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| India-Pakistan |
| Talibanisation of Pakistan and the growth of Jihadi culture |
| 2010-02-17 |
| By Vikram Sood 'See what a scourge is laid upon your hate' William Shakespeare -- Romeo and Juliet Some might suggest that this may not be the most appropriate way to describe the tragedy that is being enacted in Pakistan today. Years ago many lamented that places like Jhang, in southern Punjab, the home of Heer Ranjha had become the home of sectarian hatred where Shias were described as kafirs. Sadly this is the story of today's Pakistan. Pakistan's development into a highly Islamised society today can be divided into five periods. From the time of independence till 1971when it was period of search for a non-India identity and a desire to be India's equal and if not that then to reduce India to its own size. The Seventies were a period of reflection and recuperation and marked by the brutal repression of the Baloch and the arrival of Zia. The Eighties were the heady days of the Afghan jihad where Afghanistan helped acquiring skills and the Indian Punjab theatre was for testing the enemy. The jihad had reaffirmed the power of the faith. The Nineties, having acquired nuclear technology under the benign neglect of its western allies and having tested the bomb kind courtesy the Chinese in Lop Nor in 1990 and confident it could now cut India asunder, Pakistan launched its Kashmir jihad. Not satisfied with this, it also felt strong enough to open a second jihadi front by mentoring the Taliban. It was this arrogance that led to the Kargil misadventure in 1999. We are today witnessing the fifth period of Pakistan's Islamisation in the post September 2001 where the Pakistani establishment is having to battle its own surrogates. Jihad had become a foreign policy instrument, a force equaliser with India, a means to seek strategic depth in Afghanistan and today it is also a means to acquire financial and military assistance from an anxious West. There are many in Pakistan who shudder at the thought of what their country has become and the direction in which it is heading but their voice is weak and drowned by the coarseness of the opposition which is armed and dangerous that is willing to kill other Muslims in the name of Islam. They are worried that the rise of religious intolerance is a threat to their fundamental rights and liberties and what is more worrying, they are frightened that if they assert this too strongly they will be declared apostates. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #2 Perhaps the Talibanization of the lower classes helps explain the influx of hordes of educated Pakistanis into Northern Virgina, people seeking to escape. That and the fact that companies here can hire them cheap. |
| Posted by: Fester Thaiger8930 2010-02-17 07:41 |
| #1 a verbose thumb sucker but he does make the point that the danger in Pakland is that the population is gradually being Talibanized. |
| Posted by: lord garth 2010-02-17 05:10 |