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.

Other nationals I met in big numbers, French and Japanese especially, Austrians, Chinese, Italian, Norwegian and German working in private business, as teachers, journalists or in the NGO sector. I met these people in the country, not just behind walled DHA mansions. But where are the Americans who make sure that all that money is actually spent as aid and not just contributed to be able to show off high numbers and use them as a leverage? Where are the Americans who explain Ann Patterson what happens outside her armoured vehicle, outside her Embassy compound, who explain Holebrook what’s going on while he is not there? Continuously relying on Pakistani informants who they then can blame again of not cooperating enough seems to be the credo.

Especially Japan, who is equally contributing extensive amounts of money in development projects in Pakistan, is showing how “Aid” actually becomes Aid (how extensive “Aid” can be counterproductive, erroding local structures is shown here on a recent example). They send well trained staff, most speaking one Pakistani language already when they arrive, who do not need armoured cars for safe passage but work without much clamour about their contribution. I know Japanese who rode a bycicle from Cantonement (Lhr) to Lower Mall where their office was (training police officers), who acted in Punjabi stage plays and the women were so adapted that they mounted the motor bike side-saddle. Of course, not being heavily involved in the area politically or in connection with the “war on terror” they are less a target for possible aggresion from locals. But that doens’t count as an argument, since people like Greg Mortensen or Todd Shea seem to manage.

(Update: my bad, they actually do mingle in public, she is the head of the consulate in Lahore – I really miss “Eye Spy” for Sunday breakfasts!)

But I fail to see, why this conclusion allows us to immediately jump to the assumption, that US presence (and probably the whole NATO presence as well, since when the US would leave, countries like Germany and Britain will hardly be made to stay) should be stopped in the region. Is our only target to make sure we are not attacked from a make-shift camp by bearded men? Are we only worried about having blood in our own streets? What about the countries of the region? Afghanistan is economically and educationally speaking in a dire situation, major areas in Pakistan are not doing any better and countries like Turkmenistan and Kirgizstan are neither sporting promising records. While other nations like Japan and Norway have long understood, that making a difference in this region takes patience, time and skilled labour we are only discussing money, arms and our own casualties.

As Ahmed Rashid recently pointed out to one of the few Americans who were venturing Pakistan outside their Islamabad embassy recently “You want to win over the people? Show me one school the Americans have built. Show me a road, a hospital, a railway.” . Other European countries (with a few exceptions) have an equally poor record. Some NGOs pull in after major disasters but leave soon after. There is seldom a long term commitment. As Rashid has pointed out in his recent book , the opportunity for Nation Building may have already passed, and other writers have argued that the US should not linger around anymore with this argument, since its record was poor enough in this respect . But an effort to bring a lasting peace to the region and aim for an economic development including surrounding regions (Iran, Xinjiang, Balochistan, Ferghana) should be made and attempted now. This does at the moment still include army presence, the Afghan army and police are far away from managing the situation themselves and the Pakistanis can in this regard unfortunately still not be trusted (especially the ISI). But while dismembering al-Qaeda should still be a good reason to stay and even enlarge CIA presence , there are other issues apart from our homeland security, that should make us aware of our responsibilities abroad.

Further Reading

Who’s Afraid of A Terrorist Haven?; Washington Post, 16th of September 2009

Rashid, Ahmed; Descent into Chaos – The United States and the failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia; Allan Lane 2009

http://www.realisticforeignpolicy.org/archives/2009/09/coalition_issue.php

http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2009-09/afghanistan-cia-ausbau

[originally posted on 20/09/2009 on here-ware]

Think Tanks like the Foreign Policy AfPak channel, a source I generally trust generates news on the area faster than the truth can run. Tiedemann writes that the FATA is a “lawless region” – just because it doesn’t obey American law doesn’t mean its without any of it. The way many experts shape our image of this area is dangerous – the wrong perception we get leads us inevitably to wrong decisions.

Information that we is just as disheartening but at least not manipulated by opinion-shapers are the newest opinion polls of the Pakistani public by IRI.

An interesting discussion highlighting what the people in Pakistan think of it all is currently raging at LUMS, already discussed in the national media. As far as I understand the issue, these discussions are on the one side reason for optimism (ultimately these people (Pakistanis and Afghanis, Central Asians) will find a solution to the whole mess of the area, not the “experts” around the US and Europe), on the other side, they do still point in an ideologic direction which I find worrisome.

[originally posted on 1/10/2009 at here-ware]

“I consider this a criminal attack by a lone individual.”

They testified this after proclaiming that it was indeed a suicide attack. Indeed, an ‘interesting’ definition. A man hits a building, housing numerous offices with alive people, knowing it might kill them all and he’s not a terrorist. Some Muslim groups have protested that on the statement and said, that for US (and West in general) one has to be a Muslim to be a terrorist. ‘No, you can’t be a terrorist because you’re not Muslim. No!’, they could have said.

Stay with me on this. What if Joseph Andrew Stack was Muslim? It would have added to Pakistan’s woes because in a few minutes after the attack, they would have found a link to Al-Qaeda and Taliban. How? You would have been told that he lived in a street same as a Nepalese. This Nepalese belongs to a city from where a small number of Muslims are settled in UK, and of which, one is a cook. Two years back this cook was employed in a restaurant where an Arab Sheikh from Egypt used to come for dinner. That Sheikh has married his son in Yemen in a family whose one member runs a business in Iraq. The business is of trucks, and one driver is a native of Ramadi. Ramadi is Al-Qaeda’s headquarter where Afghan and Pakistani Taliban come for training. Hence, it is proved that that suicide pilot has links with Al-Qaeda and Taliban. And Pakistan should launch an operation in North Waziristan to capture these non-state actors. Duh!

Yes of course they are tricking the CIA and the Americans. They always have and will do until we learn to speak their language, until we are willing to listen to them and understand their demands as well. We are not. The West wants the ISI to cooperate for its own National security and not for Pakistani interests – just telling them “but the Taliban are your enemy too”, something Pakistan understands is obviously not enough.

Michael Crowley at the New Republic.

Max Fisher at the Atlantic.

Major criticism of my professor was

(1) that to try to compare these two situations is dangerous, since they are far apart (very true, I should have emphasized that more perhaps, but I had a limit on words which I just manged to keep)
(2) the Muslim Brotherhood still exists (I suggest it stopped to exist in the paper which is of course wrong, although it doesn’t any more exist the way it used to)
(3) my English is not sufficient for a good mark (I wrote it in English so I could share it elsewhere, otherwise the course is in German)

“Plight of Islam in the Modern World – Egypt of the Muslim Brothers compared to post 9/11 Pakistan”

Jakob Steiner

16.01.2010

Course: Auseinandersetzung mit “der Moderne” – islamische Diskurse im 20. und 21. Jh.

Autumn Semester 2009

Lecturer: H. Faehndrich

Abstract: While Pakistan in the first decade of the 21st century may be very different to Egypt in the high time of the Muslim Brothers (1930s – 1950s), there are some striking resemblances concerning modernity and religion and how the conflict between these two terms has influenced society or in reverse was shaped by it. In this paper some of these similarities are portrayed. While Hassan al-Banna stood for a defense of the (Muslim) East against the West based on reasoning coming from the Quran, Sunna and Sufism and trying to find a non-violent consensus, his movement is remembered as radically conservative and an intellectual base for today’s leaders of terroristic activity. Similarly an underlying intellectual development in Pakistan is disregarded over the rising violent outbreaks in the name of religion.

The time from the attacks on the World Trade Centre until today has been intense for Pakistan. While as a military and economic power it is involved in the tumultuous geopolitical developments in the region (Kashmir to the East, Afghanistan to the West) since it’s creation in 1947, it has moved into the world’s focus especially after George W. Bush declared his War on Terror in 2001. Religious Extremism has a long history in the country and has many different facets. It was fostered especially in the 1970s when Zia ul-Haq ruled as a Military dictator, strongly influenced by conservative Deobandi and Wahhabi Islam . On the population his brutal reign did not have an ultimately unifying effect. Although since then, most Pakistanis greet “Allah Hafeez” instead of the Farsi “Khuda Hafeez” [Khuda meaning God in general, whereas Allah can be considered an expression for the “Muslim God”] and to some extent Pakistanis felt emphatic with their Muslim brothers in war torn Afghanistan and in Kashmir, Religion and increased religious practice was forced on them and they did not entirely choose this development from inside. After 2001, then a secular dictator in power succeeded in 2008 by a “democratic” President and parliament, Pakistan’s general population continuously shifted towards a more conservative stance in terms of religion. This is most noteworthy in the middle class and here especially in the younger and middle aged population . The upper Class is often indifferent or has a liberal stance. People from the lower class, though often pious are rather averse to religious fanaticism .

With this personal observation I want to link to H.A.R. Gibb’s observations in Modern Trends of Islam and ultimately to Richard Mitchell who has taken up this observation as an explanation for the Muslim Brothership’s appeal in Egypt between the 30s and the 50s (elaborated on p. 330 – 331)

Comparing Pakistan between 2001 and today and Egypt between the 1930s and 1950s does not always have to be telling. Times have changed, the former is an Indian-sub-continental culture, the latter Arabic, Sufism has different values in both. Nonetheless some developments are similar in both situations and I hope to be able to portray a possible scenario for Pakistan based on developments that have long passed in Egypt.

Imperialism

A major motor for the Muslim Brotherhood was its rejection of imperialism, external but also the internal ; the current sentiment is very similar in Pakistan. While on the one hand anti-Americanism exhibited by Pakistanis is what we see in Western Media and what is also existent especially for the less educated middle class , the educated middle class, often trained in Western Universities is increasingly criticizing the West for getting involved in their country, be it in terms of the war against terrorism but also in terms of aid and views on democracy – so called neo-imperialism. More than being angry at the West, they are angry at their own government, the internal imperialism of al-Banna, which is seen as a puppet of the West. Thus they reject the ideologies of the West, but do not criticize them directly but rather their own government for letting it prevail .

Government and violence

Secondly, the relationship between the government and more radicalized groups can be noted. As Mitchell portrays the Muslim Brotherhood, its relationship to the ruling power was ambiguous. Vice versa, the government more than once tried to destroy it and in other times was trying to benefit from the wide acceptance the Society had. In Pakistan the dealings with radical organizations like the Lashkra-e-Toiba have been similar. While gaining a lot of government support in Zia ul-Haq’s time, these groups were officially banned in Musharraf’s time after international pressure mounted but never effectively prosecuted. Like the Society, they all have violent and humanitarian arms and especially the latter is beneficial for the government. Also their ideology seems to be less based on active discussions of the Quran and the Sunna but rather on prefabricated Wahhabi ideals propagated by their leaders. Also they are generally not accepted by the media and often regarded solely as terrorist outfits.

Nationalism and Religion

Mitchell elaborates the meaning of nationalism and patriotism for the Muslim Brothers . While the sentiment of qawmiyya (devotion to one’s people) in Pakistan is often not only directed to Pakistan (Kashmiris are devoted to the Kashmiris in India rather to other Pakistanis, Muhajirs, Muslim who came from India during Partition have their own party – Muttahida Qawmi Movement), the wataniyya is established strongly in most Pakistani citizens. But the only thing that unifies otherwise completely different people like Balochis, Pathan and Punjabi who are opposed internally over political, water and natural resources issues, is Islam, religion is their patriotism. Sa’id Ramadan’s quote, “So long as patriotism is loyalty to the nation, then religion is its gate, for no loyalty is possible for him who has no religion” fits perfectly for Pakistan.

Democracy

As Zeenath Kausar points out in the paper Iqbal on Democracy, “[...] it is as irrational to accept any of the Western concepts or ideologies without any critical scrutiny as it is illogical to reject any Western concept and ideology only because it is originated in the West.” As Mitchell points out , democracy was seen as an integral part of Islam by al-Banna (similarly so by Iqbal). While Pakistan’s government is democratically elected it is still based on a feudal system (the major parties belong to families, their leaders are not elected). Some see the failure of Democracy in Pakistan solely as a result of the wide spread corruption and nepotism, others argue that ultimately Democracy as deemed fit by the West is simply not compatible with Islam. They often reject it exactly because “it originated in the West” and is “thrown at the East” as Husayni put it and not after having scrutinized it according to Islamic principle as al-Banna or Iqbal have done.

Conclusion

While the world is currently looking at Pakistan only considering its terroristic activity and its reluctance to contribute to the war against the Taliban in their own country in the way the West would like to see it, the developments of the people’s sentiments are often overlooked. Students agitated by the Jamaat-e-Islami to demonstrate against any US involvement in the country, burning flags are regarded as lunatics who can be disregarded. That may sometimes be true, since many of them have no clue what they are actually for and what against. But more silently the views of the educated class in the country move in a similar direction, only on a more intellectual level. Their way of thinking, their logical reasoning are very much comparable to the way al-Banna’s non-violent approach to defend Islam’s and the “East’s” values against the West and in more modern terms how Jean Ziegler described the “hatred against the West” . It is difficult to estimate what may have happened to the Muslim Brotherhood and subsequently to the Egyptian state had al-Banna not been assassinated. He seemingly tried to bring change in the minds of the people like today’s educated Pakistanis are often still arguing that all fault lies primarily with them and only after they have changed and become reasonable Muslims and law-abiding citizens can they fight the West effectively. But the physically radical side of the Society eventually gained a lot of power and had some share in its final collapse, leaving the image of the Society a “conservative radical” one . Similarly Pakistan is regarded as increasingly radicalizing in the violent form. It seems that although the West did have the opportunity to learn in History from similar developments (in this case Egypt) and see a struggle for an intellectual approach against the West with logical reasoning, this development in Pakistan is again readily overlooked.

Literature:

The Rise of Sunni Militancy in Pakistan: The Changing Role of Islamism and the Ulama in Society and Politics; S.V.R. Nasr; Modern Asian Studies 34 (2000)

Modern Trends in Islam, H.A.R. Gibb, The University of Chicago Press (1947)

The Society of the Muslim Brothers, Richard P. Mitchell, Oxford University Press ( 1969)

Iqbal on Democracy: Acceptance or Rejection?, Zeenath Kausar, Allama Iqbal Society, Lahore (2001)

L’Haine de l’Occident; Jean Ziegler, Michel Albin SA. (2008)