This article has been published with some changes at
http://www.thenews.com.pk/print/81924-Terrorist-sympathisers
“You should not be
walking through the lobbies with Jeremy Corbyn and
a bunch of terrorist sympathizers,” the prime minister of UK David Cameron said
on 2nd Dec, 2015. This is the same rhetoric that Mr. Bush repeated. "Every
nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or
you are with the terrorists," he said in 2001. But the British
parliamentarians and the public responded in an enlightened manner. Scottish
National Party leader Alex Salmond responded “Would the prime minister
apologize for his “deeply insulting remarks”?” And another party spokesman
said: “He clearly realizes he has failed to make a convincing case for military
action in Syria and opinion is shifting away from him.” Similarly, sam
hinrichs, A british citizen tweeted “i'd rather see money go into education
than war, therefore i am a #terroristsympathiser”
Just like Britain and US, Pakistani state attempts to
define its narrative on terrorism in a binary “Yes or No” and “with us or
against us” fashion. If you do not support military operations, you are a
terrorist sympathizer. If you criticize National Action plan, you might be
labeled a terrorist yourself. Opinion space is limited in an emotional manner
and support for the state narrative is presented as the only sane way to move
forward. However, a person with even the slightest of intellectual sense would
agree that in matters of state policy there can be several other possibilities.
The issue of terrorism has become a widely debated topic.
The first point in this discussion which is widely agreed upon is the
definition of terrorism i.e. “Non-state Islamist motivated militancy”. Even in
the recent California shooting incident, the discussion was focused on “is it a
criminal activity?” or “is it a terrorist activity”. The second question in
this discourse is “What should be the most effective counter terrorism policy”.
To us Pakistanis, this is a vital question because we are directly affected
from this menace but it seems that Pakistan’s ruling circle seem to be mostly
confused or unclear. It is because, National Action plan(NAP), which is the
most recent endeavor for uprooting the menace of terrorism, faces a series of issues.
The first issue is the scope of NAP. For instance, The
Peshawar school incident was correctly not treated as a criminal activity but a
terrorist activity because it was based on islamist motivated militancy. But NAP
has been somewhat deliberately mixed with criminal acts and corruption issues. Considering
Arrests of MQM workers, PPP workers or other political cases or issues of
corruption in KMC or NADRA or Land issues or arrest of pilot of shaheen airline
are wrongfully associated with NAP. These acts are some of the several
superficial attempts made to generalize terrorism just to give NAP a neutral
cover.
The second issue is to curb Islamist motivated militancy
by targeting even the non-militant Islamists. NAP attempts to target all
Islamists across the board who are not involved in militancy with the pretext
of terrorist sympathizers. It is generally assumed by the architects and
supporters of NAP that Islamist thoughts residing in the society can easily
cross the line of political, religious or economic discussion to militant
struggle and therefore all Islamists need to be targeted. But upon critical
assessment, this policy comes with a dangerous consequence because Pakistan is
a predominantly a Muslim society and these non-militant Islamists are an active
component of society. Amongst them are those who are democratic, political,
intellectual, revolutionary and preachers of non-militant thought. Seminaries, Universities, Mosques, Doctors,
Engineers, Scientists, Educationalists, businessmen etc are filled with
Islamist thoughts and religious people.
Such Islamists should not be marginalized as being
Sympathizers and prosecuted. For Instance, pointing at Al-Huda for tashfeen Malik
issue, connecting Tanzeem-e-islami with Safoora carnage, criminalizing members
of Hizb-ut-tahrir on media for spreading their ideas, arrests of Ulema, raids
on seminaries etc is a huge mistake. Groups like these and their likes have an
intellectual/political understanding of things and should be dealt by
discussions and serious debate on Ideas regarding military operations or IDPs
or Drone Issues etc. Thoughts and ideas
should be countered with better ideas and thoughts. Dealing it in military style and spreading fear
would increase the depth of the problem. It reflects that state is enemy of all
Islamist. It would convince the Islamists that since you are not allowed to
discuss, do political activism, you get negative media coverage, cyber crime
law etc, the only way to solve the problem is to fight the state. This would escalate
grievances, squeeze space of islamist opinion and ultimately justify the
militant cause.
A clear example in front of us is the case of
balochistan. The people of Balochistan think that there is no other way to
solve the problem other than militant struggle. The more we try to suppress the
voices, the more radical society starts to become and hence more violent and it
opens up space for militancy! This military style solution, which has been
employed by several arab countries mostly pushes the country on the verge of
chaos and there comes a tipping point when people want to break free from the
suffocating environment just like Syria.
Third issue that NAP faces is linked with our historical foreign
policy decisions. It was this very state which built madarassas and introduced
curriculum for promoting Jihad on the pre-text of supporting the American
project against the soviet. If we would have followed an independent and
intelligent policy, we would have been probably in a much better situation. The
94-page policy document titled “National Internal Security Policy”, states “A
large number of terrorists, either are, or have been students of madrassas
where they were brainwashed to take up arms against the state,”. Interestingly,
those 22,000 madrassas identified by the policy document and people with
similar thinking reside widely in the society from 80s. They were never our
problem until we made yet another foreign policy decision after 9/11. We
supported the American project in Afghanistan yet again. Unfortunately, the
very people we created in over throwing the Soviets were in the mood to
overthrow U.S. Thus this militancy which was a freedom struggle in Afghanistan
moved as terrorism in Pakistan. We had to pray a serious price for the American
war on terror. Ironically, we worked for the American project during 80s by
radicalizing our people and we are working for the American project after the
2000s by now de-radicalizing them. I must ask here that, where is our independent
thinking? Why are we not setting up directions for ourselves as a nation which
is better for us? These questions must be answered for taking NAP ahead in the
correct direction.
To sum it all up, a rational and meaningful attempt
should be made to identify the issues of NAP and any criticism on this issue
should not be dealt with a David Cameron like statement.
