The recent killing of 11 Pakistani soldiers at Gora Prai
by American and NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan unleashed an
amazing storm. Prime Minister Gillani declared: "We will take a stand for
sovereignty, integrity and self-respect." The military announced
defiantly: "We reserve the right to protect our citizens and soldiers
against aggression" while army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, called
the attack "cowardly". The dead became "shaheed" and large numbers of
people turned up to pray at their funerals.
But had the killers been the Taliban this would have been
a non-event. The storm we saw was more about cause than consequence.
Protecting the sovereignty of the state, self-respect, citizens and
soldiers against aggression, and the lives of Pakistani soldiers, suddenly
all acquired value because the killers were American and NATO troops.
Compare the response to Gora Prai with the near silence
about the recent kidnapping and slaughter by Baitullah Mehsud’s fighters
of 28 men near Tank, some of whom were shot and others had their throats
cut. Even this pales before the hundred or more attacks by suicide bombers
over the last year that made bloody carnage of soldiers and officers,
devastated peace jirgas and public rallies and killed hundreds praying in
mosques and at funerals. These murders were largely ignored or, when
noted, simply shrugged off. The very different reactions to the casualties
of American and NATO violence compared to those inflicted by the Taliban
reflect a desperate confusion about what is happening in Pakistan and how
to respond.
Some newspaper and TV commentators want Pakistan to
withdraw from the American-led war on al-Qaeda and the Taliban, to stop US
fuel and ammunition supplies into Afghanistan and hit hard against Afghan
troops when provoked. One far-right commentator even urges turning our
guns against the Americans and NATO, darkly hinting that Pakistan is a
nuclear power.
There is, of course, reason for people in Pakistan and
across the world to feel negatively about America. In pursuit of its
self-interest, wealth and security, the United States has for decades
waged illegal wars, bribed, bullied and overthrown governments, supported
tyrants, undermined movements for progressive change and now feels free to
kidnap, torture, imprison and kill anywhere in the world with impunity.
All this while talking about supporting democracy and human rights.
Even Americans – or at least the fair-minded ones among
them – admit that there is a genuine problem. A June 2008 report of the US
House Committee on Foreign Affairs entitled "The Decline In America’s
Reputation: Why?" concluded that contemporary anti-Americanism stemmed
from "the perception that the proclaimed American values of democracy,
human rights, tolerance and the rule of law have been selectively ignored
by successive administrations when American security or economic
considerations are in play."
Tragically for Pakistan, American hypocrisy has played
into the hands of Islamic militants. They have been vigorously promoting
the notion that this is a bipolar conflict of Islam, which they claim to
represent, versus imperialism. Many Pakistanis, who desperately want
someone to stand up to the Americans, buy into this.
This is a fatal mistake. The militants are using America
as a smokescreen for their real agenda. Created by poverty, a war culture
and the macabre manipulations of Pakistan’s intelligence services, the
militants want more than just to fight an aggressor from across the
oceans. Their goal is to establish their writ over that of the Pakistani
state. For this they have been attacking and killing people in Pakistan
through the 1990s, well before 9/11. Remember also that the 4,000-plus
victims of jihad in Pakistan over the last year have been Muslims with no
connection at all to America. In fact, the Taliban are waging an armed
struggle to remake society. They will keep fighting this war even if
America were to miraculously evaporate into space.
A Taliban victory would transport us into the darkest of
dark ages. These fanatics dream of transforming the country into a
religious state where they will be the law. They stone women to death, cut
off limbs, kill doctors for administering polio shots, force girl children
into burkha, threaten beard-shaving barbers with death, blow up girls’
schools at a current average of two per week, forbid music, punish
musicians, destroy 2,000-year statues. Even flying kites is a
life-threatening sin.
The Taliban agenda has no place for social justice and
economic development. There is silence from Taliban leaders about poverty
and the need to create jobs for the unemployed, building homes, providing
education, land reform or doing away with feudalism and tribalism. They
see no need for worldly things like roads, hospitals and infrastructure.
If the militants of Pakistan ever win it is clear what our
future will be like. Education, bad as it is today, would at best be
replaced by the mind-numbing indoctrination of the madrassas whose gift to
society would be an army of suicide bombers. In a society policed by
vice-and-virtue squads, music, art, drama and cultural expressions would
disappear. Pakistan would retribalise and resemble a cross between FATA
and Saudi Arabia (minus the oil).
Pakistanis tolerate these narrow-minded, unforgiving men
because they claim to fight for Islam. But the Baitullahs and Fazlullahs
know nothing of the diversity and creative richness of Muslims whether
today or in the past. Intellectual freedom led to science, architecture,
medicine, arts and crafts and literature that were the hallmark of Islamic
civilisation in its golden age. They grew because of an open-minded,
tolerant, cosmopolitan and multicultural character. Caliphs such as Haroon-al-Rashid
and Al-Mamoun brought together scholars of diverse faiths and helped
establish a flourishing culture. Today’s self-declared ‘amir-ul-momineen’
(commanders of the faithful), like Mullah Omar, would gladly behead great
Islamic scholars like Ibn Sina and Al-Razi for heresy and burn their
books.
Pakistan must find the will to fight the Taliban. The
state, at both the national and provincial level, must assert its
responsibility to protect life and law rather than simply make deals.
State functionaries, and even the khassadars, have disappeared from much
of the tribal areas. Pakistan is an Islamic state falling into anarchy and
chaos, being rapidly destroyed from within by those who claim to fight for
Islam.
Pakistanis must not be deceived. This is no clash of
civilisations. To the Americans, Pakistan is an instrument to be used for
their strategic ends. It is necessary and possible to say no. But the
Taliban seek to capture and bind the soul and future of Pakistan in the
dark prison fashioned by their ignorance. As they now set their sights on
Peshawar and beyond, they must be resisted by all possible means,
including adequate military force.