Taliban are Pak Army proxies, not Pashtun nationalists - I

Taliban, both in Pakistan and Afghanistan, are an attempt to wipe out enthonationalism among the Pashtun and temper with the Pashtun cultural identity Insight By Farhat Taj One of the media and academia's axiomatic constructions about Pashtun is that Taliban are Pashtun nationalists. This construction is based on distorted one-sided information and selective references to the Pashtun history that too are misrepresented to concur with the notion that Taliban are Pashtun nationalists. Drawing upon the current Pashtun ground realities and history, I will argue that Taliban, both in Pakistan and Afghanistan, are mere proxies of the Pakistani state to wipe out forces of entho-nationalism among the Pashtun as well as temper with Pashtun cultural identity on both sides of the Durand line in the state pursuit of the foreign and domestic policy objectives set and controlled by the military establishment of Pakistan. Let me say on the outset that the Pashtun experience of having been assaulted with state proxies in garb of religion is not new. In the past the Mughal and the British states have done the same in order to force the Pashtun to behave in line with the states' strategic interests. There are basically three big pan Pashtun nationalist movements in the Pashtun history. All the three movements were perceived as clashing with the contemporary states' interests. Thus all the three were assaulted with states' proxies and propaganda skillfully camouflaged with religion. The first movement was initiated by mystic, Bayazeed Ansari, from Kaniguram, South Waziristan. He was called 'Pir-Rooshan' (the saint of light) by his followers. He lived during the reign of the Mughal Indian Emperor Jalaludin Akbar (1542-1605). The Mughal emperor imposed a ban on him and his followers. Above all the supposedly secular Mughal ruler, Akbar, tasked mullahs to launch a politically-motivated religious campaign against the teachings of Pir-Rooshan. Prominent among the those mullahs are Akhund Darveza (a mullah of Tajik origin) and another Pir Ali Tirmizi (of Uzbek origin). These two state sponsored mullahs declared him Peer-Tareek (the saint of darkness) and assaulted his movement with a sustained malicious propaganda apparently rooted in Islam. The second Pashtun nationalist movement was launched and led by Khushal Khan Khattak, well-known Pashtun poet, political leader and warrior. The nationalist movement led by him was fully supported by two other influential Pashtun tribal leaders, Darya Khan in Khyber agency and Aimal Khan in Mohmand agency. Arguably, Khushal Khan can be regarded as the founder of modern Pashtun nationalism. For the ethno-nationalist inspiration of future generations of Pashtun, Khushal Khan, also known as lord of pen, has left volumes of his Pashto poetry that is full of Pashtun nationalistic motivation, aim and expression. In one of his well-known couplets, he says this: 'Drast Pashtun la Kandahara tar Attoca sara yo da nang pa kar pat ao ashkar, pa yowa zhaba wail sara Pashto kro walay nashoo la yo bal

khabardar' ( All Pashtun from Qandahar to Attock speak Pashto language (and) are (socioculturally) one and the same, but are (politically) oblivion to one another). Khushal Khan's movement was suppressed by the most bigoted Mughal ruler of India, Aurangzeb Alamgir (1618-1707). One of the Khushal Khan's couplets in which he condemns the Mugahl ruler's atrocities is this in. 'Che pa noom Pakhtanay ghuseegi pray khawkheegi, Aurangzeb dasay badshah de da Islam' (He (Aurangzeb) derives pleasure from massacre of Pashtun, such is Aurangzeb's kingdom of Islam). The third great Pashtun nationalist movement was launched by Khan Ghafar Khan, popularly known as Bacha Khan. A prominent difference between Khushal Khan and Bacha Khan is that the former ran his movement with sword in form of armed struggle against the Mugahl army led by a fanatic Muslim ruler and the latter's movement was non-violent. Essentially, Bacha Khan's movement was for mass-scale social reformations in the Pashtun society in order to cleanse it from socio-cultural practices that hindered wide spread human development in the society, such as revenge or the inhibition towards modern education. The British-Indian and the successor Pakistan states used religious proxies to oppress Bacha Khan's movement. Wali Khan's book, Facts are Facts, contains interesting research about the role of mullahs against the Pashtun nationalist movement under the British Raj. Both the British-Indian and the Pakistani states never allowed Bacha Khan to enter the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) although despite all the states' opposition, his movement did inspire countless people across FATA, including many parents who sent their children to the schools established by Bacha Khan in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa areas on the border with FATA. Linked with Bacha Khan's movement was the mass scale social reform and state building agendas of Amanullah Khan, the great Pashtun King of Afghanistan (1919-1929). The king made arrangements for compulsory education for all Afghans and gave right to vote to women. Pashto was declared the official language of Afghanistan. He began to build a strong Afghan armed force, including the air force with help of the Russians, and initiated a process of industrialization. He tasked the Russians to build a road linking Tashkand with Kabul and Khyber agency in FATA. The king regularly used to read Pakhtun, a Pashto language magazine launched by Bacha Khan, and used to advise other people in Afghanistan to do so. The Pashtun, although divided by the British drawn artificial Durand Line, had turned their faces towards progress, development and ethno-national unity. All this was too much for the British rulers of India to bear because it was happening in the area that the British had assumed their buffer zones vis-a-vis Russia. Their first buffer zone, Afghanistan, and their second buffer zone, FATA, along with the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (formally NWFP) seemed going out of the British control coupled with a possible tilt towards the Russians. The British had to act to eliminate the reforms undertaken on both sides of the Durand Line. The British knew they could not do it militarily. It could have brought the British face to face with the Russians that the British never wanted. Secondly, the harsh experiences of the three Afghan wars had taught them that military intervention in Afghanistan is pointless. Thus they unleashed mullahs on Bacha Khan and King Amanullah Khan to rob their reform agendas of religious legitimacy. In case of the king the British

lowered themselves to such an extent they made fake photos of his wife, Queen Soraya, showing her half naked. The photos were distributed in Afghanistan with the malicious propaganda that the king is not a Muslim in his personal and political life and hence cannot be king of the Pashtun, who are Muslim. Deadly chaos was created in Afghanistan in which Bacha Saqa took power who did with Afghanistan what the ISI backed Taliban did during their reign (1996-2001). Girls' schools were closed down, Afghan Shias were massacred, the state building agenda was rolled backed and Kabul was ravaged. Similarly, mullahs were also unleashed by the British to discredit Bacha Khan's movement as well. King Amanullah Khan's agenda for social reforms, imposed from above, was very vulnerable to conspiracies by anti-Pashtun forces, who exploited the vulnerability to the full. Contrary to this, Bacha Khan's movement for social reforms was firmly rooted in people's confidence that he and his followers had successfully won through direct interaction people in villages and towns. Thus his movement could be never rolled backed despite severe and prolonged oppression by the British-Indian and Pakistani states. Nevertheless, the implantation of the social reforms that both Bacha Khan wanted was thwarted by the successive states' oppressions. Imagine where the Pashtun as nation would have been today if the reform agendas undertaken on both side of the Durand Line had been carried forward. To be continued http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta2/tft/index.php

Taliban are Pak Army proxies, not Pashtun nationalists - II

The Taliban brutally suppressed everything that represented Afghan or Pashtun national identity. Is it appropriate then to call them Pashtun nationalists?

Opinion By Farhat Taj Pakistan has been actively pursuing a foreign policy rooted in religious discourse vis-a-vis Afghanistan. This is also because Kabul was pursuing a foreign policy rooted in secular Pashtun ethno-nationalism, including its claims over the Pashtun territory of Pakistan. Secondly, Pakistani army, deeply concerned about its military imbalance vis-a-vis India, does not want a pro-India government in Afghanistan. Thus the nurturing of the Afghan religious figures, displeased by the secular pursuit of the successive governments of Afghanistan, came up as an ideal opportunity in the strategic calculus of the military establishment of Pakistan. Afghan religious figures, including Gulbadin Hikmatyar and Ahmad Shah Masood, were invited to Pakistan where they were trained by Pakistan military's Special Services Group.

This happened well before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. All those trained religious figures were used as proxies in the war against Soviets in Afghanistan. Several kinds of Afghan groups, such as secular Pashtun nationalists, traditional tribal leaders and religious figures, were ready to resist the Soviet occupation of their country. Pakistan ignored the nationalists and traditional tribal leaders and exclusively supported the Afghan religious forces. The West, which had backed the Afghan resistance against the Soviets, provided military, financial, political and diplomatic assistance to the resistance, but had no physical control over the so-called Afghan Mujahideen. It was only the ISI that exerted the control, including training and flow of funds and weapons to the proxy fighters. It was the time when Pakistani generals, led by dictator Gen Zia, assaulted the Afghan (including Pashtun) identity and Afghan state with their policy of Strategic Depth, an assault that continues to this date in the form of the Taliban. The Strategic Depth is proactive policy to install an indoctrinated Pashtun-dominated Pakistancontrolled government in Afghanistan that disowns Pashtun/Afghan identity and bans any Indian influence in Kabul. The policy also means strengthening Pakistan's ties with the Arab world by cutting the country's cultural roots in Persian and Indian civilizations. This especially includes a systematic tempering with the Pashtun identity to erase the cultural memory of the present and future generations of the Pashtun and replace it with an Arabized identity. Afghan national identity since the last 1,000 years following the rule of Mahmood of Ghazna (971 -1030) has been strong Afghan Muslim identity, just like the Persian Muslim identity or the Turkish Muslim identity. Both Persians and Turks have thoroughly indigenized Islam. The two nations have firmly evolved peculiar Muslim identities that can be distinctly distinguished from Muslim identities elsewhere in the world, especially the Arab Muslim identity. Over the centuries, the Pashtun did the same with Islam by aligning it with Pashtun traditions and culture. The military ideologues of the Strategic Depth tempered with the strong Pashtun identity by exaggerating and expanding its Muslim part. They carefully groomed and encouraged the religious extremists and crushed the secular Afghan nationalists who were opposed to Soviet occupation. Above all, they brain washed thousands and thousands of young Afghan refuges in a systematic way in religious schools especially established for the purpose in the refugees camps in Pakistan. They did not do so out of their love of Islam. If that had been the aim, they would have focused on the universal principles of Islam, such as justice, fair play and public welfare - the principles that can be applied to any society in the world. It was these universal principles of Islam that Bacha Khan Movement was striving to promote in the Pashtun society. Instead, the ideologues of the Strategic Depth indoctrinated young Afghan Pashtun with a narrow, intolerant and violent version of Islam that glorifies a particular archaic version of the Arab tribal culture. The aim was to homogenize the future of Afghanistan by cutting the cultural roots of its people with their history and traditions. In other words the aim was to destroy Afghaniat (Afghanhood), including Pashtun nationalism. One of the Strategic Depth ideologues, Gen (r) Hamid Gul, has said on many occasions that 'Afghanistan is a blank paper and it would look like whatever we write on it'. I would like to link this point to something not directly related to our discussion on Taliban and

Pashtun nationalism, but still relevant. Some friends from Sindh and Baluchistan are reporting that a network of Sunni extremist madrassas (religious schools) is being set up in the two provinces to damage the secular ethno-nationalist Sindhi and Baloch political forces through religious discourse that is also tempering with the ethnic identities. If so, Sindhi and Baloch nationalists should take it very seriously. Their ethnic identities are enriching parts of human heritage, and they must do whatever they can to stop the anti-civilization indoctrination of their youth in the name of Islam. Coming back to the issue of Taliban and Pashtun nationalism, Pakistani military ideologues began to implement the agenda of Strategic Depth by importing the Afghan Mujahideen parties they had nurtured on the Pakistani soil to Afghanistan following the withdrawal of the Soviet forces. These outfits were too artificial to deliver. They fragmented very quickly in the rising tide of civil war in Afghanistan. This time round, the military establishment began to support the Taliban. Rejecting the various stories about the origins of Taliban, the Pashtun nationalists in Pakistan and Afghanistan believe that they were created in 1994 by the Afghan Cell of the ISI led by Major General Aziz Khan. Although retired general Nasirullah Babar boasted of his share in the creation of the Taliban, Gen Aziz remained the 'focal person' for Taliban in the security establishment of Pakistan almost up till 9/11. Nationalists all over the world are recognized by their actions, conduct and attitudes that concur with their national identity. Let's look at the actions, conduct and attitude of the Taliban. What were their first major steps when they entered Kabul in 1996? They banned the Afghan national flag, Afghan national anthem and Nowroz (Afghan New Year) - a five thousand year old festival. Radio Kabul became 'Voice of Sharia'. Jirga, the most important social institution of Pashtun tribes, was declared anti-Sharia and also banned. The statue of Buddha in Bamian, a symbol of Afghan culture that had remained intact and respected among countless past generations of Afghans, was demolished. Everything that represented Afghan (or Pashtun) national identity was brutally suppressed. Is this the way nationalists treat their national identity? Far from being Pashtun nationalists, the Taliban religiously imposed the Strategic Depth agenda during their rule from 1996 to 2001, destroying Afghan identity and state and making the country a de facto fifth province of Pakistan. To be continued Friday Times
Opinion By Farhat Taj

The notion that 'fiercely autonomous' tribes in the 'weakly governed' FATA gave refuge to fleeing militants from Afghanistan in line with the code of Pashtunwali is completely false

Taliban are Pak Army proxies, not Pashtun nationalists - III

In the aftermath of 9/11, Pakistan was forced to fight the Taliban. Pakistani generals accommodated the immediate US concerns about Al Qaeda but also continued a low profile relationship with the Afghan Taliban to preserve them for strategic depth in Afghanistan after the US had left the country. They managed to play the double role by creating a 'managed chaos' in FATA that made the region too insure for independent observation from the outside and too frightening for the local tribal people to share information with the outside world. It was systematically propagated in Pakistani media that 'fiercely autonomous' tribes in the 'weakly governed' FATA have given refuge in line with the code of Pashtunwali to the fleeing militants from Afghanistan in defiance of the Pakistani state. All this is utter nonsense. Not even a single tribe in FATA gave refugee to any militants. People who cooperated with the militants were individuals within tribes. These individuals have longstanding links with the military establishments and their tribes have no control over them. For example, Maulana Noor Muhammad from South Waziristan was openly urging the tribes in his Friday sermons to support the militants following their escape in the area. South Waziristan was the first FATA agency where the 'managed chaos' was imposed to construct a fake popular support for the militants. While most people watched the activities of the militants as unconcerned bystanders, it were the local Waziri Pashtun nationalists and other sensible local tribal people who foresaw the danger in such activities and began to educate people about them. At this point mysterious targeted killing of such anti-Taliban people began in 2003. The first anti-Taliban tribesman who was target killed in 2003 was Farooq Wazir, the local leader of the Pashtun nationalist Pashtunkhwa Mili Awami Party, PMAP, who had publicly declared in response to Maulana Noor Muhammad's sermons that no militants will be allowed to enter the city centre of Wana, capital of South Waziristan. Between 2003 to 2007, over 200 political activists, including tribal leaders in South Waziristan were target killed under mysterious circumstances never investigated by the government of Pakistan. The common denominator among them is that they all were antiTaliban. Their families hold the ISI responsible for their killing. Many of the eliminated antiTaliban people were local activist of Pashtun nationalist political parties, PMAP and ANP. Mahmud Achakzai, leader of PMAP, repeatedly visited Waziristan to attend the funeral ceremonies of his assassinated party workers. When the 'managed chaos' had to be shifted to the Mehsud area of South Waziristan, the intelligence authorities could not even find a suitable local Mehsud to 'crown' as Taliban commander. Thus a non-local Mehsud, Baitullah Mehsud, was chosen for the purpose on the recommendation of Maulana Mirajudin, an establishment linked Mehsud cleric. Although originally from South Waziristan, Baituallah's family had settled in Bannu for a long time. At the time of his arrival in South Waziristan as a Taliban commander, Baitullah could not even

speak Pashto in the typical Mehsud dialect. He used to speak Banuchi - the Bannu Pashto dialect. Later during his stay in Waziristan as a terror leader he learned the Mehsud dialect. Taliban apologists, such as PTI leader Imran Khan, have been claiming that Taliban militancy in Waziristan is inspired by Faqir of Ipi, the Waziri tribesman who led Waziristan's armed resistance to the British. This is a misleading claim. The Faqir's struggle was basically nationalist despite his religious orientation. This is the reason that descendents of the Faqir's family have disassociated themselves from the Taliban militancy, implying that Taliban have no ideological connections with the Faqir. Moreover, descendents of the close associates of the Faqir, all of them Pashtun nationalists linked with PMAP and ANP, have been target killed for their public anti-Taliban stance. One of them, Mirza Alam had been approached by the military authorities in Wana to give them one of his sons or nephews for leadership of the Waziri Taliban. He refused and later was killed along with six members of his family. In North Waziristan, unlike South Waziristan, there was almost no local resistance to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. This does not imply any popular tribal support for the militants. The brutal massacre of the anti-Taliban people in South Waziristan was being closely watched in the neighbouring North Waziristan. By the time the militants reached North Waziristan, people there had clear idea that resistance to Taliban/Al Qaeda was pointless since the state is behind them. That was further confirmed when they saw that Jalaludin Haqqani hosted all the militants. Thus the militants landed and continue to live there in peace amid the terrified local tribals whose free will is under siege. A Pashtun from Afghanistan, Jalaludin Haqqani, leader of the Haqqani Network, is one of the veterans of ISI's proxies, who were recruited in 1974 and later trained by colonel Imam in Peshawar for Afghan 'jihad'. He was settled in Danday Darpa Khel, a village in the suburbs of Mir Ali, the second important town of North Waziristan. His extended family owns almost half of the real estate in Mir Ali. A signal phone call from his house or madrassa is enough to ensure postings and transfers in all government offices in North Waziristan. Also, the Haqqani family has houses in Rawalpindi and Peshawar. The Haqqani network based in North Waziristan, a frequent target of the US drone strikes, is the most formidable Taliban group attacking the US and Afghan forces in Afghanistan. It is the Haqqani Taliban leaders that the military establishment of Pakistan wants to accommodate in the future government of Afghanistan as has been suggested by the establishment linked think tank, Jinnah Institute, in its report 'Pakistan, US and the Endgame in Afghanistan' (page 13). The same report warns of Pashtun backlash in FATA if the Taliban are not accommodated in power in Afghanistan. But there is no public support for Afghan Taliban in FATA that could translate in such a backlash. Although the ISI did try to create that support, it failed. For example, the ISI tried to create a stature for the Haqqanis as respected tribal leaders in FATA. They were directed to make peace among the Shia and Sunni tribes in Kurram. The objective was to argue to the world that Haqqanis are respected tribal leaders who have managed to make peace among the Shia and Sunni tribals, something that even the

government of Pakistan had not been able to achieve. Thus any action against the Haqqani Network, that the US is asking for, would enrage the 'fiercely autonomous' people of FATA. The Shia and Sunni tribal leaders questioned the wak (authority) of the Haqqanis to negotiate Kurram disputes. The Haqqanis responded that they were directed by the ISI. They demanded full authority from the tribal leaders for a peace deal. The Shias flatly refused. The Sunnis gave them the authority that practically means no authority: they asked the Haqqanis to use their influence with the ISI to implement the Murree agreement negotiated between the Kurram Shias and Sunnis by the government of Pakistan in 2008 but never enforced. In the past, Kurram has been accepting mediation from Waziristan. Khandan Mehsud, a respectable tribal elder from Waziristan target killed in the post 9/11 Waziristan due to his opposition to the Taliban, has been leading the negotiations. Why did tribes of Kurram welcome Khandan Mehsud but not the Haqqanis? This is because the Mehsud had the stature of a popular tribal leader in FATA that the Haqqanis simply do not have. The fact that Mehsud belonged to the Sunni sect never damaged the Shias' trust in him. In this context he was a Pashtun nationalist who sincerely worked for well being of the Pashtun regardless their religious affiliations. Contrary to this, the Shias see the Haqanis as their murderers and the Sunnis fear, not respect, them. This is not how popular nationalist leaders are looked upon by their people. To be continued -FridayTimes