By Chris Odinaka Nwedo
This article was written long ago, the situations referenced may have changed
On the subject of conflicts, what distinguishes Pakistan from other South Asian countries, however, is the easy and abundant availability of weapons, as well as the control of the state by Punjabi-Mohajir elites in the country’s early phase, which led to ethnic tension with other provinces. Other considerably significant factors in the persistent phases of hostilities and crisis include the failure of economic growth, which made the state more dependent on Islam as a binding force. This increased ethnic tension as regional groups began to assert their cultural and nationalistic agendas. In fact, the failure of successive regimes to fulfil any of their stated governmental agendas led to a basic legitimisation of crisis. To obtain the trust and confidence of the people, despite many failures, regime after regime disproportionately promoted Islam in the affairs of the state.
This policy continued further with the leverage given to Islamists to take control of the Pakistani Army. The Islamists were promoted and encouraged to take control of the security forces during the regime of Gen. Zia. These were clear aberrations considering the principles of the Pakistani founding father, Jinnah. According to Mohammad Waseem, ‘at the time of independence, there was no conflict between Islam and the kind of secularism and democracy espoused by Jinnah. However, the preeminence given to Islam was in supposition that it was the only visible means of national integration in Pakistan composed of five main ethnic groups: the Punjabis, the Sindhi, the Pathans, the Balochis and the Mohajirs.’¹ The imprudent mucilage of the Pakistani state around a complex waist of Islam and the smart exploitation of religious sentiment brought inexhaustible energy and commitment to the violence and unrest in Pakistan.
For Waseem, Islam was unable to effectively integrate the diverse groups into one nation due to the existence of provincial identities. ‘Despite the fact that Punjabis and Mohajirs continued to uphold their Islamic identities, their domination of the civilian bureaucracy, the military and the economy was detrimental to the other ethnic groups. All legitimate grievances of the lesser-privileged and lesser-developed ethnic groups were dubbed as anti-national and subversive activities. This is an important factor that caused sectarian conflicts.’² Secondly, the wars and destruction in Afghanistan and the determined moves towards Islamisation of the state empowered orthodox brands of Islamism in Pakistan. ‘This also brought into Pakistan a more codified and strict Wahabi Islam from Saudi Arabia. The role of Pakistan as a frontline state, serving American interests in the war in Afghanistan against former Communist USSR, led to major problems for Pakistan and its society.’³ Again, the American withdrawal of active support in the fight against the growth and export of heroin — in the wake of larger strategic interests — had a catastrophic impact on Pakistani society and gave a real boost to violence. The withdrawal of support encouraged an influx of drug users. Drug users in Pakistan now number above 3.2 million. It is believed that this is ‘one of the offshoots of active involvement in the Afghan crisis and Pakistan’s decision, in the early 80s, to be a conduit for Western weapons bound for the war in Afghanistan.’⁴
Sectarian conflicts in Pakistan revolve around the Shia-Sunni divide. Paradoxically, sectarian leaders do not typically represent their followers in mainstream politics. In political matters, Pakistanis follow their local or tribal leaders. The militant sectarian activists themselves represent only minority groups which draw inspiration from madrasas and shrines. It is significant that funds are provided to them by the commercial middle class.⁵ It is believed that demand for basic services, equity and fairness, including demand for provincial autonomy, were important factors in the rise of Islamic assertiveness and the eruption of sectarian violence, as there was a steady influx of fundamentalist views from the Islamic world outside Pakistan, particularly Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, Pakistani involvement in Afghan wars fostered persistent violent internal conflicts in some of the following ways:
‘The migration of Afghan refugee groups to major urban regions of Pakistan added to the antagonisms within Pakistani society, especially in Karachi where ethnic strife increased.
Pakistan supported pro-Islamic elements in Afghanistan. These elements provided needed motivation for fundamental Islamists in Pakistan.
The establishment of a powerful network of militant madrasas, originally set up to train volunteer “Student”-Taliban for the war in Afghanistan. These madrasas combined weapon training with fundamentalist and violent interpretations of Islam. The “victory” of the Taliban in Afghanistan freed a substantial number of these “students”, as well as their motivators and mentors, who are now progressively turning their attention to other areas of conflict, including Pakistan itself.
Drug trafficking, which was encouraged for the short-term motive of financing the Afghan resistance movement, became transformed into the most important source of finance for most militant groups.’⁶
According to Ekaterina Stepanova, ‘talibanization and cross-border violence in Pakistan originated in Deobandi madrasas in the areas of Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan, where it became the de facto government in 1996. In addition, following the US-led intervention in 2001 and disintegration of the Taliban regime, many Taliban fighters found refuge in the Pashtun-populated border areas of Pakistan. However, the Taliban’s revival in Pakistan went beyond the regrouping of the remnants of the Afghan Taliban.’⁷ Again in 2007, a new generation of Pashtun Islamists, often referred to as ‘neo-Taliban’, were active in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. They controlled northern and southern Waziristan and expanded their influence into the North-West Frontier Province. For Stepanova, ‘talibanization, the spread of Taliban presence and influence, was as much a domestic problem for Pakistan in 2007 as the Taliban insurgency was for Afghanistan. The neo-Taliban movement is rooted in radical Islamism merged with Pashtun tribalism. This combination filled the vacuums created by the erosion of traditional tribal structures and stimulated their further transformation.’⁸
Apart from sectarianism on religious grounds, another major divisive issue has been the position of Islam in the constitutional and political life of Pakistan. Although Pakistan has considered itself an Islamic Republic since the promulgation of the 1956 constitution, there are large and influential segments of the elite society which are committed to secularism. These secularist-modernist groups made attempts to accommodate some demands of Islamist lobbyists, but they became diluted in the course of political and constitutional practices. This resulted in Islamist lobbyists being given prominence in public life that their electoral base would hardly justify.⁹ Unfortunately, the surreptitious state support for teaming militant groups who were meant for possible external threats eventually turned into a danger to the Pakistani establishment, as these groups acquired relative autonomy over the years.¹⁰
In addition, the authoritarian character of the state, whose formation and later development led to the concentration of state institutions in the hands of a select elite — where all dissent met with violent suppression — fuelled violence in society.¹¹ For instance, ‘the crushing of the Baluch insurrection in 1973, with the use of overwhelming force, is a dramatic example of this military response…The Air Force was used in these operations, bombing a large number of villages.’¹² Between 2007 and 2013 Pakistan witnessed active and steady proliferation and integration of various forms of violent groups, some of which had significant cross-border and transnational implications. This naturally led to determinations by the Pakistani military to intervene in order to limit the influence of radicals and control the spate of violence in the country. For Rubin, B.R. (2007), while much of ‘the violence in the major armed conflict in neighbouring Afghanistan was linked to the instability in Pakistan’s border areas, it would be wrong to view the complex web of tribal, Islamist, inter- and intra-sectarian, and other armed violence in Pakistan only in the context of the situation in Afghanistan. The political and religious violence in Pakistan has its own sources and dynamics.’¹³
Ordinarily, one is irresistibly tempted to simply say that in Pakistan violence and destruction have turned into a sort of esteemed fun, such that enthusiastic perpetrators are incensed by anything that could start the butchery of fellow citizens. Friday, May 2011, was a day of remarkable sadness, pain and death as a pair of suicide bombers attacked paramilitary police recruits, killing 66 of them. About 80 people met their untimely death in the suicide attack and more than 120 Pakistanis ‘providentially’ escaped death with varying injuries. The scene of the bomb blast, according to eyewitnesses, was littered with debris of glass mixed with blood and flesh, and about 10 transportation vans were destroyed. According to former Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan, who claimed responsibility, the attack was in retaliation for the death of Osama bin Laden, killed by Americans. Ahsan maintained that the killing was a punishment against Pakistani authorities for failing to stop the unilateral American raid into Pakistani territory that killed the chief terrorism grandmaster, Osama bin Laden. ‘Some 350 lawyers sympathetic to the Islamists attended a special prayer for Bin Laden on the premises of the provincial high court in the eastern city of Lahore on Friday. The lawyers cursed the May 2nd raid, chanting “down with America”.’¹⁴ It will be recalled that since the start of the war on terror in Afghanistan in 2001, Taliban and al-Qaeda affiliates have killed many thousands of Pakistanis and up to 3000 of the Pakistani security forces because Pakistan is an ally of the US in the fight against Islamist extremists in Afghanistan.
That the conflict is well rooted in the Middle East is an assumption many willingly accept. Besides the Six-Day War between Israel and the Arab nations collectively, today, as in centuries past, history has recorded many types of wars, violence, and destruction in the Middle East. There has been habitual violence, wars, and intermittent deadly confrontations between Israel and various Palestinian militants and radicals. Israel and Hezbollah elements in Lebanon clashed continuously, resulting in hundreds of deaths and the literal obliteration of many Lebanese cities bordering Israel. Syria fought, conquered, and imperialized Lebanon for many years. In Lebanon, there have been countless politically or ideologically motivated killings, assassinations, and instigated violent destruction in the country, which has been fractionalized by extraneous forces competing for greater influence. Syria and Iran are often accused of pulling the strings of violence and strife in Lebanese politics. Among Palestinian groups, skirmishes, bloodbaths, and unrest are remarkable features of the relationship between Fattah and Hamas factions in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
On the other hand, ethnic theorists tend to show that ‘it is not territory, politics, or economics that prevent achievement of peace between Israeli and Palestinian peoples; instead, it is a deep-seated hatred of one another that neither can overcome. The failure of most attempts at fostering a lasting peace is a clear example of how ethnocentrism can prevent success.’¹⁵ The theorists suggest ‘that the primary source of conflicts within a state or between two states is when a deeply rooted animosity is present between the various ethnic groups.’¹⁶ Thus they defined an ethnic group as ‘a large group of people who share ancestral, language, cultural, or religious ties and a common identity. Nations are often created from an ethnic group that feels that it wants to, and is capable of, controlling itself separately and politically.’¹⁷ When two ethnic groups with historical animosity live in close proximity to one another, it is likely that in-groups will form, which in turn yield feelings of ethnocentrism. Under these circumstances, each group maintains an air of superiority and often dehumanizes the other to the point where conflict resolution and cooperation become seemingly impossible.¹⁸ These conflicts have always escalated to the point where the actual reasons for the conflicts are almost completely forgotten, even by the participants. Each group in the conflict believes that when one gains, the other automatically loses. Similarly, when one group compromises, it is seen as a loss. This is particularly difficult when religion is involved, because groups will not compromise their beliefs and ethnic loyalties.¹⁹ This has, in significant part, been the rationality behind many Middle Eastern crises that have remained resistant to real solutions.
On July 11, 2000, the hope of forming lasting peace between Israel and Palestine brought Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister of Israel, and the late Yasser Arafat, along with former President Bill Clinton, to a meeting at Camp David in the United States. It was during the presidency of Bill Clinton. Sadly, this attempt to bring about peace ended in disappointment and sent both leaders home discouraged. The receptions of the two leaders in their respective countries were remarkably different. Arafat, who did not give in to Israeli and American pressure for mutual compromise, was greeted as a hero, while Ehud Barak returned to an unsatisfied and unstable government.²⁰
In 2008, under President George W. Bush, a similar reconciliation meeting was arranged in Annapolis, United States of America, in the regime’s desperate effort to address the persistent crisis. Agreements were signed and concessions made between the then Israeli Prime Minister and Palestinian former fractional President, Mohammed Abbas. The frustration is that until now, peace has not materialized. Instead, there has been a pitiable escalation of conflicts and violence in the region. The well-publicized reconciliation conference was objected to and boycotted by some Arab countries, which believed that instead of achieving peace and reconciliation, Israel should be eliminated from the map. In fact, Annapolis peace endeavors were ‘affectionately’ acknowledged by the firing of rockets into Israel by Palestinian militants, and the Israeli Army, as reprisal, rolled armored tanks into the Gaza Strip, crushing, along the way, men, animals, and everything else without consideration. Annapolis conferences were genuinely global efforts to bring the two sides together to negotiate their differences; however, the negotiations and efforts failed immediate positive tests, despite the confidence built that the “last heavy harmer” was the most timely and appropriate. ‘Although territory has been the main issue between the warring nations, it seems there is something more deeply rooted with the people and the leaders preventing achievement of a final peace. Perhaps this is inflexibility, or irrationality, but more likely, it is as a result of thousands of years’ animosity culminating in a seemingly impossible agreement.’²¹
The Israel-Palestinian conflicts, the Arab world’s invasions of Israel, and many other Israel-related conflicts were not the only problems in the volatile Middle East. The Lebanon and Syrian wars laid permanent underground pipes which actively supply ‘cogent’ reasons and logistics for animosity and unrest within the conquered territory. Before the departure of the imperial Syrians from Lebanon, violence, car bombs, and targeted killings in Lebanon were meant to suppress anti-Syrian voices. Car bomb explosions were regular events at the height of the crisis in cities, especially Beirut, and deadly clashes between Lebanese forces and Sunni militants in Northern Lebanon continued without moderation. However, there are other militant groups whose activities were characterized by violence, fanning the embers of death and bloodshed. A case in point was ‘the bombing at a popular Beirut shopping mall by a Syria’s politically motivated jihadist-oriented group known as Fatah al-Islam.’²² Violence intensified following actions taken by Lebanese authorities to confront proliferating rebellious groups. The Fatah al-Islam militants were well organized for all sorts of violence and prepared for long-lasting confrontation with the Lebanese army, with the support of machine guns and grenades. The conflicts with these various violent groups took a tremendous toll on Lebanon because the security forces lacked intelligence, equipment, and appropriate coordination.
Waseem Mohammad cited in Book Review by AlfredK.David ‘conflict and violence in SouthAsia: Bangladseh,India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka’, edited by K.M.Silva. Ethics Studies Report, vol.xviii, no.2 July 2000 online@conflict and violence in south asia/palash/indiainteracts.com 3/3/2009)
Ibid.
Quoted in Nwedo C.O. ‘Concept of Political Responsibility’ op.cit
Ibid
Waseem Mohammad cited in Book Review by AlfredK.David ‘conflict and violence in SouthAsia: Bangladseh,India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka’,0p.cit.
Quoted in Nwedo C.O. ‘Concept of Political Responsibility’ op.cit.
See Ekaterina Stepanova in SIPRI Yearbook 2008: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security, Oxford University Press
Ibid
see Book Review by AlfredK.David ‘conflict and violence in SouthAsia: Bangladseh,India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka’, edited by K.M.Silva op.cit.
Quoted in Nwedo C.O. ‘Concept of Political Responsibility’ op.cit.
Ibid
Ibid.
See Rubin, B.R. (2007) ‘Saving Afghanistan‘, Foreign Affairs, vol. 86, no.1 January/February in Ekaterina Stepanova op.cit.
Saturday Life May 14 2011, p.49
Wow Essays.com-Ethnic Conflict in the Middle East@http:7www.wowessays.com/dbase/ad1/keb194.shtml 3/3/2009
Ibid
Ibid
Ibid
Ibid
Ibid
Ibid
Lebanon:ASyrianHandinpoliticalinstabilityMay21,2007@Stratfor’sFreeIntelligentReports@stratfor.com/products/premium/read_article.php?id