DAWN - Opinion; 29 March, 1998
The message from Hangu
By Eqbal Ahmad
MESSAGES have been pouring in from all parts of the country into the provincial and federal capitals of Pakistan, from Binuri Town in Karachi, Mominpura in Lahore, Shantinagar in southern Punjab, and the latest - from district Hangu in the Sarhad province. The messages are loud and clear as they come dripping in blood, ample innocent blood: the plague of sectarian violence has broken out in this country. It will devour all unless serious steps are taken to stamp it out.
It is a plague long germinating. Its sources are multiple. A few are rooted in the Muslim people's fractious history, wounds which good governments did not open and the rotten ones did to the detriment of the 'community of believers'. The latest in the latter line were Mr. Z.A. Bhutto, a worldly politician, who sensed an opportunity of sorts in favourably entertaining sectarian demands to declare the Ahmedis a non-Muslim minority. His successor and tormentor General Mohammed Ziaul Haq went way beyond his patron-&- victim in sectarianizing this hapless country. To begin with, 'Islamization' was an open invitation to sectarianism. It is easy to see why.
The Islamic is an intensely political civilization. While the believers share the premises of belief, since early Muslim history they have been divided over the issues of succession and law. When Islam is dragged explicitly into politics, in multi- denominational countries such as Pakistan, it is bound to arouse anxieties specially in the minority sects, enliven old differences, and spawn sectarian hatred and violence. This is precisely what ensued following Zia's 'Islamization' agenda. The Tahrike Nifaze Fiqhe Jafariyya lodged its protests and staked its claims. Sunni extremists, enlivened by the promise of theocracy, reacted. Thus a framework for the renewal of sectarian confrontations was created. Unfortunately, both the domestic and external environment was favourable to its growth.
Three factors - uneven development in Pakistan, revolution in Iran, and strife in Afghanistan - contributed greatly to this climate of growth. I should mention the first two briefly in order to discuss at some length Pakistan's Afghan predicament. The most discernible change in Pakistan has occurred in its economy which has grown since 1950 at around 5.5 percent annually. As a result, the system of production has been gradually shifting from rural to urban, agricultural to industrial. This change has been accompanied by the emergence of a working class and a new middle class. A corresponding change in the system of power has not occurred; it remains by and large under the control of the old elite drawn from the landed and urban upper class.
Lack of correspondence between a rapidly changing system of production and a relatively fixed system of power invariably yields social and political conflict and violence by the new classes and individuals seeking access to power. Their ideological affiliations can be reactionary or revolutionary, sectarian or class based depending on a country's political climate. In Pakistan, the climate of the 1970s and 1980s was seeped in ethnic, religious and authoritarian politics. It was also a period in which state and politics had become enmeshed in violence - associated with the eventual separation of East Pakistan, insurgency in Balochistan, and the politics of Bhutto and Ziaul Haq.
Hence, it yielded a harvest of ethnic and religious groupings. All draw their cadres largely from new middle class elements; all are sectarian in outlook, and authoritarian in style and structure, and all viewed violence as a necessary instrument of attaining their objectives.
Iran's Islamic revolution and American and Arab opposition to it brought a bonanza to the religious political groupings. Iran's radicals were keen on promoting Islamic militancy specially among Shi'a the world over. Its opponents - the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq - were out to undermine Iran's influence. Thus began the battle for the Muslim soul, which inevitably became a contest of the body count. For obvious reasons, Pakistan became a primary battle ground: it borders on Iran, it has a large Shi'a population, General Zia made it the centre piece of U.S. sponsored Islamism, and it became the site of a lively jihad against communism. Naturally, this country became seeped in sectarian hatreds, guns, and drugs. And the very complex Islamic notion of jihad became identified with the cult of violence.
In Afghanistan this jihad continues since 1991 among the believers themselves. Pakistan's 'Islamic' parties take sides. So unfortunately does the Government of Pakistan whose officials ought to display more intelligence and greater flexibility than a collection of pre-modern minds. Denials notwithstanding, the world knows that the Taliban owe much, perhaps even the birth of their movement, to Pakistan's national security establishment's mysterious calculations. They are past masters at miscalculation, and innovate cockeyed strategic concepts which they turn with conviction into articles of faith. The outcome is a country caught in an iron web of wrong assumptions, maginotic concepts, failed policies, fixed posture, and sectarian violence. Who is going to rescue us except we ourselves?
The Taliban are not merely another Afghan party, in control of "80% of Afghanistan", as our officials routinely remind every journalist and visiting diplomat. Graduates of Pakistan's madaaris, owing their sponsorship and logistical life line to Pakistan, they are deeply linked to it. In Afghanistan they have pushed the boundaries of jahaliyya in the name of Islam. In certain sections of Pakistani society, they are a state of mind, model of governance, and marjaa' taqlid. They are a reality mirrored - in Binuri Township, Mominpura, and Hangu. Last night, yet another journalist offered yet another piece of evidence: "I interviewed the body guard of the SSP leader", he said, " all of them had been with the Taliban." There are myriad ways in which Afghanistan's ongoing warfare distorts us. Look, and you will find the connections in the Parachinar and Hangu district where until recently the Bangash and Orakzai, Shia and Sunni, had lived in relative peace, where missiles and artillery were not deployed when disputes did occur, and where foreign groups did not join a local fray. Peace in Afghanistan is Pakistan's most urgent need.
We are internationally and regionally isolated unless, that is, one counts the Maldive Islands and Sri Lanka. Washington aided and abetted us through the Afghanistan misadventure and, in the process, distorted the whole world of Islam. Come the collapse of USSR, it cashed in its investments and clamped an embargo on Pakistan. During 1991-1994, it deemed international relations as a struggle for resources. Therefore, just when the Taliban emerged, it smelled the oil and gas of Central Asia and, wishing to divert it away from Russia, encouraged American corporations to plan pipelines through Turkey, and also through Afghanistan to Pakistani waters.
The Taliban had appeared to be a good bet in 1994. They were young and raw, anti-Iran, and welcome to many Afghans who had been suffering from scarcities and the violence of militias. Hence Washington nodded, American corporations like UNOCAL put in some money and promised bonanzas. Our elite has a Pavlovian reaction to American nods. So our Afghan operators became happy as clam. But the US is a democratic country where sacred cows are routinely de-sanctified, and policies change when mistakes are recognized. Washington does not any more back our Afghan illusions; nor do the Chinese, the British or the Europeans.
They all know, however, that Pakistan is the central player in Afghanistan. "It is the big power in relation to Afghanistan but knows not how to use this power to its lasting advantage", said a Pakophile European diplomat. It is hard to discern the logic of Islamabad's policy, and difficult even to identify the locus of policy making. Foreign Office officials disclaim influence over the Taliban citing "the Afghans' independent temperament". This is an ingenuous excuse. Who does not know that Pakistan is the Taliban's life line; even such strategic and easily controlled commodities as petrol and lubrication oil, without which their war machine cannot run, goes from here. All know that when Islamabad decided to negotiate in Geneva, many Afghan leaders were resentful but fell in line. Pakistan has the responsibilities of a primary power in Afghanistan and it can fulfil these responsibilities if it so wishes. Our interests will be best served by peace, however gradually achieved, in Afghanistan.
Its starting point has to be trustful collaboration between Pakistan and Iran. Islamabad ought to acknowledge Iran's concerns. It confronts a hostile power which has hegemony over its Arab neighbours, and seeks to control also the resources of Central Asia. Encircled Iran cannot let Afghanistan be dominated by an anti-Shi'a, hence anti-Iran, party. Afghanistan has to be ruled by a moderate coalition broadly reflecting its ethnic composition. This will also serve Pakistan's long term interests as a largely Pashtun dominated government shall sooner or later raise the Pashtunistan flag. Only a ruling mixture of ethnicities can guarantee a non-revanchist Afghanistan. As for "strategic depth", which is imagined in some Pakistani quarters, it is a meaningless concept more dangerous to Pakistan's security than was the 'Maginot Line' for France.
The United Nations can serve as the facilitator of peace. The Secretary General of the United Nations senses the great risks of continued strife in Afghanistan. He also knows that the great powers now favour a peace process which may accommodate the interests of Afghanistan's neighbours - Pakistan, Iran, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan - and also serve the welfare of its people. Mr. Kofi Annan's appointment of Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi as his special mediator for Afghanistan is indicative of the importance he attaches to peace in that country.
Few world diplomats can match Brahimi's reputation and peace making record. He helped end the stubborn civil war in Lebanon, and it was he who prepared the ground for that final meeting between Saddam Hussain and Kofi Annan which prevented the resumption of war in the Gulf. Yet, he has spent an unproductive week in Islamabad. Not one important official has met with him. Hopefully, they are all waiting for the Prime Minister to take the lead.