Filtered Posts
Musharraf : Self Styled Saviour Stuck in a Rut
Hussain Haqqani
Pakistan faces, once again, a barrage of allegations ranging from charges of covert support of terrorists to accusations about illegally exporting components for other nations’ nuclear and missile programmes.
The Los Angeles Times ran a detailed story that blamed Pakistan for helping Iran in acquiring nuclear weapons capability. This follows similar allegations about exchanges of nuclear technology with the rogue state of North Korea.
Jane Mayer, writing in the New Yorker recently, insinuated that Osama bin Laden was hiding along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, virtually protected by Pakistani tribesmen with a wink and a nod from Pakistani officials. The Guardian, too, ran a similar story. Now the New Yorker has come up with charges of collaboration between Pakistan’s secret service and the international jehadi network, identified with Al Qaeda.
India’s statements that Pakistan continues to support militants (or terrorists) operating in Indian-controlled Kashmir as well as elsewhere in India also continue to be believed by large segments of international public opinion, Pakistan’s contradictions and denials notwithstanding. The recent bomb attacks in Mumbai are the latest instigation for a new round of negative comments around the world about Pakistan.
Islamabad has repeatedly and vehemently denied each of the various charges levelled against it. But Pakistani officials’ statements that the country is not involved in training or arming terrorists, that it is not an exporter of nuclear contraband and that it does not run covert operations against India or Afghanistan simply do not have any impact.
Initially, after General Musharraf became a US ally, American officials were a bit more supportive of Pakistan’s position. Until a few months ago, Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice could be expected to weigh in and say that Pakistan was in the process of change and whatever may have happened in the past, it was not happening any more.
But Washington is no longer offering even such qualified clearance of late. Pakistani sympathy for jehadis, especially those in Afghanistan and Kashmir, is well known but officials of the Musharraf regime argue that sympathy is not the same thing as active support.
Allegations about covert weapons programmes are always based on intelligence leaks and there can be no independent evidence either way about the charges relating to Pakistan’s exchange of technology with regimes in Iran and North Korea.
Officially Pakistan seeks to dismiss all allegations against its conduct as ‘‘propaganda.’’ Ordinary Pakistanis are also outraged over the charges that their country periodically faces, leading to the discussion in Pakistan’s media over the country’s ‘‘image problem’’. But Pakistan’s problem is not just that of image. The country is governed in a secretive manner, with its intelligence services and military running the show in several spheres including areas of international concern.
Even when the civilians are in charge of government, security policy remains largely in the military’s hands, with key elements of decision-making hidden from public view. Pakistani history is replete with examples of government changes through palace coups, stolen elections, and manipulated judicial decisions.
Vehemently denied but widely known covert operations of the past encourage speculation about similar goings on in the present. Lack of transparency in decision-making has bred suspicion and doubt about Pakistan, which no amount of image makeovers can eliminate. Instead of looking for ways to make its denials more convincing, what Pakistan really needs is to make its process of governance more transparent. A substantive change in policy rather than another expensive lobbying or media campaign would be the better way of protecting Pakistan from periodic allegations of rogue-like behaviour.
Pakistan has not had a lawfully constituted elected civilian government for some time. The 2002 election set the stage for a dichotomy of power in Pakistan. Musharraf and the all-powerful military wields effective power while an ineffective parliament and a weak Prime Minister are available once more to share blame though not the power to make critical decisions of war and peace.
A similar situation occurred during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. Under the military regime of General Zia-ul-Haq, a close US ally, Pakistan developed nuclear weapons to keep up with India’s nuclear weapons capability. To secure US aid and by-pass American non-proliferation laws, Pakistani officials routinely denied nuclear weapons ambitions while clearly pursuing them. By the time Washington was ready to impose sanctions on Pakistan in 1990, Islamabad had a civilian government that got the blame for losing US aid though in fact it was simply the scapegoat, with the military retaining behind-the-scenes power.
Every state maintains a permanent national security establishment and occasional deception and cover-ups are part of national security requirements. But in normally functioning states most matters affecting the lives of their citizens are in the transparent realm, leaving only a handful of issues subject to secrecy.
In Pakistan, however, the very process of governance has been rendered mysterious. From the doling out of plots of land to generals as part of their service compensation to the frequent amendments to the law, nothing is truly open. Intelligence services do not simply seek to deal with threats to national security. They play a role in everything, from selection of parliamentary candidates to decisions about civil service appointments.
As a result there is little reason for the politically minded citizen to trust the state establishment. On the international stage, too, the world finds it difficult to believe that a government run through non-transparent means is telling the truth. From the international community’s perspective, if successive Pakistani leaders could be economical with the truth on matters of national security in the past, what reason is there to believe their denials about Kashmiri militants and the Taliban now?
It is inconceivable for a civilian government in Pakistan to redefine relations with India or review policies relating to nuclear and missile programmes. The United States takes a benign view of the Pakistani military’s covert operations when Pakistan’s strategic cooperation is important to the US, as was the case during the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance and the current war against Al Qaeda. But nuclear and missile proliferation and relations with India become sticking points in the US-Pakistan relationship when Islamabad’s strategic cooperation becomes less significant.
The charges about Pakistan’s support for Afghanistan’s Taliban, exchanging nuclear know-how for ballistic missiles with North Korea and Iran, and Pakistani sponsorship of jehadi militants opposing India surface in the international media sometimes without comment from the US government. But once the indispensability of Pakistan to Washington wanes, these very accusations could become the basis for sanctions against a less compliant Pakistan. The way to break this cycle would be for Pakistan to become an open democracy, with a constitutionally defined power structure. Then it would be easy to pin responsibility for actions such as training militants or buying and selling technology for weapons of mass destruction.
Pakistanis often wonder why Israel and India are not suspected of leaking nuclear know-how while Pakistan is constantly under suspicion. The international community also takes Islamabad’s periodic accusations of Indian covert support for insurgents in Pakistan a lot less seriously than Indian charges about Pakistan’s backing for the jehadis.
The reason for these divergent responses might lie in the difference of systems of governance. Western opinion is pre-disposed to trusting democracies. There is a presumption (however dubiously based) that a country with an open political system, an honest judiciary and periodic alternation in governments is less likely to have dark secrets than one that operates in secrecy.
The author is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC. He served as adviser to prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and as Pakistan’s ambassador to Sri Lanka.
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 3, 2003 07:20 am
The world alleges and Pakistan denies it Hussain Haqqani
Pakistan faces, once again, a barrage of allegations ranging from charges of covert support of terrorists to accusations about illegally exporting components for other nations’ nuclear and missile programmes.
The Los Angeles Times ran a detailed story that blamed Pakistan for helping Iran in acquiring nuclear weapons capability. This follows similar allegations about exchanges of nuclear technology with the rogue state of North Korea.
Jane Mayer, writing in the New Yorker recently, insinuated that Osama bin Laden was hiding along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, virtually protected by Pakistani tribesmen with a wink and a nod from Pakistani officials. The Guardian, too, ran a similar story. Now the New Yorker has come up with charges of collaboration between Pakistan’s secret service and the international jehadi network, identified with Al Qaeda.
India’s statements that Pakistan continues to support militants (or terrorists) operating in Indian-controlled Kashmir as well as elsewhere in India also continue to be believed by large segments of international public opinion, Pakistan’s contradictions and denials notwithstanding. The recent bomb attacks in Mumbai are the latest instigation for a new round of negative comments around the world about Pakistan.
Islamabad has repeatedly and vehemently denied each of the various charges levelled against it. But Pakistani officials’ statements that the country is not involved in training or arming terrorists, that it is not an exporter of nuclear contraband and that it does not run covert operations against India or Afghanistan simply do not have any impact.
Initially, after General Musharraf became a US ally, American officials were a bit more supportive of Pakistan’s position. Until a few months ago, Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice could be expected to weigh in and say that Pakistan was in the process of change and whatever may have happened in the past, it was not happening any more.
But Washington is no longer offering even such qualified clearance of late. Pakistani sympathy for jehadis, especially those in Afghanistan and Kashmir, is well known but officials of the Musharraf regime argue that sympathy is not the same thing as active support.
Allegations about covert weapons programmes are always based on intelligence leaks and there can be no independent evidence either way about the charges relating to Pakistan’s exchange of technology with regimes in Iran and North Korea.
Officially Pakistan seeks to dismiss all allegations against its conduct as ‘‘propaganda.’’ Ordinary Pakistanis are also outraged over the charges that their country periodically faces, leading to the discussion in Pakistan’s media over the country’s ‘‘image problem’’. But Pakistan’s problem is not just that of image. The country is governed in a secretive manner, with its intelligence services and military running the show in several spheres including areas of international concern.
Even when the civilians are in charge of government, security policy remains largely in the military’s hands, with key elements of decision-making hidden from public view. Pakistani history is replete with examples of government changes through palace coups, stolen elections, and manipulated judicial decisions.
Vehemently denied but widely known covert operations of the past encourage speculation about similar goings on in the present. Lack of transparency in decision-making has bred suspicion and doubt about Pakistan, which no amount of image makeovers can eliminate. Instead of looking for ways to make its denials more convincing, what Pakistan really needs is to make its process of governance more transparent. A substantive change in policy rather than another expensive lobbying or media campaign would be the better way of protecting Pakistan from periodic allegations of rogue-like behaviour.
Pakistan has not had a lawfully constituted elected civilian government for some time. The 2002 election set the stage for a dichotomy of power in Pakistan. Musharraf and the all-powerful military wields effective power while an ineffective parliament and a weak Prime Minister are available once more to share blame though not the power to make critical decisions of war and peace.
A similar situation occurred during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. Under the military regime of General Zia-ul-Haq, a close US ally, Pakistan developed nuclear weapons to keep up with India’s nuclear weapons capability. To secure US aid and by-pass American non-proliferation laws, Pakistani officials routinely denied nuclear weapons ambitions while clearly pursuing them. By the time Washington was ready to impose sanctions on Pakistan in 1990, Islamabad had a civilian government that got the blame for losing US aid though in fact it was simply the scapegoat, with the military retaining behind-the-scenes power.
Every state maintains a permanent national security establishment and occasional deception and cover-ups are part of national security requirements. But in normally functioning states most matters affecting the lives of their citizens are in the transparent realm, leaving only a handful of issues subject to secrecy.
In Pakistan, however, the very process of governance has been rendered mysterious. From the doling out of plots of land to generals as part of their service compensation to the frequent amendments to the law, nothing is truly open. Intelligence services do not simply seek to deal with threats to national security. They play a role in everything, from selection of parliamentary candidates to decisions about civil service appointments.
As a result there is little reason for the politically minded citizen to trust the state establishment. On the international stage, too, the world finds it difficult to believe that a government run through non-transparent means is telling the truth. From the international community’s perspective, if successive Pakistani leaders could be economical with the truth on matters of national security in the past, what reason is there to believe their denials about Kashmiri militants and the Taliban now?
It is inconceivable for a civilian government in Pakistan to redefine relations with India or review policies relating to nuclear and missile programmes. The United States takes a benign view of the Pakistani military’s covert operations when Pakistan’s strategic cooperation is important to the US, as was the case during the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance and the current war against Al Qaeda. But nuclear and missile proliferation and relations with India become sticking points in the US-Pakistan relationship when Islamabad’s strategic cooperation becomes less significant.
The charges about Pakistan’s support for Afghanistan’s Taliban, exchanging nuclear know-how for ballistic missiles with North Korea and Iran, and Pakistani sponsorship of jehadi militants opposing India surface in the international media sometimes without comment from the US government. But once the indispensability of Pakistan to Washington wanes, these very accusations could become the basis for sanctions against a less compliant Pakistan. The way to break this cycle would be for Pakistan to become an open democracy, with a constitutionally defined power structure. Then it would be easy to pin responsibility for actions such as training militants or buying and selling technology for weapons of mass destruction.
Pakistanis often wonder why Israel and India are not suspected of leaking nuclear know-how while Pakistan is constantly under suspicion. The international community also takes Islamabad’s periodic accusations of Indian covert support for insurgents in Pakistan a lot less seriously than Indian charges about Pakistan’s backing for the jehadis.
The reason for these divergent responses might lie in the difference of systems of governance. Western opinion is pre-disposed to trusting democracies. There is a presumption (however dubiously based) that a country with an open political system, an honest judiciary and periodic alternation in governments is less likely to have dark secrets than one that operates in secrecy.
The author is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC. He served as adviser to prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and as Pakistan’s ambassador to Sri Lanka.
India is South Asia’s Natural Hegemon
Will this foreign policy created by ISI work?
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/weekinreview/31WALD.html?ex=1062907200&en=57cdb6053ef4948a&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 2, 2003 12:57 pm
Starting in the late 1980`s, Pakistan began acting on the notion that it could bleed India by a ``thousand cuts.`` This is Pakistan`s foreign policy with respect to India. Bleed India by thousand cuts , uprising in Kashmir, Punjab, Mumbai, North East, Kerala, Jharkhand and the India as country will fall.Will this foreign policy created by ISI work?
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/weekinreview/31WALD.html?ex=1062907200&en=57cdb6053ef4948a&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
Kashmir Fatigue
Will this foreign policy created by ISI work?
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/weekinreview/31WALD.html?ex=1062907200&en=57cdb6053ef4948a&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 2, 2003 12:57 pm
Starting in the late 1980`s, Pakistan began acting on the notion that it could bleed India by a ``thousand cuts.`` This is Pakistan`s foreign policy with respect to India. Bleed India by thousand cuts , uprising in Kashmir, Punjab, Mumbai, North East, Kerala, Jharkhand and the India as country will fall.Will this foreign policy created by ISI work?
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/weekinreview/31WALD.html?ex=1062907200&en=57cdb6053ef4948a&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
A Failed Education
http://pakistan70.tripod.com/gul.html
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 2, 2003 12:31 pm
Gul Agha is Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a faculty affiliate of the UIUC Program in South Asian and Middle-Eastern Studies. He is active in Sindhi-American organizations. Copyright © Gul A. Agha 2002.http://pakistan70.tripod.com/gul.html
Pakistan and Israel: Through the prism of realities
Thanksgiving time for Sharon
Jyoti Malhotra
One hot summer morning in Haifa three years ago, a group of Bene Israelis from Bombay turned out to greet travelling Indian journalists with stories of their recharged lives since they had migrated to Israel in the late 1960s. The older women, dressed up in salwar-kameezes, fed us handmade namkeen savouries and in Marathi and Hindi pressed us for stories about the mother country. In the beginning, they admitted, Israel’s Ashkenazi Jews would look down upon their dark-skinned compatriots such as themselves (Israel recognised the Bene Israelis as ‘‘genuine Jews’’ in 1964), although now, beamed a teenager showing off a bronzed arm, ‘‘Indian Jews are so much more popular!’’
Seems Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is all set to return the compliment when he arrives in New Delhi on a breakthrough visit from September 7-11, on a trip that also takes him to Agra and Mumbai. During this last leg — he flies back home from Mumbai — Sharon will do the business thing, meeting key chambers CII and FICCI. Most interestingly, he will get together with members of the 6,000-odd Jewish community — such as poet Nissim Ezekiel and Bunny Reuben .
The history of the Jewish community in India is said to date from 1000 BC when Jews took off from the Straits of Hormuz and landed in the Malabar coast. Both Kerala and Konkan are still littered with Jewish sites, although most records were destroyed in turns by Muslim overlords, the Roman Catholic Portuguese and Dutch colonialists. Sharon may or may not visit the Keneseth Eliyahoo synagogue in Colaba (there are 7 in Mumbai), the Sassoon Library or the Sassoon Docks — a Baghdadi Jew named David Sassoon who emigrated to Bombay in 1832 built these landmarks with the money he made serving the British empire — but he is expected to thank the people of India for showing tolerance towards the Jewish community over the centuries.
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 2, 2003 08:14 am
Thanksgiving time for Sharon
Jyoti Malhotra
One hot summer morning in Haifa three years ago, a group of Bene Israelis from Bombay turned out to greet travelling Indian journalists with stories of their recharged lives since they had migrated to Israel in the late 1960s. The older women, dressed up in salwar-kameezes, fed us handmade namkeen savouries and in Marathi and Hindi pressed us for stories about the mother country. In the beginning, they admitted, Israel’s Ashkenazi Jews would look down upon their dark-skinned compatriots such as themselves (Israel recognised the Bene Israelis as ‘‘genuine Jews’’ in 1964), although now, beamed a teenager showing off a bronzed arm, ‘‘Indian Jews are so much more popular!’’
Seems Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is all set to return the compliment when he arrives in New Delhi on a breakthrough visit from September 7-11, on a trip that also takes him to Agra and Mumbai. During this last leg — he flies back home from Mumbai — Sharon will do the business thing, meeting key chambers CII and FICCI. Most interestingly, he will get together with members of the 6,000-odd Jewish community — such as poet Nissim Ezekiel and Bunny Reuben .
The history of the Jewish community in India is said to date from 1000 BC when Jews took off from the Straits of Hormuz and landed in the Malabar coast. Both Kerala and Konkan are still littered with Jewish sites, although most records were destroyed in turns by Muslim overlords, the Roman Catholic Portuguese and Dutch colonialists. Sharon may or may not visit the Keneseth Eliyahoo synagogue in Colaba (there are 7 in Mumbai), the Sassoon Library or the Sassoon Docks — a Baghdadi Jew named David Sassoon who emigrated to Bombay in 1832 built these landmarks with the money he made serving the British empire — but he is expected to thank the people of India for showing tolerance towards the Jewish community over the centuries.
Pakistan and Israel: Through the prism of realities
Between Pakistan and India
By Adar Primor
During his visit last week to Japan, Foreign
Minister Silvan Shalom told his hosts that ``just
as you are dealing with the North Korean threat,
we must deal with the Iranian threat.`` Shalom
spoke about the cooperation between the two
``threats`` - North Korea and Iran - two of the
three members of the United States` ``axis of
evil.`` Several weeks before, the very same Silvan
Shalom announced that ``Pakistan is a very
important country, with whom Israel is highly keen
to establish diplomatic relations.`` His comment
came in the wake of a declaration by Pakistan`s
president, General Pervez Musharraf, who said that
his country should consider formal ties with
Israel.
Since then, Indian officialdom
has displayed indifference. New
Delhi has no interest in
getting involved in Israel`s
relations with a third country,
especially not in the week
before Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon`s historic visit to the
subcontinent - the first such
visit by an Israeli leader. In private
conversations, however, the concern is
palpable.
Is North Korea really cooperating with Iran on
nuclear know-how? A senior Indian official says
that Pakistan is also in on the act. ``All of
Pakistan`s nuclear program and its missiles are
based on secret agreements, some of which put
Israel at risk.`` The official added that,
following last week`s terror attacks in Mumbai
(Bombay), Shalom called his Indian counterpart
to express his grief. A week earlier, India did
the same after the Jerusalem bus bombing. But
within that feeling of a common destiny between
the two peoples, the senior official is at
pains to remind Israel that ``Pakistan supports
organizations linked to al-Qaida. The Taliban
was created by Pakistan, which remains the
headquarters of international and anti-Indian
terrorism.``
Even though the Pakistani issue is not
officially on the Indo-Israeli agenda, New
Delhi is likely to hint to Sharon that any form
of relations between Israel and Pakistan which
include military cooperation would inevitably
lead to a crisis in their bilateral relations.
Sharon could legitimately tell his hosts that
Israel has not overlooked India`s extensive
ties with the Arab world, or its traditionally
pro-Palestinian stance. We also have
independent considerations, Sharon could argue.
He could point out that, since its
establishment, Israel has tried to smash the
international diplomatic boycott and has
aspicred to establish relations with the
Islamic world.
Another claim Sharon could make is that, under
Musharraf, Pakistan has become much closer to
the U.S., and that India itself has relations
with Pakistan, the goal of which is full
normalization. Sharon could simply say that
Israel wants to become closer to Pakistan
precisely because of the fear that
technological and nuclear know-how could be
exported and that an ``Islamic bomb`` could fall
into fundamentalist hands. Israel also hopes
that closer ties with Pakistan could lead to
relations with other Muslim countries in Asia.
Despite all of this, it would appear that India
does not have too much reason for concern: the
prevalent opinion in the Foreign Ministry in
Jerusalem is that Musharraf`s comments were
intended for Western ears, and were aimed at
improving his image. Israeli intelligence
officials point out that for Musharraf to enter
into formal diplomatic relations with Israel,
he would have to confront the strong Islamic
opposition, as well as the heads of his own
military and secret services. It is hard to see
him taking such a risk.
Either way, the large delegation that will
accompany Sharon on his trip to India is
designed to show the host nation that Israel
has no intention of letting the growing ties
between the countries slip. Bilateral trade
between Israel and India is currently close to
$2 billion, and, according to some reports,
Israel has become the second-largest supplier
of hi-tech arms to India.
Sharon will take 30 leading businessmen and
directors of military industries with him to
India, in the hope that this will help push
that figure even higher. They will all talk
about the values and challenges that Israel and
India share - the only two democracies between
the Mediterranean and Chinese Sea, both having
to confront dictatorships that sponsor
terrorism. Musharraf will listen, and
deliberate.
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 2, 2003 07:34 am
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=335229&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=YBetween Pakistan and India
By Adar Primor
During his visit last week to Japan, Foreign
Minister Silvan Shalom told his hosts that ``just
as you are dealing with the North Korean threat,
we must deal with the Iranian threat.`` Shalom
spoke about the cooperation between the two
``threats`` - North Korea and Iran - two of the
three members of the United States` ``axis of
evil.`` Several weeks before, the very same Silvan
Shalom announced that ``Pakistan is a very
important country, with whom Israel is highly keen
to establish diplomatic relations.`` His comment
came in the wake of a declaration by Pakistan`s
president, General Pervez Musharraf, who said that
his country should consider formal ties with
Israel.
Since then, Indian officialdom
has displayed indifference. New
Delhi has no interest in
getting involved in Israel`s
relations with a third country,
especially not in the week
before Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon`s historic visit to the
subcontinent - the first such
visit by an Israeli leader. In private
conversations, however, the concern is
palpable.
Is North Korea really cooperating with Iran on
nuclear know-how? A senior Indian official says
that Pakistan is also in on the act. ``All of
Pakistan`s nuclear program and its missiles are
based on secret agreements, some of which put
Israel at risk.`` The official added that,
following last week`s terror attacks in Mumbai
(Bombay), Shalom called his Indian counterpart
to express his grief. A week earlier, India did
the same after the Jerusalem bus bombing. But
within that feeling of a common destiny between
the two peoples, the senior official is at
pains to remind Israel that ``Pakistan supports
organizations linked to al-Qaida. The Taliban
was created by Pakistan, which remains the
headquarters of international and anti-Indian
terrorism.``
Even though the Pakistani issue is not
officially on the Indo-Israeli agenda, New
Delhi is likely to hint to Sharon that any form
of relations between Israel and Pakistan which
include military cooperation would inevitably
lead to a crisis in their bilateral relations.
Sharon could legitimately tell his hosts that
Israel has not overlooked India`s extensive
ties with the Arab world, or its traditionally
pro-Palestinian stance. We also have
independent considerations, Sharon could argue.
He could point out that, since its
establishment, Israel has tried to smash the
international diplomatic boycott and has
aspicred to establish relations with the
Islamic world.
Another claim Sharon could make is that, under
Musharraf, Pakistan has become much closer to
the U.S., and that India itself has relations
with Pakistan, the goal of which is full
normalization. Sharon could simply say that
Israel wants to become closer to Pakistan
precisely because of the fear that
technological and nuclear know-how could be
exported and that an ``Islamic bomb`` could fall
into fundamentalist hands. Israel also hopes
that closer ties with Pakistan could lead to
relations with other Muslim countries in Asia.
Despite all of this, it would appear that India
does not have too much reason for concern: the
prevalent opinion in the Foreign Ministry in
Jerusalem is that Musharraf`s comments were
intended for Western ears, and were aimed at
improving his image. Israeli intelligence
officials point out that for Musharraf to enter
into formal diplomatic relations with Israel,
he would have to confront the strong Islamic
opposition, as well as the heads of his own
military and secret services. It is hard to see
him taking such a risk.
Either way, the large delegation that will
accompany Sharon on his trip to India is
designed to show the host nation that Israel
has no intention of letting the growing ties
between the countries slip. Bilateral trade
between Israel and India is currently close to
$2 billion, and, according to some reports,
Israel has become the second-largest supplier
of hi-tech arms to India.
Sharon will take 30 leading businessmen and
directors of military industries with him to
India, in the hope that this will help push
that figure even higher. They will all talk
about the values and challenges that Israel and
India share - the only two democracies between
the Mediterranean and Chinese Sea, both having
to confront dictatorships that sponsor
terrorism. Musharraf will listen, and
deliberate.
What are they Teaching in Pakistani Schools Today?
Pakistan: How Historiography leads to hypocrisy
History-writing in Pakistan has remained problematic for obvious reasons. Compulsions to undertake the task of historiography under the framework of `Pakistan ideology` has led to large-scale distortion of facts, non-inclusion of events of historical importance, promotion of hate against India and stereotyping. `Pakistan ideology` is based on the idea of a separate Muslim nationhood and justifies the partition of India. To master the present, the control of the past is desired. Whenever history is written under the influence of an ideology, its objectivity is sacrificed. Facts are to be manipulated to justify the acts of the political leadership.
As Pakistani society has started reaping the bitter harvest of distorted historiography, an articulate opposition has emerged. It is openly questioning the Pakistan state on its role in disseminating history that is injurious to the society. ``The Murder of history` by Professor KK Aziz is a telling indictment of the establishment, involved in writing text-books for Pakistan students. According to Professor KK Aziz What is being taught as history in Pakistani schools and colleges is really national mythology and the subjects of social studies and Pakistan studies are nothing but vehicles of political indoctrination. He adds, ``Our children don`t learnt history. They are ordered to read a carefully selected collections of falsehoods, fairy tales and plain lies.
Mubarak Ali, a noted scholar and author of ``History on Trial`` pronounces similar views. He has shown how even reputed Pakistani historians are part of this grand industry involved in distortion of history. He warns, ``The disjointed and selected version of history fails to create any historical consciousness among students and the general public. When full facts of historical processes are not recorded, it reduces the power of analysis and society is condemned to repeat the history again and again``.
Disowning and Distortions:
Distortion of history needs to be studied at two levels- elite and through text-books. In dealing with the ancient past the Pakistani historian on the basis of two nation theory disowns the pre-Islamic past. Asadullah Bhutto, a Jamaat Islami ideologue once gave a press statement that Mohenja Daro and other archeological remains should be bulldozed.
Pakistani historians seek an Islamic link with the Arab conquest of Sindh. As per them, the conquest of Sindh made Indian Muslims, a part of the Arab empire. This makes them more enchanted with the glories of Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo and Cordoba than with the Indian counterparts of Delhi, Agra or Fatehpur Sikri. They also try to craft Central Asian links. Imagine even a reputed Pakistani archeologist and historian AH Dani says that Pakistan has closer and stronger cultural links with Central Asia than with India.
As the Centre of power of Muslim dynasties was situated in India, the medieval history is reconstructed under the title of history Pak-Hind. Pakistani historians criticise the rule of Muslim dynasties as being un-Islamic. They pronounce that these kings inducted Hindus in their administration and weakened the Islamic character of the state. IH Qureishi, a leading historian and author of, ``The Muslim Community of the Indian sub-continent`, criticises Akbar for including Hindus as partners and treating them as equals. He argues, ``And in the final analysis, if the Muslim were to forget their uniqueness and come to absorb as Akbar did, contradictory tendencies and beliefs from other religions, could the Muslim nation continue to exist as a separate nation? Akbar`s policies created danger not only for the Muslim empire but also for the continued existence of the Muslim nation in the subcontinent``. Akbar is much maligned in the Pakistani historiography and is completely omitted from the school text-books.
The Jamaat Islami critique of Muslim conquerors is equally harsh. It says they did not do enough for propagation of Islam and plundered wealth of non-Muslims for their personal pleasure. It these kings for lacking passion for Jehad. Zahid Ali Wasti, a Jamaat intellectual remarks that policy Akbar and others followed of marrying Hindu women polluted Muslim culture. He says, ``when the Mughal rulers married Hindu women and allowed them to keep their religion, it was disaster. As a result of these marriages, Mughal rulers were born from Hindu mothers``. To this is attributed the disintegration of Muslim empire.
Medieval Indian history is not regarded as a part of the Pakistani historiography because the Hindus and the Muslims both shared it. The culture that was produced by both is looked upon as a denial of Muslim separatism.
The treatment of freedom struggle is resolved by shifting the emphasis from ``freedom struggle`` to ``struggle for Pakistan``. The creation of Pakistan is regarded as a victory against the Hindus and not against the British.
Regional Histories:
In the case of Punjab, its Sikh period is rejected and downgraded as ``Sikha Shahi``, which is synonymous with anarchy and disorder. The wars of the Sikhs, which were fought against the British, have no mention in the history books. On the other hand, British conquest of Punjab is hailed as a blessing for the people of Punjab because it delivered them from Sikh rule.
The British gave crushing defeat to Talpur Mirs, the rulers of Sindh in 1843. To minimise the humiliation of the defeat, historians seek to glorify some individuals who fought bravely against the British. Sindh is given credit because its legislative assembly was the first to vote for joining Pakistan. The NWFP is remembered for its resistance to colonial rule but the allegiance of its political leadership to the Congress is condemned. The political leadership and not the people are blamed. On Baluchistan, the resistance of the Kalat state not to accede to Pakistan is not mentioned in the text-books.
Pakistani historiography tries to homogenise the culture, traditions, and social and religious life of the people. Mubarak Ali in his well-researched study ``History, Ideology and curriculum``, notes, ``Any attempt to assert the historical identity of a region is discouraged and condemned. This also affects the non-Muslim religious minorities, who are also excluded from the mainstream of history``. This suits the political attempts towards centralisation.
Historiography has also to deal with crisis of legitimacy that confronts Pakistan as a nation and a democracy in the face of unending cycles of military dictatorship, the separation of Bangladeshi, Talibanisation of Pakistan state and society. History text-books became the victims. History as a subject was discontinued in 1961 and was incorporated in the text-books on social sciences.
The Text-Books:
The text-books carry prescribed myths, which suit the proponents of `Pakistan ideology`. Prof. K.K. Aziz in `The murder of history`, has put enough of hardwork to catalogue the errors. In this study, Prof. Aziz delineates the positive contribution from the negative contribution. What these text-books say is their positive contribution to the sociology of ignorance: the kind of knowledge they are imparting. The negative contribution is what they add to the unlightenment by withholding what should be told to the students. There are several matters of grave import pertaining both to the past and to contemporary times which fail to find mention in the books.
What purpose does such text-book writing serves? Prof Aziz himself explains. ``The goal, it seems is to produce a generation with the following traits: docility, inability to ask questions, capacity to indulge in pleasurable illusions, pride in wearing blinkers, willingness to accept guidance from above, alacrity to like and dislike things by order, tendency to ignore gaps in one`s knowledge, enjoyment of make-believe, faith in the high value of pretences``.
The text-books send the following messages to the students.
1. Follow the government in office: This official attitude produces such amusing oddities as the omission of the name of ZA Bhutto from all books published during General Zia-ul-Haque`s rule. Millions of students who went to school during eleven years of Zia`s dictatorship did not know what happened in the country between liberation of Bangladesh in 1971 and Zia`s coup in 1977. The students are thus brainwashed to accept one particular ruler, whom the book extols, as a hero.
2. Support Military Rule:
Both under Ayub Khan`s reign and Zia`s rule, the two dictators were described to the students as pious and full of piety. Zia was further shown as God-fearing, kindly man, who brought Islam to the country for the first time, thus fulfilling the promise made by Jinnah during the Pakistan Movement years. While extolling Zia, even certain encomiums showered on him may sound blasphemous.
Several lessons for the students are implicit in this approach of text-books:
National leadership is incompetent, maladroit, inept, undependable and unqualified to rule the country. People who elected or supported the failed politicians are unfit for democracy. The modern democratic system itself is a western importation which finds no sanction in Islam. The armed forces have a supra-constitutional right to overthrow a civilian government whenever they think it is not ``performing`` its task ``satisfact orally``, i.e. to the satisfaction of the armed forces.
3. Glorify Wars:
The praetorian state cannot be by its nature an advocate of international peace. The authors of the book glorify wars, particularly the ones waged under military dictators. Implications of this marked emphasis on and special attention to the topic of war are: A tribute is paid to the armed forces, thus reinforcing the message-applaud military rule. Civilian form of government is played down. The emphasis on wars diverts the interest of the students from political problems and prospects to international security. The underlying point in all this is that in moments of national danger the armed forces are the only saviours of the people and the civilian governments and politicians are useless. Also, the 1965 and 1971 wars are presented as victories for Pakistan, which they were not. Prof. Aziz comments, ``This creates self-complacency and false self-confidence, which can be dangerous in minds which are still growing``.
4. Hate India:
Either to rationalise the glorification of wars or for some other reasons the text-books set out to create among the students a hatred for India and the Hindus, both in the historical context and as a part of current politics. The most common method in which this is done is to offer slanted descriptions of Hindu religion and culture, calling them ``unclean`` and ``inferior``. Muslim rule over the Hindus is praised for having put an end to all ``bad`` Hindu religious beliefs and practices and thus ``eliminated`` classical Hinduism from India. It is asserted that the communal riots accompanying and following the partition of 1947 were initiated exclusively by the Hindus and the Sikhs and that the Muslims were at no place and time aggressors but merely helpless victims. Generous and undue space is given to study of wars with India. Ground realities are, however, different. The students thus are flabbergasted when they read one thing in the books and see and experience another in life. What impact will this have on students, Prof Aziz answers, ``the students are bound to grow up with a love-hate sentiment for India, with a contempt for their elders who claim one thing and do another and with the seeds of hypocrisy sown deep in their character?
5. Fabricate an Anti-Colonial Past?:
The text-books give to Indian history and the Muslim nationalist struggle a complexion whom even the most cunning make-up will not enable to stand a whiff of historical reality. This fantasy is created through several measures of commission and omission. The revolt of 1857 is described as Jihad undertaken by the Muslims alone and later some non-Muslims joined in. The information is withheld that from the time of Shah Abdul Aziz onwards the great majority of the ulema did not issue a fatwa against British rule, and most of the poets and intellectuals from the middle of the eighteenth century till independence supported and admired British authority and culture. No mention is made of British help to various Muslim societies. The long history of Muslim loyalty to British public life is ommitted from all text-books. It is concealed from the students that a large number of eminent Muslims were not in the Muslim League or in the Pakistan movement. As the Congress is usually accepted as an anti-British fiercely nationalistic, self-sacrificing movement, the Muslim League too ought to be shown in a similar garb, hence the urgency to fabricate anti-colonial past.
6. Give the entire credit to Aligarh and the UP and impose a new culture on Pakistan:
Text books trace back to the Aligarh movement every political, social, intellectual, religious and educational development that took place in Muslim India. Textbooks also persist in preaching that UP was the home of Pakistani culture. Excellent critique of text-books on the contribution of Aligarh/UP and UP culture, by Prof Aziz has totally gone unnoticed in India. He says the double claim that the people of the UP were in the forefront of the struggle for the creation of Pakistan and that their culture is the source or foster-mother of Pakistani culture has produced problems of identity for the indigenous population of Pakistan. This has led to the inferiority complex among people of Punjab and other provinces, throttled their culture, languages and literature.
Negative Contribution:
In text-books there is exclusion of Bengal from national consciousness. The other major topics not covered in the text-books include the role of Indian National Congress, the Khudai Khidmatgars, The Punjab Union Party, The Khaksar Movement, The Ahrar Party, The Nationalist or Pro-Congress Muslims, Historiography of India, Theory and Philosophy of History, Economic, Social, Intellectual and Literary History and Modern Islamic Thought.
Hypocrisy:
In 1984, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, the great Urdu poet, used to teach his grandson, reading then in 10th class. After going through the text-books, Faiz asked his grandson to learn the text-book for examination and something different as truth. The grandson turned to Faiz`s wife and said, ``Mama, I shall have to become a hypocrite. Well Nana says if you want to pass your examination reproduce this book. You have no choice. But I have given you an alternative-the truth, keep that in mind``. Then heaving a sigh asked grandmom again, ``But what of those who will never have a choice.``
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 2, 2003 07:10 am
Teaching hatred: the worst abusePakistan: How Historiography leads to hypocrisy
History-writing in Pakistan has remained problematic for obvious reasons. Compulsions to undertake the task of historiography under the framework of `Pakistan ideology` has led to large-scale distortion of facts, non-inclusion of events of historical importance, promotion of hate against India and stereotyping. `Pakistan ideology` is based on the idea of a separate Muslim nationhood and justifies the partition of India. To master the present, the control of the past is desired. Whenever history is written under the influence of an ideology, its objectivity is sacrificed. Facts are to be manipulated to justify the acts of the political leadership.
As Pakistani society has started reaping the bitter harvest of distorted historiography, an articulate opposition has emerged. It is openly questioning the Pakistan state on its role in disseminating history that is injurious to the society. ``The Murder of history` by Professor KK Aziz is a telling indictment of the establishment, involved in writing text-books for Pakistan students. According to Professor KK Aziz What is being taught as history in Pakistani schools and colleges is really national mythology and the subjects of social studies and Pakistan studies are nothing but vehicles of political indoctrination. He adds, ``Our children don`t learnt history. They are ordered to read a carefully selected collections of falsehoods, fairy tales and plain lies.
Mubarak Ali, a noted scholar and author of ``History on Trial`` pronounces similar views. He has shown how even reputed Pakistani historians are part of this grand industry involved in distortion of history. He warns, ``The disjointed and selected version of history fails to create any historical consciousness among students and the general public. When full facts of historical processes are not recorded, it reduces the power of analysis and society is condemned to repeat the history again and again``.
Disowning and Distortions:
Distortion of history needs to be studied at two levels- elite and through text-books. In dealing with the ancient past the Pakistani historian on the basis of two nation theory disowns the pre-Islamic past. Asadullah Bhutto, a Jamaat Islami ideologue once gave a press statement that Mohenja Daro and other archeological remains should be bulldozed.
Pakistani historians seek an Islamic link with the Arab conquest of Sindh. As per them, the conquest of Sindh made Indian Muslims, a part of the Arab empire. This makes them more enchanted with the glories of Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo and Cordoba than with the Indian counterparts of Delhi, Agra or Fatehpur Sikri. They also try to craft Central Asian links. Imagine even a reputed Pakistani archeologist and historian AH Dani says that Pakistan has closer and stronger cultural links with Central Asia than with India.
As the Centre of power of Muslim dynasties was situated in India, the medieval history is reconstructed under the title of history Pak-Hind. Pakistani historians criticise the rule of Muslim dynasties as being un-Islamic. They pronounce that these kings inducted Hindus in their administration and weakened the Islamic character of the state. IH Qureishi, a leading historian and author of, ``The Muslim Community of the Indian sub-continent`, criticises Akbar for including Hindus as partners and treating them as equals. He argues, ``And in the final analysis, if the Muslim were to forget their uniqueness and come to absorb as Akbar did, contradictory tendencies and beliefs from other religions, could the Muslim nation continue to exist as a separate nation? Akbar`s policies created danger not only for the Muslim empire but also for the continued existence of the Muslim nation in the subcontinent``. Akbar is much maligned in the Pakistani historiography and is completely omitted from the school text-books.
The Jamaat Islami critique of Muslim conquerors is equally harsh. It says they did not do enough for propagation of Islam and plundered wealth of non-Muslims for their personal pleasure. It these kings for lacking passion for Jehad. Zahid Ali Wasti, a Jamaat intellectual remarks that policy Akbar and others followed of marrying Hindu women polluted Muslim culture. He says, ``when the Mughal rulers married Hindu women and allowed them to keep their religion, it was disaster. As a result of these marriages, Mughal rulers were born from Hindu mothers``. To this is attributed the disintegration of Muslim empire.
Medieval Indian history is not regarded as a part of the Pakistani historiography because the Hindus and the Muslims both shared it. The culture that was produced by both is looked upon as a denial of Muslim separatism.
The treatment of freedom struggle is resolved by shifting the emphasis from ``freedom struggle`` to ``struggle for Pakistan``. The creation of Pakistan is regarded as a victory against the Hindus and not against the British.
Regional Histories:
In the case of Punjab, its Sikh period is rejected and downgraded as ``Sikha Shahi``, which is synonymous with anarchy and disorder. The wars of the Sikhs, which were fought against the British, have no mention in the history books. On the other hand, British conquest of Punjab is hailed as a blessing for the people of Punjab because it delivered them from Sikh rule.
The British gave crushing defeat to Talpur Mirs, the rulers of Sindh in 1843. To minimise the humiliation of the defeat, historians seek to glorify some individuals who fought bravely against the British. Sindh is given credit because its legislative assembly was the first to vote for joining Pakistan. The NWFP is remembered for its resistance to colonial rule but the allegiance of its political leadership to the Congress is condemned. The political leadership and not the people are blamed. On Baluchistan, the resistance of the Kalat state not to accede to Pakistan is not mentioned in the text-books.
Pakistani historiography tries to homogenise the culture, traditions, and social and religious life of the people. Mubarak Ali in his well-researched study ``History, Ideology and curriculum``, notes, ``Any attempt to assert the historical identity of a region is discouraged and condemned. This also affects the non-Muslim religious minorities, who are also excluded from the mainstream of history``. This suits the political attempts towards centralisation.
Historiography has also to deal with crisis of legitimacy that confronts Pakistan as a nation and a democracy in the face of unending cycles of military dictatorship, the separation of Bangladeshi, Talibanisation of Pakistan state and society. History text-books became the victims. History as a subject was discontinued in 1961 and was incorporated in the text-books on social sciences.
The Text-Books:
The text-books carry prescribed myths, which suit the proponents of `Pakistan ideology`. Prof. K.K. Aziz in `The murder of history`, has put enough of hardwork to catalogue the errors. In this study, Prof. Aziz delineates the positive contribution from the negative contribution. What these text-books say is their positive contribution to the sociology of ignorance: the kind of knowledge they are imparting. The negative contribution is what they add to the unlightenment by withholding what should be told to the students. There are several matters of grave import pertaining both to the past and to contemporary times which fail to find mention in the books.
What purpose does such text-book writing serves? Prof Aziz himself explains. ``The goal, it seems is to produce a generation with the following traits: docility, inability to ask questions, capacity to indulge in pleasurable illusions, pride in wearing blinkers, willingness to accept guidance from above, alacrity to like and dislike things by order, tendency to ignore gaps in one`s knowledge, enjoyment of make-believe, faith in the high value of pretences``.
The text-books send the following messages to the students.
1. Follow the government in office: This official attitude produces such amusing oddities as the omission of the name of ZA Bhutto from all books published during General Zia-ul-Haque`s rule. Millions of students who went to school during eleven years of Zia`s dictatorship did not know what happened in the country between liberation of Bangladesh in 1971 and Zia`s coup in 1977. The students are thus brainwashed to accept one particular ruler, whom the book extols, as a hero.
2. Support Military Rule:
Both under Ayub Khan`s reign and Zia`s rule, the two dictators were described to the students as pious and full of piety. Zia was further shown as God-fearing, kindly man, who brought Islam to the country for the first time, thus fulfilling the promise made by Jinnah during the Pakistan Movement years. While extolling Zia, even certain encomiums showered on him may sound blasphemous.
Several lessons for the students are implicit in this approach of text-books:
National leadership is incompetent, maladroit, inept, undependable and unqualified to rule the country. People who elected or supported the failed politicians are unfit for democracy. The modern democratic system itself is a western importation which finds no sanction in Islam. The armed forces have a supra-constitutional right to overthrow a civilian government whenever they think it is not ``performing`` its task ``satisfact orally``, i.e. to the satisfaction of the armed forces.
3. Glorify Wars:
The praetorian state cannot be by its nature an advocate of international peace. The authors of the book glorify wars, particularly the ones waged under military dictators. Implications of this marked emphasis on and special attention to the topic of war are: A tribute is paid to the armed forces, thus reinforcing the message-applaud military rule. Civilian form of government is played down. The emphasis on wars diverts the interest of the students from political problems and prospects to international security. The underlying point in all this is that in moments of national danger the armed forces are the only saviours of the people and the civilian governments and politicians are useless. Also, the 1965 and 1971 wars are presented as victories for Pakistan, which they were not. Prof. Aziz comments, ``This creates self-complacency and false self-confidence, which can be dangerous in minds which are still growing``.
4. Hate India:
Either to rationalise the glorification of wars or for some other reasons the text-books set out to create among the students a hatred for India and the Hindus, both in the historical context and as a part of current politics. The most common method in which this is done is to offer slanted descriptions of Hindu religion and culture, calling them ``unclean`` and ``inferior``. Muslim rule over the Hindus is praised for having put an end to all ``bad`` Hindu religious beliefs and practices and thus ``eliminated`` classical Hinduism from India. It is asserted that the communal riots accompanying and following the partition of 1947 were initiated exclusively by the Hindus and the Sikhs and that the Muslims were at no place and time aggressors but merely helpless victims. Generous and undue space is given to study of wars with India. Ground realities are, however, different. The students thus are flabbergasted when they read one thing in the books and see and experience another in life. What impact will this have on students, Prof Aziz answers, ``the students are bound to grow up with a love-hate sentiment for India, with a contempt for their elders who claim one thing and do another and with the seeds of hypocrisy sown deep in their character?
5. Fabricate an Anti-Colonial Past?:
The text-books give to Indian history and the Muslim nationalist struggle a complexion whom even the most cunning make-up will not enable to stand a whiff of historical reality. This fantasy is created through several measures of commission and omission. The revolt of 1857 is described as Jihad undertaken by the Muslims alone and later some non-Muslims joined in. The information is withheld that from the time of Shah Abdul Aziz onwards the great majority of the ulema did not issue a fatwa against British rule, and most of the poets and intellectuals from the middle of the eighteenth century till independence supported and admired British authority and culture. No mention is made of British help to various Muslim societies. The long history of Muslim loyalty to British public life is ommitted from all text-books. It is concealed from the students that a large number of eminent Muslims were not in the Muslim League or in the Pakistan movement. As the Congress is usually accepted as an anti-British fiercely nationalistic, self-sacrificing movement, the Muslim League too ought to be shown in a similar garb, hence the urgency to fabricate anti-colonial past.
6. Give the entire credit to Aligarh and the UP and impose a new culture on Pakistan:
Text books trace back to the Aligarh movement every political, social, intellectual, religious and educational development that took place in Muslim India. Textbooks also persist in preaching that UP was the home of Pakistani culture. Excellent critique of text-books on the contribution of Aligarh/UP and UP culture, by Prof Aziz has totally gone unnoticed in India. He says the double claim that the people of the UP were in the forefront of the struggle for the creation of Pakistan and that their culture is the source or foster-mother of Pakistani culture has produced problems of identity for the indigenous population of Pakistan. This has led to the inferiority complex among people of Punjab and other provinces, throttled their culture, languages and literature.
Negative Contribution:
In text-books there is exclusion of Bengal from national consciousness. The other major topics not covered in the text-books include the role of Indian National Congress, the Khudai Khidmatgars, The Punjab Union Party, The Khaksar Movement, The Ahrar Party, The Nationalist or Pro-Congress Muslims, Historiography of India, Theory and Philosophy of History, Economic, Social, Intellectual and Literary History and Modern Islamic Thought.
Hypocrisy:
In 1984, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, the great Urdu poet, used to teach his grandson, reading then in 10th class. After going through the text-books, Faiz asked his grandson to learn the text-book for examination and something different as truth. The grandson turned to Faiz`s wife and said, ``Mama, I shall have to become a hypocrite. Well Nana says if you want to pass your examination reproduce this book. You have no choice. But I have given you an alternative-the truth, keep that in mind``. Then heaving a sigh asked grandmom again, ``But what of those who will never have a choice.``
A Failed Education
Pakistan: How Historiography leads to hypocrisy
History-writing in Pakistan has remained problematic for obvious reasons. Compulsions to undertake the task of historiography under the framework of `Pakistan ideology` has led to large-scale distortion of facts, non-inclusion of events of historical importance, promotion of hate against India and stereotyping. `Pakistan ideology` is based on the idea of a separate Muslim nationhood and justifies the partition of India. To master the present, the control of the past is desired. Whenever history is written under the influence of an ideology, its objectivity is sacrificed. Facts are to be manipulated to justify the acts of the political leadership.
As Pakistani society has started reaping the bitter harvest of distorted historiography, an articulate opposition has emerged. It is openly questioning the Pakistan state on its role in disseminating history that is injurious to the society. ``The Murder of history` by Professor KK Aziz is a telling indictment of the establishment, involved in writing text-books for Pakistan students. According to Professor KK Aziz What is being taught as history in Pakistani schools and colleges is really national mythology and the subjects of social studies and Pakistan studies are nothing but vehicles of political indoctrination. He adds, ``Our children don`t learnt history. They are ordered to read a carefully selected collections of falsehoods, fairy tales and plain lies.
Mubarak Ali, a noted scholar and author of ``History on Trial`` pronounces similar views. He has shown how even reputed Pakistani historians are part of this grand industry involved in distortion of history. He warns, ``The disjointed and selected version of history fails to create any historical consciousness among students and the general public. When full facts of historical processes are not recorded, it reduces the power of analysis and society is condemned to repeat the history again and again``.
Disowning and Distortions:
Distortion of history needs to be studied at two levels- elite and through text-books. In dealing with the ancient past the Pakistani historian on the basis of two nation theory disowns the pre-Islamic past. Asadullah Bhutto, a Jamaat Islami ideologue once gave a press statement that Mohenja Daro and other archeological remains should be bulldozed.
Pakistani historians seek an Islamic link with the Arab conquest of Sindh. As per them, the conquest of Sindh made Indian Muslims, a part of the Arab empire. This makes them more enchanted with the glories of Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo and Cordoba than with the Indian counterparts of Delhi, Agra or Fatehpur Sikri. They also try to craft Central Asian links. Imagine even a reputed Pakistani archeologist and historian AH Dani says that Pakistan has closer and stronger cultural links with Central Asia than with India.
As the Centre of power of Muslim dynasties was situated in India, the medieval history is reconstructed under the title of history Pak-Hind. Pakistani historians criticise the rule of Muslim dynasties as being un-Islamic. They pronounce that these kings inducted Hindus in their administration and weakened the Islamic character of the state. IH Qureishi, a leading historian and author of, ``The Muslim Community of the Indian sub-continent`, criticises Akbar for including Hindus as partners and treating them as equals. He argues, ``And in the final analysis, if the Muslim were to forget their uniqueness and come to absorb as Akbar did, contradictory tendencies and beliefs from other religions, could the Muslim nation continue to exist as a separate nation? Akbar`s policies created danger not only for the Muslim empire but also for the continued existence of the Muslim nation in the subcontinent``. Akbar is much maligned in the Pakistani historiography and is completely omitted from the school text-books.
The Jamaat Islami critique of Muslim conquerors is equally harsh. It says they did not do enough for propagation of Islam and plundered wealth of non-Muslims for their personal pleasure. It these kings for lacking passion for Jehad. Zahid Ali Wasti, a Jamaat intellectual remarks that policy Akbar and others followed of marrying Hindu women polluted Muslim culture. He says, ``when the Mughal rulers married Hindu women and allowed them to keep their religion, it was disaster. As a result of these marriages, Mughal rulers were born from Hindu mothers``. To this is attributed the disintegration of Muslim empire.
Medieval Indian history is not regarded as a part of the Pakistani historiography because the Hindus and the Muslims both shared it. The culture that was produced by both is looked upon as a denial of Muslim separatism.
The treatment of freedom struggle is resolved by shifting the emphasis from ``freedom struggle`` to ``struggle for Pakistan``. The creation of Pakistan is regarded as a victory against the Hindus and not against the British.
Regional Histories:
In the case of Punjab, its Sikh period is rejected and downgraded as ``Sikha Shahi``, which is synonymous with anarchy and disorder. The wars of the Sikhs, which were fought against the British, have no mention in the history books. On the other hand, British conquest of Punjab is hailed as a blessing for the people of Punjab because it delivered them from Sikh rule.
The British gave crushing defeat to Talpur Mirs, the rulers of Sindh in 1843. To minimise the humiliation of the defeat, historians seek to glorify some individuals who fought bravely against the British. Sindh is given credit because its legislative assembly was the first to vote for joining Pakistan. The NWFP is remembered for its resistance to colonial rule but the allegiance of its political leadership to the Congress is condemned. The political leadership and not the people are blamed. On Baluchistan, the resistance of the Kalat state not to accede to Pakistan is not mentioned in the text-books.
Pakistani historiography tries to homogenise the culture, traditions, and social and religious life of the people. Mubarak Ali in his well-researched study ``History, Ideology and curriculum``, notes, ``Any attempt to assert the historical identity of a region is discouraged and condemned. This also affects the non-Muslim religious minorities, who are also excluded from the mainstream of history``. This suits the political attempts towards centralisation.
Historiography has also to deal with crisis of legitimacy that confronts Pakistan as a nation and a democracy in the face of unending cycles of military dictatorship, the separation of Bangladeshi, Talibanisation of Pakistan state and society. History text-books became the victims. History as a subject was discontinued in 1961 and was incorporated in the text-books on social sciences.
The Text-Books:
The text-books carry prescribed myths, which suit the proponents of `Pakistan ideology`. Prof. K.K. Aziz in `The murder of history`, has put enough of hardwork to catalogue the errors. In this study, Prof. Aziz delineates the positive contribution from the negative contribution. What these text-books say is their positive contribution to the sociology of ignorance: the kind of knowledge they are imparting. The negative contribution is what they add to the unlightenment by withholding what should be told to the students. There are several matters of grave import pertaining both to the past and to contemporary times which fail to find mention in the books.
What purpose does such text-book writing serves? Prof Aziz himself explains. ``The goal, it seems is to produce a generation with the following traits: docility, inability to ask questions, capacity to indulge in pleasurable illusions, pride in wearing blinkers, willingness to accept guidance from above, alacrity to like and dislike things by order, tendency to ignore gaps in one`s knowledge, enjoyment of make-believe, faith in the high value of pretences``.
The text-books send the following messages to the students.
1. Follow the government in office: This official attitude produces such amusing oddities as the omission of the name of ZA Bhutto from all books published during General Zia-ul-Haque`s rule. Millions of students who went to school during eleven years of Zia`s dictatorship did not know what happened in the country between liberation of Bangladesh in 1971 and Zia`s coup in 1977. The students are thus brainwashed to accept one particular ruler, whom the book extols, as a hero.
2. Support Military Rule:
Both under Ayub Khan`s reign and Zia`s rule, the two dictators were described to the students as pious and full of piety. Zia was further shown as God-fearing, kindly man, who brought Islam to the country for the first time, thus fulfilling the promise made by Jinnah during the Pakistan Movement years. While extolling Zia, even certain encomiums showered on him may sound blasphemous.
Several lessons for the students are implicit in this approach of text-books:
National leadership is incompetent, maladroit, inept, undependable and unqualified to rule the country. People who elected or supported the failed politicians are unfit for democracy. The modern democratic system itself is a western importation which finds no sanction in Islam. The armed forces have a supra-constitutional right to overthrow a civilian government whenever they think it is not ``performing`` its task ``satisfact orally``, i.e. to the satisfaction of the armed forces.
3. Glorify Wars:
The praetorian state cannot be by its nature an advocate of international peace. The authors of the book glorify wars, particularly the ones waged under military dictators. Implications of this marked emphasis on and special attention to the topic of war are: A tribute is paid to the armed forces, thus reinforcing the message-applaud military rule. Civilian form of government is played down. The emphasis on wars diverts the interest of the students from political problems and prospects to international security. The underlying point in all this is that in moments of national danger the armed forces are the only saviours of the people and the civilian governments and politicians are useless. Also, the 1965 and 1971 wars are presented as victories for Pakistan, which they were not. Prof. Aziz comments, ``This creates self-complacency and false self-confidence, which can be dangerous in minds which are still growing``.
4. Hate India:
Either to rationalise the glorification of wars or for some other reasons the text-books set out to create among the students a hatred for India and the Hindus, both in the historical context and as a part of current politics. The most common method in which this is done is to offer slanted descriptions of Hindu religion and culture, calling them ``unclean`` and ``inferior``. Muslim rule over the Hindus is praised for having put an end to all ``bad`` Hindu religious beliefs and practices and thus ``eliminated`` classical Hinduism from India. It is asserted that the communal riots accompanying and following the partition of 1947 were initiated exclusively by the Hindus and the Sikhs and that the Muslims were at no place and time aggressors but merely helpless victims. Generous and undue space is given to study of wars with India. Ground realities are, however, different. The students thus are flabbergasted when they read one thing in the books and see and experience another in life. What impact will this have on students, Prof Aziz answers, ``the students are bound to grow up with a love-hate sentiment for India, with a contempt for their elders who claim one thing and do another and with the seeds of hypocrisy sown deep in their character?
5. Fabricate an Anti-Colonial Past?:
The text-books give to Indian history and the Muslim nationalist struggle a complexion whom even the most cunning make-up will not enable to stand a whiff of historical reality. This fantasy is created through several measures of commission and omission. The revolt of 1857 is described as Jihad undertaken by the Muslims alone and later some non-Muslims joined in. The information is withheld that from the time of Shah Abdul Aziz onwards the great majority of the ulema did not issue a fatwa against British rule, and most of the poets and intellectuals from the middle of the eighteenth century till independence supported and admired British authority and culture. No mention is made of British help to various Muslim societies. The long history of Muslim loyalty to British public life is ommitted from all text-books. It is concealed from the students that a large number of eminent Muslims were not in the Muslim League or in the Pakistan movement. As the Congress is usually accepted as an anti-British fiercely nationalistic, self-sacrificing movement, the Muslim League too ought to be shown in a similar garb, hence the urgency to fabricate anti-colonial past.
6. Give the entire credit to Aligarh and the UP and impose a new culture on Pakistan:
Text books trace back to the Aligarh movement every political, social, intellectual, religious and educational development that took place in Muslim India. Textbooks also persist in preaching that UP was the home of Pakistani culture. Excellent critique of text-books on the contribution of Aligarh/UP and UP culture, by Prof Aziz has totally gone unnoticed in India. He says the double claim that the people of the UP were in the forefront of the struggle for the creation of Pakistan and that their culture is the source or foster-mother of Pakistani culture has produced problems of identity for the indigenous population of Pakistan. This has led to the inferiority complex among people of Punjab and other provinces, throttled their culture, languages and literature.
Negative Contribution:
In text-books there is exclusion of Bengal from national consciousness. The other major topics not covered in the text-books include the role of Indian National Congress, the Khudai Khidmatgars, The Punjab Union Party, The Khaksar Movement, The Ahrar Party, The Nationalist or Pro-Congress Muslims, Historiography of India, Theory and Philosophy of History, Economic, Social, Intellectual and Literary History and Modern Islamic Thought.
Hypocrisy:
In 1984, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, the great Urdu poet, used to teach his grandson, reading then in 10th class. After going through the text-books, Faiz asked his grandson to learn the text-book for examination and something different as truth. The grandson turned to Faiz`s wife and said, ``Mama, I shall have to become a hypocrite. Well Nana says if you want to pass your examination reproduce this book. You have no choice. But I have given you an alternative-the truth, keep that in mind``. Then heaving a sigh asked grandmom again, ``But what of those who will never have a choice.``
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 2, 2003 07:09 am
Teaching hatred: the worst abusePakistan: How Historiography leads to hypocrisy
History-writing in Pakistan has remained problematic for obvious reasons. Compulsions to undertake the task of historiography under the framework of `Pakistan ideology` has led to large-scale distortion of facts, non-inclusion of events of historical importance, promotion of hate against India and stereotyping. `Pakistan ideology` is based on the idea of a separate Muslim nationhood and justifies the partition of India. To master the present, the control of the past is desired. Whenever history is written under the influence of an ideology, its objectivity is sacrificed. Facts are to be manipulated to justify the acts of the political leadership.
As Pakistani society has started reaping the bitter harvest of distorted historiography, an articulate opposition has emerged. It is openly questioning the Pakistan state on its role in disseminating history that is injurious to the society. ``The Murder of history` by Professor KK Aziz is a telling indictment of the establishment, involved in writing text-books for Pakistan students. According to Professor KK Aziz What is being taught as history in Pakistani schools and colleges is really national mythology and the subjects of social studies and Pakistan studies are nothing but vehicles of political indoctrination. He adds, ``Our children don`t learnt history. They are ordered to read a carefully selected collections of falsehoods, fairy tales and plain lies.
Mubarak Ali, a noted scholar and author of ``History on Trial`` pronounces similar views. He has shown how even reputed Pakistani historians are part of this grand industry involved in distortion of history. He warns, ``The disjointed and selected version of history fails to create any historical consciousness among students and the general public. When full facts of historical processes are not recorded, it reduces the power of analysis and society is condemned to repeat the history again and again``.
Disowning and Distortions:
Distortion of history needs to be studied at two levels- elite and through text-books. In dealing with the ancient past the Pakistani historian on the basis of two nation theory disowns the pre-Islamic past. Asadullah Bhutto, a Jamaat Islami ideologue once gave a press statement that Mohenja Daro and other archeological remains should be bulldozed.
Pakistani historians seek an Islamic link with the Arab conquest of Sindh. As per them, the conquest of Sindh made Indian Muslims, a part of the Arab empire. This makes them more enchanted with the glories of Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo and Cordoba than with the Indian counterparts of Delhi, Agra or Fatehpur Sikri. They also try to craft Central Asian links. Imagine even a reputed Pakistani archeologist and historian AH Dani says that Pakistan has closer and stronger cultural links with Central Asia than with India.
As the Centre of power of Muslim dynasties was situated in India, the medieval history is reconstructed under the title of history Pak-Hind. Pakistani historians criticise the rule of Muslim dynasties as being un-Islamic. They pronounce that these kings inducted Hindus in their administration and weakened the Islamic character of the state. IH Qureishi, a leading historian and author of, ``The Muslim Community of the Indian sub-continent`, criticises Akbar for including Hindus as partners and treating them as equals. He argues, ``And in the final analysis, if the Muslim were to forget their uniqueness and come to absorb as Akbar did, contradictory tendencies and beliefs from other religions, could the Muslim nation continue to exist as a separate nation? Akbar`s policies created danger not only for the Muslim empire but also for the continued existence of the Muslim nation in the subcontinent``. Akbar is much maligned in the Pakistani historiography and is completely omitted from the school text-books.
The Jamaat Islami critique of Muslim conquerors is equally harsh. It says they did not do enough for propagation of Islam and plundered wealth of non-Muslims for their personal pleasure. It these kings for lacking passion for Jehad. Zahid Ali Wasti, a Jamaat intellectual remarks that policy Akbar and others followed of marrying Hindu women polluted Muslim culture. He says, ``when the Mughal rulers married Hindu women and allowed them to keep their religion, it was disaster. As a result of these marriages, Mughal rulers were born from Hindu mothers``. To this is attributed the disintegration of Muslim empire.
Medieval Indian history is not regarded as a part of the Pakistani historiography because the Hindus and the Muslims both shared it. The culture that was produced by both is looked upon as a denial of Muslim separatism.
The treatment of freedom struggle is resolved by shifting the emphasis from ``freedom struggle`` to ``struggle for Pakistan``. The creation of Pakistan is regarded as a victory against the Hindus and not against the British.
Regional Histories:
In the case of Punjab, its Sikh period is rejected and downgraded as ``Sikha Shahi``, which is synonymous with anarchy and disorder. The wars of the Sikhs, which were fought against the British, have no mention in the history books. On the other hand, British conquest of Punjab is hailed as a blessing for the people of Punjab because it delivered them from Sikh rule.
The British gave crushing defeat to Talpur Mirs, the rulers of Sindh in 1843. To minimise the humiliation of the defeat, historians seek to glorify some individuals who fought bravely against the British. Sindh is given credit because its legislative assembly was the first to vote for joining Pakistan. The NWFP is remembered for its resistance to colonial rule but the allegiance of its political leadership to the Congress is condemned. The political leadership and not the people are blamed. On Baluchistan, the resistance of the Kalat state not to accede to Pakistan is not mentioned in the text-books.
Pakistani historiography tries to homogenise the culture, traditions, and social and religious life of the people. Mubarak Ali in his well-researched study ``History, Ideology and curriculum``, notes, ``Any attempt to assert the historical identity of a region is discouraged and condemned. This also affects the non-Muslim religious minorities, who are also excluded from the mainstream of history``. This suits the political attempts towards centralisation.
Historiography has also to deal with crisis of legitimacy that confronts Pakistan as a nation and a democracy in the face of unending cycles of military dictatorship, the separation of Bangladeshi, Talibanisation of Pakistan state and society. History text-books became the victims. History as a subject was discontinued in 1961 and was incorporated in the text-books on social sciences.
The Text-Books:
The text-books carry prescribed myths, which suit the proponents of `Pakistan ideology`. Prof. K.K. Aziz in `The murder of history`, has put enough of hardwork to catalogue the errors. In this study, Prof. Aziz delineates the positive contribution from the negative contribution. What these text-books say is their positive contribution to the sociology of ignorance: the kind of knowledge they are imparting. The negative contribution is what they add to the unlightenment by withholding what should be told to the students. There are several matters of grave import pertaining both to the past and to contemporary times which fail to find mention in the books.
What purpose does such text-book writing serves? Prof Aziz himself explains. ``The goal, it seems is to produce a generation with the following traits: docility, inability to ask questions, capacity to indulge in pleasurable illusions, pride in wearing blinkers, willingness to accept guidance from above, alacrity to like and dislike things by order, tendency to ignore gaps in one`s knowledge, enjoyment of make-believe, faith in the high value of pretences``.
The text-books send the following messages to the students.
1. Follow the government in office: This official attitude produces such amusing oddities as the omission of the name of ZA Bhutto from all books published during General Zia-ul-Haque`s rule. Millions of students who went to school during eleven years of Zia`s dictatorship did not know what happened in the country between liberation of Bangladesh in 1971 and Zia`s coup in 1977. The students are thus brainwashed to accept one particular ruler, whom the book extols, as a hero.
2. Support Military Rule:
Both under Ayub Khan`s reign and Zia`s rule, the two dictators were described to the students as pious and full of piety. Zia was further shown as God-fearing, kindly man, who brought Islam to the country for the first time, thus fulfilling the promise made by Jinnah during the Pakistan Movement years. While extolling Zia, even certain encomiums showered on him may sound blasphemous.
Several lessons for the students are implicit in this approach of text-books:
National leadership is incompetent, maladroit, inept, undependable and unqualified to rule the country. People who elected or supported the failed politicians are unfit for democracy. The modern democratic system itself is a western importation which finds no sanction in Islam. The armed forces have a supra-constitutional right to overthrow a civilian government whenever they think it is not ``performing`` its task ``satisfact orally``, i.e. to the satisfaction of the armed forces.
3. Glorify Wars:
The praetorian state cannot be by its nature an advocate of international peace. The authors of the book glorify wars, particularly the ones waged under military dictators. Implications of this marked emphasis on and special attention to the topic of war are: A tribute is paid to the armed forces, thus reinforcing the message-applaud military rule. Civilian form of government is played down. The emphasis on wars diverts the interest of the students from political problems and prospects to international security. The underlying point in all this is that in moments of national danger the armed forces are the only saviours of the people and the civilian governments and politicians are useless. Also, the 1965 and 1971 wars are presented as victories for Pakistan, which they were not. Prof. Aziz comments, ``This creates self-complacency and false self-confidence, which can be dangerous in minds which are still growing``.
4. Hate India:
Either to rationalise the glorification of wars or for some other reasons the text-books set out to create among the students a hatred for India and the Hindus, both in the historical context and as a part of current politics. The most common method in which this is done is to offer slanted descriptions of Hindu religion and culture, calling them ``unclean`` and ``inferior``. Muslim rule over the Hindus is praised for having put an end to all ``bad`` Hindu religious beliefs and practices and thus ``eliminated`` classical Hinduism from India. It is asserted that the communal riots accompanying and following the partition of 1947 were initiated exclusively by the Hindus and the Sikhs and that the Muslims were at no place and time aggressors but merely helpless victims. Generous and undue space is given to study of wars with India. Ground realities are, however, different. The students thus are flabbergasted when they read one thing in the books and see and experience another in life. What impact will this have on students, Prof Aziz answers, ``the students are bound to grow up with a love-hate sentiment for India, with a contempt for their elders who claim one thing and do another and with the seeds of hypocrisy sown deep in their character?
5. Fabricate an Anti-Colonial Past?:
The text-books give to Indian history and the Muslim nationalist struggle a complexion whom even the most cunning make-up will not enable to stand a whiff of historical reality. This fantasy is created through several measures of commission and omission. The revolt of 1857 is described as Jihad undertaken by the Muslims alone and later some non-Muslims joined in. The information is withheld that from the time of Shah Abdul Aziz onwards the great majority of the ulema did not issue a fatwa against British rule, and most of the poets and intellectuals from the middle of the eighteenth century till independence supported and admired British authority and culture. No mention is made of British help to various Muslim societies. The long history of Muslim loyalty to British public life is ommitted from all text-books. It is concealed from the students that a large number of eminent Muslims were not in the Muslim League or in the Pakistan movement. As the Congress is usually accepted as an anti-British fiercely nationalistic, self-sacrificing movement, the Muslim League too ought to be shown in a similar garb, hence the urgency to fabricate anti-colonial past.
6. Give the entire credit to Aligarh and the UP and impose a new culture on Pakistan:
Text books trace back to the Aligarh movement every political, social, intellectual, religious and educational development that took place in Muslim India. Textbooks also persist in preaching that UP was the home of Pakistani culture. Excellent critique of text-books on the contribution of Aligarh/UP and UP culture, by Prof Aziz has totally gone unnoticed in India. He says the double claim that the people of the UP were in the forefront of the struggle for the creation of Pakistan and that their culture is the source or foster-mother of Pakistani culture has produced problems of identity for the indigenous population of Pakistan. This has led to the inferiority complex among people of Punjab and other provinces, throttled their culture, languages and literature.
Negative Contribution:
In text-books there is exclusion of Bengal from national consciousness. The other major topics not covered in the text-books include the role of Indian National Congress, the Khudai Khidmatgars, The Punjab Union Party, The Khaksar Movement, The Ahrar Party, The Nationalist or Pro-Congress Muslims, Historiography of India, Theory and Philosophy of History, Economic, Social, Intellectual and Literary History and Modern Islamic Thought.
Hypocrisy:
In 1984, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, the great Urdu poet, used to teach his grandson, reading then in 10th class. After going through the text-books, Faiz asked his grandson to learn the text-book for examination and something different as truth. The grandson turned to Faiz`s wife and said, ``Mama, I shall have to become a hypocrite. Well Nana says if you want to pass your examination reproduce this book. You have no choice. But I have given you an alternative-the truth, keep that in mind``. Then heaving a sigh asked grandmom again, ``But what of those who will never have a choice.``
A Failed Education
Is Pakistan, as some believe “inching towards normalisation” of relations with India? General Pervez Musharraf apart, are the people of Pakistan tiring of the drumbeats of hatred constantly being drummed into their ears? Most of July our newspapers were full of stories of how a Pakistan couple, Tayyeba and Nadeem Sajjad brought their little daughter Noor Fatima to Bangalore to be successfully operated upon for a major heart defect and how grateful they were for the hospitality and love showered ion them by countless Indians, strangers all.
About that time there were greatly hyped reports of the nine-day visit to India of Maulana Fazal-ur Rahman, leader of Pakistan’s hard-line Jamiat Ulema-e- Islam, of his ardent desire for peace and of his being cordially received by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, no less, for talks extending to an hour. Then a nonofficial delegation led by Pakistan-friendly journalist Nayar which had visited Pakistan also on a one-day safari had returned wide-eyed, Nayar claiming that he and colleagues had been swept off their feet “by love and affection showered up on us at Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi”.
Nayar told the media that he had received a message from a commentator which said: “You have achieved the impossible. Of all the people, Liaquat Baloch of the Jammat-e-Islam is ecstatic on the private channels of Pakistan about the reception they hosted”. A Member of Nayar’s delegation, Shahid Siddiqui, M.P. had been similarly quoted as saying that he was surprised to notice the change in public mood against jehad and the craving of the Pakistani people for friendship and good relations with India. Now a 31-member Indian delegation is on a visit to Pakistan and no doubt will return just as ecstatically as the earlier delegation making one wonder whether, indeed, Pakistan is inching towards normalisation of ties with India. According to an Agence France Presse report from Islamabad sixteen Pakistani MPs will celebrate the back-to back Independence Days of India and Pakistan on August 14 and 15 in the western Indian city of Amritsar which is hardly 30 kms from Lahore.
Are we seeing the heavens falling? Meanwhile there is the story of Munir, the 13-year old Pakistan boy who unknowingly strayed into Indian police only to be ordered to be released from jail and returned to his home by Prime Minister Vajpayee. It is said that the lad was loaded with gifts before being put on the Delhi- Lahore bus.
If this is how the people of India and Pakistan react to each other, what has the Pakistani military got to say? Is it at all going to stop giving aid and comfort to terrorists to kill and maim innocent Kashmiris? When will it call a halt to its strident anti-India, anti- Hindu propaganda? That propaganda has been pushed to its limits in school textbooks since the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This has now been revealed in a well-documented study conducted by the I s l a m a b a d - b a s e d Sustained Development Policy Institute of Pakistani textbooks in Social Studies, English, Urdu and Civics from Class I to Class XII.
The findings of the study conducted by two scholars, A. N. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim can only be described as damning. Apparently, till Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came to power, Pakistani textbooks were balanced and fair in writing about India but with the military take-over of power under General Zia things were to change totally.
According to the report of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute “for over two decades, the curricula and the officially mandated textbooks have contained material that is directly contrary to the goals and values of a progressive, moderate and democratic Pakistan”. Says the report: “History is narrated with distortions and omissions. The causes, effects and responsibility for key events are presented so as to leave a false understanding of our national experience. A large part of the history of this region is also simply omitted, making it difficult to properly interpret events.
Four themes emerge most strongly as constituting the bulk of the curricula and textbooks of three compulsory subjects: Viz.
that Pakistan is for Muslims alone
that Islamiat is to be forcibly taught to all the students, whatever their faith, including a compulsory reading of the Quran
that ideology of Pakistan is to be internalised as faith and hate be created against Hindus and India.
And students are to be urged to take the path of Jehad and Shahadat.
Were the report not the work of an Islamanbad based Institute and written by Muslims themselves, one would ignore it. But it is impossible to ignore this report: it is so authentic. In Pakistan, one has to be a Muslim to be a Pakistani; only Muslims can be true Pakistani citizens. At every stage text books revert to Islam. Lessons have high Islamic content. Class I textbooks have four out of 25 lessons on Islam. Class II textbooks have 22 out of 44 lessons on Islam and so on to Class XII textbooks which have ten out of 68 lessons on Islam.
One does not know how many of the students in each school and in each class are non-Muslims but they are all forcibly taught Islamic religious studies. There is no escape. Jinnah never spoke of the “Ideology” of Pakistan. The authors of this report specifically state that “for fifteen years after the establishment of Pakistan, the Ideology of Pakistan was not known to anybody until, in 1962, a solitary member of the Jamaat-I-Islami used the words for the first time”. But in most textbooks, Jinnah has been turned into a pious Muslim, which he most certainly never was. His famous speech on 11th August 1947 to the Constituent Assembly in which he laid down the outlines of a democratic and secular Pakistan in which the state has no concern with the religion of its citizens and all, irrespective of their faith, are fully equal, finds no mention in any text book.
On the contrary the Hindu becomes an object of derision. Sample quotes from textbook for Class IV:
Hindu has always been an enemy of Islam.
The religion of the Hindus did not teach them good things. Hindus do not respect women.
Hindus worship in temples which are very narrow and dark places, where they worship idols. Only one person can enter a temple at a time.
The people of the sub-continent used to live in dark and small houses before the arrival of Muslims. The places of worship were built in a way that light and air could not find a way into them.
The Hindus treated the ancient population of the Indus Valley very badly. They set fire to their houses and butchered them.
A statement made in a textbook for Class VI says: “The Hindus wished to ruin Muslim civilisation and culture by destroying Urdu”. A book authored by Rabbani and Sayyid entitled An Introduction to Pakistan Studies says: “The Hindus always desired to crush the Muslims as a nation. Several attempts were made by the Hindus to erase the Muslim culture and civilization.” According to the authors of this monumental report, “the Muslim majoritarianism in Pakistan amounts to creating an environment for non-Muslims in which (1) they become second class citizens with lesser rights and privileges (2) their patriotism becomes suspect and (3) their contribution to the society is ignored”. Ergo, state the authors, “the result is that they (non-Muslims) can easily cease to have any stake in the society”.
So obsessed are those who write the textbooks about what they consider is the Ideology of Pakistan that specific rules are laid down on the subject. Thus:
The Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and be never subjected to Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and should never be made controversial and debatable.
Textbooks on social studies are devoted to the denigration of Hindus, as greedy, opportunistic and intolerant. The Report quotes the following lines called from various text books:
Hindus thought there was no country other than India.
Hindus who have always been opportunistic, cooperated with the English.
Most of Hindu leaders of the Congress were not prepared to tolerate the presence of the Muslims in the sub-continent.
Hindus very cunningly succeeded in making the British believe that the Muslims were solely responsible for the 1857 rebellion.
Comments the Report: “Young and impressionable minds are impregnated with seeds of hatred to serve self-styled ideological strait-jacket... The borrowing from Hindu culture is either ignored or condemned. The Pakistan movement is portrayed mostly in terms of the perfidy of the Hindus and the British... India is portrayed as the enemy, which is waiting to dismember Pakistan... Pakistan is shown to have won the 1965 war. Jinnah and Iqbal are presented as orthodox Muslims and any aspect of their thoughts and behaviour which does not conform to this image is suppressed...”
Is it any wonder, then, that Pakistan has been, and remains the land of the Taliban? What can one possibly say when a textbook avers that “Pakistan came to be established for the first time when the Arabs under Mohammad bin Qasim occupied Sind and Multan’’ and that ``during the 16th century Hindustan disappeared and was completely absorbed in Pakistan”? What kind of “friend” can we ever hope to find in our next-door neighbour?
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 2, 2003 07:03 am
The poisoning of young minds in PakistanIs Pakistan, as some believe “inching towards normalisation” of relations with India? General Pervez Musharraf apart, are the people of Pakistan tiring of the drumbeats of hatred constantly being drummed into their ears? Most of July our newspapers were full of stories of how a Pakistan couple, Tayyeba and Nadeem Sajjad brought their little daughter Noor Fatima to Bangalore to be successfully operated upon for a major heart defect and how grateful they were for the hospitality and love showered ion them by countless Indians, strangers all.
About that time there were greatly hyped reports of the nine-day visit to India of Maulana Fazal-ur Rahman, leader of Pakistan’s hard-line Jamiat Ulema-e- Islam, of his ardent desire for peace and of his being cordially received by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, no less, for talks extending to an hour. Then a nonofficial delegation led by Pakistan-friendly journalist Nayar which had visited Pakistan also on a one-day safari had returned wide-eyed, Nayar claiming that he and colleagues had been swept off their feet “by love and affection showered up on us at Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi”.
Nayar told the media that he had received a message from a commentator which said: “You have achieved the impossible. Of all the people, Liaquat Baloch of the Jammat-e-Islam is ecstatic on the private channels of Pakistan about the reception they hosted”. A Member of Nayar’s delegation, Shahid Siddiqui, M.P. had been similarly quoted as saying that he was surprised to notice the change in public mood against jehad and the craving of the Pakistani people for friendship and good relations with India. Now a 31-member Indian delegation is on a visit to Pakistan and no doubt will return just as ecstatically as the earlier delegation making one wonder whether, indeed, Pakistan is inching towards normalisation of ties with India. According to an Agence France Presse report from Islamabad sixteen Pakistani MPs will celebrate the back-to back Independence Days of India and Pakistan on August 14 and 15 in the western Indian city of Amritsar which is hardly 30 kms from Lahore.
Are we seeing the heavens falling? Meanwhile there is the story of Munir, the 13-year old Pakistan boy who unknowingly strayed into Indian police only to be ordered to be released from jail and returned to his home by Prime Minister Vajpayee. It is said that the lad was loaded with gifts before being put on the Delhi- Lahore bus.
If this is how the people of India and Pakistan react to each other, what has the Pakistani military got to say? Is it at all going to stop giving aid and comfort to terrorists to kill and maim innocent Kashmiris? When will it call a halt to its strident anti-India, anti- Hindu propaganda? That propaganda has been pushed to its limits in school textbooks since the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This has now been revealed in a well-documented study conducted by the I s l a m a b a d - b a s e d Sustained Development Policy Institute of Pakistani textbooks in Social Studies, English, Urdu and Civics from Class I to Class XII.
The findings of the study conducted by two scholars, A. N. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim can only be described as damning. Apparently, till Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came to power, Pakistani textbooks were balanced and fair in writing about India but with the military take-over of power under General Zia things were to change totally.
According to the report of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute “for over two decades, the curricula and the officially mandated textbooks have contained material that is directly contrary to the goals and values of a progressive, moderate and democratic Pakistan”. Says the report: “History is narrated with distortions and omissions. The causes, effects and responsibility for key events are presented so as to leave a false understanding of our national experience. A large part of the history of this region is also simply omitted, making it difficult to properly interpret events.
Four themes emerge most strongly as constituting the bulk of the curricula and textbooks of three compulsory subjects: Viz.
that Pakistan is for Muslims alone
that Islamiat is to be forcibly taught to all the students, whatever their faith, including a compulsory reading of the Quran
that ideology of Pakistan is to be internalised as faith and hate be created against Hindus and India.
And students are to be urged to take the path of Jehad and Shahadat.
Were the report not the work of an Islamanbad based Institute and written by Muslims themselves, one would ignore it. But it is impossible to ignore this report: it is so authentic. In Pakistan, one has to be a Muslim to be a Pakistani; only Muslims can be true Pakistani citizens. At every stage text books revert to Islam. Lessons have high Islamic content. Class I textbooks have four out of 25 lessons on Islam. Class II textbooks have 22 out of 44 lessons on Islam and so on to Class XII textbooks which have ten out of 68 lessons on Islam.
One does not know how many of the students in each school and in each class are non-Muslims but they are all forcibly taught Islamic religious studies. There is no escape. Jinnah never spoke of the “Ideology” of Pakistan. The authors of this report specifically state that “for fifteen years after the establishment of Pakistan, the Ideology of Pakistan was not known to anybody until, in 1962, a solitary member of the Jamaat-I-Islami used the words for the first time”. But in most textbooks, Jinnah has been turned into a pious Muslim, which he most certainly never was. His famous speech on 11th August 1947 to the Constituent Assembly in which he laid down the outlines of a democratic and secular Pakistan in which the state has no concern with the religion of its citizens and all, irrespective of their faith, are fully equal, finds no mention in any text book.
On the contrary the Hindu becomes an object of derision. Sample quotes from textbook for Class IV:
Hindu has always been an enemy of Islam.
The religion of the Hindus did not teach them good things. Hindus do not respect women.
Hindus worship in temples which are very narrow and dark places, where they worship idols. Only one person can enter a temple at a time.
The people of the sub-continent used to live in dark and small houses before the arrival of Muslims. The places of worship were built in a way that light and air could not find a way into them.
The Hindus treated the ancient population of the Indus Valley very badly. They set fire to their houses and butchered them.
A statement made in a textbook for Class VI says: “The Hindus wished to ruin Muslim civilisation and culture by destroying Urdu”. A book authored by Rabbani and Sayyid entitled An Introduction to Pakistan Studies says: “The Hindus always desired to crush the Muslims as a nation. Several attempts were made by the Hindus to erase the Muslim culture and civilization.” According to the authors of this monumental report, “the Muslim majoritarianism in Pakistan amounts to creating an environment for non-Muslims in which (1) they become second class citizens with lesser rights and privileges (2) their patriotism becomes suspect and (3) their contribution to the society is ignored”. Ergo, state the authors, “the result is that they (non-Muslims) can easily cease to have any stake in the society”.
So obsessed are those who write the textbooks about what they consider is the Ideology of Pakistan that specific rules are laid down on the subject. Thus:
The Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and be never subjected to Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and should never be made controversial and debatable.
Textbooks on social studies are devoted to the denigration of Hindus, as greedy, opportunistic and intolerant. The Report quotes the following lines called from various text books:
Hindus thought there was no country other than India.
Hindus who have always been opportunistic, cooperated with the English.
Most of Hindu leaders of the Congress were not prepared to tolerate the presence of the Muslims in the sub-continent.
Hindus very cunningly succeeded in making the British believe that the Muslims were solely responsible for the 1857 rebellion.
Comments the Report: “Young and impressionable minds are impregnated with seeds of hatred to serve self-styled ideological strait-jacket... The borrowing from Hindu culture is either ignored or condemned. The Pakistan movement is portrayed mostly in terms of the perfidy of the Hindus and the British... India is portrayed as the enemy, which is waiting to dismember Pakistan... Pakistan is shown to have won the 1965 war. Jinnah and Iqbal are presented as orthodox Muslims and any aspect of their thoughts and behaviour which does not conform to this image is suppressed...”
Is it any wonder, then, that Pakistan has been, and remains the land of the Taliban? What can one possibly say when a textbook avers that “Pakistan came to be established for the first time when the Arabs under Mohammad bin Qasim occupied Sind and Multan’’ and that ``during the 16th century Hindustan disappeared and was completely absorbed in Pakistan”? What kind of “friend” can we ever hope to find in our next-door neighbour?
Can Muslims Become Part of Mainstream Nationalism?
By AMY WALDMAN
UMBRA, India, Aug. 26 — The teeming streets of this suburb of Bombay are notable for two things: that most of the people are Muslim, and that a decade ago the streets were not teeming at all.
Since then, as if in a small replay of the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan, Muslims have migrated to Mumbra by the hundreds of thousands, creating a stark segregation.
They came seeking safety — comfort in numbers — after riots with Hindus left more than 1,000 Muslims dead in 1992 and 1993, many of them in Bombay. The riots were quickly followed by bombings for which Muslim underworld figures were blamed. That further heated up the anxiety, and the exodus.
Now the atmosphere is heightened once again, because of two bombings in downtown Bombay that killed 52 people last Monday. No one has taken responsibility or been arrested, but many believe that Muslim militants are to blame.
India`s Muslims — about 14 percent of the population of more than one billion — are often characterized as a breed apart from Muslims elsewhere. They did not join Al Qaeda; they did not surface in terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. They live in secular India, as opposed to its Islamic neighbor Pakistan, and most see India`s democracy and Constitution as providing them sufficient rights and redress.
Moreover, average Muslims in India have evinced little passion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although a scheduled visit by Israel`s prime minister, Ariel Sharon, on Sept. 9 is generating opposition.
Indian Muslims have even stayed away from the insurgency in Kashmir, India`s only Muslim majority state, other than the Muslims living in the state. Many Muslims say the hard-line sentiments found in their religion, especially in marginalized areas like this one, are a reaction to the growing strength of fundamentalism among India`s Hindu majority, a strength that is both social and political. Many Hindus in turn argue that Hindu fundamentalists have mobilized in response to militant Islam.
A decade ago, Hindu nationalist leaders set out on a national pilgrimage that many Muslim youths saw as a provocation and a threat. In 1992, Hindu nationalists demolished a 16th-century mosque that they said had been built on the birthplace of Lord Ram, and the Bombay riots and carnage followed soon after.
A few years later, a Hindu nationalist-led central government was formed. Early last year, riots in Gujarat State left at least 1,000 Muslims dead — carnage that many Muslims believed reflected governmental indifference, if not connivance.
``After Gujarat, the sentiment in Mumbra was very high,`` said Moazzam Naik, an official with Jamaat-e-Islami, a decades-old Islamic political movement. He did not agree with Muslim extremists, but saw the sentiment growing.
Among those extremists is the now banned Students Islamic Movement of India, which the police have blamed for five smaller bombings on buses and trains and in markets between December and July. Some officials have suggested that the movement could be responsible for Monday`s blasts as well, though they have not offered evidence.
The student movement was founded in 1977 as a sort of youth wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, to encourage young people to follow Islamic principles, like avoiding alcohol. By the 1980`s, its radical nature became clear, and Jamaat began distancing itself from the offspring.
The student movement`s true believers grew their beards, urged women to cover up and said idol worship should be banned, an implicit attack on Hinduism. They rejected conciliation, and some believed that violence was justified. ``They wanted agitation, not dialogue,`` said Abdul Ruaf Khan, an imam in Mumbra, who opposes the use of violence.
Mr. Naik, of Jamaat, broke from the hard-liners in the student movement in 1991. He said he came to believe that some of the students were working with Pakistan`s intelligence service, long accused of sponsoring terrorism in India.
Mumbra, which is home to about 500,000 people, is now about 80 percent Muslim. The hills against which it banks are green and clean, but its streets are dirty, its odors noxious. For many residents, regular jobs are hard to come by, and there has been ``a boon in illegal activity,`` said Ashraf Mulani, 39, a former municipal councilor from Mumbra.
In Mumbra and places like it, Mr. Naik said, talk of ``nationalism, democracy, secularism, being in the national mainstream`` have come to be seen as ``anti-Islam.``
A senior law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity said he believed that Mumbra and similar pockets provided shelter for militants. ``For Muslims, there is a feeling of being persecuted,`` he said.
Many Muslims say that a Prevention of Terrorism Act passed in 2002 has been used with particular force against them, resulting in arbitrary arrests, harsh interrogations, and detention without charge.
So even as Mumbra residents profess not to support the student movement, they do not condemn it. They are helping to support the defense of 22 men — most members of the group at one time — arrested in connection with the earlier bomb blasts. It is less a question of supporting the group than opposing police tactics, they say.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/01/international/asia/01INDI.html
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 1, 2003 11:13 am
Anxiety Rises in a Muslim Enclave Near BombayBy AMY WALDMAN
UMBRA, India, Aug. 26 — The teeming streets of this suburb of Bombay are notable for two things: that most of the people are Muslim, and that a decade ago the streets were not teeming at all.
Since then, as if in a small replay of the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan, Muslims have migrated to Mumbra by the hundreds of thousands, creating a stark segregation.
They came seeking safety — comfort in numbers — after riots with Hindus left more than 1,000 Muslims dead in 1992 and 1993, many of them in Bombay. The riots were quickly followed by bombings for which Muslim underworld figures were blamed. That further heated up the anxiety, and the exodus.
Now the atmosphere is heightened once again, because of two bombings in downtown Bombay that killed 52 people last Monday. No one has taken responsibility or been arrested, but many believe that Muslim militants are to blame.
India`s Muslims — about 14 percent of the population of more than one billion — are often characterized as a breed apart from Muslims elsewhere. They did not join Al Qaeda; they did not surface in terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. They live in secular India, as opposed to its Islamic neighbor Pakistan, and most see India`s democracy and Constitution as providing them sufficient rights and redress.
Moreover, average Muslims in India have evinced little passion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although a scheduled visit by Israel`s prime minister, Ariel Sharon, on Sept. 9 is generating opposition.
Indian Muslims have even stayed away from the insurgency in Kashmir, India`s only Muslim majority state, other than the Muslims living in the state. Many Muslims say the hard-line sentiments found in their religion, especially in marginalized areas like this one, are a reaction to the growing strength of fundamentalism among India`s Hindu majority, a strength that is both social and political. Many Hindus in turn argue that Hindu fundamentalists have mobilized in response to militant Islam.
A decade ago, Hindu nationalist leaders set out on a national pilgrimage that many Muslim youths saw as a provocation and a threat. In 1992, Hindu nationalists demolished a 16th-century mosque that they said had been built on the birthplace of Lord Ram, and the Bombay riots and carnage followed soon after.
A few years later, a Hindu nationalist-led central government was formed. Early last year, riots in Gujarat State left at least 1,000 Muslims dead — carnage that many Muslims believed reflected governmental indifference, if not connivance.
``After Gujarat, the sentiment in Mumbra was very high,`` said Moazzam Naik, an official with Jamaat-e-Islami, a decades-old Islamic political movement. He did not agree with Muslim extremists, but saw the sentiment growing.
Among those extremists is the now banned Students Islamic Movement of India, which the police have blamed for five smaller bombings on buses and trains and in markets between December and July. Some officials have suggested that the movement could be responsible for Monday`s blasts as well, though they have not offered evidence.
The student movement was founded in 1977 as a sort of youth wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, to encourage young people to follow Islamic principles, like avoiding alcohol. By the 1980`s, its radical nature became clear, and Jamaat began distancing itself from the offspring.
The student movement`s true believers grew their beards, urged women to cover up and said idol worship should be banned, an implicit attack on Hinduism. They rejected conciliation, and some believed that violence was justified. ``They wanted agitation, not dialogue,`` said Abdul Ruaf Khan, an imam in Mumbra, who opposes the use of violence.
Mr. Naik, of Jamaat, broke from the hard-liners in the student movement in 1991. He said he came to believe that some of the students were working with Pakistan`s intelligence service, long accused of sponsoring terrorism in India.
Mumbra, which is home to about 500,000 people, is now about 80 percent Muslim. The hills against which it banks are green and clean, but its streets are dirty, its odors noxious. For many residents, regular jobs are hard to come by, and there has been ``a boon in illegal activity,`` said Ashraf Mulani, 39, a former municipal councilor from Mumbra.
In Mumbra and places like it, Mr. Naik said, talk of ``nationalism, democracy, secularism, being in the national mainstream`` have come to be seen as ``anti-Islam.``
A senior law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity said he believed that Mumbra and similar pockets provided shelter for militants. ``For Muslims, there is a feeling of being persecuted,`` he said.
Many Muslims say that a Prevention of Terrorism Act passed in 2002 has been used with particular force against them, resulting in arbitrary arrests, harsh interrogations, and detention without charge.
So even as Mumbra residents profess not to support the student movement, they do not condemn it. They are helping to support the defense of 22 men — most members of the group at one time — arrested in connection with the earlier bomb blasts. It is less a question of supporting the group than opposing police tactics, they say.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/01/international/asia/01INDI.html
Just Another BLOW-UP?
By AMY WALDMAN
UMBRA, India, Aug. 26 — The teeming streets of this suburb of Bombay are notable for two things: that most of the people are Muslim, and that a decade ago the streets were not teeming at all.
Since then, as if in a small replay of the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan, Muslims have migrated to Mumbra by the hundreds of thousands, creating a stark segregation.
They came seeking safety — comfort in numbers — after riots with Hindus left more than 1,000 Muslims dead in 1992 and 1993, many of them in Bombay. The riots were quickly followed by bombings for which Muslim underworld figures were blamed. That further heated up the anxiety, and the exodus.
Now the atmosphere is heightened once again, because of two bombings in downtown Bombay that killed 52 people last Monday. No one has taken responsibility or been arrested, but many believe that Muslim militants are to blame.
India`s Muslims — about 14 percent of the population of more than one billion — are often characterized as a breed apart from Muslims elsewhere. They did not join Al Qaeda; they did not surface in terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. They live in secular India, as opposed to its Islamic neighbor Pakistan, and most see India`s democracy and Constitution as providing them sufficient rights and redress.
Moreover, average Muslims in India have evinced little passion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although a scheduled visit by Israel`s prime minister, Ariel Sharon, on Sept. 9 is generating opposition.
Indian Muslims have even stayed away from the insurgency in Kashmir, India`s only Muslim majority state, other than the Muslims living in the state. Many Muslims say the hard-line sentiments found in their religion, especially in marginalized areas like this one, are a reaction to the growing strength of fundamentalism among India`s Hindu majority, a strength that is both social and political. Many Hindus in turn argue that Hindu fundamentalists have mobilized in response to militant Islam.
A decade ago, Hindu nationalist leaders set out on a national pilgrimage that many Muslim youths saw as a provocation and a threat. In 1992, Hindu nationalists demolished a 16th-century mosque that they said had been built on the birthplace of Lord Ram, and the Bombay riots and carnage followed soon after.
A few years later, a Hindu nationalist-led central government was formed. Early last year, riots in Gujarat State left at least 1,000 Muslims dead — carnage that many Muslims believed reflected governmental indifference, if not connivance.
``After Gujarat, the sentiment in Mumbra was very high,`` said Moazzam Naik, an official with Jamaat-e-Islami, a decades-old Islamic political movement. He did not agree with Muslim extremists, but saw the sentiment growing.
Among those extremists is the now banned Students Islamic Movement of India, which the police have blamed for five smaller bombings on buses and trains and in markets between December and July. Some officials have suggested that the movement could be responsible for Monday`s blasts as well, though they have not offered evidence.
The student movement was founded in 1977 as a sort of youth wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, to encourage young people to follow Islamic principles, like avoiding alcohol. By the 1980`s, its radical nature became clear, and Jamaat began distancing itself from the offspring.
The student movement`s true believers grew their beards, urged women to cover up and said idol worship should be banned, an implicit attack on Hinduism. They rejected conciliation, and some believed that violence was justified. ``They wanted agitation, not dialogue,`` said Abdul Ruaf Khan, an imam in Mumbra, who opposes the use of violence.
Mr. Naik, of Jamaat, broke from the hard-liners in the student movement in 1991. He said he came to believe that some of the students were working with Pakistan`s intelligence service, long accused of sponsoring terrorism in India.
Mumbra, which is home to about 500,000 people, is now about 80 percent Muslim. The hills against which it banks are green and clean, but its streets are dirty, its odors noxious. For many residents, regular jobs are hard to come by, and there has been ``a boon in illegal activity,`` said Ashraf Mulani, 39, a former municipal councilor from Mumbra.
In Mumbra and places like it, Mr. Naik said, talk of ``nationalism, democracy, secularism, being in the national mainstream`` have come to be seen as ``anti-Islam.``
A senior law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity said he believed that Mumbra and similar pockets provided shelter for militants. ``For Muslims, there is a feeling of being persecuted,`` he said.
Many Muslims say that a Prevention of Terrorism Act passed in 2002 has been used with particular force against them, resulting in arbitrary arrests, harsh interrogations, and detention without charge.
So even as Mumbra residents profess not to support the student movement, they do not condemn it. They are helping to support the defense of 22 men — most members of the group at one time — arrested in connection with the earlier bomb blasts. It is less a question of supporting the group than opposing police tactics, they say.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/01/international/asia/01INDI.html
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 1, 2003 11:13 am
Anxiety Rises in a Muslim Enclave Near Bombay By AMY WALDMAN
UMBRA, India, Aug. 26 — The teeming streets of this suburb of Bombay are notable for two things: that most of the people are Muslim, and that a decade ago the streets were not teeming at all.
Since then, as if in a small replay of the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan, Muslims have migrated to Mumbra by the hundreds of thousands, creating a stark segregation.
They came seeking safety — comfort in numbers — after riots with Hindus left more than 1,000 Muslims dead in 1992 and 1993, many of them in Bombay. The riots were quickly followed by bombings for which Muslim underworld figures were blamed. That further heated up the anxiety, and the exodus.
Now the atmosphere is heightened once again, because of two bombings in downtown Bombay that killed 52 people last Monday. No one has taken responsibility or been arrested, but many believe that Muslim militants are to blame.
India`s Muslims — about 14 percent of the population of more than one billion — are often characterized as a breed apart from Muslims elsewhere. They did not join Al Qaeda; they did not surface in terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. They live in secular India, as opposed to its Islamic neighbor Pakistan, and most see India`s democracy and Constitution as providing them sufficient rights and redress.
Moreover, average Muslims in India have evinced little passion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although a scheduled visit by Israel`s prime minister, Ariel Sharon, on Sept. 9 is generating opposition.
Indian Muslims have even stayed away from the insurgency in Kashmir, India`s only Muslim majority state, other than the Muslims living in the state. Many Muslims say the hard-line sentiments found in their religion, especially in marginalized areas like this one, are a reaction to the growing strength of fundamentalism among India`s Hindu majority, a strength that is both social and political. Many Hindus in turn argue that Hindu fundamentalists have mobilized in response to militant Islam.
A decade ago, Hindu nationalist leaders set out on a national pilgrimage that many Muslim youths saw as a provocation and a threat. In 1992, Hindu nationalists demolished a 16th-century mosque that they said had been built on the birthplace of Lord Ram, and the Bombay riots and carnage followed soon after.
A few years later, a Hindu nationalist-led central government was formed. Early last year, riots in Gujarat State left at least 1,000 Muslims dead — carnage that many Muslims believed reflected governmental indifference, if not connivance.
``After Gujarat, the sentiment in Mumbra was very high,`` said Moazzam Naik, an official with Jamaat-e-Islami, a decades-old Islamic political movement. He did not agree with Muslim extremists, but saw the sentiment growing.
Among those extremists is the now banned Students Islamic Movement of India, which the police have blamed for five smaller bombings on buses and trains and in markets between December and July. Some officials have suggested that the movement could be responsible for Monday`s blasts as well, though they have not offered evidence.
The student movement was founded in 1977 as a sort of youth wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, to encourage young people to follow Islamic principles, like avoiding alcohol. By the 1980`s, its radical nature became clear, and Jamaat began distancing itself from the offspring.
The student movement`s true believers grew their beards, urged women to cover up and said idol worship should be banned, an implicit attack on Hinduism. They rejected conciliation, and some believed that violence was justified. ``They wanted agitation, not dialogue,`` said Abdul Ruaf Khan, an imam in Mumbra, who opposes the use of violence.
Mr. Naik, of Jamaat, broke from the hard-liners in the student movement in 1991. He said he came to believe that some of the students were working with Pakistan`s intelligence service, long accused of sponsoring terrorism in India.
Mumbra, which is home to about 500,000 people, is now about 80 percent Muslim. The hills against which it banks are green and clean, but its streets are dirty, its odors noxious. For many residents, regular jobs are hard to come by, and there has been ``a boon in illegal activity,`` said Ashraf Mulani, 39, a former municipal councilor from Mumbra.
In Mumbra and places like it, Mr. Naik said, talk of ``nationalism, democracy, secularism, being in the national mainstream`` have come to be seen as ``anti-Islam.``
A senior law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity said he believed that Mumbra and similar pockets provided shelter for militants. ``For Muslims, there is a feeling of being persecuted,`` he said.
Many Muslims say that a Prevention of Terrorism Act passed in 2002 has been used with particular force against them, resulting in arbitrary arrests, harsh interrogations, and detention without charge.
So even as Mumbra residents profess not to support the student movement, they do not condemn it. They are helping to support the defense of 22 men — most members of the group at one time — arrested in connection with the earlier bomb blasts. It is less a question of supporting the group than opposing police tactics, they say.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/01/international/asia/01INDI.html
Masala Democracy
By AMY WALDMAN
MUMBAI — Americans can count on one hand the incidents of large-scale political violence in the last 10 years: the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and on the federal building in Oklahoma City. The most recent major racial disturbance was in Los Angeles in 1992, the last sustained period of broad upheaval in the 60`s and early 70`s.
Indians, in contrast, lost count of such incidents long ago. For decades, they have lived with left-wing and Islamic insurgencies, ethnic and geographically based separatist movements, communal riots and terrorism. In the last two decades, they have lost two prime ministers — Indira Gandhi and her son, Rajiv — to assassination. In the country`s northeast, militants fighting Indian rule marked the eve of India`s Independence Day this month by killing at least 34 people.
So when two bombs shook Bombay last week, killing 52, the shock was more at the mystery — no one claimed responsibility — than at the method of expression.
In this hearty democracy, elections are held, Parliament meets and the Constitution holds. The society seems to offer adequate nonviolent means for accessing power and resolving disputes. Yet political violence is routine.
The question is why.
Sunil Khilnani, the author of ``The Idea of India,`` calls it the ``curious co-existence`` of violence and democratic politics. Democracy, he notes, is usually seen as a pacifying force that ``draws the teeth`` from conflict.
But he also points out that perhaps India`s predicament is not curious after all. India`s democracy is only a half century old. It was imposed by political elites on the masses after centuries of rule by invaders and empire-builders, rule that was usually maintained by force.
``In India the choice can never be between chaos and stability,`` Ashis Nandy, a political psychologist, has written. ``It is always between manageable and unmanageable chaos, between humane and inhuman anarchy, and between tolerable and intolerable disorder.``
In other democracies as well, Mr. Khilnani notes, the early years are often marked by violence, and even civil war. This was true in France and America, even ancient Athens. As democratic politics intensifies, it can become as much about conflict as competition.
That is certainly the case in India, where the broadening of democratic participation has seemed only to churn up more violence. Like an American democracy that initially tolerated slavery, the democracy born here was incomplete: it left intact a feudal, caste-based system that even now has a grip. It was inevitable, perhaps, that the further transformation of that system would not be entirely peaceful.
``With majoritarian democracy you unleash all these forces,`` said Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi. As the old system weakens, he argues, space opens for ideologies of violent transformation, like Sikh separatism in Punjab.
Violence can also deliver electoral dividends. Indians have used their roles in insurgencies to build political profiles. Communal and caste violence has often helped solidify constituencies, most recently in Gujarat, where the chief minister called and won early elections in what many saw as an attempt to capitalize on Hindu-Muslim riots. ``The shortest route to democratic power is a rejection of democracy,`` Dr. Sahni argues.
There has also been, many have argued, a decline in the quality of India`s political leadership. The number of parties has multiplied, but mostly along caste or regional lines. So voters get an illusion of options and ideologies, rather than real chances to transform their society. This only helps left-wing revolutionary groups in poor states like Bihar.
There is also India`s extraordinary diversity. All sorts of groups have grievances — about language, religion, ethnicity and more. Even the Hindu majority can feel aggrieved, since the Congress Party, which dominated national politics in India`s early decades, built its electoral victories partly by catering to Muslims.
Mr. Sahni also argues that not all of the roots of the violence lie in India. Starting in the late 1980`s, he says, Pakistan began acting on the notion that it could bleed India by a ``thousand cuts.`` The result, he said, has been the ``hardening, strengthening, and arming of all these movements that exploit all these grievances or fissionary tendencies.`` Pakistan denies any role in the violence, saying India`s flawed democracy breeds violence all on its own.
Outside money has also given political violence an entrepreneurial cast. Where at the dawning of independence, for example, there was one separatist movement in India`s northeast, there have since been perhaps a dozen. Some have even been sponsored by the central government, to destabilize political rivals.
Such self-interested and potentially deadly political activity drags on partly because of the Indian political system`s seemingly high tolerance for the loss of human life, Dr. Sahni argues. ``Even today we`re dealing with 150 to 200 lives a month in Jammu and Kashmir, and it makes no difference to anyone,`` he said.
Mumbai, too, is an example. The blasts on Monday were preceded in the last nine months by five smaller ones. Every time there is an incident, Dr. Sanni said, ``there`s 10 days of excitement, but nothing changes.``
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/weekinreview/31WALD.html
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 1, 2003 07:56 am
A Democracy That Has Room Even for ViolenceBy AMY WALDMAN
MUMBAI — Americans can count on one hand the incidents of large-scale political violence in the last 10 years: the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and on the federal building in Oklahoma City. The most recent major racial disturbance was in Los Angeles in 1992, the last sustained period of broad upheaval in the 60`s and early 70`s.
Indians, in contrast, lost count of such incidents long ago. For decades, they have lived with left-wing and Islamic insurgencies, ethnic and geographically based separatist movements, communal riots and terrorism. In the last two decades, they have lost two prime ministers — Indira Gandhi and her son, Rajiv — to assassination. In the country`s northeast, militants fighting Indian rule marked the eve of India`s Independence Day this month by killing at least 34 people.
So when two bombs shook Bombay last week, killing 52, the shock was more at the mystery — no one claimed responsibility — than at the method of expression.
In this hearty democracy, elections are held, Parliament meets and the Constitution holds. The society seems to offer adequate nonviolent means for accessing power and resolving disputes. Yet political violence is routine.
The question is why.
Sunil Khilnani, the author of ``The Idea of India,`` calls it the ``curious co-existence`` of violence and democratic politics. Democracy, he notes, is usually seen as a pacifying force that ``draws the teeth`` from conflict.
But he also points out that perhaps India`s predicament is not curious after all. India`s democracy is only a half century old. It was imposed by political elites on the masses after centuries of rule by invaders and empire-builders, rule that was usually maintained by force.
``In India the choice can never be between chaos and stability,`` Ashis Nandy, a political psychologist, has written. ``It is always between manageable and unmanageable chaos, between humane and inhuman anarchy, and between tolerable and intolerable disorder.``
In other democracies as well, Mr. Khilnani notes, the early years are often marked by violence, and even civil war. This was true in France and America, even ancient Athens. As democratic politics intensifies, it can become as much about conflict as competition.
That is certainly the case in India, where the broadening of democratic participation has seemed only to churn up more violence. Like an American democracy that initially tolerated slavery, the democracy born here was incomplete: it left intact a feudal, caste-based system that even now has a grip. It was inevitable, perhaps, that the further transformation of that system would not be entirely peaceful.
``With majoritarian democracy you unleash all these forces,`` said Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi. As the old system weakens, he argues, space opens for ideologies of violent transformation, like Sikh separatism in Punjab.
Violence can also deliver electoral dividends. Indians have used their roles in insurgencies to build political profiles. Communal and caste violence has often helped solidify constituencies, most recently in Gujarat, where the chief minister called and won early elections in what many saw as an attempt to capitalize on Hindu-Muslim riots. ``The shortest route to democratic power is a rejection of democracy,`` Dr. Sahni argues.
There has also been, many have argued, a decline in the quality of India`s political leadership. The number of parties has multiplied, but mostly along caste or regional lines. So voters get an illusion of options and ideologies, rather than real chances to transform their society. This only helps left-wing revolutionary groups in poor states like Bihar.
There is also India`s extraordinary diversity. All sorts of groups have grievances — about language, religion, ethnicity and more. Even the Hindu majority can feel aggrieved, since the Congress Party, which dominated national politics in India`s early decades, built its electoral victories partly by catering to Muslims.
Mr. Sahni also argues that not all of the roots of the violence lie in India. Starting in the late 1980`s, he says, Pakistan began acting on the notion that it could bleed India by a ``thousand cuts.`` The result, he said, has been the ``hardening, strengthening, and arming of all these movements that exploit all these grievances or fissionary tendencies.`` Pakistan denies any role in the violence, saying India`s flawed democracy breeds violence all on its own.
Outside money has also given political violence an entrepreneurial cast. Where at the dawning of independence, for example, there was one separatist movement in India`s northeast, there have since been perhaps a dozen. Some have even been sponsored by the central government, to destabilize political rivals.
Such self-interested and potentially deadly political activity drags on partly because of the Indian political system`s seemingly high tolerance for the loss of human life, Dr. Sahni argues. ``Even today we`re dealing with 150 to 200 lives a month in Jammu and Kashmir, and it makes no difference to anyone,`` he said.
Mumbai, too, is an example. The blasts on Monday were preceded in the last nine months by five smaller ones. Every time there is an incident, Dr. Sanni said, ``there`s 10 days of excitement, but nothing changes.``
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/weekinreview/31WALD.html
Kashmir: What Next?
By AMY WALDMAN
MUMBAI — Americans can count on one hand the incidents of large-scale political violence in the last 10 years: the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and on the federal building in Oklahoma City. The most recent major racial disturbance was in Los Angeles in 1992, the last sustained period of broad upheaval in the 60`s and early 70`s.
Indians, in contrast, lost count of such incidents long ago. For decades, they have lived with left-wing and Islamic insurgencies, ethnic and geographically based separatist movements, communal riots and terrorism. In the last two decades, they have lost two prime ministers — Indira Gandhi and her son, Rajiv — to assassination. In the country`s northeast, militants fighting Indian rule marked the eve of India`s Independence Day this month by killing at least 34 people.
So when two bombs shook Bombay last week, killing 52, the shock was more at the mystery — no one claimed responsibility — than at the method of expression.
In this hearty democracy, elections are held, Parliament meets and the Constitution holds. The society seems to offer adequate nonviolent means for accessing power and resolving disputes. Yet political violence is routine.
The question is why.
Sunil Khilnani, the author of ``The Idea of India,`` calls it the ``curious co-existence`` of violence and democratic politics. Democracy, he notes, is usually seen as a pacifying force that ``draws the teeth`` from conflict.
But he also points out that perhaps India`s predicament is not curious after all. India`s democracy is only a half century old. It was imposed by political elites on the masses after centuries of rule by invaders and empire-builders, rule that was usually maintained by force.
``In India the choice can never be between chaos and stability,`` Ashis Nandy, a political psychologist, has written. ``It is always between manageable and unmanageable chaos, between humane and inhuman anarchy, and between tolerable and intolerable disorder.``
In other democracies as well, Mr. Khilnani notes, the early years are often marked by violence, and even civil war. This was true in France and America, even ancient Athens. As democratic politics intensifies, it can become as much about conflict as competition.
That is certainly the case in India, where the broadening of democratic participation has seemed only to churn up more violence. Like an American democracy that initially tolerated slavery, the democracy born here was incomplete: it left intact a feudal, caste-based system that even now has a grip. It was inevitable, perhaps, that the further transformation of that system would not be entirely peaceful.
``With majoritarian democracy you unleash all these forces,`` said Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi. As the old system weakens, he argues, space opens for ideologies of violent transformation, like Sikh separatism in Punjab.
Violence can also deliver electoral dividends. Indians have used their roles in insurgencies to build political profiles. Communal and caste violence has often helped solidify constituencies, most recently in Gujarat, where the chief minister called and won early elections in what many saw as an attempt to capitalize on Hindu-Muslim riots. ``The shortest route to democratic power is a rejection of democracy,`` Dr. Sahni argues.
There has also been, many have argued, a decline in the quality of India`s political leadership. The number of parties has multiplied, but mostly along caste or regional lines. So voters get an illusion of options and ideologies, rather than real chances to transform their society. This only helps left-wing revolutionary groups in poor states like Bihar.
There is also India`s extraordinary diversity. All sorts of groups have grievances — about language, religion, ethnicity and more. Even the Hindu majority can feel aggrieved, since the Congress Party, which dominated national politics in India`s early decades, built its electoral victories partly by catering to Muslims.
Mr. Sahni also argues that not all of the roots of the violence lie in India. Starting in the late 1980`s, he says, Pakistan began acting on the notion that it could bleed India by a ``thousand cuts.`` The result, he said, has been the ``hardening, strengthening, and arming of all these movements that exploit all these grievances or fissionary tendencies.`` Pakistan denies any role in the violence, saying India`s flawed democracy breeds violence all on its own.
Outside money has also given political violence an entrepreneurial cast. Where at the dawning of independence, for example, there was one separatist movement in India`s northeast, there have since been perhaps a dozen. Some have even been sponsored by the central government, to destabilize political rivals.
Such self-interested and potentially deadly political activity drags on partly because of the Indian political system`s seemingly high tolerance for the loss of human life, Dr. Sahni argues. ``Even today we`re dealing with 150 to 200 lives a month in Jammu and Kashmir, and it makes no difference to anyone,`` he said.
Mumbai, too, is an example. The blasts on Monday were preceded in the last nine months by five smaller ones. Every time there is an incident, Dr. Sanni said, ``there`s 10 days of excitement, but nothing changes.``
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/weekinreview/31WALD.html
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 1, 2003 07:56 am
A Democracy That Has Room Even for ViolenceBy AMY WALDMAN
MUMBAI — Americans can count on one hand the incidents of large-scale political violence in the last 10 years: the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and on the federal building in Oklahoma City. The most recent major racial disturbance was in Los Angeles in 1992, the last sustained period of broad upheaval in the 60`s and early 70`s.
Indians, in contrast, lost count of such incidents long ago. For decades, they have lived with left-wing and Islamic insurgencies, ethnic and geographically based separatist movements, communal riots and terrorism. In the last two decades, they have lost two prime ministers — Indira Gandhi and her son, Rajiv — to assassination. In the country`s northeast, militants fighting Indian rule marked the eve of India`s Independence Day this month by killing at least 34 people.
So when two bombs shook Bombay last week, killing 52, the shock was more at the mystery — no one claimed responsibility — than at the method of expression.
In this hearty democracy, elections are held, Parliament meets and the Constitution holds. The society seems to offer adequate nonviolent means for accessing power and resolving disputes. Yet political violence is routine.
The question is why.
Sunil Khilnani, the author of ``The Idea of India,`` calls it the ``curious co-existence`` of violence and democratic politics. Democracy, he notes, is usually seen as a pacifying force that ``draws the teeth`` from conflict.
But he also points out that perhaps India`s predicament is not curious after all. India`s democracy is only a half century old. It was imposed by political elites on the masses after centuries of rule by invaders and empire-builders, rule that was usually maintained by force.
``In India the choice can never be between chaos and stability,`` Ashis Nandy, a political psychologist, has written. ``It is always between manageable and unmanageable chaos, between humane and inhuman anarchy, and between tolerable and intolerable disorder.``
In other democracies as well, Mr. Khilnani notes, the early years are often marked by violence, and even civil war. This was true in France and America, even ancient Athens. As democratic politics intensifies, it can become as much about conflict as competition.
That is certainly the case in India, where the broadening of democratic participation has seemed only to churn up more violence. Like an American democracy that initially tolerated slavery, the democracy born here was incomplete: it left intact a feudal, caste-based system that even now has a grip. It was inevitable, perhaps, that the further transformation of that system would not be entirely peaceful.
``With majoritarian democracy you unleash all these forces,`` said Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi. As the old system weakens, he argues, space opens for ideologies of violent transformation, like Sikh separatism in Punjab.
Violence can also deliver electoral dividends. Indians have used their roles in insurgencies to build political profiles. Communal and caste violence has often helped solidify constituencies, most recently in Gujarat, where the chief minister called and won early elections in what many saw as an attempt to capitalize on Hindu-Muslim riots. ``The shortest route to democratic power is a rejection of democracy,`` Dr. Sahni argues.
There has also been, many have argued, a decline in the quality of India`s political leadership. The number of parties has multiplied, but mostly along caste or regional lines. So voters get an illusion of options and ideologies, rather than real chances to transform their society. This only helps left-wing revolutionary groups in poor states like Bihar.
There is also India`s extraordinary diversity. All sorts of groups have grievances — about language, religion, ethnicity and more. Even the Hindu majority can feel aggrieved, since the Congress Party, which dominated national politics in India`s early decades, built its electoral victories partly by catering to Muslims.
Mr. Sahni also argues that not all of the roots of the violence lie in India. Starting in the late 1980`s, he says, Pakistan began acting on the notion that it could bleed India by a ``thousand cuts.`` The result, he said, has been the ``hardening, strengthening, and arming of all these movements that exploit all these grievances or fissionary tendencies.`` Pakistan denies any role in the violence, saying India`s flawed democracy breeds violence all on its own.
Outside money has also given political violence an entrepreneurial cast. Where at the dawning of independence, for example, there was one separatist movement in India`s northeast, there have since been perhaps a dozen. Some have even been sponsored by the central government, to destabilize political rivals.
Such self-interested and potentially deadly political activity drags on partly because of the Indian political system`s seemingly high tolerance for the loss of human life, Dr. Sahni argues. ``Even today we`re dealing with 150 to 200 lives a month in Jammu and Kashmir, and it makes no difference to anyone,`` he said.
Mumbai, too, is an example. The blasts on Monday were preceded in the last nine months by five smaller ones. Every time there is an incident, Dr. Sanni said, ``there`s 10 days of excitement, but nothing changes.``
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/weekinreview/31WALD.html
India’s Communal Gamble
By AMY WALDMAN
MUMBAI — Americans can count on one hand the incidents of large-scale political violence in the last 10 years: the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and on the federal building in Oklahoma City. The most recent major racial disturbance was in Los Angeles in 1992, the last sustained period of broad upheaval in the 60`s and early 70`s.
Indians, in contrast, lost count of such incidents long ago. For decades, they have lived with left-wing and Islamic insurgencies, ethnic and geographically based separatist movements, communal riots and terrorism. In the last two decades, they have lost two prime ministers — Indira Gandhi and her son, Rajiv — to assassination. In the country`s northeast, militants fighting Indian rule marked the eve of India`s Independence Day this month by killing at least 34 people.
So when two bombs shook Bombay last week, killing 52, the shock was more at the mystery — no one claimed responsibility — than at the method of expression.
In this hearty democracy, elections are held, Parliament meets and the Constitution holds. The society seems to offer adequate nonviolent means for accessing power and resolving disputes. Yet political violence is routine.
The question is why.
Sunil Khilnani, the author of ``The Idea of India,`` calls it the ``curious co-existence`` of violence and democratic politics. Democracy, he notes, is usually seen as a pacifying force that ``draws the teeth`` from conflict.
But he also points out that perhaps India`s predicament is not curious after all. India`s democracy is only a half century old. It was imposed by political elites on the masses after centuries of rule by invaders and empire-builders, rule that was usually maintained by force.
``In India the choice can never be between chaos and stability,`` Ashis Nandy, a political psychologist, has written. ``It is always between manageable and unmanageable chaos, between humane and inhuman anarchy, and between tolerable and intolerable disorder.``
In other democracies as well, Mr. Khilnani notes, the early years are often marked by violence, and even civil war. This was true in France and America, even ancient Athens. As democratic politics intensifies, it can become as much about conflict as competition.
That is certainly the case in India, where the broadening of democratic participation has seemed only to churn up more violence. Like an American democracy that initially tolerated slavery, the democracy born here was incomplete: it left intact a feudal, caste-based system that even now has a grip. It was inevitable, perhaps, that the further transformation of that system would not be entirely peaceful.
``With majoritarian democracy you unleash all these forces,`` said Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi. As the old system weakens, he argues, space opens for ideologies of violent transformation, like Sikh separatism in Punjab.
Violence can also deliver electoral dividends. Indians have used their roles in insurgencies to build political profiles. Communal and caste violence has often helped solidify constituencies, most recently in Gujarat, where the chief minister called and won early elections in what many saw as an attempt to capitalize on Hindu-Muslim riots. ``The shortest route to democratic power is a rejection of democracy,`` Dr. Sahni argues.
There has also been, many have argued, a decline in the quality of India`s political leadership. The number of parties has multiplied, but mostly along caste or regional lines. So voters get an illusion of options and ideologies, rather than real chances to transform their society. This only helps left-wing revolutionary groups in poor states like Bihar.
There is also India`s extraordinary diversity. All sorts of groups have grievances — about language, religion, ethnicity and more. Even the Hindu majority can feel aggrieved, since the Congress Party, which dominated national politics in India`s early decades, built its electoral victories partly by catering to Muslims.
Mr. Sahni also argues that not all of the roots of the violence lie in India. Starting in the late 1980`s, he says, Pakistan began acting on the notion that it could bleed India by a ``thousand cuts.`` The result, he said, has been the ``hardening, strengthening, and arming of all these movements that exploit all these grievances or fissionary tendencies.`` Pakistan denies any role in the violence, saying India`s flawed democracy breeds violence all on its own.
Outside money has also given political violence an entrepreneurial cast. Where at the dawning of independence, for example, there was one separatist movement in India`s northeast, there have since been perhaps a dozen. Some have even been sponsored by the central government, to destabilize political rivals.
Such self-interested and potentially deadly political activity drags on partly because of the Indian political system`s seemingly high tolerance for the loss of human life, Dr. Sahni argues. ``Even today we`re dealing with 150 to 200 lives a month in Jammu and Kashmir, and it makes no difference to anyone,`` he said.
Mumbai, too, is an example. The blasts on Monday were preceded in the last nine months by five smaller ones. Every time there is an incident, Dr. Sanni said, ``there`s 10 days of excitement, but nothing changes.``
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/weekinreview/31WALD.html
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 1, 2003 07:56 am
A Democracy That Has Room Even for ViolenceBy AMY WALDMAN
MUMBAI — Americans can count on one hand the incidents of large-scale political violence in the last 10 years: the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and on the federal building in Oklahoma City. The most recent major racial disturbance was in Los Angeles in 1992, the last sustained period of broad upheaval in the 60`s and early 70`s.
Indians, in contrast, lost count of such incidents long ago. For decades, they have lived with left-wing and Islamic insurgencies, ethnic and geographically based separatist movements, communal riots and terrorism. In the last two decades, they have lost two prime ministers — Indira Gandhi and her son, Rajiv — to assassination. In the country`s northeast, militants fighting Indian rule marked the eve of India`s Independence Day this month by killing at least 34 people.
So when two bombs shook Bombay last week, killing 52, the shock was more at the mystery — no one claimed responsibility — than at the method of expression.
In this hearty democracy, elections are held, Parliament meets and the Constitution holds. The society seems to offer adequate nonviolent means for accessing power and resolving disputes. Yet political violence is routine.
The question is why.
Sunil Khilnani, the author of ``The Idea of India,`` calls it the ``curious co-existence`` of violence and democratic politics. Democracy, he notes, is usually seen as a pacifying force that ``draws the teeth`` from conflict.
But he also points out that perhaps India`s predicament is not curious after all. India`s democracy is only a half century old. It was imposed by political elites on the masses after centuries of rule by invaders and empire-builders, rule that was usually maintained by force.
``In India the choice can never be between chaos and stability,`` Ashis Nandy, a political psychologist, has written. ``It is always between manageable and unmanageable chaos, between humane and inhuman anarchy, and between tolerable and intolerable disorder.``
In other democracies as well, Mr. Khilnani notes, the early years are often marked by violence, and even civil war. This was true in France and America, even ancient Athens. As democratic politics intensifies, it can become as much about conflict as competition.
That is certainly the case in India, where the broadening of democratic participation has seemed only to churn up more violence. Like an American democracy that initially tolerated slavery, the democracy born here was incomplete: it left intact a feudal, caste-based system that even now has a grip. It was inevitable, perhaps, that the further transformation of that system would not be entirely peaceful.
``With majoritarian democracy you unleash all these forces,`` said Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi. As the old system weakens, he argues, space opens for ideologies of violent transformation, like Sikh separatism in Punjab.
Violence can also deliver electoral dividends. Indians have used their roles in insurgencies to build political profiles. Communal and caste violence has often helped solidify constituencies, most recently in Gujarat, where the chief minister called and won early elections in what many saw as an attempt to capitalize on Hindu-Muslim riots. ``The shortest route to democratic power is a rejection of democracy,`` Dr. Sahni argues.
There has also been, many have argued, a decline in the quality of India`s political leadership. The number of parties has multiplied, but mostly along caste or regional lines. So voters get an illusion of options and ideologies, rather than real chances to transform their society. This only helps left-wing revolutionary groups in poor states like Bihar.
There is also India`s extraordinary diversity. All sorts of groups have grievances — about language, religion, ethnicity and more. Even the Hindu majority can feel aggrieved, since the Congress Party, which dominated national politics in India`s early decades, built its electoral victories partly by catering to Muslims.
Mr. Sahni also argues that not all of the roots of the violence lie in India. Starting in the late 1980`s, he says, Pakistan began acting on the notion that it could bleed India by a ``thousand cuts.`` The result, he said, has been the ``hardening, strengthening, and arming of all these movements that exploit all these grievances or fissionary tendencies.`` Pakistan denies any role in the violence, saying India`s flawed democracy breeds violence all on its own.
Outside money has also given political violence an entrepreneurial cast. Where at the dawning of independence, for example, there was one separatist movement in India`s northeast, there have since been perhaps a dozen. Some have even been sponsored by the central government, to destabilize political rivals.
Such self-interested and potentially deadly political activity drags on partly because of the Indian political system`s seemingly high tolerance for the loss of human life, Dr. Sahni argues. ``Even today we`re dealing with 150 to 200 lives a month in Jammu and Kashmir, and it makes no difference to anyone,`` he said.
Mumbai, too, is an example. The blasts on Monday were preceded in the last nine months by five smaller ones. Every time there is an incident, Dr. Sanni said, ``there`s 10 days of excitement, but nothing changes.``
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/weekinreview/31WALD.html
Ashamed of India
By AMY WALDMAN
MUMBAI — Americans can count on one hand the incidents of large-scale political violence in the last 10 years: the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and on the federal building in Oklahoma City. The most recent major racial disturbance was in Los Angeles in 1992, the last sustained period of broad upheaval in the 60`s and early 70`s.
Indians, in contrast, lost count of such incidents long ago. For decades, they have lived with left-wing and Islamic insurgencies, ethnic and geographically based separatist movements, communal riots and terrorism. In the last two decades, they have lost two prime ministers — Indira Gandhi and her son, Rajiv — to assassination. In the country`s northeast, militants fighting Indian rule marked the eve of India`s Independence Day this month by killing at least 34 people.
So when two bombs shook Bombay last week, killing 52, the shock was more at the mystery — no one claimed responsibility — than at the method of expression.
In this hearty democracy, elections are held, Parliament meets and the Constitution holds. The society seems to offer adequate nonviolent means for accessing power and resolving disputes. Yet political violence is routine.
The question is why.
Sunil Khilnani, the author of ``The Idea of India,`` calls it the ``curious co-existence`` of violence and democratic politics. Democracy, he notes, is usually seen as a pacifying force that ``draws the teeth`` from conflict.
But he also points out that perhaps India`s predicament is not curious after all. India`s democracy is only a half century old. It was imposed by political elites on the masses after centuries of rule by invaders and empire-builders, rule that was usually maintained by force.
``In India the choice can never be between chaos and stability,`` Ashis Nandy, a political psychologist, has written. ``It is always between manageable and unmanageable chaos, between humane and inhuman anarchy, and between tolerable and intolerable disorder.``
In other democracies as well, Mr. Khilnani notes, the early years are often marked by violence, and even civil war. This was true in France and America, even ancient Athens. As democratic politics intensifies, it can become as much about conflict as competition.
That is certainly the case in India, where the broadening of democratic participation has seemed only to churn up more violence. Like an American democracy that initially tolerated slavery, the democracy born here was incomplete: it left intact a feudal, caste-based system that even now has a grip. It was inevitable, perhaps, that the further transformation of that system would not be entirely peaceful.
``With majoritarian democracy you unleash all these forces,`` said Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi. As the old system weakens, he argues, space opens for ideologies of violent transformation, like Sikh separatism in Punjab.
Violence can also deliver electoral dividends. Indians have used their roles in insurgencies to build political profiles. Communal and caste violence has often helped solidify constituencies, most recently in Gujarat, where the chief minister called and won early elections in what many saw as an attempt to capitalize on Hindu-Muslim riots. ``The shortest route to democratic power is a rejection of democracy,`` Dr. Sahni argues.
There has also been, many have argued, a decline in the quality of India`s political leadership. The number of parties has multiplied, but mostly along caste or regional lines. So voters get an illusion of options and ideologies, rather than real chances to transform their society. This only helps left-wing revolutionary groups in poor states like Bihar.
There is also India`s extraordinary diversity. All sorts of groups have grievances — about language, religion, ethnicity and more. Even the Hindu majority can feel aggrieved, since the Congress Party, which dominated national politics in India`s early decades, built its electoral victories partly by catering to Muslims.
Mr. Sahni also argues that not all of the roots of the violence lie in India. Starting in the late 1980`s, he says, Pakistan began acting on the notion that it could bleed India by a ``thousand cuts.`` The result, he said, has been the ``hardening, strengthening, and arming of all these movements that exploit all these grievances or fissionary tendencies.`` Pakistan denies any role in the violence, saying India`s flawed democracy breeds violence all on its own.
Outside money has also given political violence an entrepreneurial cast. Where at the dawning of independence, for example, there was one separatist movement in India`s northeast, there have since been perhaps a dozen. Some have even been sponsored by the central government, to destabilize political rivals.
Such self-interested and potentially deadly political activity drags on partly because of the Indian political system`s seemingly high tolerance for the loss of human life, Dr. Sahni argues. ``Even today we`re dealing with 150 to 200 lives a month in Jammu and Kashmir, and it makes no difference to anyone,`` he said.
Mumbai, too, is an example. The blasts on Monday were preceded in the last nine months by five smaller ones. Every time there is an incident, Dr. Sanni said, ``there`s 10 days of excitement, but nothing changes.``
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/weekinreview/31WALD.html
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 1, 2003 07:56 am
A Democracy That Has Room Even for ViolenceBy AMY WALDMAN
MUMBAI — Americans can count on one hand the incidents of large-scale political violence in the last 10 years: the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and on the federal building in Oklahoma City. The most recent major racial disturbance was in Los Angeles in 1992, the last sustained period of broad upheaval in the 60`s and early 70`s.
Indians, in contrast, lost count of such incidents long ago. For decades, they have lived with left-wing and Islamic insurgencies, ethnic and geographically based separatist movements, communal riots and terrorism. In the last two decades, they have lost two prime ministers — Indira Gandhi and her son, Rajiv — to assassination. In the country`s northeast, militants fighting Indian rule marked the eve of India`s Independence Day this month by killing at least 34 people.
So when two bombs shook Bombay last week, killing 52, the shock was more at the mystery — no one claimed responsibility — than at the method of expression.
In this hearty democracy, elections are held, Parliament meets and the Constitution holds. The society seems to offer adequate nonviolent means for accessing power and resolving disputes. Yet political violence is routine.
The question is why.
Sunil Khilnani, the author of ``The Idea of India,`` calls it the ``curious co-existence`` of violence and democratic politics. Democracy, he notes, is usually seen as a pacifying force that ``draws the teeth`` from conflict.
But he also points out that perhaps India`s predicament is not curious after all. India`s democracy is only a half century old. It was imposed by political elites on the masses after centuries of rule by invaders and empire-builders, rule that was usually maintained by force.
``In India the choice can never be between chaos and stability,`` Ashis Nandy, a political psychologist, has written. ``It is always between manageable and unmanageable chaos, between humane and inhuman anarchy, and between tolerable and intolerable disorder.``
In other democracies as well, Mr. Khilnani notes, the early years are often marked by violence, and even civil war. This was true in France and America, even ancient Athens. As democratic politics intensifies, it can become as much about conflict as competition.
That is certainly the case in India, where the broadening of democratic participation has seemed only to churn up more violence. Like an American democracy that initially tolerated slavery, the democracy born here was incomplete: it left intact a feudal, caste-based system that even now has a grip. It was inevitable, perhaps, that the further transformation of that system would not be entirely peaceful.
``With majoritarian democracy you unleash all these forces,`` said Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi. As the old system weakens, he argues, space opens for ideologies of violent transformation, like Sikh separatism in Punjab.
Violence can also deliver electoral dividends. Indians have used their roles in insurgencies to build political profiles. Communal and caste violence has often helped solidify constituencies, most recently in Gujarat, where the chief minister called and won early elections in what many saw as an attempt to capitalize on Hindu-Muslim riots. ``The shortest route to democratic power is a rejection of democracy,`` Dr. Sahni argues.
There has also been, many have argued, a decline in the quality of India`s political leadership. The number of parties has multiplied, but mostly along caste or regional lines. So voters get an illusion of options and ideologies, rather than real chances to transform their society. This only helps left-wing revolutionary groups in poor states like Bihar.
There is also India`s extraordinary diversity. All sorts of groups have grievances — about language, religion, ethnicity and more. Even the Hindu majority can feel aggrieved, since the Congress Party, which dominated national politics in India`s early decades, built its electoral victories partly by catering to Muslims.
Mr. Sahni also argues that not all of the roots of the violence lie in India. Starting in the late 1980`s, he says, Pakistan began acting on the notion that it could bleed India by a ``thousand cuts.`` The result, he said, has been the ``hardening, strengthening, and arming of all these movements that exploit all these grievances or fissionary tendencies.`` Pakistan denies any role in the violence, saying India`s flawed democracy breeds violence all on its own.
Outside money has also given political violence an entrepreneurial cast. Where at the dawning of independence, for example, there was one separatist movement in India`s northeast, there have since been perhaps a dozen. Some have even been sponsored by the central government, to destabilize political rivals.
Such self-interested and potentially deadly political activity drags on partly because of the Indian political system`s seemingly high tolerance for the loss of human life, Dr. Sahni argues. ``Even today we`re dealing with 150 to 200 lives a month in Jammu and Kashmir, and it makes no difference to anyone,`` he said.
Mumbai, too, is an example. The blasts on Monday were preceded in the last nine months by five smaller ones. Every time there is an incident, Dr. Sanni said, ``there`s 10 days of excitement, but nothing changes.``
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/weekinreview/31WALD.html
Suicide Bombers
Posted by Cinnamon Stillwell
Thursday, August 28, 2003
A familiar scenario played itself out over the past two weeks. Palestinian terrorists inflicted a bloody suicide bombing on Israeli civilians by blowing up a bus in Jerusalem and killing 23 people, most of them children. After fruitlessly waiting for Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen to take action, the Israelis launched a targeted assassination against Hamas leader Ismail Abu Shanab.
Mimicking the propaganda of terrorists, the media blamed Israel for destroying the ``road map to peace.`` But it’s clear to anyone with half a brain that it was Palestinian terrorism that ended the supposed ``peace process.`` The fact is, if there is ever to be peace in the Middle East or victory in the War on Terror for that matter, no more excuses can be made for Palestinian terrorism.
The attempt to forge a peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians has been going on since Israel’s inception. The Palestinians were offered a de facto state twice--once in 1948 and again in 2000, and we all know what the result was. Until the Palestinians want a state more than they want to destroy Israel, this deadly dance will continue. And soft-pedaling the truth by the pro-Palestinian media doesn’t help.
The left’s misguided sympathy for the Palestinian ``cause,`` has rendered them incapable of condemning Palestinian terrorism, and unfortunately, the liberal media has followed suit. The result is biased coverage of the Middle East conflict, in which Israel is routinely censured, while the Palestinians are coddled. Making excuses for terrorism is the same as promoting it, and the media has much to answer for in this department. Calling Hamas members ``militants`` instead of terrorists, is nothing more than lying to the public.
In a larger sense, apologists for Palestinian terrorism have contributed to the proliferation of Islamic terrorism, both against Israel and throughout the world. Chechen terrorists (who favor using female suicide bombers) have already given credit to the Palestinians as their ``inspiration.`` And Pakistani terrorists in Kashmir use the same methods against India (this week’s terrorist bombings in Bombay are the latest example). Meanwhile, Jihadists from all over the Muslim world are heading to Iraq to kill Westerners. Palestinian terrorism fuels the worldwide Jihad, which in turn propels fanatical young Muslims to ``martyr`` themselves against ``infidels,`` whether they be Jews, Christians, or Hindus. Allowing terrorism, wherever it is, to be exempt from honest criticism, only strengthens the enemies of the civilized world.
As long as the Palestinians continue their obsession with terrorism and Jew-hatred, they don’t have to do the hard work of creating a viable society for themselves. Since the Intifada was declared in 2000, Palestinian civilization, such as it is, has gone rapidly downhill. Only the completion of the barrier that Israel is building to separate itself from the West Bank (as they already have with the Gaza Strip) will force the Palestinians to confront themselves. Right now, they are trying to avoid a civil war, but in the end, it may be inevitable. Many countries have had to undergo civil wars in order for progress and transformation to occur. The Palestinian people may or may not have the will to transcend terrorism, but they must first be separated from Israel, so that the temptation is removed.
The Jerusalem bombing occurred a day after the decision was made in Israel to allow Christians and Jews to visit and pray at the Temple Mount, rather than it being available exclusively to Muslims. Yassir Arafat warned at the time that dire consequences would ensue, and the Jerusalem suicide bombing came a day later. This was no coincidence, although the media, for the most part, has inexcusably ignored the connection. The holy sites of Israel should be available to people of all religions, as historical, religious, and archeological attractions. The Palestinians’ religious and cultural bigotry should not be underestimated, nor should it be accepted by the international community.
Polls show that a majority of Palestinians support the continued use of terrorism against Israel, so why anyone would hope for a peace partner among this population is incomprehensible. The ``road map`` was a naive fantasy, which followed the same failed path as Oslo and various peace pacts before it. I give credit to the Bush administration for wanting to create peace in the Middle East, but that isn’t enough to make it a reality. An honest, straight-forward approach to this ongoing problem is the only solution, and that requires that the international community take a good hard look at Palestinian terrorism and act accordingly.
In the wake of the Jerusalem suicide bombing, President Bush has wisely cut off all funding to and from Hamas and the United States, and he has urged the European Union to do the same. As always, France and Germany are waffling on the decision, by claiming that Hamas also functions as a charitable organization. Be that as it may, it’s clear that Hamas’ main function is that of a terrorist organization. The Muslim world has been particularly unhelpful in the matter and indeed, countries such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran, continue to funnel money to Palestinian terrorist groups to this day.
For its part, Israel has taken strong measures since the Jerusalem suicide bombing. After assassinating Abu Shanab, they targeted four more Hamas terrorists on Sunday, and have vowed to continue. Despite the moaning of the media, this is the only approach that works. Terrorists cannot be negotiated with and as the ``road map`` proved, should not be accorded political legitimacy. The Palestinian terrorists have no political program anyway, other than annihilating Israel and supplanting it with an Islamic state.
Where do we go now with the failed peace process? The answer remains elusive, but it’s clear that the onus should be on the Palestinians, not on the Israelis, to make amends. But judging from past experience, this is unlikely to occur. Israel must continue building the barrier to protect its people from Palestinian terrorism, and in the meantime, aggressively pursue terrorists. Whether or not the Palestinians ever get a state is in their hands, and frankly, they’ve proven themselves incapable of civilized behavior.
¨ ¨ ¨
Cinnamon Stillwell is a contributing editor to ChronWatch who lives in San Francisco. She receives e-mail at: cstillwell@chronwatch.com.
Posted by
sarwar
Aug 29, 2003 11:57 am
No More Excuses for Palestinian Terrorism``Posted by Cinnamon Stillwell
Thursday, August 28, 2003
A familiar scenario played itself out over the past two weeks. Palestinian terrorists inflicted a bloody suicide bombing on Israeli civilians by blowing up a bus in Jerusalem and killing 23 people, most of them children. After fruitlessly waiting for Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen to take action, the Israelis launched a targeted assassination against Hamas leader Ismail Abu Shanab.
Mimicking the propaganda of terrorists, the media blamed Israel for destroying the ``road map to peace.`` But it’s clear to anyone with half a brain that it was Palestinian terrorism that ended the supposed ``peace process.`` The fact is, if there is ever to be peace in the Middle East or victory in the War on Terror for that matter, no more excuses can be made for Palestinian terrorism.
The attempt to forge a peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians has been going on since Israel’s inception. The Palestinians were offered a de facto state twice--once in 1948 and again in 2000, and we all know what the result was. Until the Palestinians want a state more than they want to destroy Israel, this deadly dance will continue. And soft-pedaling the truth by the pro-Palestinian media doesn’t help.
The left’s misguided sympathy for the Palestinian ``cause,`` has rendered them incapable of condemning Palestinian terrorism, and unfortunately, the liberal media has followed suit. The result is biased coverage of the Middle East conflict, in which Israel is routinely censured, while the Palestinians are coddled. Making excuses for terrorism is the same as promoting it, and the media has much to answer for in this department. Calling Hamas members ``militants`` instead of terrorists, is nothing more than lying to the public.
In a larger sense, apologists for Palestinian terrorism have contributed to the proliferation of Islamic terrorism, both against Israel and throughout the world. Chechen terrorists (who favor using female suicide bombers) have already given credit to the Palestinians as their ``inspiration.`` And Pakistani terrorists in Kashmir use the same methods against India (this week’s terrorist bombings in Bombay are the latest example). Meanwhile, Jihadists from all over the Muslim world are heading to Iraq to kill Westerners. Palestinian terrorism fuels the worldwide Jihad, which in turn propels fanatical young Muslims to ``martyr`` themselves against ``infidels,`` whether they be Jews, Christians, or Hindus. Allowing terrorism, wherever it is, to be exempt from honest criticism, only strengthens the enemies of the civilized world.
As long as the Palestinians continue their obsession with terrorism and Jew-hatred, they don’t have to do the hard work of creating a viable society for themselves. Since the Intifada was declared in 2000, Palestinian civilization, such as it is, has gone rapidly downhill. Only the completion of the barrier that Israel is building to separate itself from the West Bank (as they already have with the Gaza Strip) will force the Palestinians to confront themselves. Right now, they are trying to avoid a civil war, but in the end, it may be inevitable. Many countries have had to undergo civil wars in order for progress and transformation to occur. The Palestinian people may or may not have the will to transcend terrorism, but they must first be separated from Israel, so that the temptation is removed.
The Jerusalem bombing occurred a day after the decision was made in Israel to allow Christians and Jews to visit and pray at the Temple Mount, rather than it being available exclusively to Muslims. Yassir Arafat warned at the time that dire consequences would ensue, and the Jerusalem suicide bombing came a day later. This was no coincidence, although the media, for the most part, has inexcusably ignored the connection. The holy sites of Israel should be available to people of all religions, as historical, religious, and archeological attractions. The Palestinians’ religious and cultural bigotry should not be underestimated, nor should it be accepted by the international community.
Polls show that a majority of Palestinians support the continued use of terrorism against Israel, so why anyone would hope for a peace partner among this population is incomprehensible. The ``road map`` was a naive fantasy, which followed the same failed path as Oslo and various peace pacts before it. I give credit to the Bush administration for wanting to create peace in the Middle East, but that isn’t enough to make it a reality. An honest, straight-forward approach to this ongoing problem is the only solution, and that requires that the international community take a good hard look at Palestinian terrorism and act accordingly.
In the wake of the Jerusalem suicide bombing, President Bush has wisely cut off all funding to and from Hamas and the United States, and he has urged the European Union to do the same. As always, France and Germany are waffling on the decision, by claiming that Hamas also functions as a charitable organization. Be that as it may, it’s clear that Hamas’ main function is that of a terrorist organization. The Muslim world has been particularly unhelpful in the matter and indeed, countries such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran, continue to funnel money to Palestinian terrorist groups to this day.
For its part, Israel has taken strong measures since the Jerusalem suicide bombing. After assassinating Abu Shanab, they targeted four more Hamas terrorists on Sunday, and have vowed to continue. Despite the moaning of the media, this is the only approach that works. Terrorists cannot be negotiated with and as the ``road map`` proved, should not be accorded political legitimacy. The Palestinian terrorists have no political program anyway, other than annihilating Israel and supplanting it with an Islamic state.
Where do we go now with the failed peace process? The answer remains elusive, but it’s clear that the onus should be on the Palestinians, not on the Israelis, to make amends. But judging from past experience, this is unlikely to occur. Israel must continue building the barrier to protect its people from Palestinian terrorism, and in the meantime, aggressively pursue terrorists. Whether or not the Palestinians ever get a state is in their hands, and frankly, they’ve proven themselves incapable of civilized behavior.
¨ ¨ ¨
Cinnamon Stillwell is a contributing editor to ChronWatch who lives in San Francisco. She receives e-mail at: cstillwell@chronwatch.com.
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