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Editorial: Disorder, not disunity, is the problem

A US drone is supposed to have killed 20 people in North Waziristan on Tuesday, but the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) representative says the people killed were victims of a blast caused by someone putting together an explosive near the targeted seminary. From across the border the NATO forces say they have not fired any shells into the Pakistani territory. Of course, the “official” version is difficult to believe because of the past record. It was probably another “et-Al Qaeda” effort that did not succeed and others had to pay the price of this failure with their lives.

But there is also the war against the Taliban going on in the region. The NATO-ISAF forces are locked in a desperate struggle with the Taliban operating out of Pakistan. The Kabul government says Pakistan is behind the Taliban, but Pakistan has its own Talibanisation problems. In South Waziristan local warlord Mullah Nazir is trying to fight the effects of Talibanisation in his area. He has banned the circulation of CDs that show beheadings of those that are disloyal to the war against the United States. He says the youths of his area are becoming blood-thirsty by seeing these CDs, and there are minors involved in this too.

There are many warlords in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas and many are faithful to Mullah Umar’s Taliban and Al Qaeda. A latest CD being circulated in the region shows boys and girls who have been trained in weapons and are now ready to attack across the border. The under-teen boys and girls are also trained as suicide-bombers. This is an advance on what happened in Liberia in Africa when child soldiers were used by the warlords fighting each other. It is difficult to say where this new children’s army will operate, but inside Pakistan many important people are threatening suicide-bombing as a weapon of protest. It is not only the mullahs of Lal Masjid who threaten it, a federal minister who negotiates with them has also delivered this threat.

Fragmentation and division is the big holding pattern among the Muslims of the world. Looking at this atomisation, the Muslims usually employ a biased ground rule, fixing the United States as their touchstone. If Al Fatah and Hamas have squared off, it is Al Fatah that is allegedly taking the cue from Israel and Washington. Forgotten is the fundamental fact that a rift exists between the two and could not be removed by the Makka Agreement. In Lebanon, there is a “multiple” civil war going on with new factions forming every evening, but the Palestinian faction fighting the Lebanese army is alleged to be funded by the US, ignoring the accusations that Muslim Iran funds the biggest militia that also dominates the national politics there, Hezbollah.

In Afghanistan, the accusation is that Pakistan shelters the Taliban, but there is also the accusation that Iran is supplying arms to the Taliban although it is because of the Taliban that Pakistan and Iran nearly came to blows before 2001. On the other hand, the news from Tehran is that the Americans are funding an outfit called Jandullah that operates out of Balochistan. The news from Tehran also is that Pakistan is involved in this campaign to destabilise Iran. On Wednesday someone in Sistan, Iran, killed two Pakistani traders but no one knows why.

But Tehran allegedly says other things too that will serve to create confusion and resultant directionless violence in Pakistan. The American writer Selig Harrison has alleged that Tehran told him that Pakistan was involved in the American plan to militarily attack Iran to “take out” its nuclear programme. But inside Pakistan there is strong opposition to any US plans to attack Iran. The Musharraf government is aware of this public sentiment and has asserted a pro-Iran position on this matter. This is in line with Pakistan’s Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) friends too who have condemned the American opinion recommending an attack on Iran. Mr Harrison, whose own views on America’s involvement in the region are well known, says that it is the US vice president, Dick Cheney, who actually wants to attack Iran and pulled President Musharraf on board his plan when he last visited Islamabad.

The Muslim world doesn’t suffer from disunity; it suffers from disorder. The Muslim state is becoming vulnerable to dissent of all sorts, but the multiple dissenters tend to unite temporarily only to destabilise and overthrow state authority. States holding together against this tendency rely on oppression and coercive control. Generally speaking, the Muslim state is endangered from within on the basis of ideas aimed at defending the state from outside forces. Again and again acts in distant lands give offence to Muslims. Unable to wage jihad, the Muslim state risks being destabilised from the inside by nothing else but sheer directionless anger. *

Second Editorial: Nishtar Park massacre solved

The mystery of the 2006 Nishtar Park Karachi massacre of Barelvi devotees has finally been solved. The suicide bomber has been identified as Mohammad Siddiq, son of Israeel, from Seri Karnashi village in district Mansehra, NWFP. He was linked to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which is another way of saying that he was an extremist Deobandi. An entire group is now in jail, and a DNA match with his family members too has confirmed Siddiq’s culpability.

The group that carried out the Nishtar Park massacre on the Birthday of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) also killed Shias. Days earlier it had tried to kill Shia leader Allama Hasan Turabi unsuccessfully, then got him on a second attempt through another suicide-bomber. This is a fact of sectarian life in Pakistan that most will not admit, not even the Barelvi clerics who are being targeted because they have the reputation of being less violent towards the Shia community. Now the Barelvi organisations are conferring to decide what to make of the Deobandi culpability. Unfortunately, their decision in the coming days could be politically correct and therefore misleading rather than wise. A closure applied to conflict is equated with surrender, and no one wants to stop fighting. *

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