Wednesday, February 28, 2007

An open letter to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan

ADVOCATE NAEEM BOKHARI'S LETTER to the CHIEF JUSTICE of the SUPREME COURT of PAKISTAN

Mr. Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry
Chief Justice
Supreme Court of Pakistan
Islamabad
Pakistan

My Lord:

I write this letter as an Officer of the Supreme Court of Pakistan; as an Advocate enrolled in the apex Court since 1984 and in the High
Courts since 1972; as an Attorney who has paid more income tax from his earnings in the legal profession than many of my friends,
colleagues and seniors elevated to the Bench; and as a stake-holder in the dispensation of justice, intimately and vitally interested in
the functioning of the Supreme Court.

Many judges who adorn the Bench in the Supreme Court and the High Court know me over decades, as a person endowed by nature with a pleasant disposition and acceptance of human failings. Towards the courts, my approach has always been of consistent and continuous display of respect and humility. I bow out of conviction, not compulsion. I use the words "My Lords", because I want to, not because I have to. As an Attorney, I look up to the Court and want to see it on a high pedestal of dignity, compassion and justice, tempered with mercy.

I have seen my Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Hamood-ur-Rahman, Chief Justice Muhammad Yaqub Ali, Chief Justice S. Anwar-ul-Haq, Chief Justice Mohammad Haleem and how the Court functioned under them in the 1970s/1980s.

I witnessed the proceedings for the ouster of Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, became aware that the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, had 'worked' on some judges of the Supreme Court and saw the physical assault on the Court.

I was appalled at the manner in which Chief Justice Irshad Hasan Khan led the Supreme Court and pained at the insinuations against Justice Sheikh Riaz Ahmad, when he was the Chief Justice.

I was horrified by the establishment of a Bench of five judges constituted by Chief Justice Nazim Hussain Siddiqui to determine whether reduction in the retirement age for judges was constitutional or not. This was clearly designed to block your appointment. I was against the idea of Mr. Amirul Mulk Mengal being made the Chief Justice before you. Within the limits of my influence (which I readily admit to be very limited), I was totally for you to become the Chief Justice. Justice Javed Buttar is aware of my position, as is the Attorney General of Pakistan. The accelerated issue of the notification appointing you the Chief Justice put Justice Siddiqui's move to rest.

I believed that you were vigorous, capable of lifting up the Supreme Court, creating an espirit-de-corps among your brother judges, restoring the dignity and grandeur of the apex Court, particularly considering the long tenure before you.

Alas this has not come about.

I am not perturbed by your insistence on protocol (despite my belief that the Chief Justice would rise in the eyes of everybody if he walked from his residence to the Supreme Court and hooters, police escort, flags is just fluff, not the substance of an office).

I am mildly amused at your desire to be presented a guard of honour in Peshawar. I am titillated by the appropriation of aMercedes-Benz car or is it cars, the use of the Government of the Punjab's airplane to offer Fateha in Multan, to Sheikhupura for Fateha on a Government of the Punjab helicopter, to Hyderabad on a Government of the Sind's plane for attending a High Court function, the huge amount spent in refurbishing the chamber and residence of the Chief Justice, the reservation for yourself of a wing in Supreme Court Judges guest house in Lahore, the permanent occupation by the Supreme Court of the official residence of the Chief Justice of Sind, who per force lives in the basement of his father's house. As his class fellow in the Government College, Lahore, I can vouch that living in the basement will do him no harm.

I am not perturbed that Dr. Arsalaan (your son) secured 16/100 in the English paper for the Civil Services Examination, that there is a case against him in some court in Baluchistan, that from the Health Department in Baluchistan he has shifted to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), that he has obtained training in the Police Academy, that he reportedly drives a BMW 7-Series car, that there is a complaint against him with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

My grievances and protests are different.

I am perturbed that the Supreme Court should issue a clarificatory statement on his behalf. I am perturbed that Justice (Retd.) Wajihuddin Ahmed should be constrained to advise you on television that "people who live in glass houses should not throw stones at others". I am perturbed that the Chief Justice should summon Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman to his chambers on Dr. Arsalaan's account.

I am appalled that you announce decisions in Court, while in the written judgment an opposite conclusion is recorded.

In the Petition for leave to appeal filed by Dr. Sher Afghan Niazi, Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs (in which Respondent's Counsels were Mr. Khalid Anwar and Mr. Qadir Saeed), you refused to grant leave in open Court and yet in the written order, leave was granted to Dr. Sher Afghan Niazi.

On 15-2-2007, Mr. Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim complained that in open Court you had accepted his appeal but dismissed the same in the judgement, subsequently recorded.

If Mr. Khalid Anwar, a former Minister of Law and Parliamentary Affairs, and Mr Fakrhuddin, Senior Counsel, are treated in this manner, the fate of lesser known lawyers would certainly be far worse.

My grievances also concern the manner in which the last and highest court of appeal is dispensing justice, under your leadership.

My Lord, the dignity of lawyers is consistently being violated by you. We are treated harshly, rudely, brusquely and nastily. We are not heard. We are not allowed to present our case. There is little scope for advocacy. The words used in the Bar Room for Court No. 1 are "the slaughter house". We are cowed down by aggression from the Bench, led by you. All we receive from you is arrogance, aggression and belligerence. You also throw away the file, while contemptuously announcing: "This is dismissed".

Yet this aggression is not for everyone. When Mr. Sharifuddin Pirzada appears, your Lordship's demeanour and appearance is not just sugar and honey. You are obsequious to the point of meekness. So apart from violating our dignity, which the Constitution commands to be inviolable, we suffer discrimination in your Court.

I am not raising the issue of verbal onslaughts and threats to Police Officers and other Civil Servants, who have the misfortune to be summoned, degraded and reminded that "This is the Supreme Court".

The way in which My Lord conducts proceedings is not conducive to the process of justice. In fact, it obstructs due process and constitutes contempt of the Supreme Court itself.

I am pained at the wide publicity to cases taken up by My Lord in the Supreme Court under the banner of Fundamental Rights. The proceedings before the Supreme Court can conveniently and easily be referred to the District and Sessions Judges. I am further pained by the media coverage of the Supreme Court on the recovery of a female. In the bar room, this is referred to as a "Media Circus".

My Lord, this communication may anger you and you are in any case prone to get angry in a flash, but do reflect upon it. Perhaps you are not cognizant of what your brother judges feel and say about you.

My Lord, before a rebellion arises among your brother judges (as in the case of Mr. Justice Sajjad Ali Shah), before the Bar stands up collectively and before the entire matter is placed before the Supreme Judicial Council, there may be time to change and make amends.

I hope you have the wisdom and courage to make these amends and restore serenity, calm, compassion, patience and justice tempered with mercy to my Supreme Court.

My Lord, we all live in the womb of time and are judged, both by the present and by history. The judgement about you, being rendered in the present, is adverse in the extreme.

Yours faithfully,

NAEEM BOKHARI
Advocate
Supreme Court of
Pakistan
Islamabad, Pakistan

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Committed but Incapable?

"Committed but Incapable?"
By Husain Haqqani
Gulf News, The Nation (Pakistan), Oman Tribune, Indian Express, The Star (Bangladesh) February 21, 2007

The outgoing U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Ryan Crocker, has attempted to resolve the apparent contradiction between Washington's view of General Pervez Musharraf as a critical ally in the war against terrorism and intelligence about terrorists still operating out of Pakistan. "Pakistan has been fighting terrorists for several years and its commitment to counterterrorism remains firm," Mr. Crocker told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the hearing on his nomination as U.S. ambassador to Iraq. The challenge faced by Pakistan in coming to terms with Taliban fighters along its border with Afghanistan, he explained, lies in a lack of 'capacity.'

As suicide bombings and general lawlessness illustrate the insecurity of millions of Pakistanis, Pakistan's self-congratulating elite can now sit in the comfort of its drawing rooms and debate a new issue. What is worse, being doubted for lack of commitment as an American ally or being recognized as an incapable one? Clearly, from the U.S. point of view the task expected of Pakistan is not being accomplished. One implication of Mr. Crocker's assessment is that Pakistan must now brace itself for pressure in improving its capacity. Alternatively, it would have to allow other U.S. allies, possibly NATO, to complete the task to which General Musharraf is committed but which Pakistan's military and law enforcement machinery are unable to do.

Official Pakistan is often tempted to read much more into words of praise offered by U.S. officials than is intended by those who utter these words. One can imagine Musharraf's staff highlighting the word "commitment" in Mr. Crocker's statement and then suggesting that Musharraf's Pakistani critics should be reprimanded for ever doubting the general, now that the outgoing U.S. ambassador has asserted the absence of qualms on that score. But praise for an ally on a given day is hardly an assurance that pressure is not round the corner. Instead of focusing only on the praise, and the aid that accompanies it, Pakistan's rulers must think beyond diplomatic exchanges to deal with the underlying issues inside Pakistan. Even if Mr. Crocker did not speak of it, the diminishing capacity of the Pakistani state should be of concern to Pakistan's leaders and they should strive to improve that capacity through national consensus.

Sometimes it is not easy to prepare for the storm on a clear day. On December 7, 1982, President Ronald Reagan hosted a State dinner for General Muhammad Ziaul Haq at the White House, where he said, "Mr. President, our talks this morning underlined again the strong links between our countries. We find ourselves even more frequently in agreement on our goals and objectives. And we, for example, applaud your deep commitment to peaceful progress in the Middle East and South Asia, a resolve which bolsters our hopes and the hopes of millions."

In case there were any doubts about President Reagan's esteem for General Ziaul Haq and for Pakistan as a U.S. ally, the U.S. President further said, " In the last few years, in particular, your country has come to the forefront of the struggle to construct a framework for peace in your region, an undertaking which includes your strenuous efforts to bring peaceful resolution to the crisis in Afghanistan -- a resolution which will enable the millions of refugees currently seeking shelter in Pakistan to go home in peace and honor. Further, you've worked to ensure that progress continues toward improving the relationship between Pakistan and India. And in all these efforts the United States has supported your objectives and will applaud your success."

Pakistan enjoyed almost a decade of U.S. "applause" under General Ziaul Haq and President Reagan but the relationship ran out its course. By 1990, Pakistan was under U.S. sanctions, which lasted another decade until the 9/11 attacks led to a new phase in relations between the erstwhile allies.

There is an underlying message in Mr. Crocker's faint praise for Pakistan that must not go unheeded. Mr. Crocker is an old-school diplomat who wants to deal with the world as it exists. He opposed the Iraq war, rejecting the idea of some neoconservatives that instability can somehow be constructive. Traditional, "realist" diplomacy hinges on preserving the status quo in the interest of theUnited States.

Finding friendly rulers and then bolstering their capacity to fulfil strategic objectives has been the mainstay of U.S. foreign policy in the greater Middle East for years. For this policy to work, U.S. diplomats must gloss over the flaws and weaknesses of allies and ensure a constant flow of military and economic assistance. The aid, and the dependence that results from it, is supposed to buy theU.S. influence. Concerns about democracy and human rights must be played down and critics must be assured that "slow but sure reform" is on its way. The economic growth that results from injection of large doses of aid, coupled with stage-managed elections and some diversity in a semi-controlled media, are useful instruments of convincing skeptics that the glass is half full.

Many smart people would argue that this model of U.S. policy has by and large worked. They argue that U.S. support of the region's rulers, capable or incapable, has prevented the entire region from going up in flames. But others argue, quite effectively on the basis of the existing record, that the capacity of America's allies from Morocco to Indonesia to live up to Washington's expectations, especially in the war against terrorism, is diminishing. Sooner or later, a happy medium will have to be found between the "constructive instability" paradigm, which causes U.S. intervention on the scale of Iraq with attending consequences, and the "island of stability" exemplar that led the U.S. to ignore the turbulence brewing under the Shah's rule in Iran.

Austro-Hungarian ruler Francis I is said to have adopted the maxim "Rule and Change Nothing" and advocates of the stability school in U.S. foreign policy would do well to remember the result of that grand strategy. Francis and his successors did succeed in ruling without changing their outlook for many decades but while they did not change, things around them did. Eventually the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed and the clever diplomacy of its many smart statesmen, including Prince Metternich, failed to save the day.

Ambassador Crocker has conducted himself successfully in Pakistan, retaining General Musharraf's confidence and helping the general preserve his lifeline to Washington. The only thing the realists in the United States seek from Pakistan is full cooperation in tracking down Al-Qaeda operatives and shutting down the Taliban who have become a serious threat to stability in Afghanistan. As he leaves Pakistan to deal with the mess in Iraq, Ambassador Crocker has communicated a subtle message to the military regime inIslamabad, which he has done much to save from the wrath of America's "constructive instability" visionaries.

General Musharraf and his colleagues need to redefine their priorities and rebuild the capacity of the Pakistani state in the areas where it is lacking –counter-terrorism, law enforcement, limiting non-state armed groups. The Pakistani state has become weak as its functionaries have expanded their role to include being the manipulators of domestic politics and dealers in urban real estate. Pakistanmust become an effective state run under its constitution and the rule of law. Otherwise, it will continue to be a victim of terrorism as well as an alleged safe haven for terrorists.

(Husain Haqqani is Director of Boston University's Center for International Relations, and Co-Chair of the Islam and Democracy Project at Hudson Institute, Washington D.C. He is author of the book 'Pakistan between Mosque and Military'.)

Monday, February 26, 2007

Cheney's Surprise Visit to Pakistan: What for?

Cheney Presses Pakistan
Carin Zissis
February 26, 2007: Council on Foreign Relations

Vice President Dick Cheney made a surprise stop in Islamabad to deliver a stern warning (NYT) to President Pervez Musharraf that Washington may reduce aid to Islamabad if he does not take a more offensive approach toward terrorists that have allegedly sought refuge close to the Afghan border. President Bush’s new budget includes $300 million in military aid to Pakistan to support counterterrorism activities and stop cross border raids into Afghanistan. The U.S. Congress has threatened to cut the military funding (CSMonitor) if Islamabad does not take a more aggressive approach toward controlling militants within Pakistan. The new pressure marks a change in tone from just last year, when Bush referred to Musharraf as “my buddy.” After Cheney’s brief visit, Pakistan’s foreign office responded pointedly, saying Islamabad does not take orders (The News) on how it handles counterterrorism efforts.

The U.S.-Pakistani alliance is under increasing scrutiny at a time when North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops face a Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan seen as bolstered by militants crossing the border from Pakistan. European resolve on involvement in the Afghanistan conflict is also showing cracks, demonstrated by Italian Prime Minister’s surprise resignation (Guardian) last week over his parliament’s resistance to maintaining Italian troops in Afghanistan and allowing for a U.S. base to be built in Italy.

Victory in the Afghan war may be unattainable as long as the Taliban and al-Qaeda continue to operate in Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal areas and border region. The tribal regions, which have long resisted Islamabad’s control, are explained in this Backgrounder. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Afghanistan expert Barnett R. Rubin blames the “continued sanctuary” of Taliban leaders in Pakistan for preventing “real victory” in Afghanistan. An International Crisis Group report on the tribal areas says the U.S. decision to “put all its eggs in Musharraf and his military’s basket” ignored the government’s sympathy with religious extremist leaders while alienating moderate Pakistanis.

Musharraf defended Islamabad’s efforts to fight terrorism during a Council on Foreign Relations meeting in September 2006, saying Pakistan is “combating it through a comprehensive all-encompassing strategy.” Under international pressure to control militant incursions into Afghanistan, Musharraf has deployed some 80,000 troops in the border area and went as far as suggesting in December that Islamabad would mine and fence the border. However, South Asia expert Dennis Kux says in this podcast that Pakistan can do little to stop “individuals going across what has long been an open border.” Kux also points out that Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, depends on the support of the military and Pakistan’s intelligence agency, which in turn are sympathetic to militants in the tribal areas.

Musharraf’s critics point to a 2006 agreement signed by Pakistani authorities and tribal leaders to end a three-year campaign against militants in theprovince of North Waziristan, saying it was tantamount to surrendering the area to Taliban members involved in an insurgency in Afghanistan. Zahid Hussain, a senior editor for Pakistan’s Newsline, accuses Musharraf of “doublespeak” and of orchestrating a deal that “relieved the pressure on the army, and so, on Musharraf” while empowering the Taliban. In a new CFR.org online debate, journalist Bill Roggio says, “the notion that Pakistan is doing all it can to secure its border with Afghanistan is laughable.”

The myth of Muslim support for terror

The myth of Muslim support for terror
The common enemy is violence and terrorism, not Muslims any more than Christians or Jews.
By Kenneth Ballen
Christian Science Monitor: February 23, 2007

WASHINGTON
Those who think that Muslim countries and pro-terrorist attitudes go hand-in-hand might be shocked by new polling research: Americans are more approving of terrorist attacks against civilians than any major Muslim country except for Nigeria.

The survey, conducted in December 2006 by the University of Maryland's prestigious Program on International Public Attitudes, shows that only 46 percent of Americans think that "bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians" are "never justified," while 24 percent believe these attacks are "often or sometimes justified."

Contrast those numbers with 2006 polling results from the world's most-populous Muslim countries – Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. Terror Free Tomorrow, the organization I lead, found that 74 percent of respondents in Indonesia agreed that terrorist attacks are "never justified"; in Pakistan, that figure was 86 percent; in Bangladesh, 81 percent.

Do these findings mean that Americans are closet terrorist sympathizers?

Hardly. Yet, far too often, Americans and other Westerners seem willing to draw that conclusion about Muslims. Public opinion surveys in the United States and Europe show that nearly half of Westerners associate Islam with violence and Muslims with terrorists. Given the many radicals who commit violence in the name of Islam around the world, that's an understandable polling result.

But these stereotypes, affirmed by simplistic media coverage and many radicals themselves, are not supported by the facts – and they are detrimental to the war on terror. When the West wrongly attributes radical views to all of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, it perpetuates a myth that has the very real effect of marginalizing critical allies in the war on terror.

Indeed, the far-too-frequent stereotyping of Muslims serves only to reinforce the radical appeal of the small minority of Muslims who peddle hatred of the West and others as authentic religious practice.

Terror Free Tomorrow's 20-plus surveys of Muslim countries in the past two years reveal another surprise: Even among the minority who indicated support for terrorist attacks and Osama bin Laden, most overwhelmingly approved of specific American actions in their own countries. For example, 71 percent of bin Laden supporters in Indonesia and 79 percent in Pakistan said they thought more favorably of the United States as a result of American humanitarian assistance in their countries – not exactly the profile of hard-core terrorist sympathizers. For most people, their professed support of terrorism/bin Laden can be more accurately characterized as a kind of "protest vote" against current US foreign policies, not as a deeply held religious conviction or even an inherently anti- American or anti-Western view.

In truth, the common enemy is violence and terrorism, not Muslims any more than Christians or Jews. Whether recruits to violent causes join gangs in Los Angeles or terrorist cells in Lahore, the enemy is the violence they exalt.

Our surveys show that not only do Muslims reject terrorism as much if not more than Americans, but even those who are sympathetic to radical ideology can be won over by positive American actions that promote goodwill and offer real hope.

America's goal, in partnership with Muslim public opinion, should be to defeat terrorists by isolating them from their own societies. The most effective policies to achieve that goal are the ones that build on our common humanity. And we can start by recognizing that Muslims throughout the world want peace as much as Americans do.

Kenneth Ballen is founder and president of Terror Free Tomorrow, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to finding effective policies that win popular support away from global terrorists.

The myth of Muslim support for terror

The myth of Muslim support for terror
The common enemy is violence and terrorism, not Muslims any more than Christians or Jews.
By Kenneth Ballen
Christian Science Monitor: February 23, 2007

WASHINGTON
Those who think that Muslim countries and pro-terrorist attitudes go hand-in-hand might be shocked by new polling research: Americans are more approving of terrorist attacks against civilians than any major Muslim country except for Nigeria.

The survey, conducted in December 2006 by the University of Maryland's prestigious Program on International Public Attitudes, shows that only 46 percent of Americans think that "bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians" are "never justified," while 24 percent believe these attacks are "often or sometimes justified."

Contrast those numbers with 2006 polling results from the world's most-populous Muslim countries – Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. Terror Free Tomorrow, the organization I lead, found that 74 percent of respondents in Indonesia agreed that terrorist attacks are "never justified"; in Pakistan, that figure was 86 percent; in Bangladesh, 81 percent.

Do these findings mean that Americans are closet terrorist sympathizers?

Hardly. Yet, far too often, Americans and other Westerners seem willing to draw that conclusion about Muslims. Public opinion surveys in the United States and Europe show that nearly half of Westerners associate Islam with violence and Muslims with terrorists. Given the many radicals who commit violence in the name of Islam around the world, that's an understandable polling result.

But these stereotypes, affirmed by simplistic media coverage and many radicals themselves, are not supported by the facts – and they are detrimental to the war on terror. When the West wrongly attributes radical views to all of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, it perpetuates a myth that has the very real effect of marginalizing critical allies in the war on terror.

Indeed, the far-too-frequent stereotyping of Muslims serves only to reinforce the radical appeal of the small minority of Muslims who peddle hatred of the West and others as authentic religious practice.

Terror Free Tomorrow's 20-plus surveys of Muslim countries in the past two years reveal another surprise: Even among the minority who indicated support for terrorist attacks and Osama bin Laden, most overwhelmingly approved of specific American actions in their own countries. For example, 71 percent of bin Laden supporters in Indonesia and 79 percent in Pakistan said they thought more favorably of the United States as a result of American humanitarian assistance in their countries – not exactly the profile of hard-core terrorist sympathizers. For most people, their professed support of terrorism/bin Laden can be more accurately characterized as a kind of "protest vote" against current US foreign policies, not as a deeply held religious conviction or even an inherently anti- American or anti-Western view.

In truth, the common enemy is violence and terrorism, not Muslims any more than Christians or Jews. Whether recruits to violent causes join gangs in Los Angeles or terrorist cells in Lahore, the enemy is the violence they exalt.

Our surveys show that not only do Muslims reject terrorism as much if not more than Americans, but even those who are sympathetic to radical ideology can be won over by positive American actions that promote goodwill and offer real hope.

America's goal, in partnership with Muslim public opinion, should be to defeat terrorists by isolating them from their own societies. The most effective policies to achieve that goal are the ones that build on our common humanity. And we can start by recognizing that Muslims throughout the world want peace as much as Americans do.

Kenneth Ballen is founder and president of Terror Free Tomorrow, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to finding effective policies that win popular support away from global terrorists.

Friday, February 23, 2007

The Taliban Rises from the Ashes - Insıghtful and ınformatıve analysıs

The Taliban Rises from the Ashes
Nafisa Hoodbhoy
Toward Freedom 22 February 2007

In a recent visit along the Pak-Afghan border, I found growing evidence that the battle hardened Islamic militants had regrouped with a vengeance. It should have come as no surprise: last year the Taliban insurgency had set a new record of over 4,000 people killed. Although the Northwest Frontier Province has traditionally been more conservative than the rest of the Pakistan, I discovered that Islamic militancy had grown almost reflexively in proportion to U.S. bombardment in the region.
Walking along the dusty broken roads of Frontier’s capital city, Peshawar, dodging smoke emitting rickshaws and vehicles speeding recklessly toward me, I went through public spaces which swarmed with men. An occasional shuttlecock burqa (veil) was the only indication that a woman was at hand. The `azaan’ (call to prayer) resounded in the antiquated city, throwing up a unique spectacle: male congregations knelt in prayer in corridors of office buildings.

It was the backdrop for the militant Islamic clerics and Taliban supporters I would meet, who encouraged jehad (holy war) against `kafirs’ (infidels) and Western troops in Afghanistan.

Women activists, under siege, told me that the self-appointed "morality police" had sprayed black paint on female images atop signboards. Wiped clean, the billboards looked embarrassingly akin to gaping mouths without teeth. The coalition of Islamic parties which now controls the Frontier parliament subsequently had the images of women replaced by young men.

It was for me, a woman journalist based in the U.S., a metaphor of how women had been removed from the public space. Despite my modest Pakistani outfit – baggy trousers, tunic and scarf – my gaze occasionally met the hostile, commanding stares of Pashtun men and the frightened glances of women peering behind encompassing veils. Their glances said it all.

"What was I, an outsider, doing in Peshawar?

As a former daily reporter in Karachi, now living in Washington D.C., I had come to explore how U.S. troop presence had changed the region. I had last arrived here in November 2001, when Peshawar crawled with Western journalists. Equipped with cameras, microphones and fixers, the media had used the city as a gateway to the U.S. bombing of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Then, it had been hard to find a room in the Pearl Continental hotel. This time, I found the hotel strangely empty.

It was as if women and Westerners had been erased from the public view.

Quickly, I discovered that Islamic militancy had grown in proportion to U.S.-Pakistan military action in the region. Since September 11, 2001 Pakistan has battled the Al Qaeda and Taliban militants, who resettled in its tribal border areas of Waziristan to flee U.S. bombing in Afghanistan. Pakistan has paid a heavy price for its involvement: hundreds of soldiers and ordinary people have been killed and there has been a major setback to economic activity.

Since January 2007, there have been several suicide attacks in the Northwest Frontier Province – some of them high profile because of their targeting of major cities, hotels and airport. Those attacks were reportedly in retaliation for U.S.-guided strikes on militant hideouts in South Waziristan. That recently forced Pakistan to send emissaries of an Islamic party to make peace with militants from the Mehsud tribe -- with whom the army had struck a peace deal in 2005.

In Peshawar, I interviewed a potential suicide bomber, Mohammed Zakaria from Charsadda district in the Frontier province. He was your average Pashtun, fiercely indignant at U.S. presence in Afghanistan. In 2001, when the U.S. bombed the Taliban, the young man had moved back and forth along the Pak-Afghan border mobilizing support against the `infidels’.

Zakaria told me the NATO offensive in Afghanistan had people queuing before Mullah Dadullah, requesting that they be enlisted as suicide bombers. Dadullah, counts as the mastermind of the Taliban insurgency, with a web of connections with tribal militants and organizations as diverse as the Islamic Union of Uzbekistan.

"The truth is that we cheer every time we hear that the NATO troops have been killed in Afghanistan," my source told me with disarming frankness.

My contacts told me that in the last few years, the Taliban had resurfaced in Waziristan tribal areas to murder hundreds of `maliks’ (tribal leaders) on charges of "spying" for the Pakistani state. Small wonder, it has terrified the tribal leadership and made them impotent against the erosion of their authority.

Fear of the Taliban was evident in the gray green eyes of a hereditary tribal chief from the Dawar tribe in North Waziristan. It was warm in Peshawar, where my contact had traveled to meet me. Still, I suspected it was the heat of his narrative, which made him take off his spectacles to wipe his perspiration. Lowering his voice in a room that was empty and locked, he described the Taliban’s treatment of those believed to be working for the government.

"I have seen them cut off heads in front of my eyes," he said with a tremor in his voice that stirred me with its intensity.

The Dawar man was among the hundreds of thousands of Pashtuns who have suffered "collateral damage." Last year when the Islamic insurgents fired upon the military’s check posts in North Waziristan, two of his sons were injured in cross-fire.

Not surprisingly, my contact supported the North Waziristan peace accord signed in August 2006 between the Pakistan government and area tribesmen. Since then, the Pakistan military has wound up its check posts and moved 80,000 troops to the Pak-Afghan border. With undulating hills that join seamlessly with Afghanistan, North Waziristan had until last year suffered some of the heaviest fighting.

All this has come at the price of a stronger Taliban. With grudging admiration the Dawar man told me how the Islamic vigilantes, once under attack, had returned to bring iron rule to his war-torn area. They had won over locals by administering brutal punishments for theft, kidnappings, dacoits and drug smugglers – including publicly hanging offenders.

Today, billions of dollars and hundreds of casualties later, the Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal belt have won the breathing space to cross over the porous Pak-Afghan borders and attack Western forces in Afghanistan. It has left NATO troops anxious about the spring offensive, when the snows melt and a Taliban onslaught is expected from Pakistan’s tribal belt. In a tribal region, where Pashtuns are related by blood and for whom the borders between Pakistan and Afghanistan are meaningless, it is unrealistic to expect that Pakistan can stop them from doing so.

My sources told me that the Mujahideen commanders of the Cold war days, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani now direct the offensive from the tribal border areas. Once supported by the U.S. as they fought the Russians in Afghanistan, the Mujahideen have now thrown their lot with the Taliban. They allegedly move around freely in Pakistan’s tribal belt and recruit fighters in Afghan refugee camps.

Barely whispering, as though he was letting me into a state secret, the Dawar man told me, "I’ve seen Jalaluddin Haqqani, the former Afghan Mujahideen commander move his belongings around the neighborhood. I knew the same Haqqani in the 1980’s when the U.S. officials came to his house in Peshawar."

I asked him whether it was true that the Taliban were spilling out of the Waziristan tribal belt to the rest of the Frontier province.

"They already have their representatives in the Frontier assembly" he replied slyly.

I knew he was referring to the coalition of Islamic parties, the MMA, which commands a majority in Pakistan’s frontier province. One MMA component, Jamiat-I-Ulema Islam (JUI) chief, Maulana Fazlur Rehman is now Pakistan’s leader of the opposition. In the 1990’s, Fazlur Rehman’s group trained young Pashtuns in Pakistan’s `madressahs’(Islamic schools) – in what emerged before the world as the Taliban. Today the JUI negotiates with Islamic militants in the tribal belt on behalf of the Pakistan government.

From speaking to my contacts in Peshawar, I knew it would be too dangerous to visit Waziristan. Instead, I decided to travel south to Dera Ismail Khan, where many dissident tribesmen and journalists have fled Taliban rule. To my surprise, my fixer told me the next day that "half the city" knew that a journalist from America was coming. At midnight he had received a message on his cell phone, the like of which he had never seen before:

`Oh you who believe

Enter into submission one

And all and do not

Follow the

Footsteps of

Shaitaan (devil); surely he

Is your open

Enemy

Sender - `Al Quran.’

I had heard that Islamic militants were tech savvy. This latest text message appeared to be proof. In a region where the U.S. has become synonymous with the devil, it was obviously a warning to me – notwithstanding my being an independent journalist -- not to dare investigate.

Changing my direction, I traveled instead along the barren gray hills of Kohat – on the cross-roads to the tribal areas of Bannu and the infamous arms market of the Cold War days, Darra Adam Khel -- to meet a former member of the National Assembly and Chairman World Jehad Council, Javed Ibrahim Paracha.

A well-known figure here, Paracha lives in an antiquated combine of homes with `purdah’ (veil) observing women. I was ushered into the room reserved for male visitors. With his long heavy beard and watchful darting eyes, Paracha studied me shrewdly. He just returned from the Peshawar High Court after defending Osama Bin Laden’s Quranic teacher.

That was apparently routine. Paracha is a tribal leader from a village called Dhara Dhar, near Tora Bora in Afghanistan. As the head of the World Prisoners Relief Fund, he had a reputation for repatriating suspected Al Qaeda militants to their native countries.

The burly Sunni Wahabi tribal leader told me that in November 2001, he filed a legal challenge against the Pakistan government’s arrest of Arab Muslims as well as Christians and Jews caught in cross-fire in Afghanistan.

That fetched him a snub from the princes of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

"You seem to be worried about the `kafirs’ (infidels). How come you don’t care what happens to the Muslims?"

But that was exactly what Paracha had been aiming for: he used the same court order to secure the release of thousands of Muslim militants lodged in Pakistani prisons under the Foreigners Act. Proudly, he told me he arranged their repatriation to Arab homelands – and they returned the expenses after reaching their destinations.

Paracha runs an Islamic school `Darul Uloom’ in Kohat, which preaches `jehad’ (holy war) against the infidel occupiers. A number of suicide bombers have recently been traced to this area. He smiled modestly when I asked if his `madressah’ was an inspiration for Pashtuns to bear arms and attack Western troops in Afghanistan

Seeing he was so well-informed, I asked, "Where is Osama Bin Laden?"

Paracha had been expecting the question. Enjoying the dramatic effect of his narrative, he told me that a government official had indicated to him that two of Bin Laden’s children – from multiple marriages – were studying in a school in Hyderabad.

"His cook was arrested shortly thereafter," he added.

"Now I can point to you houses in Peshawar, Kohat, Malakand and Islamabad where the foreign Mujahideen live. The government is trying to achieve a compromise with militants so they don’t take up arms in the public sphere. But with Russian and Chinese arms, the Mujahideen are today in a stronger position."

Traveling around the Peshawar region, I asked politically aware Pakistanis about the whereabouts of the infamous Bin Laden. Government officials I met typically responded, "I can assure you that he’s not in Pakistan."

Other Pakistanis – knowing of the Bush administration’s longstanding relations with the Bin Laden family and Islamic militants – answered with conspiracy theories of their own:

"Why he’s in Washington, where you are!"

I traveled through the noisy, lawless traffic in Peshawar to the Civil Secretariat to meet the government appointed Secretary Law and Order of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Arbab Arif. A bureaucrat, down to his crisp white waistcoat, he reacted in almost knee jerk fashion to my observation that Pakistan’s peace deal in the tribal areas seemed to have strengthened the Taliban. Skillfully disputing the usage of the term `Taliban’ for Pakistani militants, he merely conceded they were students of Islamic schools.

The government spokesman told me that the Pakistan military had made peace with the Utmanzai tribe in North Waziristan only after receiving guarantees that they would not allow a "competing administration." He flatly denied that the peace deal had given the Islamic militants breathing space to join the insurgency in Afghanistan. Instead, he talked tough: the Pakistan military could redeploy its troops any time in its tribal belt.

Despite these measures, it is apparent that the Pakistan government has painted itself into a corner. Its spokesman admitted that the military had to "revisit" its policy after finding that its operations in the tribal belt had only whetted the Pushtun capacity for revenge and swelled the ranks of the militants.

The Awami National Party (ANP), a secular party of Pashtuns in the Frontier Province is best positioned to examine the policies of the Pakistan military after September 11. The party, which has inherited the pacifist philosophy of its founder Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan – also known as the `Frontier Gandhi’ – describes the resurgence of the violent Taliban as a ticking time bomb in the region.

I met the tall, strongly built ANP chief, Asfandyar Wali at the fortress like Bacha Khan center in Peshawar, named after his grandfather. The imposing center, with libraries and conference rooms offers a sanctuary from the chaotic world outside.

Asfandyar minced no words in criticizing the government’s claim that it had negotiated a peace deal in the tribal belt: "They have won the peace of the grave-yard."

The ANP chief told me he sees a discrepancy in the military’s actions and the situation unfolding in Afghanistan.

"If the government claims it has stationed 80,000 troops along the Pak-Afghan border, why does the top NATO commander report a 300 percent increase in infiltration after the peace accord," he asked rhetorically.

Back in the U.S., I read that a suicide bomber had blown himself up at an army recruiting camp in Dargai, near Peshawar, killing forty eight young men. That was in retaliation for a U.S.-backed bombing attack on an Islamic school in Bajaur tribal region which killed 84 people – many of them innocent children.

The two events occurring in quick succession brought back a saying I heard during the trip: ‘When you hit a ball hard, it rebounds with even greater force.’

Today, the resurgence of the Taliban gives credence to the fact that U.S. and Pakistan military policies have served to strengthen intolerance and promote Islamic militancy in the region. That should give policy makers pause to reflect on just where the U.S. and Pakistan have gone wrong in the ‘War on Terror.’

Oceans of hatred and ıgnorance

THINKING ALOUD: Oceans of hatred and jahiliya —Razi Azmi
Daıly Tımes February 22 2007

Extreme conservatism, the preaching of jihad, Islamist supremacist chatter and terrorist attacks in Europe and America have allowed one Israeli academic to advance a theory that life can become untenable when the Muslim population of a non-Muslim country reaches about 10 per cent

Sixty-six mostly elderly people from India and Pakistan visiting or returning from a visit to their relatives across the border were incinerated on a train. Not by accident, but by design. The carriage they were travelling in was firebombed by people who do not approve of the process of reconciliation and normalisation of relations between the two neighbours.

No one has yet claimed responsibility and probably never will, for the crime is too ghastly to claim credit for. But one can easily surmise that the perpetrators are religious fanatics or religio-nationalist extremists. They could be Pakistani jihadists graduated from the many madrassahs that dot the land or Indian Hindu extremists from the Sangh Parivar.

The perpetrators may choose to hide because of shame, but they stand stark naked before the bar of public opinion. In the name of religion they worship hatred, and are happy to sacrifice innocent human beings at its altar. “I haven’t seen anything like this. Some bodies were burnt beyond recognition, and I saw one pair stuck to each other at the stomach,” said a railway police inspector, Shiv Ram.

Zille Huma, the Punjab minister of social welfare, has just been shot dead by a stonemason for simply daring to be a minister and not putting on the veil. Sarwar Mughal, fittingly known as Maulvi Sarwar, believed that a woman’s place in Islam was in the home and behind veils. And having arrogated to himself the role of lawmaker, judge and executioner, he killed the mother of two in Gujranwala, the political and cultural heartland of Pakistan.

And why not? Maulvi Sarwar, like many before him, had a few years ago murdered six women for being ‘immoral’, but the case against him had been dismissed for “lack of evidence”. When it comes to women in Pakistan, especially poor women, it seems that men have an open season. Women are even less protected than the Hubara bustards.

Brainwashing can do wonders. We have seen evidence of it throughout history and all around. North Korea is a good current example. Its starving and deprived people have successfully been led to believe by their despotic and totalitarian government that they live in a lucky country.

But brainwashing in the name of God and with paradise as an incentive can achieve even greater results, as is obvious from the jihadists’ romance with murder, mayhem and suicide. No city, no country is safe from their grip: New York, London, Madrid, Bali, Nairobi, Casablanca, Riyadh, Cairo, Baghdad, Bali, Islamabad and Kabul. The list lengthens.

Suicide bombings are now occurring in Pakistan almost on a weekly basis. As in Afghanistan, the Pakistani Taliban are making short shrift of all kinds of ‘infidels’ –teachers, social workers, women activists, shi’as, army recruits, judges and lawyers.

Further afield, Iraq is in the throes of a civil war and a sectarian conflict so gruesome as to defy imagination. Multiple suicide bombings of markets and buses occur every day and the monthly death toll is in the thousands. On Tuesday, in one attack, thirteen members of a family from a tribe known to oppose the actions of Al Qaeda in Iraq were killed on the road to Falluja.

If fantasy and hatred are the end-products of indoctrination, then ignorance is their breeding ground. The parents of 24,000 children in the tribal areas in northern Pakistan have refused to allow health workers to administer polio vaccinations. Rumours are rife that the vaccine is a US plot to sterilise Muslim children, the aim of which is to depopulate Muslim countries.

Imams and maulvis in the NWFP used loudspeakers, sermons and illegal radio stations to spread this message to villagers. The scare-mongering and appeals to Islam echoed a similar campaign in the Nigerian state of Kano in 2003. The disease then spread to 12 polio-free countries over the following 18 months.

Dr Abdul Ghani Khan, chief surgeon at the main government hospital in Bajaur, was killed when a remote-controlled roadside bomb exploded as he was returning from a jirga (tribal council) to debunk rumours of an ‘infidel vaccine’ and persuade people to immunise their children against polio.

Paramedic Hazrat Jamal, who is one of the three injured in the explosion, said that the residents of Mullah Said Banda were against the polio campaign. “As soon as we reached there, an armed prayer leader warned us against visiting the area. Some locals said: “On one hand, our enemy (a reference to the United States) is bombing us for no reason while on the other hand you are coming here disguised as polio campaigners to spread vulgarity,” he told Daily Times at the hospital.

One recalls that when the US government first introduced the Diversity Visa lottery programme in the early 1990s, many people in Pakistan, Bangladesh and elsewhere refused to believe that the US government could mean what it said. It was widely suggested that the DV programme was a conspiracy and a trap to blacklist applicants for visa purposes.

The fact is that the Washington was perfectly honest and truthful in this matter. Thousands of Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and others have been able to migrate to and settle in the US by being successful in the draws. In other words, while the programme sounded too good to be true, the US government acted faithfully and implemented it just as it said it would, year after year.

Nobody should be surprised that resistance to the polio vaccinations is highest in areas where conservative clerics and self-styled ‘Pakistani Taliban’ hold sway. It is worth mentioning that everywhere and always, Muslim ulema have consistently opposed the spread of science and education.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that some women have been brave enough to defy their men on the issue of polio vaccination. According to a report, “up to 200 babies a day are vaccinated at the Khyber teaching hospital in Peshawar, where burqa-clad women arrive with children in their arms. Some arrive in secret, slipping into the clinic in defiance of male relatives who oppose vaccination.”

Extreme conservatism, the preaching of jihad, Islamist supremacist chatter and terrorist attacks in Europe and America have allowed one Israeli academic to advance a theory that life can become untenable when the Muslim population of a non-Muslim country reaches about 10 per cent. Professor Raphael Israeli, who specialises in Islamic history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said Muslim immigrants had a reputation for manipulating the values of Western countries, taking advantage of their hospitality and tolerance.

Professor Israeli said that in France, which has the highest proportion of Muslims in Europe at about 10 per cent, it was already too late. There were regions even the police were scared to enter, and militant Muslims were changing the country’s political, economic and cultural fabric. “French people say they are strangers in their own country. This is a point of no return.”

The Jewish professor may simply be advancing Israeli interests in promoting this theory, but the world is listening, for there are a lot of worried people out there. Irrespective of what the people of the world may think of jihadists and extremists, surely the masses of Muslims present a picture of backwardness and ignorance, best captured by the Arabic word ‘jahiliya’.

The writer may be contacted at raziazmi@hotmail.com

Sıgns of bıgotry...

Zill-e-Huma murder case: Investigators probing ‘serial killer’s’ links to extremist groups
Daıly Tımes February 23 2007

ISLAMABAD: Investigators are probing whether a “serial killer” cleric who assassinated a female minister this week — having previously confessed to four other murders — had links to Islamist groups.

In a case that shocked Pakistan, extremist Mohammad Sarwar shot Punjab social welfare minister Zill-e-Huma Usman in the head at a public meeting in central Gujranwala city on Tuesday.

Police have said that Sarwar objected to the involvement of women in politics and disapproved of the clothes worn by Ms Usman.

“I killed her out of conviction that she was leading an un-Islamic life and spreading an evil influence on other women,” he told interrogators, according to a police source.

Police say that in 2003 Sarwar had escaped justice despite publicly admitting that he had killed four prostitutes and injured another four as they waited by roadsides for clients. “He is a serial killer,” said Saud Aziz, the police chief of Gujranwala at the time of the earlier shootings.

Punjab Law Minister Raja Basharat hit out at the Pakistani justice system, saying “fanatic” Sarwar was still on the streets mainly due to “defective police investigation and poor quality of the prosecution”. “We are investigating and there is a possibility that he may have support from some religious group,” he said, without elaborating or naming the organisation.

Pakistan has dozens of militant outfits, most of which have been banned by President Pervez Musharraf. The prostitute murders — three in conservative Gujranwala and one in the eastern city of Lahore between September 2002 and January 2003 - puzzled police and caused a public outcry.

Former police inspector Mohammad Naveed finally arrested Sarwar in early 2003 on the basis of information from local religious leaders and witness reports that a cleric was spotted near the scene of the killings. He said Sarwar’s usual method of attack was to fire two or three bullets just above the crotch of his victims. One woman who survived was paralysed.

“In no time after his arrest (in 2003) he confessed to the murders and provided all the details,” Naveed said. “He was produced before the media and he made a confessional statement.”

Yet the case collapsed during the trial. Police said the victims’ families took compensation money raised by religious leaders instead of testifying because of the shame of their daughters’ “immoral” profession.

A rickshaw driver who used to drive the prostitutes around initially told police he saw Sarwar shooting one of the women, “but backed down, apparently under pressure from local clergy in Gujranwala who supported Sarwar”.

Eventually Sarwar — a father of nine who had been educated at a madrassa in Gujranwala and later taught local children the holy Quran — withdrew his confession. His lawyer, Liaqat Sindhu, said he “knew that Sarwar was guilty of the killings” but that he was acquitted because there was no firm evidence and the case was mishandled.

Psychiatric tests on Sarwar in 2003 showed that he was “not deranged”, said Saud Aziz, who is now police chief of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad. “He said he killed the girls after he got divine revelations,” he said.

Four years later, the murder of Zill-e-Huma Usman shows how extremism has corrupted Pakistani society, said Iqbal Haider, secretary general of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). “There is no writ of the government, which results in barbaric tragedies like this,” said Haider, a former law minister under Benazir Bhutto, the country’s first female prime minister. “Our prosecution and our administration is shamelessly incompetent, corrupt and religiously biased.” afp

Change ın the aır!

Pakistan's Islamist tide pushed back on Lahore campus
By Simon Cameron-Moore
Boston Globe February 21, 2007

LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - She may be a model of Islamic modesty beneath her headscarf, but Nilofar has no time for religious political students who would dictate how she dresses, who she talks to, and what she can and can't study.

The willowy 21-year-old is taking a masters in fine arts at Punjab University, where the student wing of Pakistan's most influential Islamist party tried to prevent the introduction of a musicology and performing arts department last September.

"It's not right that they stop people from doing music and theater," says Nilofar, who gave only her first name, standing in Lahore's Alhamra Gallery, dressed in a traditional black shalwar kameez outfit.

Lahore is home to some of the most liberal as well as the most puritanical parts of society, and after growing up in a city regarded as Pakistan's cultural capital, Nilofar has just seen her first play, and she liked it.

"If they stop music today, tomorrow they will come after something else," she says with true Lahori spirit.

Her words would be sweet for President Pervez Musharraf's ears. The general who came to power in a coup in 1999 wants his Muslim nation to follow a path of enlightened moderation.

Pakistan's largest university is caught in switching currents, as Musharraf struggles to push back religious conservatism that gained ascendancy in the 1980s under the patronage of a general-cum-president, Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq.

Scrapping anything to do with religion takes a long time in Pakistan, and Musharraf made it even harder for himself by sidelining political parties that might support his agenda.

"We are in the process of a Renaissance, so it's going to take us some time," says Arshad Mahmood, a retired general appointed vice chancellor of Punjab University in 1999.

Eradicating extremism and militant tendencies, he says, ultimately depends on settling conflicts in the Islamic world.

NEW ERA, OLD STAFF

While Mahmood speaks of a new epoch, he's saddled with a teaching and administrative staff whose loyalties lie with an Islamist party that became entrenched during the Zia years.

The stifling of leftist politics soon after Pakistan was formed 60 years ago created space for Islamist parties to flourish on campuses. They have been most successful in Punjab.

For decades, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), an Islamist party with links to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, systematically extended its grip over Punjab University, using its student wing, Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (IJT), to influence appointments and promotions.

Mahmood can't sack them, there are too many and their jobs are too well protected, but in the last year there have been signs that Mahmood is slowly turning the wheel on the next generation.

The successful introduction of more arts programs, and a series of expulsions of disruptive IJT members, show the reformers are gaining the upper hand over Punjab University's puritans, who won't even let male and female students sit together at the open air tea shops on the leafy campus.

"We don't want Lahore to turn into another Peshawar," said Professor Muhammad Naeem Khan, the university's registrar, contrasting his hometown's vibrancy with the somber city in North West Frontier Province, where political clerics hold power.

Khan is upbeat after the Lahore High Court in February rejected an IJT student's appeal against expulsion, the third such time the court has backed the university authorities.

"Those religious parties are mourning the day when they had more influence," he says, adding that he plans to open new cafeterias to end the gender segregation outside the classroom.

While thankful of the IJT's dwindling stock, he rues a lack of political awareness on campus, the product of a ban on student unions or party affiliations brought in during the Zia years.

JI, which derives its street power from IJT, is the only major party to take student politics seriously, academics say.

MORE OPEN-MINDED GENERATION

The state-run university catering for lower middle class and poor has 25,000 students, of which, according to Khan, less than 1,000 are IJT sympathizers and only a few hundred are members.

The last time the IJT made people take notice was in November when a protest against Musharraf's policies resulted in buses being stoned and burned on the streets.

Recent IJT protests have had dismal turnouts, but it could be temporary, as many people believe its roots are too strong.

Defying a ban from the campus, Salman Ayub, an expelled nazim, or president, of the IJT campus met Reuters in a common room at the education department, while his lookouts kept watch.

"They may be right when they say that the IJT is declining in Punjab University, because the whole state machinery, from President Musharraf to a peon is against Islam and Islamic values," Ayub says calmly, offering tea and biscuits.

A dozen acolytes nod approvingly as Ayub derides Musharraf's "moderate Islam" and America's "anti-Muslim" foreign policy.

They look bashful when asked how they'll ever meet girls if they follow the austere moral code that the IJT endorses.

Registrar Khan believes while the current intake of students may be more observant Muslims than when he was a student in the 1970s, they are also more exposed to the modern world, a change he credits Musharraf with for liberalizing the media.

The number of headscarves, niqab and chaddar on display among women students on the campus testifies to the prevailing conservatism, but it tells a superficial story, he says.

"They are going back to their prayers and rituals, but I feel we are dealing with more open minded students," Khan explains.

Young women like Nilofar, who dances at home to songs by pop star Ricky Martin, might feel bolder, but it doesn't mean they are ready to let their hair down.

"I might even try acting -- with my headscarf on," she grins.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Islam and the West: Hopeful Indicators

Poll sees hope in West-Islam ties
BBC February 18, 2007
Most people believe common ground exists between the West and the Islamic world despite current global tensions, a BBC World Service poll has found.

In a survey of people in 27 countries, an average of 56% said they saw positive links between the cultures.

Yet 28% of respondents told questioners that violent conflict was inevitable.

Asked twice about the existing causes of friction, 52% said they were a result of political disputes and 58% said minority groups stoked tensions.

Only in one country, Nigeria, where Christian and Muslim groups often clash violently, did a majority of those polled (56%) cite religious and cultural differences between communities as the root cause of conflict.

Doug Miller, president of polling company Globescan, said the results suggested that the world was not heading towards an inevitable and wide-ranging "clash of civilisations".

"Most people feel this is about political power and interests, not religion and culture," he said.

He pointed to the polarisation of communities in Nigeria as a warning sign to others, but hailed the results from Lebanon, a country frequently caught up in conflicts.

Some 78% of Lebanese strongly believed West-East tensions were politically motivated, while 68% felt common ground could be found between the West and the Islamic world.

Minorities blamed

The BBC poll asked approximately 1,000 people in each of 27 countries three questions about their interpretation of the world they live in.

Most expressed the belief that ongoing clashes could be resolved without violent conflict.

Indonesia, home to the world's largest Muslim population, was the only nation where most people (51%) said violence was inevitable.
But the results showed that a significant minority of those polled appeared pessimistic about the future.

"There is clearly pessimism about the inevitability of events," Mr Miller added.

"But twice as many people believe common ground can be found. There are real opportunities for peacemakers here."

The most positive respondents came from Western nations, with 78% of Italians, 77% of Britons and 73% of Canadians saying it is possible to find common ground.

Many blamed intolerant minorities for fuelling disputes and disagreements.

Some 39% of all respondents said minorities on both sides were to blame.

Just 12% said mainly Muslim minorities were to blame, and only 7% pointed the finger at Western fringe groups.

VIEWS OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MUSLIM AND WESTERN CULTURES

Can find common ground Violent conflict inevitable
France 69% 23%
Germany 49% 39%
Great Britain 77% 15%
India 35% 24%
Indonesia 40% 51%
Italy 78% 14%
Kenya 46% 35%
Lebanon 68% 26%
Nigeria 53% 37%
Russia 49% 23%
Turkey 49% 29%
US 64% 31%


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/in_depth/6369529.stm

Published: 2007/02/19 00:00:26 GMT

India-Pakistan Tussle over Afghanistan

Afghanistan's proxy war
Boston Globe
By Xenia Dormandy | February 16, 2007

THE PAPERS ARE full of the slow demise of Afghanistan. The Pakistanis are to blame; no, the Afghans; no, the United States. America didn't do enough or did too much. NATO isn't stepping up to the plate, or is it the Germans, or the French people. Is it the Taliban, Al Qaeda , or Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence that is pulling the strings? Is President Karzai powerless, or is he boosting the warlords, or is he a puppet for Americans , or all three? The blame is widespread.

But a large part of the problem is being missed. There's talk about the U S -Pakistan-Afghanistan tripartite, but it's the wrong one. The focus should be on the Afghanistan-Pakistan-India triangle.

In the 1980 s and early 1990 s, Afghanistan was a proxy battleground for the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. One could argue that America was the winner in that battle (the Soviet Union and Afghanistan certainly weren't), except that US actions then created the threat from the Taliban today. There were no winners.

America and the Soviet Union brought two other neighbors into that Cold War fight: Pakistan and India. India stood by the Soviet Union as it quietly did in many other areas. Pakistan and its intelligence service became the middleman between the United States and the mujahedeen (later to form the Taliban).

When Soviet forces pulled out in 1989, Pakistan continued to support the rebels; India supported the forces that years later became the North Alliance. Now, 15 years later , the battle over influence in Afghanistan has not stopped. India is working on hearts and minds, opening consulates and providing over $750 million in infrastructure and training support, while Pakistan is trying to bridge the hostility existing since the Afghan and Pakistan governments ended up on different sides. And so the proxy war continues with a different cast.

There is more to this unacknowledged war than merely emotion and history. As long as India and Pakistan remain hostile to each other , Afghanistan is strategically important to both. It is vital to Pakistan that it not have unfriendly powers on both its east (India) and west (Afghanistan) borders, just as from India's perspective, Afghanistan would provide a good strategic high-ground to squeeze Pakistan. Economically, too, Afghanistan holds great promise. The United States last year tied Afghanistan and Pakistan together through the creation of Reconstruction Opportunity Zones along their mutual border which would get American tax exemptions. Afghanistan also is the l inch pin of the trade routes and energy pipelines to Central Asia. So, if the United States is going to reverse this sad decline in Afghanistan, it will need the support of both India and Pakistan. These two great nations should learn from past mistakes -- fighting over Afghanistan is not the solution. The costs are too great for all parties. The United States and Afghanistan need to find ways to invest both nations in helping to make this country a success; they clearly need all the help they can get.

This is going to require a fundamental change in attitudes in both the Indian and Pakistani governments. But there are some concrete efforts that could start the process.

First and foremost, a quadrilateral group composed of India, Pakistan, the United States, and Afghanistan should be created (in addition to the ongoing tripartite group that excludes India). This would put both India and Pakistan in a position where they would need to engage together on solutions to Afghanistan's problems.

Second, Pakistan should start to allow Indian goods to travel over land through Pakistan to Afghanistan, significantly reducing the costs of much of the assistance that India currently provides. Third, the four countries should put more effort into renewing the long-discussed pipeline through the three nations, providing much needed energy to the region and an alternative to the Iranian pipeline. Eventually, India, Pakistan, and the United States shouldconsider a joint Provisional Reconstruction Team in the northwest of Afghanistan, away from the Pakistan border. All these efforts are going to be hard and long in coming. But, unless a way to mitigate the underlying Pakistan-India tension in Afghanistan is found , this country will continue to be a battleground for this largely unspoken war. What's more, the benefits of building cooperation and trust in Afghanistan will help address the wider India-Pakistan conflict and enhance security across the region.

Xenia Dormandy is executive director for research at the Belfer Center at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. She was previously director for South Asia at the National Security Council.

Where the Taliban breeds...

Where the Taliban breeds
Toronto Star: February 18, 2007
By Olivia Ward

Analysis | The porous Afghan-Pakistani border has been lawless since being imposed on Pashtun tribes in 1893. But this wild frontier must be tamed if Afghanistan is to flourish.

When Hassan Abbas, then a Pakistani police chief, went on a raid in the country's lawless border region, he was surprised to find himself outside his territory – and inside Afghanistan.

"We weren't the only ones who were confused," says Abbas, now a fellow of the Belfer Center at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

"For hundreds of years, people have been living on both sides of the border, and when it was divided they found it inconceivable that they should suddenly be residents of another country."

The story illustrates how porous is the wild, mountainous frontier that separates the two countries along the 2,400-kilometre line, which is still in dispute more than a century after it was negotiated by British diplomat Sir Henry Mortimer Durand.

But for Canadian and other NATO troops – and the traumatized people of southern Afghanistan – the border is real and menacing as they anxiously await a predicted spring onslaught of Taliban fighters and suicide bombers from Pakistan.

The coming battles are said to be crucial for peace and stability in Afghanistan.

"Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership presence inside of Pakistan remain a very significant problem," said the outgoing American commander in Afghanistan, Lt.-Gen. Karl Eikenberry, urging a "steady, direct attack" on their operations bases in the border areas.

But those who are familiar with the turbulent border regions say the realities there are far more complex than Western policy-makers believe. And they warn that putting a stop to the "Talibanization" that is threatening both Afghanistan and Pakistan will not be accomplished by military means alone.

"The Pashtuns are the historically dominant group in the area, and they have been split by the Durand Line, so that there is a feeling their destiny has been interrupted," says Selig Harrison, director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy and author of five books on the border regions.

Moreover, he says, no foreign army has ever subdued the fierce border tribes.

The Durand Line, which divided Pashtun tribes between British India and Afghanistan in 1893, is viewed with resentment by people on both its sides and many of them of them consider it irrelevant.

"When you look at the partition today, it doesn't make a lot of sense," says geography professor Jack Shroder of University of Nebraska, Omaha, who has mapped the rugged areas.

"In the time of the British Raj, it was a ploy to divide and rule, and they put down white rocks to mark it. But people move the rocks around, because the border doesn't exist for them."

Like the border, law and order is a fluid concept in the tribal lands.

Pakistan has never managed to take control of the largely Pashtun area and created seven semi-autonomous units – Bajaur, Momand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram and North and South Waziristan – administered by federally appointed political agents.

Six smaller Frontier Regions provide a buffer between the agencies and the North West Frontier Province to the east. To the south is the large but sparsely populated province of Baluchistan, whose capital, Quetta, is said to be a Taliban command centre.

In the tribal regions, Pakistani courts and law enforcers have almost no sway, and the real power are the jirgas, or assemblies of elders, says Abbas, author of Pakistan's Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army and America's War on Terror.

The border regions have a population of some 38 million, including members of 60 Pashtun tribes and 400 sub-clans. With a literacy rate of little more than 10 per cent, few job opportunities beyond subsistence farming, deeply conservative religious views and an abundance of guns, the regions are a staging ground for militancy, drug trafficking and numerous smuggling rackets.

All these factors give the Taliban a head start in recruiting.

"The Taliban are sons of the soil, not foreigners," says Kamran Bokhari, a Toronto-based senior analyst for Strategic Forecasting Inc. "Over the past two decades, there has been a drift toward their kind of conservative Islam. An Islamist wave has hit the region, and there are many people who don't believe 9/11 happened and are convinced that there is a war going on against Muslims."

The tribal areas also have sheltered foreign and Afghan fighters fleeing previous wars in Afghanistan, and some of them have married local women and settled there.

Abbas says the Taliban was encouraged by "the Pakistani military's hidden alliance with religious political parties," in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks. When the United States urged Pakistan to attack the militants, the campaign was brutal but disastrous. In a territory where revenge is part of the traditional code, secular parties lost out and Islamists gained ground.

But pockets of secular Pashtuns who oppose extremism still remain, with little support from the government and constant threats from Islamist groups.

Some analysts point to these secularists as the hope for future peace on the borders. A leader of the nationalist Pashtun Awami National Party, Asfandyar Wali, recently defeated pro-Taliban politicians in an election in Bajaur Agency.

Nevertheless, Islamists in Bajaur have threatened local men against shaving their beards, and while some men have protested, Abbas says, the episode demonstrates the strength of extremism even in opposition areas.

But even among the Taliban, there are divisions and opportunities for negotiation, says veteran Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, author of several books on militancy in the borderlands.

"Negotiating with the present leadership (Mullah Omar, Mullah Dadullah and others) is not acceptable," says Rashid, adding that there are "moderate elements" who are willing to talk to the Afghan government and have met with the secular and nationalist Pashtun groups.

Rashid points out that the Pakistani government is deeply suspicious of those groups, fearing a new secession movement if they gain support. Pakistan rejected a recent peace plan put forward by Wali – and approved by Afghan President Hamid Karzai – to hold a jirga of tribal leaders from both sides of the border.

"Wali believes it's the last hope for the region," says Abbas. "But in Pakistan, it is difficult to challenge the military intelligence establishment."

Bokhari, who had a recent meeting with President Pervez Musharraf, says the Pakistani leader admitted he had "no magic wand" for solving the crisis on the borders but was open to political negotiation, as well as fencing and mining the frontier (the latter opposed by Canada). And Musharraf denied reports that the Pakistani intelligence service was supporting militants, saying that creating an unstable neighbour was against his country's interests.

But as the countdown to a predicted spring offensive continues, so will pressure on Musharraf to shut down Taliban bases in Pakistan's borderlands.

Says Harrison: "Since the economic viability of Pakistan depends on continued aid, a credible threat to cut it off would alarm the armed forces and other sectors of the Pakistani business and political establishment, forcing Musharraf to tack with the wind."

But most analysts agree that force alone will not be effective on the frontier. They say that tightly targeted attacks against the hard core of the Taliban, avoiding civilian casualties, should open the way for negotiations with those who are willing to lay down their arms.

"People who want to fight can be tackled militarily, and NATO must not allow (the militants) to believe they will just leave the area," says Abbas.

But Pakistan, he adds, is only part of the problem.

"It's crucial to support development of Afghanistan. A person with a job, and kids in school, will think twice before picking up a gun."

Friday, February 16, 2007

Pak-Afghan Relations

Karzai’s change of heart on Pakistan
By M. Ziauddin
Dawn, February 16, 2007

LONDON, Feb15: The Afghan President Hamid Karzai appeared to be bending backwards as he tried to avoid making his usual allegations against Pakistan at the joint press conference that he and British Prime Minister Tony Blair addressed here late Wednesday evening.

He seemed determined not to say anything against Pakistan on the British soil and to every question on the subject of cross-border militancy he responded by referring to what he said a sharp decline in such activities since September last and added that things had immensely improved “and I hope they would continue to improve and both Pakistan and Afghanistan would be able to jointly defeat terrorism with the help of friends like the UK and the US”.

He said that increased cooperation with Pakistan was vital to halting Taliban fighters passing through the porous border with Afghanistan.

Mr Blair said that the neighbours must work together to defeat those on “whichever side of the border, trying to create the circumstances of terror, in order to stop progress.”

Contrary to media reports it seemed as if the British prime minister instead of being persuaded by Karzai to intensify pressure on Pakistan over what the latter calls the cross-border militant activities from across the border had got the Afghan president to agree to stop attacking Islamabad and make conciliatory gestures instead.

At the joint press conference Mr Blair was asked about reports that Britain was now thinking of giving up the control of southern Afghanistan to Pakistan.

Mr Blair dismissed the reports as rumours and said that the UK had been asking Pakistan to close down the possibility of any support coming over the border for the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, “because it is our troops who are facing the brunt of the militancy”.

He said Britain was determined to help Afghanistan bring its southern part completely under the control of Kabul.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Beards in Bajaur...

Ban on beard-shaving extended across Bajaur: Shaving beard to cost Rs 5,000
Daily Times, February 15, 2007

KHAR: The ban on shaving of men’s beards has been extended across Bajaur Agency and violators will have to pay a Rs 5,000 fine, Ghulam Khan, president of the barbers association, said on Wednesday. “It has been unanimously decided that there will be a ban on shaving beards all over Bajaur Agency,” Ghulam Khan told reporters in Khar, regional headquarters of Bajaur Agency. The ban on shaving men’s beards was imposed following distribution of pamphlets from an unidentified militant group on Sunday that the practice was “un-Islamic”. “No excuse will be accepted for violating the ban and violators will have to pay a Rs 5,000 fine,” Ghulam Khan said, adding that the political administration had been informed about the barbers’ decision. “We have to take the threat seriously because no one can guarantee our security if we ignore the warning,” the chief barber added. Meanwhile, some youths have decided to secretly hire a barber to shave their beards every week. “The barber will come to a secret place and shave our beards because we don’t want to grow it,” the youths told Daily Times. staff report

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

A Great Move...



Move to make Quaid’s speech part of Constitution
By Raja Asghar
Dawn, February 14, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Feb 13: The National Assembly allowed the introduction of a ruling party member's bill designed to amend the Constitution to insert a key speech of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah about Pakistan's polity, overruling a ministerial objection.

Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Khan Niazi, who is incharge of the government's legislative business in parliament, opposed MP Bhandara's private bill that seeks to incorporate in the Constitution the Quaid-i-Azam's historic August 11, 1947 speech to the then Constituent Assembly with words that religion would have "nothing to do with business of the state".

But a majority of ruling coalition and opposition members voted ‘yes’ to allow Mr Bhandara, a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML), to introduce his Constitution (Amendment) Bill seeking insertion in the Constitution of a new article consisting of the Quaid's speech, often quoted by liberal politicians and writers to oppose perceived moves by religious parties to turn Pakistan into a theocracy.

Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain referred the bill to a house standing committee, where it is likely to generate a lot of controversy, though the move faces an uncertain fate as no party in the government or the opposition has yet to take a position on the draft, which needs a two-thirds majority in both the 342-seat National Assembly and the 100-seat Senate to be passed by each house.

You are free, you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan,” the founder of the country had told the Constituent Assembly as its first president only three days before the country formally emerged as an independent state on August 14 on the partition of the sub-continent, and added: “You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to with business of the state.”

Mr Bhandara later told Dawn that his bill sought to restore an ‘ideological balance’ envisioned by the Quaid-i-Azam but lost by the insertion Article 2-A that made the Objectives Resolution, passed by the Constitution Assembly in the 1950s, a substantive part of the Constitution.

The Objectives Resolution was part of the preamble of the original 1973 Constitution but was made an enforceable substantive part through the controversial Eighth Amendment during the regime of former military ruler General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq as part of his drive to Islamise the Pakistani society.

Mr Bhandara, whose bill calls for the insertion of the Quaid-i-Azam’s speech as Article 2-B of the Constitution, said he would try in the standing committee to get his amendment renumbered as Article 2-A and the present Article 2-A as Article 2-B, and would be satisfied if only the relevant portion or the gist of the speech rather than the whole text was inserted in a ‘useful manner’.

The turn of his bill, which has been pending on the house agenda for a long time, came in the absence of its hardest likely opponents in the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) alliance of six Islamic parties, who boycotted the National Assembly’s present session until Tuesday to protest against the passage of the women’s rights bill by both houses of parliament in November.

Members of religious parties have often quoted other speeches of the Quaid-i-Azam to counter argument for a secular polity.

The Objectives Resolution says that in Pakistan “Muslims shall be enabled to order their lives in the individual and collective spheres in accordance with the teachings and requirements of Islam as set out in the Holy Quran and the Sunnah”, and “adequate provision shall be made for the minorities to profess and practice their religion and develop their cultures”.



Presidential Address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan at Karachi by Mohammad Ali Jinnah
August 11, 1947

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen!

I cordially thank you, with the utmost sincerity, for the honor you have conferred upon me – the greatest honor that is possible for this Sovereign Assembly to confer – by electing me as your first President. I also thank those leaders who have spoken in appreciation of my services and their personal references to me. I sincerely hope that with your support and your co-operation we shall make this Constituent Assembly an example to the world. The Constituent Assembly has got two main functions to perform. The first is the very onerous and responsible task of framing our future constitution of Pakistan and the second or functioning as a full and complete sovereign body as the Federal Legislature of Pakistan. We have to do the best we can in adopting a provisional constitution for the Federal Legislature of Pakistan. You know really that not only we ourselves are wondering but, I think, the whole world is wondering at this unprecedented cyclonic revolution which has brought about the plan of creating and establishing two independent sovereign Dominions in this sub-continent. As it is, it has been unprecedented; there is no parallel in the history of the world. This mighty sub-continent with all kinds of inhabitants has been brought under a plan which is titanic, unknown, unparalleled. And what is very important with regard to it is that we have achieved it peacefully and by means of an evolution of the greatest possible character.

Dealing with our first function in this Assembly, I cannot make any well-considered pronouncement at this moment, but I shall say a few things as they occur to me. The first and the foremost thing that I would like to emphasize is this – remember that you are now a sovereign legislative body and you have got all the powers. It, therefore, places on you the gravest responsibility as to how you should take your decisions. The first observation that I would like to make is this: You will no doubt agree with me that the first duty of a government is to maintain law and order, so that the life, property and religious beliefs of its subjects are fully protected by the State.

The second thing that occurs to me is this: One of the biggest curses from which India is suffering – I do not say that other countries are free from it, but, I think, our condition is much worse – is bribery and corruption. That really is a poison. We must put that down with an iron hand and I hope that you will take adequate measures as soon as it is possible for this Assembly to do so.

Black-marketing is another curse. Well, I know that black-marketeers are frequently caught and punished. Judicial sentences are passed or sometimes fines only are imposed. Now you have to tackle this monster which today is a colossal crime against society, in our distressed conditions, when we constantly face shortage of food and other essential commodities of life. A citizen who does black-marketing commits, I think, a greater crime than the biggest and most grievous of crimes. These black-marketeers are really knowing, intelligent and ordinarily responsible people, and when they indulge in black-marketing, I think they ought to be very severely punished, because they undermine the entire system of control and regulation of foodstuffs and essential commodities, and cause wholesale starvation and want and even death.

The next thing that strikes me is this: Here again it is a legacy which has been passed on to us. Alongwith many other things, good and bad, has arrived this great evil – the evil of nepotism and jobbery. This evil must be crushed relentlessly. I want to make it quite clear that I shall never tolerate any kind of jobbery, nepotism or any influence directly or indirectly brought to bear upon me. Whenever I will find that such a practice is in vogue or is continuing anywhere, low or high, I shall certainly not countenance it.

I know there are people who do not quite agree with the division of India and the partition of the Punjab and Bengal. Much has been said against it, but now that it has been accepted, it is the duty of everyone of us to loyally abide by it and honorably act according to the agreement which is now final and binding on all. But you must remember, as I have said, that this mighty revolution that has taken place is unprecedented. One can quite understand the feeling that exists between the two communities wherever one community is in majority and the other is in minority. But the question is, whether it was possible or practicable to act otherwise than what has been done. A division had to take place. On both sides, in Hindustan and Pakistan, there are sections of people who may not agree with it, who may not like it, but in my judgment there was no other solution and I am sure future history will record its verdict in favor of it. And what is more it will be proved by actual experience as we go on that was the only solution of India’s constitutional problem. Any idea of a united India could never have worked and in my judgment it would have led us to terrific disaster. May be that view is correct; may be it is not; that remains to be seen. All the same, in this division it was impossible to avoid the question of minorities being in one Dominion or the other. Now that was unavoidable. There is no other solution. Now what shall we do? Now, if we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor. If you will work in co-operation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his color, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make.

I cannot emphasize it too much. We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities, the Hindu community and the Muslim community – because even as regards Muslims you have Pathans, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis and so on and among the Hindus you have Brahmins, Vashnavas, Khatris, also Bengalees, Madrasis, and so on – will vanish. Indeed if you ask me this has been the biggest hindrance in the way of India to attain the freedom and independence and but for this we would have been free peoples long long ago. No power can hold another nation, and specially a nation of 400 million souls in subjection; nobody could have conquered you, and even if it had happened, nobody could have continued its hold on you for any length of time but for this. Therefore, we must learn a lesson from this. You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed – that has nothing to do with the business of the State. As you know, history shows that in England conditions, some time ago, were much worse than those prevailing in India today. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants persecuted each other. Even now there are some State in existence where there are discriminations made and bars imposed against a particular class. Thank God, we are not starting in those days. We are starting in the days when there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State. The people of England in course of time had to face the realities of the situation and had to discharge the responsibilities and burdens placed upon them by the government of their country and they went through that fire step by step. Today, you might say with justice that Roman Catholics and Protestants do no exist; what exists now is that every man is a citizen, an equal citizen of Great Britain and they are all members of the Nation.

Now, I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.

Well, gentlemen, I do not wish to take up any more of your time and thank you again for the honor you have done to me. I shall always be guided by the principles of justice and fairplay without any, as is put in the political language, prejudice or ill-will, in other words, partiality or favoritism. My guiding principle will be justice and complete impartiality, and I am sure that with your support and co-operation, I can look forward to Pakistan becoming one of the greatest nations of the world.

I have received a message from the United States of America addressed to me. It reads:

I have the honor to communicate to you, in Your Excellency’s capacity as President of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, the following message which I have just received from the Secretary of State of the United States:

On the occasion of the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly for Pakistan, I extend to you and to the members of the Assembly, the best wishes of the Government and the people of the United States for the successful conclusion of the great work you are about to undertake.

Soucre: Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Speeches and Statements as Governor General of Pakistan 1947 - 48. Published (1989) by Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Directorate of Films & Publications, Islamabad

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Sunni-Shiite rift widens in Arab world?

WP: Sunni-Shiite rift widens in Arab world
Sectarian tension called region’s ‘most dangerous problem’
By Anthony Shadid
The Washington Post: Feb 12, 2007

CAIRO - Egypt is the Arab world's largest Sunni Muslim country, but as a writer once quipped, it has a Shiite heart and a Sunni mind. In its eclectic popular culture, Sunnis enjoy a sweet dish with raisins and nuts to mark Ashura, the most sacred Shiite Muslim holiday. Raucous festivals bring Cairenes into the street to celebrate the birthdays of Shiite saints, a practice disparaged by austere Sunnis. The city's Islamic quarter tangles like a vine around a shrine to Imam Hussein, Shiite Islam's most revered figure.

The syncretic blend makes the words of Mahmoud Ahmed, a book vendor sitting on the shrine's marble and granite promenade, even more striking.

"The Shiites are rising," he said, arching his eyebrows in an expression suggesting both revelation and fear.

The growing Sunni-Shiite divide is roiling an Arab world as unsettled as at any time in a generation. Fought in speeches, newspaper columns, rumors swirling through cafes and the Internet, and occasional bursts of strife, the conflict is predominantly shaped by politics: a disintegrating Iraq, an ascendant Iran, a sense of Arab powerlessness and a persistent suspicion of American intentions. But the division has begun to seep into the region's social fabric, too. The sectarian fault line has long existed and sometimes ruptured, but never, perhaps, has it been revealed in such a stark, disruptive fashion.

Newspapers are replete with assertions, some little more than incendiary rumors, of Shiite aggressiveness. The Jordanian newspaper Ad-Dustour, aligned with the government, wrote of a conspiracy last month to spread Shiism from India to Egypt. On the conspirators' agenda, it said: assassinating "prominent Sunni figures." The same day, an Algerian newspaper reported that parents were calling on the government to stop Shiite proselytizing in schools. An Egyptian columnist accused Iran of trying to convert Sunnis to Shiism in an attempt to revive the Persian Safavid dynasty, which came to power in the 16th century.

At Madbuli's, a storied bookstore in downtown Cairo, five new titles lined the display window: "The Shiites," "The Shiites in History," "Twelve Shiites," and so on. A newspaper on sale nearby featured a warning by its editor that the conflict could lead to a "sectarian holocaust."

‘Not part of our social experience’
"To us Egyptians," said writer and analyst Mohammed al-Sayid Said, the sectarian division is "entirely artificial. It resonates with nothing in our culture, nothing in our daily life. It's not part of our social experience, cultural experience or religious experience." But he added: "I think this can devastate the region."

The violence remains confined to Iraq and, on a far smaller scale, Lebanon, but to some, the four-year-long entropy of Iraq offers a metaphor for the forces emerging across the region: People there watched the rise of sectarian identity, railed against it, blamed the United States and others for inflaming it, then were often helpless to stop the descent into bloodshed.

"This tension is the most dangerous problem now in the region," said Ghassan Charbel, editor of the Arabic-language daily al-Hayat.

The schism between Sunnis and Shiites dates to the 7th century, Islam's earliest days, when a dispute broke out over who would succeed the prophet Muhammad. Shiites believe the descendants of Muhammad's daughter, Fatima, and son-in-law, Ali, were deprived of divinely ordained leadership in a narrative of martyrdom and injustice that still influences devout Shiite readings of the faith.

Over centuries, differences in ritual, jurisprudence and theology evolved, some of them slight. But the Shiite community -- as a majority in Iraq and Bahrain and a sizable minority in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait -- is shaped far more today by the underprivileged status it has often endured in an Arab world that is predominantly Sunni. For decades, the Saudi government banned Shiite rituals; a Sunni minority rules a restive Shiite majority in Bahrain; Lebanese Shiites, long poor and disenfranchised, often faced chauvinism that still lingers.


Episodes of sectarian conflict litter the region's history: Shiites revolted in medieval Baghdad, and rival gangs ransacked one another's tombs and shrines. The conflict between the Sunni Ottoman Empire and the Shiite Safavid Empire in Persia was often cast as a sectarian struggle. The 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran was portrayed in parts of the Arab world as a Shiite resurgence.

But rarely has the region witnessed so many events, in so brief a time, that have been so widely interpreted through a sectarian lens: the empowering of Iraq's Shiite-led government and the bloodletting that has devastated the country; the lack of support by America's Sunni Arab allies -- Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia -- for the Shiite movement Hezbollah in its fight with Israel last summer; and, most decisively, the perception among many Sunni Arabs that Saddam Hussein was lynched by Shiites bent on revenge. In the background is the growing assertiveness of Shiite Iran as the influence of other traditional regional powers such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia diminishes.

In Lebanon, where the Hezbollah-led opposition has mobilized in an effort to force the government's resignation, the sectarian divide colors even a contest over urban space. Some Sunnis are angered most by the fact that the Beirut sit-in -- in their eyes, an occupation -- by Shiites from the hardscrabble southern suburbs is taking place in the sleek downtown rebuilt by a former Sunni prime minister, Rafiq al-Hariri, who was assassinated in 2005.

"Politics is perception," said Jamil Mroue, a Lebanese publisher whose father was Shiite and mother Sunni.

Sentiments today remind him of the tribal-like fanaticism that marked another sectarian conflict, Lebanon's 15-year civil war -- which, among other divisions, loosely pitted Christians against Muslims before it ended in 1990.

‘Very scary’
"It certainly conjures up the feelings of the civil war, when Lebanon started disintegrating, except on a mega-scale," Mroue said. He called it "very scary, because I know that there is a possibility of being moved by this tide."

"At the end of it," he added, "people are going to look back and say, 'What the hell was this all about?' "

In overwhelmingly Sunni countries such as Egypt, where politics were long defined by Arab nationalism or political Islam, visceral notions of sectarian identity remain somewhat alien. It is not unusual to hear people say they realized only as adults that they were Sunnis. Before that, they identified themselves simply as Muslim. Even in Lebanon, despite its communal divisions, intermarriage is not uncommon, and there is a long tradition of Sunnis becoming Shiites so their daughters can receive a more equitable share of inheritance, as allowed under Shiite law.

Across the region, Hezbollah and its leader, Hasan Nasrallah, in particular, still win accolades for their performance in last summer's war in Lebanon.

"You have to give him credit for fighting the Israelis," Abdel-Hamid Ibrahim said of Nasrallah as he stood at a rickety curbside stand in Cairo, boiling water for tea. Overhead were pictures of two Egyptian icons, the singers Um Kalthoum and Abdel-Halim Hafez. "Closest to my heart," he said. Next to them was a portrait of Nasrallah. "A symbol of resistance, the man who defeated Israel," it read.


"Hasan Nasrallah, he's the man who stood in front of the Israelis himself," said Muhsin Mohammed, a customer.

"Who was standing with him?" Ibrahim asked, nodding his head. He pointed to the sky. "Our Lord."

Both scoffed at the sectarian tensions.

"There's a proverb that says, 'Divide and conquer,' " Mohammed said. "Sunnis and Shiites -- they're not both Muslims? What divides them? Who wants to divide them? In whose interest is it to divide them?" he asked.

"It's in the West's interest," he answered. "And at the head of it is America and Israel." He paused. "And Britain."

Sense of Western manipulation
That sense of Western manipulation is often voiced by Shiite clerics and activists, who say the United States incites sectarianism as a way of blunting Iran's influence. In recent years, some of the most provocative comments have come from America's allies in the region: Egypt's president questioned Shiites' loyalty to their countries, Jordan's king warned of a coming Shiite crescent from Iran to Lebanon, and last month King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia denounced what he called Shiite proselytizing.

The charge drew a lengthy retort from Nasrallah. "Frankly speaking, the aim of saying such things is fomenting strife," he said in a speech. He dismissed charges of Iranian proselytizing or the emergence of a Shiite crescent.

"People in the region always complain about a Shiite crescent. You always hear, 'Shiite crescent, Shiite crescent.' That's just a crescent. What about the full Sunni moon?" said Nimr al-Nimr, a Shiite cleric in the eastern Saudi town of Awamiya, who spent five days in police detention for urging that a Shiite curriculum be taught in his predominantly Shiite region.

Shiites make up less than 15 percent of Saudi Arabia's population, many of them in the oil-rich Eastern Province. The austere Sunni religious establishment considers them heretics. One cleric, Abdul Rahman al-Barak, considered close to the royal family, has called Shiites "infidels, apostates and hypocrites."

"There are conflicts in Palestine between Sunni sects -- Hamas and Fatah -- in Somalia, in Darfur. None of that is sectarian," said Hassan al-Saffar, the most prominent Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia. "There's a campaign against Shiites. Why is all this anti-Shiite sentiment being inflamed at a time the United States is trying to pressure Iran because of its nuclear ambitions?"

In Cairo recently, Hassan Kamel sipped sweet tea in a cafe beside the shrine to Imam Hussein, the prophet's grandson, who was killed in battle in 680 in what is now Iraq. The shrine is believed to hold his severed head. Across the street was al-Azhar, one of the foremost academic institutions of Sunni Islam, founded, ironically, by the Shiite Fatimid dynasty that ruled Egypt for 200 years until 1169. On the shrine's wall was a saying attributed to the prophet and often intoned during Shiite commemorations: "Hussein is from me, and I am from Hussein." Kamel pointed to the doors, topped with a Koranic inscription; Shiites and Sunnis like him worshiped at the shrine together, he said.

‘The ability to forget’
As cats scurried across the cafe's grimy floor, he wondered aloud about past conflicts that have splintered the Middle East.

"Egyptians, all their lives, without exception, have endured so many crises, catastrophes and problems," he said. He listed wars in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973. "But they have a gift. It's a gift from God. They have the ability to forget."

Then he talked about the rest of the region, and whether this bout of strife and tension would pass, too.

"They might forget, they might not," he said. "Right now, no one knows what's coming."

Correspondent Faiza Saleh Ambah in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, contributed to this report.

© 2007 The Washington Post Company