By Shazia Anwer Cheema
Perturbed by listening to and reading daily news about how many men in uniform sacrificed their lives while fighting against terrorists today, I consider it my professional obligation to pen my thoughts, forgetting the risk that they may not be pleasant to read by people in power.
Pakistani nation since long faced existentialist threats and extremism but still it is not comprised of extremism and telling the world that we are not scrawny and we are strong enough to deal with this on our own, but what we want from the world is just an appreciation, we don’t want the US administration or any other world capital to start giving us the lecture that we are not doing enough, in fact they need to know that we have done enough, more than enough according to our capacity and capability to deal with such threats. By the way, we were not planners of this extremism that was injected into our society during Afghan Jihad, and of course, the common man was not a part of the deals that the state struck down with Global North to break down the former Soviet Union.
It would be unjustified not to appreciate the Chief of the Army Staff, Asim Munir, who recently while addressing students loudly shared the root cause of the menace, targeting directly with the full focus and exploring the problem, which was not done before. Chief of Army Staff General Asim Munir correctly said that Fitna-Al-Khawarij (the official name of TTP terrorists) would never be allowed to impose extremist ideology in Pakistan as we never believed in extremist ideologies and we always promoted peace, we believed in peace. These Jihadi Johns in the guise of Islam twisted the message of Islam and they tried to recruit the misguided youth. Now it is the responsibility of Pakistani media, think tanks, and state media managers to spread COAS’s message widely and at the grassroots level including schools, religious seminaries, colleges, universities, etc.
In the last four years, the situation for Pakistan has become complex and UNSC’s recent annual report stated more than 600 attacks emanated from Afghanistan on Pakistan and they targeted primarily the security forces. At the moment Afghanistan has become a breeding ground of terrorists. Now even European media is reporting that 28 terrorist organizations are now in Afghanistan and they are trained by Al-Qaeda, which means BLA, BLF, BNA, Majid Baghdad, TTP, Islamic State of Khorasan, East Turkestan Movement, etc. There are reports that Afghan Taliban (out of money being received from Americans) are giving cash in the form of dollars every week to TTP for their services. Just imagine Americans are directly financing TTP. If Americans and European countries are very sincere in defeating terrorism, then they should stop giving this money to the Afghan Taliban as they are sharing this money with terrorist organizations such as TTP.
“Law enforcement agencies arrest terrorists but they get bail within days, bureaucrats believe that mitigating terrorism is not their responsibility and it lies only with the Pakistan Army and the police”
The factors within factors:
COAS Gen Asim Munir has said many times that security forces will keep fighting terrorists and they will keep killing them, and our men in uniform will keep sacrificing their lives. I am of the view that the Pakistan Army will keep killing terrorists but they will keep infiltrating from Afghanistan. Kabul is not listening to Islamabad and there are fears that this practice will continue.
Another factor is an illegal spectrum of economic inputs linked with Pak-Afghan border smuggling. DGISPR Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry in a briefing explained how did illegal spectrum of smuggling is sponsoring terrorism because smugglers do not want strictly and tightly manned borders and they want to engage Pakistani security forces and border management forces to keep involved in something else such as running after terrorists. Regarding this factor, the duty lies with the whole nation (of not buying smuggled items) while civilian organizations such as the Department of Customs, State Bank of Pakistan, Excise and Taxation departments, Interior Ministry, and Finance Ministry have to combine the resources and play their role to mitigate this factor of smuggling that is providing financial aid to terrorists.
“The lack of institutional integrity is an additional factor. Unluckily, we are strongly lacking institutional integrity in our state because the four pillars of the state are yet to harmonize and there is no synchronization among them”
An additional feature that is fueling the terrorism against Pakistan is the NATO-grade weapons left by Americans while leaving Afghanistan through a deal with the Afghan Taliban. They have left seven billion dollars of weapons and ammunition unattended in Afghanistan with the intention that it must fall into the hands of all terrorist organizations and that is now being used against Pakistan, because Pakistan remains the target of terrorists and Chinese interests being under attack.
Is House in order?
I have taught in Pakistan’s colleges and universities in the past and I know that the syllabus has not changed although it was decided under the National Action Plan (NAP) that there would be a complete review of the syllabus. This review has never been done. Unfortunately, to be very honest, whatever we could achieve through NAP about the syllabus of the religious seminaries, we compromised on it recently through legislation and again providing extraordinary powers to Madaris to teach whatever they wish to teach. We should be honest to accept that the government bowed down to Madaris empowering them again to teach whatever they wish to teach in their educational institutions. Regrettably, we have not managed to fully implement the National Action Plan (NAP). In the revised version of the National Action Plan, there are some areas that we need to work on, especially how we can curb the elements that are fanning and promoting extremism in society. We talk about the strategies that the government has formulated to deal with extremist ideologies and tendencies. Can I ask the government that where is the realization of these strategies? We need to review what are the areas we are missing. We have come a long way, more than two decades that we are fighting this war, we sacrificed a lot, and we made so many successes, but we must accept that we have not fully achieved what we wanted to, then what are the missing areas and why?
There is not only one area, but there are also many root causes actually and we are lacking in many areas, for example, economic instability is one of the leading points, poverty, joblessness among youth, and economic variability. Until and unless we cannot ensure economic stability, we cannot guarantee that there will be no terrorism and extremism and vice versa.
The lack of institutional integrity
The lack of institutional integrity is an additional factor. Unluckily, we are strongly lacking the institutional integrity in our state because the four pillars of the state are yet to harmonize and there is no synchronization among them. Law enforcement agencies arrest terrorists but they get bail within days, bureaucrats believe that mitigating terrorism is not their responsibility and it lies only with the Pakistan Army and the police but the police are not being provided economic and social security and even not resources in KPK that is the frontline province to fight terrorism. The media divide has become too dangerous and the target of media (not only social media but rather mainstream media as well) is security agencies in the blind love for a political party, the government-sponsored media looks working only for Punjab government promotion and the promotion of federal cabinet members instead of raising awareness among masses what kind of threats this country is facing. The Think Tanks are working well as “Event management organizations” and not providing material that can be shared with academicians and students about who are real adversaries of Pakistan. They talk only about India but they are tight-lipped about the US-India-Afghanistan triangle.
If we consider poverty as one of the factors behind extremism and terrorism then the question arises providing job security, education, health, and civic facilities are responsibility of the federal as well as provincial government or of the Pakistan Army?, then why terrorists are targeting armed forces that have nothing to do with providing job security, education, health, and civic facilities? A question arises as to why provincial governments are not empowering people so they do not fall victim to extremist ideologies and tendencies.
The security forces have done a lot and most of the areas that are covered in the NAP, but in the areas that were the responsibility of civilians especially the provincial and the local governments, there is much to be desired, a lot to be done, so I believe that we should start focusing these areas where are missing links that should be filled at sooner than later.
“Is it the responsibility of ISPR to tell us what kind of warfare Pakistan is facing or this responsibility should also be shared by the media, politicians, and civilian governments?”
The Enemy’s narrative
An additional factor is the enemy’s narrative. The enemy’s narrative is that dividing military forces with the people of Pakistan makes them militarily weak and then like Iraq, Libya, and Syria, control the country because the strong military is the symbol of strong federation. What is the easier way? You counter with ammunition only or you start giving alternate, choices or you improve the education or the thought process, of the people you are targeting. Again, it’s all about the political will that is lacking. In Pakistan terminology of “Counterterrorism” deals with what the intelligence and security forces do but globally Counterterrorism is a larger spectrum that includes the educational system, immigration laws, intelligence networking, finding financial resources of terrorists, etc. Pakistan started sending illegal foreigners out of Pakistan but then this process again went to a halt due to political intervention.
One should also look into the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) which should have been working as Home Land Security of the United States or as Counter Terrorism networking of the European Union such as Counter-Terrorism/Security Experts’ Network, the EU Knowledge Hub, and the EU Internet Forum. Theoretically, NACTA is playing its role but I think so far we have been successful in countering only through military operations. So after conducting over 10,000 military operations, (after Radul Fasad or Zarb e Azb) we have to admit that we are fighting against Fitnat-ul-Khairaj or the TTP only through the military operations.
The Civilian Inconsistency
Could anybody imagine that one fine morning a government in Pakistan would invite terrorists to come back to Pakistan along with their families and NATO-grade weapons? It happened in Pakistan during PTI’s tenure. Should a single person (the prime minister) decide the fate of this country? So this is what we have been doing, our different Pakistani governments or different political leaders, they always come up with this bright idea that we are making this policy, national counter-terrorism policy. Since we lack democratic norms, our policies are not as successful, but the military operations have always been successful, and we see the only solution in terms of military operations.
The Narrative Building
You must have heard EU Disinfo Lab, and what they are doing. Where are we? Why can’t we do it? You see social media talking about Pakistan’s military and armed forces, talking about the command of Pakistan. Can’t we muster 1000-plus talented practitioners, academicians, and media managers to converse with IT, and technology, and make a counter-narrative platform for what the Indians are doing against us? We must accept we are doing almost nothing. Let the people know what is happening against the country and who is doing what. Conventional wars are over so that is what we have to tell our public that our enemies have weaponized the media/social media against us. Is it the responsibility of ISPR to tell us what kind of warfare Pakistan is facing or this responsibility should also be shared by the media, politicians, and civilian governments?
Shazia Anwer Cheema is an author, and analyst and writes articles for national and international media outlets. She did her M.Phil in Cognitive Semiotics from Aarhus University Denmark and is completing her Ph.D. in Semiotics and Philosophy of Communication at Charles University Prague.
The views and opinions expressed in this article/Opinion/Comment are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the London Post.
