Is #pakistan Jihad’s Lebensraum? - Analysis #Islam #Terrorism #religion

Much as the conceptual connection may appear attractive, at least to
alarmist soothsayers prognosticating the imminence of an Islamic
implosion in Pakistan, in actual fact the problem has perhaps to be
understood in its historical context.

Islamic radicalism spread in South Asia mainly on account of the export
of Salafi-Wahabi ideology from Saudi Arabia in the mid-1970s. It was
fuelled partly by the spurt in wealth after the oil crisis in 1973 and
the ideological impact of the teachings of the charismatic Egyptian
theologist, Syed Qutb, and the Palestinian teacher, Abdullah Azzam, who
first came to Pakistan in 1979 to help with the charitable work of the
Khidmat foundation in Peshawar. The reaction of the major super power
and some regional players to counter both the impact of the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian revolution was also relevant.

The growing attraction of pan-Islamic ideas, like the oneness of the
ummah, and a changing perception popularized in the Middle East about
the possible recreation of the Caliphate, were the immediately
perceptible conventional root causes for the spread of Islamic
fundamentalist ideas in Pakistan. Others included endemic unemployment
and poverty in rural areas, burdened under oppressive and
ever-perpetuating feudal structures and the abysmal failure of grievance
redressal mechanisms for delivery of justice or implementation of rule
of law by institutions of the state. In contrast, there were rough and
ready methods of quick justice, which were promoted by protagonists like
Maulana Sufi Muhammad first in the mid-1990s and later, in far greater
earnest and enthusiasm over a wider territorial swathe extending from
Malakand to Swat in the next decade.

During and after the Afghan invasion by the Soviets, madrassa-trained
radicals in Pakistan propagated jihad as a purely military concept – it
was ‘bellum justum’ or justifiable violence instead of violence only in
self-defence. Combating injustice of any sort through violence became
passé, including against other civilians. This was accompanied by the
justification also of the ulema’s lead role in issuing fatwas of local
or geopolitical import. After 9/11 and the overthrow of the Taliban
regime in Afghanistan, it also enabled the justification of a visceral
hatred of the west and specifically, the United States.

Repressive regimes in Pakistan repeatedly utilized the crutch of Islam
to justify illegal usurpation of power and abrogation of nascent
democratic processes and institutions. Military dictators like Zia
helped invest disproportionate clout in the street power of Jamaatis to
scuttle the movement for the restoration of democracy in the mid-1980s.
Non-state actors of an Islamic hue started being used to address
Pakistan’s insecurity on the conventional military asymmetry with India
and to foment insurgency in the troubled state of Jammu & Kashmir from
late 1980s onwards.

Pakistan is home to several sectarian traditions. In recent years, it
has faced severe violent tensions not only between Sunnis and Shias but
between Deobandis and Barelvis within the Sunni tradition. Both have
lately also been besieged by the ideological burden of Salafism and the
Ahle Hadees’ tradition. Sufism, earlier very popular among a majority of
Pakistanis in Central and South Punjab, as also in Sind, is today in
retreat, with its shrines under a repeated barrage of suicide attacks
from Wahabi-indoctrinated fanatics of the Tehrik-e- Taliban.

According to a recent (April 2009) survey of madrassa students in
Pakistan, 80 per cent of whom were from rural areas, 43 per cent
favoured revolution as a process of change, 50 per cent favoured
mosque-preaching, 70 per cent favoured conflict resolution through war
and only 30 per cent professed faith in peaceful means. Only 23 per cent
believed jihad was a personal struggle to promote righteousness or
protect Islam and 45 per cent said personal struggle could extend to war
to protect Muslims. 43 per cent justified use of military force by the
government, 35 per cent approved of the use of force by both the
government and non-state actors and 7 per cent approved the use of force
by only non-state actors.

A majority of Pakistanis today strongly value Shariah and believe in a
high degree of religious intensity, at least in their personal conduct.
This preference may in a sense have more to do with a desire for better
governance rather than a blanket espousal of Islamic militancy.

These feelings of civil society at large cannot but reflect in the
organized institutions of state, like the army. Conservative estimates
indicate that Islamic sympathies within the army may have spread to
15-20 per cent. Recent trends show the spread of not only pro-Islamic
views but also intense anti-Americanism even within the younger officer
class. Whether these pressures lead the collegiate leadership of Army
Generals to seriously introspect on the strategic culture they have
deliberately fostered, only to perpetuate their predominance in society,
remains to be seen.

Much would depend on how the end game in Afghanistan pans out – whether
the American troops leave, in what strength the post-July 2011 draw-down
proceeds, how the US financial and military aid to Pakistan is regulated
in the coming months, what sort of US-Pakistani partnership and
coordination develops in the process of the reconciliation of the
Taliban in the evolving Afghan political set-up. All these factors will
be crucial in determining how radical Islamic groups active in the
region behave or adapt to greater or lesser pressures of state action,
which would surely come against them. It would thus be premature to be
optimistic about the threatened success of their lebensraum just yet.