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Pashtuns: thrown under the sharia bus?
[Pak Daily Times] The narrative that the Pashtuns, especially the rustics, crave sharia has been mainstreamed in Pakistain to the extent that even the most knowledgeable and liberal are falling for it.


The political shura (council) members of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) have now met with their intermediaries, the Jamaat-e-Islami
...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
's (JI's) Professor Ibrahim Khan and the Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) Samiul Haq
...the Godfather of the Taliban, leader of his own faction of the JUI. Known as Mullah Sandwich for his habit of having two young boys at a time...
 faction's Maulana Yusuf Shah. The TTP reportedly gave a laundry list of demands to its intercessors who had been ferried to, no marks for guessing, the North Wazoo Agency (NWA), in a government helicopter. The TTP's demands, whether interim or final, include the imposition of sharia, reparations for their losses, release of their prisoners and a halt to US drone strikes. No surprises there either. However,
some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go...
 what is alarming is the government's condition that "the scope of the talks should remain confined to areas affected by violence, not the whole country".

It is unclear how the government is defining the affected areas when three provinces reel under terror continuously. The government's functionaries and at least one member of the committee appointed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
, and a Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) man, Mr Rustam Shah Mohmand, have been zeroing in on FATA only. It looks like the Punjab-based ruling and opposition parties have put only FATA and possibly Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
 on the chopping block. The problems with this malicious move are twofold: a) it implicitly pins the blame for TTP terrorism on the Pashtuns only, and b) it ignores the plight of the common people, especially the Shias and the Hanafi-Barelvi Sunnis, being slaughtered on a daily basis elsewhere in Pakistain by the TTP and its allied thugs. An ominous media campaign that combines an orientalist view of the Pashtuns being 'noble savages' and a fanciful reading of the sharia seems to be setting the stage for sacrificing the Pashtun 'appendage' areas on the altar of the presumed 'core' Pak state, i.e. Punjab.

When this odious mantra is spewed by the usual suspects -- rightwing leaders, assorted holy mans and media anchors that grew up on a steady diet of Pakistain Studies and Islamiat during General Zia ul Haq
...the creepy-looking former dictator of Pakistain. Zia was an Islamic nutball who imposed his nutballery on the rest of the country with the enthusiastic assistance of the nation's religious parties, which are populated by other nutballs. He was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom he hanged when he seized power. His time in office was a period of repression, with hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists executed or tortured, including senior general officers convicted in coup-d'état plots, who would normally be above the law. As part of his alliance with the religious parties, his government helped run the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, providing safe havens, American equipiment, Saudi money, and Pak handlers to selected mujaheddin. Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistain Arnold Lewis Raphel when he was assassinated in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur in 1988...
's martial law -- one might understand. However,
some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go...
 when the voices that have served as Pakistain's conscience join the chorus, one's heart really sinks. One felt dejected reading one of Pakistain's foremost progressives, the writers' writer and a mentor to my mentors, the venerable Mr I A Rehman this past week. Rehman sahib wrote: "An issue on which complete clarity is required is the territorial limits of the bargain. The Taliban, if they can prove that they enjoy the trust of the population of FATA, may be free to discuss the system of administration appropriate for their special relationship with the state but they have no right to tell Islamabad how the rest of the country is to be governed...The creation of workable political, administrative and judicial institutions in FATA can be discussed but in that area too the government will have to take a stand that the basic rights of the vulnerable sections of society, especially women and minorities, cannot be compromised." It felt like the distinguished human rights
When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
 campaigner was not just considering ceding the Pashtun areas to the TTP hordes but was giving up on us as a people. I just hope that I misread the piece or read too much into it.

The narrative that the Pashtuns, especially the rustics, crave sharia has been mainstreamed in Pakistain to the extent that even the most knowledgeable and liberal are falling for it. Never mind that the venues of political and religious decision-making, the hujra and mosque, have traditionally been separate in Pashtun tribal society. The tribal jirga (court), which had lost its usual effectiveness a few decades ago, is being touted as the conflict resolution institution of choice in the second decade of the 21st century without realising that the Talibanisation imposed from above has decimated the societal structures that could support the jirga. More importantly, even at the turn of the 20th century, the jirga was not exactly the jury of peers it used to be in an egalitarian acephalous Pashtun tribal society that conceived it a millennium or so ago. The British, and then Pak governments had, as a policy, consistently tempered with the jirga system and handpicked Maliks who were awarded stipends and titles (maajab and lungi) to remain pliant.

Whether good or bad, those tribal elders were slaughtered wholesale by the Taliban. According to The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
 news hounds Carlotta Gall and Ismail Khan, 200 tribal elders were killed in the NWA in just 2005 to 2006. That violent spree has never ended. How could then one go about determining whether the TTP "enjoys the trust of the people of FATA" to grant them those hapless lands? Indeed, how could the tribal people let out even a whimper, let alone freely express their scorn for the TTP when the state, and sadly the intelligentsia, appear on the verge of abandoning them? The TTP's relentless assault on the Awami National Party (ANP), killing its leaders and cadres, was a major factor in its electoral rout, as the state stood by idly. The ANP's replacement by the pro-Taliban PTI has provided the TTP the same ideological, political and operational space as its antecedents enjoyed during the 2002-2007 rule of the religious conglomerate Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal. Mr Imran Khan
... aka Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems...
 continues to insist that the TTP respects the constitution despite the terrorist front man, Shahidullah Shahid, consistently deriding it on the record.

The TTP remains an ideologically anchored outfit keen to spread its brand of sharia across not just provincial but state boundaries as well. The tactical restraint the TTP and its allies have shown in Punjab helps it bide time till things become clearer in Afghanistan, ward off a potential military action and perhaps bag sections of FATA in the interim. However,
some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go...
 in this sordid saga, the grand prize remains the Pak state, which the TTP may never get but, in its mind, deems imperative for helping and waging the global jihad. The Punjab-based rulers can try to encapsulate the TTP within the Pashtun lands but they are sitting on the powder keg of jihadism with assorted 'jaishes' and 'lashkars' headquartered in their province. The reprieve bought at the expense of the Pashtuns will run out in years, not decades.

The Pashtun politicianship, as bruised and battered as it is, has to get its act together. The Pashtun leaders, especially those in parliament, have a massive, historic responsibility at a time when those rulers who love highways, underpasses and flyovers in Lahore appear set to throw the Pashtuns under the sharia bus.


Posted by: Fred 2014-02-18
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=385862