents between the haves and have-nots which some Taliban represent. Tribal structure is based on linage that passes from father to son bounded by family, tribe, clan and then confederation. The tribal culture is the root cause of the Taliban insurgency. There is competition for leadership in Durani and Gilzai co- federations. Afghanistan’s communist internal strife was marred by Gilzai and Durrani rivalry. Aassakzai and Noorzai tribes - near Pakistan’s Chaman border - have intense competition in southern Afghanistan and Gilzai tribes are competing in south eastern of Afghanistan. Molah Omar is from Gilzai Tribe and Hamid Karzai is Populzai Durrani. Another narrative is that the Taliban insurgency is not a low level insurgency but nearly half of 50,000 Populzai tribesmen support the Taliban. Helmand and the adjoining areas are siding with the Taliban. The Taliban’s culture is tribal and the West’s is foreign hence the people do not support the coalition. On the basis of the above narratives, these “experts” advise the US policy makers in the following way: You can leverage the tribal system, that can resist the Taliban. But it has been weakened, people have lost connection with tribal system i.e., they are refugees, there are gangs, criminal network and some of tribes are allying with them. The conflict is of class and culture and identity and ethnicity not about ideology, so you cannot beat the Taliban. Another narrative has been adopted about reconstruction what is reconstruction: there is not much to reconstruct; it is all about construction. There is no army; there is no decentralised power structure. Sadly these narratives led to paralysis in the western capitals and culminated in wrong conclusions: Pakhtuns are against modernisation and want to support the Taliban this is why it is not worth fighting the “popular” opposition in Afghanistan or improving the status quo. But all these narratives are myths ignoring the glaring realities on the ground, glossing the failures of the West and under explaining the role of neighbouring countries surrounding Afghanistan. Though it is not within the scope of this article to counter these myths, there is a Pakhtun narrative that has gone unheard by the West at large: The Western narratives on the Taliban insurgency and Pakhtun culture, masquerades the reality of western failures in Afghanistan of which three reasons played, make or break role.: First, the US and the West came into Afghanistan with the claim to create a nation-state in a region but its tools and methods were different. The fact is that the US sent American troops into Afghanistan to make sure another 9/11 never happens again. Only the Obama administration narrowed the scope of the US objective in Afghanistan and switched from nation building and later from the Taliban fight, to defeating al-Qaeda. Secondly, the US administration, and the West in general run parallel administrations to the Karzai-led government that was supposed to be backed by the West hence undermining the very government they were supposed to be consolidating. Thirdly, the West got two things right and miscalculated the monumental impact of the third factor. Yes, the West backed a Pakhtun national leader Hamid Karzai who was recognised and respected by majority of Afghans . Yes, while recognising the ground realities of Afghanistan, tribal and ex-military leaders were co-opted into the new government to make sure there is no incentive in supporting insurgency. But the most important factor was, the US did not cut off sanctuary to the Taliban who exploited the strategically kept insecure border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In contrast, the Soviet Union failed on the above three criteria. The last requirement is, the most important determinant in the outcome of any insurgency in Afghanistan. In fact it is crucial in history of counter insurgency. The space for retreat and sanctuary has been crucial for the drug-running FARC in Columbia or the TTP in FATA. Mao Tse Tung say that all insurgencies start small and must not choose their battles with the government until they have adequately built a counter-state and are in a position to challenge federal forces openly. This is the natural progression of a “people’s war” as designed by the master of irregular warfare, Why the US got it wrong was it did not make it happen: entry and exit points of the Taliban into the Northern Balochistan and FATA could not be controlled by the NATAO, or the Pakistan army - this factor simply made a difference between success and failure for the NATO and the US in defeating the Taliban. The Taliban used the sanctuary to recruit, regroup, and resupply. It is amazing how quickly the US forgot lessons from other theaters: This is exactly the same trap the United States fell into in Vietnam. Cambodia and Laos were never fully removed from the equation as enemy sanctuaries and as a result the insurgency could always recruit, regroup, and resupply. In Afghanistan, most Afghans were not and are not members of the Taliban nor their sympathisers. But all these arguments are irrelevant if sanctuary is available. It dramatically changes the equation. Thus the US and NATO allowed a war of attrition on their troops for political reasons advised by these “experts” as that did happen in the context of Vietnam’s sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia. Thus my advice to these “experts” is please get rid of at least half of your books on anthropology, military strategy and politics about Afghanistan and start afresh.
janassakzai200@gamil.com
Jan Assakzai
The narratives Washington and other western allies are following is like the Taliban embody Pakhtun nationalism that is hell bent to expel foreign troops from Afghanistan. In other words the Taliban constitute the reaction of Pakhtuns to imperialist US as part of their alienation. As a result of this conclusion, the US and other western strategic thinkers have started connecting the Taliban with Pakhtun culture. Thus the West has nearly given up on efforts to defeat the Taliban. Of course the ideological underpinnings of this policy came from the narratives of these “experts”. In practice this policy means Washington divested its fight against the al-Qaeda and from that of the Taliban and gradually started treating the Taliban as “indigenous movement”. Though it is challenging to get into the heads of these experts on Afghanistan, it is worthwhile to try what they really think about the Taliban phenomenon. It would also help us understand the popular myths the West has adopted about Pakhtuns in general and the Taliban in particular. The policy decisions on Afghanistan in the Western capitals are often made after the input from its strategic and geo-political thinks tanks. Any policy pursued must base itself on some sort of narratives advanced by these “experts” and analysts which are in thousands in Washington, London and other Western capitals. These “experts” analyse issues from a variety of angles and then advise policy makers based on their conclusions. This is how a policy is formulated for execution. Some of these experts are so “experts” that they have never been to the region. Often, many spend couple of months visiting some advisers, officials and contacts in these countries to recommend policy advice in their papers to politicians, military leaders and other policy executioners. I was really amazed at a recently held workshop “Rethinking the Swat Pathan” in London. Some of the experts had not been to Swat for at least three decades and were analysing the situation obtaining today. Interestingly out of over two dozen experts there was no Pakhtun perspective on issues surrounding the Taliban and Pakhtuns. I was struggling to get a minute time to speak and challenge the stereotypes of these “experts” on Pakhtun culture and “extremism”. The only impression I gathered was of “colonial arrogance’” syndrome: “we are the experts, we know every thing, who the hell you think you are” etc. For simplicity, the narrative of these experts about the Taliban insurgency and Pakhtun cultures go like this: There is an ethnic sub culture which is part of general Pakhtun culture that is driving the Taliban insurgency. The code of Pakhtunwali is itself extremist and thus the idea that extremist ideology of the Taliban has been imported from abroad is wrong. It is because of the conservative socio- economic background that sustains the Taliban insurgency. The west call them extremists but the Taliban is native, indigenous struggle within their culture, where there has been a struggle between the modernists and conservatives. The insurgency also represents between the haves and have-nots which some Taliban represent. Tribal structure is based on linage that passes from father to son bounded by family, tribe, clan and then confederation. The tribal culture is the root cause of the Taliban insurgency. There is competition for leadership in Durani and Gilzai co- federations. Afghanistan’s communist internal strife was marred by Gilzai and Durrani rivalry. Aassakzai and Noorzai tribes - near Pakistan’s Chaman border - have intense competition in southern Afghanistan and Gilzai tribes are competing in south eastern of Afghanistan. Molah Omar is from Gilzai Tribe and Hamid Karzai is Populzai Durrani. Another narrative is that the Taliban insurgency is not a low level insurgency but nearly half of 50,000 Populzai tribesmen support the Taliban. Helmand and the adjoining areas are siding with the Taliban. The Taliban’s culture is tribal and the West’s is foreign hence the people do not support the coalition. On the basis of the above narratives, these “experts” advise the US policy makers in the following way: You can leverage the tribal system, that can resist the Taliban. But it has been weakened, people have lost connection with tribal system i.e., they are refugees, there are gangs, criminal network and some of tribes are allying with them. The conflict is of class and culture and identity and ethnicity not about ideology, so you cannot beat the Taliban. Another narrative has been adopted about reconstruction what is reconstruction: there is not much to reconstruct; it is all about construction. There is no army; there is no decentralised power structure. Sadly these narratives led to paralysis in the western capitals and culminated in wrong conclusions: Pakhtuns are against modernisation and want to support the Taliban this is why it is not worth fighting the “popular” opposition in Afghanistan or improving the status quo. But all these narratives are myths ignoring the glaring realities on the ground, glossing the failures of the West and under explaining the role of neighbouring countries surrounding Afghanistan. Though it is not within the scope of this article to counter these myths, there is a Pakhtun narrative that has gone unheard by the West at large: The Western narratives on the Taliban insurgency and Pakhtun culture, masquerades the reality of western failures in Afghanistan of which three reasons played, make or break role.: First, the US and the West came into Afghanistan with the claim to create a nation-state in a region but its tools and methods were different. The fact is that the US sent American troops into Afghanistan to make sure another 9/11 never happens again. Only the Obama administration narrowed the scope of the US objective in Afghanistan and switched from nation building and later from the Taliban fight, to defeating al-Qaeda. Secondly, the US administration, and the West in general run parallel administrations to the Karzai-led government that was supposed to be backed by the West hence undermining the very government they were supposed to be consolidating. Thirdly, the West got two things right and miscalculated the monumental impact of the third factor. Yes, the West backed a Pakhtun national leader Hamid Karzai who was recognised and respected by majority of Afghans . Yes, while recognising the ground realities of Afghanistan, tribal and ex-military leaders were co-opted into the new government to make sure there is no incentive in supporting insurgency. But the most important factor was, the US did not cut off sanctuary to the Taliban who exploited the strategically kept insecure border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In contrast, the Soviet Union failed on the above three criteria. The last requirement is, the most important determinant in the outcome of any insurgency in Afghanistan. In fact it is crucial in history of counter insurgency. The space for retreat and sanctuary has been crucial for the drug-running FARC in Columbia or the TTP in FATA. Mao Tse Tung say that all insurgencies start small and must not choose their battles with the government until they have adequately built a counter-state and are in a position to challenge federal forces openly. This is the natural progression of a “people’s war” as designed by the master of irregular warfare, Why the US got it wrong was it did not make it happen: entry and exit points of the Taliban into the Northern Balochistan and FATA could not be controlled by the NATAO, or the Pakistan army - this factor simply made a difference between success and failure for the NATO and the US in defeating the Taliban. The Taliban used the sanctuary to recruit, regroup, and resupply. It is amazing how quickly the US forgot lessons from other theaters: This is exactly the same trap the United States fell into in Vietnam. Cambodia and Laos were never fully removed from the equation as enemy sanctuaries and as a result the insurgency could always recruit, regroup, and resupply. In Afghanistan, most Afghans were not and are not members of the Taliban nor their sympathisers. But all these arguments are irrelevant if sanctuary is available. It dramatically changes the equation. Thus the US and NATO allowed a war of attrition on their troops for political reasons advised by these “experts” as that did happen in the context of Vietnam’s sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia. Thus my advice to these “experts” is please get rid of at least half of your books on anthropology, military strategy and politics about Afghanistan and start afresh.
janassakzai200@gamil.com
Sunday, May 23, 2010
‘Haider’s stance has exposed MQM claim’
‘Haider’s stance has exposed MQM claim’
Sunday, May 23, 2010Bureau reportPESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister, Mian Iftikhar Hussain Saturday lauded the stance of Sardar Haider Zaman, leader of Hazara Action Committee, about the recent target killing in Karachi, saying, they would foil the evil designs of the elements who wanted to a create mistrust between the Pakhtuns and Hazarawals.Talking to The News, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, who is also spokesman for the provincial government, said the interviews of Sardar Haider Zaman to various television channels had exposed the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM)’s claim that the recent violence spree was linked to any tussle between Pakhtuns and Hazarawals living in Karachi.The minister said Pakhtuns and Hazarawals had been living together for centuries and there was no rivalry between them on any issue. The provincial minister added that the demand by Hazarawals for a separate province was their constitutional right and they could struggle for it through democratic means.Referring to the press conference by the MQM leaders in Karachi, Mian Iftikhar said Pakhtuns were proud of their decades-long struggle in the port city to attain their rights.Mian Iftikhar said whatever Pakhtuns had achieved economically was due to their efforts and no one should raise questions about their economic empowerment in country’s mega city.However, he said the leaders of MQM should also tell the nation what was their source of income because they did not have this economic status a few decades ago.He said that Pakhtuns in Karachi had been targeted and the entire Pakhtun leadership of the country should join hands to address the issue and raise their voice against the elements responsible for the violence in the country’s financial hub.
Sunday, May 23, 2010Bureau reportPESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister, Mian Iftikhar Hussain Saturday lauded the stance of Sardar Haider Zaman, leader of Hazara Action Committee, about the recent target killing in Karachi, saying, they would foil the evil designs of the elements who wanted to a create mistrust between the Pakhtuns and Hazarawals.Talking to The News, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, who is also spokesman for the provincial government, said the interviews of Sardar Haider Zaman to various television channels had exposed the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM)’s claim that the recent violence spree was linked to any tussle between Pakhtuns and Hazarawals living in Karachi.The minister said Pakhtuns and Hazarawals had been living together for centuries and there was no rivalry between them on any issue. The provincial minister added that the demand by Hazarawals for a separate province was their constitutional right and they could struggle for it through democratic means.Referring to the press conference by the MQM leaders in Karachi, Mian Iftikhar said Pakhtuns were proud of their decades-long struggle in the port city to attain their rights.Mian Iftikhar said whatever Pakhtuns had achieved economically was due to their efforts and no one should raise questions about their economic empowerment in country’s mega city.However, he said the leaders of MQM should also tell the nation what was their source of income because they did not have this economic status a few decades ago.He said that Pakhtuns in Karachi had been targeted and the entire Pakhtun leadership of the country should join hands to address the issue and raise their voice against the elements responsible for the violence in the country’s financial hub.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Killings of Anti-Taliban Leaders Rattle Swat Valley - NYTimes.com
Killings of Anti-Taliban Leaders Rattle Swat Valley - NYTimes.com
Killings Rattle Pakistan’s Swat Valley
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH
Published: April 22, 2010
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — At least five anti-Taliban political leaders have been killed in the Swat Valley in northern Pakistan over the past two weeks, residents there said, raising fears that the Taliban forces that once ruled the area could be regrouping.
The pro-government leaders were killed in three separate attacks starting April 13, residents of the valley said in telephone interviews on Thursday. It was not clear who the killers were, but all the victims were people from the area who had been central to peace talks in the valley, the residents said.
The Swat Valley was the site of a major military operation against Taliban militants last spring. Since then life has returned to the valley, but the relative peace has been punctuated by what human rights groups describe as the covert killings and detentions of people suspected of being Taliban members or collaborators.
Shortly after the operation ended, bodies began surfacing with notes pinned to their clothing identifying them as Taliban sympathizers. Some blamed the army, but others said they were reprisals by locals. Four suicide bombers have struck in the intervening months.
Some worry that the assassinations of the pro-government leaders could mark a new chapter in the region’s struggle. The killings, first reported in the Daily Times, a Pakistani newspaper, have raised fears that the Taliban, whose top leader is still at large, are trying to reassert themselves.
The re-emergence of the Taliban now would not only prove embarrassing to the military, but it would also underscore the continuing difficulties that Pakistan faces in establishing government authority over areas where the military has succeeded in driving out militants.
“The target killing of the notables has created a great scare in the area,” said Ziauddin Yousafzai, who runs a school in Mingora, the valley’s biggest city. The killings, he said, are particularly disturbing because the victims appear to have been carefully selected in an effort to terrorize local leadership.
In what appeared to be an acknowledgment of this concern, Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, traveled to Swat this week and reassured leaders there that the military would not abandon them and would continue to fight militants.
The Taliban had gradually tightened their grip on Swat over a number of years as the government and military struck multiple peace deals with the militants. But last spring Pakistani forces finally went into Swat in a large-scale operation, capturing several of the Taliban’s senior leaders and killing large numbers of militants.
But the Taliban’s leader in Swat, known only as Fazlullah, who used an FM radio station to acquire an audience, has remained at large.
The first of the pro-government leaders killed recently was Sajjad Ali Khan, a former village mayor who was a member of the Awami National Party, a secular political party. He was sitting in a clothing shop in Mingora around 6 p.m. April 13, talking with the shop owner, when gunmen with pistols fired at them, killing both, according to a friend of Mr. Khan’s who asked not to be identified out of safety concerns.
Mr. Khan had worked hard against the Taliban, his friend said, organizing a defense team, or lashkar, for his village. In a clue that the Taliban might have been behind his death, Mr. Khan had received text messages on his cellphone, warning him that “we are not finished” and “we will take revenge against you,” his friend said.
A few days later, two more activists from the same political party were killed in Dharai, a village just north of Mingora. The two men, identified by locals as Alamgir Khan and Mukaram Khan, were killed by gunfire while sitting in a shop in their village.
On Monday, two more prominent locals were killed, this time in the village of Kuza Bandai in the same area. The victims, Behr-e-Kharam and Aqil Shah, were standing in front of a bank in the village’s central market, said a prominent landowner from the village, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of safety concerns. Both were members of the village’s peace committee, the landowner said.
Both villages are near where Fazlullah was based. Some locals said most of the problems in the valley were coming from there.
One local leader said in an interview in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, that the killings were being carried out by remnants of the Taliban network. The militants, he said, would not be able to re-establish control over the area with the army there, but they could use the hit-and-run tactics to keep it off balance.
The assassinations appeared to have provoked retaliation killings. On Thursday, the bodies of four men surfaced in Kuza Bandai’s central square, a relative of the landowner said. The relative said that people in the area believe the dead men were Taliban militants, though no death notes were attached to their clothes, as is sometimes the practice, and it was impossible to verify their identities.
The killings come as the provincial government prepares to begin spending the $36 million that the United States has allocated for rebuilding the area, said a senior official in the province. Mr. Yousafzai said reconstruction, though slow, had been happening.
Killings Rattle Pakistan’s Swat Valley
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH
Published: April 22, 2010
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — At least five anti-Taliban political leaders have been killed in the Swat Valley in northern Pakistan over the past two weeks, residents there said, raising fears that the Taliban forces that once ruled the area could be regrouping.
The pro-government leaders were killed in three separate attacks starting April 13, residents of the valley said in telephone interviews on Thursday. It was not clear who the killers were, but all the victims were people from the area who had been central to peace talks in the valley, the residents said.
The Swat Valley was the site of a major military operation against Taliban militants last spring. Since then life has returned to the valley, but the relative peace has been punctuated by what human rights groups describe as the covert killings and detentions of people suspected of being Taliban members or collaborators.
Shortly after the operation ended, bodies began surfacing with notes pinned to their clothing identifying them as Taliban sympathizers. Some blamed the army, but others said they were reprisals by locals. Four suicide bombers have struck in the intervening months.
Some worry that the assassinations of the pro-government leaders could mark a new chapter in the region’s struggle. The killings, first reported in the Daily Times, a Pakistani newspaper, have raised fears that the Taliban, whose top leader is still at large, are trying to reassert themselves.
The re-emergence of the Taliban now would not only prove embarrassing to the military, but it would also underscore the continuing difficulties that Pakistan faces in establishing government authority over areas where the military has succeeded in driving out militants.
“The target killing of the notables has created a great scare in the area,” said Ziauddin Yousafzai, who runs a school in Mingora, the valley’s biggest city. The killings, he said, are particularly disturbing because the victims appear to have been carefully selected in an effort to terrorize local leadership.
In what appeared to be an acknowledgment of this concern, Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, traveled to Swat this week and reassured leaders there that the military would not abandon them and would continue to fight militants.
The Taliban had gradually tightened their grip on Swat over a number of years as the government and military struck multiple peace deals with the militants. But last spring Pakistani forces finally went into Swat in a large-scale operation, capturing several of the Taliban’s senior leaders and killing large numbers of militants.
But the Taliban’s leader in Swat, known only as Fazlullah, who used an FM radio station to acquire an audience, has remained at large.
The first of the pro-government leaders killed recently was Sajjad Ali Khan, a former village mayor who was a member of the Awami National Party, a secular political party. He was sitting in a clothing shop in Mingora around 6 p.m. April 13, talking with the shop owner, when gunmen with pistols fired at them, killing both, according to a friend of Mr. Khan’s who asked not to be identified out of safety concerns.
Mr. Khan had worked hard against the Taliban, his friend said, organizing a defense team, or lashkar, for his village. In a clue that the Taliban might have been behind his death, Mr. Khan had received text messages on his cellphone, warning him that “we are not finished” and “we will take revenge against you,” his friend said.
A few days later, two more activists from the same political party were killed in Dharai, a village just north of Mingora. The two men, identified by locals as Alamgir Khan and Mukaram Khan, were killed by gunfire while sitting in a shop in their village.
On Monday, two more prominent locals were killed, this time in the village of Kuza Bandai in the same area. The victims, Behr-e-Kharam and Aqil Shah, were standing in front of a bank in the village’s central market, said a prominent landowner from the village, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of safety concerns. Both were members of the village’s peace committee, the landowner said.
Both villages are near where Fazlullah was based. Some locals said most of the problems in the valley were coming from there.
One local leader said in an interview in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, that the killings were being carried out by remnants of the Taliban network. The militants, he said, would not be able to re-establish control over the area with the army there, but they could use the hit-and-run tactics to keep it off balance.
The assassinations appeared to have provoked retaliation killings. On Thursday, the bodies of four men surfaced in Kuza Bandai’s central square, a relative of the landowner said. The relative said that people in the area believe the dead men were Taliban militants, though no death notes were attached to their clothes, as is sometimes the practice, and it was impossible to verify their identities.
The killings come as the provincial government prepares to begin spending the $36 million that the United States has allocated for rebuilding the area, said a senior official in the province. Mr. Yousafzai said reconstruction, though slow, had been happening.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Intellectual terrorism termed more dangerous than physical
Intellectual terrorism termed more dangerous than physical
Intellectual terrorism termed more dangerous than physical
By Qasim YousafzaiFor CentralAsiaOnline.com2010-04-19
Members of the Amn Tehreek (Peace Movement) demonstrate in Peshawar against any form of terrorism and demand peace on their land in this file photo. [Javed Aziz Khan]
Having deemed intellectual terrorism far more dangerous than physical terrorism, religious scholars, intellectuals, educationists and government officials are seeking to take concrete steps against the trend.
“This is a very dangerous trend”, said Dr Farooq Khan, a psychiatrist and religious scholar. “The reason is that having educated people ‘somehow legitimises’ terrorism and that ‘supports al-Qaeda.’ ”
Mian Iftikhar Hussain, information minister for Khyber-Pukhtoonkhwa, agrees.
“Intellectual terrorism is a far serious and challenging issue to deal with than physical terrorism”, he told Central Asia Online.
Khan pointed to the distinguished parentage of Hamza Amin, who died while making a bomb. His father was Dr Amin Jadoon; his mother a former member of the national assembly from Jamaat-e-Islami. “I know many people who are al-Qaeda sympathisers while belonging to one or another religious party or group”, Khan said.
Prof Pervez Hoodbhoy, a faculty member at Qaid-e-Azam University Islamabad, said, “Those who intellectually motivate others to kill those who are not like them are equally responsible (for such murders). In fact, they are more dangerous and lethal”.
He added that intellectual terrorism has a long history and that the actions of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler provide an example of how dangerous inflammatory rhetoric can be.
“These mentors provide intellectual justification for physical terrorism”, Hoodbhoy said. “They create paranoia, fear and hatred and generate all kinds of negative emotion resulting in physical terrorism”.
He called for the denial of media platforms and other forums to such agitators.
Khadim Hussain, a political analyst and researcher, said intellectual terrorists have succeeded in seemingly rationalising physical terrorism’s place within society, such as equating Jihad with Qittal (killing) — even though they are not the same — and carrying out Jihad through privatised militia.
“(Intellectual terrorists) construct intellectual discourses that create enemies and hostile entities”, Hussain said. “For example the word ‘Ummah’ is used in a manner which leads to the clash of civilisation, and clash-of-civilisation theory is also floated by (the late US professor Samuel) Huntington. These mentors guide the terrorists’ organisation on their goals and network among each other.”
"It is enticement by exploiting people’s religious sentiments. It does more harm than good, promoting extremism and jingoism”, Canada-based Pakistani journalist Intikhab Amir said.
“They are continuing to use religion as a tool to achieve their personal policy goals", Amir told Central Asia Online of such leaders. "It goes beyond the problems that we are seeing on the surface. They are encouraging people to sacrifice their lives in the name of their religion. Simultaneously, this situation is resulting in a lack of tolerance and hatred towards those belonging to religions other than Islam”.
Citing certain state actors that he considers involved in promoting intolerance, he said, “This is playing with fire, which will not serve the state in any way, either in the short or the long run".
“So-called intellectuals are busy corrupting the minds of young people and put them on the wrong path”, said Zar Ali Khan Musazai, chairman of the Pashtun Democratic Council, referring to some former Army and intelligence officers, journalists and self-proclaimed "intellectuals".
"They (intellectual terrorists) have their own nefarious designs and vested interests. Besides the religiously corrupt intelligentsia, university and colleges are also promoting dangerous propaganda against people other than Pakistani Muslims”.
He said, “At the (pre-college) level, some Arabic-language and theology teachers instigate students to wage so-called Jihad and fight the non-Muslims, especially the West, the Hindus and Israel. Students are taught that Pakistani Muslims are better than other people and that when doomsday approaches, the Jihad will start from Pakistan and that this country will lead other Muslim countries”.
Khan told Central Asia Online that the ultimate danger of intellectual terrorism is that it can further divide the nation and provide more resources for physical terrorists.
“It provides the terrorists ground for good recruits”, he said. “The government is not giving due attention to fighting the terrorists on the ideological front".
The provincial minister, Mian Iftikhar, disagrees with that criticism of the government.
“We are fully conscious of these phenomena”, he said. “When the military operation in Malakand against terrorism was successfully completed, I said at that time that now we have to break the terrorist mind-set that is still there”.
"We will be fighting this intellectual terrorism on every front, namely, through our curriculum and education system, literature, speech, media and intellectual forums", Iftikhar said.
“The people who are spreading the propaganda are no friends of Pukhtuns or of Pakistan. They are ruining our youth and our society. We will counter this expansion of hate ideology”.
"There is a need for a counter-narrative against the hate and violence-ridden narrative of these people", Hoodbhoy said. "The counter-narrative that promotes peace, tolerance, harmony and peaceful co-existence".
"Liberal intelligentsia must deconstruct this discourse. Even if physical terrorism is eliminated for the time being, if intellectual terrorism is not countered, the menace of terrorism will flourish", Hussain warned.
Central Asia Online correspondents Raheel Khan in Islamabad and Iqbal Khattak in Peshawar contributed to this story.
Intellectual terrorism termed more dangerous than physical
By Qasim YousafzaiFor CentralAsiaOnline.com2010-04-19
Members of the Amn Tehreek (Peace Movement) demonstrate in Peshawar against any form of terrorism and demand peace on their land in this file photo. [Javed Aziz Khan]
Having deemed intellectual terrorism far more dangerous than physical terrorism, religious scholars, intellectuals, educationists and government officials are seeking to take concrete steps against the trend.
“This is a very dangerous trend”, said Dr Farooq Khan, a psychiatrist and religious scholar. “The reason is that having educated people ‘somehow legitimises’ terrorism and that ‘supports al-Qaeda.’ ”
Mian Iftikhar Hussain, information minister for Khyber-Pukhtoonkhwa, agrees.
“Intellectual terrorism is a far serious and challenging issue to deal with than physical terrorism”, he told Central Asia Online.
Khan pointed to the distinguished parentage of Hamza Amin, who died while making a bomb. His father was Dr Amin Jadoon; his mother a former member of the national assembly from Jamaat-e-Islami. “I know many people who are al-Qaeda sympathisers while belonging to one or another religious party or group”, Khan said.
Prof Pervez Hoodbhoy, a faculty member at Qaid-e-Azam University Islamabad, said, “Those who intellectually motivate others to kill those who are not like them are equally responsible (for such murders). In fact, they are more dangerous and lethal”.
He added that intellectual terrorism has a long history and that the actions of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler provide an example of how dangerous inflammatory rhetoric can be.
“These mentors provide intellectual justification for physical terrorism”, Hoodbhoy said. “They create paranoia, fear and hatred and generate all kinds of negative emotion resulting in physical terrorism”.
He called for the denial of media platforms and other forums to such agitators.
Khadim Hussain, a political analyst and researcher, said intellectual terrorists have succeeded in seemingly rationalising physical terrorism’s place within society, such as equating Jihad with Qittal (killing) — even though they are not the same — and carrying out Jihad through privatised militia.
“(Intellectual terrorists) construct intellectual discourses that create enemies and hostile entities”, Hussain said. “For example the word ‘Ummah’ is used in a manner which leads to the clash of civilisation, and clash-of-civilisation theory is also floated by (the late US professor Samuel) Huntington. These mentors guide the terrorists’ organisation on their goals and network among each other.”
"It is enticement by exploiting people’s religious sentiments. It does more harm than good, promoting extremism and jingoism”, Canada-based Pakistani journalist Intikhab Amir said.
“They are continuing to use religion as a tool to achieve their personal policy goals", Amir told Central Asia Online of such leaders. "It goes beyond the problems that we are seeing on the surface. They are encouraging people to sacrifice their lives in the name of their religion. Simultaneously, this situation is resulting in a lack of tolerance and hatred towards those belonging to religions other than Islam”.
Citing certain state actors that he considers involved in promoting intolerance, he said, “This is playing with fire, which will not serve the state in any way, either in the short or the long run".
“So-called intellectuals are busy corrupting the minds of young people and put them on the wrong path”, said Zar Ali Khan Musazai, chairman of the Pashtun Democratic Council, referring to some former Army and intelligence officers, journalists and self-proclaimed "intellectuals".
"They (intellectual terrorists) have their own nefarious designs and vested interests. Besides the religiously corrupt intelligentsia, university and colleges are also promoting dangerous propaganda against people other than Pakistani Muslims”.
He said, “At the (pre-college) level, some Arabic-language and theology teachers instigate students to wage so-called Jihad and fight the non-Muslims, especially the West, the Hindus and Israel. Students are taught that Pakistani Muslims are better than other people and that when doomsday approaches, the Jihad will start from Pakistan and that this country will lead other Muslim countries”.
Khan told Central Asia Online that the ultimate danger of intellectual terrorism is that it can further divide the nation and provide more resources for physical terrorists.
“It provides the terrorists ground for good recruits”, he said. “The government is not giving due attention to fighting the terrorists on the ideological front".
The provincial minister, Mian Iftikhar, disagrees with that criticism of the government.
“We are fully conscious of these phenomena”, he said. “When the military operation in Malakand against terrorism was successfully completed, I said at that time that now we have to break the terrorist mind-set that is still there”.
"We will be fighting this intellectual terrorism on every front, namely, through our curriculum and education system, literature, speech, media and intellectual forums", Iftikhar said.
“The people who are spreading the propaganda are no friends of Pukhtuns or of Pakistan. They are ruining our youth and our society. We will counter this expansion of hate ideology”.
"There is a need for a counter-narrative against the hate and violence-ridden narrative of these people", Hoodbhoy said. "The counter-narrative that promotes peace, tolerance, harmony and peaceful co-existence".
"Liberal intelligentsia must deconstruct this discourse. Even if physical terrorism is eliminated for the time being, if intellectual terrorism is not countered, the menace of terrorism will flourish", Hussain warned.
Central Asia Online correspondents Raheel Khan in Islamabad and Iqbal Khattak in Peshawar contributed to this story.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
analysis: Paranoid about Pakhtun ethnic identity —Farhat Taj
analysis: Paranoid about Pakhtun ethnic identity — Farhat Taj
Daily Times, April,17, 2010
The people of Hazara have the right to demand a separate province in their area, but they have no right to dictate a name of their choice on the overwhelming majority of the Pakhtun
Renaming of the NWFP as Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in the 18th constitutional amendment has led to a wave of violence in Hazara Division. Eight people have been killed, including policemen on duty and dozens injured. The PMN-N and the PML-Q hold each other’s politics responsible for the unrest in Hazara. Together they also consider the ANP responsible for this violent situation. Farooq Leghari, the former president of Pakistan, said the renaming of the province would create divisions in Pakistan. Mr Nawaz Sharif, the PML-N leader, repeatedly said he reluctantly agreed to rename the province as Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Someone even challenged the renaming of the NWFP in the high court on the plea that Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is a step towards Pakhtunistan. Leaders of the demonstrators in Hazara openly declare they will take revenge from the Pakhtuns for the killing of their companions. The media is giving an unprecedented coverage to the protests in Hazara — such coverage has never been given to any Pakhtun issues that even remotely depict Pakhtun nationalism.
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is a compromised name — thanks to the ANP. This party has a track record of compromising on the Pakhtun interests. It did so on this occasion as well. The ANP should have stuck to Pakhtunkhwa and should have rejected the whole constitutional package for that. Moreover, the constitutional package offers nothing for the people of FATA. How could the ANP, a Pakhtun nationalist party, accept the constitutional package without FATA reforms? It is ridiculous that one of the FATA parliamentarians proposed ‘Qabailistan’ as a new name for FATA but he and his colleagues said nothing about the constitutional reforms in FATA.
Despite the ANP’s compromises, the way the Hazara protests have been exploited by the Punjab-based political parties and covered by the Pakistani media shows once more that many powerful forces in Pakistan are paranoid about anything that symbolises Pakhtun ethnic identity. The Pakistani state has suppressed Pakhtun nationalism for decades and has divided the people in four administrative units (FATA, NWFP, Balochistan and the Pakhtun territories in the Punjab province). For the paranoid Pakistanis, the only acceptable Pakhtun is either a murdered Pakhtun or Talib Pakhtun. There is so much goodwill for the Pakhtun Taliban and so much oblivion, even disgust for the anti-Taliban Pakhtun. The anti-Taliban Pakhtuns, whether nationalists or otherwise have been killed like insects all over FATA by the military and its B-team, the Taliban, and no one in Pakistan seems to care, whereas the Hazara anti-Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa demonstrations have captured the imagination of entire Pakistan.
There is so much media uproar over the killing of the people in Hazara. This is justified and those who killed the innocent people must be held accountable. But the same media outlets are deaf and dumb over the brutal killing of over 70 innocent Pakhtun women, children and men in Tirah, FATA, by the Pakistan Army a week ago! All the politicians and news analysts screaming over the killings in Hazara are deadly silent over the murderous act of the Pakistan Army against the innocent Pakhtun civilians.
The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government has made a judicial committee to probe the killings in Hazara. Who will make a similar judicial committee to investigate the killings in Tirah? It is true that the Pakhtun of FATA have no human rights under the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. But the republic has signed the UN Human Rights Declaration that guarantees human rights to the people of FATA. Should the people of FATA turn to the UN for a judicial investigation since the military and political masters of Pakistan never considered the death and destruction in FATA worthy of judicial investigation?
The Pakhtuns are subservient and loyal citizens of Pakistan and yet there is no dearth of fellow Pakistanis who doubt their loyalty to the state the moment they refer to their ethnic identity. They are not even welcomed to celebrate the belated state recognition of their right, i.e. their ethnic identity being reflected in the name of their province. Politicians and news analysts have condemned the ANP for the celebrations. Rana Sanaullah, provincial law minister Punjab, holds the ANP celebrations over the renaming of the province responsible for the protests in Hazara. There are also those who cannot even tolerate the celebrations and have killed tens of Pakhtuns in Timergara by attacking the celebration rally. The media and politicians of Pakistan have forgotten the martyrs of Timergara, but continue to criticise the Pakhtuns who celebrated the renaming. What kind of state-citizens relationship is this where the Pakhtuns cannot even express joy?
The ANP has already announced to welcome a separate province in Hazara through constitutional means. Now the PML-N must show the grace to accept the Seraiki demand of a separate province in south Punjab.
The people of Hazara have the right to demand a separate province in their area, but they have no right to dictate a name of their choice on the overwhelming majority of the Pakhtun. Seventy-three percent of population of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa identify Pashto as their mother tongue according to the 1998 census in Pakistan. According to the same census, Pakhtuns are the second largest ethnic group of Pakistan after the Punjabis in terms of mother language.
Let us not forget that the population of Hazara is not homogenous in terms of culture and language. Hazara is also home of those Pakhtuns who have preserved their language, tribal culture and customs, like the Pakhtuns in Batagram, Kaladaka, Oogi, etc. The Jaduns and Tareens of Hazara are ethnic Pakhtun, although they have abandoned the Pashto language. It is pertinent to mention that some elected representatives and civil society members from Batagram, Kaladaka, Kohistan and Shangla have demanded separation from Haraza Division to join the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province in the event of Hazara becoming a separate province. It is clear that most of the Pakistani media and the political forces, paranoid about the Pakhtun ethnic identity, would ignore this demand of the Pakhtuns in Hazara.
I am afraid peace is not going to come to the Pakhtun land as along as our fellow Pakistanis in Punjab are caught up in fear of the Pakhtun identity. They have to get rid of their paranoia for a durable peace in Pakistan.
The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo, and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy. She can be reached at bergen34@yahoo.com
Daily Times, April,17, 2010
The people of Hazara have the right to demand a separate province in their area, but they have no right to dictate a name of their choice on the overwhelming majority of the Pakhtun
Renaming of the NWFP as Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in the 18th constitutional amendment has led to a wave of violence in Hazara Division. Eight people have been killed, including policemen on duty and dozens injured. The PMN-N and the PML-Q hold each other’s politics responsible for the unrest in Hazara. Together they also consider the ANP responsible for this violent situation. Farooq Leghari, the former president of Pakistan, said the renaming of the province would create divisions in Pakistan. Mr Nawaz Sharif, the PML-N leader, repeatedly said he reluctantly agreed to rename the province as Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Someone even challenged the renaming of the NWFP in the high court on the plea that Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is a step towards Pakhtunistan. Leaders of the demonstrators in Hazara openly declare they will take revenge from the Pakhtuns for the killing of their companions. The media is giving an unprecedented coverage to the protests in Hazara — such coverage has never been given to any Pakhtun issues that even remotely depict Pakhtun nationalism.
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is a compromised name — thanks to the ANP. This party has a track record of compromising on the Pakhtun interests. It did so on this occasion as well. The ANP should have stuck to Pakhtunkhwa and should have rejected the whole constitutional package for that. Moreover, the constitutional package offers nothing for the people of FATA. How could the ANP, a Pakhtun nationalist party, accept the constitutional package without FATA reforms? It is ridiculous that one of the FATA parliamentarians proposed ‘Qabailistan’ as a new name for FATA but he and his colleagues said nothing about the constitutional reforms in FATA.
Despite the ANP’s compromises, the way the Hazara protests have been exploited by the Punjab-based political parties and covered by the Pakistani media shows once more that many powerful forces in Pakistan are paranoid about anything that symbolises Pakhtun ethnic identity. The Pakistani state has suppressed Pakhtun nationalism for decades and has divided the people in four administrative units (FATA, NWFP, Balochistan and the Pakhtun territories in the Punjab province). For the paranoid Pakistanis, the only acceptable Pakhtun is either a murdered Pakhtun or Talib Pakhtun. There is so much goodwill for the Pakhtun Taliban and so much oblivion, even disgust for the anti-Taliban Pakhtun. The anti-Taliban Pakhtuns, whether nationalists or otherwise have been killed like insects all over FATA by the military and its B-team, the Taliban, and no one in Pakistan seems to care, whereas the Hazara anti-Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa demonstrations have captured the imagination of entire Pakistan.
There is so much media uproar over the killing of the people in Hazara. This is justified and those who killed the innocent people must be held accountable. But the same media outlets are deaf and dumb over the brutal killing of over 70 innocent Pakhtun women, children and men in Tirah, FATA, by the Pakistan Army a week ago! All the politicians and news analysts screaming over the killings in Hazara are deadly silent over the murderous act of the Pakistan Army against the innocent Pakhtun civilians.
The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government has made a judicial committee to probe the killings in Hazara. Who will make a similar judicial committee to investigate the killings in Tirah? It is true that the Pakhtun of FATA have no human rights under the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. But the republic has signed the UN Human Rights Declaration that guarantees human rights to the people of FATA. Should the people of FATA turn to the UN for a judicial investigation since the military and political masters of Pakistan never considered the death and destruction in FATA worthy of judicial investigation?
The Pakhtuns are subservient and loyal citizens of Pakistan and yet there is no dearth of fellow Pakistanis who doubt their loyalty to the state the moment they refer to their ethnic identity. They are not even welcomed to celebrate the belated state recognition of their right, i.e. their ethnic identity being reflected in the name of their province. Politicians and news analysts have condemned the ANP for the celebrations. Rana Sanaullah, provincial law minister Punjab, holds the ANP celebrations over the renaming of the province responsible for the protests in Hazara. There are also those who cannot even tolerate the celebrations and have killed tens of Pakhtuns in Timergara by attacking the celebration rally. The media and politicians of Pakistan have forgotten the martyrs of Timergara, but continue to criticise the Pakhtuns who celebrated the renaming. What kind of state-citizens relationship is this where the Pakhtuns cannot even express joy?
The ANP has already announced to welcome a separate province in Hazara through constitutional means. Now the PML-N must show the grace to accept the Seraiki demand of a separate province in south Punjab.
The people of Hazara have the right to demand a separate province in their area, but they have no right to dictate a name of their choice on the overwhelming majority of the Pakhtun. Seventy-three percent of population of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa identify Pashto as their mother tongue according to the 1998 census in Pakistan. According to the same census, Pakhtuns are the second largest ethnic group of Pakistan after the Punjabis in terms of mother language.
Let us not forget that the population of Hazara is not homogenous in terms of culture and language. Hazara is also home of those Pakhtuns who have preserved their language, tribal culture and customs, like the Pakhtuns in Batagram, Kaladaka, Oogi, etc. The Jaduns and Tareens of Hazara are ethnic Pakhtun, although they have abandoned the Pashto language. It is pertinent to mention that some elected representatives and civil society members from Batagram, Kaladaka, Kohistan and Shangla have demanded separation from Haraza Division to join the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province in the event of Hazara becoming a separate province. It is clear that most of the Pakistani media and the political forces, paranoid about the Pakhtun ethnic identity, would ignore this demand of the Pakhtuns in Hazara.
I am afraid peace is not going to come to the Pakhtun land as along as our fellow Pakistanis in Punjab are caught up in fear of the Pakhtun identity. They have to get rid of their paranoia for a durable peace in Pakistan.
The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo, and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy. She can be reached at bergen34@yahoo.com
History is Not a Farce: The NWFP Referendum
History is Not a Farce: The NWFP Referendum
http://pakteahouse.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/history-is-not-a-farce-the-nwfp-referendum/
“History is the memory of states,” wrote Henry Kissinger in his first book, A World Restored, in which he proceeded to tell the history of nineteenth-century Europe from the viewpoint of the leaders of Austria and England, ignoring the millions who suffered from those statesmen’s policies. From his standpoint, the “peace” that Europe had before the French Revolution was “restored” by the diplomacy of a few national leaders. But for factory workers in England, farmers in France, colored people in Asia and Africa, women and children everywhere except in the upper classes, it was a world of conquest, violence, hunger, exploitation-a world not restored but disintegrated.
My viewpoint, in telling the history of the United States, is different: that we must not accept the memory of states as our own. Nations are not communities and never have been, The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners”
Howard Zinn
This is my favorite passage from one of my favorite books, “A Peoples History of United States”. Pakhtoon territory has been a victim of this “statist” history which has served to further the imperialist goals in this region. First British Empire used it to divide Pakhtoons, and later, American Imperialism adopted the same policy.
Under the British, a vast scholarship appeared on Pakhtoons which to this day is serving its purpose. All such scholarship must be re-examined under light of Edward Said’s “Orientalism”.
What happened in Pakhtoonkhawa is not the memory of State, its lament of a people, those who are the direct victims o f two imperialist powers, and whose case, history, sociology, anthropology all acted in the same as Edward Said says, in aid of the White Man.
History is Not a farce
A fellow writers at the Pak Tea House has started this beautifully crafted series of articles on Pakhtoonkhawa, this latest article on the referendum. It demands a response. The article presents a partial, unilateral view. Over time, in the mainstream discourse, the official position of the democratic representatives of the area has been largely ignored and colonial version of history along with Muslem league’s view point have been projected.
I would indicate here the position of Khudai Khidmatgars , the precursors of NAP and ANP to balance the issue -
Why Referendum??he historian must ask a simple question: why referendum was called by the colonial masters in NWFP, when an elected assembly was in place. NWFP, was a province of India, it had an elected assembly. Its counterparts like Bengal and Punjab were divided, their geography was changed but referendum was not called. Though the situation demanded it, whether Bengalis or Punjabis wanted to be partitioned or join any state as whole. But NWFP was asked to go to polls. Why? because NWFP had progressive assembly, and there was a need to subvert the public opinion. Muslim League and their British masters wanted a democratic cover for their action.
Khan Abdul Wali Khan writes in “Facts are Facts”
” Khudai Khidmatgars’ first objection was that since the Congress and the Muslim league had both agreed on Partition, and since they considered themselves bound by the congress decisions (Bacha Khan himself used to represent Khudai Khidmatgars in the Congress working Committee), and since the congress had accepted that NWFP had to be part of Pakistan, then why hold a referendum? The exercise would only exacerbate the existing communal and political tension and political tension and create an atmosphere of confrontation.
The Muslim League and the British had their own purpose behind the design. Muslim league was keen to convey the impression that Pakistan was formed its demand and its demand alone; and that the Khudai Khidmatgars had opposed Pakistan which was why a referendum had become necessary. There was another purpose in singling out NWFP for a different treatment from other provinces. In the rest of India, only the assembly members of the Muslim majority provinces were asked to give their vote. Bengal and Punjab assemblies voted for the partition and thus the provinces were divided. Sindh assembly was asked to vote for Pakistan. Why not then NWFP assembly also? The reason was obvious. Here the Khudai Khidmatgars were in Majority in the assembly. If they opted for Pakistan the decision would have been that of the Khudai Khidmatgars. The Muslim League was not prepared to concede that credit. Nor were the British.”hy the progressive forces boycotted the dubious referendum. As Wali Khan has mentioned, BachaKhan considered himself bound by the Congress decision. There was no need of a referendum. The elected assembly was being subverted to give Muslim League political advantage in future government in Pakhtoonkhawa. The only meaningful purpose of this referendum would have been if it would have included the option of “Pakhtoonistan”. When the elected representatives of a state were demanding it , such an option should have been considered. A referendum is only meaningful if it gives a genuine choice to the electorate. But when its clear that its purpose is to bypass the public opinion, it becomes a futile exercise . Which it became. It was boycotted by the elected representatives of the state.
Khan Abdul Wali Khan further writes:
Why Boycott:
” For their part the Khudai Khidmatgars decided that if the British were insistent on holding the plebiscite despite the general acceptance that NWFP would go to Pakistan, then following the same principle of self-determination the province should also have the freedom to a third option, of an in dependent Pukhtoonistan. Mountbatten, however, refused to include this alternative. The Khudai Khidmatgars then decided that since between the available two options the decision had already been taken and the referendum was there fore pointless they would boycott it”have already mentioned that any referendum is only meaningful if it gives a meaningful valid choice to the electorate. Here we are seeing that the demand of the most popular political party who had won an election and was in government in the state was ignored. It was solely being conducted to give the Muslim League a political credibility in NWFP. It was boycotted by a major political force. It was any thing but fair. It was to use the standard British term a “White Wash”.
The Referendem : Fair or Farce
A farce and a shameful farce , this referendum was. And the key reasons were:
A: It was not based on adult franchise, Voting was restricted
B. Not all Pakhtoons were allowed to participate in the referendum that would seal not only their fate but that of their brothers in Afghanistan
C. The tribal Pakhtoons were not allowed to vote. In the population of 3.5 Million only 0.6 Million were allowed to vote
D. 6 Tribal agencies were barred from it
E. The States of Sawat, Dir,Amb, and Chitral were also not allowed to participate
Any referendum that disenfranchises such a large number of population can never be called a legitimate exercise of “self determination”. It has no political, legal and moral authority whatsoever.
Progressive Position on Referendum:ali Khan writes:
” Anyway, the government of India started preparing for referendum. Olaf Carore was replaced by Sir Robb Lokhart as the NWFP governor and the vote was held under his supervision. Although the Khudai Khidmatgarshad announced boycott of the exercise and its result had been a foregone conclusion,yet the Muslim Leaguers made extraordinary efforts. They brought their leaders from all corners of the country including students from the Aligarh University, who all fanned out in the province to incite hatred against the Pukhtoons.
For all that, on the polling day they resorted to such rigging that it is hard to find a parallel. Ballot boxes were freely stuffed and even the votes of Khudai Khidmatgar leaders were cast. Let me cite two instances, one told to me by Sikandar Mirza himself who was former deputy commissioner in Hazara. Touring the polling booths he reached the one at the gullies. The staff proudly told him: “This is mountainous area. We have just 200 voters on the list here. But, Sir, we have already polled 210.”espite a virtually unopposed Referendum , and monumental effort by the Moslem League what was the result?
The Results:
Number of votes 5,72,799
Polled votes (51%) 2,92,118
For Pakistan (51.5%) 2,89,244
For India 2,874
51.5% of the allowed Voters , Voted for Pakistan.Is this the result of a referendum that sealed the fate of Millions of Pakhtoons? With the disenfranchisment, it can’t even be called a majority vote.
My honorable and learned friend, Ysser Hamdani, has written that the referendum was free and fair unlike those conducted by the Military dictatorships in Pakistan. Alas, it was the same story.
Wu referendem tha ya jin tha shaher mein hoo ka alam tha—-emocracy is about “equal opportunities”. Here the elected representatives were suppressed, and an escape route of “referendums” was taken. Why?
Again lets ask those who were debarred , whose parliament was subverted:
Wali Khan writes:
” In the ends, thus, one keeps coming back to the same conclusion that the British were keen on putting an Islamic halter round the socialist order in the north and were not prepared to permit any hurdle,Khudai Khidmatgars’ or whatever, in their way. In fact they were convinced that unless they removed all the nationalist and anti imperialist forces from their path would not be able to consummate their design.”
This all was to block progressive forces in the area, to make NWFP a“Petri dish”for imperialist agenda to block Socialism. The Saur Revolution was snuffed out using NWFP, the Islamists madness was spread, the Frankenstein that is now playing havoc from New York, from Islamabad to Bara.
All this was result of this “Referendum”.
“Lamhon ne Khata ki , sadiyon ne saza payi”
http://sherryx.wordpress.com/
http://pakteahouse.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/history-is-not-a-farce-the-nwfp-referendum/
“History is the memory of states,” wrote Henry Kissinger in his first book, A World Restored, in which he proceeded to tell the history of nineteenth-century Europe from the viewpoint of the leaders of Austria and England, ignoring the millions who suffered from those statesmen’s policies. From his standpoint, the “peace” that Europe had before the French Revolution was “restored” by the diplomacy of a few national leaders. But for factory workers in England, farmers in France, colored people in Asia and Africa, women and children everywhere except in the upper classes, it was a world of conquest, violence, hunger, exploitation-a world not restored but disintegrated.
My viewpoint, in telling the history of the United States, is different: that we must not accept the memory of states as our own. Nations are not communities and never have been, The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners”
Howard Zinn
This is my favorite passage from one of my favorite books, “A Peoples History of United States”. Pakhtoon territory has been a victim of this “statist” history which has served to further the imperialist goals in this region. First British Empire used it to divide Pakhtoons, and later, American Imperialism adopted the same policy.
Under the British, a vast scholarship appeared on Pakhtoons which to this day is serving its purpose. All such scholarship must be re-examined under light of Edward Said’s “Orientalism”.
What happened in Pakhtoonkhawa is not the memory of State, its lament of a people, those who are the direct victims o f two imperialist powers, and whose case, history, sociology, anthropology all acted in the same as Edward Said says, in aid of the White Man.
History is Not a farce
A fellow writers at the Pak Tea House has started this beautifully crafted series of articles on Pakhtoonkhawa, this latest article on the referendum. It demands a response. The article presents a partial, unilateral view. Over time, in the mainstream discourse, the official position of the democratic representatives of the area has been largely ignored and colonial version of history along with Muslem league’s view point have been projected.
I would indicate here the position of Khudai Khidmatgars , the precursors of NAP and ANP to balance the issue -
Why Referendum??he historian must ask a simple question: why referendum was called by the colonial masters in NWFP, when an elected assembly was in place. NWFP, was a province of India, it had an elected assembly. Its counterparts like Bengal and Punjab were divided, their geography was changed but referendum was not called. Though the situation demanded it, whether Bengalis or Punjabis wanted to be partitioned or join any state as whole. But NWFP was asked to go to polls. Why? because NWFP had progressive assembly, and there was a need to subvert the public opinion. Muslim League and their British masters wanted a democratic cover for their action.
Khan Abdul Wali Khan writes in “Facts are Facts”
” Khudai Khidmatgars’ first objection was that since the Congress and the Muslim league had both agreed on Partition, and since they considered themselves bound by the congress decisions (Bacha Khan himself used to represent Khudai Khidmatgars in the Congress working Committee), and since the congress had accepted that NWFP had to be part of Pakistan, then why hold a referendum? The exercise would only exacerbate the existing communal and political tension and political tension and create an atmosphere of confrontation.
The Muslim League and the British had their own purpose behind the design. Muslim league was keen to convey the impression that Pakistan was formed its demand and its demand alone; and that the Khudai Khidmatgars had opposed Pakistan which was why a referendum had become necessary. There was another purpose in singling out NWFP for a different treatment from other provinces. In the rest of India, only the assembly members of the Muslim majority provinces were asked to give their vote. Bengal and Punjab assemblies voted for the partition and thus the provinces were divided. Sindh assembly was asked to vote for Pakistan. Why not then NWFP assembly also? The reason was obvious. Here the Khudai Khidmatgars were in Majority in the assembly. If they opted for Pakistan the decision would have been that of the Khudai Khidmatgars. The Muslim League was not prepared to concede that credit. Nor were the British.”hy the progressive forces boycotted the dubious referendum. As Wali Khan has mentioned, BachaKhan considered himself bound by the Congress decision. There was no need of a referendum. The elected assembly was being subverted to give Muslim League political advantage in future government in Pakhtoonkhawa. The only meaningful purpose of this referendum would have been if it would have included the option of “Pakhtoonistan”. When the elected representatives of a state were demanding it , such an option should have been considered. A referendum is only meaningful if it gives a genuine choice to the electorate. But when its clear that its purpose is to bypass the public opinion, it becomes a futile exercise . Which it became. It was boycotted by the elected representatives of the state.
Khan Abdul Wali Khan further writes:
Why Boycott:
” For their part the Khudai Khidmatgars decided that if the British were insistent on holding the plebiscite despite the general acceptance that NWFP would go to Pakistan, then following the same principle of self-determination the province should also have the freedom to a third option, of an in dependent Pukhtoonistan. Mountbatten, however, refused to include this alternative. The Khudai Khidmatgars then decided that since between the available two options the decision had already been taken and the referendum was there fore pointless they would boycott it”have already mentioned that any referendum is only meaningful if it gives a meaningful valid choice to the electorate. Here we are seeing that the demand of the most popular political party who had won an election and was in government in the state was ignored. It was solely being conducted to give the Muslim League a political credibility in NWFP. It was boycotted by a major political force. It was any thing but fair. It was to use the standard British term a “White Wash”.
The Referendem : Fair or Farce
A farce and a shameful farce , this referendum was. And the key reasons were:
A: It was not based on adult franchise, Voting was restricted
B. Not all Pakhtoons were allowed to participate in the referendum that would seal not only their fate but that of their brothers in Afghanistan
C. The tribal Pakhtoons were not allowed to vote. In the population of 3.5 Million only 0.6 Million were allowed to vote
D. 6 Tribal agencies were barred from it
E. The States of Sawat, Dir,Amb, and Chitral were also not allowed to participate
Any referendum that disenfranchises such a large number of population can never be called a legitimate exercise of “self determination”. It has no political, legal and moral authority whatsoever.
Progressive Position on Referendum:ali Khan writes:
” Anyway, the government of India started preparing for referendum. Olaf Carore was replaced by Sir Robb Lokhart as the NWFP governor and the vote was held under his supervision. Although the Khudai Khidmatgarshad announced boycott of the exercise and its result had been a foregone conclusion,yet the Muslim Leaguers made extraordinary efforts. They brought their leaders from all corners of the country including students from the Aligarh University, who all fanned out in the province to incite hatred against the Pukhtoons.
For all that, on the polling day they resorted to such rigging that it is hard to find a parallel. Ballot boxes were freely stuffed and even the votes of Khudai Khidmatgar leaders were cast. Let me cite two instances, one told to me by Sikandar Mirza himself who was former deputy commissioner in Hazara. Touring the polling booths he reached the one at the gullies. The staff proudly told him: “This is mountainous area. We have just 200 voters on the list here. But, Sir, we have already polled 210.”espite a virtually unopposed Referendum , and monumental effort by the Moslem League what was the result?
The Results:
Number of votes 5,72,799
Polled votes (51%) 2,92,118
For Pakistan (51.5%) 2,89,244
For India 2,874
51.5% of the allowed Voters , Voted for Pakistan.Is this the result of a referendum that sealed the fate of Millions of Pakhtoons? With the disenfranchisment, it can’t even be called a majority vote.
My honorable and learned friend, Ysser Hamdani, has written that the referendum was free and fair unlike those conducted by the Military dictatorships in Pakistan. Alas, it was the same story.
Wu referendem tha ya jin tha shaher mein hoo ka alam tha—-emocracy is about “equal opportunities”. Here the elected representatives were suppressed, and an escape route of “referendums” was taken. Why?
Again lets ask those who were debarred , whose parliament was subverted:
Wali Khan writes:
” In the ends, thus, one keeps coming back to the same conclusion that the British were keen on putting an Islamic halter round the socialist order in the north and were not prepared to permit any hurdle,Khudai Khidmatgars’ or whatever, in their way. In fact they were convinced that unless they removed all the nationalist and anti imperialist forces from their path would not be able to consummate their design.”
This all was to block progressive forces in the area, to make NWFP a“Petri dish”for imperialist agenda to block Socialism. The Saur Revolution was snuffed out using NWFP, the Islamists madness was spread, the Frankenstein that is now playing havoc from New York, from Islamabad to Bara.
All this was result of this “Referendum”.
“Lamhon ne Khata ki , sadiyon ne saza payi”
http://sherryx.wordpress.com/
Six Pakhtun tribes plan grand Jirga to settle issue of Hazara province
Six Pakhtun tribes plan grand Jirga to settle issue of Hazara province
Saturday, April 17, 2010
By By Ikram Hoti
ISLAMABAD: Elders of six Pukhtun tribes have decided to devise a united tribal platform “to defy the latest attack on the Pukhtun community in the shape of conflict created in Hazara versus the rest of the population living in Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa.”
A meeting held here on Friday with Pukhtun Aman Jirga (PAJ) Chairman Syed Kamal Shah in the chair here on Friday, it was resolved that the leaders of Hazara Sooba Tehrik (Hazara Province Movement) would be approached through a grand Jirga shortly to apprise them of the “conspiracy” hatched to pit the Hazara and the rest of provincial communities “as the establishment has been doing in the recent past.”
Kamal Shah and the elders of the platform told The News that they approached some of the tribal elders supporting the Hazara Sooba Tehrik in Islamabad to put across the fears of the Pukhtun community that it was not for a province but the initiation of a “new attack on the Pukhtun community” that a certain political group had been instigating bloody riots in Abbottabad and Haripur over the previous week.
“We told them, and we will tell other Hazara leaders through a grand Jirga that this was part of the grand conspiracy against the Pukhtun nation. In the recent past, under the Zia dictatorship and in the years that followed, Arab, Central Asian, Pukhtun and Punjabi Mujahideen were organised to perpetrate attacks on the Pukhtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“These mujahideen were lately converted into Taliban that intensified the attacks on Pakhtun community. Since the governments in Islamabad and Peshawar had lately been successful in decimating the Taliban onslaught on the Pakhtun community in Swat, Bajaur, Buner, Mardan, Nowshera, Karak, Bannu, DI Khan and Waziristan, etc, a new force was hatched in the shape of miscreants in the Hazara belt in the name of new province.”
Saturday, April 17, 2010
By By Ikram Hoti
ISLAMABAD: Elders of six Pukhtun tribes have decided to devise a united tribal platform “to defy the latest attack on the Pukhtun community in the shape of conflict created in Hazara versus the rest of the population living in Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa.”
A meeting held here on Friday with Pukhtun Aman Jirga (PAJ) Chairman Syed Kamal Shah in the chair here on Friday, it was resolved that the leaders of Hazara Sooba Tehrik (Hazara Province Movement) would be approached through a grand Jirga shortly to apprise them of the “conspiracy” hatched to pit the Hazara and the rest of provincial communities “as the establishment has been doing in the recent past.”
Kamal Shah and the elders of the platform told The News that they approached some of the tribal elders supporting the Hazara Sooba Tehrik in Islamabad to put across the fears of the Pukhtun community that it was not for a province but the initiation of a “new attack on the Pukhtun community” that a certain political group had been instigating bloody riots in Abbottabad and Haripur over the previous week.
“We told them, and we will tell other Hazara leaders through a grand Jirga that this was part of the grand conspiracy against the Pukhtun nation. In the recent past, under the Zia dictatorship and in the years that followed, Arab, Central Asian, Pukhtun and Punjabi Mujahideen were organised to perpetrate attacks on the Pukhtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“These mujahideen were lately converted into Taliban that intensified the attacks on Pakhtun community. Since the governments in Islamabad and Peshawar had lately been successful in decimating the Taliban onslaught on the Pakhtun community in Swat, Bajaur, Buner, Mardan, Nowshera, Karak, Bannu, DI Khan and Waziristan, etc, a new force was hatched in the shape of miscreants in the Hazara belt in the name of new province.”
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Voice of the Pashtun Land: Shoaib Malik vs Shahid Afridi
Voice of the Pashtun Land: Shoaib Malik vs Shahid Afridi
Pakistani cricket potfolio was under the direct control of Musharraf during his regime.This shows how Cricket has been used to artificially fabricate the feelings of patriotism and specially against India.Pakistan wants an enemy in the form of India even in games to keep the nations living in Pakistan glued in an artificial bond of patritotism so they keep hating the largest democracy in the world and keep cherishing the injustices committed by the military owned state.For example Younas Khan won the Twenty20 cup for Pakistan but is facing a trial becuase he is a Pashtun while the playboy Shoaib Malik became the hero in the Pakistani media just for marrying a tennis player after ruining the lives of many muslim girls.The reason is obvious.He is Punjabi and hence the toy of Punjabi elite whose flirteous act is turning into an event of glory.Shahid Afridi will be "Boom Boom Afridi" till he serves the purpose of the ruling militarty Junta which wants to use cricket as an igniting force of hatred against India ,once that is over ,a humiliating fate will await him because ,afterall, he is a Pashtun despite being awarded the player of the decade by ESPN just recently.
Pakistani cricket potfolio was under the direct control of Musharraf during his regime.This shows how Cricket has been used to artificially fabricate the feelings of patriotism and specially against India.Pakistan wants an enemy in the form of India even in games to keep the nations living in Pakistan glued in an artificial bond of patritotism so they keep hating the largest democracy in the world and keep cherishing the injustices committed by the military owned state.For example Younas Khan won the Twenty20 cup for Pakistan but is facing a trial becuase he is a Pashtun while the playboy Shoaib Malik became the hero in the Pakistani media just for marrying a tennis player after ruining the lives of many muslim girls.The reason is obvious.He is Punjabi and hence the toy of Punjabi elite whose flirteous act is turning into an event of glory.Shahid Afridi will be "Boom Boom Afridi" till he serves the purpose of the ruling militarty Junta which wants to use cricket as an igniting force of hatred against India ,once that is over ,a humiliating fate will await him because ,afterall, he is a Pashtun despite being awarded the player of the decade by ESPN just recently.
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