Pakistan and Future

Long time back when I started writing my views on this blog,  I thought I would never write on the religious and politico-religious topics.  I always considered Religious political parties in Pakistan as one of the ugliest faces of Establishment , I also believed that Islam has always been a tool in the hands of establishment to divert the attention of public from their real problems.  From Tehreek-e-Nizam-e-Mustafa to Tehreek-e-Nijat (1991 and 1996) I always considered establishment using “Islam” to express their hatred against politicians. I also consider the political religious debates waste of time , like those of Shariat Bill, Hadood Ordinance , “Pakistan created in the name of Islam or not”, “did Jinnah wanted an Islamic Country?” and numerous others , that you will find being discussed all the time for the past 40 years.  

The Question of Taliban

However today I feel that I must write about “the Question of Taliban” , though I do still believe that just like “Tehreek-e-Nizam-e-Mustafa” and many other riots in the name of religion , the Question of Taliban will fade away in the history once ESTABLISHMENT has achieved its goals. There is no doubt it in my mind that Mullah-Military nexus is still in place and in fact in the last 14 months have gained a lot of strength.

I however want to discuss the question of Taliban from another aspect, which is not only present in Pakistan but also in the muslim populations in US , Europe and other parts of the world like China and India.

Who are Taliban

Let me first start with the question. “Who are Taliban?”, obviously the answer to this question in political terms is the group of people who ruled Afghanistan under Mullah Omer, although after the invasion of Afghanistan by US and NATO forces this group was dismantled and have been on the run for the past eight , nine years, however according to common understanding this group is regrouping itself in Quetta and Northerns Areas of Pakistan. According to the popular belief this group is gaining strength day by day in NWFP , Baluchistan and Southern Punjab.  I was reading this article from Dr. Furrakh Salim who claimed that almost 11% of the Pakistan’s area is ruled by Taliban now. So the fear is that Pakistan may fall to Taliban , and Pakistan being the nuclear state , this could become the deadliest threat ever against the world’s peace since 1945. 

I don’t disagree with the above explanation of the term Taliban and their threat to both Pakistan and the world’s peace. However I think there is much more to it than described above. So let me first analyse the above explanation a bit more.

That’s too superficial

So if Taliban are just that militant group who was on the run from Afghanistan , and now regrouping itself in Pakistan , than natural question is what Pakistan and NATO/US armies are doing. And the obvious answer is that Pakistan army (read ISI) is playing a double game with the US and is not sincere in rooting out Taliban from areas in Pakistan. On the other hand NATO/US armies are chasing these Taliban in the areas of Pakistan with “drones” , which causes resentment in general public of Pakistan as well  as difficulties to democratic government of Pakistan. 

All of this makes a lot of sense. Doesn’t it? Most of the articles , blogs, analysis I have read look at the problem as I described above. Most of the solutions are also based on above reasoning and include iron hand dealing with Taliban or negotiation with Taliban.

As I said , though partially agreeing with above reasoning I think that it is just very superficial understanding of the much larger problem. 

Taliban are Everywhere

So let me go back to the question. “Who are Taliban?” and my answer is that Taliban are every where (in Muslim population).  We can not restrict the term Taliban to “militant” group of people who are ,as the apologists of Taliban claim, the  illiterate and have been stricken by injustice and poverty. Taliban are found everywhere in Muslim society, they are in our houses , they are in our streets , they are in our schools , colleges and universities , they are in our ruling class and bureaucracy. They are in our western educated elite class. They are found in the Muslim societies of the Europe and United States, they are found in muslim societies of China and India , they are found in Indonesia and Malaysia , they are also found in European Turkey.  I was just reading this interesting article on BBC Urdu by Abdul Haye Kakar , I wish I could write a detailed analysis of the personality of Syed Muahmmad Javed and show how you will find people everywhere in Pakistan who are Talib at night and Commissioner at office.

Rationalization of a Religion

Taliban is the outcome (albeit the worst ) of the movement in Islam for the past 200 years , that tried to “rationalize” the teaching of Quran and Hadith. We already know that rationalization of religious beliefs has always been an important topic in both philosophy and theology. However the rationalization movement in Islam was more political in nature than philosophical. In our day to day life we keep hearing the phrases like “Islam is a complete way of life” , “Islam means submitting your will to Allah” and so on. We know how Iqbal summed up all these ideas in a single verse “Juda ho deen siyasat sai tu reh jaati hai changaizi” .   

جدا ھو دیں سیاست سے تو رہ جاتی ہے چنگیزی

It is not that such movement was first in the history of Islam (or for that matter history of most of the religions), there have been several such movements before. Religious thoughts in Islam have always been politicized perhaps since the first hijrah century. However it is important to understand that the scope of the 20th century movement is much wider .  

Phenomenon of Taliban

The phenomenon of Taliban started taking its current shape in 80’s when out of political compulsions United States and its allies decided to support the strict interpretation of Islamic Religious Thoughts against the Communism. The slogan of “Islam is a complete way of life” became the weapon against the “Communist way of life” , at the same time use of force (Jihad) became the legitimate option to enforce the stricter code of life upon the people who would be considered as atheist in the eyes of molvis.  However we must note that the battle between the implementation of Sharia Law and Moderate Islamic Law is as old as muslims themselves in Indian Sub Continent. Akbar’s “Deen-e-Elahi” and Aurengzeb’s Fatawa Alamgiri , to Jinnah’s declaration that 

 I do not know what the ultimate shape of this constitution is going to be, but I am sure that it will be of a democratic type, embodying the essential principle of Islam. Today, they are as applicable in actual life as they were 1,300 years ago.“

were outcome of the divergent views of muslims about Islam. 

………….to be continued….