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Association for Communal Harmony in Asia (ACHA) Article of the Month 1. Nuclear disaster in South Asia, Brian Cloughley 1. Nuclear disaster in South Asia Survivors in India and Pakistan will see repulsive, terrifying and hideous scenes never before witnessed in the world — but there will be no outside eye to observe them, other than the lenses of dispassionate satellite cameras hundreds of miles above the earth At this time of tension between India and Pakistan, it is as well to reflect on the consequences of war. We all hope that something like the mock despatch, below, is never written. But given the interview with NDTV in which “the Home Minister said it would now be [up to] Pakistan to ensure that such acts [as the Mumbai attacks] are never repeated by its citizens against India, because the price they will pay if this is repeated will be enormous,” it is obvious there can be no assurance that India will not attempt a strike across the border. That would lead to all-out war. World Press Despatch. Washington The world was stunned today as nuclear devastation fell on the subcontinent. Enormous areas of Mumbai, Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Delhi were reduced to radioactive rubble in the early hours of this morning. Both Hyderabads have been obliterated, as have Sargodha, Bahawalpur and Jaipur, by weapons thought to have had a yield of about 40 kilotons (the Hiroshima bomb was less than half that). An Indian strike against Karachi failed, when nuclear-armed Su-30 aircraft had to take evasive action and released their bombs about fifty miles east of Pakistan’s largest city — but then prevailing winds drove massive clouds of radioactive sand across the entire urban area and far along the coastline. Ground zero for Pakistan’s nuclear missiles aimed at New Delhi appeared to be symbolic: India Gate. The city’s business area, centred round Connaught Place, no longer exists, and destruction was total in the diplomatic enclave of Chanakyapuri and north to Civil Lines, perhaps further. It is estimated that a million people have died or are dying in Delhi, about the same number as in Lahore, Amritsar, Mumbai and Rawalpindi. Almost the entire population of Islamabad, where a missile landed, ironically, close to Zero Point, has vanished. The hearts of Pakistan and India have been laid waste. The governments of both countries remain functioning in their respective emergency centres in Chennai and Quetta, and their leaders have said that they will fight on. But they, too, will die, with all their ministers and advisers, when the winds and rains spread radioactive death through the region. The countries cannot fight on, or even survive as nations. Countless millions of refugees are flooding out of cities all over the sub- continent. Every main route is verge-to-verge with snail-paced vehicles carrying terrified and hysterical people. The Rawalpindi-Peshawar highway, in a bizarre development, has seen countless thousands of refugees from both cities meeting at Nowshera where there is catastrophic panic and confusion. To the west, the Khyber Pass is choked. Similar scenes are evident in satellite pictures of the Mumbai-Pune road and at Hapur, half-way between Delhi and Moradabad. Nowhere on any escape routes are there hygiene or medical facilities that can cope with the exodus. Once refugees have exhausted their meagre supplies of food and water there will be hunger, looting, disease, violence and hideous death on a colossal scale. Tension heightened in the subcontinent after the terrorist atrocities in Mumbai in September 2008, and both sides prepared for war. They sent reinforcements to the border and moved missiles and warheads to emergency deployment positions. This activity was detected by foreign intelligence services and even by commercial satellites, but international concern died down after an initial burst of comment. In a tragic series of actions, both nations moved towards nuclear catastrophe. The cause was a comparatively minor airstrike by India against a supposed terrorist base in Pakistan, at first resisted by India’s prime minister but insisted upon by extreme nationalists. Pakistan was expecting such action and struck back by bombing an Indian airfield. There were several more tit-for-tat operations; then all-out war began. Update: The situation in the region is worsening minute by minute. Satellite pictures show clouds of nuclear dust being blown erratically in every direction. There have been torrential rains, carrying radioactive particles. Nuclear grime is dropping on the Karakorams and the Himalayas from where most water in the subcontinent originates, and all northern rivers will be terminally contaminated. Hot, swirling, nuclear-polluted sandstorms in the deserts of Rajasthan, Sindh and Balochistan have been driven into both Punjabs, the North West Frontier Province, Haryana, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh. Reports from Colombo, Rangoon, Kathmandu and Kabul indicate rapidly increasing levels of radiation. The 70,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan are being evacuated, necessitating the world’s biggest ever airlift. Iran has closed its borders, and the roads from Afghanistan to Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are choked. The UN Security Council is sitting in emergency session, but it is a hand-wringing colloquy rather than a meeting that could alleviate the staggering disaster. Some forty nuclear weapons have caused devastation on a scale not seen since the end of the dinosaurs. All the world can do is wait until nature takes its course, over the centuries. The subcontinent is ceasing to exist, and no help will come from elsewhere, as even the most saintly of aid agencies will not hazard the lives of its workers. No government could order its troops into nuclear devastation to give assistance, no matter how desperate the situation. Survivors in India and Pakistan will see repulsive, terrifying and hideous scenes never before witnessed in the world — but there will be no outside eye to observe them, other than the lenses of dispassionate satellite cameras hundreds of miles above the earth that will record forever the desolation and carnage that are the result of pride, miscalculation — and nuclear weapons. Brian Cloughley’s book about the Pakistan army, War, Coups and Terror, has just been published by Pen & Sword Books (UK) and is distributed in Pakistan by Saeed Book Bank 2. The Saudi-isation of Pakistan The common belief in Pakistan is that Islamic radicalism is a problem only in FATA, and that madrassas are the only institutions serving as jihad factories. This is a serious misconception. Extremism is breeding at a ferocious rate in public and private schools within Pakistan´s towns and cities. Left unchallenged, this education will produce a generation incapable of co-existing with anyone except strictly their own kind. The mindset it creates may eventually lead to Pakistan´s demise as a nation state. For 20 years or more, a few of us have been desperately sending out SOS messages, warning of terrible times to come. In fact, I am surprised at how rapidly these dire predictions have come true. A full-scale war is being fought in FATA, Swat and other "wild" areas of Pakistan, resulting in thousands of deaths. It is only a matter of time before this fighting shifts to Peshawar and Islamabad (which has already been a witness to the Lal Masjid episode) and engulfs Lahore and Karachi as well. The suicide bomber and the masked abductor have crippled Pakistan´s urban life and shattered its national economy. Soldiers, policemen, factory and hospital workers, mourners at funerals and ordinary people praying in mosques have all been reduced to globs of flesh and fragments of bones. But, perhaps paradoxically, in spite of the fact that the dead bodies and shattered lives are almost all Muslim ones, few Pakistanis speak out against these atrocities. Nor do they approve of the army operation against the cruel perpetrators of these acts because they believe that they are Islamic warriors fighting for Islam and against American occupation. Political leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan have no words of solace for those who have suffered at the hands of Islamic extremists. Their tears are reserved exclusively for the victims of Predator drones, even if they are those who committed grave crimes against their own people. Terrorism, by definition, is an act only the Americans can commit. What explains Pakistan´s collective masochism? To understand this, one needs to study the drastic social and cultural transformations that have rendered this country so completely different from what it was in earlier times. For three decades, deep tectonic forces have been silently tearing Pakistan away from the Indian subcontinent and driving it towards the Arabian peninsula. This continental drift is not physical but cultural, driven by a belief that Pakistan must exchange its South Asian identity for an Arab-Muslim one. Grain by grain, the desert sands of Saudi Arabia are replacing the rich soil that had nurtured a magnificent Muslim culture in India for a thousand years. This culture produced Mughul architecture, the Taj Mahal, the poetry of Asadullah Khan Ghalib, and much more.. Now a stern, unyielding version of Islam (Wahhabism) is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis and saints who had walked on this land for hundreds of years. This change is by design. Twenty-five years ago, the Pakistani state used Islam as an instrument of state policy. Prayers in government departments were deemed compulsory, floggings were carried out publicly, punishments were meted out to those who did not fast in Ramadan, selection for academic posts in universities required that the candidate demonstrate a knowledge of Islamic teachings and jihad was declared essential for every Muslim. Today, government intervention is no longer needed because of a spontaneous groundswell of Islamic zeal. The notion of an Islamic state - still in an amorphous and diffused form - is more popular now than ever before as people look desperately for miracles to rescue a failing state. Villages have changed drastically; this transformation has been driven, in part, by Pakistani workers returning from Arab countries. Many village mosques are now giant madrassas that propagate hard-line Salafi and Deobandi beliefs through oversized loudspeakers. They are bitterly opposed to Barelvis, Shias and other sects, who they do not regard as Muslims. The Punjabis, who were far more liberal towards women than the Pukhtuns, are now beginning to take a line resembling that of the Taliban. Hanafi law has begun to prevail over tradition and civil law, as is evident from the recent decisions of the Lahore High Court. In Pakistan´s lower-middle and middle classes lurks a grim and humourless Saudi-inspired revivalist movement that frowns on any and every expression of joy and pleasure. Lacking any positive connection to culture and knowledge, it seeks to eliminate "corruption" by regulating cultural life and seizing control of the education system. "Classical music is on its last legs in Pakistan; the sarangi and vichitraveena are completely dead," laments Mohammad Shehzad, a music aficionado. Indeed, teaching music in public universities is violently opposed by students of the Islami Jamaat-e-Talaba at Punjab University. Nevertheless, the Pakistani elite, disconnected from the rest of the population, live their lives in comfort through their vicarious proximity to the West.. Alcoholism is a chronic problem of the super rich of Lahore - a curious irony for this deeply religious country. Islamisation of the state and the polity was supposed to have been in the interest of the ruling class - a classic strategy for preserving it from the wrath of the working class. But the amazing success of the state is turning out to be its own undoing. Today, it is under attack from religious militants, and rival Islamic groups battle each other with heavy weapons. Ironically, the same army - whose men were recruited under the banner of jihad, and which saw itself as the fighting arm of Islam - today stands accused of betrayal and is almost daily targeted by Islamist suicide bombers. On the previous page, the reader can view the government-approved curriculum. This is the basic road map for transmitting values and knowledge to the young. By an act of parliament passed in 1976, all government and private schools (except for O-level schools) are required to follow this curriculum. It was prepared by the curriculum wing of the federal ministry of education, government of Pakistan. It sounds like a blueprint for a religious fascist state. Alongside are scanned pictures from an illustrated primer for the Urdu alphabet. The masthead states that it has been prepared by Iqra Publishers, Rawalpindi, along "Islamic lines." Although not an officially approved textbook, it is being used currently by some regular schools, as well as madrassas associated with the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), an Islamic political party that had allied itself with General Musharraf. These picture scans have been taken from a child´s book, hence the scribbles. The world of the Pakistani schoolchild remained largely unchanged, even after September 11, 2001, the event that led to Pakistan´s timely desertion of the Taliban and the slackening of the Kashmir jihad. Indeed, for all his hypocritical talk of "enlightened moderation," General Musharraf´s educational curriculum was far from enlightening. It was a slightly toned down version of the curriculum that existed under Nawaz Sharif which, in turn, was identical to that nder Benazir Bhutto who had inherited it from General Zia-ul-Haq. Fearful of taking on the powerful religious forces, every incumbent government has refused to take a position on the curriculum and thus quietly allowed young minds to be moulded by fanatics. What may happen a generation later has always been a secondary issue for a government challenged on so many fronts. The promotion of militarism in Pakistan´s so-called "secular" public schools, colleges and universities had a profound effect upon young minds. Militant jihad became part of the culture on college and university campuses. Armed groups flourished, they invited students for jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan, set up offices throughout the country, collected funds at Friday prayers and declared a war which knew no borders. Pre-9/11, my university was ablaze with posters inviting students to participate in the Kashmir jihad. Post-2001, this ceased to be done openly. Still, the primary vehicle for Saudi-ising Pakistan´s education has been the madrassa. In earlier times, these had turned out the occasional Islamic scholar, using a curriculum that essentially dates back to the 11th century, with only minor subsequent revisions. But their principal function had been to produce imams and muezzins for mosques, and those who eked out an existence as `maulvi sahibs´ teaching children to read the Quran. The Afghan jihad changed everything. During the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, madrassas provided the US-Saudi-Pakistani alliance the cannon fodder they needed to fight a holy war. The Americans and Saudis, helped by a more-than-willing General Zia, funded new madrassas across the length and breadth of Pakistan. A detailed picture of the current situation is not available. But according to the national education census, which the ministry of education released in 2006, Punjab has 5,459 madrassas followed by the NWFP with 2,843; Sindh has 1,935; the Federally Administrated Northern Areas (FANA), 1,193; Balochistan, 769; Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), 586; the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA), 135; and the Islamabad capital territory, 77. The ministry estimates that 1.5 million students are acquiring religious education in the 13,000 madrassas. These figures appear to be way off the mark. Commonly quoted figures range between 18,000 and 22,000 madrassas. The number of students could be correspondingly larger. The free boarding and lodging plus provision of books to the students, is a key part of their appeal. Additionally, parents across the country desire that their children be "disciplined" and given a thorough Islamic education. The madrassas serve this purpose, too, exceedingly well. Madrassas have deeply impacted the urban environment. Until a few years ago, Islamabad was a quiet, orderly, modern city different from the rest of Pakistan. Also, it had largely been the abode of Pakistan´s elite and foreign diplomats. But the rapid transformation of its demography brought with it hundreds of mosques with multi-barrelled audio-cannons mounted on minarets, as well as scores of madrassas illegally constructed in what used to be public parks and green areas. Now, tens of thousands of their students, sporting little prayer caps, dutifully chant the Quran all day. In the evenings they swarm the city, making women minus the hijab increasingly nervous. Total segregation of the sexes is a central goal of the Islamists, the consequences of which have been catastrophic. For example, on April 9, 2006, 21 women and eight children were crushed to death and scores injured in a stampede inside a three-storey madrassa in Karachi, where a large number of women were attending a weekly congregation. Male rescuers, who arrived in ambulances, were prevented from moving the injured women to hospitals. One cannot dismiss this incident as being just one of a kind.. In fact, soon after the October 2005 earthquake, as I walked through the destroyed city of Balakot, a student of the Frontier Medical College described to me how he and his male colleagues were stopped by religious elders from digging out injured girl students from under the rubble of their school building. This action was similar to that of Saudi Arabia´s ubiquitous religious `mutaween´ (police) who, in March 2002, had stopped school girls from leaving a blazing building because they were not wearing their abayas - a long robe worn in Saudi Arabia. In a rare departure from the norm, Saudi newspapers had blamed and criticised the mutaween for letting 15 girls burn to death. The Saudi-isation of a once-vibrant Pakistani culture continues at a relentless pace. The drive to segregate is now also being found among educated women. Vigorous proselytisers carrying this message, such as Mrs Farhat Hashmi, have been catapulted to the heights of fame and fortune. Their success is evident. Two decades back, the fully veiled student was a rarity on Pakistani university and college campuses. The abaya was an unknown word in Urdu. Today, some shops across the country specialise in abayas. At colleges and universities across Pakistan, the female student is seeking the anonymity of the burqa. And in some parts of the country she seems to outnumber her sisters who still "dare" to show their faces. I have observed the veil profoundly affect habits and attitudes. Many of my veiled female students have largely become silent note-takers, are increasingly timid and seem less inclined to ask questions or take part in discussions. They lack the confidence of a young university student. While social conservatism does not necessarily lead to violent extremism, it does shorten the distance. The socially conservative are more easily convinced that Muslims are being demonised by the rest of the world. The real problem, they say, is the plight of the Palestinians, the decadent and discriminatory West, the Jews, the Christians, the Hindus, the Kashmir issue, the Bush doctrine - the list runs on. They vehemently deny that those committing terrorist acts are Muslims, and if presented with incontrovertible evidence, say it is a mere reaction to oppression. The immediate future does not appear hopeful: increasing numbers of mullahs are creating cults around themselves and seizing control of the minds of worshippers. In the tribal areas, a string of new Islamist leaders have suddenly emerged: Baitullah Mehsud, Maulana Fazlullah and Mangal Bagh. Poverty, deprivation, lack of justice and extreme differences of wealth provide the perfect environment for these demagogues to recruit people to their cause. Their gruesome acts of terror are still being perceived by large numbers of Pakistanis merely as a war against imperialist America. This could not be further from the truth. In the long term, we will have to see how the larger political battle works out between those Pakistanis who want an Islamic theocratic state and those who want a modern Islamic republic. It may yet be possible to roll back those Islamist laws and institutions that have corroded Pakistani society for over 30 years and to defeat its hate-driven holy warriors. There is no chance of instant success; perhaps things may have to get worse before they get better. But, in the long term, I am convinced that the forces of irrationality will cancel themselves out because they act at random whereas reason pulls only in one direction. History leads us to believe that reason will triumph over unreason, and the evolution of the humans into a higher and better species will continue. Using ways that we cannot currently anticipate, they will somehow overcome their primal impulses of territoriality, tribalism, religiosity and nationalism. But, for now, this must be just a matter of faith. The author teaches physics at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad. 3. Derailed de-radicalisation Zeenia Satti, The News, January 28, 2009 Just like the Afghan war was allowed to turn into Pakistan's civil war, similarly, the Mumbai attacks are likely to usher in civil unrest in Punjab. While events in neighbouring countries adversely impact Pakistan's domestic politics, the same are cited internationally as the manifestations of Pakistan failing as a state. Both Musharraf and Zardari have allowed their country's political milieu to be defined by outside powers. When a state allows its domestic political relations to be determined by outside powers, it brings upon itself the misfortune of losing control over its polity and becoming thus a failed state. The Pakistani incumbents have hurled their country down this slope lock stock and barrel. Counter terrorism is an evolutionary process. All over the world, governments try to de-radicalise radical groups through facilitating disengagement from radicalism and promoting involvement with peaceful activities. Political discourse on de-radicalisation and counter terrorism is occupied with developing mechanisms for "disengagement" from radicalism through an "integrated" approach. It would be to Pakistan's long term advantage if radical groups could be disengaged from cross border military pursuits and engaged instead in peaceful activities inside Pakistan. The eradication of poverty and hunger, the professionalization of down trodden youth, provision of health care, education, and shelter for the homeless are all fit subjects for jihad in Islam. If a radical organization has already established such activities in Pakistan, the state should lend it hearty support and protection while continuing to monitor its activities. Demobilization and disengagement, as defined in political science, are the best antidote to terrorism. At present, many countries in the world are strategizing "disengagement from radicalism" at different levels, including Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, India, Algeria, Indonesia, Colombia, and Malaysia. Unfortunately, while governments beset with terrorism elsewhere are painfully striving to set up disengagement programs, the Zardari government has just shut down such a program in Pakistan. The post Mumbai clamp down on JUD and the closure of its schools is a political blunder. The LeT's transformation into JUD is a model of disengagement countries faced with radical groups dream of achieving. Islamabad could have utilized the Mumbai attacks to demobilize the LeT by standing up for JUD and rendering it open to international scrutiny. It could have used its media to provide extensive coverage to JUD's civic activities and should have lent it whole hearted praise. This would not only have instilled in the JUD and its followers a heightened sense of patriotism, it would also have helped it purge those elements that are given to violence. To de-radicalise, one has to facilitate cooperative relations and capacity development. Mumbai could have been utilized to promote a change in JUD syllabus. Mumbai challenged the political world view of jihadi groups that seek a solution to the Kashmir problem through terrorism. The fact that the Mumbai attacks had a severely negative bearing on the Kashmiri struggle should have been the "cognitive opening" used by Pakistan to divide a wedge between the LeT and the JUD, to the detriment of the former so as to completely dehydrate its military life line. Islamabad could then tackle the LeT leadership to New Delhi's satisfaction but without a negative fall out on itself. Through erudite policy, Islamabad could promote a fundamental change within all its militarized groups' political understanding of the Kashmir problem, facilitating the abandonment of their cross border ventures. Ever since the CIA had Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and his secular, progressive politics eliminated through Pakistan's military, Pakistan has been steadily infiltrated with religious groups who are funded by petro dollars and adhere to a reactionary version of Islam espoused by Saudi Arabia. The Islamisation of Pakistan has thus gone on imperceptibly for almost thirty years during which time reactionary groups have dotted the entire landscape of Pakistan. Yet, Pakistanis have never empowered religious parties in any of their general elections. It is now well established that the sole exception of the MMA victory in the 2002 election was a fraud perpetrated by the Musharraf regime. Militarily, in the past the Islamist groups were never a threat to Pakistan as the focus of their activities remained Indian occupied Kashmir and Soviet Occupied Afghanistan. Since 9/11, both India and the U.S have launched a policy towards Pakistan that has not only intensified the militarization of radical groups within Pakistan but has also cleverly shifted their target to Islamabad. Islamabad is unwittingly abetting this policy. The Pakistani Islamist groups have come into being over a long period of time and were sustained by regional developments. The same developments can be used to dismantle these groups but Pakistan needs time for this. Those who show no patience in this task are averse to Pakistan's internal cohesion. Zardari is providing even more incentive then Musharraf to the radical groups to swell their ranks and shift the target of their militarism to Islamabad. Disillusionment, after much hope has been shattered, makes people turn away from democracy to other means. The longing for a leadership that addresses the emotional grievances of people is making the Pakistani youth vulnerable to extremism. Zardari has refused to fulfil a single hope of the anti Musharraf movement. When such a government launches punitive action against any group, it not only reinforces the group's clandestine camaraderie but even promotes camaraderie where none already exists. Islamabad could have used the Mumbai attacks to promote de-radicalisation in an erudite manner; instead, it has pursued policies that are more likely to radicalise and destabilise Punjab. The writer is a consultant and analyst of energy geopolitics based in Washington DC. Email: zeenia.satti@yahoo.com ARCHIVE: Link to January 2009 Article of the Month |