Radicalised Jihadists Have Done Untold Damage to Islam’s Image

The Economist

Feb 14th 2019

No place in Europe has done more to nurture Europe’s jihadists than the quaint neighbourhood of Molenbeek in Brussels. Some of its youth planned the Paris attacks in November 2015 and the suicide-bombings in Brussels five months later. Molenbeek is now quiet, but Johan Leman, a veteran social worker who knew one of the bombers, finds the lull almost more unnerving than the attacks. Since the jihadists first appeared in the 1990s, he twice thought they had gone, but they struck again years later and more violently than before. “They are incubating again,” he says.

The overwhelming majority of Muslims is law-abiding and has no truck with Islamic State (is). Of the 30m of those who live in the West, just 7,000 joined the terrorist organisation’s battles abroad. Even fewer perpetrated violence in Europe. Yet militant groups like is have a disproportionate influence on how the West sees Muslims. An opinion poll by Pew in 2017 found that is caused more concern in the West than any other international issue, above climate change and the global economy. A tiny radicalised fringe group is tarring Islam in the West with an undeserved brush.

Jihadism has its origins in the liberation struggles against Western colonialism in the Middle East. Religious leaders in Algeria, Libya and Palestine waged jihads against their French, Italian and British overlords in the 19th and 20th centuries. Defence of Islam was just one of the reasons militants picked up arms to push out the West. Once the foreign armies had gone, those hostilities faded. From the 1950s onwards Western governments and Islamists had a common foe: the pro-Soviet nationalist regimes that took power in the Middle East. In the 1980s they joined forces to remove the Soviets from Afghanistan.

Back then Abdullah Azzam, the founder of al-Qaeda, an army of predominantly Arab Islamist volunteers in Afghanistan, got an American visa to tour America’s mosques to raise funds for jihad. After Osama bin Laden took the helm, many of his henchmen found asylum in Europe. But the relationship soured. Soon after the Soviets had left, American forces moved into Saudi Arabia to oust Iraq from Kuwait. Allies became enemies again, culminating in the attacks of September 11th 2001 when al-Qaeda used hijacked planes to fell the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Centre and part of the Pentagon in Washington, dc. America declared war on terror, invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and attracted a fresh generation of recruits to confront them. Al-Qaeda spread underground.

In 2014 is swept the heartlands of the Middle East, mesmerising Muslims and non-Muslims alike with the speed and barbarity of its victories. Al-Qaeda had been focused on getting the West out of Muslim lands and ending its support for Arab dictators it deemed apostates and stooges. is tried to carve a “caliphate” out of the Middle East’s failed states as a base and prepared for global expansion. Its view of the world, rooted in classical texts, was beguilingly simple. Those it had conquered were dar al-Islam (the territory of Islam). Those yet to be conquered were dar al-harb (the territory of war). Through multiple channels, from pulpits to social media, it launched a worldwide call for support.

This ideological shift triggered a clear change in recruitment. Al-Qaeda had aspired to create an intellectual elite and its disciples were almost all Arabs. is appealed to all Muslims. Their first task was to cement the caliphate. Those who could should make the hijra, or flight to the new state, emulating the followers of the Prophet Muhammad who left pagan-ruled Mecca for a new Islamic state in Medina. Those who were unable to make the journey should fight behind enemy lines.

The Romance of Radicalism

For a small, radicalised segment of the Muslim population, ISIS had a magnetic appeal. A disproportionately large number of this group came from the West. Muslims in Western Europe account for only 1.5% of the world’s total Muslim population of 1.8bn, but made up more than a sixth of the 30,000 foreign fighters who joined is after its declaration of the caliphate in 2014. Terrorism experts estimate that one-third of the total have been killed, one-third are still at large and, worryingly, one-third have returned to their home countries. Still, the vast majority of is attacks in Europe and America were carried out by Muslims who had never been to Syria or Iraq but chose to fight from home. Of 455 jihadist terrorists, 70% were citizens of the countries where they perpetrated the attacks, and half were native-born.

Earlier jihads, in Algeria and Bosnia in the 1990s, had taken place on Europe’s doorstep. The number of supporters they attracted were smaller, but for some young Muslims they promised adventure and heroism, akin to the Spanish civil war which drew European romantics in the 1930s. “I don’t see myself as an extremist,” says Ismail Royer, an American who converted to Islam and went to fight in Bosnia and Kashmir. “I see myself as having been naive, romantic, a Don Quixote kind of guy.” He renounced violence while in jail in America and now works for a Washington-based NGO promoting religious freedom.

Mr Royer had been radicalised by jihadist preachers who were born in America but had grown up in the Middle East and later returned with a new ideology. Others were swayed by Arab veterans of the Afghan war who won asylum in the West in the 1990s. France also unwittingly played a part in disseminating the ideology. It feared that the Algerian civil war then in progress might spread to Muslims with Algerian roots in France. After two jihadist attacks, including one in Paris in 1994, it arrested many of its barbus, or beards, causing an exodus to Belgium, Germany and Britain.

Although al-Qaeda had little interest in Western Muslims, other Islamist groups courted them. Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Liberation Party, was born in Palestine in the 1950s, but acquired a mass following in Britain and Denmark with its call to restore a global caliphate. An offshoot, al-Muhajiroun, more openly espoused violence. Its charismatic preachers packed London’s 8,000-seat Wembley Arena, urging followers to boycott Western democracies and eschew secular lifestyles as a manifestation of Kufr (unbelief). Other conservative schools, such as the Salafists, were less political and mostly rejected violence, but advocated keeping away from non-Muslims. Some Salafist scholars spread hate of non-Muslims of all kinds.

In some parts of Europe such teaching dovetailed with an already divided society. But it had broader reach, too. Unlike the foreign-run mosques of the first generation, it packaged Islam in the vernacular. On the pretext of recovering the pristine faith of the Prophet, Salafists purged the first generation’s traditional customs that second-generation Muslims, and converts raised in the West, found so alienating.

“They offered Islam for those who had no tradition,” says Azhar Majothi, a British Muslim scholar of Salafism at Nottingham University. Kubra Gumusay, a German Muslim writer, concurs. “Religious identity was often used by native-born Muslims as a tool to dissociate themselves from the ethnic identities of their parents,” she notes. In particular, it liberated girls constrained by their parents’ traditions. Many teenage girls were driven to is’s caliphate abroad by dreams of female activism, as well as the desire to escape arranged marriages. Some 17% of Europe’s foreign fighters were women.

An assertive Islamic identity particularly appealed to second-generation Muslims who did not feel quite at home with Western ways. “They were rebelling against both their parents and society,” says M’hammed Henniche, a communal leader in Saint Denis, a suburb of Paris.

Not many preachers openly advocated violence in the West, and many Salafists opposed breaking the law. But when is surfaced, it found a constituency whose ear could be tuned to their message. Second-generation migrants had already perpetrated several attacks. In 2004 Mohammad Bouyeri, a Dutch-born Berber Islamist, killed Theo van Gogh, a film-maker who produced documentaries criticising Islam. The note left on his body read, “Europe, you’re next.” In 2005 three second-generation British Muslims and a convert blew themselves up on London’s public-transport system, killing 52.

Half of the jihadists who carried out attacks in the West since 9/11 were radicalised online, according to New America, a think-tank based in Washington, dc. Some preachers streamed self-erasing lectures on Snapchat. Their messages were particularly lethal in America, given the ready availability of weapons. Since 2013, 87 people have been killed in terrorist attacks there. “We’re bigger than ever,” insists a Danish organiser of Hizb ut-Tahrir. “You just can’t see us.” Germany’s spy agency agrees. It estimates that the number of Salafists providing a pool of recruits for jihadists has increased from under 4,000 in 2013 to more than 10,000 today.

Preachers ousted from their pulpits whispered invitations to meet privately to worshippers at Friday prayers. And increasingly gyms and schools became recruitment centres. Friends plotted their Hijrahfrom gritty estates and stifling parental control in the schoolyard. A dozen left one summer holiday from Campus de Brug high school in a Brussels suburb. In Dinslaken, a working-class town in Germany’s Rhineland, Lamya Kaddor, a high-school teacher of Islamic studies, discovered one day that her pupils had gone. “They knew nothing about Islam,” she says. “They took drugs, went to parties, had girlfriends.”

Europe’s prisons provided another source of recruits. They contained large numbers of Muslim inmates convicted for criminal offences who were already well-versed in skills like smuggling and gun-running. Two-thirds of foreign fighters in Germany and the Netherlands had a criminal record. Jihadism and petty crime were so intertwined that some used the term “gangster Islam”. Muslim chaplains found themselves being turned away when they tried to visit prisoners of their faith.

The suspension of Saudi funding, under Western pressure, also encouraged some Salafist groups to find less legitimate sources of finance. is had a particular knack for penetrating the underworld and giving criminals a cause. Infidel assets, explained is’s leader in Germany, were Ghanima, or spoils of war. Khalid Zerkani, an is recruiter from Morocco, followed the hashish trail from farms deep in the country’s Rif mountains to the way stations in Europe where many of the Rif’s Berbers lived, and eventually settled in Belgium’s Molenbeek. “He was a father figure,” says a local social worker. “He would ask about your future and explain how you could find a better job, a better salary and a just society under the Sharia. And your sins would be forgiven.” Mr Zerkani was arrested in 2014.

One of his recruits, Ibrahim Abdeslam, owned Les Béguines, a gay bar in Molenbeek that was repeatedly raided for drugs. He sold it six weeks before donning a suicide-vest and blowing himself up in a bar during the Paris attacks in November 2015 that killed 130. When his brother, Salah, who planned the getaway, was eventually captured in March 2016, his friends retaliated four days later with attacks on the Brussels metro and airport, killing 32.

Les Béguines was shut down soon after the Brussels attack, but would-be jihadists can easily find other places to meet. For some, the gangsters still carry street-cred. At L’Epicerie, a Molenbeek warehouse turned into a theatre by locals of Moroccan origin, teenagers offer their rendition of a parents’ evening. “You’ve been playing truant. Why?” asks the teacher in the play. “I went to Afghanistan,” shrugs the boy. The audience laughs.

For most Western Muslims the appeal of Jihadism reassuringly tails off after two generations. Only 7% of attacks in the West were perpetrated by grandchildren of immigrants. But police fear a new wave of violence when the current crop of radicalised prisoners are released. If places like Molenbeek are to break the cycle of jihad, young Muslims will need to feel properly at home in the West.

Reference:

economist.com/special-report/2019/02/14/radicalised-jihadists-have-done-untold-damage-to-islams-image

http://www.newageislam.com/radical-islamism-and-jihad/the-economist/radicalised-jihadists-have-done-untold-damage-to-islam%E2%80%99s-image-appeal/d/117765

Domination of Pakistan by Radical Islamists

By P.K. Upadhyay

Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses

Dated: June 14, 2013

he Pakistani Radical Islamists (RIs) seem to have been the actual winners in the recently concluded Pakistan elections. The RIs, comprising the Pashtuns belonging to the Tehriq-e-Taliban Pakistan, their Punjabi and Pakistan based Kashmiri cohorts belonging to a big chunk of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and the Jamaat-ud Daw’ah, almost the entire Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the Jaish-e-Mohammad and a number of other radical Islamic militant groups, swear allegiance to Deobandi/Wahabi/Salafi schools of Islam. They also identify with Al-Qaida’s radical Islamic philosophy of a global Islamic order through jihad. A recent illustration by Pakistani cartoonist, Sabir Nazar, on www.pakvotes.pk, succinctly sums up the ascendancy of the RIs in Pakistan’s current political discourse. The cartoon, while portraying “Old Pakistan” shows a Taliban gunman putting his AK-47 on the head of a Pakistani politician of ANP/PPP variety, who is standing somewhat bewildered but firm. The ‘New Pakistan’ is portrayed by the same Taliban with a grin on his face and his gun slung on the shoulder, as a politician, looking like Imran Khan, kneels down at his feet

Civil and military structures side lined by the Radical Islamists:

Between the years 2001 and 2012, the Pakistani RIs had effectively impeded the capability of the civilian organs of the state to take them on and effectively deal with them. They had also significantly eroded the Pakistan Army’s will and commitment to challenge and leash them, since the launching of Army’s operations in Swat in 2010. A Pakistani Army under the burden of its own Islamism and contradictions always had a confused approach to dealing with the RIs. It wanted to put them down for their disruptive capabilities yet, it also had a nagging acceptance of their jihadist agenda due to Deobandi/Salafi orientation of a very large segment of its own rank and file, its jihadist approach to warfare and self-created perceptions of perpetual hostility with India. The RIs, particularly the Taliban, were also its tools to gain a ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan. 

Even while commencing anti-militancy operations against the RIs in 2001 under US pressure, the Pakistan Army was always on the look-out for ways to extricate itself from that conflict. Initially it went after the foreign Al-Qaida cadres, leaving out the Pashtun RIs. Then it fell on to such other strategy as using its non-Punjabi Shiite troops from the Balti dominated Northern Light Infantry (NLI).  However, as the operations against RIs expanded, more and more Punjabi Sunni troops were sucked into operations against Taliban, particularly as the Pashtun troops had to be kept out of it due to doubts about their reaction after some earlier large scale surrenders to the Islamist Pashtun groups. As a result, the Punjabi casualties began to mount.

Pakistan Army had not bargained for a prolonged and intense internal security campaign for which it was ill prepared and which was directed against ‘assets’ whom it had painstakingly nurtured until the other day as part of its jihadist agenda and strategies. And when the RIs began to make inroads in Punjab, particularly the South Punjab from where a large number of Army recruits came, it began to look frantically for means to disentangle itself from that conflict. Behind the scene deals with RIs became the favoured strategy. The contours of these deals generally followed the line: Don’t attack us, return our soldiers captured by you unharmed and we will not attack you and pay you handsomely. Through its reluctance to further expand the conflict with the RIs to newer areas like South Waziristan, Karachi, South Punjab, etc. the Pakistan Army even began to tacitly acknowledge that it had basically no problems with IR’s religious agenda and it could, live with it , provided in the ‘shariatised’ state of Pakistan its privileges and positions remained undisturbed.

The assassination of Major General Ameer Faisal Alvi, the former Commander of the famed SSG (Special Service Group) in broad daylight in Islamabad in the recent past underlined the extent to which the army had changed its attitude towards RIs. Alvi was killed by well trained gunmen, who pumped 9mm bullets into him in a clinical manner after meticulously ambushing his car and not by ramming a VIED into his vehicle, or blowing him up by a suicide bomber, or in a land-mine explosion that have been the hallmark of IR attacks. This assassination took place soon after Alvi had written to General Kayani telling him about the deals some of his senior Corps Commanders were striking with the RIs, instead of going after them with zeal and determination. There was not even a whisper from Kayani or the GHQ on either Alvi’s complaint or his assassination. 

Subjugation of the political process:

After having forced the Army to a ‘tacit accommodation’ for the moment, the RIs moved to the next phase of their campaign that sought to subvert and dominate the polity of the country. The Taliban’s determination to demolish western democracy based political system has repeatedly been declared loud and clear by terming it as ‘un-Islamic’.  In December 2012, TTP attacked an ANP rally in Peshawar and issued public warnings to attack secular parties.  As the electoral process for Pakistan’s 2013 elections got under way, RIs’ challenges became even shriller. In mid-April, the Taliban Shura met and decided to selectively target “those secular political parties, which were part of the previous coalition involved in the operation in Swat, FATA and other areas of Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa”.  This clearly meant that the PPP, ANP and the MQM who resisted the RIs, had to be sidelined through terror. The statement further clearly prescribed the preference for the voters by declaring that it was “neither in favour of …nor against” the PML-N, PTI, JUI (F) and the JI, presumably due to their pro-Islamist stance and close links with the Pakistani RIs. Pamphlets were issued by TTP and its allies in FATA, KP and Karachi, warning the citizens not to vote in the upcoming elections.  The threat to derail Pakistani democracy was repeated on the eve of second anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s killing.  A number of attacks on secularist parties in Karachi and elsewhere in Pakistan accompanied these statements.

Army a mute bystander:

As the self-professed guardian of the Pakistani state, one expected the Pakistan Army to come out forcefully to counter RIs’ threat to the democratic exercise of holding elections and publically declare its resolve to protect the entire electoral process by extending security cover to all political parties and their electoral activities. Instead, in a strange coincidence, Kayani almost simultaneously with the RIs spoke of Pakistani Army’s commitment “to the basis for creation of Pakistan”. He asserted, “Pakistan was created in the name of Islam and Islam can never be taken out of Pakistan. Islam should always remain a unifying force…Pakistan Army would keep on doing its best towards common dream for a truly Islamic Republic of Pakistan.”  To RIs threat of hijacking the electoral process, he merely mouthed the platitude (in another statement) that “The armed forces would utilize all resources to ensure that the polls are held in a fair and transparent manner.” Perhaps, he was limiting the Army’s role to only ensuring ‘peaceful’ polling and protecting the entire electoral process was not on his agenda. He significantly went on to add, “Like every Pakistani, the Army is also doing its bit to strengthen democracy…There is no place for looting and personal gains in a democracy and only honest (people) can end the game between democracy and dictatorship”. 

Disruption of campaigning by secularist parties:

This attitude of the Army clearly sealed the fate of anti-radical forces in Pakistani elections. There were numerous attacks on ANP leaders and workers in Karachi and KP. PPP leaders and cadres were forced to keep a low profile, with the Chairman of the party, Bilawal Bhutto staying away from direct campaigning and not coming out to directly address any public meeting, even the one to mark the death anniversary of his maternal grandfather Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, held at his grave at Garhi Khuda Baksh in Larkana. The MQM resisted the RIs in its strongholds in Karachi by replying fire with fire. However, outside Karachi its cadres were also forced to maintain a low profile. A look at the media pictures and the video footage of the election campaigning makes it very clear that in Punjab and KP it were the favoured pro-Islamist parties that could stage large scale political rallies in the traditional manner of electioneering and PPP and others were reduced to holding small street corner meetings and door-to-door campaigning that too almost furtively. Wherever workers of ‘secularist’ parties tried to be active, they were promptly targeted by the RIs. Former Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s son was attacked and kidnapped virtually from his door steps. He and his brother also lost their Provincial Assembly elections by a huge margin in an area which the senior Gilani had pampered during his premiership. Same was the case with practically all PPP and ANP candidates in Punjab and KP where the RIs’ writ seems to have run supreme. Even in Balochistan the impact of the RIs is clear from the fact that pro-Islamist PkMAP, PML-N and JUI (F) bagged a majority of seats, pushing the Baloch nationalists to the side lines and totally wiping out the PPP. The sweeping of elections by PML-N and the PTI was a foregone conclusion in Punjab and KP also. The question remained who would head the results tally and if the RIs would be forced to engineer a pro-Islamist coalition government after elections. The results ensured that the IR would not have to be bothered.

RIs ensure electoral supremacy of favoured parties:

Thus in the post election Pakistan it is the RIs who have their clients in power in Islamabad and in the provincial capitals in Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta. The PML-N, PTI and JUI (F) would almost invariably follow pro-Islamist policies because of their personal convictions and conveniences. But, should they begin to waver, the RIs’ warning to them is boldly on the wall. In its pre-election warning the TTP had, while immediately targeting the PPP, ANP, and the MQM, also stated, “We are neither in favour of the PTI, JI, JUI-F and PML-N nor against them.. We are against the secular and democratic system, which is against the ideology of Islam, but we are not expecting any good from the other (i.e. these) parties either, who are the supporters of the same system, but why they are not (being) targeted is our own prerogative to decide.”  The desire to be on the right side of the RIs, particularly the TTP was clearly visible in the PML-N, the PTI and JUI (F), as soon as the lections were over.

The call for ‘peace’ and ‘negotiations’ with TTP:

The successful pro-RI political parties, the PML (N), JUI (F), the PTI and the JI did not loose any time to began clamouring for moves to initiate ‘peace’ with the Taliban. The TTP, on its part, has been airing its conditions for a ceasefire from time to time. In November 2012, its top leader Hakimullah Mehsud spoke of a “ceasefire” though without renouncing the armed struggle or trusting the Pakistan Army, if the Pakistani government agreed to implement the Shariat (Islamic Law), broke all ties with the United States, stopped interfering with Taliban operations against the government in Kabul, and agreed to refocus on a war of “revenge” against India. Repeating these conditions a short while later, TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan also called the Pakistan government to re-write its laws and constitution in accordance with the shariat.  Recently in February 2013, the Taliban repeated this call with a twist by suggesting that Maulana Fazal-ur Rehman of the JUI (F), Nawaz Sharif of the PML-N and Munawwar Hassan of JI should be the interlocutors and the guarantors of any deal between the TTP and the government! This appeal was made in the name of pan-Islamic unity in the wake of French intervention in Mali with tacit US backing. 

Nawaz Sharif, who had been on record for having advised the PPP government to seriously take up the TTP offer for ‘talks’,  in his very first statement after the elections repeated his stand for peace parleys with the TTP in accordance with their earlier announcement. “All options should be tried and guns are not solutions to all problems”, he said. 21 Soon enough Pak media reports indicated a plan by PML-N and the JUI (F) to engage TTP through a “Grand Peace Jirgah” that had been mooted in an all party conference hosted by JUI (F) in February.  There appeared to be a competition between PML-N and the PTI in proving themselves to be a bigger loyalist to the TTP than the other. PTI was conspicuously stayed away from PML (N)-JUI (F) plan. Instead, it joined up with Maulana Fazl-ur Rehman’s rival, Maulana Sami-ul Haq to approach the TTP for ‘peace’. Maulana Sami-ul Haq, the leader of his faction of the JUI, known as JUI (S), and the president of the Muttahida Deeni Mahaz, is considered by many as the ‘Father’ of the Taliban and is closely associated with their alma mater the Dar-ul Uloom Haqqania at Akhora Khattak in KP. Even the JI is more favourably inclined to this initiative and is also keen to join the PTI led coalition in KP. The party had indicated its interest in having the Education Ministry in the provincial government by announcing that it did not intend to ‘radicalise’ school text-books. 

However, the initial rush of adrenal among the new victors of the elections for a quick-fix deal with the TTP seems to have quietened down somewhat. Maulana Fazal-ur Rehman announced his unwillingness to broker peace with the Taliban anymore, because of “disinterest shown by the establishment, there is no opportunity or atmosphere for negotiations”. The “establishment” was identified as the Army by JUI (F)’s spokesman. He felt that any reconciliation with Taliban was impossible if coercive measures continued to be taken. It is quite clear that after having gained clear ascendency in Pakistan, the RIs are neither willing to tone down their Islamic agenda, nor allowing their de facto control over large areas of FATA, KP and northern Baluchistan to be diluted. The Army, on its part, is not willing to coexist with the RIs without the latter giving up their weapons and once again agreeing to become a pliable tool in the hands of the former.

Nawaz Sharif’s pro-Islamist track record:

During his earlier stints as Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif had openly betrayed an Islamist agenda and had been more than willing to go along with Islamic militancy. In his first stint as PM, he appointed Lt. Gen. Javed Nassr, a staunch pan-Islamist as the ISI Chief. Under Nassr, the ISI started to recruit Dawood Ibrahim and his gang and planned the Mumbai serial blasts of 1993; arranged various Europe based pan-Islamic organisations manned by Pak origin persons to route aid to Bosnian Muslims and himself arranged to airlift a substantial amount of weapons to them from Pakistan which effectively retarded EU’s attempts to keep Bosnia united; and aided Uighur rebellion in China’s Xinjiang province. Pakistan’s clandestine proliferation of nuclear technology also started during Nawaz Sharif’s first innings as PM. In his second innings, apart form Kargil (about which his loud protestations of innocence have to be taken with a lot of salt in view of Pakistani academics’/journalists’ assertions of his complicity), Nawaz Sharif has also to be remembered for his 1998 efforts to shariatise Pakistan through the legislative process in the form of Fifteenth Amendment to the Pakistani Constitution to ordain: “The Federal Government [shall be] under an obligation to take steps to enforce the Shariat, to establish salat, to administer zakat, to promote amr bil ma’roof and nahi anil munkar (to prescribe what is right and to forbid what is wrong), to eradicate corruption at all levels and to provide substantial socio-economic justice, in accordance with the principles of Islam, as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah.”  The move fell through, as Nawaz Sharif could not ensure the passage of this legislation in the Senate where he did not have majority. If he had succeeded, he would have pushed Pakistan deeper into Islamization mould then even General Zia-ul Haq had done.

Links between PML (N) government in Punjab and the RIs:

Even in the post 2008 elections, Nawaz’s PML and the IR factions, particularly the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) had a tacit understanding to accommodate each other and, according to Pakistani columnist Ayesha Siddiqa, not to hurt the Sharif family in return for freeing of SSP leaders and accommodating its cadres into government jobs. Many academics and journalists have also pointed out that the Punjab government made budgetary allocations to Jamaat-ud Daw’ah and a number of its front institutions during this period.  In the recent elections, the PML-N gave tickets to various personalities belonging to religious outfits who had been accused of and even tried for terrorism related offences, to contest National and Provincial Assembly seats. These include, Chaudhary Abid Raza Gujjar of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sardar Ebaad Dogr, Maulana Ilyas Chinoti and Maulana Hafiz Abdul Kareem of SSP. Some other radicalists, who successfully contested as independents, have also joined PML-N after the elections. According to Pakistani journalist Mohammad Shehzad, given the TTP’s uncompromising stand against ‘un-Islamic’ Pakistani constitution and democracy, “The state may not be able to make a compromise on any of these points”. 

The future portends and the implications for India:

The assertions of the new Pakistan government of Nawaz Sharif to de-radicalise the society by engaging the RIs in a dialogue and accommodation with them in reality means, to many observers, a meek surrender to Islamic radicalism of Deobandi variety. Now that they are in the driving seat, the RIs are not likely to push their agenda of shariatisation of Pakistan immediately. For the present, their focus could be on Afghanistan where they can take on a withdrawing NATO and a weak Karzai government and without being perturbed by the fear of being stabbed in the back by a Pakistani government, willing to succumb to the US pressures, or a weakened Pakistan Army which may not have the capability to manipulate players in Afghanistan again, just as it had done during Taliban control. However, once they have achieved their goals in Afghanistan, or even ensured their supremacy and complete control in Pashtun areas of the country, the Taliban and their Pakistani RIs associates are likely to revert back to complete their unfinished Islamic agenda in Pakistan.

There are many pitfalls for all the key sides in the current Pakistani political scene. The killing of TTP’s second-in-command Wali-ur Rehman in a drone attack on May 29, 2013 in Miranshah in FATA is one such pitfall which can upset calculations of all. Expectedly, the TTP has announced suspension of all ‘peace’ talks following the killing of Wali-ur Rehman and vowed revenge. It has also blamed the Pakistani government and the Army for secretly cooperating with the Americans for the drone strikes. Its ‘revenge’ can not directly target the US, but it can come by attacking the Pak Army and other ‘secret’ anti-Taliban elements in Pakistan. The latter could also include some selected persons from the incoming PML (N) political dispensation, who could be targeted as a warning. The PTI has already upped the ante by asking the incoming government to have the drone strikes stopped either through negotiations with the Americans or through force. If the TTP also take this refrain and as a price for their continuing support to Nawaz Sharif demand countering of the drone strikes by Pakistan military, it would force Sharif government to start on the wrong foot. The Taliban can add weight to their demand also by once again disrupting NATO/US cargo movement to and from Afghanistan, thereby, adding to the US problems in Afghanistan.

The post-election ‘new Pakistan’ has some significant implications for India. How much can India trust Nawaz Sharif’s peaceful overtures, given his past track record and his current equations with Pakistani RIs? How much reliance can India lay in Nawaz Sharif’s capability, or intent, to reign in the Islamic militants, as far as their trans-national agenda, particularly in Afghanistan and Kashmir, are concerned? For the moment it would appear that Nawaz Sharif does not have leverage over the RIs in Pakistan and he may be forced to go along with them, if for nothing then just to buy internal peace and stability for his regime. The RIs could in the meanwhile accelerate their sectarian agenda and increase pressures against Shias and the Barelvis, with Hindu and Christian minorities already having been reduced to nothing in Pakistan.

About the author:

P.K. Upadhyay was a Consultant with Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses for its Pakistan Project.

Reference:

https://idsa.in/issuebrief/DominationofPakistan_PKUpadhyay1460713

“Where Do I Belong?” – Identity Crises and Islamic Radicalism

By Francesco Bergoglio Errico  

European Eye on Radicalisation

Dated: September 12, 2018

The West is home to many young Muslims balancing between traditional Islamic culture and the secularized multicultural societies they live in. They are effectively “hybrids”, shaped by two often contrasting forces which structure their identity.

The balancing act can be difficult for some of these young people. They are often not understood by school teachers, by older adults with Western roots in wider society, by local imams, and even by their “old-fashioned” families. They feel they can only face these very personal and common problems by talking with their friends or classmates or with peers who experience the same sensations, the same vulnerabilities, and the same identity and cultural problems.

In particular, some second and third generation Muslims are not taught the modus operandi to “belong” to the society in which they were born and grew up. Consequently, it is difficult for them to feel British, Italian, Spanish, Belgian or, more generally, Western in a way that would not clash with their cultural heritage.

Moreover, there are no clear  guides that can help them in this path of “socialization” and building an identity. This uncertainty, this incapacity, this lack of knowledge and this state of “not belonging” can turn into anger, frustration, petty crimes and marginality for many young Muslims. This in turn makes them easily susceptible and vulnerable to extremist ideology and radicalization.

In fact, it is very important to understand that the identity crisis is a crucial element of young Muslims’ attempts to “belong” to society in their own way, inasmuch as it involves the will to distinguish oneself through an assertive identity, detached from the more passive positions of previous generations and, consequently, from the traditional family identity.

Similarly, it is interesting to underline that many of those who join the radicalisation process are often secular and worldly. One could say that they are “bad Muslims”, obviously removed from the Islamic precepts that command their cultures of origin. For example, Quintan Wiktorowicz explains that many members of al-Muhajiroun in the UK were not particularly religious and had not received any religious education before joining the group. They were essentially far from being religious and did not see any ideological reference in traditional faith, let alone an anchor on which to structure one’s identity.

Another example is the case of Anas el-Abboudi, a young man of Moroccan origins who lived with a well-integrated family in a small town near Brescia, in Italy. He did not have any ideological knowledge of religion and he was frustrated by his Italian and Moroccan double identity. He did not find the right way to express himself and to “belong” to society. He converted to radical Islam and started on his path to becoming a jihadist. These were his words after radicalization: “Before I never laughed because the society had ruined me. Now I just have to do the ablutions, the washing and I feel free, I spiritually fly”. Here is where the identity is rebuilt! There are many examples like this.

In seeking an identity, many individuals turn to religion. In certain circumstances, religion itself can guide young Muslim people towards an Islamic “counter-culture”, through which they embrace a radical interpretation of Islam such as Salafism or Jihadism. According to Oliver Roy Western Islamic terrorists are generally members of a generation frustrated by Western society, which does not fulfill their hopes or provide a positive outlook on the future. Furthermore, their view of the global ummah(community of believers) leads to thoughts about revenge against globalization, which is held responsible for their current condition of marginalization, frustration and vulnerability. Indeed, for these radical young vulnerable Muslims, Western values have corrupted the entire global ummah.

In this situation, the answer to chaos and corruption is Islamic radicalism, the necessary instrument for personal redemption and, at the same time, for the redemption of the whole ummah. Islamic radicalism is nothing less than the reference model for building a new identity based on a deviant interpretation of Islamic law and a totally new world view which looks satisfying, rich in stimuli, and, above all, morally right.

In conclusion, according to various scholars such as Munira, Ja’far Zein or Ramakrishna we can affirm that the issue of identity occupies a central position in the process of radicalization. In most cases, it has been noted that in this process of radicalization, young Muslims are generally unable to identify themselves with the “typical profile” or average person in the Western society in which they live. In fact, the lack of strong reference points, the absence of guides that could indicate the appropriate way forward, and the vulnerability generated by failed social integration are all factors which bring young Western Muslims “in search of an identity” to seek out a new and appropriate way of being. In sum, Islamic radicalism and jihadism have a very powerful draw – they finally confer a sense of “belonging”.

About the Author:

Francesco Bergoglio Errico obtained postgraduate specialization in Geopolitics and Global Security from University of Rome La Sapienza. Currently, Francesco works as an analyst of emerging challenges and Africa at the NATO Defense College Foundation in Rome. He is also an Academic Tutor for high-level courses on terrorism at SIOI (The Italian Society for International Organization).

Reference:

https://eeradicalization.com/where-do-i-belong-identity-crises-and-islamic-radicalism/

Only Free Speech Can Stop Radical Islam

By Soraya Deen, Founder of the Muslim Women Speakers Movement

Dated: April 18,2018, Dailycaller.com

One of the greatest challenges facing the United States is how to confront violent radical Islam. And moderate American Muslims have a crucial role to play in facing this problem head on and promoting a real and honest dialogue—free of political correctness and comforting lies—about the true nature of radical Islam.

A study done by the Pew Research Centre on Muslim in Islam found that 49 percent of Americans find U.S. Muslims anti-American. About a quarter say there is a fair amount of support (24 percent) for extremism among U.S. Muslims; 11 percent say there is a great deal of support.

Islam desperately needs a revaluation and American Muslims must lead the way in openly calling for reform. We must candidly and honestly admit and acknowledge that some challenging verses in our scripture have given doctrinal legitimacy to violent extremism and our failure to recognize this fact and educate the community on the contextual realities has legitimized the violence.

Our continued refusal and unwillingness to acknowledge this phenomenon has frozen much of our faith to a 7th century dogma. Our rush to blame, shame and obstruct the very few who call for reform and change undermines the freedom of expression which is a hard and long fought battle and a strongly enshrined American value.

Just recently the vicious attacks by the Muslim Student Association of Duke University on Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, an American Syrian who reads and understand the Arabic Quran and is one of the pioneers of the Muslim Reform Movement, necessitated that meeting venues be changed and event sponsorships rescinded. He was called an Islamophobe and an anti-Muslim bigot.  which has denounced the Muslim reformer and his planned speech. So intense is the controversy surrounding this event that the Alexander Hamilton Society had revoked its sponsorship and the remaining sponsors—the Duke Political Union, College Republicans and Young Americans for Liberty— renamed the talk from “The American Muslim Identity: Patriot or Insurgent” to simply “The American Muslim Identity,” The MSA went further to allege potential for harm and the lack of safety on campus if Dr. Jasser spoke at Duke.

This dangerous posture of the irrational fear of the exchange of ideas is too dangerous to be left without scrutiny because at risk is our safety and security and the steps we must all take to combat violent extremism. It is also dangerous because it stifles the voices of a vast majority of Muslims here and abroad who genuinely support reform and are desirous of acknowledging how a political Islam has swept across our nation and the world.

I recall with sadness the slings and arrows that came my way for calling out radical Islam. This too found its origins at Duke by a well-respected scholar there, the first Muslim chaplain and the founding director of Duke University’s Center for Muslim Life, a maverick who initiated the MLI (Muslim Leadership Initiative program), a forum that brings together Muslim leaders committed to better understanding American Jews, Zionism and Israel. I was a Fellow of the program until that day when the chaplain from Duke said to me that my fellowship was rescinded because of my associations with certain right groups and my stance on the call for Islamic reform.

I have watched with great dismay the compromises that we continue to make in the name of religious sensitivities. If we continue to silence Muslim reformers, it will become nearly impossible for Muslims to abandon an extreme belief in religious purity and embrace a pluralistic nation.

All religions are a set of ideas and must be open for critique. Sadly, in the Muslim world we believe that Islam is above and beyond critique — that Islam, and only a group of Muslims, have everything to teach the world but nothing to learn from it. This is quite contrary to the great mosque at Cordoba, in A.D. 785, a thriving cultural and intellectual center. It was a center for learning that attracted Jewish scholars, philosophers, poets and scientists. Non-Muslims played an important part in the intellectual life of Cordoba. True and lasting commitments to preserve intellect through and across lines of faith took root here.

It’s time for American Muslims to open any and every channel of review of our faith, scripture, and traditions. We must carefully, candidly, and collaboratively address the causes of radical Islam. And we must share some responsibility for the global trends in all terror committed by Islamists. Crucial to reform is the need to engage and empower Muslim women in religious leadership and promote gender equality in our mosques. We must teach our youth a new brand of Islam, one that is compatible to American values and not that of the Middle East.

Only free speech and an open and honest discussion on campus, in the media, and in our daily lives as citizens about the threat posed by Islamic radicalism will allow moderate voices to come to the forefront to expose and drown out radicals.

About the Author:

Soraya Deen is the founder of the Muslim Women Speakers Movement and a co-founder of Peacemoms, a group which promotes dialogue between Muslims and Christians.

Reference:

http://dailycaller.com/2018/04/18/only-free-speech-can-stop-radical-islam/