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Armed groups who operate outside of the "national armed
forces" model - be they guerrillas engaged in "liberation"
struggles, mercenaries or private armies - present specific
challenges to antimilitarist activists, as this article by Naeem
Sadiq suggests.
Peace, progress and private armies
Naeem Sadiq
In October 2001, after taking over
parts of the Swat, Dir and Korakoram
highway in northern Pakistan,
Sufi Mohammad led his 5000-strong
army of Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-I-Mohammadi
[one of five extremist religious
groups currently banned in Pakistan]
to attack the US forces operating
in Afghanistan, with weapons ranging
from World War One antiques to mortars
used by modern-day armies.
But the fact is that most of these illiterate
and misguided soldiers lost their
lives to unfriendly daisy cutters. And
Sufi, who had never even seen either an
American nor an aeroplane, deserted the
battle field, ran for his life, and ended up
in a Pakistani jail, receiving a cosmetic
three-year sentence, perhaps for not possessing
valid travel documents.
In December 2000, Maulana Akram
Awan [of the outlawed group Tanzeemul
Akhwan] marched with his private army
of ten thousand misguided zealots,
camped at Chakwal in the Punjab
province of Pakistan, and threatened to
capture Islamabad, the capital of the
Islamic Republic of Pakistan, unless the
laws considered Islamic in the medieval
mind of Maulana were promulgated
throughout the country.
The government was so unnerved that
it sent a delegation consisting of the
Home Secretary, the Inspector General of
the police and the minister for religious
affairs to please, pamper and compensate
Maulana and to convince him to return
with his army to wherever he came from.
Having never met an official beyond the
rank of Station House Officer, Maulana
was so moved at the top officials of the
nuclear state obsequiously falling to his
feet, that he withdrew without a battle,
and declared that he would return next
year to implement his promised mission.
Promoting hatred
For ten long years the JUI madrassahs
[the extremist political party Jamiat
Ulema-e Islams mosque schools] of
Balochistan retained the dubious distinction
of operating as the worlds largest
nursery for producing teenage soldiers who
had only two missions in life: to secure an
entry into paradise by their rhythmic pendulum-like recantations of memorised portions
from the Holy Book; and to participate
in a global jihad with ignorance and
Klashnikovs as their only two assets.
In the last ten years anything between
10 and 20 thousand of these innocent
children were killed in the proxy war that
ultimately reduced Afghanistan to rubble,
and Pakistan to an embarrassing but
much needed volte face.
Until recently, when travelling
between Lahore and Peshawar by road,
one could see dozens of signs offering
short cuts to paradise for those who
sought recruitment into one of the many
private armies operating under names
such as Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Tayuba
or Harkat ul Majahideen.
The proliferation of religious fervour by
these private armies has resulted in the creation
of sectarian militant organisations
downstream, whose strong sense of loyalty
to their own brand of ideology requires the
killing of every one else who does not subscribe
to their particular point of view.
The private armies rule freely and, until
recently, even collected bhatta (compulsory
donations) in the land of the pure, making
a mockery of the writ of the state. This
phenomenon, often generically referred to
as "Talibanisation" of society, remained
unchecked until its excessive export drew
an angry response from the world at large as
well as from the already fed-up neighbours.
Frozen in time?
Pakistan's primary think tanks remain
pathologically addicted to a frozen world-view
based on a dogmatic and bigoted
understanding of religion, emphasis on
rituals instead of spirit, hatred instead of
tolerance, ideological slogans instead of
service to people, state agencies instead of
participative institutions, abhorrence of
science and technology, deep disinclination
to reason and rationality, obsession
with female behaviour and dress, and the
megalomaniac self image as the flag bearer
and champion of the cause of Ummah
[Islamic community].
It is around these irrelevancies that the
state has coined its signature for the past
fifty years. While the large majority of
Pakistanis are as moderate, tenacious,
vibrant and enterprising as people of any
other country, their rightful place
amongst the developed and civilised
nations of the world has been a hostage to
the tribal traditions, private armies and
religious fanatics who forcibly dictate the
social order of the country.
The events of 11 September provide, in
many ways, a miraculous opportunity and
impetus for Pakistan to re-evaluate its
direction and make a conscious decision
to make a departure from the past. It can
choose to follow the path that has enabled
other nations to pursue progress, prosperity
and enlightenment. Alternately it can
remain glued to its ancient and obsolete
mindset, and gradually acquire the status
of an irrelevant and failed state.
Taking the first steps
There can be no sanity, peace or progress in
Pakistan, as long as it retains a multitude of
fully armed private armies, each in pursuit
of its own brand of intolerance and bigotry.
The first step towards peace and
progress must therefore begin by firmly
disbanding and disarming all militant
religious, political and tribal organisations
in Pakistan. This needs to be done
as a national challenge and not like the
lame, half hearted, incompetently managed
and half way aborted earlier de-weaponisation
campaign.
Naeem Sadiq is a former member of the Pakistani
Air Force. He lives in Karachi and supports
several peace and self-reliance activities.
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