Given the brief time that passed between Shahzad’s death and Kashmiri’s, a question inevitably arose: Did the Americans find Kashmiri on their own? Or did they benefit from information obtained by the I.S.I. during its detention of Shahzad? If so, Shahzad’s death would be not just a terrible example of Pakistani state brutality; it would be a terrible example of the collateral damage sustained in America’s war on terror.

If the C.I.A. killed Kashmiri using information extracted from Shahzad, it would not be the first time that the agency had made use of a brutal interrogation. In 2002, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, an Al Qaeda operative held by the Egyptian government, made statements, under torture, suggesting links between Saddam Hussein and bin Laden; this information was used to help justify the invasion of Iraq.

The evidence is fragmentary, but it is not difficult to imagine a scenario in which Pakistani intelligence agents gave the C.I.A. at least some of the information that pinpointed Kashmiri. Likewise, it seems possible that at least some of that information may have come from Shahzad, either during his lethal interrogation or from data taken from his cell phone. In the past, the I.S.I. and the C.I.A. have coöperated extensively on the U.S. drone program.

He also points at the fragility of the US’ intelligence on drone targets, looking at the practice of shoot-first-ask-later:

In the case of Kashmiri, the American official initially told me that he had been killed in a signature strike. “We did the strike, and we found out later that it was him,” the official said. When I pressed him, though, he said, “We sort of thought he would be there.” He declined to elaborate.

Filkins’ criticism of Shahzad’s journalism is based on his closeness to the militants – and although he is not accusing him of empathizing with them (Although Shahzad didn’t support the militants’ aims, his feelings for them ran deep.), he does explain this empathy by trying to find the conservative in Shahzad. To note his affilitation with JI and his use of language makes sense, but Filkin’s proof for ‘conservatism’ is flimsy.

Shahzad was socially conservative: he didn’t drink, and friends and colleagues describe him as pious. But they say that he didn’t support Islamist violence.

The fact that you don’t drink and believe in god already calls for the assertion that one does not support Islamist violence?

On the other side Filkins makes use of the ‘conventional wisdom’ that the Pakistan army and much more so the ISI is espcecially prone to Islamism. Christine Fair, who is continuously working on questioning this ‘conventional wisdom’ in the case of Pakistan – Shahzad said to Filkins, Independent reporting for the alternative media best suits my temperament as it encourages me to seek the truth beyond ‘conventional wisdom.’- , has looked at that in a recent paper, which she abstracted for the FP magzine. The title in the FP magazine suggests that the ‘conventional wisdom’ needs to be refuted (‘Is Pakistan’s Army as Islamist as We Think? New data suggest it may be even more liberal than Pakistani society as a whole.’), while in reality Fair is emphasizing the perhaps in the article and is rather calling for more research than presenting definite results.

She admits herself, that equating an overrepresentation of Pathuns in the army with a heightened prospect for radical Islamism can hardly be based on facts – she should not have elaborated on it (However, if this is true, …).

She is very cautious in deducing from the fact that the army is recruiting rather from liberal areas (I am not entirely convinced by her definition of liberal and conservative areas either) that the army may actually be less conservative then the average population (Our findings, however, suggest the Pakistani Army, at least until 2002, was no more likely to recruit from conservative areas of the country, suggesting in turn that perhaps — perhaps — there is less radicalization than is commonly assumed.). I would argue, that this finding only points at the fact that the army is recruiting from better educated backgrounds which probably correlate more with more liberal areas. If the army staff is indeed more radical than the average population, it becomes so in the time beginning with selection for an army college, during continued exposure to a young solely male crowd and radicals at these colleges and later in the barracks or the respective offices. Whether coming from a liberal or conservative background has little implication for the person’s later ideological outlook – molding in the army is in most cases a lot stronger than ideological roots to a community. If the army is just as radical (or as not radical) as the average population, this may equally just be due to the fact, that the ideological zeal of the army towards religion is far overestimated. Fair is definitely right in asking for more research in this direction.

[Report] A recent new paper by Blair et.al. titled Poverty and Support for Militant Politics: Evidence from Pakistan

[Article] The vaccination scam used by the CIA in Abbottabad

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[Report]

I have pointed to work of Fair, Malhotra and Shapiro earlier here, they have a new report (Abstract in ForeignAffairs) out, which has drawbacks but ultimately points to some results I want to elaborate on. I am still in doubt over the validity of such surveys. I especially disagree with Fair’s advocacy of drones which she bases on her findings from two months with several trips “to Peshawar, Swat and even South Waziristan” (that statement is pretty ridiculous, since from all three places South Waziristan is the only one directly affected by drone strikes). Although their surveys may be done with intelligent approaches and their new survey is contrary to ealier ones also looking at the rural population of Pakistan, it still only encompasses 0.003% of the total population, is hardly backed by narratives which often give a better insight than numbers and is grappling with a couple of stereotipical comprehensions.

The target of their survey was to assess popular support of militant organisations in Pakistan, looking at different societal and economic strata of the population. This is indeed interesting, as a common narrative in the political-Aid sector goes, that militancy stems from poverty, hence lifting people into the economic middle class will diminsh extremist violence.

Drawing on this perception, policies intended to combat militant violence have focused on using aid to reduce abject poverty and move people into the middle class. Underlying this approach are two tacit hypotheses: first, all other things being equal (education, ideology, and the like), poor people are more likely to support and/or participate in violent political organizations (see e.g. USAID 2009); and second, the correlation is sufficiently strong that the changes in income that can be achieved through external aid will have a meaningful impact on support for violent groups.

Stereotypic Assumptions

Before I look at their results, I want to point out basic flaws, which still linger in their work.

In their abstract they write: “Contrary to some popular accounts, Pakistanis do not have a taste for militants.” That makes the preassumption, that a people as a whole can possibly have a taste for militants. Really? Is it taught that way in Political Science Courses today?

They want to assess the support for militant tanzeems among the population, but as they point out themselves:

While the policies we studied may seem high valence to professional students of politics, they do not appear to be so for most Pakistanis [...].

Especially the rural poor will often not give a damn what happens outside their brick kiln geo-politically and confronting them with opinions on radical islamist outlets may be of little benefit for assessing general support of these groups. On top of that, if they have an opinion, they may have a totally different conception of these groups’ connections (the authors offer four choices: Kashmiri tanzeem, al-Qa’ida, TTP, sectarian outfits). The understanding of Pakistani militant groups is very poorly developed in Political Science courses in the West and even less understood is how the am log perceives them (before they are even asked to judge them as good or bad).

Finally I would like to understand how it is considered culturally inappropriate to bring computers into the field. I think they deliberately exaggerate their own image they have of a conservative rural Pakistan.

Important Implications

Nevertheless, I think their overall results are valid based on my own experience and point into an important direction for future aid policies:

First, Pakistanis are weakly negative towards a range of militant groups. Second, poor Pakistanis dislike militant groups more than their middle-class counterparts. Third, this effect is strongest for the urban poor, who are most exposed to the negative externalities of terrorist violence. [...] These results call into question conventional views about the perceived correlation between socioeconomic status and militant attitudes in Pakistan and other countries.

They further note:

First, the province in which most violent attacks take place, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP), is also the one where Pakistanis dislike the militant organizations responsible the most [this points to the findings of Das et.al. in a slightly different Aid-Pakistan context]. [...] Taken together, these findings reflect the possibility that dislike of militant groups is driven largely by the extent to which individuals suffer the negative externalities, economic and otherwise, of militant attacks. This perspective suggests the conventional wisdom about the poverty-militancy relationship may be deceptively simple. It is not that the people are vulnerable to militants’ appeals because they are poor and dissatisfied. Rather, it is the poor who suffer most from militants’ violence and so most intensely dislike them.

Explanations

Ultimately they ask and answer somewhat: Why do poor Pakistanis generally dislike militant groups more than middle-class citizens? Although we cannot directly answer this question, we can offer suggestive evidence. Their explanations then venture into the economic field. What I find more interesting are narrative more or less prevalent in different societal strata. Consider this:

When I returned from Dhulli (AJK) to Lahore last time (roughly a 12h trip), I travelled on a van that was packed with one local middle class student who returned to University in Lahore and who had his sisters with him, one neat sarkari who kicked out another passenger from his already purchased seat and the two drivers – the rest was booked by Tablighis from Central Punjab who returned from a missionary spree. After the local student had nagged me with his talk about girls, pyar and pop music, the Tablighis demanded their first prayer stop. It was Ramzan and the Kashmiris on the bus had no choice to show their piety (just the drivers managed to escape and pretended to look for a suitable toilet place) – they would all have rather preferred to keep moving. I squatted next to the bus when one of the Tablighis offered to hold the lota so I could perform my wuzu. I hesitated but decided to decline. He was slightly irritated but then moved on himself. Later, back on the bus he asked me why I was not praying, and when I explained him me being Christian his neighbours’ eyes leighted up. From here on he, the oldest Tablighi of the group, just old enough to have experienced partition as a small child, was talking about how his best friends back home in Chishtian, just on the Indian border, were Sikh and Christian, he would go to Sehwan with them each year and how he longed to go to the next village on the other side of the border – “after all people there are just like me, Punjabi.” The more the man talked, the grimmer the face of the seemingly liberal Kashmiri student next to me became. “All rubbish, Islam is the only true religion, India the devil.” Now this Kashmiri, who was middle class by all accounts, turned out to be supporting general militant rethoric, while the Tablighi (membership in his organisation is a reason to be kept at Guantanamo longer), who was lower middle class if not just a daily wage masdoori presented the opposite position. Such situations are no singular exception – but they are difficult to explain with Pi = βTi + ηxi + γTi xi + αp + Tiαp + εi.

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[Article]

The Guardian unveiled this bin-Laden-vaccination story recently and aptly quoted: “The whole thing was totally irregular,” said one Pakistani official. “Bilal Town is a well-to-do area. Why would you choose that place to give free vaccines? And what is the official surgeon of Khyber doing working in Abbottabad?” The NewYorker picked up the story and rather felt prompted to note, that local Mullahs could have used it to incite anti-western hatred.

The underlying assumption of the CIA, “all Pakistanis will be happy to receive free vaccinations” is worrying and points of it’s understanding of the country. Their horizon ends behind walled compounds of DHA houses where they assume that poverty is starting and covering the rest of the country. Everyting not Lahore, Karachi or Islamabad is rural. But also the NewYorker’s reaction, linking Pakistan immediately with mad mullahs and the assertion that their anti-polio-vaccine drive would generally work everywhere is bemusing.

Karachi is not only the largest metropolis of Pakistan and its commercial hub, it is also known as a ‘mini-Pakistan’. This is a reference to the ethnic and religious diversity of Karachi’s population. [...] The very features of Pakistani society that are represented so prominently in Karachi are the ones that are often thought to challenge the coherence and stability of the nation state.

Just like it’s mega-city diversity makes Karachi into a model of the whole country, the media’s perception of this city marks a thumbnail for the reporting on the whole country. It’s proneness to violence, seemingly based on a simple sectarian history of conflict, combined with its worldwide interconnectedness (the majority of the Pakistani blogosphere reside here and international newspapers as well as companies have their regional outposts in the port city) makes sure that every larger gunfight is reported in international newspapers. With a lack of knowledge of the country as a whole and the history of Sindh and Karachi in particular, the narrative stops somewhere at ‘those evil MQM thugs vs. the equally evil Pashtun’. To weave in western media’s darling Benazir Bhutto, the PPP also makes it into the story. But as Budhani et.al. note further on in their excellent short write up of Karachi’s history of violence (The Open City: Social Networks and Violence in Karachi; Azmat Ali Budhani, Haris Gazdar, Sobia Ahmad Kaker and Hussain Bux Mallah, Collective for Social Science Research, Karachi, Working Paper no. 70, Crisis States Working Papers Series No.2, 2010 ):

The simplistic view is that Karachi is an artificial amalgam of diverse ethnic groups, and it is but natural that there will be turf battles or worse between them. A more sophisticated rendering recalls that while identity politics offer a natural mode of mobilisation to certain classes, group identity can be very fluid in South Asia, and the salience of any particular identity often depends on the precise political context.

Beginning of July this year has seen a short climax of attention (the FP AfPak channel had 2 pieces in a day by Mirza and Baloch) when the violence suddenly culmulated and death numbers have surpassed the annual average already mid-year. With yesterdays shooting came a new alert on the radar which immediately surfaced in European print. While the time since the attack on Benazir’s motorcade some 4 years back or even since Sindh and Karachi came to international attention (which would be some 180 years, Manan Ahmed has just looked at one story that roots back into this time) would have given ample space to look at some background and write an informed op-ed that would make further copy-pastes of AP stories futile, the simple narrative for the city will stick. The reason of course is, that the reproduction of this simplistic view is a lot easier than the challenge of forming a more nuanced narrative that moves closer to realities. And while neither ethnicity nor religion or politics can be left out of a thorough discussion of why Karachi is today considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world, while it’s Indian megacity-counterpart Mumbai is a tourist magnet, there may be another approach (Noah Tucker has looked at this problem recently for the case of Osh in Kyrgyzstan). What Budhani et.al. call migration and informality as a subsumation of the complex situation, Oskar Verkaaik in his excellent Migrants and Militants (Princeton UP, 2004) referred to as Fun and Urban Violence.

Verkaaik looks at urban militancy in Sindh with a focus on Hyderabad where he researched intensively. As his choice of location suggests he is not prone to walking along stereotipical representation of Pakistan – while Hyderabad is by no means some small village, he is the first foreign author on Pakistan I read who is not based in Islamabad, Lahore or Karachi. On the other hand he does not present himself as the shalwar kameez wearing gora who has understood it all and is at par with the locals. His account is sober, but makes use of both – his intellectual background and understanding of cultural, political and historical complexities and his personal experience as a part-time resident of the city and member of the local society. His book is no all-encompassing guide. He focuses on the Muhajir communities and the MQM and to get a better picture similar studies of the other ethnic actors – Sindhis, Pashtun, Punjabi, Hindu, Christian, Baloch – will be necessary, as well as accounts from members of each side.

Early on in his introduction, looking at influential characters in Sindh’s post-partition he points to where his study is going. “For many members of the MQM, for instance, Syed, with his Sassi, was a sissy.“, reffering to the mockery of MQM members of G.M.Syed, his intellectual promotion of Sindhi poetry and Shah Abdul Latif’s heroine Sassi. While looking with great detail at ethnical and societal backgrounds of Muhajirs in their country of origin (in Hyderabad that is mainly India and no Biharis) and in Pakistan (in Pakka Qila in Hyderabad), he ultimately characterizes MQM as a group that mixed “urban youth culture, with its aspects of gender, leisure, and global youth culture, into an ethnic-religious ideology of protest and revolt” – short, a group that was having fun creating havoc. Budhani et.al. note on an early Muhajir leader: “While Bhopali had been seen as an educated and cultured notable, the MQM political model was based on youth mobilisation, irreverence and armed force.” MQM leader Altaf Hussain, whom Verkaaik portrays through the eyes of the Qaum which only sees him on a screen, talking via a crackling phone line, is generally regarded as vulgar polemical clown and as such fits the demand for fun. His supporters often do not even see the need to take him serious.

The controversy made members proud that they were part of a movement that was capable of worrying a large number of people. Initially a dull formality, it had turned into a splendid provocation, secret and outrageous. And the shared knowledge that the secret was in fact empty made it even better.

His theory, that male youth fun (also referred to as the vernacular tamasha by Verkaaik) plays a major part in violence in Sindh, is of course a lot more difficult to uphold than theories on sectarian rifts – simply because it is less understood, partly as Verkaaink writes, because [t]he intimacy of fun is mostly denied to outsiders. The phenomenon of young males getting together mainly to cause a stir that can also turn violent over seemingly minor issues (phadda it would be called in Punjab, Maila Times has a great discription – good satire is quite close to reality) is not hard to come by in any part of Pakistan (and, yes, anywhere in the world). It’s combination with thugs involved in arms trade, kidnapping, murder and smuggling in Karachi and politicians to result in urban war is less easily argued for. Verkaaik manages to construct his theory by portraying the Muhajir community in light of history, anthropological literature and personal assumptions based on his daily experiences and even if you neglect the fun part, his book illustrates the emergence, history and raison d’être of Karachi’s and Sindh’s violence in depth. But as he states himself in the introduction “there are no studies on anthropological fieldwork in Muhajir communities from which the [MQM] movement originates“. And further discussion of his fun-hypothesis will be essential to incorporate it in a common narrative in reporting on Karachi – or dismiss it.

While the US has now announced to stop military aid to Pakistan and the common narrative is still “those Pakistanis are so ungrateful for all the Aid”, while the fact that the Aid referred to goes to the Army which is not really the agent of Pakistani society making sure the people is empowered, Wright looks at it in a more nuanced way.

Eliminating, or sharply reducing, military aid to Pakistan would have consequences, but they may not be the ones we fear. Diminishing the power of the military class would open up more room for civilian rule. Many Pakistanis are in favor of less U.S. aid; their slogan is “trade not aid.” In particular, Pakistani businessmen have long sought U.S. tax breaks for their textiles, which American manufacturers have resisted. Such a move would empower the civilian middle class.

By passing on skills through some women trained, it was possible to reach 17% of all women between 15 and 25 years in the area within 7 courses over 6 months each, directly affecting 7% of the total population. The average income of trained women after only some months to a year after the training already reached half the average wage of skilled women in Pakistan. 10% were offered a job after the training. Coupled with their increased confidence, about 70% felt that their family and community now respected them more. Nevertheless there were cases were communities or family members would initially support the training, but then hinder the woman from offering her skills on a commercial basis. Some women assured that just offering their skills to family already meant a great economic relief, but many attempted to establish a commercial venture and of these most successfully did so.

Most women openly complained how they were marginalized by society, even though the earthquake has brought some positive change in the mindset of many people. The success of such a training centre will always be dependent on community acceptance, and assistance to women and communities should always be provided along.

An unexpected positive side effect was, that many women were motivated to rejoin school after the training. Initially abandoning education because of a lack of perspectives with increased education, they were encouraged by their abilities in the handicrafts sector and with their own income were also able to afford higher education themselves. Keeping this in mind, highly effective vocational training is possible in such remote areas, granting positive economical as well as societal trade offs. Observing the success of women in village based training centers over future years, especially the acceptance among the local community, will prove whether this option could be a role model for the area.

I came up with two basic assumptions, loosely taken from a speech by Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah as a basis for the paper:

The defensive viewpoint states, that economic perspectives for women are only possible within the societal framework.
The offensive viewpoint acknowledges, that economic success will result in a loosening of the societal restrictions for women.

While the societal restrictions were obvious and need to be taken into account at all times, the loosening of societal restrictions was twofold. On the one hand, many women claimed, that already after the earthquake a liberal jolt also hit the area, concerning women’s rights. Many women were allowed to travel in local buses alone and the opportunity to join higher education suddenly appeared. The economic success of some women managed to back this development somehow – communities could see a measurable impact of restrictions being loosened.

The two most important outcomes were the fact that women who joined the vocational training were motivated to rejoin higher education after having found perspectives for their future again and that illiterate women, once they started a commercial venture were just equally succesful as literate women.

The earlier adresses an important point in development activities at the moment – building schools (especially girls schools) without evaluating perspectives women gain with a school education is flawed. A number of women in the project area did not join school, because they had to work at home or their fathers and brothers would not allow them. Most however had left school because they saw no point in getting an education. And statistics for Pakistan prove them right. The average salary of skilled women increases only marginally over the average wage of unskilled women and labour participation rates for unskilled women are higher than those for skilled. Vocational Training targetting school drop outs may be an ideal measure to reinvoke perspectives by giving them a way of earning their own money with their own skills.

The latter proves, that illiterate women should equally be considered for government training centres but should be especially encouraged to start a commercial venture. Often they are shying away from following up on such an activity, having a very low self esteem owing to their inability to read. Additionally they are often from extremely poor families who welcome an additional income and encourage their daughter to contribute finances.

Interesting background literature can be found in the Literature List, although most of the studies are purely statistical (even and especially those written by Pakistanis) which I find to be not very helpful in getting a dynamic and realistic picture.

The Roots of Militancy: Explaining Support for Political Violence in Pakistan; C. Christine Fair, Neil Malhotra, Jacob N. Shapiro, December 2009

Shapiro, Jacob N. and C. Christine Fair. “Why Pakistanis Support Islamist Militancy.” Policy Brief, Harvard University, February 10, 2010.

These conventional widoms revolve around

(1) religiosity, with more religious people expected to be less supportive of destructive political attitudes in general but more supportive of groups using religious justifications for violence (Putnam 2000; Jefferis 2010); (2) education, with more educated individuals hypothesized to be more tolerant and therefore less supportive of groups employing violent tactics (Stouffer 1955; McCloskey and Brill 1983); (3) income, with poorer people expected to be more supportive of violent politics or more likely to participate in violent groups (see Sambanis 2004 for a thorough review); (4) democratic values, with those valuing democracy expected to be less supportive of militant groups (e.g. Almond and Verba 1963; Kirwin and Cho 2009); and (5) anti-Americanism, with people holding negative views of the United States hypothesized to be more supportive of certain forms of violence (Tessler and Robbins 2007)

(of which the last I would not really take serious from the start).

They write

Our approach yields a number of interesting findings. Most generally, broad-brush theories about the impact of individual-level characteristics on political attitudes perform poorly at predicting support for specific organizations.

None of these conventional wisdoms rests on a firm evidentiary basis, yet they dominate in varying degrees popular media accounts of Pakistan’s political woes, debates in the U.S. Congress, and policies adopted by Western states to help stabilize Pakistan since 2001.

and more specifically on religion

Taken together, these results strongly suggest that if there is some common factor driving support for all these militant organizations, it is not religion.

It is not adherence to Islam per se that drives support, but rather a specific fundamentalist, textual reading of the Koran.

This is a significant policy point: support for Islam as a governing principle in Pakistani politics does not predict support for any of the militant groups of concern to Western policymakers.

Perceptions of the Pakistan Earthquake Response - Humanitarian Agenda 2015 Pakistan Country Study, Andrew Wilder, February 2008

In Aid We Trust: Hearts and Minds and the Pakistan Earthquake of 2005, Tahir Andrabi, Jishnu Das , 1st draft September 2010

In the light of the recent floods, a renewed influx of international aid organizations into Pakistan and a widespread national response to the disaster, a study published already more than 2 years ago on the Pakistan Earthquake becomes especially important (Andrew Wilder, Perceptions of the Pakistan Earthquake response). Through a number of interviews and group discussions and an extraordinary ability to judge objectively on a topic that is so laden with pre-assumptions and stereotypes, Andrew Wilder has put together a comprehensive overview over obstacles and successes during the emergency relief and the reconstruction effort in Pakistani Kashmir and the affected parts of NWFP (now Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa). Having worked myself in the area since just after the earthquake until this year, I find many topics just the way I experienced them, others are new to me but they sound perfectly reasonable. While such reports are often written from somewhere far away, with interviews carried out only with big stakeholders who often themselves have little idea what’s moving people in the field, this document is highly successful in representing the situation as it was experienced by people who have obviously actively engaged in the process of relief and reconstruction.

Issues covered include

• The universality of humanitarianism

• The implications of terrorism and counter-terrorism for humanitarian action
• The search for greater coherence and integration between humanitarian and political/security agendas

• The security of humanitarian personnel and the beneficiaries of humanitarian action

Important issues he addresses have already surfaced in the current aid efforts – acceptance of foreign staff, and the instrumentalization of humanitarian action in the light of strategic interests in the region.

While international aid workers were more likely to blame internationals for being culturally insensitive, most Pakistani respondents blamed non-local national staff for the majority of problems caused due to cultural insensitivity.

While local communities seemed to be willing to view the behavior of foreigners as simply being “foreign,” all Pakistani staff – especially female staff – were expected to behave as “locals.” This issue of “locals within locals” highlights the need in culturally diverse contexts to be aware of the potential pitfalls of making overly simplistic distinctions between “national and internationals,” “locals and foreigners” or “insiders and outsiders.”

In times were international NGOs are working in different provinces with extremely different ethnicities (Baloch, Punjabi, Pakhtoon, Sindhi etc.), this observation should be taken seriously. A Pakistani is not a local everywhere in his country.

The instrumentalization of humanitarian action to achieve counter-terrorism objectives by rewarding strategic allies and “winning hearts and minds” raises serious questions about the future of principled humanitarian assistance.

Kashmir not being an area of significant strategic interest to the West, this problem turned out to be mostly irrelevant. The US government did not even pursue terrorist organisations, which were delivering aid. In the most heavily affected area by the floods this will be a different scenario. Adding to it is the increased involvement of foreign troops in Pakistan as well and increased Army operations since the earthquake all over the country.

Stories like the following may be singular and not representative of how different state actors behaved in the region, but do portray one aspect of how politics interferes with humanitarian heavily.

The diverse range of aid actors in the earthquake response created some awkward moments. An aid worker based in an IDP camp described a request he received prior to a visit to the camp by US Senator John Kerry:  “USAID wanted the Cuban flag taken down and wanted al-Rashid Trust banners taken down. We refused to get involved in this issue. In the end the army got Al-Rashid to take down their banner but the Cuban flag remained. USAID made sure to take pictures from angles that didn’t show the Cuban flag.”

From my own experience in Kashmir and other areas in Pakistan, I feel “winning hearts and minds” by simply delivering aid is a ridiculous approach. As stated by Wilder it questions our humanitarian motives, but people’s ideology cannot be bought. Friends in Kashmir who till this date receive food aid from radical Islamist organisations are grateful for that support, but at the same time emphasize that they heavily disagree with their religious and political agenda. Similarly they react towards aid from Western organisations – they accept my values, we may discuss them again and again, but they would not adopt my views because I have supported them after their house collapsed. A recent study (Tahir Andrabi and Jishnu Das, In Aid We Trust) examines this dilemma and although this study may not be very comprehensive, it is the first time that I find this topic covered from such a scholarly approach and I hope it will be taken up in future in other areas as well.

As a Pakistani journalist notes:

“The notion that this was a golden opportunity for jihadi groups to win support doesn’t hold true – appreciation for their work doesn’t translate into political support. Jamaat Islami from day one was the most effective and efficient social welfare organization, but this hasn’t led to an increase in its popular support. People don’t vote on that account – it doesn’t translate into popular support. The same for the US – their role won’t “win hearts and minds.” In South Asia charity and charitable work has little to do with political work. The best known social workers don’t win elections. Edhi [one of Pakistan’s leading philanthropists] stood twice and couldn’t win more than five percent of the vote. Imran Khan with all his charitable hospital work struggled to win. People don’t want to waste their vote.”

An issue that became very obvious again during my recent visit in Tajikistan and has been an issue in Kashmir – overtly strict security policies. Since Pakistan’s image has plummeted even further since 2005, this is an issue on top of all NGOs’ agendas. It is linked closely to understanding the country as multi ethnic – Punjab is not Sindh, Kashmir not Waziristan. Each area should be addressed individually with all its characteristics. To say that “In Pakistan it is this way” is too simple.

The cultural sensitivity question highlighted that Pakistani culture is not monolithic. As in most countries there are major cultural differences between urban and rural areas, and along lines such as ethnicity, class, ideology, and sectarian affiliation. This diversity highlights the imprecision of terms used by aid agencies like “national” and “international” staff, or “locals” and “foreigners.” ²⁵ One INGO manager described his problem of having to manage “locals within locals: ” “Ninety-eight percent of our staff are from other areas of Pakistan. Our national staff are not viewed by locals as “local staff,” and the national staff distinguish themselves from what they refer to as the “local staff.” Most national staff don’t speak Pashto – it’s a case of having locals within locals.”

The question of who is a foreigner and who is not was most pronounced in the disputed territory of Kashmir. Most Pakistanis view Kashmir as part of Pakistan, and Kashmiris as Pakistanis. This was also how many national and international agencies perceived their Kashmir operations, with PaK essentially treated as being another province of Pakistan. Many Kashmiris, however, viewed themselves as Kashmiris and not as Pakistanis. Several Pakistanis reported being quite surprised and shocked at the realization that after all their childhood education and indoctrination that Kashmir was part of Pakistan, that the Kashmiris they were interacting with did not perceive themselves to be Pakistanis. According to one Pakistani aid agency official, “I was very surprised to discover that Kashmiris view themselves as Kashmiris, and the rest of us, including Pakistanis, as foreigners.” According to another NGO manager:

Pakistani staff assume and say that we are all the same, whereas Kashmiris view themselves as different. Many Pakistani staff were not aware of these tensions and sentiments. We need to educate both national staff and not just expats about these issues.

The ignorance of many Pakistanis to internal, national issues is also problematic. Pakistani national media, especially English and even the ones who call themselves dynamic and liberal are completely unaware of what large parts of the country look like – Kashmir, the Tribals and Balochistan are rarely covered, the Northern areas are purely seen as a tourism resort. NGO staff from Karachi or Lahore may know less about these areas than some expatriates who have travelled there at least for leisure. Adding to it is the constant conflict between different Pakistani ethnicities – Punjabis are looked down upon as thiefes in the Khyber Pakhtookhwa, Pakhtoons are regarded as crazy fanatics in the North.

The relatively benign operating environment led several aid workers to question the appropriateness of what they perceived to be overly strict and inflexible security policies of many aid organizations. Some field staff in particular expressed concern that humanitarian imperatives were being trumped by staff security considerations that were based on poor security analysis resulting in inappropriate and unnecessarily rigid security policies.

Especially for NGO staff, the development of the Cluster Approach, closely linked to the Kashmir earthquake will be of interest. Wilder mentions to other studies in this regard. But also for lay people this chapter gives an insight into how NGOs work on the ground and how they coordinate. An issue widely present in Western media the recent weeks was the presence of humanitarian arms of Islamist groups. Mainly present in cluster meetings during the reconstruction phase, I have mainly felt they were not present because they were not interested – apparently they were often also not invited. For us as a very small organisation, the cluster meetings were extremely valuable. Once committed people were participating even slow government institutions could be moved to get things done on time.

There was a widespread perception that NGO participation in the clusters was weak. A number of reasons were cited for this including a lack of knowledge and understanding by NGOs of the Cluster Approach, as well as skepticism about the value added of committing valuable staff time to attend the large number of cluster meetings. According to the director of one international non-governmental organization (INGO), one of the only reasons to attend cluster meetings was that “if you didn’t go to meetings or provide information you weren’t on the radar screen.” There was also reluctance on the part of some NGOs to participate in what was a UN-led – and perceived by some to be “UN-centric” – coordination mechanism. Many local NGOs reportedly did not participate because they were either not aware of the meetings, often not invited, or because they could not understand or speak English sufficiently well to participate in or benefit from the discussions. As discussed in the ‘War on Terror’ section of this paper, the fact that there were few efforts to invite Islamic organizations to cluster meetings as well as to involve them in other coordination efforts was viewed by some interviewees as a “missed opportunity.” Many were big stakeholders, but as one interviewee noted, “there was a reluctance to invite them.”

USAID wanted to kill [the Cluster Approach] as they don’t want the UN to have a role. DFID also didn’t like it. In general donor coordination was secretive, not representative, Western, and unaccountable to the clusters. The donors don’t want “good humanitarian donorship” to work – they don’t want to lose sovereignty.

This is the first scholarly study where I read about camps of Indian Kashmiris living in Pakistan. The fate of these people, although incorporating those who Pakistan wants to ‘liberate’ living somehow stateless in a limbo is widely ignored in Pakistan.

Humanitarian assistance should be impartial and provided according to need…. After the earthquake, however, distinctions were made between the types of camps, which led to differing standards of services and support to people who had suffered the same catastrophe…. Many of those involved in the emergency response now believe that this distinction between camps was regrettable.

Finally one of the most problematic practices of international (less so national) NGOs is also addressed for the earthquake reconstruction phase – bypassing local civil institutions. With the argument, that local structures are corrupt and inefficient work is carried out without them, creating a(nother) parallel infrastructure state in the state for which in the long run no one will feel accountable for.

During the relief phase, and more problematically during the reconstruction phase, the civil administration in general and local government in particular has largely been bypassed.

There is still unfinished business in AJK and NWFP. The GoP has generously allowed the international community to come in and help provide relief to save people, but not to do long-term development. Now that the relief phase is over unfinished business will rise to the top of the agenda.

Background material:

World Bank Pakistan Country Assistance Evaluation (2006)

The Political Economy of Growth Without Development: A Case Study of Pakistan. Paper for the Analytical Narratives of Growth Project, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, William Easterly, Development Research Group, World Bank, June 2001

The U.S. Aid “Surge” to Pakistan: Repeating a Failed Experiment? Lessons for U.S. Policymakers from the World Bank’sSocial-Sector Lending in the 1990s, Nancy Birdsall and Molly Kinder

Yale Journal of International Affairs, Winter 2010

Helpful Internet Resources:

An essential Reading List from the CGDev.

AidWatchers by William Easterly.

On the low army budget of some European states, the 21 states with the lowest budget together spend less than Vietnam on their armies, Howorth remarks:

One might ask exactly what those nation states believe they are buying with their money.

An interesting concept he brings up from the Venusberg report is the fighting intensity scale:

This poses the crucial question of the type of warfare the EU intends to fight. According to one analysis (Venusberg 2004: 68), the average US soldier, trained for high intensity warfare, operates at levels 8 to10 on an intensity scale of 1 to 10. If forced to, he can “operate down” to level 6 but is uncomfortable with that, owing to lack of training in the art of peace-keeping and nation-building.  Many UK and French troops as well as some crack German, Italian, Spanish and Dutch special-forces can operate up to level 8 but the vast majority are more comfortable lower down the intensity scale dealing with irregular forces in a peace-keeping environment. Most other EU troops cannot operate much above level 5 on the US intensity scale and are therefore incapable of assuming peace-keeping duties such as those required in 2004 in Iraq.

While he sees that as a problem for European troops (and I agree), in light of the current troubles in COIN, I see the fact that the average US soldier “is uncomfortable with [the low intensity warfare]“, an equally problematic aspect.

A book by Howorth on the topic is available here.

(The title of the post comes also from the article (“When, in 1958, the UK prime minister was asked by a young journalist what can most easily steer a government off its chosen course, Harold Macmillan replied: “Events, dear boy! Events!”), and made me wonder about Austrian internal politics. If there is no chosen course, you need no events …

Numerous Bloggers and Scholars have taken that result as a proof for what they see as an increased unpopularity of the Taliban and thus an argument for continued presence in the region and apparent accordance on the goals of the current war. But the question was not “Do you support the actions/ideology of the Taliban?” or “Do you favor the Taliban over your civilian government?”. The presence of the Taliban is of course unpopular – with all it’s consequences including the presence of Western forces on their soil. But that doen’t mean that the questioned people favor the West’s interference in the region over the Taliban’s presence.

We keep asking questions in a way we already know what to expect as a pleasing answer. Justifying our actions in retrospect with flawed polls is not going to help us ahead.