Pakistan: What
to do about Religious Fundamentalism?
By: Farooq Tariq
“let’s
deal with the ISI [Pakistani intelligence agency] and the Pakistan
military and let’s go recruit these mujahideen. Here is a very strong
argument which is… it wasn’t a bad investment to end the Soviet Union
but let’s be careful with what we sow… because we will harvest.” Hillary
Clinton (23 April 2020)
Once again
Pakistan has become the focus of world attention. Every day there is
news about the latest suicide attack or military operations, with
killings, injuries and displaced communities. Lately schools were
ordered closed for over a week. Even children talk about death and
suicidal attacks.
With over 125
police checkpoints in Islamabad, it has become a fortress city. Lahore
and other large cities suffer the same fate: there are police road
blockades everywhere. After each terrorist attack authorities issue
another security high alert and set up additional barriers. How ironic
that, until recently, officials and the media described these
“terrorists” as Mujahidin fighting for an Islamic world.
Under immense
pressure by Obama administration, the Pakistan government has launched a
series of military operations in various parts of the country. This has
lead to an unprecedented wave of killings, with hundreds of thousands
more forced to leave their home for temporary shelter.
Pushed out of
Afghanistan after 9/11, religious fanatics from different nationalities
have found refuge in Pakistan. They have two aims: to make Pakistan more
Islamic and to teach the government a lesson for its close relationship
with American imperialism. However the price is paid by ordinary people.
Religious
fanatics’ are new fascist. They believe in the physical elimination of
their political opponents. Although they may appear to be
anti-imperialist, they are not a progressive force. Instead they are an
extreme right-wing force that wants to turn back the clock of the
history.
The religion of
the state
Pakistan is also
known as Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Religion is part and parcel of
the state. The constitutions and the judiciary are all beleaguered with
Islamic demagogy. Most of the educational syllabus is also colored with
Islamic ideology; even scientific explanations somehow manage to drag in
religion.
Religion has
become a way of life. Every donation to charity ends up in coffers of
the religious institutions. Life without religion is unthinkable.
Although the only
rational for the Pakistani state is to be a place for Muslims, it was to
be a secular Muslim state. When the state was formed in 1947 the
population was not fundamentalist. But as time went on Pakistan adopted
an Islamic ideology that today gives these fanatics a more favorable
ground for the promotion of their dream of an Islamic country.
At the end of the
1970s, with the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, Washington decided it
needed to develop an indigenous counter force. In order to fight
“communism” in Afghanistan, Washington worked closely with Pakistan’s
military dictator, General Zia Ul Haque, and the Pakistani intelligence,
the Inter-Services intelligence (ISI). There are dozens of books
explaining the rise of Taliban and Mujahedeen under the direct guidance
of the Americans, but the ISI had no reason to cut off the funding after
the Soviet retreat in 1987. If the Americans were no longer interested
in these guerillas, the ISI found these jihadis useful
in its conflict with India over Kashmir.
Second, there are
many religious political parties in Pakistan. Jamaati islami and Jamiat
Ulmai Islam, along with other Sunni and Wahabi political parties, are
all for an Islamic revolution. They also give a political support to the
religious fanatics of Taliban and Alqaida.
Hillary Clinton
admits American role
Even Hillary
Clinton, the US foreign secretary, acknowledged Washington’s
responsibility in promoting the religious fanatics. Here is her
admission to a US Congressional sub-committee on April 23, 2009, that
the Americans had effectively created the current disastrous situation
in Afghanistan:
“It
was President Reagan in partnership with Congress led by Democrats who
said you know what it sounds like a pretty good idea… let’s deal with
the ISI [Pakistani intelligence agency] and the Pakistan military and
let’s go recruit these mujahideen. Here is a very strong argument which
is… it wasn’t a bad investment to end the Soviet Union but let’s be
careful with what we sow… because we will harvest.”
However, it is not
only Americans that are harvesting what they have sown. Numerous
Pakistani governments were ready to do whatever the Americans wanted
them out of sheer financial greed. Since 1978 the different governments
have all been a close US allies. This includes 20 years of military
dictatorship under Zia (1977-1988) and General Musharaf (1999-2008).
These various governments enabled the religious fanatics to establish
religious educational institutions that have changed the country’s
religious culture.
The Madrasas’
tactics
One of the
main strategies used by the religious fanatics to bring jihad to the
youth of Pakistan was through
opening religious schools (madrasas). They mushroomed under the General
Zia ul Haque dictatorship. At present, there are religious schools
throughout Pakistan. Of
the more
than 15,000 registered madrasas,
about half are in the Punjab. Experts estimate the numbers are higher:
when the state tried to count them in 2005, a fifth of the area in the
province refused to register.
The madrasas found
a place among the working people as they were marketed as offering a
free education with religious teachings. In fact, failure of the
government to provide adequate resources for free public education paved
the way for the progress of the madrasas.
Pakistan has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world. The
government spends less than 3 percent on education. Only about half of
Pakistanis can read and write, far below the proportion to countries
with a similar per-capita income, such as Vietnam. According to UNESCO,
one out of three school-age Pakistani children does not attend school;
of those who do attend, a third drop out by the fifth grade. The
enrollment of girls is among the lowest in the world, lagging behind
Ethiopia and Yemen.
Though madrasas make
up only about 7 percent of primary schools in Pakistan, their influence
are amplified by the inadequacy of public education and the innate
religiosity of the countryside, where two-thirds of the population
lives. These madrasas are
the real breeding grounds for religious fundamentalism.
More than 15,000
registered religious seminaries in the country cater to more than 1.5
million students and over 55,000 teachers. Before 2002, according to the
Religious Affairs Ministry, the number of registered madrasas in
Pakistan were not more than 6,000. After 9/11, the religious fanatics
who left Afghanistan came to Pakistan and with the help of the two
provincial governments of religious alliance MMA, North West Frontier
Province and Baluchistan; they were able to quickly establish more madrasas.
By 2007 there were around 13,000 registered seminaries across the
country. At this time General Musharaf was a partner in the so-called
“Alliance against terrorism.” He was manipulating both the fanatics and
the imperialists.
By March 2009, the
number of registered madrasas in
Pakistan reached 15,725.
The growth of
religious fanatics
The partnership of
religious fanatics with American and the Pakistani intelligence agencies
went unchecked until 9/11. Then the whole scenario shifted. The
Mujahedeen was labeled terrorist and America wanted a military solution
to the growth of religious fundamentalism.
The growth of
religious fundamentalism was not only the result of the American and
Pakistani intelligence agencies but also the complete failure of the
civilian and military governments to solve any of the basic problems of
the working class and its allies. Successive regimes have been unable to
end the grip of feudalism, the absolute exploitive nature of Pakistani
capitalists and their humiliating treatment of workers and farmers, the
repression of smaller nationalities and exploitation of natural
resources they possessed.
The ruling class
has failed miserably to bring about democratic norms. That is why
whenever the civilian government was overthrown by a military
dictatorship, the vast majority of the masses did not offer any
resistance to dictatorship.
Establishing
Islamic courts
The present civil
government of the Pakistan Peoples Party has been contradictory in
dealing with religious fanatics. In the Swat area, they have gone from
peace talks to agreements with the fanatics to establish Islamic courts.
The religious forces were decisively defeated during the general
elections of 2008. Where in the 2002 general elections they received 15
percent of the vote, in 2008 they got less than three percent.
Just after the
2008 general elections, when the masses had rejected the religious
forces, instead of a mass mobilization to end religious fundamentalism,
the present regime opted for negotiations. This gave the fanatics an
incentive to go further: they demanded Sharia laws in the Malakand
division. This was accepted and an agreement signed. It was real boost
for the religious fundamentalists who then went further in their attempt
to control more areas and therefore giving an impression that they were
not far from Islamabad.
In a panic, the
regime, with full support of the Americans, went for a full military
operation in the Malakand division in June 2009. The result was over 3.5
million internally displaced people and over 5000 killings. The present
government boasted a military victory over the fundamentalists and then
asked people to go back home. But this was not the army’s military
victory but a temporary retreat of the fanatics. Able to save their
infrastructure, the fanatics did what Afghan Taliban did during the
October 2001 military attack. That too was a military retreat, only to
re-emerge later.
The celebration of
a military victory over the religious fanatics had not last even one
month before the fanatics were able to attack the military’s general
headquarters, the famous GHQ, along with several police training centers
in different parts of the country during the month of October 2009. This
month was seen as the bloodiest with killings on both sides.
Saying there was
no other option, many liberals in Pakistan have supported the military
actions against the religious fanatics. But no military solution can
eliminate the religious fundamentalists. It has been the case of
Afghanistan and so it will be in Pakistan. It can only push them back to
other areas. The religious fundamentalists have used the tactics of
urban terrorism. An urban terrorism cannot be eliminated by invading
areas considered to be under fundamentalists’ control. Military actions
in Malakand division and now in Wazirestan have pushed the fanatics to
other parts of Pakistan.
The fallacy of
short-term and long-term strategies
Military solution
has been presented as an immediate step to the ultimate solution to
fight against fundamentalism. It is like the old Stalinist theory of
minimum and maximum goals. “Demand minimum to get the maximum” was the
philosophy. It was known as minimum and maximum stage of revolution. In
social circles, this is been presented short-term and long-term
strategies. For
them, military solution is a short-term strategy while the long-term
strategy requires reforms and more development. But this is all false;
it will not solve anything. This is just an excuse to please American
imperialism.
There is no in
between the short-term and long-term strategies. If the fight against
religious fanatics has to go forward, it must begin with a revolutionary
programme. It had to start with the political will to separate religion
from the state. It has to deal with the question of the nature of
Pakistani state. Religion cannot become the basis of a nation.
Pakistan’s two nation theories were torn apart by the events of the ‘60s
and ‘70s when Bangladesh came into existence. Now a more severe crisis
is erupting in Baluchistan over similar lines. There is strong movement
developing that calls for the independence of Baluchistan.
A whole package
There has to be a
concrete programme to fight religious fundamentalism. It has to combine
an immediate dealing with the suicidal attacks and curbing the
activities of the fascist forces from their strongholds along with an
overall plan of action in economic, political and social fields. This
should include the nationalization of religious madrasas and
retraining of teachers. It should include an immediate increase in
workers’ wages in both the private and public sector to at least 12,000
Rupees a month.
All discriminatory
laws must go and all citizens of Pakistan should enjoy equal
constitutional status. At present there are several laws that make
religious minorities second-rate citizens. The government should be
committed to fully back local resistance to the religious fanatic. Civil
society organizations in the stronghold of the religious fundamentalists
should be given full backing by the state so that they can function. The
state must help to strengthen and sustain the local defense committees
to fight the religious fanatics.
All trade union
rights must be restored in all the public and private sector with full
freedom of speech and gatherings. The present civilian seeks military
solutions. Most of the discriminatory laws are still intact, including
the blasphemy laws. The government has no plan to do away with these
discriminatory laws promulgated under military dictatorships so the
organizations of civil society must demand governmental action to
restore rights.
The forces of
religious fundamentalism organize on an international basis. A fight
against them has to be organized at that same level. The Americans’ “war
on terror” is fueling more religious fundamentalism. It is seen as a war
on Muslims. The occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan by the imperialist
forces is providing the religious fanatics a political justification for
their terrorist activities. Clearly occupation must end. The campaign to
end the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and no support to the
fanatics can be the basis for a united action of progressive forces
internationally. The campaign against religious fundamentalism must be
part and parcel of an anti-globalization campaign by all progressive
forces.
We must oppose
both occupation and religious fundamentalism. No support to one against
the other. The fight between the religious fundamentalism and the
imperialists is a fight between bulls. There is not much to gain in
siding with one against the other, but to end the fight and open the
space to create an alternative way of living.
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