Challenges of A Polarised Society: New Age Islam's Selection, 07 March 2016
New Age Islam News Bureau
7 March
2016
• The Roots That Clutch
By Zarrar Khuhro
• AFGHANISTAN: Another Reminder
By A. Rauf K. Khattak
• US In Middle East
By Fawad Kaiser
• Taliban’s Refusal
By Daily Times
Compiled By New Age Islam Edit Bureau
----------
Challenges of a polarised society
By The Express Tribune
March 6th, 2016
Supporters of convicted murderer Mumtaz Qadri hold an effigy of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (L) during a protest against Qadri's execution in Karachi on March 4, 2016. PHOTO: AFP
The kind of hugely opposite reactions that Pakistani society has shown towards some recent developments indicate what a highly polarised society we have become. The Supreme Court had ruled Mumtaz Qadri to be a common murderer, who according to the Court’s verdict took the law into his own hands and killed a person that he thought, in his own ill-informed wisdom, to have committed blasphemy. What was more disquieting was the fact that Qadri was part of an armed official detail, assigned the task of protecting the very person that he had killed. Presumably, the silent majority of Pakistanis agreed with the Supreme Court’s verdict. That was perhaps the reason why the prime minister did not feel any hesitation in advising the president to reject Qadri’s mercy petition. But the vociferous street reaction by unruly crowds led by highly charged clerics — among them many well-known self-styled religious scholars and prominent political personalities — in most of the major cities in the country on the day he was hanged, the day he was buried and even on the first Friday following the event, showed that a significant proportion of our nation did not consider Qadri to be a common criminal but one who should be revered for having carried out a ‘divine duty’ and more so because he laid down his own life for accomplishing what he thought was his religious obligation.
It appears that people with the same kind of mindset have denounced Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s Oscar win. There are many who have rejoiced at the international laurels that Ms Obaid-Chinoy has brought for us, imparting in the process the much-needed soft image to Pakistan, which it has been desperately trying to cultivate for years and to discard the image of being a ‘hard’ country. However, at the same time, there are those, many of whom adept in the use of social media as well as a section of mainstream media, who have castigated the Oscar winner for promoting a negative image of Pakistan by making documentaries on subjects like honour killing and acid attacks on women. They believe documentaries on such subjects only bring a bad name to Pakistan and also in their own warped thinking, they believe that it was because of the ‘negative’ theme of the documentary and not for its overall excellence that A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness was chosen by the jury for the Award. This kind of reaction to the Oscar win typifies how people here have a problem with any realistic portrayal of the country, especially when it is done by a woman. Fortunately, however, the prime minister felicitating the award winner and promising to legislate on honour killings, has made it clear that this crime is one of the most critical problems faced by the country and the government was determined to adopt all possible ways to remove this stain from our society.
The reaction to the Women’s Protection Bill in Punjab also confirms that there exists a wide chasm between the obscurantist segment of the country and its not-so-conservative part. Most troubling is the reaction of those who insist that the bill is contrary to Sharia, especially that of the chief of the Council of Islamic Ideology, where he went as far as to assert that Article 6 could be brought against the Punjab Assembly for passing this legislation. It seems that the obscurantist segment considers according protection to women a treasonous act, showing how far a significant segment of our population can go when it comes to trampling rights of vulnerable groups.
The important thing, however, is that in all these instances, the state and governments have at least tried to do the right thing and have resisted pressure from reactionary elements, something which hasn’t always happened in the past. All societies have their fair share of divisions and chasms and Pakistan is no different. Perhaps the best we can hope for right now is that the state continues to uphold the rule of law despite all the existence of these divisions and without giving into reactionary forces.
The Express Tribune
--------
The roots that clutch
By Zarrar Khuhro
March 7th, 2016
“I DON’T regret [the] murder, because you can’t regret a religious obligation.” You may think this was said by Mumtaz Qadri or one of his supporters, but these are the words of Higal Amir whose brother Yigal Amir assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin on Nov 4, 1995, as he was returning from addressing a rally in support of the Oslo accords.
The reason for the murder was simple: the land of Israel had been bequeathed to the Jews by God Himself and no man had the right to give away even an inch of that land. After all, had it not been written, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates’ (Genesis 15:17)”?
That Rabin struck a deal that led to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority meant that he had contravened the will of God.
Thus, Rabin’s death was not just desirable but, as Higal put it, a mitzwah, a religious obligation under Jewish law.
Yigal’s views did not develop in a vacuum; they were inspired and enabled by a culture of fanaticism that we in Pakistan will again find eerily familiar.
The token territorial compromises that Rabin agreed to were considered blasphemous by numerous rabbis, many of whom declared him a rodef, a traitor or criminal whom it is desirable and lawful to kill. Rallies were taken out with placards showing Rabin in a Nazi uniform and just weeks before his assassination, on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, a group of fanatics gathered outside his house and intoned a Kabbalistic death curse upon him.
The fact that Rabin was a war hero and, as a Jerusalem Post editorial put it, “the personification of Zionism”, was irrelevant. Israel may have been formed by largely secular nationalists, but the religious right claimed it as their own.
Extremism is a dangerous weed that seeks to choke all other growth.
Those who had arrogated to themselves the right to decide the will of God had judged Rabin guilty.
The murder was greeted with joy by these elements, who still lobby for Yigal’s release. As for Israeli society at large, 20 years after the killing radicals seem stronger than ever. The same school of thought that justified killing Rabin finds doctrinal support for the murder of Palestinian children like 18-month-old Ali Sa’ad Dawabshah who was burned alive along with his parents in an arson attack by Jewish terrorists in the West Bank in July 2015.
The case of Nathuram Godse, who murdered Mohandas Gandhi in 1948, is also instructive. In a statement after the assassination he said: “I am a Hindu and I believe in rebirth. ... I pray to god that I am reborn with Gandhi so that I can kill him again.” Here Gandhi’s sin was his alleged ‘sympathy’ for Muslims and his role (as Godse and his supporters see it) in the partition of India. To them, Gandhi is the man who divided Mother India, a blasphemer who deserved death.
Today, Godse’s ashes remain in an urn in his grandnephew’s office to be immersed in the Indus “when his dream of Akhand Bharat is fulfilled”. Godse’s niece, the late Himani Savarkar, served as the head of radical organisation Abhinav Bharat which was accused of carrying out the 2008 Malegaon blasts.
With the coming to power of the Modi government — and the consequent empowering of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh — there has been a revival of the cult of Godse.
The Hindu Mahasabha launched plans to instal busts of Godse at temples and BJP leader Sakshi Maharaj praised Godse in the Rajya Sabha.
This comes nearly 70 years after Gandhi’s death, a man revered far more highly in India than Rabin would ever be in Israel or Salmaan Taseer in Pakistan.
It has often been said that we in Pakistan are reaping what we sowed, but this implies that extremism is crop — albeit one that bears poisonous fruit. Truth be told, extremism is a weed that seeks to choke all other growth. Not for its adherents is a garden where a thousand flowers bloom in a chaotic riot of colour.
For them is the sterile uniformity that chokes all life, and were any blossoms to poke their head above this stony rubbish, they are ever ready with their sickles and shears.
As we have seen at home as well as in Israel and India, these are persistent weeds indeed, with deep roots. This is cancer with purpose, a malignancy that bides its time, metastasizes and returns the moment one grows unwary.
Pakistan’s victory is not in its hanging of Mumtaz Qadri, its failure is not in the thousands who attended his funeral. Our test will come, years from now, when we look back at what we planted and see if the blossoms, in all their infinite variety, have denied the weeds the light of day.
Zarrar Khuhro is a journalist.
dawn.com/news/1243967/the-roots-that-clutch
--------
AFGHANISTAN: Another reminder
A. Rauf K. Khattak
March 7th, 2016
AFGHANISTAN is an unfortunate country in two respects. It is divided culturally, linguistically and more important politically. The tribes — particularly the Pakhtun tribes — never fully surrendered their autonomy to the central government. Their loyalty has to be bought on a per-day, per-month and per-year basis, depending on the nature of the bargain. There is/was no one-time payment or settlement unless sanctioned by the Loya Jirga.
Then, the Afghans jokingly say that when God created the universe, He threw all the debris of creation on their land. Because of the poverty of the land, Afghan kings and rulers could not martial indigenous resources to build strong forces to establish a proper state by overpowering the tribes. The rulers always looked to foreign powers to bankroll them and keep them on the shaky throne of Kabul. It opened the way for foreign meddling in their affairs.
India and Pakistan are playing the modern version of the Great Game. However, Afghans viscerally oppose foreign-sponsored initiatives and interference. No matter how much influence you may try to buy there, at the end of the day they will make their own decisions and choices. An Afghan is nobody’s man: he will deal with both India and Pakistan on their own merit.
India has reportedly spent $1.3 billion to build roads, power lines and the Afghan parliament. It has raised the ire of Pakistan. It is peanuts compared to what other powers spent there to no avail.
Afghans viscerally oppose foreign initiatives.
In the mid-19th century, the British got themselves entangled in Barakzai-Sadozai family rivalries. They thought they had found a puppet in Shah Shuja Sadozai to do their bidding. They placed him on the throne of Kabul at the head of the army of the Indus in August 1839. Sixty thousand British troops went to Afghanistan, at a point when the British controlled more of the world economy than they would ever do.
Afghan opposition to the British occupation and foreign-imposed Shah Shuja built steadily throughout 1840 and 1841. By 1841 the combined expenses of the occupation were amounting to £2 million a year (in 1841 terms), far more than the profits of East India Company’s opium and tea trade could support.
When the Kabul theatre started heating up, the occupying force started clamouring for more and more money. Lord Auckland was informed that at that rate Calcutta would go broke. After the harrowing slaughter of the occupying force in Kabul, some 16,000 British and Indian troops and followers began a death march to Peshawar on Jan 6, 1842. All perished on the way except one.
In the mid-20th century, the Soviet Union started to invest heavily in Afghanistan. Their penetration was methodical and deep within the Afghan economy, intelligentsia and armed forces. In April 1978 they succeeded in installing the first communist government in Afghanistan. The Afghan forces and economy were totally dependent on the treasure of Moscow.
The Afghan communist party (PDPA) soon got into the Afghans’ favourite pastime of inter-party and inter-tribal bloodshed. Despite holding all the purse strings, Moscow could not bridge the Parcham-Khalq split. Seeing their decades of investment going down the drain, they invaded Afghanistan in late December 1979. Their occupation cost them 15,000 lives. They never disclosed their financial losses but they were big enough to contribute to the dissolution of the Soviet empire.
With Pakistan in the lead, a grand Mujahideen alliance was cobbled together with American arms, along with Saudi and American dollars, from 1980 till April 1992, when Najibullah became history. Peshawar and Quetta became the most interesting places in the world with spies thronging them, suitcases and sacks full of dollars changing hands every day, and awash with arms.
After the fall of Najibullah, Pakistani geo-strategists saw their best opportunity to shape Afghanistan in their own mould. This was the legacy of Gen Zia. A made-in-Pakistan Afghan Interim Government (AIG) was formed in 1992. It comprised of the heads of the seven-parties alliance.
It was a house divided from the word go and totally unacceptable to the general people of Afghanistan. Pakistan was not so much interested in the AIG as it was in the fortunes of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. A radical Islamist, he was their man who would be king. This choice led to terrible mistakes and bloodshed.
America abandoned Afghanistan but re-entered it after 9/11. Ever since, it is wandering in that intractable wilderness.
Three recognised superpowers at the height of their glory could not bend the Afghans to their will. Yet Pakistan, a poor country with abysmal socio-economic statistics, has not abandoned its imperial dreams in that country. Enthrone Haqqani or Hekmatyar or Mullah Mansoor or Abdullah Abdullah; each one will do what is in the best interest of Afghanistan and not India or Pakistan. Our follies have caused acrid blowback to us, not to mention rivers of Afghan blood.
Rauf K. Khattak is a former civil servant.
dawn.com/news/1243966/another-reminder
--------
US in Middle East
By Fawad Kaiser
March 07, 2016
Instead of a peaceful, united Arab world, we have a handful of the most powerful states using proxy warfare, covert actions, and economic subterfuge to control their own fiefdoms
The US leaders assert they invaded Iraq for freedom and were going to make the Middle East safe for democracy. This sort of hypocrisy continues unabated to this day, as Syrians, Iraqis, Libyans and Afghanis are still trying to understand what is happening in war-torn nations where the global world powers have been meddling, killing, and intervening for decades. After the expected failure in Afghanistan, and shattering Iraqi society in 2003 and killing over 500,000 civilians, today the US still gets a free hand, even as NATO and Saudi Arabia-coalition nations support terrorists threatening the Syrian government, and the policies of Iran and Russia.
After about six years of civil war in Syria, and over 13 years since the immoral and atrocious coalition invasion of Iraq, the US standpoint of events in Syria and Iraq continues to be lamentable. Even when 10 and 30 million people around the world demonstrated against the Iraq war in February 2003, the US and the UK governments continued to pressure and threaten potential coalition governments, using media mouthpieces as their minions. As the democratic will of the free world was standing in unanimity, US leaders were busy shedding whatever remained of their consciences as they sat down on their heels planning mass transgression and crimes against humanity.
While wider issues, however, are still unresolved as Russia’s priorities are simply to stop ISIS in Syria, and to give support to Assad, the US will have to review its wish to eject Syria’s President Bashar al Assad to help counter ISIS. Russia is wounded and has legitimate security threats within its own territory as well as in some former republics, specifically the Caucasus (Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia) and the Central Asian states mostly in Tajikistan. The bitter truth is that the entire strategy of the US in the wider region is an illusion and a tragedy.
Whether this would be a strategic US Middle East policy or hypocrisy the US supports Saudi Arabia, a rigid, parochial royal regime with comprehensive military technology, political alliances, and even contracted mercenaries in its illegal war against Yemen. In Israel, the US supports Netanyahu’s bigoted, supremacist attitude with billions of dollars a year, and Egypt’s military dictatorship of General Abdel Fattah Al Sisi with eyes closed.
No doubt, one of the major problems for the US in its Middle East policy is the interference from Iran. Its main thrust is their nuclear programme, and that the covert programme existed until 2009 even when Gareth Porter wrote in a Middle East Policy Council essay that the US National Intelligence Estimate of 2007 confirmed the 2003 programme shutdown. Furthermore, former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director El-Baradei himself considered the post-2003 weapons documents as forgeries. The US and Israel continued with their anti-Iran policy and targeted Iran’s nuclear scientists, propagated harmful economic sanctions, fabricated nuclear documents, and even supported hard-core terrorist groups to bring down the regime, which adversely affected innocent Iranian citizens. So much for progress and democracy, but that is what Iranians came to expect from US policies and indoctrinated war.
The December 2015 talks between the US and Russia, spearheaded by John Kerry and Sergei Lavrov, repeated the dubious party line that Russia is unfairly targeting pro-US, anti-Assad rebels rather than ISIS itself. The US reiterated that ISIS will be defeated but for now the plan is to contain them. While western countries are not in fact almost totally safe from terrorism, the threats to civilians in the Middle East and North Africa from the diverse array of radical movements and terrorists do not seem to be contained at all. What is actually, instead, being seen are simply areas neglected and exploited by global capitalism, where disorder and violence rule, and warlords are in charge. Instead of a peaceful, united Arab world, we have a handful of the most powerful states using proxy warfare, covert actions, and economic subterfuge to control their own fiefdoms.
If a united solidarity movement for human rights in the Arab world is formed, it might be possible for the US and other superpowers to cut out their archaic and tyrannical oppression towards the divided Muslim ummah, which they should have done years ago. By treating the delusion of regional power supremacy and the epidemic of sectarian conflict, and working in unity with those who endure and survive under tremendous hardship, Muslims living in the Arab world can improve and become less torn apart. By understanding ordinary people’s problems, hopes, and concerns, it may not be too late for Muslim leaders to salvage its function and its dignity. By listening to those without power, and rejecting the US influence that uses regional conflict in reaction to their own vested political interests, a brighter future can be created.
However, this can only be done with the help of sincere leadership, focusing on the structural imbalances of regional security and rejecting the destructive paths of misguided leaders and nations that are wreaking havoc in Syria, Iraq, and worldwide.
Fawad Kaiser is a professor of psychiatry and consultant forensic psychiatrist in the UK.
dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/07-Mar-2016/us-in-middle-east
--------
Taliban’s refusal
By Daily Times
March 07, 2016
In efforts to revive the negotiation process the Afghan Taliban and the Afghan government have suffered a possibly decisive blow as the main faction of the group denied that it had any plans to join the process. Moreover, the statement also dubbed the entire process “futile”. The statement read: “We unequivocally state that the leader of Islamic Emirate (Afghan Taliban’s name for itself) has not authorised anyone to participate in this meeting.” To be a part of the peace process, the group reiterated its requirements: exit of foreign forces from Afghanistan, lifting of curbs on Taliban leaders and release of Taliban prisoners from Afghan jails. This statement comes mere days after a prematurely gloating and confident Sartaj Aziz, Advisor to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs, confirmed a long-held secret while in Washington, that the senior leadership of the Afghan Taliban is “housed” in Pakistan. Aziz had claimed that Pakistan held leverage over said Taliban leadership, and could deny them access to their families, medical facilities, etc, if the group was not willing to partake in the peace negotiations. He even posited that the leadership could be expelled from Pakistan if they failed to comply; this was the first time ever such a threat was publically made by a senior official of Pakistan. It is very difficult to not read this statement as coming as a direct consequence of Aziz’s claim. The statement was released by the faction controlled by Mullah Mansour Akhter, the nominal head of the Taliban, and a man whose tenure as chief has already seen one attack on his life as well as a large number of defections of various Taliban factions precisely because of his assumed closed association with the Pakistani establishment. Thus a few days after a senior Pakistani official claimed to have the Afghan Taliban under the country’s thumb, this statement comes as a declaration of being autonomous. Mullah Manosur would have felt his credibility directly under the line of fire, and may be seeking to disassociate himself from his history to solidify his credentials as a leader and to ameliorate fellow militant commanders who question his judgment at every turn. In recent times, there is also the spectre of Islamic State (IS) that has started to attract various subgroups of the Afghan Taliban as formerly loyal commanders are pledging their allegiance to IS in droves.
Given this scheme of things, the Afghan Taliban, perhaps keen to shed image of an organisation that is folding over to, on one hand, to the US and Afghan governments, and, on the other to the emerging IS in Afghanistan, has been launching attacks after attacks on Afghan soil. Previously, some analysts had hoped that this upturn in attacks was at best indicative of the Afghan Taliban vying for a stronger hand at the upcoming negotiations table, but with this recent statement it seems as if they have decided that they are in a commanding position and need to take the political route to have their goals realised. Given the steady withdrawal of foreign troops, and the manifest incompetence of the Afghan security forces, this realisation on the part of the Afghan leadership presents a fearsome prospect. However, it remains to be seen if, as some optimists are hoping, this apparently decisive statement is also just another ruse to get a stronger hand at the negotiations table. Whatever the Afghan Taliban’s true intentions behind this statement maybe, in the near future there appears to be no chance that the talks scheduled for early March will take place. Even more than that it is now abundantly clear that Pakistan does not hold the much advertised ‘leverage’ over the Afghan Taliban that they believe they have. Perhaps, now is the time that Pakistan actually uses the tool of expulsion to force the Afghan Taliban’s hand into joining the negotiations. It has to be qualified that no prolonged, asymmetrical conflict in modern history has ended purely due to use of force. There is no other viable alternative to holding political negotiations, and this process must be sustained slowly but steadily.*
dailytimes.com.pk/editorial/07-Mar-2016/taliban-s-refusal
URL: https://newageislam.com/pakistan-press/challenges-polarised-society-new-age/d/106570
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Womens in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Womens In Arab, Islamphobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism, Moderate Islam, Moderate Muslims, Progressive Islam, Progressive Muslims, Liberal Islam, Liberal Muslims, Islamic World News