Book Review: Pakistan Under Siege: Extremism, Society, and the State by Madiha Afzal

Book Review: Pakistan Under Siege: Extremism, Society, and the State by Madiha Afzal

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the Pakistani state in terms of extremism and fundamentalism. How much both are infused in People's minds and have become a part of the national psyche are at the heart of the discussion. How nexus of military and mullah has retarded the progress of society, every time helping and backing each other for their ends. And also how both have hijacked the ideology of Pakistan. She also argues: Anti-Ahmedi laws and blasphemy laws alike, have been used as a tool to coerce the minorities; and worst of all, state's condonation under such circumstances is the principal cause of prevailing mass and targeted killings and suicide bombings, as terrorists get justification under the cover of said laws. In this, the author is equally right in shifting all the blame particularly on ZAB and ZIA who were instrumental in framing regressive laws and allowing savages to rule the roost. So the present situation is, no wonder, largely the product of both gentlemen, maintains the author. 

Pakistan a Country of Radicals?  Not Quite!

Are ordinary Pakistanis radicalized? According to the most recent PEW research polls, Pakistanis overwhelmingly oppose what some in the West call “radical Islamic terror”- that is, violence against civilians to defend Islam from its enemies”. Defending Islam and fighting for it: this is how terror groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Taliban justify their violence against civilians.

Quoting Hafiz Saeed: “Islam propounds both Dawa [proselytizing] and Jihad. Both are equally important and inseparable. Since our life revolves around Islam, therefore both Dawa and Jihad are essential, we cannot prefer one over the other.”

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The Four Militant groups- Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Afghan Taliban (AT), and Al Qaeda- are distinct and function differently and separately in Pakistan. All these groups claim themselves to be genuine guardians of Islam, yet their ideologies diverge. They invoke Islam as a source of their legitimacy. Their targets of violence are correspondingly different. All in all, all these groups are different streams of the same river.

Following is the table of how these groups are viewed in Pakistan.

                                                                                                        

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and India

According to the author, in the Pakistani perspective, a pro-Kashmiri stance goes hand-in-hand with an anti-India posture.  70 percent of respondents reported unfavorable views about India in the PEW survey, 2015. In Spring 2014, 75 percent saw India as a serious threat, while 62 percent said the same for the Taliban and 42 percent said that for AL-Qaeda. These stats increasingly manifest our attitude towards different terror groups. Madiha maintains that Militants thrive where their narratives find acceptance; in this context they also find fertile ground for recruitment. Citizens’ narratives also affect their government’s action against militant groups.  Therefore, she argues that such a muted response was a catalyst for the Government to engage in peace talks with the Taliban in 2013-14.

State Narratives on Terror: The Blame Game

The writer says that sometimes the state’s explanations for terror usually vaguely allude to a “hidden hand” that wants to destabilize Pakistan, to derail whatever virtuous venture Pakistan is involved in at the time. For instance, any terror attack in present times is linked with sabotaging the CPEC.  The political leaders are also involved in this blame game. At the height of the TTP insurgency and of the US drone strikes in 2012-13, Islamists as well as conservative politicians like Imran Khan were obsessively focused on drones. Khan’s stance that drone strikes were the root cause of, militancy in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administered tribal Areas, echoes the narrative of Militant Groups.

The Pakistani State Narrative

The Pakistani narrative, simply put, is that Pakistan is an Islamic state facing an existential threat from India. The other trends that define it  are: its military-civilian tensions and ultimate dominance of the militancy, its concession of space to Islamist parties, and its defensive view of itself related to the West- all follow from its two main narrative pillars, Islam and the Indian threat.

The Army’s purpose is a nationalist one, but its religious outlook and signs used in the military set-up and equipments, respectively, add a jingoistic element in the institution.  Its evocation of religion can be seen from its motto which says, “Iman, Taqwa, Jihad-Fi-Sabillulah” ( Faith, Unity, Holy war).

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Further, she makes a point that even leaders averse to Islamic fundamentalism eventually had to embrace religion card for their motives. Ayub khan, having secular credentials, referred to religion as the “only federation for national unity” and called Pakistan a “Fortress of Islam” Bhutto defined his governing philosophy as “Islam is our faith. Democracy is our polity. Socialism is our economy”

Characterizing the Pakistani establishment’s philosophy, she quotes Stephen Cohen as saying: “ Islamic Nationalism of Pakistan stems from nationalist and foreign policy motives- that is, anti-India, distrustful of the USA, anti-Israel, and solidarity with Muslim countries”.

Pakistan’s legal Islamization.

The writer asserts that the roots of Pakistan’s legal Islamization is traced to Objective Resolution, 1949.  Islam was mentioned in three clauses of Objective resolution, which dealt with Divine Sovereignty; the importance of the democratic, social, and ethical principles of Islam; and enabling Muslims to live their lives according to Islam. According to her, the clauses which are impeding the progressive laws in the country are enabling and repugnancy clauses of Objective Resolution document. In this way, these clauses had been an integral part of the past constitutions of the country.

Discussing changes in blasphemy laws during Zia’s period, she points out that there has been a dramatic increase in accusations of blasphemy. Before 1986, merely 14 cases were reported. However, during the time period spanning from 1986 to 2010, an estimated 1274 blasphemy cases were reported. Basically, she argues that under blasphemy laws people get cover of religion to accuse and sometimes kill their opponents.  

An Ideological Education

Zia started the campaign of Islamized state through infusing Islamist flavor in textbooks. In this campaign, he got the support of Jamaat-e-Islami  to foster “Pakistan ideology” mainly based on religious grounds. Madiha claims that the books published by private publishers are poorly and prejudicially written relative to those produced by the textbook boards. Even the most recent textbooks do not have an open discussion on terrorism and extremism in Pakistan.  These subjects are of great concern and ironically remain absent in the textbooks.

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More fundamentally, according to the author,  the mainstream Pakistani education system does not enable or educate in such a way as they can counter extremist views. Hence, they are vulnerable to radical interpretations. Students do not contradict what is being learned in schools, nor do they question it. They do not have the tools to do so. That they hold some of the views is not the fault of the students, rather it rests with what the state teaches them. It is the raison d’etre why the country has seen a spark in terrorist activities even by most educated individuals. Take here the example of Saad Aziz, a graduate of IBA, who killed Sabeen Mahmud, a liberal activist, in 2015, and was also implicated in a charge of Safoora Goth Bus tragedy that saw a massacre of minority Islamic community. She further blames Madrassa-educated Islamiat teachers for spreading hatred, as they happen to be biased in nature against particular religions or even sects. She interviewed the students and collected data about their attitudes about extremism. Such responses can be classified into four sets.

1. One set argued the causes of terrorism were economic; that terrorism stems from poverty, unemployment, lack of education, and inequality.

2. Another set of responses blamed Pakistan's own government, politicians, the police, and their corruption.

3. The third explanation blamed “ foreign influences”- the USA and India- for the attacks, whether as a conspiracy theory or arguing that terrorism is a response to the USA’s actions including Drone attacks.


4. The final explanation argued that the country is currently on the wrong Islamic path. Therefore, the groups that unleash terror merely want to implement true Islam in Pakistan.

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