Sidelining the Army

Just got wind of an article published last week in the Guardian by Simon Tisdall about the Kerry-Lugar bill.  It may sound like old news but there are some key arguments still to be made about all of this.  Mr. Tisdall is very critical of Kerry-Lugar, suggesting that the U.S. is acting like a colonial power by trying to force reform down the throats of Pakistani authorities.  "The rumbling row over a $7.5bn, five-year US aid package is a case in point," he writes.  "Imperious conditions attached to the bill by a Congress reluctant to send more unaccounted billions "down a rat hole", as Democrat Howard Berman charmingly put it, were condemned as insulting and colonialist in Pakistan."  The underlying thread of his position is that Pakistan, as a crucial ally in the war on terror, must be dealt with gently, that the U.S. is to blame for the nation's instability and therefore the U.S. should be prepared to adopt any means which will achieve the desired end of defeating the militant threat there. 

I've written elsewhere about Pakistan's complicity in creating the situation it now finds itself in.  Well before the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the Pakistani military was setting the stage for the militant threats it faces today.  Going further back in history, we see the role the U.S. played also, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the support it provided to the military regime of General Zia ul Haq.  Mr. Tisdall's argument, perhaps unknowingly, supports that same failed policy - of backing self-interested military leaders in the pursuit of narrow, and ultimately destructive, national interests.  It is Bush policy all over again.  And we know how that turned out: $10 billion handed over to the Musharraf military regime; $10 billion that disappeared into the "rat hole."


President Obama's administration appears less inclined to trust Pakistan's military (we should keep in mind the current Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, was hand-picked by Musharraf).  It is a bold move to try to sideline the army in Pakistan, fraught with dangers, not the least of which is another military coup.  But it is a necessary step.  The war in Pakistan will only be won if and when civilian authorities are the dominant, trusted institution in Pakistan, not the army.   

"By linking the cash to tighter civilian control of Pakistan's military, Washington was trying, clumsily, to strengthen Asif Ali Zardari's government. But it achieved the exact opposite. The president was accused of failing to defend the country's sovereignty, much as he has failed to halt escalating American cross-border air raids, and the occasional covert ground incursion, on targets inside Pakistan."


The alternative is rather less palatable - a nation perpetually run by a military deep-state.  "Clumsy" though it might be, Washington's desire to strengthen civilian governance in Pakistan is the right thing to do.  Keeping watch over how that government spends U.S. taxpayer dollars is necessary considering Pakistan's shady track record with donated funds.   The "opposite"effect was  inevitable in light of the over-arching ground realities inside Pakistan: the public opinion backlash, based on my own discussions with Pakistani journalists, was manufactured by the army.  They pursued a vigorous media campaign during the weeks and months after the proposed bill was made public.  Most Pakistanis have never read the bill so their opinion was easily swayed by the negative media coverage.  I have read the bill and what it sounds like to me is that the cat is now out of the bag, claws drawn; the U.S. has sent a message to Pakistan's military: no more games.

Still, it is an incontestable fact that distrust of the U.S. since the invasion of Afghanistan has skyrocketed.  And as Mr. Tisdall points out, U.S. drone strikes have contributed to the negative perceptions.  But rather than look at these as isolated events, we need to view them as trends.  In a blog post on the Threat Matrix, Alexander Mayer points out that in 2009, the trends appear to be reversing:  while anti-American attitudes have remained unchanged, support for the Taliban and al Qaeda in Pakistan has plummeted.  Mr. Mayer correctly says that it is perceptions which guide attitudes so while the facts behind U.S. drone strikes are hard to come by (actual civilian casualties, etc), the facts of the threat to Pakistan posed by the Taliban have come into clear focus over months of violent attacks and mounting civilian deaths.  Moreover, Pakistanis don't question who the U.S. is targeting when it fires hellfire missiles from unmanned aircraft; they question the collateral damage these strikes cause.  And incidentally, the Pakistani government and military are fully aware of "American cross-border air raids, and the occasional covert ground incursion"; in fact, they quietly support those actions.  The issue here has less to do with sovereignty, in the eyes of everyday Pakistanis as well, as it does with the loss of innocent lives.


Perceptions are changing.  Taliban suicide bombers are killing vastly more civilians than U.S. drone attacks.   The Obama administration is determined to keep the trend going, pumping hundreds of millions into "cultural understanding" programs at its embassy in Islamabad (see an earlier post for more on that). But distrust of the U.S. is not going to go away any time soon.  Rampant anti-Americanism in Pakistan is a complex affair.  It's fashionable to hate America these days.  But it's also fashionable to be American.  Millions of Pakistani Dr. Jekylls are battling the Mr. Hydes in them.  The tendency to blame the U.S. for all of Pakistan's ills is, I believe, a kind of psychological projection.  It is easier to blame the Other, that abstract apparition floating somewhere in the ubiquitous aether, than to turn the mirror inward.

What Pakistanis would see there is not a very pretty sight.  Their nation is in ruins, led by the same corrupt politicians who have for decades acted like sultans rather than representatives of the people.  But they are democratically elected leaders and thus are the political expression of the people's will.  What does that say about the people?  The Obama administration, rather than pandering to the military elite, has decided to deal directly with the democratically elected government.  Yes, it is corrupt, hence the strict conditions placed on aid.  But this isn't a question of sovereignty; it is a question of prudence.

The Decisive Battle?

And so it begins.  The Pakistani army is finally going into its nation's Taliban heartland.  To put what they face into perspective, operation Rah-i-Nijat - meaning Path to Deliverance - is not dissimilar to Nato's push into southern Afghanistan back in 2006.  South Waziristan tribal agency is the hive, where the most diehard of Taliban fighters reside and where foreign jihadis, mainly Uzbeks, have claimed their own mini-fiefdom, injecting a toxic mix of brutality and suicidal determination into Pashtun society.  Altogether, they claim to have tens of thousands of fighters, not to mention thousands more suicide bombers.

Pakistan is sending in 28 000 troops.  That works out to approximately 2% of its total military, reserve and paramilitary personnel.  My question is: What do they expect to deliver?  Sweets?

It's of course much too early to say how all of this will play out.  Pakistani military officials have been in negotiations with some militant groups in South Waziristan, hoping to convince them to stay out of the fight.  They are also relying on technology, begged and borrowed from the U.S., to help them focus their operations.  U.S. drones will be flying reconnaissance missions, jamming and surveillance equipment is being rushed out to the front.  Quite frankly, it all sounds a little familiar: these are the same tactics employed by the U.S. in Afghanistan, which begs the question: Who is really guiding Pakistani military strategy?

And ultimately, Pakistan has its own interests in the region, and they are not always in line with American interests.  So while on the one hand, Pakistan appears to be taking cues from the U.S. on how to fight, they have their own reasons for why they are fighting.  It's certainly not, as the U.S. would like, to clear the region of militants.  The Pakistani military is determined to rid its territory of militants who pose a threat to its national security but it is not so amenable to ridding its territory of all its militants.  Some of them are an asset.

Funny that.  During the recent debate in the U.S. over Afghan policy, one of the big questions was why the American troops are there in the first place.  What is their objective?  Defining objective guides policy.  One of the arguments being forwarded, largely by the conservatives, was that the U.S. should limit its objectives to dealing with al Qaeda in the region, what they define as the real threat to America's national security.  Fixing Afghanistan is not our problem, these hawks bemoaned.  These are the same hawks who quietly support violent dictators in other parts of the world, who have nurtured violent revolutionaries of their own in the pursuit of American interests.  Funny that.  They're not so different than the Pakistanis.

What's possible

Given all the debate in the U.S. over what to do next in Afghanistan, I figure now's a good a time as any to throw in my two cents. When you strip the issue down to its essence, at least from the American perspective, one question remains: What is the endgame? It used to be creating a stable, democratic, and moderate Afghanistan. Before that, it was eliminating militancy, primarily the al Qaeda threat, to safeguard the U.S.'s national security. The two missions are intended for two different audiences: the first for the people of Afghanistan (and the world in general), the latter for the American people. The first requires a strategy to win hearts and minds - a culturally transformative approach - whereas the latter is by its nature militaristic.

Neither is achievable.

I've written a little about the challenges facing the transformative approach in the past couple of blog entries. People tend to be resistant to change imposed by outsiders, especially when that change affects the fundamental pillars of a society - namely, its language and culture. Transforming Afghanistan, or the Pashtun culture which is the epicenter of the conflict there, will take generations. It is possible but it has to happen from within. That's not to say western countries should simply walk away - we tried that after the Soviets left Afghanistan back in 1988 and look where it got us. Instead, we need to support the existing structures of the society, recognizing the elements of it that promote peace and strengthening them. That, of course, means understanding the culture first.

Walking away means abandoning Afghans and Pakistanis to the sharks. Pakistan may be able to handle it - they have enough firepower to solve their militant problem at any time, though they prefer to project an image of desperate need, to keep the foreign (i.e. U.S.) funds flowing in. Afghanistan on the other hand, will crumble, ironically because Pakistan, shedding its 'under siege' image, will go back to being the Taliban puppet-master.

What Pakistan perhaps doesn't realize, or underestimates the potential danger of, is how deeply militancy, in the form of global jihad, has made a footprint inside the country. It's as much a threat to them as it is to anyone else, which happens to be the crux of their argument for increased financial support. But I predict that if the U.S. and Nato leave Afghanistan any time soon, what will follow is a swift Pakistani "victory" over the militant groups in the northwest and a sudden re-emergence of what's now called the Quetta Shura (Mullah Omar's group) inside Afghanistan. Oh, and a civil war there, naturally.

Which brings us back to Pakistan's quandary: can it, as its military believes, completely contain its homegrown militants? I don't think so. They've managed it in the past only because the scale of the militant jihad didn't extend beyond Kashmir and Afghanistan - both regions within Pakistan's sphere of interest. Now it's gone global. Global jihadists - Uzbeks, Arabs, and a growing number of Pashtuns and Punjabis, have made the northwest of Pakistan their own base of operations. The Quetta Shura, Pakistan's ally, has gone down that road, though to what degree is still speculation. Nonetheless, if Pakistan supports the return of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan it risks joining hands with an ideology premised on holy war. How that would play into Pakistan's own growing global jihadist dilemma is anyone's guess, but I'm guessing it won't be good.

So a military element to the Af-Pak puzzle is now inevitable. It needn't have been this way but it's pointless to pine over what could have been. Perhaps if the U.S. hadn't invaded Afghanistan, the spread of global jihad might have been kept in check. There were moderate elements in the Taliban regime at one time. After 9/11, some were calling for Osama bin Laden to be handed over to the U.S., others wanted him turned over to a neutral third-party, preferably an Islamic nation (fair enough considering the legal issues involved). Instead, they got an invasion. That act has done more damage to Afghanistan, and more critically to the Afghan people's perception of the U.S., than any occupation, no matter how long. It has strengthened the militants' hand. These are the facts of history. The facts of today are different: a disenfranchised people sandwiched between radicals (both of the Islamic and the western kind), a shattered Pashtun nation and a long, messy road of broken promises.

Ultimately, the problem now is trust. There isn't any. Pashtuns don't trust the west to keep its promise of lifting them out of poverty without at the same time destroying their culture. The west doesn't believe Pashtuns are capable of transforming their society on their own. To a degree, both are right, which is why it's so hard to convince either of them otherwise. But knowing a piece of the puzzle doesn't mean you're in a position to solve it. The west is right: the Pashtuns need help, in no small part because of how western countries contributed to dismembering their society during and after the Soviet occupation. But shoving western values down their throats is not the answer. Reciprocally, the Pashtuns make a point when they accuse the U.S. of neo-colonialism: they are being invaded - culturally and linguistically. But so is the rest of the world, something the Pashtuns don't realize.

The solution lies in letting go of the impossible - browbeating a society into accepting your ways or thinking you're doing your society a favour by isolating it from the rest of the world - and focusing on what is possible.

The U.S. and Nato need to accept that the Taliban will inevitably have a role to play in Afghanistan's future. It's up to them to decide whether that role will destructive or productive. Negotiating with the Taliban has been attempted, and it has failed. But I believe the problem was in the approach: even for moderate, nationalist Taliban (as opposed to the extreme, global jihadist variety) there are cultural redlines that cannot be crossed. We have to learn to accept those lines. Girls' education? Eventually. Eliminate purdah? In time. You cannot shatter these kinds of barriers; they must be disassembled, brick by brick.

And Pakistan? Dealing with Pakistan is necessary but should not be obsessive. Pakistan will always act in its own interest. Supporting the Taliban is in its interest because of how deeply India has penetrated into the chambers of Afghan politics. That is also an undeniable fact. One could try to fix the Indo-Pak problem first (i.e. Kashmir) and hope that will fix Afghanistan, but it's a fool's hope. And we are talking here about what is possible. By recognizing a Taliban role in Afghan politics, the west meets Pakistan's interest while at the same time ensuring that the more radical global jihadists are sidelined. That's a first step. Then comes the hard part: eliminating those global jihadists. That will be a long, quiet war, fought on multiple fronts, not the least of which will be political and ideological.

The Pashtuns will have a major role to play...well, actually, the central role. Engaging the Taliban, who are Pashtuns, engages the people, just as now, fighting the Taliban means fighting the Pashtun people. Supporting the Pashtuns will mean diverting much of the cash now flowing into the pockets of Pakistani and Afghan politicians, generals and bureaucrats into the infrastructure of Pashtun society. The existing tribal system, for example, is in desperate need of re-construction. Village halls for jirgas, equipment and know-how to codify and "modernize" what is currently a chaotic mix of ad-hoc edicts, recognition of village elders as a legitimate political institution. These are starting points. The downside is that success will not be measured in a few catchy headlines. Success will be like the hour-hand of a clock, moving imperceptibly toward the magic-hour. We probably won't even notice when it gets there.

But here's the thing: it will eventually get there. It is possible.

Crush the Taliban?

Apologies for the long delay between posts.  For the past week I was roaming around southern Punjab reporting on a story for Maclean's (more on that in an upcoming post).  While I was sweating it out in the south - quite literally - a facebook friend asked me a question that I think deserves some serious attention.  It's something I've been asked often, on radio interviews, by my editor at Maclean's: why can't the Pakistani army just take out the Taliban?  It's a difficult question to answer but I'll give it a try.

The Pakistani military has proven it is capable of defeating Taliban militants.  The Bajaur operations are one example; success in Mohmand is another.  But why then the concessions in Swat?  Why turn it over to militants with barely a fight.  One military commander based in Swat 

told me it was because that region is too heavily populated to engage in the kind of heavy operations that won Bajaur (if you can call it a win; more accurately, it was a strategic victory with the Taliban retreating into the mountains to regroup).  Collateral damage is a concern for Pakistan.  Bajaur has been devastated.  Hundreds of thousands of refugees have flooded into camps on the outskirts of Peshawar.  And for every man, woman and child killed because of Pakistan's military actions, potentially dozens more join the militant ranks.

That's the humanitarian side.  There is, however, another, less noble reason for Pakistan's restraint.  In military terms, the Taliban still represent an asset for the Pakistani military.  I discuss this in some detail in a Maclean's story: since the fall of the Mullah Omar Taliban regime in 2002, Pakistan's military, particularly the ISI, have been desperately looking for a new partner in Afghanistan to counter Indian influence.  After the Taliban fell, the opposition Northern Alliance, heavily backed by India as well as the U.S., took control of the Afghan government (these are primarily Persian-speaking warlords who were losing the civil war against the Taliban before the U.S. intervened; Karzai, a Pashtun, was a token figurehead who has proven that he is unable to reconcile Afghanistan's warring ethnic groups).  After losing their trump card, the ISI has been scrambling to find a malleable Taliban faction that can represent Pakistan's interests in the new Afghanistan.  That objective has become increasingly important since the Obama administration recalibrated its foreign policy, placing Afghanistan at the top of its agenda.  Obama has said he is willing to find a negotiated solution to Afghanistan.  He is willing to speak to "moderate Taliban" (whomever they may be).  In Swat, Sufi Muhammad represents a possible candidate (Obama has indicated that he will take a wait and see approach to Swat, and if successful, to perhaps repeat it in Afghanistan).  The message the ISI is getting is that the Taliban will likely play a role in a future Afghan government, similar to the re-emergence of the Baath Party in Iraq, albeit under a different name - the Sunni Awakening.  By giving ground in Swat, the ISI is freeing up the fighters there to take the fight over to Afghanistan where they will, by the prevailing logic, gain some influence so if and when the Taliban enter Afghan politics, Pakistan will have its interests represented.  A similar strategy was in play in Waziristan where the Pakistani military left militant factions led by Nazir and Bahadur alone in return for their guarantees not to take their jihad to Pakistan, focusing instead on Nato and American troops across the border in Afghanistan.  that deal appears to have fallen apart after both commanders recently struck a deal with Baitullah Mehsud, the South Waziristan militant commander of the Pakistani Taliban.

Confused yet?  Well, it gets even more complicated.  From the government perspective, instability in Pakistan is a potential financial windfall.  Pakistani politicians, particularly President Zardari, have repeatedly demanded financial compensation for Pakistan's participation in the war against the Taliban.  Billions of dollars are being pumped into the country and no one really knows where that money is going.  Pakistan's military is being modernized at U.S. expense.  It's a cushy little scenario for greedy, corrupt politicians and war-obsessed military leaders alike (especially considering Pakistan's enduring paranoia over the Indian threat).  If Pakistan looks to be winning the war against militancy, they lose that financial and military support.  

All very complicated and all extremely risky.  This is the dark, decrepit world of competing national interests.  

Photo Credits: (from top) Adnan R. Khan - A Pakistani military checkpost in the Swat Valley; Adnan R. Khan - Villagers in Bajaur pay their respects at a mass grave site where victims of a U.S. drone attack were buried.

No jigging allowed

In a sign of the times, a Pakistani dance troupe at a spring festival in Larkana was chased off by a group of religious fanatics claiming to be from one of Pakistan's legitimate political parties, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam.  A spokesperson from the party later denied that any of their activists were instructed to disrupt the festivities, though party officials had asked the festival organizers to cancel the dance. 

Dance is an integral part of Pakistani culture, something that's been around for hundreds of years, well before the creation of the Pakistani state.  It's a wonderful spectacle to see, lavished with colour and pageantry and nothing approaching the 'vulgar' which religious obscuritants claim it to be.  Last year I went to my cousin's wedding in Lahore.  I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting much.  I've been to Pakistani weddings in Canada and to put it mildly, they could lull Jim Carey into a catatonic state.  But to the contrary, leaving those precedents in the dust, this one was a lively affair, complete with drumming, singing and yes,  even a dance performance or two.  

I'm not sure what it is that these radicals are trying to do. Actually, I don't think they quite know it themselves.  They are simple reactionaries to the reality of globalization, men who think Bollywood and MTV, which many of them are seeing for the first time through the explosion of cable and satellite communications, are real-world representations of western life. Well, I can assure them that the little girl who performed at my cousin's wedding is no aspiring Britney. 

But groups like the Taliban, and others who take their ideological queues from them, will have none of it.  Literally, none, not even traditional music and dance.  There's a story I'm researching now for a possible radio documentary about the Pashtun music industry in Peshawar.  In short, it's dying.  Peshawar, that quintessential frontier city in Pakistan's northwest, bordering Afghanistan, used to be the Pashtun music capital.  The top recording artists like Naghma, Nazia Iqbal, and Shahensha Bacha were all based in Peshawar.  They recorded their music videos on the lush green slopes of the Swat valley.  The branch industries that emanated from that dynamic centre - DJs and recording studios, video production houses and even instrument craftsmen - are all suffering.  Naghma has retired.  Nazia Iqbal was threatened by a local militant and advised to go to Mecca for pilgrimmage.  Shenshah Bacha was similarly threatened and forced to join a Tabligh - the Islamic missionaries.

I visited a couple of DJ shops in Peshawar about a month ago.  The area I was told to go used to be flush with shops, belting out beats and flashing colouful (if somewhat gaudy) neon signs.  Now the area is a deadzone.  Shopkeepers sit around idle, waiting for the occasional religious or political rally to give them some work.  "Weddings were our main business," one shopkeeper told me.  "But no one is hiring DJs for weddings anymore.  They're too afraid."   Musicians are naturally feeling the pinch.  If singers don't sing and weddings fall silent, their work dries up. 

And if musicians refrain from playing their instruments, then there's not much use for instrument makers.  Peshawar's oldest master tabla-maker told me he's just about done for.  His business will not last much longer.  A suicide attack at a sufi shrine in Islamabad back in 2005 all but silenced the qawwali singers who regularly gathered there to perform their songs of love and devotion to god.  

What happens to a culture when its artistic expression is silenced? It dies.  

Photo Credits:  (from top)  Women perform a Punjabi dance at a wedding in Lahore, Adnan R. Khan; A girl performs a solo dance at the same wedding, Adnan R. Khan; Musicians perform at a Pashtun wedding in Peshawar, Adnan R.Khan.

Thoughts on Flogging

Welcome to my new blog!  For those of you who don’t already know, this is a more focused continuation of the arkworld blog which has unfortunately been defunct for the past few months.  Instead of reviving it, I’ve opted to start up this new forum dedicated to discussing issues affecting Pakistan and the consequences to the world.  Naturally, I’m in Pakistan and will be here for the foreseeable future.  So, let’s get to it.

I’ve been back in Pakistan now for two months, splitting my time between Peshawar, Islamabad and the Swat valley.  Admittedly, it’s been a surreal experience so far, not because it’s in any way different from my past experiences covering this country but because I know this time around, I’m here for the long haul.  It’s an entirely different mindset.  One side of it is a creeping sense of fear of not knowing the details of the life and culture here as well as I should.  I have a lot to learn.  Then there’s the challenge of translation – how to render what’s happening here for what is primarily a western audience. 

It’s no easy task, considering the width and breadth of the divide between western culture and the Pashtun culture of the Taliban which I’m primarily dealing with.  I’ll try my best to explain the Pashtuns honestly and clearly in subsequent posts.  To start with though, I think it’s necessary to talk a bit about this video that surfaced yesterday of a teenage girl being flogged by the Taliban (see the featured video).  There’s been some controversy today over its validity.  Muslim Khan, the spokesman for the Swat branch of the Taliban, denies that it depicts his group and vows to hunt down and punish the man who filmed it (I shudder to think what he's in for).  He doesn't deny the validity of the punishment under Taliban law, just that it wasn't his group caught in the act.  "The punishment awarded to the woman was just," Khan told reporters today.  "the woman was of loose character." 

Frankly, I don’t think it matters where the video was recorded.  More importantly, what the footage reveals is the culture of crime and punishment that guides Taliban justice.  I wrote an article in Maclean’s magazine a couple of weeks ago covering what exactly Sharia, or Islamic Law, in Swat means, politically, legally, socially.  After spending a month researching the story, I came to the conclusion that the Taliban of today are not the same Taliban of say ten years ago, using the word Talqaeda to describe the nexus that has been formed between the Taliban and al Qaeda.  The two are virtually indistinguishable now, most disturbingly in the adoption of global jihad by the Taliban.  Taliban leaders in Swat are quite frank about their agenda: spread Sharia around the world, starting in Pakistan.

I’ve had some reader comments accusing me of fear mongering.  Maybe I am: having visited Talibtown, Pakistan I’m scared shitless of these people and their brand of justice.  Granted, the Taliban aren’t alone in meting out corporal punishment for even minor crimes (Singapore is infamous for it) but the legal methodology they use is quite honestly ridiculous.  To see a Taliban Sharia Court in action is a little like watching a gang of hairy thugs fulminate over legal issues they know nothing about.

Hairy Thug #1:  Duhh, the cousin of my uncle’s sister says he saw her touch his arm once.  That’s bad. BAD!

Hairy Thug #2: Doesn’t the Quran say arm touching is punishable by 100 lashes?

Hairy Thug #3: Yeah, the mullah at my mosque says so.  He has to be right - he’s a mullah.

Head Hairy Thug:  Who else witnessed the arm touching?

Hairy Thug #1: Errr…ummm…my sister.  She says she didn’t see nothin’.  But, you know, she’s a woman.  What’s a woman know anyway?

Head Hairy Thug: Man witnessed arm touching.  Woman witnessed no arm touching.  A woman’s testimony is worth half the man’s.  Therefore, by the logic of mathematics, we have full-guilt versus half-innocence.  The punishment for arm touching is 100 lashes.  Ergo, 50 lashes!  QED.

Okay, it’s not quite so farcical, but you’ve got the gist.  Now let me ask this question:  Would it be different if the accused received due legal process and, having verified her guilt, was then sentenced to 50 lashes?  Or death by stoning?  Is it the process, left in the hands of violent militiamen, that’s so fundamentally wrong or the entire Sharia system itself?  That’s a much tougher question to answer. 

In that last Maclean’s article, I ask the question: Will the people of Swat get the kind of justice they’ve been demanding for decades?  Here’s the interesting thing about Swat: until 1969, it was not fully a part of Pakistan.  It was an autonomous princely state legally subject to a combination of Sharia courts and a local system of council arbitration (the jirga).  The people loved it.  Many still think back fondly to those days when you could have a dispute resolved within weeks or months rather than the costly years it takes under the current secular system.  In demanding the return to Sharia, the people of Swat are basically demanding justice.  Their voting patterns in the last two general elections are telling in this respect: in 2002, they voted for a coalition of religious parties who promised Sharia.  Those parties broke their promise, joining a Musharraf-led coalition that joined the U.S.-led war on terror.  Corruption, already a bloated beast in Pakistan, fattened up on dictatorship.  Things changed after the 2008 elections.  The dominant party in Swat, and the rest of the NWFP, is now the ANP, a secular, Pashtun nationalist movement.

I went up to Swat in 2008 during the January election campaign.  The war was on at that time meaning all hotels were closed (journalists were banned from going into the area but I managed to get through the military checkpoints posing as a tea merchant).  A local journalist whose father owned a hotel in Madyan agreed to let me stay there but warned me that there was no heating and no running water.   It was a dingy old place that my team and I turned into a self-contained apartment.  We bought a portable gas stove from the market and my local contact donated a gas heater from his house.  My driver served as cook and we bathed in ice-cold water brought into the room in buckets.  Even with the heater, nights were frigid and the constant threat of the Taliban finding out about us meant many sleepless nights taking turns standing guard at the door. 

It was a tense time in Madyan.  Only a week earlier, the Taliban had swept into town, ordered the police out (they obediently complied) and continued on south toward Mingora, Swat’s main city.  Taliban sympathizers and criminal opportunists ruled the town while the army sat tentatively in their barracks, uncertain of who was the enemy and hogtied with fear of pissing off the locals if they tried any offensive.  Election campaigning was done kamikaze style: quick, sudden bursts of postering and mingling with the public.  But here was the clincher: every party, from the Islamist-based JUI to the fiercely secular PPP, promised Sharia.  Hey, this is election time and as we all know, to win an election, you play up to people’s demands.

The ANP won the election on a strong Sharia platform (ironic for a secular party), which tells me that it’s not Sharia in and of itself that Swatis want but rather justice.  In their collective memory, the last legal system that worked for them was a Sharia system so they want it back.  The only problem is that the people who ran the old Sharia courts were part of the royal administration.  They were moderate Muslims.  Now, it’s the Taliban.  

The ANP have kept their promise.  Sharia is back in Swat but I doubt the people will get what they were expecting.  I was up in Kanju a little over a week ago, on the road to Matta where Taliban presence is strongest.  It is a frightening place.  Bands of Taliban roam the streets wielding sticks and Kalashnikovs.  I tried photographing but within 15 minutes was pounced upon by a group of Taliban who ended up breaking my camera.  They let me go, but only after I threw down the names of some powerful contacts I have in the TNSM.  Welcome to justice, Taliban style.

Photo Credits: Adnan R. Khan