Media and extremist narrative by South Asian Media Net

Contents

Extremist vs. democratic narratives Imtiaz Alam The Extremist Discourse Khadim Hussain Extremist Narrative M. Ziauddin Extremism and its containment through media Dr. Hasan Askari Rizvi Time to change the track Dr Muhammad Waseem No peace when there is terror Kamran Shafi Grave challenges in store for Pakistan Zahid Hussain

Political Islam turns into militant Islam Babar Ayaz Psychological facets of extremism and its possible remedies Prof Dr Fouzia Naeem Khan Of the enemies within: real and imagined Mariana Babar Declaration

EDITOR: Waqar Mustafa RAPPORTEURS: Afaq Syed, Aliya Shah, Mehmal Sarfaraz, Muhammad Amjad, Iram Siddiq, Designed by: Design 8

Extremist vs. democratic narratives Imtiaz Alam There are two types of intellectual narratives and schools of thought in Pakistan, both of which have many comparable albeit divergent variants. What should Pakistan be: a theocracy or a democracy? Both offer different views on life and knowledge, rights and freedoms, culture and nationhood, traditional and modern. Today, the disparity between these two schools of thought, especially with regard to human values and the functions of the state, has widened as a consequence of extremism. The following is a general analysis and comparison of the two perspectives, i.e., the religious extremist viewpoint vs. the democratic and enlightened viewpoint. However, my portrayal of them may differ from the understanding their adherents have in mind—for this, my apologies.

Religious and extremist narrative

Democratic and enlightened narrative

1. Pakistan was created in the name of Islam. If not for Islam, then what was the purpose of Pakistan's creation? Nationhood is an un-Islamic foundation for the Muslim Community that is essentially defined and informed by Quran and Sunnah for all lands and all times to come. The establishment of an Islamic state was the objective of the “Two-Nation” theory that subsequently found its metamorphosis in the “ideology of Pakistan” to suit the designs of the dominant elite. The Islamic identity (Muslim-hood) is supreme and cannot be subordinated to the concept of citizenship and nationhood. The terrestrial (worldly) concepts of a modern nation-state and citizenship are alien to Islam and are not in consonance with the celestial (religious) concept of ummah (a community of the faithful). The Islamic community of faithful is rooted in its original golden era of the Prophet of Islam Hazrat Mohammed Mustaffa (PBUH) and his most infallible first four caliphs who, unlike other faiths, provided a full code of life for the present and the life after. The community of Islamic faithful is also assumed a state by itself—assumption of terrestrial functions by the high clergy or those presumed as the most pious of all—leaving

1. The Muslims' communitarian movement in British India before Partition was primarily for the rights of the minority community, as manifested by the “Two-Nation” theory. In the light of the 1940 Lahore Resolution, Pakistan was created out of the Muslim-majority areas and was not meant for all the Muslims of the Subcontinent. Various nationalities and different peoples living in Pakistan have had their own history and separate ethno-cultural roots. Although it is a Muslim-majority country, Pakistan has a strong territorial basis that constitutes the Pakistani nation out of the voluntary accession of multinational federating units and multi-cultural heritages. If the Islamic ideology was so much binding, then why did East Pakistan separate and why didn't all the Muslims of India migrate? Essentially different from the religious communities, the sociological and ethnical evolution of various people passed through various stages of societal development—from family to clan, clans to tribe and various tribes to nationality and nationalities to the nation. Similarly, the evolution of state has also passed through various stages of history—from ancient to feudal and modern nation- state. It's a politico-legal entity which has

no scope for franchise or democracy and man-made laws and constitutions.

nothing to do with religion, even though its citizens may belong to various cultures, ethnicities and religions.

2. Highlighting local cultures and the ethnic heritage of various nationalities is a parochial exercise and not permitted in Islam. The concepts of nation, nationhood, nationalism, and regionalism are contrary to the universal unity of the Islamic ummah. A Muslim country's system can only be established on the basis of an Islamic ideology, which is possible only through the implementation of shariah and the establishment of a khilafat. An Islamic state is by itself part of the ummah whereas a state established on the basis of territorial nationhood contravenes the universal concept of ummah. (They do not accept the notion of a territorial state and yet try to Islamize a terrestrial entity.)

2. Islam's sacred name was used as an ideological shield to exploit both the underprivileged and oppressed minorities, and also to suppress national identities/units. The languages, cultures, and rights of indigenous peoples were trampled In the name of Islam and the national language (Urdu). Nationbuilding and national cohesion were not promoted because of the overemphasis on a so-called Islamic or “Pakistan ideology” or the pre-Partition “twonation theory”. Instead of creating homogeneity, it created heterogeneity. Consequently, due to the spread of religious sectarianism, the building and progress of a nation-state on a religious basis is no longer plausible. Nation building is not possible by denigrating and discriminating against Muslim and non-Muslim minorities; this only creates national anarchy.

3. The state, nationhood, citizens' lifestyles, culture, livelihood, rights and duties, minorities' rights, fundamental human rights, and the status of women is determined on the basis of an Islamic ideology to be interpreted solely by the ulema, not the parliament. Western-oriented democracy is either un-Islamic or a transient phase, which can only be used as a temporary tactic to eventually enforce Islam, leading towards the establishment of an Islamic khilafa. The ideology of the khilafat is attached to the universal concept of ummah.

3. Pakistan's nation-state should be a democracy on the basis of unity among the federating units, where all citizens enjoy equal rights irrespective of colour, creed, race, gender, or religion. The Pakistani nation-state is characterized by democracy, federalism, the rule of law and supremacy of the constitution, and a modern system of governance whereby the people are sovereign and all power of the state is exercised through elected representatives of the people. The concept of a democratic state clashes with that of a theocracy

and does not grant the ulema (clerics) divine right to make a law and enforce it. However, there is no concept of papacy in Islam. Faith and religion is solely a matter between Allah and the individual, which has nothing to do with the state and its affairs. 4. The arts, indigenous or foreign cultures, women's empowerment, freedom of expression fundamental human rights, international law, modernity, rationalism, love and affection, family planning, the rules of the international market, limitations on land ownership, bans on smuggling, any kind of restriction on polygamy, the due process of justice (including the right to defend, legal restrictions by the state on murder and mayhem, an end to patriarchal barbarism and violations of privacy, etc.) are more or less against the tenets of Islam. The sole source of knowledge is religion. All social and physical sciences, research, and inventions are manmade and thus cannot be relied on. The standards of good and bad are absolute and therefore not amenable to change. 5. Except Islam, all other religions are false; their adherents are misguided and can never be friends with Muslims. Even Muslims belonging to different sects consider one another kafir (apostates) and are bent upon killing each other. Muslim groups can resort to any means to fulfill the commandments of Allah and his Prophet (PBUH) and sharia, even if this means breaking national and international laws. Muslim bodies can take the course of vigilantism even if not permitted by law. A true Muslim is duty-bound to stop other people from indulging in vice and to invite them towards goodness, even if the state and international laws do not permit it. 6. The international community and modern world have been plotting against the Muslim world. They have either occupied the latter's resources or want to further expand their occupation. Hindus, Jews, and Christians are the eternal enemies of Muslims and responsible for the latter's backwardness, deprivation, deviation, and infighting. They have always divided the Muslims and befooled them into fighting one another. The events of 9/11 were an intrigue hatched by the Jews and Christians against the Muslims to malign and dominate them. Muslims are not to be blamed for their weaknesses, backwardness, ignorance, obscurantism, sectarianism, divisions, and terrorism as “foreign hands” are responsible for their maladies.

4. Appreciates human aesthetics and pleasure, the arts, and cultural heritage, and upholds the right to create and research, the right to express, the universal declaration of human rights, modernity, rationalism, love, affection and humanism, and the right to live one's life according to one's own faith/belief that is free from any state interference or non-state actors. Benefits from inventions and the development of the world; promotes the social sciences, family planning, the freedom of women, the rule of law, the sanctity of privacy, democratic values, and a tolerant society that respects diversity and equal rights for all. Social and ethical values are relative and keep changing with time; only change is permanent. 5. All humans are equal and worthy of respect, irrespective of religion or faith. Any discrimination on the basis of religion or creed is unjust. There are both good and bad people among the believers of various religions. One believer cannot be the arch-enemy of the believers of another religion. As human beings, all are Allah's creatures. Allah (of Muslims) is the Rab-ul-Alimeen (God of all universes) and the Prophet of Islam (PBUH) is Rehmat-ul-Alimeen (Blessing for all worlds). Any kind of discrimination on the basis of religion, creed, race, or gender and killings motivated by faith or on any other pretext are crimes against humanity, which the state and law cannot allow. If practiced, this will lead to anarchy and not the establishment of a civilized society. 6. No doubt, the subjugation by the West of the East, where most Muslims live, was characterized by barbarism and plunder. However, the fact is that the Muslim world kept itself aloof from the pursuit of knowledge, research, intellectual curiosity, invention, and innovation to the extent that the Age of Reason, which had originated in the East, found its destination in the West. Now, the Muslim world is centuries behind from scientific knowledge. With a few exceptions, 56 countries of the Muslim world are classified as underdeveloped and authoritarian. There is no industrial or technological physical base worth mentioning in most Muslim countries, nor any prevalence of social and material sciences or the arts. Such countries are either monarchies or dictatorships where illiteracy, backwardness, poverty, orthodoxy, and

superstitions dominate. Instead of looking towards the future, the Muslim world insists on regressing. Both the Muslim ulema and the ruling elites of Muslim countries are responsible for this tragic state of affairs. 7. The Muslims of the Subcontinent or other Muslim countries are not supposed to have a relationship with the land or country in which they live, or the cultural and historical values of the places they inhabit. The history of the Subcontinent's Muslims starts with the arrival of Muhammad bin Qasim. The Mughals, Afghans, Arabs, and all those who invaded the Subcontinent came to spread Islam here, which remains the sole mission of all Muslims. Their sacred land is the birthplace of Islam, not the unholy lands of the Subcontinent—Hindustan. Thus, for every Muslim living in the Subcontinent or the Western world, the area where he or she lives is either alien or enemy territory (Darul Harab). In this reductionist view, it is sinful to adopt indigenous national cultures, languages, and ways of life that are alien to Islam. On the contrary, by adopting Arabian culture, one earns the Almighty's blessings. In short, this world is a mirage and temporary; we should leave behind all worldly matters and pleasures and prepare for the Day of Judgment in pursuit of everlasting life after death.

7. Every human being is born at a particular time and space in a particular social and cultural environment. He or she is a member of a family, a tribe, a class, a nation, and a country, each of which have their own distinctive culture, language, lifestyle, customs, traditions, and historical significance. In every society, there are a variety of people holding different views and ideologies and who believe in different religions. The Subcontinent has its own history—our history and culture. The Indus Valley civilization is our heritage, not Turkish, Afghan, or Arab culture, even though many elements of these alien cultures have mixed with our indigenous culture. Like believers of other religions, the Muslims of the Subcontinent too are part of its civilization and culture and alienation from this heritage cannot be regarded an article of faith. On the other hand, such alienation from culture and history divorces Muslims from their birthroots. Hatred for the Subcontinent's culture represents the ideology of invaders who looked down upon indigenous cultures—this is not only disastrous for the Muslims but also for these societies. The Sufis made their place in the hearts of the people by adopting languages and cultures of the Subcontinent.

8. The primary cause behind the downfall of the Muslims is that they have been distanced from puritan Islam. Therefore, Muslims should revert to the original tenets and fundamentals of Islam as practiced during the golden era of the Four Caliphs. Regardless of time and space, a number of Khuwarji ideologies are being popularized that apostatize the vast majority of Muslims as kafirs (non-believers). In an effort to establish the hegemony of these Khuwarji and Takfiri ideologies, horrific interpretations of jehad (struggle) and qattal (slaughter) are being propagated that the genuine ulema find shocking. AlQaeda has adopted such a course of action, which has been readily accepted by the Taliban and various other extremist sectarian groups. Ayman al-Zawahiri has declared Pakistan's constitution to be against Islam. The Taliban have declared Pakistan and Afghanistan's constitutions and laws, fundamental human rights, democracy, parliament, judiciary, modern civilization, culture, and modern institutions (including the media and sciences) to be un-Islamic. They insist on imposing their own brand of shariah (an amalgamation of traditional savagery and a tribal code of honour with Khuwarji concepts of Islam) that allows the killing of fellow Muslims and the qattal and suicide bombing of public places and innocent people. These groups are striving across the globe to spread an international, Islamic, jihadi, and Takfiri school of thought that disregards nation-states. Opposing them may cost a person his or her life. In Pakistan, by exploiting feelings of tribal isolation and nationalism, Takfiri, Wahabi, Khuwarji ideologies are being used to mobilize warriors to fight against the state and society. Instead of taking an ideological stand against these extremists, most ulema have justified their actions. Miscalculating the extremist wave as a potential catalyst for their respective religious projects to gain clout and power, the major religious parties (who are sectarian or follow one or other cult) flirt opportunistically with the extremists to expand their own space, forgetting that their ideologues will be overpowered by armed gangs and their radical leaders, eventually marginalizing the clerics in the process. In doing so, most of these parties have deviated from the constitutional and peaceful path their forefathers chose when they entered into a social contract with secular and liberal parties in framing the 1973 constitution—a unique compromise that balanced the competing and contradictory standpoints of religious and secular forces. Having created an environment of intolerance in the name of religion, freedom of expression, cultural activities, the arts, fundamental human rights, and women and minorities' rights in particular, are under constant threat from extremists and ideological vigilantes. They strive to suppress cultural activities and freedom of expression, dubbing them as freedoms that promote what they define as vulgarity. In worshipping obscurantism, dogmatism, superstition and

8. Muslims probably practice their faith much more vigorously than followers of other religions. However, the virtues of moderation, justice, tolerance, prudence, egalitarianism, humanism, self-sacrifice, and peace professed by Islam are conveniently ignored by the extremists in favour of barbarism, intolerance, ignorance, hate, conflict and self-immolation. Intellectually, the Muslim world has still not come out of the Dark Ages and has not experienced the intellectual fruits of Renaissance . The primary cause of the deplorable condition of the Muslims, their intellectual and material underdevelopment, and the downfall of the Muslim world is that they are still stuck in the past and have failed to adapt to modern developments in the spheres of science, technology, politics, law and human organization and management. Unfortunately, religious thought among the Muslims is ideologically and historically frozen and they have abandoned the tradition of ijtihad. Muslim countries and societies are themselves responsible for their backwardness, poverty, illiteracy, and lack of knowledge, arts, and sciences. Due to its rigidity, bigotry, sectarianism, violent behavior, intolerance, and rejection of modern civilization, the Muslim world still lags and will continue to lag far behind other nations and will itself be responsible for its decadence, anarchy, and disaster. No one needs to conspire against the Muslims as they are doing enough towards their self-destruction. Why should anyone conspire against a people at war with themselves, who are bent on ruining their present and future. Muslims and Muslim countries can only resolve their current plight by overcoming their decadence and backwardness and progressing in the fields of knowledge, science, economy, politics, culture, and the finest human endeavors. The Muslims cannot succeed with a narrow mindset. Muslims, ulema, and their sectarian groups are responsible for the unrelenting terrorism and sectarian violence that has spread everywhere. Although some of the anti-democratic amendments made to the constitution by dictators have been removed, the most reactionary distortions introduced by General Zia ul Haq continue to preserve the constitution's religious tilt against its original balance and moderation. Some opportunistic liberal political parties are also responsible for this rightwing deviation. It is unfortunate that cultural activities and the promotion of indigenous cultures, performing arts, and education have never been at the top of the agenda of our leading parties. Similarly, under pressure from extremist and sectarian religious parties, the liberal parties have compromised on the rights of minorities and women. The intellectual and cultural spheres and education have been handed over to bigoted and religious elements that also dominate most of the media while their narrative finds patronage from the most powerful elements of the state.

quackery, and a culture of intolerance, the extremists reject rationality, objectivity, and scientific thought. 9. In the name of the “Ideology of Pakistan”, mullahism/obscurantism, religious extremism, sectarianism, and jihadi culture have been promoted under the tutelage of the security establishment and state institutions. These extremist religious-nationalist ideologues were given intellectual and ideological ascendancy and allowed to impose the hegemony of a hybrid extremist ideology to shape the country's nature, character, psyche, social outlook, education system, isolationist worldview, and state building. Since the time of the jihad against the Soviet Union, the security agencies have recruited, trained, and financed Islamist militants and created diverse gendarmeries of ideologically motivated warriors, whom they continued to use as an instrument for pursing security and foreign policy agendas. These militant non-state actors and armed militias were openly declared “strategic assets” and the state continued to back them militarily and financially. In this dangerous business, some sections of the state and society were also transformed till the time that most of these so-called strategic assets became autonomous of the state and turned their guns on their erstwhile benefactors.

9. Since its creation, Pakistan has faced principal questions regarding the nature and character of the state, i.e., whether it ought to be a Muslim state, an Islamic state, a theocracy, or a federal, democratic, and secular republic. What is going to be the role of religion and its relationship with the state and education system? Will it be a secular state or theocracy? What will be the scope of people's fundamental, civil, social, and human rights, particularly of women, minorities, and the dispossessed? There has been a continuous ideological struggle on these issues that continues to this day. According to the democratic and enlightened viewpoint, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah did not want Pakistan to become a theocratic state. He wanted to keep religion out of state matters and believed in religious freedom. Supporters of this viewpoint want equal rights for all the citizens of Pakistan, irrespective of their colour, race, faith, or gender. They have consistently pleaded for equal rights, freedoms, democracy, federalism, secularism, enlightenment, tolerance, pluralism, social emancipation, and the empowerment of the people. In particular, they emphasize the rights of women and minorities, religious or ethnic. They want to build a state and society that celebrates freedom, respects fundamental rights, practices tolerance, is responsive to progress, respects human dignity and diversity, embraces the best of human, scientific, and cultural developments, and lets people decide their own destiny in a democratic and peaceful manner.

The Extremist Discourse Khadim Hussain Introduction It is evident from reading a good deal of extremist literature and after listening to their lectures, talks and speeches in Pakistan that constituents of extremist discourse are intricately woven around the central premise of a homogenized world view. The discourse presents a world where every object is identical with every other object. It is a world where all living species have the same brain structure, speaking the same language, thinking the same way, having similar social organization and having similar cultural fabric. Hence, it is important for them to eliminate indigenous socio-cultural fabric everywhere in the world on the one hand while on the other hand the extremist discourse tries to push back history through the judicious use of the concept of Khilafat. Both indigenous wisdom and modern human civilization must be the first victim. The extremist discourse uses Aristotelian deductive logic in which language is manipulated to sound esoteric. Figurative expression is usually employed to deny factuality of existence. Through the use of this logic, the discourse has brought about shift in religious authority, e.g., 'Jihad' has been decreed to be equal to Qital, and it has been propagated as the only way left for struggle, and finally 'Jihad' has been sanctioned as a private enterprise. The concept of Khilafat is nested in the concept of Jihad and the concept of Jihad is nested in the concept of Shahadat. This triangular construct is coupled with 'otherization' to make it more lethal in waging a war against the whole world. It is not surprising that religious militant organizations in Pakistan and elsewhere can employ effective techniques to create 'human bombs' in the shape of suicide bombers. The extremist discourse is constituted to contaminate the discourse of human dignity, pluralism and indigenous narrative linked with modern human civilization by manipulating ethnic, religious, sectarian and nationalist emotions. This discourse represents an aversion to knowing, research and creativity. This has always resulted in a mindset that rejects diversity, that despises innovation, and that results in the rejection of freedom of expression. This distortion has also resulted in chronic socio-political polarization and blood-sucking religious sectarianism.

Education and the Extremist Discourse The extremist mindset in Pakistan has succeeded to establish an education system including curriculum, learning environment and teachers training both in Madrassa and public education system that cut off students from indigenous history which is pluralist and contains the content of human dignity. This education system pits our students against the rest of the world as well as against our own ancestors. Pick up any text book or visit any school or madrassa and you will find hatred against other faiths, cultures, creeds and states. This education system never intends to develop critical thinking, multiple skills, civic responsibilities and indigenous wisdom along with aesthetic sense in our younger generation so that they are able to celebrate diversity and start respecting human dignity and become curious to create and invent. Instead our education system—public and private, religious and secular—develops rigidity, authoritarian mindset, a desire to dominate the rest of the world and a belief in the unidimentionality of reality. This education system, with all its cosmetic reforms, prepares intellectually dependent and substantially sterile individuals. It is somehow strange on our part to expect building a valid argument, skills of dialogue and mediation and creation of something new from the students graduating both from the public schools system as well as from madrassa. Malala challenged all the established ideals despite being a student under the same education system. Psychology of the Extremist Discourse The factor of the mental condition of armed militants and suicide bombers in the overall project of religious militancy has remained the source of much debate among experts in recent times. What constitutes the state of mind that is ideologically so charged as to precisely target an ideological opponent? This differentiation of 'us' and 'them' make the very act of targeted terrorism a rational process of mind. Experts have so far identified three models of understanding the psychology of armed militancy and suicide bombing. The first model, and the much debated one, interprets the constituents of this psychology in terms of frustration-

aggression hypothesis. This hypothesis states that “frustration is developed when a person is prevented from his goals or needs giving rise to feelings of rage and hopelessness. This leads to the belief that there are 'no other options'. Feelings of revenge take over, prompting a person to join a group that shares these sentiments” (Siddqui , 2008). Authors are of the opinion that anger and anxiety in these individuals are found in a relatively higher intensity than the common population (Abbas, 2008). This frustration and anger lead to a state of mind in which “a sense of reality is partially impaired which brings in an element of superstition and magical thinking” (Abbas, 2008). Overstretching the argument, the theory and method of education in Pakistan was critically analyzed to check the superstitional and irrational components of cognition development in the young students of public schools and madrassas much of which had been inserted into the educational system during the nineteen eighties. Surveys across the Pashtun belt and the whole of Pakistan indicate that the students of public schools are generally taught contents of subjects through a method that make the students incapable of thinking in rational, tentative and flexible terms (Rahman, 2002) and make them vulnerable to the ideological brainwashing of the jihadist ideologues.

The problem with this hypothesis is that “no one has looked into the mental state of suicide bombers prior to their death (Siddiqui 2008)”. The second model proposed by experts for understanding the psychology of armed militancy and suicide bombing is group dynamics. These dynamics are usually at work in close groups in which members get most of the ideological training while remaining within the group and restricting their interaction mostly to other members of the group. The result of this type of long term affiliation with a particular group and restriction of all types of interaction outside the group except within the group make members of that group see only through 'us' and 'them'. In the case of militant organizations, the ideology of 'martyrdom' plays a central role in this regard. A French scholar Farhad Khosrokhavar describes how a member of a religious militant organization is tuned into the ideology of martyrdom: The relationship with holy death is transformed in three ways. First it is individualized, posed in concrete terms not in an abstract form in some empyrean to which mere mortals cannot have access…Hence the fear of death and the fear of succumbing to that fear, which has to be overcome through the spiritual

It is interesting to note that during the late seventies and early eighties most of the public schools in the Pashtun belt were administered by the bulk of the Jamaat-i-Islami ideologues who turned the schools' environment as well as classrooms into a tool to inculcate the tunnel vision of Jihad (Khan,2008). The walls of the dark classrooms contained, and mostly still contain, writings that would exhort the students in the formative years of their life to wage Jihad against the infidels. Tanzeem-i-Asatiza Pakistan, a Jamaat-i-Islami affiliated association of teachers, and Jaish-i-Muhammad had substantial influence in the public schools across the Pashtun belt. Irrational thinking, nonscientific attitude and superstitions were inculcated unabated over the last three decades in elementary and secondary schools across the Pashtun belt. Any expression of art, culture, music and dance were strictly banned in these schools. This ultimately created the type of mental framework that we see in people affiliated to different Jihadist and militant organizations. 13

transcendence of life, by taking one's fate into one's own hands in an irreversible actâ&#x20AC;ŚEven in death, the martyrs feel that they are involved in confrontation, defying the other and demonstrating their own superiorityâ&#x20AC;ŚOne of their (AlQaeda and facilitates in the Pashtun belt) essential tasks is to help members overcome their fear of dying by having recourse to prayer, reading the Quran, delegating a cleric to watch over the candidate, and allowing them to mix with other believers who are also waiting death (Khosrokhavar, 2005). Psychologists have also made efforts to understand the phenomenon of terrorism through suicide bombing and armed religious militancy in the Pashtun belt using the behaviorist model. This is a model for understanding normal and abnormal behaviors of the human mind through understanding the experiences and social association of a person. The underlying assumption is that human beings learn to adopt a particular behavior through trial and error and through identification with a particular social group. Contagion and Control of Extremist Discourse The Salafi jihadist ideology typically symbolizes the extremist discourse in Pakistan. This ideology might have easily made inroads into the state and society of Pakistan in the form of several religious militant groups considering the erosion of Pakistani social structure due mainly to the developments in the region in the

nineteen eighties to fight communism. The natural evolution of the society in the region was blocked due to the intervention of the external forces. Thus the planted groups, most of them Salafi jhadists, made serious efforts to present an alternative discourse, primarily with the help of the secret services of Pakistan, the US, Iran and India, to the one indigenous to socio-cultural groups present in the region. In the absence of socialization through the indigenous socio-cultural groups, the youth might have easily been lured to the religious militant organizations, and so more and more young men and women started identifying themselves with the Salafi (Wahabi) jihadist ideology. Social contagion of the extremist discourse is carried out with the same ingenuity as the construction of the discourse. Almost all forms of modern techniques and technology are used to carry forward the message through the construction of iteration. Loud speakers in local mosques, FM radio, pamphleteering, posters, social media networking, print and electronic media and word of mouth are all exhaustively used to carry out social contagion of the extremist discourse. Not only this, militant organizations seem to be quite adept in understanding and identification of their primary audience. They are able to identify vulnerable section of the societyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the marginalized, the youth and the children in their respective areas of operation. The militant organizations are also able to

manipulate the dominant socio-cultural discourse of a particular area through the initiation of welfare projects and the establishment of a centre in the garb of a mosque. The Centre is also used to play a role in conflict resolution of the locality and provide 'speedy justice' to the people who are eager to have access to formal and informal justice system. The militant organizations then carefully adopt ways and means to generate local resources and expand the local resource base through the collection of charity and donations. After they have a wellorchestrated discourse, hands on skills to use modern technology for permeation of the discourse and have developed a local resource base, it is then high time that they start recruitment and regimentation of the recruits. The next phase of the extremist discourse is social control through the discourse. For this purpose, the militant organizations use a number of techniques. The first measure they usually take is capturing the socio-cultural space through banning music, destroying social institutions and banning all types of communication both internally and externally. These measures take the relevant communities towards internal and external isolation. In the quest for social control, the religious militant organizations, by then a potent organized and regimented force, start eliminating the socially and politically influential to create a social vacuum. This measure by the militant organizations is justified through the construction of the 'other'. As if it is not sufficient, the militant organizations then start co-opting criminal gangs of the area. This provides militant organizations with trained hands at weapons on the one hand and gives them an understanding of the strength and weaknesses of law enforcement agencies in a particular community on the other hand. To consummate their social control, the militant organizations then start perpetuating fear through mass killings and beheadings. The militant organizations then take a leap forward in bringing about social control by paralyzing the state security system and through the establishment of a parallel justice system. This brings them to establish their writ and give them complete social control. Waziristan (both North and South) in FATA and Swat Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are typical examples of this social control.

Bibliography Abbas,Sohail. (2007). Probing the Jihadi Mindset. Islamabad: National Book Foundation.. P.190-191 Abbas, Sohail. Probing the Jihadi Mindset. (2007). Islamabad: National Book Foundation.. p.191 Khosrokhavar, Farhad . (2005). Suicide bombers: Allah's new martyrs. London: Pluto Press. p. 63-64 Khan,Khursheed. Lecturer in history, Government Degree College Mingora. Personal communication, June 30 2008. Rahman, Tariq. Language, Ideology and Power. Karachi: Oxford University Press. . 2002. Also see Ahmad Saleem and A.H.Nayyar. (2006) The Subtle Subversion. Islamabad: SDPI.; KK Aziz. The Murder of history. (2004). Vanguard. Siddiqui, Naeem Dr, and Dr. Abdul Wahab Yousafzai. (April 3 2008).Who to blame: faith or mental illness. Dawn. Siddiqui, Naeem Dr, and Dr. Abdul Wahab Yousafzai. Who to blame: faith or mental illness. Dawn. April 3 2008. Khadim Hussain writes regularly for Dawn and is working as Managing Director Baacha Khan Trust Educational Foundation (BKTEF) Peshawar.

Extremist Narrative M. Ziauddin THEORIES There are many theories about how and why the extremist narrative began to be heard in our country and how from being remotely audible initially, it has become a strident narrative out-shouting –almost—all other rational narratives. Some of the theories trace this narrative to the very genesis of Pakistan. Some date it to General Zia's Islamisation efforts. Others have blamed it on the reinvention of the concept of Jihad by the US as it successfully tried to bleed into oblivion the now defunct Soviet Union and its communist philosophy. There are those as well who 'credit' the late Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaida for introducing the narrative to the Muslims the world over as they attempted to liberate the Ummah from the shackles of what they considered to be the global hegemony of the faithless. There are many among the Muslim communities the world over who believe the narrative has inspired the down trodden, hungry and illiterate masses in the Muslim world who have been subjected to decades' long oppression by their

corrupt and decadent ruling elite lacking in even a modicum of moral authority to rule. Some even attribute its origin and its degeneration into a bloody mayhem to the age-old sectarian rivalry within the Muslim Ummah and an obscurantist interpretation of Holy Quran and Hadith. Suicide is un-Islamic, but this obscure extremist narrative has made it Islamic on the non-Quranic and non-Hadith and non-Sunnah basis that the suicide bombers since they die in the cause of Islam go straight to Janaat. They justify killing of men and women, young and old through suicide bombings and with the use of Improvised Explosive Devices on the un-Islamic, self-serving fatwa that good Muslims among the victims would go straight to Janaat and the not- good- Muslims straight to Hell. MY THEORY I have my own theory about the genesis of the narrative and how and why it has become as violently potent as it is today. I trace its origins to Pakistan becoming a security state very early in the day.

The spill over of the partition animosity between the two newly independent countries of the subcontinent into the Kashmir crisis was understandable. That a war-like situation took hold of the two countries in the immediate run of the partition bloodbath was also understandable. But what was not understandable was our ruling elite's partiality for military security even after the Kashmir crisis had slumped into a stalemate by mid-1950s following the passage of relevant UN resolutions and the visible drop in the partition driven mutual hatred between the people of the two neighbours. Rather than initiating nation building efforts our ruling elite preferred to arm the state no matter how and at what cost arousing a national fear on the bogey of an imminent invasion from the bigger neighbour.

The perceived 'success' of these non-state actors in 'liberating' our part of Kashmir in this round in the name of jihad seemed to have encouraged the GHQ to view both the idea of using non-state actors and the concept of jihad as valuable strategic tools to promote its defence and foreign policy objectives. No lessons were learnt from the failure of this concept in the 1965 war which had begun with the infiltration of out-of-uniform armed soldiers as well as non-state actors into the Indian held Kashmir. In the Bangladesh war we failed miserably once again as we tried to repeat the earlier mistake in the shape of Al-Shams and Al-Badar.

They criminally neglected the more important and genuine security imperatives, like social and physical infrastructure development, improving the economic well-being of our citizens and inculcating among them a sense of belonging.

Even earlier, our ruling elite had tried to use the army to resolve political problems in Balochistan and KPK. It is still being used in Balochistan.

By 1955 we were fully entrenched in the lap of the US and had entered into all kinds of cold-war related military pacts of the day.

By the end of the decade of 1950s, men in uniform had become our heroes and role models.

We offered our army and bases on rent to the US in its cold war against the Soviet Union in return for arms and alms which our ruling elite believed would enable us to defend ourselves against the perceived threat from India. The GHQ had successfully convinced the nation that New Delhi was all set to launch an attack on Pakistan any time to gobble it back into its fold.

Officially certified but totally distorted versions of the history of Pakistan, of the subcontinent and of the Muslim Ummah were introduced in the school and college syllabus.

But as history is witness, every time an armed skirmish occurred between the two, it was Pakistan that had fired the first shot.

It was this very concept which had been sold to the tribal hordes that had invaded and plundered Kashmir in the very first round.

By the time General Zia took over the country on the back of a movement for the establishment of Nizam-i-Mustafa and introduced the process of Islamisation with his 8th Constitutional amendment promising reordering of the law book in accordance with the injunctions of Shariat, Pakistan was well on the road to becoming, socio-culturally a jihadi nation.

Here is a telling quote from General Ayub Khan. He told William McConaughy, the then US ambassador to Pakistan that: “Pakistan would be willing if necessary to be a US satellite if it protects Pakistan from India but would never agree to be an Indian satellite.”

The first Afghan war completed the exercise. Non-state actors and even out-ofuniform regular troops had joined this American Jihad on the side of the dollar devouring Afghan Mujahideen.

Ayub and his successors were not trying to protect Pakistan from becoming an Indian satellite but were in fact planning to use, whenever they could, the arms obtained from the US to go to war with India for Kashmir.

US funded Madrassas mushroomed all over the country which produced Pakistan Army trained jihadis out of Muslim youth enticed from all over the Muslim world including Pakistan.

The officially certified truth coming out from the GHQ had turned the Indo-Pak armed conflict over Kashmir into an Islamic war, a Jihad against the infidels.

Zia thought the war between the two super powers would never end and Pakistan would be able to continue to skim off the dollars and weapons meant for Afghan

jihad and divert them to his Army and to the non-state actors to prepare the two for the Kashmir Jihad backed by nuclear weapons which at that point were in the final stages of production. The collapse of the Soviet Union in a war waged by the American CIA, was considered, in a state of self-deception a victory of our own military planners and their strategies, the centre point of which was infiltration of well trained and well equipped non-state actors coming out of CIA aided jihadi madrassas into the neighbouring country under the occupation of a super power. Our strategists analysing the pros and cons of launching a so-called liberation struggle inside the occupied Kashmir asked themselves: If we can bleed a super power out of the world map why cannot we do the same to India in Kashmir using the same method—infiltration by armed -to -teeth madrassa trained jihadis? Their own answer: a ten-year (1991-2001) long low-intensity war with India in Kashmir forcing a peaceful indigenous intifada into a bloody show-down between the locals and the Indian troops. At the same time we were also engaged in another low-intensity war on the side of the Afghan Taliban against the Northern Alliance inside the war torn country. When in 1992 the US conveyed its concerns to Pakistan about Islamabad's support for terrorism warning it of the possibility that it might be declared a terrorist state if it did not step back sooner than later, this is what the then ISI chief Lt Gen Javed Nasir is reported to have told a high level meeting chaired by the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif: “He began by blaming the 'Indo-Zionist lobby' in Washington for America's changed attitude toward Pakistan---Nasir continued with his argument that Jihad in Kashmir was at a critical stage and could not be disturbed. “We have been covering our tracks so far and will cover them even better in the future,” Nasir said, “These are empty threats”. The United States could not declare Pakistan a terrorist state because of “our strategic importance”. The Saudis and Pakistan were America's only allies in the greater Middle East, he averred, so the United States needed Pakistan to deal with the changing situation in Muslim Central Asia after the Soviet Union collapse. “All we need to do is to buy more time and improve our diplomatic efforts”, Nasir emphasised. “The focus should be on Indian atrocities in Kashmir, not on our support for the Kashmir resistance.” Sharif agreed with Nasir's assessment, which reflected the consensus of the meeting. (Magnificent Delusions by Hussain Haqqani-Pps 273-274).

Here is another quote from the same book: The head of the ISI, Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, and (General Mirza Aslam) Beg's (the then Pakistan's Chief of the Army Staff) vision of Pakistan as a major power and his paranoia about American influence. He had grand designs for projecting Pakistan's power into Afghanistan and onward into Central Asia as well as for breaking up India after liberating Kashmir. According to Gul, the ISI could wage covert wars throughout the region and change Pakistan's fortunes. He shared these views openly with Pakistanis and created a massive network of local politicians and journalists to build national consensus around these beliefs.(Page 276)….The decision to sponsor Islamist groups for jihad in Afghanistan and Kashmir made it impossible to prevent the Jihadis from using Pakistan as a base of operation for coordinating Jihad against other countries. Americans learned of at least four thousand militants---including Pakistanis, Indians, Arabs from several countries, and a small number of Americans---being trained by just one Jihadi group in making bombs, throwing hand grenades, and shooting assault weapons. A different militant organization group proudly boasted that its members killed in Tajikistan, the Philippines, Bosnia, and Kashmir. “We'll fight in any part of the world where Muslims are being victimized whether by Hindus, Christians, Jews or communists, “declared the spokesman of yet another group.” (Page 290). When you get involved simultaneously in two low intensity jihads for ten long year and that too waged with the help of mostly non-state actors, the possibility of these actors assuming a life of their own cannot be ruled out and that is exactly what had happened. By time the state realized that the gin had fled the bottle it was too late. In fact by this time these Jihadis were in effect trying to take over the control of the state itself. Here is a relevant quote from former foreign minister Abdul Sattar's book, Pakistan's Foreign Policy---1947-2012, A Concise History: “ The rise of religious militancy in Pakistan from 1980s was owed to a variety of internal and external factors—promotion of fundamentalism by General Ziaul Haq, the revolution in Iran, the liberation struggle in Afghanistan, propaganda by al Qaeda and the Taliban, and the proliferation of armed lashkars, sipahs, and jaishes, each with a militant agenda of their own. Some unleashed propaganda and armed attacks against followers of other sects, while some sent volunteers to Indian-occupied Kashmir to support the freedom struggle.

“The TTP emerged as the umbrella organization intent on discrediting moderation, preaching divisive extremism, proclaiming jihad, denouncing the government, and launching terrorist violence against the state and the people. They robbed businessmen and banks, recruited extremists, trained them in the use of arms and explosives, and brainwashed youth to perpetrate suicide bombings. They targeted military convoys and cantonments, police stations and check-posts, civilian officials, and crowded bazaars and mosques in cities and towns across the country. They opposed the education of girls, burnt hundreds of schools, bombed a foreign embassy and a five-star hotel in the federal capital, assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, assaulted the Sri Lankan cricket team and drove Pakistan into isolation in the world. “In October 2012, Fazlullah's (the new Taliban chief) followers infiltrated Swat to attack a school bus carrying students. They targeted Malala Yousafzai who had courageously denounced the Taliban for destroying her school and campaigned for education for girls, earning fame and admiration at home and abroad.

different nations, as such they cannot live together and therefore the Muslim majority provinces of united India should be formed into a separate independent country. So, Pakistan came into being in 1947. The emergence of Pakistan into a security state by the middle of 1955 can be traced to the perceived fear of our ruling elite that the infidel Hindu India was all set to force Muslim Pakistan back into the fold of Bharat Mata. The self-imposed armed conflict between a Muslim Pakistan and a Hindu India did not take long to slip into a war of faith and which in turn naturally became a Jihad very soon. So, the narrative, no matter how and why of is origin, did have its roots in the very faith that the overwhelming majority of Pakistanis subscribe to. So, its appeal has remained just short of universal. Any one opposing the narrative faced the fear of being called a heretic. Therefore most mainstream political parties tried to side-

“As terrorism surged across the country, Pakistan army had to deploy a quarter million troops and tens of thousands of police to fight the scourge. By end of 2012, seven thousand soldiers and policemen and thirty seven civilians were killed, including Punjab governor Salman Taseer, two federal ministers, and many senior army and civilian officials. Losses due to destruction of public and private assets were estimated between $70 billion to $90 billion.” This account does not include the attacks on the GHQ, the Kamra Air force installation and the Karachi Naval base as well as targeted attacks on police and ISI offices. NEED FOR AN EFFECTIVE COUNTER NARRATIVE The demand for Pakistan was based on the Quaid's two-nation theory-- that Muslim minority and the Hindu majority were two

step the challenge from this narrative to their own political objectives. Some, mostly regio-political parties which had been trying to establish Sharia in the country through a democratic struggle could not help but join in the chorus. And it would not be too off the mark to conclude, therefore, that as of today the narrative has already won the sympathy of sections of mainstream political parties and the state organs like the defence forces, the police, the intelligence agencies and the civil service. And in the absence of any effective counter narrative the extremist narrative has massively infected the mind-set of overwhelming majority of Pakistanis and has now started determining our national character. This eventually is most likely to lead the country into total isolation ending, it is being feared, in the disintegration of the country preceded by internecine slaughter egged on by sectarian and inter-

fiqha wars. In order to roll back the gains so far made by the extremist narrative and save Pakistan from imminent disintegration we need to develop an equally forceful and religiously safe counter narrative. Simultaneously, the state should reinvent itself in such a manner so as to be able to effectively cut off the supplies of money and weapons now reaching the hands of extremists without let or hindrance. The law of evidence should also be reformed so as to enable the judiciary to mete out exemplary punishment to the perpetrators of the killing sprees. M Ziauddin is Executive Editor of English-language daily Express Tribune and Secretary General of media watchdog South Asia Media Commission

Extremism and its containment through media Dr. Hasan Askari Rizvi

eligious and cultural prejudices, violence and terrorism have become endemic in and around Pakistan, threatening the political system and society. These ills manifest in different ways in different regions but their excessively violent nature reduces space for normal human interaction. Extremism and Terrorism have caused social and cultural distortions in the society and dehumanized a large section of populace who are often somewhat indifferent to terrorism unless a major violent incident directly hits them or their group or their political or religious agenda. Some of them offer explanations for terrorist activity rather than condemning the group engaged in such activities. Extremism and Terrorism: Religious and cultural prejudices breed intolerance that implies non-acceptance of diversity of ideas, identities and behaviour patterns. It also represents a deficit of ethnic, political and religious-cultural pluralism and a narrow and rigid view of one's identity, views and how to interact with other in the society and at the international level. The dogmatic and prejudiced orientations create strong sentiments that anybody who is not “one of us” and does not share “our” religious, cultural and political dispositions is not acceptable. If a person or a group moves one step beyond extremism by using violence in a consistent manner to coerce others to accept its point-of-view or eliminate dissent with force such a strategy will be termed as terrorism. Terrorism can be described as resort to violence or its threat in a continual manner with the objective of causing a behavioral-change of the target (mainly but not necessarily civilian) for achieving politico-social agenda. Violence and coercion are used or a threat thereof is given to impose one's political and societal preferences or to force others not to adopt a particular course of action. The Media: As extremism and terrorism are rooted in the attitudinal disposition of people and their mindset the role of the society in general and the media in particular becomes crucial to encouraging and discouraging these trends. The educational and socialization processes inculcate values of tolerance, accommodation and respect for others' views and identities. Similarly the same processes can create negative attitude and disposition towards others who do not

fully share your identity, culture, views and political agenda. With the expansion of the media both in qualitative and quantitative terms, it can play both roles: encourage extremism, violence and terrorism in the society or discourage these tendencies and promote tolerance, socio-political accommodation, mutual respect and conflict management through dialogue and adaptation and adjustments among the competing people, groups and interests. The process of nation-building and creation of a stable, peaceful and secure environment in a political system requires the use of its human and material resources for curbing religious and political intolerance, violence and terrorism. The print, electronic and social media should recognize the imperative of building peaceful and orderly environment by promoting respect for each other's civil and political rights, equal citizenship and accommodating the diversity of people and their religio-political ideas within a shared legal and constitutional framework. The reporting on extremist activity, violence and terrorism is critical to checking these negative trends. One objective of an extremist and terrorist is the demonstration impact of such activities. The objective is not merely to hit a specific target but also to build psychological pressure on others so that they start complying with the agenda of an extremist or terrorist and that the people lose the determination to resist them or refuse to support the government efforts to control extremist and terrorist activities. Therefore, a strong editorial control is needed by the media itself for what is to be presented by the media. The reporting of a violent incident is important so that the people are fully aware of what is happening. However, this should not be done in a manner that it causes fear or depression among people. The live-coverage of a violent incident for 5-6 hours continuously is not a desirable practice. Reporting on the incident can be done from time to time after the first reporting for some desirable time, as determined the editors. Similarly, one scene should not be repeatedly shown on TV after every ten-to-fifteen minutes in the aftermath of the incident. With the exception of major violent incidents, the report should not be

published as a main headline on the first page of a newspaper. No doubt the media will report the statements of extremists and especially those using violence to advance their agenda. However, extremists and terrorists should not be projected as super-stars in the media. Similarly, the interviews of the leaders of these movements or their spokesman or their strong sympathizer should be avoided. This amounts to giving them a direct access to the society as a whole whereas they should be restrained from communicating directly with the society. A short version of their statement may be allowed as a news item only. The political talk-show should avoid inviting the persons who are known for pleading extremist views and socio-cultural intolerance or Islamic sectarianism. Pakistan's private-sector TV periodically features apologists of extremist and militant groups whose conversation confuses ordinary people. At times, an anchor person endeavours to give philosophical comments at the beginning and the end of the programme that suggest as if extremism and militancy are not so bad as is often described. There is a lot of distortion of history or its selective use in TV political talk shows by some anchor persons and participants in order question the legitimacy of democracy, constitutional order and the electoral process and to explain, if not

support, religious orthodoxy and militancy or how religious purity will solve global and domestic political, economic and social problems. The people may understand simplistic answers to complex political and societal problems but it creates a false hope among people that a purely religious state will solve all problems. All developments in domestic and global politics cannot be explained with reference to religion. The political talk-shows should neither be providing entertainment by making the leaders of different political orientation fight with one another nor should these give one sided perspective on national and global affairs. There is a need of presenting different perspectives on the issue under consideration so that the viewers are conscious of multi-dimensional nature of social, political and economic issues and global problems and thus make informed judgments on these issues. The narratives and discussion on the private sector TV need to be more thorough and explain different dimensions of extremism, intolerance and terrorism. A similar approach is needed for dealing with the issues like who are engaged in sectarian killings and other violent activities, especially suicide and other bombings? What are the external sources of extremism and terrorism in Pakistan?

Is it enough to lament that India, USA and Israel sponsor terrorism in Pakistan? Can Pakistanis really hold the rest of the world responsible for extremism, terrorism and troubled economy in Pakistan? Will these arguments address the problem faced by Pakistani state and society? Other issues that need an improved treatment in the media include identification of the groups engaged in violent activities and should the media play-up the distinction between friendly/good and bad Taliban? The media is dominated by one sided, pro-Taliban and anti-U.S. treatment of the drone attack issue. No Pakistani media person has ever visited the drone attack site in the tribal agencies immediately after the attack. Most information about the drone attack is supplied by the militant groups directly to the media or it comes from local administration after they get it from the militant groups. There is a need for comprehensive, analytical reporting, covering all aspects of the drone attacks issues; why these attacks are conducted and what is the response of the U.S. administration when Pakistani leaders â&#x20AC;&#x153;firmlyâ&#x20AC;? tell them to stop these attacks. The media has a responsibility to educate the people regarding political and cultural pluralism, religious tolerance, democratic norms of accommodation and peaceful ways of managing social conflict. It needs to propagate the notion of citizenship of Pakistan as a nation-state based on constitutionalism, democracy,

civil and political rights irrespective of religion, caste, creed, region and gender. There is no room for religious or cultural extremism, Islamic sectarianism, and use of violence for advancing one's religious, political or ethnic agenda. The media should also advocate time and again that the primacy of Pakistani state must be accepted by all individuals and groups. They can propagate their point-ofview and organize them as a political collectivity in support of their worldview within the framework of Pakistan's constitution and law. All violations of these principles under any pretext should be discouraged and condemned. The media strengthens itself by working towards building a modern, democratic, constitutional political order based on strict adherence to established civil and political rights and the notion of equal citizenship. Only a democratic and constitutional state with internal security and political harmony supports freedom of the media. If intolerance and extremism become widespread and the use of violence becomes a routine, the media is its first victim. Therefore, the imperative of the media profession call for contesting intolerance, extremism and terrorism. Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi is a defence and political commentator

Time to change the track Dr Muhammad Waseem

he master discourse in 1940's, 50's and 60's has been declining and the other one — the Islamic discourse — has been going up from de-conflation between religion and politics to conflation between religion and politics. Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah is remembered for de-conflation: business of the state on the one side and religion on the other and the two must not meet and must not influence each other. Jogendra Nath Mandal was a member and temporary chairman of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. He also agreed to serve as the new state's first minister for law and labour -- becoming the highest-ranking Hindu member of the government. He was nominated, of course, by Jinnah. That was the spirit in the beginning. The third discourse is the Left. This has been marginalised during the last six decades. There was a very assertive Leftist, Marxist, Socialist, scientific-Socialist, Communist thought and, of course, activity on the ground, that's gone now. The Communist Party of Pakistan was banned. The fourth is ethno-nationalist idiom, which has shown resilience. Although a great cynicism, but it has been compromising all the time. These are the four components of the national discourse; some have been going up and some have been going down.

or more. That meant that particular framework of the state was there without being enriched all the time by the current which used to come from the West. Suddenly, we stopped thinking about things along those lines and we had to think about something else. We have been waiting up, digging up and digging up whatever we come by in the medieval literature. Derailment of democracy by and at the hands of the army again meant the deification of the state; State is great, state is god, state is above the constitution. All the four military coup d'états were launched in the name of the state. And so, the doctrine of state necessity was born, used and manipulated. State, therefore, is where it is. In Pakistan the elites live, operate and think above the constitution. It's a piece of paper which could be torn away, in the words of Zia-ul-Haq. In India, it's just the other way around. Whatever can happen and the maximum, the first

which happened was in the time of Indira Gandhi: she imposed emergency. She had to bow down and hold elections because the constitution did not allow her to go beyond that. Therefore, their [Indian] constitution is above the elite and in Pakistan, the elite is above the constitution. We are a schizophrenic nation. The modernist, urban middle class is getting extremely conservative inside. The Islamic input Essential Islamic reassertion has been taking place and from Sir Syed onwards till today. We are in a way all the children of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. He was prowestern, he started schools, colleges, universities; he put us into the modern world and for that he was rendered un-Islamic, infidel, who was outside the pall of Islam. And of course, first intellectual power, second street power from that time. From Khilafat Movement onwards till today we have now got Ahle-Sunnat Wal Jamaat, Difa-e-Pakistan, Majlis-e Wahdat-e Muslimeen, Sunni Ittehad. Islam is on the street. Islamic narrative in Pakistan What is it? First of all, the agenda of cultural partitioning from India. In 1947, Pakistan got out of India but India did not get out of Pakistan. Two-thousand years of Indian civilisation — which was inside us , which is inside us — we have been trying ever afterwards to prune away, to get it out of us language-wise, idiom-wise, religion-wise, sect-wise, religious practices-wise. We have been obsessed to take

out 2,000 years out of us and that's why we rewrite history, rewrite politics, rewrite almost everything. Past we tried to recreate. We tried to re-imagine the latest and a very potent philosophy of nationalism, which talks about, for example, the imagined communities. We imagine ourselves to be part of a nation and we are now reimagining. We are trying to get something out of history and try to fit in this territorial framework in Pakistan today. Transnational influences: there is this Arabist shift. Suroosh Irfani has, for example, talked about Arabist shift which means for 700 years we had the Turko-Iranian-Indian Islam – Hanafi Islamic schools of thought and there was a kind of tolerant framework of Islamic philosophy and practice. Now there is a direct link with the Arabian Peninsula and we are importing the ideas, particularly from those sects and schools of thought which were not a part of our history and heritage. Hence the Arabist shift and jihadism from across the border. There is that tribal insurgency model which today is part of our thinking, our practice and is knocking at the doors. All the plural definitions are gone. Everybody – Imran Khan or anybody else – is trying to take the nation to the Promised Land and this is exactly the thinking of western Muslim minority community. The largest funding our hero gets from anywhere is from abroad and the thinking outside. Pakistani compatriots are directly in contradiction with the whites, with the westerners. We are not. Therefore, on the practice of race and

The developmentalism, (an economic theory which states that the best way for Third World countries to develop is through fostering a strong and varied internal market and to impose high tariffs on imported goods). For 200 years there was inflow of intellectual currents from the West. Legal, political, intellectual, literary, artistic, all kinds of ideas were coming and then there was a stop. Now there was the Pakistani nationalism; we decided to go back to the 18th century and, of course, further down 1,000 years

religion and class, they are extremely agitated and that is the agitation which is now being transferred to Pakistan. Therefore, their mindset is very negative as far as tolerance of the West and tolerance of other religions are concerned. We are living in a siege mentality. There is the insecurity syndrome, we were born with it. India is going to destroy us and now the United States is going to cut Pakistan down into one thousand pieces. Sacrifice syndrome, we were born with it. Half a million people were killed by Hindus and Sikhs. We damn bother that the Muslims had butchered and raped half a million Hindus, Sikhs and their women. We have to stop thinking about this stupid sacrifice syndrome because in 1947, Muslim butchers were butchering Hindus and they were butchering Muslims and both of them were abusing each other about the butchery of each other. All these regional conflicts have inculcated the idea of a dichotomy between Islam and the West. Therefore, a conspiratorial perspective has taken control of us. We are now thinking only in terms of a conspiracy for the last 200 years. Why was

Lord Clive successful in defeating Siraj-ud-Daula? We actually are blind, we only have the answer that there was Mir Qasim. Why was Tipu Sultan defeated? Mir Sadiq. There is an extremely unsophisticated, unintelligent view of historical changes, maritime empires – they were expanding throughout the world and new routes were developing. The Renaissance had taken place, reformation had taken place in the West, Industrial Revolution, Scientific Revolution, people were now far more powerful than they were and that is why they dominated the whole world. A very tiny continent – western Europe or Europe – dominated the whole world. How could it be possible? Not because of Mir Qasim or Mir Sadiq but because there was something happening on the ground economically, culturally, religiously, politically. The progressive idiom – the Left – has lost the space. The migrant Leftist intelligentsia; remember Communist Party of India in the beginning and Communist Party of Pakistan was dominated by the people from northern India, particularly what we call 'Muhajir' today. Ban on the Communist Party and then what happened? Re-emergence of some kind through 'Islamic Socialism' under

Bhutto and, of course, then de-mainstreaming of the Leftist scholars. Finally, now we don't talk about class, now we don't talk about imperialism, now 'revolution' is a gone word. The national question: Stalin had written that particular pamphlet, 'The National Question'. Here, ethnic elites against the establishment jointly with the Left. The 1940 Resolution had two aspects to it. One, we celebrate every year. The second one, which was considered the Magna Carta by the Baloch, by the Bengalis, by the Sindhis and of course, the Pakhtun nationalists and that is the federal/confederal formula where there will be devolution. For the last sixty years, elites from these communities have been struggling to get the autonomy promised in 1940. And that is how we see the 18th Amendment where majority communities of the four provinces have got something. What about the minority communities? Minorities within the minorities, the minority provinces of Pakistan, three of them, within those communities. There is Muhajir for example; Muhajir is not represented in the state at any level. The Pakhtun in Balochistan, Hazara in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and of course, Seraiki in Punjab. So the issue of new provinces remains problematic. Taliban. I have been talking to people, for example brigadiers and colonels and others; they told me first line of defence against India, that's Taliban. Others think that they are terrorists. Muslim brothers, after all they are Muslims against the Christian Americans. But they are criminals. They are mass murderers, abductors, bank robbers. Malala … 'she is darling of the West', 'conspiracy' but Taliban are anti-women per se, the greatest force identifiable in the world which is against the women, girls' schools, Swat ordeal, Malala. Key to peace via negotiations, our hero says talk to the terrorists and you get peace. But what about the medieval brutality, hanging the dead, Musa Khan for example, the journalist…for days he was hanging out there. And, of course, beheading is now being legitimised as Islamic. Beheading is not considered medieval, primitive, and extremely brutal. Taliban's terrorism is the real issue: 40,000 killings. Drones killed civilians – 500 out of 2,500 – drones killed mainly terrorists, 2,000 out of 2,500. Drones violate national sovereignty, foreigners violate national sovereignty. America's war against terror, Pakistan's war. In Pakistan there is the dichotomous worldview, if anybody believes that there is a kind of a contradiction between Islam and the West, it means this propaganda has been successful to some extent. Otherwise, Jinnah was the ultimate Anglophile, and he said we are now starting from the days when British parliamentarism is the widely accepted norm in the political system.

Belligerent identities Identities create hatred. Clash of Civilisations, in the country of Huntington it is not accepted so widely, the thesis of 'Clash of Civilisations', in our country it is widely accepted. Indo-Pak relations. We are obsessed, we have got a foreign policy which is Indo-centric and in Pakistan the progressives think no zero-sum game; it's not what India gains, we lose…what we gain, India loses. Let's go beyond that. First, conflict resolution, only then peace. So every person – khaki or otherwise – who comes on TV channels talks about this. First, we have conflicts, resolve Kashmir, otherwise we will not move towards India. This stupid argument is to be replaced by these progressives in the other ways. Sino approach. They'd say look at China. India-China have got 1,000 km long border, and they've decided okay you don't lose your position, I don't leave my position, and both of us move ahead. And now 15 billion, 20 billion trade and we have got none because we are stuck in the conflict resolution model and that's it. Binary opposition and South Asian opposition, we have got war vector. Peace, well that's the other option. But the other narrative would be peace first, war whenever it's needed. So we have now traversed an unenviable journey: from harmony to conflict-ridden faith, from pro-westernism, we should remember very well from 1950s, Jinnah was writing to Washington, please consider us as your ally, and there was never an idea that there was a difference or opposition between us, and, of course, from ballot to bullet. What a journey! From global partnership to closing the doors on the world system! 1648, Westphalia Agreement took place. We are now going beyond 1648 Westphalia System, the way we want to reshape the world system. And from synchronism to bigotry. Bigotry is not such a dominant trend among the uneducated. The more educated you are in Pakistan, the more bigoted you are. 80% of the middle class – urban, professional, commercial middle class – is bigoted or getting bigoted more and more. Those who go to modern schools, colleges and universities and, of course, madrasas. Finally, time to change the track towards a planning mind, futuristic, towards peace-orientation, towards a fully democratic ruling setup, towards cultivation of a modern, rational and scientific thinking, and what kind of security are we looking for? Pakistan without the terrorist mindset which has taken control of 20/30/40% mindset of each and every person in this country, particularly those who are educated enough and are able enough to think about things. Unfortunately, the thinking has been put in a pipe and that pipe leads us to an unenviable end.

n the first week of December, as I was attending an evening editorial meeting, we heard loud blasts coming outside our office building in Karachi. This was followed by a firefight amidst chaos within the building as employees ran helter-skelter. We were later told that attackers had positioned themselves on an overhead bridge that runs on one side of our office and thrown crackers and fired shots from there. Our guards had then returned fire. Mercifully there were no serious injuries or casualties in this attack. In August, attackers came on motorcycles and opened fire on our main gate at the same office in broad daylight. Two people were injured in that attack, one of them a guard who is today paralyzed from the waist down. We are not sure what prompted these attacks. Despite a number of theories being floated, we probably will never know. But there are a number of lessons to be learnt, the most important being that the freedom of expression of the Pakistani media is being challenged once again. As journalists, what we can see is that tolerance for an outspoken media is receding. More important for me as an editor is to see how we react to these challenges. This is not the first time our paper has come in the limelight. For doing stories on a number of sensitive issues, we have been under fire from many quarters. Attacks like the one we saw at our offices makes become even more careful of what we write and publish given that we do not want to put the lives of our staff in danger. And danger is something the face every day: we have received threats to our staff in Peshawar, visits from organizations who are critical of our coverage in Lahore and anonymous letters to a staffer in Lahore.

Kamal Siddiqi

It is a fine balancing act: the safety of our staff on the one hand and the freedom of expression on another. In all this, the government remains a silent spectator. Our expectations from the government have been to ensure

that those who attack the media will be traced and arrested. This has almost never happened, leaving us with no option but to look for ways to protect ourselves. One can only wonder where our society is heading. The lack of tolerance is not a new problem. In the past we have also seen militant wings of political parties threatening journalists into writing only what they want to see in print. But such incidents were far and few. Now it seems to be the norm. While the government and agencies take a back step in terms of dictating to us, militant groups and organizations seem to be filling the gap. Almost anyone with a gun wants to dictate their terms to us. I fear as an editor that there will come a time when we will be unable to write anything that affects one group or another. Such pressures on the mainstream media will gradually make us irrelevant. This in turn will defeat the very purpose for which we exist – to inform. The question, of course, is how to counter this. A good idea is to unite under a platform as journalists, irrespective of what affiliations our media houses have. SAFMA is one such organization that can help highlight the plight of the Pakistani journalist at a regional level. It is hoped that if we stand united against such challenges, there will come a time when many entities will accept the role of the media and in turn start to respect us for what we do. It is for that very reason that I wish SAFMA success in its endeavors and I hope such groupings of journalists continue to proliferate and prosper as they are not the last resort in the fight for freedom of expression in our country and the region. Kamal Siddiqi is the editor of The Express Tribune, a national English language daily that is published from Peshawar, Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi and on the web. He is a fellow of Stanford University's Center for Democratic Development and Rule of Law (CDDRL) and a Jefferson Fellow from the East West Center. He holds a Masters from the London School of Economics and the University of Karachi and has been active in teaching journalism at various universities.

No peace when there is terror Kamran Shafi

here can never be peace while there is terror; not peace within the country, not with our neighbours, not within the region, even those parts of it that are not contiguous with us. As we well know there is terrible warring going on in our country, no one safe anywhere at all with the terrorists ruling the roost and doing as they will, where they will. The government lies cowering in fear, bleating away that it is all for peace while the terrorists sit on their high horses sneering down at us and refusing to even consider talks, making the death by drone of their chief, Hakimullah Mehsud the excuse. To drum it into our heads that they are the ones on a roll, they then spit in our faces by elevating one of the country's greatest enemies Mullah Fazlullah of Swat notoriety, and also known as Mullah Radio for running his own FM station out of Swat with arch murderer Muslim Khan as the main anchorperson/host/disc-jockey. Recall please that before the army finally took action, hundreds of innocent people were put to the knife (no, not metaphorically, actually slaughtered like so many sheep and goats, the butchers reportedly using blunt knives to cause the most pain) when Muslim Khan used to pronounce sentences of death on the afternoon broadcast of the radio, of those to be despatched that night. Such as the lady teacher who began to teach her pupils at home when her school was blown up, despite warnings from the Swat brutes to desist. Reportedly dancing bells were tied to her ankles and she was marched to the nearest crossroads, the bells jangling to show she was a dancing girl (read 'Kanjri'), and slaughtered in the presence of her younger brothers. As was the Taliban's brutal custom, her body was hung upside down by an electric pole, her decapitated head

resting on her shoes placed underneath her torso. THIS is the Fazlullah who is now the duly 'elected Emir' of the Taliban and with whom we are begging to have 'talks'. When such is the state of terror in this Citadel of Islam, how in the world can there be any peace whatsoever, anywhere? We are the greatest champions when it comes to shooting ourselves in the foot. As if our present travails were not enough there we go making a stink about Abul Quader Molla's execution: a convicted murderer, on the grounds that he was fighting to save Pakistan at the time, and that in any case it was so many years later that the Bangladeshi's tried and hanged him. What concern is it of ours anyway, when Bangladesh is an independent country; has its own laws; and its own politics? Let them sort out their own house any way they please: what makes us the mamas (maternal uncles) of the whole world, anyway? Really, the revisionism of the past three days on our TV channels has been disgusting. We must note, however, that our Foreign Office has been most sensible and that Sartaj Aziz has further clarified that the matter is entirely Bangladesh's to handle. But going back to the revisionism, many people said that whilst many books were unfair to Pakistan Lt. Gen. Kamal Matinuddin's book 'Tragedy of errors' was the most accurate depiction of what went on in East Pakistan. Well, Matinuddin also wrote on page 156 that General Akbar, the then DG ISI had said, “We won't transfer power to this bastard Mujib”. Matinuddin further adds that Major General Farman Ali “told me that 12 Generals told Yahya we will not let you transfer power to Mujib”. Come to the present and see the way we are mishandling the Nato supplies issue just for politics sake. Has the blockade, which is no more apparently, stopped the drones? Anyone think that the Americans will spare droning anyone if they get the bead on the baddie? So, here we are, caught in a vortex of violence ourselves and stirring up problems for ourselves elsewhere. God help us, for there can never be any peace if there is terrorism in any form. Kamran Shafi is a columnist and peace activist

Grave challenges in store for Pakistan Zahid Hussain

here is certainly no good news in store for Pakistan as the 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of the US led coalition forces from Afghanistan draws close. A nightmarish scenario is waiting for this country facing an existentialist threat from the rising militancy that has already claimed thousands of lives. The argument that the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan may bring an end to the militant war in Pakistan is utterly flawed. In fact, that may lead to intensification of terrorist violence in the country. It may not be an exaggeration to say that the post-2014 may bring more disaster for a weak and a politically fragmented country. As the recent insurgency in Pakistan escalated, it has grown in numbers and sophistication. The Taliban insurgents in the tribal areas have been joined by several other Pakistani militant groups and have formed an increasingly interconnected and coordinated web, with close cooperation with al Qaeda. Furthermore, there is a new generation of al-Qaeda in Pakistan, which comprises primarily Pakistanis (rather than previously mainly foreign fighters). This includes a flood of new recruits from the welleducated urban middle class professionals who have brought an increasing sophistication to the militant operations on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. North Waziristan, one of Pakistan's seven semiautonomous tribal regions has particularly become the major hub for both the Pakistani and Afghan

Taliban insurgents presenting the biggest threat to the national security of Pakistan as well as the region.

Political Islam turns into militant Islam Babar Ayaz

What is most worrisome is that the militants have now infiltrated new terrain, far from the mountainous territories. They have turned Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city and its economic jugular into their new battleground. Divided into small cells these groups have become more difficult to be tracked down. The recent spectacular terrorist attacks on high security military installations and bases indicate that the militants are not only well-trained, but have also infiltrated into the security forces. A dangerous nexus has emerged among Punjab-based militant groups and the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan which operates from the tribal regions presenting a serious challenge to the security forces. Zahid Hussain is a veteran journalist and author of several books on terrorism

here is need to understand why extremism or terrorism is prominent and whether it is just the Muslim society problem or a global one. I think it is louder and nastier in Muslim societies as extremism has resorted to militancy and terrorism. There is a wave of religious extremism in other religions also. Conservative people who are afraid globally of the rapidly changing value systems in the globalized world want to live in a timeframe which is thousands of years old and traditions which cannot be sustained in the 21st century.

have been killed? Confusion is created by people who don't understand history, politics or anything. They are wrong when they say we are fighting the American war. If Pakistan had not supported the Afghan Taliban since 9/11, they couldn't have carried forward what they did in Afghanistan. They could not have kept their bargaining position without the support of the people of Pakistan. Who is supporting Afghan Taliban if Pakistan is fighting the American war? If Americans would not tell us to fight terrorism can we stop fighting the terrorists? If tomorrow America says that Pakistan should have democracy, are we going to say we shouldn't? If today we have to fight terrorism. It is not an American agenda. It is definitely Pakistani agenda. And that should be very clear in the minds and particularly the media which is the opinion maker. We are siding with people who say it is an American war. Fighting terrorism is our war and we are doing it. The political Islam that turned into militant Islam because too many arms proliferated in the society ever since General Zia launched his Jihad against the Afghan government in the late seventies. The so-called Mujahideen were selling 70% of the arms given to them free by Zia regime and CIA to Pakistanis during Afghan war.

On the other hand there is globalization. The clash is not between the civilizations. It is between two mindsets, one representing religious orthodoxy and the other modernity, one rejecting human culture and values of the 21st century and the other accepting that societies change and progress. There is extremism - you can see it in Judaism, in Hinduism. In Judaism the people who talk about Halakha which is their own Shariat and in Christianity we have Evangelicalism and other extremist sects. I will recommend just one book to you to read; 'Globalised Islam' by Olivier Roy. Why are we confused on whether it is our war or others war when so many people 31

Psychological facets of extremism and its possible remedies Prof Dr Fouzia Naeem Khan

xtremism can be characterized as the uncustomary convictions, disposition, emotions, movements, or procedures adopted by an individual or group. A clear example of this is political/religious extremism, wherein an individual or group of individuals has a black-andwhite perspective of legislative issues and regularly consolidates their goals and disposition to the point of hostility and irrationality. Extremism is a psychological state Research on the psychological aspect of radicalism contends that extremism is a mental state in which the individual or group is convinced that it is right, imbued with ethical power, and restricted by some dynamic element working against it. In pursuit of self-confirmation, individuals who are not checked by their social surroundings are pulled into such groups, which attest that the way they see themselves is best and offer better approaches for supporting their perspectives. Where Does Extremism Come From? Extremism is grown This implies that extremism arises under adverse conditions (destitution, insufficient access to health awareness, nourishment, training, and business), lack of human necessities (for security, group character, and political cooperation), constant mortification, and a perpetually increasing gap between what individuals accept as merit and what they can accomplish. Extremism is an emotional outlet for strong feelings. 32

Mistreatment, embarrassment, hatred, misfortune, and fury can lead people and groups to adopt clash-engagement techniques that feel like appropriate responses to such encounters. Consequently, fanatics utilize vicious methods, not because these are instrumental in achieving their objectives, but because they feel honest and vindictive. Extremism is a rational strategy in the game for power. Fanatic movements are seen as a viable way of employing force in various environments where there are few assets and the rivalry for power prevails. Fanaticism lives up to its expectations. It can define one's reasons, harm one's adversaries, and unite people against a common foe. This is a normal and prevalent point of view on the pervasiveness of radicalism. Extremism arises out of end-of-life belief systems. Radical exercises are valued on the grounds that they are predictable with broad myths or frameworks of significance. Such conviction-based frameworks incorporate an alternate common introduction, a requirement that one purify oneself, the endorsement of savagery by a higher being, and the delineation of suffering as a demonstration of spiritual cleansing. Extremism is a pathological illness. This point of view perceives extremism as a malady and a lifestyle where individuals look to savagery to give them the feeling of being alive. Greun notes:

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The absence of personality connected with radicals is the consequence of damaging toward oneself self-loathing that prompts emotions of requital to life itself, and an impulse to slaughter one's own particular humanness." Thus fanaticism is seen not as a strategy or a philosophy, but as a neurotic ailment that encourages the annihilation of life. Can anyone develop extremist views? This is difficult to say, although the force of its social impact is commonly studied in neuroscience. It is also true that some individuals are more inclined to extremist perspectives than others and create them free of any natural variables. A maniac, for example, who fails to receive sympathy may well create compelling perspectives because of an absence of ethics. Radicalism might also be a consequence of other mental issues, for example, the system hypothesized by Freud is that of 'response framing', which implies that one is greatly contradicted by a thought or part of oneself that one is not eager to acknowledge. Ideological extremism Ideological extremism is the degree to which ideological convictions veer off from the standard norms. What constitutes these is a critical issue. Yet ideological extremism is not, unless anyone else is present, an extraordinary threat to others unless coupled with a sense of compelling duty. Such extremes of responsibility constitute the second significant issue I will discuss.

position. The furthest point of ideological convictions is represented by one of two measures in this space. The furthest point of responsibility is conduct towards others. In the entry to the upper-left, moderate or normative convictions are coupled with a low level of responsibility. This phone helps me remember the story of the angry manager who said to an ineffectual partner, "I haven't the faintest idea if you are genuinely oblivious or just detached," to which the colleague answered, "I don't have a clue and I couldn't care less." Lack of information and obliviousness are among the explanations for being ideologically direct. It is common for such a person to fail to hold any solid responsibility for his conduct when identifying with such convictions. Situations that prompt extreme convictions and those that prompt compelling responsibility to follow up on those convictions are not the same. Polarization thrives when conservatives remain silent. Extremes of conviction and responsibility are likely to arise in groups that are physically or mentally estranged from society. Therefore, trying to control radicals through monetary and other methods could simply further alienate them. Such a strategy could then have a dangerous impact on the polarization that exists.

Extreme commitment to behavior Assuming that individuals fail to follow up on their convictions when to do so would be challenging, risky, or fatal, strong convictions might pose little concern. Duty to behavior is characterized as the constant propensity to act in accord with ideological beliefs without compelling motivation to do so generally. It is this synthesis of convictions and effective duties that represents a risk to the larger social order.

Moderate Beliefs and Low Commitment Moderate Beliefs and Extreme Commitment

Extreme Beliefs and Low Commitment Extreme Beliefs and Extreme Commitment

Extremism of Belief and Commitment The table above includes two variables that together focus one's ideological

Of the enemies within: real and imagined Mariana Baabar

omehow in our Pashtun society the confusion regarding Muslim identity is less. If you ask a Pashtun anywhere, without knowing who he/she is, their reply will be that I am a Pashtun and not that I am a Muslim because it is given for a Pashtun that he/she would be a Muslim. I would leave you with the thought that how the Taliban in the north and the MQM in the south have dictated the media in a similar way. One was [Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman] Bilawal [Bhutto-Zardari]'s address yesterday. A really good exercise in emotional blackmail because it did touch many, many people all over the country and I am sure outside the country as well but for the media in Pakistan, for us working journalists, he leaves us with many thoughts. He says things we have been really desperate to hear from our so-called leaders in Pakistan who have been shy to say things he has said. Now where do we take the debate from there? Bilawal has done his job. He has left you with many ideas, many statements. Will we be brave enough to start a debate, my anchor friends, will they start a debate on TV? He said something on the eve of Christmas or on Christmas Day where he wanted to see a Christian as a prime minister of Pakistan. I won't go into the debate of Constitution or otherwise. It should be taken at face-value. The Ansar Abbasis of this world will take up that and demand how he can say something which the Constitution does not say and etc, etc. Yes, here is an emerging politician who has said many things and here is a challenge for us, including me. Second is, recently there was a very strong statement 34

from an imam from Saudi Arabia in which he denounced suicide attacks and he said all of these gentlemen and maybe some ladies who are involved in suicide attacks will go to hell because Islam has no place for them. Sadly enough, look at the newspapers…maybe about 4-5 days ago. Where is that statement? If we are so desperate to have a society where everybody has a chance to live and if we are so desperate against terrorism, why was that statement coming from Saudi Arabia – thankfully a very reasonable and acceptable statement – why wasn't it flashed on the front pages? Why wasn't it picked up by television channels? Why were we so apologetic that we had to either put it inside or on the back page and that also maybe one or two paragraphs? How come we have not seen any op-eds, my columnist friends here, why hasn't anything been done there? We are in denial. When something comes and is thrown at our faces, we don't want to read it or accept it or debate upon it. The other narrative on the situation in North Waziristan and drone attacks and who are killed there. Are they militants or innocents? Well, let me tell you many of the Pakhtuns I have spoken to in North Waziristan, they welcome the drones. This is now their narrative: they say that at least they are very precise, they try to get to the target, there is less collateral damage in comparison to Pakistan Air Force jets. This is also a narrative coming from there. Since the independent media is not allowed there unless you are embedded with the military or you are guided there, you don't even see the real situation on the ground.

Really, how many are killed? Are they civilians or non-civilians? Again, there is confusion. You expect the media to write the truth about what's going on? What do we write on? We don't even know the real situation. A lot has been said here about being brave. I, in my capacity, don't want to be a hero because as that bullet hits me, I won't know whose finger is behind that gun. Previously when I started journalism in 80-81, we knew who the enemy was. As time progressed, we had timbre mafia, we had the drug mafia, we had the MQM, we had sleuths taking care of us, so we at least, when we wrote, and there was a reaction – either there was a threatening call or somebody hit your car – we knew where that opposition was coming from. Today I would not. Many of us would not. When we are taken out, we would not know who took us out because it's a nameless, faceless enemy so I will not be very brave. I am old enough to understand that. I will, of course, be true to my profession but to expect me to take a bullet, I am sorry I want to see the face of my enemy and then I am prepared to take him on with my writings. People talk about change. General Kayani talked about change in the military of how the enemy was not outside, it was within. Soon after, military intelligence officials came up to my door, rang my bell. I was amongst the four journalists under 10 corps. A questionnaire was given to us and this was an exercise all over Pakistan and we didn't hear about it because our friends chose not to speak about it. It's their prerogative and I respect that but I have always felt that whenever you're taken on by the security establishment, you never keep quiet. You write about it, you talk about it. Why should we be ashamed? Unless you're guilty. We are talking about a generation that is fading out. We are not talking about the new generation which has different values. So when Kayani said enemy within, it was rather cynical because MI guys came with the questionnaire. We don't take it lightly when they say MI because they could be from the ISI, they could be from the IB. We have learnt how to identify and see their identification papers. They are photographed also by the domestic staff when they are on their motorcycles so you have some proof that somebody has been coming to your house and talking to you. It was done under the guise of ke aapko jo invitations milte hain from VVIPs so that was very good, to verify if this was delivered to the proper house. This questionnaire started with whether you are a Shia or a Sunni, your bank account, how many cars you have, I mean a lot of the information they could have got if they had made a trip to NADRA. Nothing very private. A lot of questions about my brothers but no question whether I had a sister and what she did. And whether I was involved in groups who advocate militancy? What kind of question is

that…would I tell you? Would I share it with you? It's something to be ashamed about naturally. Since it was in Urdu, I asked them to read it out to me. They read about 8 questions and I stopped them and said this was enough. The enemy within that you are pointing to is something that is unacceptable. They had some form, asked me to write feedback. Asked me not to give harsh feedback because this is their job but not their fault. So I wrote, under the Constitution and the laws in Pakistan, I am under no obligation to cooperate with the military intelligence of Pakistan. Well, it so happened. And the poor guys were told if they couldn't go to any other house. “You went to Maasi Museebtay's [the troublemaker's] house first.” This is something which is very common. I am only talking about the mentality here about who is enemy, adversary and friend for them. During Raymond Davis case, ISI was cooperating with us with factual responses. The CIA was claiming one thing, ISI claiming the other. Who was caught with their pants down? Muhammad Malick was our editor so he splashed that headline who was caught with their pants down: ISI or CIA? The story was published. Two days later, I was forced off the road so I realised it must be because of that story. When I made a couple of calls to ask why was this done? You guys gave us the story. You were cooperating with us so I got an answer: woh ji neechay tak filter nahi huva hoga abhi tak [it might have not have filtered down] that we are talking to the media. I leave you with that.

Declaration

he participants of the Sixth SAFMA National Conference, including leading editors, anchors, reporters, columnists, and broadcasters, in their deliberationson “Media and Extremist Narrative” held on 28-29 December 2013 in Bhurban have resolved: Journalists in their largest gathering from all over Pakistan under the aegis of SAFMA call upon state institutions, governments and religious and political parties to stand up firmly against religious extremism and terrorism, promote tolerance and pluralism and protect both the nation state and the rights and freedoms of the people. Over 250 editors, anchors, columnists and media practitioners attended the three-day moot on “Media and Extremist Narrative”.

and social sciences, modern education, girls' education in particular, universal human values and rights, civil and political rights, women's and minorities' rights in particular, freedom of expression, the right to know, modern scientific knowledge—natural sciences and humanities—modern inventions, nationhood and national and international laws/covenants. d.

Its variants justify terrorism, mob justice, arbitrary and brutal punishments, the killing of innocent people, destruction of public places, including schools and holy places, banning health campaigns, eradicating polio campaign and population control in particular, and strangulating cultural and aesthetical spaces.

Religious extremism and terrorism, and its misguided version of 'jehad' have been and are being strengthened or justified by the silence or approval of the state and its pivotal institutions, including certain constitutional amendments and arbitrary laws introduced by military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq and other civilian leaders. Terrorism and misguided “jihadi' paradigms and military/security/foreign policy strategies have been instrumental in spreading terrorism within and without and are responsible for lawlessness, creation of private militias, sectarian cleaning, conflict with neighbors and international isolation.

A section of the media, the vernacular in particular, have been involved in justifying, magnifying and glorifying terrorists, extremist and their ideologies, on the one hand, and scandalizing, marginalizing and trivializing the humanist, democratic, rationalist, reasonable and enlightened voices, on the other.

Excepts follow from the Declaration: We, the participants, are concerned about:

A dangerous specter of religious extremism and terrorism is hovering over Pakistan and Afghanistan, in particular, and Muslim countries, in general, that has become the principal threat to the existence of our people, human, physicaland geographical security and integrityand survival of our statehood/nationhood and our cultural, spiritual, intellectual, scientific and aesthetical spaces and human and civil freedoms and rights.

Terrorism and violence, on whatever pretext and religion in particular, is brutalizing and destroying the social fabric of our society, the norms of peaceful existence, right to life, rule of law, supremacy of the constitution, writ of the state, economy, institutions of learningand the nation state—OUR BELOVED PAKISTAN- home to the indigenous peoples of this land.

Variants of extremist religious narratives, nurtured by the state, high clergy and foreign patronage for decades, is now an ascending discourse that rejects democratic values, peaceful means, pluralism, dissent, inter-faith tolerance, reason and enlightenment, indigenous cultures, performing arts, the natural

We propose: 1.

The state and its institutions, parliamentary parties, religious leaders, scholars, teachers, experts, officials, media-owners, intellectuals, journalists, artists, civil society and all Pakistanis

unambiguously agree that religious extremism, sectarianism and terrorism pose the principal, antagonistic, ideologicaland violent threat to our existence as civilized and democratic peoples, our diverse social fabric, nationhood and statehood, writ of the state, rule of law, democratic values, human, democratic and civil rights-right to life, freedom of expression, rights of women and the minorities; and express their unflinching commitment and resolve to consistently oppose and fight at all levels and through multiple means the menace of religious extremism, sectarianism, bigotry, interlace and terrorism and violence on whatever pretext. 2.

The state and its institutions, instead of surrendering before religious extremism/sectarianism, terrorism and terrorist outfits and/or compromising on the constitution, the writ of the state, safety of life and property of the people, must stand up in union with the peoples of Pakistan to fight the menace of religious extremism and terrorism at all levels and through various means both within and outside the country; stop all state and non-state rogue elements from providing any kind of assistance to use terrorism as a means to achieve any domestic or foreign objectives; and not let terrorists use Pakistan's territory against our people, neighbors and the world at large.

The state and its all institutions, religious and ethnic groups, religiousand parliamentary parties must unequivocally express their commitment to undiluted federal democracy, democratic values, intellectual, ideological, religious, cultural pluralism and diversity, tolerance, human, civil, social and political fundamental rights, the rights of women and minorities in particular, as enshrined in the UN charter and UN agencies, and change all such laws that infringe upon the rights and freedoms of our peoples regardless of belief, ethnicity, class and gender.

The state and its institutions, governments, religious and political parties, followers of various religious faiths, political parties, intelligentsia, religious scholars, academics, journalists, lawyers,

broadcasters, artists, policy and opinion makers should adhere to, defend and observe tolerance, democratic values, fundamental human, civil, political and religious rights and freedoms, cultures and languages of our peoples and abhor intolerance, hate-speech and violence. 5.

The state, governments, educational and cultural institutions and the media must, instead of encouraging intolerance, religious bigotry, sectarianism, superstition, ignorance, quackery and jehalat, must promote cultural diversity, performing arts, quality and scientific education in both the natural and social sciences, innovation and invention, a knowledge-based economy, freedom of expression and higher human values and advanced scientific standards.

We in the media, whether owners or practitioners, must vow to voluntarily observe high professional standards and media ethicswhile promoting human, civil and democratic values, and the rights and freedoms of all without glorifying religious extremism, terrorism, violence and intolerance.

The government must revisit media laws, provide unhindered access to information, lift the ban on YouTube, and both private and state advertisements should be linked to the promotion of public service, tolerance, human rights, rights of minorities and women, literacy, human security, inter-faith harmony, cultural diversity and rejection of extremism and terrorism, besides providing economic and physical security to journalists, academics, writers and artists. The advertising policy regulating state advertisement should also be linked to providing wages to media employees justly and in time, besides the provisions of insurance and physical security and professional responsibility without the strings of business or group interests.