Radical Islamism Down Under

Muslims must resist democracy, says Hizb ut Tahrir

The various statements and speeches made at the ‘Uprising in the Muslim World’ conference organised by Hizb ut Tahrir in Sydney on July 3, 2011, provide an insight into the radical Islamist mind that has come to dominate community discourse ever since this year’s ‘Arab Spring’. Clearly, the dislodging of long-time rulers in Tunisia and Egypt, and the effort to squeeze out the Presidents of Syria, Yemen and Libya, are not seen as the first step towards establishing democracy, but the restoration of ‘Khilafat’.

Community leaders aligned with Hizb ut Tahrir spoke on ''The Muslim World in the 20th century: Totalitarian Western oppression'' and ''Western endeavours to frustrate the Islamic revival''. The official statement issued by Hizb ut Tahrir says among others, the following point was ‘established’:

“The Muslim World wants Islam, not secular liberalism. The spin to the contrary is persistent yet hollow. Calls for ‘democracy’ have been misconstrued by some and hijacked by others as being calls for liberal democracy as we know it in the West. They may be such for the small minority of secular elite in the Muslim World, but for the vast majority of Muslims they merely represent calls against dictatorship and for representative and accountable governance. Public opinion in the Muslim World on the role of Islam in society is not a controversial matter at all. All those who are politically active on the grassroots level, as we are across the entire Muslim World, know that the people en masse are in favour of change on the basis of Islam.”

Hizb ut Tahrir is proscribed in Germany for preaching and practising anti-Semitism. Russia declared it a criminal organisation in 1999. The group rejects democracy and urges Muslims in Australia to boycott elections. A similar stance is adopted by the group in Britain.

A perusal of what was said at the Sydney conference will show how utterly wrong the Left-liberal commentariat is in its assessment of the Arab street. But the Left-libbers won’t admit that they have got it all horribly wrong. As is their wont, they will insist that they are right, never mind the evidence to the contrary.

Ironically, it is the Left-liberal intelligentsia’s adoring indulgence of their excesses that has emboldened radical Islamists around the world, including in Australia. The Left-libbers’ urge to rationalise Islamist extremities and justify their outrageous utterances as well as deeds has led us to a situation where we can only watch in horror as the vitriolic campaign of hate of groups like Hizb ut Tahrir gather momentum and gain traction.

Australia is not alien to such provocative Islamist utterances. The former ‘Grand Mufti of Australia’, Sheikh Taj al-din al-Hilali, wanted for inciting terrorism in the country of his origin, Egypt, is given to describing women who do not wear the burqa as “uncovered meat” and blaming them for “enticing rapists”.

On one occasion, while addressing the faithful after Friday prayers at Lakemba Mosque in Sydney, Sheikh Taj al-din al-Hilali rose to the defence of a serial rapist, Bilal Skaf, asserting, “If I come across a crime of rape, kidnap and violation of honour, I would discipline the man and teach him a lesson in morals and I would order the woman to be arrested and jailed for life. Why? Because, if she hadn’t left the meat uncovered, the cat wouldn’t have snatched it... If one puts uncovered meat out on the street or the footpath or the garden or the backyard without a cover, then the cats come and eat it. Is it the fault of the cat or the uncovered meat?”

[Related article: Like 'uncovered meat']

Also see my earlier post: Veil of darkness

Arab world won't be the same again!

The Arab palace has begun to fear the Arab street. And the Arab street has begun to sense that fear.

The Arab palace will never be the same ever again. Events over the past month, first in the Tunisian Republic and then in the Arab Republic of Egypt, have radically altered the power equation across Arabia from the North Atlantic coast to the Persian Gulf. It may not be immediately, palpably evident in most of the 22 Arab states in the Maghreb and the Mashreq, but the pulse of Arabia now beats in the Arab street. Tunisia’s ‘Jasmine Revolution’ and Egypt’s ‘Lotus Revolution’, both triggered by hectic campaigning by tech-savvy young men and women on Facebook and Twitter, often armed with nothing more than a smart phone, have sent out shockwaves that have rattled the palaces of Kings, Presidents and Emirs and show no signs of abating even as the uprising by Misris reached its denouement on Friday with President Hosni Mubarak resigning from the office he held for 30 years and handing over power to the Supreme Council of the Egyptian military headed by General Mohamed Hussein Tantawi.

Take a look at the map of Arabia. At the far end, west of Suez, is the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. It had a civilian Government of sorts, hugely corrupt, till August 2008 when it was felled by a military coup led by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. A year later, Gen Aziz stepped down as the chief of Army and called presidential elections in April 2009. Predictably, he swept the polls and has since transmogrified into a dictator. Beneath the deceptive calm festers poverty amid illiteracy; together, coupled with the absence of space for political dissent, they make the ground fertile for radical Islamism to strike roots and flourish.

The Kingdom of Morocco has been fortunate enough to have an enlightened constitutional monarchy with an elected Parliament. But King Mohammed VI, who assumed the throne in 1999, wields enormous executive power and can issue diktats that are treated as law. In brief, real executive authority vests with the King. Morocco’s society is pock-marked by widespread poverty and illiteracy; women have few rights. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, hand-picked by the Army in 1999, heads a military-backed regime in the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria with a one-party system that disallows — and ruthlessly puts down — opposition in any form. Algeria, too, faces widespread poverty though literacy rates are high, which has added to the number of educated unemployed raging against the regime. Young Algerians are seething in anger; the absence of a free Press only serves to fuel it further.

In the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Col Muammar Gaddafi remains firmly in power which he seized in 1969. His dictatorship brooks neither dissent nor opposition. Gaddafi’s flamboyant and lavish lifestyle is often in the news abroad; at home, it’s grinding poverty for most Libyans. In the Republic of Sudan, Omar Al Bashir presides over a single-party regime notorious for committing gross violations of human rights and a country torn apart by civil war. After a recent referendum, Sudan is likely to split into two countries. This, in turn, has led to street protests in Khartoum, with most of the protesters owing allegiance to radical Islamist groups.

In the Syrian Arab Republic, President Bashar al-Assad rules with a mailed fist. Its one-party system automatically rules out the presence of other contenders for power. The ‘presidential democracy’ in the Republic of Yemen is a sham that has kept Ali Abdullah Saleh in power since 1978 and pushed the country deeper into poverty, social unrest and radical Islamism-inspired terrorism.

The House of Saud has ruled the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia since 1931. It has neither the inclination nor the time for parliamentary democracy or individual rights and freedom. Leave alone political parties, there are no organisations or unions in this country which lies at the heart of Arabia. And then there are the smaller kingdoms and emirates, ranging from Qatar to the UAE. One country that stands out is the Sultanate of Oman, ruled by Sultan Qaboos al Said who has been on the throne since 1970. He is enlightened, looks after his people, is well-loved and has built an economy that is strong and resilient although rising inflation is beginning to cause resentment among the less privileged.

Now let us look at what is common between these countries, apart from entrenched ageing rulers, who variously describe themselves as Presidents, Kings and Emirs, and the elite who live in opulent luxury while the masses wallow in appalling poverty. From the Arab palace, the world beyond perfumed gardens looks like a glittering fairytale land. From the Arab street, the world looks shabby and grey: Deprivation and denial are the twin leitmotifs. Each of the Arab states has a sizeable population aged below 30; many of them are unemployed; and, most were born after their rulers came to power. They are impatient for change, they want to participate in free and fair elections and access to the World Wide Web has helped them transcend the limits on information imposed by state-controlled media. The young are from the Arab street and hate the Arab palace, identified with limitless corruption and criminal suppression of the masses, with a passion never seen before. The socio-economic pyramid is being sought to be toppled. The base refuses to bear the burden of the tip any longer.

Another common feature shared by these sham republics and bogus kingdoms is the sudden, rapid collapse of a welfare system that was devised and patronised by the Arab palace to keep the masses on the Arab street satisfied, if not happy. Heavily subsidised food, inexpensive services, easy access to public sector jobs that paid subsistence wages and old age pensions were meant to generate a sense of gratitude towards the rais. It was a strategy that worked so long as there was money in the coffers. With Arab regimes, like Governments elsewhere in the world, running out of money, subsidies, jobs and pensions are fast disappearing or are being severely pruned. The clumsy attempt by these regimes to graft economic liberalisation on a system that till recently abhorred anything but the public sector which was either owned by the palace or the state has recoiled horribly. Job cuts and freeze on employment by Governments, such as they are, have added to the plight of the masses, especially the young, and food inflation has added to their woes. For instance, in Egypt, where defiant young men and women have forced the collapse of the Mubarak regime, unemployment is as high as 25 per cent; food inflation is running at 19 per cent; and, rising income disparity has made poverty even starker.

It is against this background that we should view the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia chose not to put up a fight: He fled his country (in an aircraft laden with accumulated gold) and an interim Government has taken charge. President Hosni Mubarak, on the other hand, dug in his heels and refused to budge from either his post or his palace till Friday. Before the day was over, his tottering regime collapsed. And that could trigger a domino effect whose consequences would be deeply unsettling for the region and the world, not least because the status quo would no longer obtain.

Already we are witnessing street protests in Jordan and Yemen where thousands have been turning out to demand political reforms. In Jordan, King Abdullah has been spared popular anger till now but in Yemen the masses want Ali Abdullah Saleh out. Abdelaziz Bouteflika is gearing up to face massive rallies: 25,000 policemen were deployed to restrain protesters in Algiers on Saturday. There are reports that Bahrain is in ferment and protests there could take a nasty turn with Shias, who constitute the majority, demanding the ouster of a Sunni minority regime. A massive protest march is planned for Monday. Iraq, yet to attain any degree of political, economic and social stability, could erupt in street protests too with opponents of the incumbent Government seizing upon this opportunity to try and dislodge it, possibly through violent means, and usher a radical Islamist, pro-Iran regime.

It’s not for nothing that the Arab rulers are alarmed by the developments in Tunisia and more so in Egypt. The ‘Jasmine Revolution’ in Tunisia, with an eighth of Egypt’s population, could have been waved away as an aberration, but the roar from Tahrir Square is too deafening to be ignored. The response has been at three levels.

Alert and intelligent rulers have responded with promises of political reforms: Jordan’s King Abdullah has sacked his Prime Minister and appointed a new team to address popular grievances; Kuwait’s Al Sabbah family has let it be known it is not averse to more freedom and democracy but, as a precautionary measure, has banned all gatherings, rallies and marches after Friday prayers. Bashar al-Assad, who instructed his security forces to crush an incipient copy-cat protest in Damascus earlier this month, has now ordered the ban on Facebook and YouTube to be lifted, making what would be considered in Syria a significant concession. Ali Abdullah Saleh has promised protesters in Yemen that he will neither contest the 2013 elections, nor field his son as a candidate.

Second, the rulers seem to have suddenly realised that perhaps turning the welfare tap off and cutting down on entitlements were not such good ideas; liberalisation and market economy may attract investors but a slothful system ensures that benefits don’t immediately follow. Arab socialism was about patronage; Arab capitalism is about cronyism — the first at least helped silence critics; the latter has made critics shriller. So, as if on cue, the regimes have promptly decided to enhance social welfare spending, regardless of the long-term impact on their near-empty treasuries. For instance, Jordan’s Budget could end up funding higher salaries and pensions, leaving little for anything else. On Friday, hours before Cairo fell to protesters, the ruler of Bahrain, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa announced a $2,700 dole for each family, hoping to placate his subjects. Saudi Arabia, where a group of reformists has written to King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz seeking his permission to set up a political party, is no doubt flush with oil money, but it also has more people clamouring for dole than it did a decade ago: Two-thirds of its population is aged 30 and below; unemployment is at an alarming 10 per cent in a country with nine million expatriate workers; shooting inflation and falling incomes have shrunk its middle class base. Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait and others could see their money running out fast if the enhanced payouts continue for too long.

Third, the Arab rulers are making efforts, no matter how feeble and ineffective they may be, to reach out to the Twitter and Facebook generation of bloggers. Prince Khalid al Faisal, the Governor of Mecca Province, did something extraordinary recently after heavy rains flooded Jeddah, leaving many dead and eliciting accusations of inefficiency on part of the city administration which was openly accused of being corrupt. He invited a group of five young men, including a blogger who had been sent to jail two years ago for raging against the palace, and briefed them about the ‘sincere measures’ taken by authorities, admitted lapses in tackling the situation and promised action against errant officials. Meeting over, he smiled and told the men: Do send our royal regards to the young people on Twitter.

At the same time, the men who rule Arabia are clever enough to realise that if push comes to shove, their palaces will collapse like castles built of sand. Hence, they want to keep both push and shove at bay, at least till such time they have put in place mechanisms to deal with uprisings similar to the one witnessed in Egypt. The best way to do so, they believed, would be to ensure the Mubarak regime did not fall. This was based on the assumption that if the man who had ruled Egypt for 30 years could somehow hang on to power and ride the storm, the collapse of the old order could be prevented and the domino effect stalled. So the Kings and Presidents, Sultans and Emirs rallied round to Mubarak’s aid. King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz grandly declared, “In case the US withdraws its financial support to Cairo, my kingdom will prop up Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.” That was as much a declaration of support for Mubarak as a taunt to America for abandoning its staunch ally in his moment of crisis. In the end, neither solidarity nor support helped Mubarak retain power. As Egypt burst into celebrations, a bitter realisation began to sink in: If the US could abandon Mubarak, it could also say goodbye to others without allowing friendships of the past to weigh too heavily on its conscience.

Ironically, it is this perceived callous indifference of the US towards a beleaguered Mubarak in his last days in office that has left many flummoxed in Arabia. Egypt under the Mubarak dispensation, backed by the Army, was the best bet for peace in the region, especially in regard to Israel. It was also the best defence against the rise of radical Islamism whose practitioners see themselves as the alternative to incumbent Arab regimes. With Mubarak gone, the Muslim Brotherhood is preparing to make a dramatic appearance either through collaboration or alone in Egyptian politics; through Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamists have seized power in Gaza; in Lebanon, the Hizbullah, which has toppled the Hariri Government and put into place a regime controlled by Islamists, increasingly and frighteningly calls the shots; in Tunisia, dormant Islamism has come alive after the long-exiled leader of the till recently outlawed Islamist party Ennahdha, Rachid Ghanouchi, made a triumphant return home; in Jordan, the Friday street protests are being led by Islamists sustained by the Ikhwan’s ideology; in Yemen, Islamists are waiting for the palace to fall under their assault; in Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, a deep undercurrent of radical Islamism is waiting to burst forth.

A gleeful Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has described the Egyptian uprising as the unleashing of an “Islamic wave”. His protégé and Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has described the Egyptian uprising and the collapse of the Mubarak regime exactly 32 years to the day of the fall of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi on February 11, 1979, as the “emergence of a new Middle East that will doom Israel and break free of American interference”. The Islamic Republic of Iran has reason to rejoice. Despite it being a Shia country and not an Arab state, Iran sees itself as emerging as the most important player in Arabia by striking alliances with Islamists in the Maghreb and the Mashreq waiting in the wings to seize power: First through the ballot and then by aping the Iranian model of Islamic republicanism which is theocracy by another name and suppresses protest with the help of the notorious Revolutionary Guards and the gallows in state prisons as it did the massive demonstrations, as large, if not larger, than those in Egypt, against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s brazen vote fraud in the last election. The Hamas and Hizbullah, the first Sunni and the second Shia, are heavily funded by Iran via Syria and this enables Tehran to wield considerable clout with both organisations. It also fetches Tehran considerable influence in Damascus.

In what the Americans refer to as the ‘Extended Middle East’, Sunni Arab states have long ceased to play a key role. The three countries that have emerged as major players are neither Arab nor Sunni. At one end we have Iran. There is Israel, a Jewish state, in the middle. And there is Turkey at the other end where the Islamist AKP has silently, slyly fashioned Atatürk ’s secular republic to increasingly reflect its faith-driven ideology. If the fall of the last pharaoh is followed by regimes toppling over in other Arab states, then the identity of West Asia will change forever — whether for better or worse is at the moment a matter of guess and conjecture. But Sunni Arabia, loosely tied by Arab nationalism, will virtually cease to exist; what will emerge is a pan-Islamist region with a near common political agenda driven by religious dogma and theocratic fanaticism. That’s a possibility the world must prepare to deal with in whichever way and form. Democracy, in the end, could lead to the legitimisation of cruel theocracy as an alternative to brutal autocracy. That’s an inbuilt risk which is often overlooked, if not ignored.

Ironically, rulers who have ruled in the name of Islam fear Islamism the most. That could be either because radicalism scares those who are wedded to the idea of stability, often enforced ruthlessly, or because it would reverse the long-established order with the ruled dominating the rulers. Till now the Arab palace loathed the Arab street and held it in contempt. Suddenly, the Arab palace has begun to fear the Arab street. And the Arab street has begun to sense that fear.

(The writer spent three years in Cairo and has travelled extensively in the Maghreb and the Mashreq)

Don't defame the armed forces

How many men in khaki die defending India every day?

Major killed, Col injured in encounter with LeT in Poonch
Jammu, July 13: An Army Major was killed and six other personnel including a Colonel injured in Mandhar sector of Poonch in an encounter tonight with Lashkar-e- Tayyeba terrorists. Major Amit Phunge was killed in the operation while Col.Ajay Katoch of 47 Rashtriya Rifles was injured when the terrorists resorted to heavy fire and lobbed grenades, official sources said. The Army team had gone to the spot following information that about 15 Pakistan-based terrorists had sneaked in. The Army cordoned off the area and launched a search operation. The injured included Dinesh Kumar and Satinder Kumar, both Signalmen, Naik Jasbir Singh, Sepoy Samir Kumar and Rifleman Dasharat.

It’s now considered fashionable and politically correct to berate the security forces and accuse them of violating human rights. The Delhi commentariat, whose ill-informed members are often indistinguishable from jholawallahs with a certain fondness for candles, having run out of abuse to heap on Hindus and organisations that speak up for Hindu rights, has now decided to pour its bile on our men in khaki. Real and imagined instances of alleged ‘encounter killings’ are being recalled, professional human rights activists are being interviewed, separatist leaders are being flown down to Delhi and panel discussions are being organised with the sole purpose of painting the security forces in the bleakest of colours. It would seem suddenly the Army has become a four-letter dirty word and there’s no crime that jawans cannot be held guilty of having committed.

Last Sunday I was invited to a popular television show in which participants were supposed to discuss whether the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act of 1958 — subsequently amended in 1972 — requires amendments to make the security forces operating under this law accountable for their actions. We need not go into the specifics of who said what — much of it was predictable: The politician from Jammu & Kashmir described the law as “draconian”; the Kashmiri separatist accused the ‘Indian’ Army of “killing Kashmiri children”; the human rights activist said the colour khaki makes boys (she meant militants) see red and hence should be banned; and, the person representing Delhi’s exalted commentariat pompously demanded that “the law must go”. Two retired Generals of the Army and a Brigadier valiantly fought back. As usual, I was in a minority of one.

The point to note was that none of the critics of the Army and the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act had a clue about the specifics of the law, nor did anyone offer to validate sweeping allegations of rights violations. Instead, what we heard were bizarre figures being cited and implausible charges being levelled. To be fair, the host repeatedly made it clear that the purpose of the show was not to attack or belittle the Army, but to debate the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. But that served little purpose because the critics were either not interested in this particular issue or they were keen to push their own agenda. In the process, nothing of substance could be discussed and debated.

The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, I ventured to suggest, was not meant to place the Army or the security forces above the law of the land but to empower them to function effectively while dealing with situations that have defied resolution through normal means — intervention by civilian authorities, action by the police and call for calm by the political class. The Army cannot be expected to function in a vacuum and requires to be given autonomy of decision and action, I argued, hence the need for the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act.

This fetched a volley of furious reactions: The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act gives the Army and security forces the licence to kill; it militates against the spirit of democracy; its provisions fly in the face of rights guaranteed by the Constitution. The Kashmiri separatist thought he was being profound when he said, “The right to life is inalienable, it cannot be violated,” and then went on to allege that “thousands are being killed by the Indian Army”. For a moment I was tempted to point out that having repudiated his allegiance to the Republic of India he had also forfeited the rights guaranteed by the Constitution of India. But I desisted from doing so because it would be meaningless trying to engage him in a debate on the provisions of the very Constitution which separatists like him find sufficiently repelling to want to secede from the Union of India.

I had taken with me some notes, which proved to be of no use when the discussion drifted into irrelevant issues and bogus allegations. But some of the details, culled from data sheets hosted on the South Asia Terrorism Portal, need to be placed on record, if only to nail the lies of those who seek to defame the Army and other security forces drafted for counter-insurgency operations. These essentially deal with fatalities suffered by our men in uniform.

For instance, 5,962 security forces personnel have been killed by terrorists in Jammu & Kashmir between 1988 and July 5, 2010. This year alone 45 security forces personnel have died in the State fighting militants. There are other insurgencies being fought by the security forces. Since 1992, as many as 939 officers and jawans have lost their lives in Manipur; 783 in Assam; 81 in Meghalaya and 22 in Mizoram. There’s more: 1,226 security forces personnel have died fighting Maoists between 2005 and 2010; this year, till July 5, we have lost 204 men in uniform to Maoist bullets.

Don't these lives count for anything? Do men who don khaki automatically surrender their right to life guaranteed by the Constitution? Are young men and women who join paramilitary forces and the Army no more than cannon fodder? And, more importantly, what about their human rights? Their right to dignity? Are these meant to be scoffed at? To be spat upon? To be violated with impunity?

The parents of a young Army Captain who went down fighting terrorists in Kashmir Valley earlier this year recounted during the show how their son was not felled by the militants’ bullets, but by a bullet fired from a nearby house. His mother, wiping her tears, said in a firm voice: “I have no more sons. If I had any, I would have sent them to join the Army. Since I have none, I am willing to offer my services.” The Kashmiri separatist slyly retorted, “We have heard thousands of such stories.”

There are two points that merit mention. First, contrary to propaganda, despite the so-called ‘sweeping provisions’ of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, the security forces virtually operate in terrorist and insurgent-infested areas with both arms tied behind their backs. Or else the fatalities would not have been so high. That’s commonsense. Second, nobody, least of all the Army, condones wilful violation of human rights. But allegations cannot be deemed to be actionable unless proven to be true. Since 1990, the security forces have faced 1,511 cases of human rights abuse. These were investigated by various agencies, including the National Human Rights Commission, and 1,473 were found to be false. In the remaining cases where culpability was established, 104 men have been punished.

A last point. There’s nothing called a pretty war fought with roses and daisies. Collateral damage is inevitable in counter-insurgency and anti-terrorist operations. It’s an asymmetrical war being fought out there by men who have dedicated their lives to the service of the nation; we must get real and learn to live with the consequences. Stuff happens.

[This appeared as my Sunday column Coffee Break in The Pioneer on July 11, 2010]

Intercepted: Tell-tale messages

Who’s behind surge in violence in Kashmir Valley?

Here’s a PTI report:
Involvement of hardline separatists in engineering some of the violence in the Kashmir Valley is indicated by an intercepted conversation between two of them during which they discussed killing of at least 15 people in a procession near Srinagar on Wednesday (July 7).

A large procession had started in Budgam district on the outskirts of Srinagar in the evening and two senior office-bearers of the hardline Hurriyat faction led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani discussed how to utilise it to create casualties, according to the transcript of the conversation available with the Home Ministry.

According to the transcript, one of the office-bearers, Ghulam Ahmed Dar, was heard telling Shabir Ahmed Wani, another office-bearer, that a procession of nearly 20,000 people had started from Magam and was going towards Budgam.

Wani tells Dar, "You guys enjoy payments sitting at home and do nothing."

Dar, in his response, says, "The management of crowd becomes difficult later... it gets difficult to manage the mob later."

Dar then ends up by saying, "At least 15 people should be martyred today."

However, in the event, the police dispersed the procession with a mild cane charge and no untoward incident took place.

Yet another intercepted communication (see transcript alongside) exposes Pakistan’s role in fomenting the latest round of violence in Kashmir Valley.

Paid 'protests' in Kashmir!

Four stone-pelters 'associations' in Valley
'Protesters' paid Rs 150-300 per day
Pakistan-LeT routing money via Dubai

The Ministry of Home Affairs on July 8 revealed startling details about the phenomenon called 'stone-pelting' in the Kashmir Valley which has led to the re-imposition of curfew in Srinagar and other towns, and putting the Army on stand-by.

The intensity of stone-pelting (during which stones are hurled at security forces, usually CRPF jawans patrolling the streets) can be gauged from the fact that till now 1,875 jawans have been injured -- 211 of them since the latest round of stone-pelting began on June 11. Scores of Jammu & Kashmir Police personnel have also been injured in the stone-pelting.

It has long been obvious that the Hamas-inspired intifada-style 'protest' by young Kashmiri Muslim men, their faces covered by chequered kaffiyeh or balaclavas, hurling stones at security forces was neither spontaneous nor genuine.

Interception of communications between separatists in the Kashmir Valley and their Lashkar-e-Tayyeba/ISI handlers in Pakistan by intelligence agencies have led to the following findings:

.There are four stone-pelters 'associations' functioning in the Kashmir Valley, organising the 'protests' in the streets by mobilising young men, some still in their teens.
.These are -- Jammu & Kashmir Stone-Pelters Association; Stone-Pelters Association of Kashmir Valley; I Am a Stone-Pelter Association; and Stone Throwers Association.
.These 'associations' have been received funds from Pakistan routed via Dubai and sent to recipients in Jammu & Kashmir through agencies like Western Union.
.The money is transferred in small amounts so as to not attraction attention of official agencies.
.This money is used for paying stone-pelters between Rs 150 and Rs 300 a day. Their task is to hurl stones at security forces and try to provoke them into reacting, and disrupting normal life.

Hamas used the same methods during the intifida it organised in the Gaza Strip.

Also see the editorial comment I wrote for The Pioneer.

Sinister face of Islamism

Horrific bloodshed in Sufi shrine, mosques

Muslims kill Muslims in name of Islam!

On July 2, suicide bombers attacked Daata Darbar, an ancient Sufi shrine in Lahore, killing at least 44 people who had come to seek blessings. For the first time in 927 years, langar was stopped at the shrine. Some news reports say there were three suicide bombers, others say there were two.

Earlier, on May 28, two Ahmedi mosques in Lahore were attacked by suicide terror squads, owing allegiance to Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, resulting in the death of at least 95 worshippers who had gathered for Friday prayers.

There have been similar terror attacks on mosques and shrines in Pakistan, including a mosque in Rawalpindi frequented by Army personnel and their families -- a 10 year old boy was killed, along with scores, in that attack.

Instead of looking within and coming to grips with the grim fact of Islamist terrorists turning on Muslims in Pakistan, most Pakistanis and the Government of that country continue to live in denial. The Jamaat-e-Islami blames Americans and Blackwater for killings by Islamist terrorists. Others blame India!

Arifa Moen, 32, a teacher in the central city of Multan, told the Pakistani newspaper Daily Times: "Washington is encouraging Indians and Jews to carry out attacks in Pakistan." If a teacher has such perverse views, what will Pakistani children learn? And who will save Pakistan's children from the monsters who kill so remorselessly?

And while denial rules the collective Pakistan conscience, the terrible slaying of Muslims by Muslims continues, ironically in the name of Islam.

Worse, if you dare criticise the outrages, you are labelled an Islamophobe.

Here's my commentary on the issue:

"We Muslims are one community... (my goal was to) injure people or kill people... One has to understand where I’m coming from, because… I consider myself a mujahid, a Muslim soldier.” It’s unlikely the American judge presiding over Faisal Shahzad’s arraignment was quite prepared for such a candid admission of Islamism über alles by the would-be Times Square bomber. But this is not the first time that the jihadi impulse has been so baldly stated by those who believe that bloodshed serves the cause of Islam — the more horrific the bloodletting, the greater the piety of the perpetrator of what others consider to be both a crime and a sin.

The Fort Hood killer had no qualms about killing fellow soldiers; the underpants bomber was prepared to die to bring down a trans-Atlantic passenger plane, and Faisal Shahzad was comfortable with the idea of blowing up innocent people in New York’s fashionable Times Square. Before them, Mohammed Atta al-Sayeed had led a dozen hijackers on a suicide mission to terrorise America; in London, young Muslims of Pakistani origin had stuffed their backpacks with explosives and pulled the trigger in crowded compartments of underground trains.

We in India have known for long what the West has discovered to its horror after the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center were felled on 9/11. Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s sophistry was useful distraction from the Muslim League’s coarse politics of separatism premised on the fundamentals of Islamic exclusivism, intolerance bordering on hatred of the ‘other’, the ummah’s presumed right to rule the world and hoist the banner of Islam atop every capital.

Tragic as the violence that accompanied partition may have been, far worse has since been witnessed. Islamists from Pakistan have struck again and again, in more ways than one, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. When excessive attention is focussed on 26/11 because it was jihad brought live on television screens, their other crimes tend to be glossed over. For instance the ethnic cleansing of Kashmir Valley. Or the subversion of the Indian Muslim’s mind.

Jinnah was given to lofty speech if not noble thought, but the lesser among the ranks must have sniggered when he declared on August 11, 1947, in a speech that is often quoted by those untutored in Islamism: “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the state... You will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state.”

That state is today rapidly sinking into the quagmire of Islamist fanaticism. Pakistan’s citizens have neither ceased to be Hindus and Muslims “in the political sense” nor has the Pakistani state steered clear of religion. The degeneration began within months of the Quaid-e-Azam’s death; a decrepit, derelict Islamic Republic of Pakistan, variously described as the “most dangerous place in the world” and an “international headache”, is now engulfed in the very jihad which it thought would destroy India.

Jinnah was able to wrench out of India what he despairingly (some would say, disparagingly) described as “a moth-eaten Pakistan”; what remains of Pakistan is being gnawed at from within by those who are so consumed by hate that they find the idea of Muslims cohabiting with Muslims an intolerable idea. Nothing else explains why suicide bombers should target worshippers at Daata Darbar, an acient Sufi shrine in Lahore, drenching a saint’s dargah with the blood of the innocent last Thursday, or kill believers gathered at a Rawalpindi mosque. Since by law Ahmediyas are not considered to be Muslims in Pakistan and treated as heretics by mullahs, their slaughter while at prayer, as it happened on May 28, is considered to be nothing extraordinary in the ‘land of the pure’.

So, when Faisal Shahzad says, “One has to understand where I’m coming from,” he means one has to look at Pakistan to understand what drives Pakistanis to kill with such ferocity and cite Islam as the reason. But Pakistan alone does not breed such monsters; look around and you will find that rare is the Muslim-majority country untainted by the violence propagated by Islamism and perpetrated by Islamists. Secular Egypt thought it would render the seeds of Islamism planted by Syed Qutb sterile by executing the man who called for “offensive jihad” as the true assertion of the Islamic identity. But the Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen has flourished, carrying forth Qutb’s message that “true Islam will transform every aspect of society, eliminating everything non-Muslim”, and that Islam is the “ultimate solution”.

It would be a folly to believe that every Muslim subscribes to Qutb’s interpretation of Islam or that behind every Muslim name lurks a terrorist waiting for an opportunity to strike. For evidence of the deep schism that sets Faisal Shahzad and his ilk apart from those who just want to get on with their lives and live in peace we just need to look at Pakistan. For every suicide bomber there are thousands who are repelled by his act of terror, who weep at the sight of so much blood being shed for nothing. Muslims in Mumbai, let us not forget, refused to allow the bodies of Ajmal Kasab’s slain colleagues to be buried in their graveyards. Such examples abound.

Yet, it would do us no good if we were to gloss over the reality. Islamofascism exists and those who subscribe to it are unfortunately also those who are fashioning policy and influencing society in Islamic countries — individually and collectively. The Organisation of Islamic Conference bears evidence to this: Every time it demands the criminalisation of criticism of Islamist excesses and crimes against humanity because it allegedly “defames Islam”, it strengthens those very elements whom it should be condemning before anybody else does so but won’t because it conflates Islamism and Islam and views the former as a triumphalist, faith-driven assertion of the latter.

It’s easy to demonise critics of Islamism as ‘Islamophobes’ and call for global legislation to curb free speech. But if conceded, this will embolden the Faisal Shahzads and the suicide bombers and the fanatics for whom hate is a virtue and tolerance a sin. Rather than lash out at those who find Islamism abhorrent, its champions should ask themselves a simple question: After “eliminating everything non-Muslim”, what shall happen to ‘everything Muslim’? The terrible sight of Muslims killing Muslims in Pakistan, which was supposed to be the homeland of the Indian sub-continent’s Muslims, should provide a clue to the answer to that question.

[The comment originally appeared as my Sunday column Coffee Break in The Pioneer on June 4, 2010. (c)]

On Israel, India plays Boy Scout

India has violated Sri Lanka's sovereignty to 'help' Tamils!
India has blockaded Nepal to 'teach Kathmandu a lesson'!
India votes with OIC countries; OIC countries votes against India!

It was the summer of 1987 and passions were running high in Tamil Nadu over the Sri Lankan Government’s decision to impose a blockade on Jaffna peninsula, which was the stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Colombo believed that it could force a breach between the Tamils of Jaffna and the LTTE by using coercive, non-military measures like an economic blockade: Starving masses would any day settle for food over homeland.

It didn’t quite work that way. The LTTE was in those days a fearsome fighting force and the civilian patrons of the Tigers were sufficiently impressed by V Prabhakaran’s machismo to begin believing in the balderdash about how Tamils constitute a separate nation and should not hesitate to pay any price for a Tamil Eelam. The LTTE demanded that the people of Jaffna should simply grin and bear the hunger and hardship caused by the blockade; the masses had no option but to concur.

Soon, the Tamils in India were seething with anger, as were their leaders with both AIADMK and DMK trying to outdo each other in ‘standing by’ their brethren in Jaffna. They demanded immediate intervention by India to ‘liberate’ Jaffna from the ‘clutches’ of Colombo. Rajiv Gandhi, who was then Prime Minister, was not particularly bothered about the deprivations forced on Jaffna’s Tamils by the blockade, but he was in a rage: How could Colombo thumb its nose at New Delhi in so blatant a manner in the middle of peace negotiations?

It was not possible to send an Indian armada across the Palk Strait, but Rajiv Gandhi did what he (or his advisers) thought was the next best thing: Indian planes were despatched to drop food packets over Jaffna. Six AN-32 aircraft made repeated sorties from Chennai to Jaffna, dropped food packets, and returned to base. Ostensibly, New Delhi was determined to showcase its human face in the neighbourhood. Of course, it’s another story that the same Rajiv Gandhi had ordered a virtual economic blockade of Nepal by closing all except one border crossing with Nepal to force Kathmandu to fall in line with New Delhi.

On spotting the AN-32 over Jaffna, it was Colombo’s turn to feel outraged: Its airspace had been violated with impunity by India. Nor were the Tamils of Jaffna pleased. This was no aid but mere scoring of political points. The subsequent India-Sri Lanka Accord and the disastrous Indian peace-keeping expedition are now footnotes of history.

Years later, Pakistan decided to repeat that act of Indian belligerence, albeit with a twist. It encouraged various Government-sponsored pro-azadi organisations based in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to organise a long march to Srinagar. The idea was to create a spectacle of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children rushing through the Line of Control, leaving Indian security forces nonplussed: They couldn’t possibly shoot at civilians in such large numbers. Mediapersons from around the world gathered for the event as PV Narasimha Rao went into a tizzy, desperately trying to ward off a showdown. In the end, Mr Nawaz Sharif panicked (some say after a harsh telephone call from the White House prompted by Rao pleading with the Americans) and the Pakistani Rangers didn’t allow the ‘freedom marchers’ to proceed beyond Muzaffarabad.

The point is that India is the last country which should feel compelled to criticise Israel’s use of force to prevent the so-called ‘Freedom Flotilla’ led by a Turkish ship from breaching the naval blockade of Gaza. Having violated a similar blockade in another country and paid a terrible price for that folly, and also having enforced a pernicious blockade on Nepal which caused enormous and lasting damage to bilateral relations, and, last but not least, having scurried to the Americans for their help to stall a ‘Freedom March’ from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to Srinagar, it ill behoves us to issue a denunciatory statement even before the full facts of what happened on the sea off the coast of Gaza were known. Had those who drafted the statement admonishing India bothered to watch the videotapes of the Israeli raid on the flotilla, they would have desisted from formally issuing it.

[Text of statement on 'incident involving boats carrying supplies for Gaza' issued by Ministry of External Affairs on May 31, 2010:

India deplores the tragic loss of life and the reports of killings and injuries to people on the boats carrying supplies for Gaza. There can be no justification for such indiscriminate use of force, which we condemn. We extend our sympathies to the families of the dead and wounded. It is our firm conviction that lasting peace and security in the region can be achieved only through peaceful dialogue and not through use of force.
New Delhi.]

It is amazing that we have not yet learned a lesson from voting blindly with the block of Organisation of Islamic Conference countries at all international and multilateral fora every time they have chosen to denounce Israel. This has not fetched India any benefits, diplomatic or otherwise. Nor has it stopped the OIC from adopting anti-India resolutions and repudiating India’s sovereign right over Jammu & Kashmir.

We can vote against Iran at the IAEA to please America (it would have been an entirely defensible and justifiable decision had New Delhi voted against Tehran on its own and not at Washington’s behest) but we can’t refuse to vote against Israel bearing in mind our national interest? Must we forget that Israel came to India’s help at a moment of national crisis when we urgently needed battlefield hardware during the Kargil incursion by Pakistani soldiers? More importantly, must we remain captive to vacuous political posturing of the past when it was fashionable to align with the Arabs against the Jewish state?

By rushing into criticising Israel, we may think we have scored brownie points with Turkey, which has recalled its Ambassador to Tel Aviv and threatened to snap six decades of diplomatic relations, but such expectations are entirely misplaced. The Islamist AKP regime in Ankara has made it abundantly clear that its sympathies lie with Islamabad and not New Delhi on a host of issues, especially the future role of Pakistan and India in Afghanistan; that it will facilitate Tehran’s bomb-in-the-basement programme through subterfuge and sleight of hand and, that it sees itself as the new centre of Islamic politics and Islamist revanchism.

If anything, India looks as silly as Nicaragua and South Africa — the first is trying to rediscover Left radicalism in a world that cruelly mocks at the Left; the second is blessed with a succession of Muslim Deputy Foreign Ministers who abuse Israel to satiate their lust for anti-Semitism. As if that were not enough, we have been bracketed with China which amazingly lectured Israel on the need to be mindful about safeguarding human rights. We could, of course, compare our hypocrisy with that of Britain which earlier this year expelled an Israeli diplomat over the targeted killing of a Hamas terrorist in Dubai. Few know that sanctimonious Britain provides caring shelter to Islamists wanted for horrible crimes around the world.

[This appeared as my weekly column Coffee Break in The Pioneer on June 6, 2010.]

The secret diary of Hamid Mir

Or why news telly in India is so insensitive!

If Saturday morning’s crash of an Air India plane in Mangalore that resulted in the loss of 159 lives was shockingly tragic, the coverage of the horrific incident by television news channels was appallingly callous. Chasing TRPs, some channels tripped over each other to be the first to get ‘exclusive’ tid-bits of the accident, and took ghoulish delight in presenting macabre details. What was most insensitive was television reporters thrusting their mikes into the faces of survivors and asking stunningly bovine questions. Actually, they were not asking, but demanding replies to questions that were uncalled for. So we had these shaken and injured survivors, too traumatised to think straight and possibly still in a daze, unable to comprehend what had gone wrong in the last few minutes before the plane they were travelling in from Dubai was to have come to a halt on the runway and then slowly made its way to the parking bay, recounting their horror for the benefit of television news channels. What they (or grieving families) said made little sense, which is understandable. Our smart alec anchors would have been far more incoherent and incomprehensible had they been through something far less traumatic and life-threatening.

Make no mistake. The survivors, who were in need of immediate medical assistance and could do without television cameras at their moment of ordeal, were not being brought to the screens of your television sets to inform you about what happened, why it happened, how it happened. In any event, none of the few who survived the crash could possibly throw any light on what went wrong with a landing that was supposed to be smooth — the commander and his co-pilot had landed the same aircraft on the same runway innumerable times in the past and are believed to have known the terrain like the backs of their hands — but proved to be fatal. The survivors were pounced upon by camera crews because it gave them a great high (they were able to get ‘exclusive’ grabs for their channels) and their bosses an opportunity to claim that they had it before anybody else did. That in the process all norms of decency, dignity and discretion were rudely trampled upon, and editorial caution that should have been exercised was thrown to the wind, matters little to our television channels.

Which, of course, is nothing new. Why else would our television channels have sought out Hamid Mir, the now disgraced ‘star’ of Pakistani television and chief of Geo TV, for his comments whenever issues related to that country or India-Pakistan relations cropped up? That Hamid Mir has a dubious past is known to everybody on either side of the Radcliffe Line. Nor is it a well-kept secret that Hamid Mir’s sympathies have all along been with the Islamists and not the modernists of Pakistani society and politics. By extension, his association with the ISI and the Pakistani Army has often been a subject of animated discussion. Yet, what is known as ‘mainstream media’ in India had no compunctions about showcasing Hamid Mir and presenting his views as those representing ‘mainstream opinion’ in Pakistan!

Well, mainstream opinion in Pakistan, at least that which reflects what the educated, thinking classes of that country think, is at the moment heavily loaded against Hamid Mir. Recently, a tape surfaced on Facebook which had him talking to a member of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or what is popularly referred to as the ‘Punjabi Taliban’ by Pakistanis. The conversation had nothing to do with news-gathering: It amounted to Hamid Mir instigating the TTP to kill Khalid Khwaja, a former ISI agent known to be close to the Americans who had been kidnapped by the Punjabi Taliban. The tape reveals Hamid Mir accusing Khalid Khwaja of having links with the minority Ahmedis and the Americans, both sufficiently sinful in the books of the Pakistani Taliban to merit the death sentence. Subsequently, Khalid Khwaja was killed. Hamid Mir tried to disown the tape, saying it was not his voice. Strangely, the ISI has confirmed that it was indeed Hamid Mir’s voice on the tape; senior journalists who have known Hamid Mir for years have also confirmed the tape’s authenticity.

A debate is now raging in Pakistani media circles about who taped the conversation between Hamid Mir and the TTP, and why was the tape leaked. According to some journalists, the outing of Hamid Mir also exposes the deep rifts within Pakistan’s intelligence agencies, namely the ISI, the Military Intelligence and the Intelligence Bureau. Any one of them could be trying to embarrass the other as Hamid Mir is said to have had livewire links with all of them. Another theory has it that the whole purpose was to expose the Islamists within Pakistan’s intelligence agencies by those sections in the ISI, MI and IB aligned with the either the US or China — sort of an ‘ideological’ war which has now come into the open. This is discounted by knowledgeable members of Pakistan’s commentariat who believe, and perhaps rightly so, that there is little that divides Pakistani intelligence agencies and their operatives ‘ideologically’; any alliance with either the Americans or the Chinese is purely tactical and does not automatically denote rejection or repudiation of Islamism.

The fine print, really, is inconsequential. The fact remains that Hamid Mir is more than just chief of Geo TV; he is also in cahoots with Pakistani intelligence agencies and has strong links with organisations like the TTP which are considered ‘strategic assets’ by sections of the Islamabad-Rawalpindi political-military-jihad complex. What is also of some importance for us is that Geo TV belongs to Independent Media Corporation, which owns the Jang group of newspapers. And as we all know, the Jang group is the Pakistani partner of a well-known Indian group of newspapers in a joint venture called ‘Aman ki Asha’ which aims to promote cross-border harmony and peace. It would be perfectly in order to ask how can a media group that has die-hard Islamists with links to terrorist organisations vehemently opposed to peace with India in senior positions be a trans-border peace partner. It would also serve some purpose if we were to be told as to why the Jang group was selected over other newspaper groups or independent dailies like the Daily Times, which has played a leading role in exposing and outing Hamid Mir. Chinese whispers are not exactly reliable. But there could be some truth to the story doing the rounds that it was neither aman nor asha that prompted the partnership between the two media groups.

[This appeared as my weekly column Coffee Break in Sunday Pioneer, May 23, 2010.]

Root cause is political Islam

The banality of TV news analysis!

Those who abhor instant coffee, even if it’s a designer brand with a fancy prize tag marketed by Nescafe, would also have a distaste for instant news analysis. As with instant coffee — you take a spoonful, stir it into a cup of hot water, add some sugar and milk, and voila, your coffee is ready — so also with instant news analysis dished out by 24x7 television news channels: Get a self-proclaimed ‘expert’, make him sit in the studio with a couple of smug journalists who obviously have too little to do and a lot of time to kill, ask the most banal questions, get some bovine replies, and presto, you have news analysis!

The day after FBI agents and New York Police detectives grabbed Faisal Shahzad as he tried to board an Emirates flight to Dubai at JFK Airport and the Pakistani American admitted to having planted the car bomb at Times Square, which was spotted by a vendor and defused before it could cause death and destruction, television channels here in Delhi were tripping over each other for a piece of the ‘breaking news’. One channel had a former senior diplomat along with a Pakistani journalist on its prime time show, analysing what the anchor described as a “shocking” and “astonishing” disclosure — by the FBI agents and the would be Pakistani bomber with an American passport.

What’s so ‘shocking’ or ‘astonishing’ about the entire episode? Why should we in India be at all surprised or amazed or taken aback that a Pakistani (or an American of Pakistani origin, if you prefer) got caught trying to bomb Times Square? After all, Islamist jihadis of Pakistani origin have bombed other places and targets in other countries in the past and have not been particularly merciful (which is quite contrary to what the religion of peace and mercy is believed to teach its followers) towards fellow Pakistanis either. Nor should we forget that Faisal Shahzad is not the first Pakistani American jihadi; that distinction must go to David Coleman Headley alias Daood Gilani, shared with Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Pakistani Canadian who ran the Chicago cell of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba.

Much as Pakistanis living in denial would love to believe, it would be absurd to suggest that extra-terrestrials are to blame for the daily bloodshed in that benighted country. The suicide bombers on the prowl in Pakistan, looking for places crowded with women and children to blow themselves up, are not from Mars (or Venus, for that matter). Of course, like Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who we are now told fled with Benazir Bhutto’s stand-by car and security personnel minutes before she was assassinated, they would insist that Pakistanis who kill Pakistanis are not Pakistanis but Indians in disguise. But then, as an exasperated Pakistani journalist once told me, Mr Malik would have no compunctions about blaming India for his wife begetting children.

Recall the London Underground bombing of July 7, 2005 which was masterminded by Pakistanis based in Pakistan and executed with the help of British citizens of Pakistani origin living in Britain. Three of the Underground bombers were of Pakistani origin who had spent time at terrorist camps in Pakistan, seeking and securing guidance for becoming true soldiers of god, before they embarked on their deadly mission to further the cause of jihad. The fourth was a Muslim of Jamaican origin.

Recall also the repeated terrorist strikes in India, including the 26/11 slaughter in Mumbai (for which a Pakistani has just been sentenced to death), which were plotted in Pakistan and executed by Pakistanis, admittedly with the help of those Muslims in India who believe loyalty to the ummah and fidelity to faith necessitate treachery; our desi rage boys are known to justify their traitorous deeds by citing manufactured grievance. It would also be instructive to remember that in countries across the world Pakistanis have been either arrested for links with terrorist organisations or are under surveillance.

Ironically, most Islamic and Muslim majority countries either despise or are suspicious of Pakistanis. The ikhwan is reluctant to extend membership to the exclusive club to the legatees of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. While the ‘bad’ Taliban may find the ‘good’ Taliban useful allies in their war on innocents, it is doubtful whether they would relish the idea of breaking bread together. Variants of ‘Paki’, a term of abuse in Britain of the 1960s and 1970s popular among White racists who nursed a visceral hatred towards immigrants from the Indian sub-continent, have been adopted by Arabs in the Maghreb and Mashreq.

There is nothing to feel happy about this, not least because despite the overwhelming evidence of Pakistanis and the Pakistani political-military establishment being involved in global terrorism, there are a vast number of Pakistanis who are appalled by jihadi violence and have been forthright in disowning and denouncing those of their own who have blood on their hands. The mullah is not exactly an object of reverence in polite, decent, educated Pakistani society. To get an idea of what Pakistanis think of those who continue to fetch infamy for their country one just needs to read the editorial and opeditorial pages of the Dawn and the Nation.

An example should suffice: While media in India went into throes of ecstasy over a bogus Deobandi ‘fatwa’ against terrorism, in which everything but Islamist terrorism had been criticised and declared un-Islamic, Dawn had the gumption to call the bluff of Deobandis in Pakistan when they recently tried a similar sleight of hand. Based on my interaction with young Pakistani journalists, I would vouch for their opposition to savagery in the name of Islam. Stereotyping all Pakistanis, therefore, would be wrong and grossly unfair.

Which brings me to what the former senior diplomat had to say during the television programme hosted by the anchor who found it “shocking” and “astonishing” that a Pakistani should have been found planting a bomb in Times Square. According to him, the world should ask, and the Pakistanis should contemplate on, why all terrorists and potential bombers are from that country. Apart from being factually incorrect, his assertion also suggests that the root cause of jihad is the Pakistani identity, which is way off the mark.

Mohammed Atta, who flew a passenger jetliner into the World Trade Center, was not a Pakistani but an Egyptian. His fellow terrorists were of Saudi origin. In recent times, the underpants bomber who panicked when he saw smoke emanating from his crotch after he pulled the string, did not carry a Pakistani passport; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab alias Omar Farooq al-Nigeri is a Nigerian.

If we must look for a reason, then we should go beyond nationality and delve into theology. A lazier option would be to stick labels and be done with it. Just that this won’t help deal with the menace of Islamist terrorism.

[This appeared as my Sunday column Coffee Break in The Pioneer on May 9, 2010.)

Islamic human bombs

This is the photograph of a Taliban commander Abdullah alias Abu Waqas, who was presented before the media in Karachi, Pakistan, on Wednesday, February 17, 2010. According to the police, Abdullah was involved in recruiting female suicide bombers and training them.

Islam, many clerics have claimed, prohibits terrorism and definitely disallows the horrific practice of jihadis strapping themselves with explosives and pulling the trigger in a crowded place, killing themselves as well as innocent men, women and children.

But there are other clerics like the notorious Yusuf al-Qaradawi who proudly proclaim that while Christians, Jews and Hindus have nuclear bombs, Muslims have 'human bombs'.

(See my earlier blog on Islam's stockpile of human bombs.)

What is alarming is that jihadis are believed to be recruiting women who volunteer to become 'breast bombers' -- explosive planted in their breasts that do not show up in security scanners.

Recently, a 13-year-old Pakistani girl called Meena told the BBC her shocking story (Bombs and beatings: Life among the Taliban) of how her own family tried to turn her into a human bomb.

Truth is often horrifyingly tragic, more so when it is the truth about Islamism and jihad.

On February 26, suicide-bombers struck guesthouses in Kabul popular with Indians on assignment to Afghanistan. Here's the AP report:

Suicide bombers strike in heart of Kabul; 16 dead
By AMIR SHAH and RAHIM FAIEZ (AP) – Feb 26, 2010
KABUL — Insurgents struck in the heart of the Afghan capital Friday with suicide attackers and a car bomb, targeting hotels used by foreigners and killing at least 16 people and wounding dozens, police said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks, which Afghan President Hamid Karzai said were aimed at Indians working in Kabul.
The Taliban has long opposed India's involvement in the country and its ties to the Northern Alliance that helped the U.S. oust the Taliban regime in 2001 and formed the backbone of Karzai's government.
Six Indians were killed in the attacks, a spokesman for the country's foreign ministry said, revising the number from the ministry's original estimate of up to nine Indians dead. An Italian diplomat and a French filmmaker were also among the dead. Three Afghan police were killed, and six more officers were among the 36 people wounded, Afghan government officials said.
The four-hour assault began about 6:30 a.m. with a car bombing that leveled a residential hotel used by Indian doctors. A series of explosions and gunbattles left blood and debris in the rain-slicked streets and underscored the militants' ability to strike in the heavily defended capital even as NATO marshals its forces against them in the volatile south.

And here's a report from The Daily Telegraph of London, in which jihadis reiterate their claim about a huge arsenal of 'human bombs':

Taliban 'ready to unleash 3,000 suicide bombers in Pakistan'
The Taliban has claimed it is ready to unleash 3,000 suicide bombers in Pakistan in protest at military operations and American drone attacks in its tribal areas.
Dean Nelson in New Delhi
The Daily Telegrapg 09 Mar 2010
In the last few weeks the Taliban's overall military commander for Afghanistan, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who is Mullah Omar's deputy, was captured in a joint intelligence raid in Karachi by Pakistani and American agents.
Several members of the 'Quetta Shura', the movement's ruling council were later captured in the city, while the group's Pakistani leader Hakimullah Mehsud was believed to have been killed in a missile strike by an unmanned Predator drone. Earlier this week, Mullah Omar's son-in-law, a former minister in the last Taliban government was also arrested.
The threat was issued after one of its leaders claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb which killed 13 people outside an interrogation centre in Lahore where militant suspects are questioned.
Eight officials from the Federal Investigation Agency were those killed when the bomber detonated a Toyota Carolla packed with 1300 pounds of explosives between the office and a local religious school.
It was the third time the centre had been targeted and marked a return to its suicide bombing campaign after a number of serious setbacks for the Taliban leadership.
The bombing in Lahore served notice that the movement retains the ability to strike throughout Pakistan, while Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the Taliban, served notice that it had the capacity to intensify its campaign.
"We have around 3,000 more suicide bombers. We'll target all government places, buildings and offices," he said in a call to a news agency.
More than 3,000 people were killed in terrorist attacks in Pakistan last year as suicide bombers and 'fedayeen' commandos struck in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, and Peshawar. The figure marked a 48 per cent increase on 2008, reflecting a furious Taliban reaction to Pakistan Army operations against Taliban militants in South Waziristan and Bajaur Agencies.
Analysts believe the success of the army offensive in South Waziristan and their recent successes in arresting senior Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders has damaged the militants' ability to strike as regularly as they did last year.

I came across an interesting news story on Thursday (February 18) which I am posting below:

Wife of UK airliner bomb plotter gives testimony

LONDON (AP) -- The wife of a man convicted of plotting to bomb trans-Atlantic flights has testified in a British court that she was horrified to learn of his plans – but insisted she had no advance knowledge.
Cossor Ali told a London trial she was disgusted to be later shown a suicide video he had recorded in preparation for the attacks. The 28-year-old Ali is accused of failing to disclose information about her husband's terrorism plans, an offense which carries a punishment of up to five years in jail.
Abdulla Ahmed Ali – the plot's ringleader – was previously convicted and jailed for a minimum of 40 years, one of the longest sentences ever handed out by a UK court. He hoped to down at least seven passenger jets, and kill thousands, using liquid explosives. His wife denies withholding information.

Islam's stockpile of human bombs

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had promised his people and the Muslim ummah the ‘Islamic Bomb’. He didn’t live to see his promise fulfilled by a thieving AQ Khan. But given the reality of mutually assured destruction just in case someone is tempted to push the button, Pakistan has to perforce keep the ‘Islamic Bomb’ in safe custody, a useless totem of power. But there’s a far more easily accessible variant of the ‘Islamic Bomb’ which is used with sickening regularity by those who are thrilled at the sight of human gore and flesh, preferably that of women and children. It is called the ‘Human Bomb’.

Before Islamist suicide-bombers became dime-a-dozen, theorists would agonise over what made a man or a woman voluntarily pull the trigger of an explosives laden belt or jacket, thus blowing himself or herself up along with unsuspecting victims, for instance children in a school bus in Israel. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam had perfected the art of using the ‘human bomb’, despatching young men and women to commit dark deeds of mass murder or targeted killings, as in the case of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. But the LTTE’s suicide-bombers were driven by ideology, no matter how twisted and perverse it may have been. The cadre followed the leader’s command, or were executed for defiance.

It could be argued that the Islamist ‘human bomb’ is equally driven by ideology — the ideology of hate which fuels jihad in our times. But that would be a simplistic explanation. Perhaps a more abiding reason could be found in the faith they seek to espouse through their ghastly expression of fealty to Islam. The Quran variously praises the “man who gives his life to earn the pleasure of Allah...”, men who “fight in His cause, and slay and are slain…”; it promises rewards for the martyr, “be he slain or be he victorious”. The Hadith (Bukhari) extols the virtues of the ‘martyr’: “I would love to be martyred in Al1ah’s cause and then get resurrected and then get martyred, and then get resurrected again and then get martyred and then get resurrected again and then get martyred.” That and the promised pleasures of zannat with doe-eyed virgins.

The Grand Sheikh of Al Azhar, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy, a kindly man of wisdom with whom I had several enlightening conversations during my stay in Egypt, would often point out the fallacy of quoting scripture to justify terror, especially suicide-bombing. “Those were different times, we live in a different world. We must understand the text in its context.” Grand Sheikh Tantawy, despite heading Sunni Islam’s most famous theological centre and the world’s oldest surviving centre of learning, had nothing but contempt for those who sought martyrdom through terror. While preachers of hate like Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who runs the most popular portal on Islam, have glorified suicide-bombers and exhorted followers to tread the path of violence as it leads directly to heaven, Grand Sheikh Tantawy has unhesitatingly described them as “enemies of Islam”.

Much as we would like the voice of Grand Sheikh Tantawy to drown the murderous discourse of lesser imams and self-appointed standard-bearers of Islam, unfortunately he and his tribe are in an awful minority. What prevails over the faithful who are easily persuaded by chapter and verse is the constant chant of the virtues of ‘martyrdom’, of becoming a shahid for the cause of faith: They are brainwashed into believing that the road to heaven is made shorter for those who “slay and are slain”, who are “martyred in Allah's cause”. Many of the suicide-bombers are illiterate or semi-literate, but there are also those who have not allowed their education to come in the way of their belief. Mohammed Atta, who flew a hijacked plane into the World Trade Center, was not educated in a madarsa, nor did Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian ‘underpants bomber’ who almost brought down a trans-Atlantic flight last Christmas, suffer denial and deprivation.

Yet, there is no single pattern or explanation to what drives men and women into committing a horrific act of self-destruction aimed at killing innocent people. Reem Riyashi, a 22-year-old mother of two toddlers, blew herself up at a check-post on Israel’s border with Gaza in January, 2004. It was publicised by Hamas as the ultimate expression of loyalty to Islam and sacrifice for the ummah. In a video tape recorded hours before she became a ‘martyr’ and which was shown on a television channel controlled by Hamas, she was heard saying, “I have always wished to knock at the door of heaven carrying skulls belonging to the sons of Zion.” Later it transpired Reem Riyashi’s husband had discovered that she was having an affair with a senior Hamas office-bearer. The hapless woman was given the choice of death due to infidelity at the hands of her enraged husband or death as a ‘martyr’ by becoming a suicide-bomber. She believed the latter would fetch her redemption in the eyes of god, her family and society; her children would respect her.

How, then, would we explain why an Iraqi mother strapped her unsuspecting little child with remote-controlled explosives and blew her up as she raced to collect chocolates from an American soldier who would visit the neighbourhood every day to play with the children? Or the sheer cruelty of a Taliban commander who trains young boys and girls to become suicide-bombers? The BBC recently ran the story of a 13-year-old girl who escaped from home, terrorised by the prospect of being turned into a ‘human bomb’. She told the BBC how her brother, who is a Taliban commander, trains ‘human bombs’, among them his own sisters. Nor is it easy to explain why Humam Khalid Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, an educated Jordanian who is believed to have been on the CIA’s payroll and was given the task of tracking Ayman al-Zawahiri, apart from being trusted by the Jordanian authorities, blew himself up at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Afghanistan, killing seven CIA agents. His family had no clue about what he was planning to do; they thought he had gone abroad to study medicine.

Explanations are not easy to find for a phenomenon that defies logic. We are now told that MI5 has come across evidence to believe Muslim doctors who trained in British hospitals have returned home and joined jihadi ranks with the task of preparing ‘bosom bombers’ — women who volunteer to have explosives implanted in their breasts that cannot be detected by scanners and X-ray machines at airports. Technology and theory spun around a terrorist’s psychoprofile — there cannot be a psychoprofile to profile all terrorists — can help us only up to a point. Beyond that, it’s a grey area, a no-man’s land where logic is replaced by the illogical urge to die and destroy.

-- Kanchan Gupta.


[This appeared as my Sunday column Coffee Break in The Pioneer on 07/02/10. (C) CMYK Printech Ltd.]

A monstrous experiment

Nasir Abbas Mirza
Remote madrassas in Pakistan may be turning boys into drones but then there are thousands of madrassas spread all over Pakistan’s urban centres that are producing millions of neo-drones who may not become suicide bombers but are totally unfit to live in this world. These kids need to be rescued


Take a little boy and incarcerate him in a remote madrassa. Keep him far away from the rest of the world and bar any interaction with humanity. Indoctrinate him with a distorted version of a religion and tell him that he does not belong to this world. Teach him about the fanciful world that awaits him in the heaven, and that in order to attain that he has to destroy everything that stands in his way, including his own body.

By the time he is sixteen, the child would have become a drone: an un-manned man. Instead of a lively teenager, we would have a robot in living tissue ready to detonate on remote orders.

At full steam ahead in Pakistan, this is a monstrous experiment in brainwashing and it is on a par with, if not worse than, Nazi Germany’s eugenics. They did it in the name of science; here, it is being done in the name of God and religion. On a very large scale, this is a hugely successful experiment in which nurture triumphs and nature takes a beating.

Are we really prisoners of our genes? Or are we prisoners of our parents, teachers and societies? From what we are witnessing, genetic influences are secondary to environment.

Behavioural scientists have Nobel Prize-winning research material in Pakistan. Freud, Skinner or Pavlov would have worked nights to study this. Pavlov’s dogs salivated at the sound of a bell; this young man would blow himself up at the sound of a bell — his phone bell. “Give me a child until he is seven, and I will show you the man,” goes the old Jesuit saying.

It may be sinister, the Jesuit saying, but the fact remains that nobody understands the vulnerability of a child’s brain better than priests. On the one hand, witness the vigilance of parents when they let a maulvi sahib into their house to teach the Holy Quran to their children; and, on the other hand, there are parents in the same society who ‘give’ a child to madrassa-running priests not until he is seven, but until he is 14 or 15 or forever.

‘Give’ is a generalisation. Given our attitudes towards birth control, an overabundance of young children is a natural outcome. In population growth, we are not too far behind the 6 percent population growth rate of our role model country, Saudi Arabia. There is an endless supply of young boys for madrassas. There are abducted, orphaned or abandoned young boys. Then there are parents who are too poor to bring up a child. They simply sell or donate their boys for tabligh or jihad or for any other religious duty. The religious pretence converts their dastardly act into a noble deed.

Priestly abuse of children has been going on for as long as there have been priests and children. But never has this been done in such an organised manner as is the case here in Pakistan. This abuse (aside from the pervasive sexual abuse) spells disaster. Just step out of a large city and all you would see around you are hundreds and thousands of little children — from six to thirty-six months old. Until these kids are of an age to observe the ways of their elders, they live and behave like untrained dogs. That’s the real Pakistan and no military or political leader is having sleepless nights over this.

Mismanaging the national security state has kept our governments so busy that social uplift has been low on their priorities. For sixty years we gave all our money for security and today we don’t even have that. Even in a perfect world, our leaders couldn’t have done anything about it. The job at hand is beyond their capabilities. Just take a roll call of our leaders in the last thirty years. They have been such a simple and basic lot that protocol and property left them no time for anything else.

Will this ever change or improve. No, not for another thirty years. That’s thirty years after we do the needful: that is, a drastic reduction in the number of children we produce, modern education for all on war-footing basis and to do this, schools and First World-standard teachers. So start counting once all this is in place.

From Zia to Zardari, and all others in between, no one even acknowledged that we have an overpopulation problem. Such is the fear of backlash from religious conservatives.

Here’s the equation: a population that breeds likes rats equals poverty equals despair equals cannon fodder for religious organisations and terrorist networks. Were these children better off working at motor workshops or making carpets? Perhaps the ILO or an NGO can answer this question. They seem awfully quiet on something much worse than child labour.

There’s a reason for that: in matters of faith or religious beliefs, no one dare object. All kinds of evil, illegal or inhuman practices can be given sanction if a particular religion or sect proves that it is part of its belief. You could be dying in a hospital but no one would give you a hallucinogenic drug to save your life. But, hey, you can get official approval for the use of cannabis or other hallucinogenic drugs if you prove that use of these substances is part of your religious belief. In 2006, the US Supreme Court did just that.

Our children face a frightening future not because of the Taliban (they are just a handful) but because of the ultra-conservative wave of religion that has swept this country. Remote madrassas may be turning boys into drones but then there are thousands of madrassas spread all over Pakistan’s urban centres that are producing millions of neo-drones who may not become suicide bombers but are totally unfit to live in this world. These kids need to be rescued.

Alfred Hitchcock, the great movie director who specialised in frightening people, was once driving in Switzerland when he suddenly pointed out of the car window and said, “That is the most frightening sight I have ever seen.” It was a priest in conversation with a little boy, his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

Hitchcock leaned out of the car window and shouted, “Run, little boy! Run for your life!”

The writer is a freelance columnist

(Courtesy: Daily Times, Pakistan, May 11.)

Mush should fear exploding mangoes!

Recall how Zia made his exit!
Mush should fear exploding mangoes
News from Pakistan provides the much-needed levity in these otherwise dreary times when we live in fear of rampaging Gujjars demanding their community be excluded from the Hindu caste system, declared a tribe and thus be pushed down the social hierarchy that is sustained by the cynical politics of caste identity practised by every political party, the BJP included. Over the past week, two major stories have emanated from Islamabad.
The first was based on comments by AQ Khan, the man who stole nuclear know-how from European countries to build an 'Islamic Bomb' and then sold technology and hardware to rogue states, among them Iran, Libya and North Korea, made to mediapersons during a funeral. Khan, who has been under house arrest ever since the Americans went public with his illicit trade, has now claimed that he peddled blueprints, centrifuges and the glowing stuff at the behest of Gen Pervez Musharraf. The Americans, who are still shoring up their favourite Pakistani, have responded with a banal statement that neither confirms nor refutes Khan's assertion. "We have not changed our assessment that AQ Khan was a very major and dangerous proliferator. He sold sensitive nuclear equipment and know-how to some genuinely bad actors," an unnamed US official has told ABC News.
Here are two facts about the 'dangerous proliferator'. Khan travelled to Pyongyang, Tehran and other such destinations, hawking technology to build nuclear bombs, after Gen Musharraf had been appointed Army chief by a gullible Nawaz Sharif, whom he was to later depose in a coup, and during his early years as Pakistan's military dictator. Second, Khan would use military aircraft, which cannot take off without clearance from what we refer to in this part of the world as 'highest level', for his foreign travel from Pakistani bases under the Army's control. For Gen Musharraf to pretend astonishment over Khan's nasty business is as laughable as the Americans feigning outrage over the father of the 'Islamic Bomb' wanting to spawn its siblings with other mates. Khan has merely said what everybody has known for long, including Gen Musharraf's minders in Washington, DC.
The other story which has had the Pakistani media in a tizzy for the past few days, and has been strangely ignored east of Wagah, is about Gen Musharraf preparing to flee Pakistan to seek shelter in another country. Colourful details, all of them strenuously denied by Gen Musharraf but not the Government of Pakistan, of which he is the notional head of state, have appeared in Pakistani newspapers -- about how he has had a raging row with Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, his hand-picked successor as Army chief; how the military he once headed has now turned against him; and, how a plane has been kept parked and ready to fly off with him into the sunset. Americans have swiftly come to the aid of their beleaguered 'staunch ally', letting it be known that he continues to enjoy their support.
But wait. Let's not rush to conclusions. Pakistan has a long history of Army chiefs viciously biting the hand that once lovingly fed them; of Americans dumping favourite dictators like cads dump women after bedding them; of politicians selling their souls to the devil for loaves and fishes of office; and, of people swinging from one extreme to another. Gen Ayub Khan came to power in October 1958 because the Americans didn't want the Pakistanis to elect a Government. He went on to famously declare, "We must understand that democracy cannot work in a hot climate. To have democracy we must have a cold climate like Britain." His job done, Gen Ayub Khan was given the boot by Gen Yahya Khan, who, after seizing power, remained closeted with 'General Rani' (a name that should ring a bell here) as Gen Tikka Khan let loose his rapacious soldiers on the Bengalis of East Pakistan.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, still smarting under Pakistan's humiliation in 1972, sacked the military's top brass and appointed Gen Zia-ul-Haq as Army chief. To stop Bhutto from going ahead with his 'Islamic Bomb' project, the Americans facilitated an Army coup on July 5, 1977, which led to the installation of Gen Zia as 'Martial Law Administrator'; less than two years later, on April 4, 1979, Bhutto was executed by his favourite General. The Americans went on to use Gen Zia to wage the Washington-sponsored jihad against Soviet troops in Afghanistan. With the law of diminishing returns setting in, his utility became questionable. On August 17, 1988, a US-supplied C-130 Hercules, carrying Gen Zia and the American Ambassador, Arnold Lewis Raphel, exploded soon after take-off from Bahawalpur. Raphel's death was what Americans describe as 'collateral damage'. Gen Zia's grieving widow claimed he had been killed "by his own"; whiskey-induced cantonment gossip placed the blame on "exploding mangoes".
It's mango season this time of the year and Gen Musharraf, who has darkly hinted in his memoir, In the Line of Fire, at what may have caused Gen Zia's plane to explode, would be stupid not to worry about his future now that the Bush presidency is nearing its end. If a crate of mangoes, gifted to another military ruler, could have exploded in mid-air, what's there to stop something from blowing up in his face? Given the ignominious exit made by Pakistani Generals who seized power to 'set things right' in Mohammed Ali Jinnah's Neverland, he may put up a brave face but deep within would be an extremely troubled man.
To rid himself of stress in his trying time, he could order a copy of Mohammed Hanif's hugely entertaining novel, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, published by Random House and due for release later this week, and look for insights between the lines into the way the Pakistani military, the ISI and the Americans work in tandem to get rid of Generals -- and lesser individuals -- who have outlived their utility. He may think he knows it all, but he would be surprised to find out what all he doesn't know. For starters, he could begin by checking whether Jinnah's portrait in his living room blinks at him. The rest he can read in Mohammed Hanif's account of the days leading to Gen Zia blowing up with exploding mangoes aboard a C-130 Hercules 20 years ago.

Coffee Break, Sunday Pioneer, June 1, 2008.
(c) CMYK Printech Ltd.