(This week's shooting of the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore reminded Pakistanis of the extent to which their country is under attack by Islamist extremists. With terrorist strikes in the country's major cities becoming an increasingly common phenomenon, liberal and secular Pakistan has been shaken to the core by a Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked tribal insurgency that is spilling out of control from the country's rugged borderlands in Afghanistan.
But one of the sharpest wake-up calls was delivered not by the bomb or the gun, but by the pen. In February, the provincial government of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) reached an agreement with insurgents in the Swat valley, winning a ceasefire in exchange for allowing elements of sharia law to be imposed upon the region. Already, Islamists have moved to ban education for girls, the culmination of a bombing campaign against girls' schools. That the Swat valley - a picturesque tourist hotspot not far from the capital Islamabad - is now in the firm grasp of Islamists is a measure of Pakistan's plight.
Ghazal Mahtab reports from the Swat valley on life under the Taliban. A version of this piece was published in Afghanistan Monitor. - Editor's note)
The recent "peace deal" agreed on 16 February between the NWFP provincial government and the Taliban-linked militant group Tehrik Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM), "Movement for Enforcing Mohammad's Sharia Laws" has sent shockwaves across Pakistan. Although the federal government supports the deal as part of "efforts to bring peace and negotiated settlement" to the region, many Pakistanis worry that under the cover of negotiations the NWFP is being converted stealthily into a safe haven for al-Qaeda, the Taliban and their social mores.
Since 2007, the Pakistan military has been battling insurgents in the Swat valley, a former tourist hotspot in the northwest of the country, not far from the Afghan border to the west and the capital Islamabad to the east. Under the deal, the government will implement elements of sharia law in the region of Malakand in the NWFP, an area which includes the Swat valley. The military's presence in the area will also be toned down, with troops redeployed to designated camps and forts.
Politicians argue that the deal has the consent of the people of the region. Information Minister Sherry Rehman claims that "the public will of the population of the Swat region is at the centre of all efforts and it should be taken into account while debating the merits of this agreement." But critics argue that a majority of local people in Swat are against the deal, despite demonstrations mobilised by the deal's Islamist proponents in its support.
The costs of compromise
Residents of the valley remain vulnerable to intimidation and violence by the militants that has drastically curbed public life, especially for women. Describing the education of girls as "un-Islamic", militants in Swat have destroyed 191 schools including 122 for girls since 2007. Eventually, on 24 December 2008, Maulana Shah Dauran, a Taliban spokesman, announced that girls' education would be outlawed in the valley from 15 January and issued a warning that all girls' schools would have to be closed by the set deadline.
According to retired Lt. Gen. Hamid Nawaz, a former Interior Minister and Defense Secretary, "People in Swat are living in fear of militants and they have no other choice but to praise the accord."
Maulana Sufi Muhammad, who negotiated and sealed the sharia law enforcement deal in Swat with local government officials, is the founder of TNSM. The movement, however, is now headed by his son-in-law, the religious cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, known as "Maulana Radio" for his illegal nightly FM station, broadcasting his latest fatwas (religious edicts), preaching extremism, and defending Taliban actions.
Sufi Muhammad sent thousands of Pakistani militants to Afghanistan to fight American forces alongside Taliban insurgents after the US invaded the country in 2001.
He was arrested by security forces in Pakistan in 2002 and TNSM was banned by the government, but he was released last year after agreeing to "renounce violence" and help work towards peace in the region.
Under the peace deal the government will introduce a sharia-based judicial system in parts of NWFP, including the Malakand division, home to around three million people. The system, as the NWFP chief minister pointed out in a news conference, would be run by the same judicial officers, under the same procedural laws, as elsewhere in the country. According to the government, the only Islamic content in the law is the nomenclature, with the substitution of English titles for courts and officials with Arabic ones (e.g. changing title from "judge" to "qazi")
Sharia in the "picturesque" valley
On the ground, the evidence points to a much darker picture. Islamists in the valley remain bent on imposing harsh interpretations of sharia on women and public activity. The sharia makes it compulsory for women to cover themselves from head to toe in public and be accompanied by an immediate relative when venturing outside their homes. Though sharia in its original scriptural form doesn't directly proscribe women from schools or from working, modern interpretations can bend sharia in a particularly chauvinist direction, barring women from public life and education. The outlawing of women's education by the Taliban in Swat combined with threats to "cut the throat of any girl above seven years old who was not veiled on the street" is part of such a harsh interpretation of sharia.
At the same time, sharia law formalises and enforces the tribal and traditional beliefs in the society to an extent that one hardly can distinguish between a requirement of sharia and a tribal custom. The requirement for men to wear traditional clothes (the "shalwar kameez"), grow beards and wear caps when outside their homes brings religious authority to traditional social habits.
Taliban militants ordered men in Swat to grow beards by 25 January and wear caps when outside, or face potentially gruesome punishments, such as risking having acid thrown at them. Barber shops in different areas had been ordered to stop offering shaves to customers.
Under sharia and its interpretations, entertainment is strictly limited. Since 2007, Taliban radicals in Swat have targeted and burnt down CD, TV, computer and music shops. Those in the entertainment industry shared the fate of the shops; a dancing girl, Shabana, who defied the Taliban's ban on entertainment and dancing was murdered, and her bullet-ridden body - strewn with bank notes, CDs of her dance performances and pictures from her photo album - was discovered in the centre of Mingora, the main city in Swat.
The sharia laws also sanction public executions for convicted murderers and adulterers and amputations of those found guilty of thefts.
Not a solution
The "peace deal" between the NWFP provincial government and TNSM has been greeted with concern and reservations by NATO, British and American officials. Western officials remember in particular how the Waziristan Accord of 2006 allowed Taliban and other Islamist fighters the chance to re-group and re-arm in the rugged borderlands, safe from the intervention of the Pakistani government.
According to Lt. Gen. Hamid Nawaz, the accord reflects the government's growing "weakness and helplessness." Since the insurgency began in the valley in 2007, more than 1,200 policemen, civil servants and Swat residents have died in shelling by the army or from attacks sanctioned by the Taliban. Tens of thousands of residents have fled the conflict, swelling Pakistan's already large ranks of internally displaced people.
The deal has also reminded many Pakistanis in the country's main cities of the increasingly precarious position of liberal rights and values in the country. Critics have condemned the deal, accusing the government of surrendering to extremist elements by allowing local leaders in northwestern region to introduce sharia law which, they fear, will stoke more violence in the long-run and lead to Talibanisation of Pakistan.
In an interview with the SAMAA news channel, Brigadier Mahmood Shah, the ex-chief of security in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (an autonomous region along the border with Afghanistan), termed the deal merely a "temporary relief" and "not a solution to long-lasting peace." He pointed out how similar agreements had been made in the past in neighbouring areas (like the Waziristan Accord), but all they did was allow the militants to breathing room to regroup and to re-arm.
Speaking to Geo news, Iqbal Haider, former Federal Law Minister and prominent human right activist, said that "the document signed by the NWFP government and Sufi Muhammad does not include one word about restoring peace... the document is unlawful and extra-constitutional." Haider insisted that "truth will be sifted from falsehood soon and the people will know that such types of accords will not get rid of terrorism, religious fanaticism and extremism."
Nevertheless, Pakistan's beleaguered president, Asif Ali Zardari "defended" the deal and stated that use of force alone will not solve Pakistan's problems. A "multi-pronged strategy, which includes economic program, force, and dialogue" has to be used. The Pakistani government insists the deal should be seen in a "positive manner".
Senior provincial minister Bashir Bilor said, "Our condition for accepting their demand was that they establish peace. We are hopeful; with the cooperation of Sufi Mohammad, we will restore peace."
Islamabad has the difficult task of spinning the deal to its western allies. While Pakistan's federal government and the NWFP provincial government have stated that "establishment of complete peace is imperative for the implementation of the accord", NATO has described the accord as a "negative development". "We should all be concerned by a situation in which extremists would have a safe haven." said James Appathurai, a NATO spokesman. "I do not want to doubt the good faith of the Pakistani government, but it's clear that the region is suffering very badly from extremists and we would not want it to get worse".
Jennifer Wilkes, the spokesperson of the British High Commission in Pakistan, echoed such doubts. "We have concerns. Previous peace deals have not provided a comprehensive and long-term solution to Swat's problems. Britain wants the current peace deal to end violence, not create space for further violence." Such arrangements "need to be clear, robust and monitored long-term, and include enforceable measures on cross-border movement to tackle cross-border militancy" in Afghanistan.
But the geopolitical exigencies of the deal will be lost on the residents of Swat, who face the prospect of living under the sway of fundamentalists.
Later this month | How do we dismantle the institution of war?
Comments
In assessing the significance of the Swat experiment, it will be helpful to avoid confusing what the Taliban did before the agreement was achieved with what they are now in the process of doing. An outsider might assume that the agreement would entail some compromise on each side rather than be the abject surrender of the government that it so far appears to be.
So, are girls today going to school in Swat? Are people free to speak out against and vote against Taliban candidates? Can women walk the streets of Swat alone today? If a woman from the rest of Pakistan visits Swat, does she have to be met at the border by a man and change her clothes, etc.? If a woman from Swat visits the rest of Pakistan, will she be punished upon her return for acting like a regular Pakistani while outside the valley?
If the Taliban continues behaving as it did in the past, it would seem
to me bound to set up an unbearable clash between the citizens of Swat
and those of the rest of Pakistan. Swat is a test for combining two ways of life that do not appear, from my American perspective, to fit together. One hopes that in the future, the Taliban will not prevent your valuable reports.
William deB. Mills
shadowedforest.blogspot.com
But why on earth one should look at Swat from American perspective?
Yes taliban are product of USA et al, but why politics of Pakistan should not be oriented to the needs, values and sensibilities of local people instead being remote-controlled by western imperialism through agents like Mush?
Why there should be double standard in democracy, one set for west and other for satellite states?
If you love you values, what legal and moral basis your have to impose such values on others? Even American gay culture is not acceptable to Russian, then why eastern culture and values must be conformed to that of USA?
Taliban would have been OK has they pliable to let UNOCOL rule over them as 'seven sisters' has been ruling over all middle eastern countries until Libyan rovolution.
My dear, we all are human; though coulor of our skins is different yet colour of blood is same!
What are the intellectual credentials of Ghazal Mahtab except except being an hired reporter?
What does she know about Sharia Law or Islam except toeing the western propaganda?
What are her basis of challanging the ANP's representative status of Swat people who contributed in voting this party to power?
How and why Taliban should be considered representative and honest practioners of Sharia Law which the Colonists replaced with their own law since 1600?
BTW, do a have honest look into the facts on how the western implerialists have played havoc with humanity prticularly since 1900.
Have the anlgo-sexon or american law been able to prevent shamful crime against humanity during peace and war?
Based on these laws the imperialists invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and unleashed War OF Terror on the pretext of al-Qaida and Taliban.
How and who created these bogies of alQaida and Taliban?
Dr Adeel Malik, a lecturer in development economics and a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Inequality and Democracy, University of Oxford, writes:
During the last days of Musharraf's rule, Sir Mark Lyall Grant of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office was comfortably stationed in Islamabad, finalizing deals between Musharraf and his military and political successors. The main item on the agenda was to secure indemnity to Musharraf's illegal actions. This clearly meant that a restoration of judiciary under the independent minded chief justice was a no-go area. A well-functioning democracy is the basic pre-requisite of long-term stability. The lesson I give to my students in Oxford, using respectable western academic sources, is that democracy prevents the emergence of extreme outcomes. Yet, in my own country, I see this logic being defied by the country's powerful establishment and their backers in Washington.
Under which law Sir Mark Lyall Grant draws legitimacy is doing so? Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!
I have lived personally under the Sharia rule of the Taliban in Afgahnistan and I have studied Islam too. I can tell you for sure that except the Taliban who were apparently practicing the Sharia law (but in reality through that spread terror and fear to suppress any opposition) no other Afghan was happy with that situation. The Sharia laws affect all aspects of life of every ordinary person in the society and I see no reason why a reporter (such as Mahtab Ghazal) should not have the right to write about what she feels and sees under the rule of the Taliban in Swat and I see no reason why one should have an PHD to speak about how Sharia laws affect her/his life. I am not hostile towards Sharia laws blindlessly, but I do have the right to live in my homeland the way I choose. You might never been living under the Sharia law, to really feel how it takes the very basic rights of a normal life. Sharia laws are Sharia laws. I just wonder why there are still efforts to justify such laws, while in reality, the Sharia law founders and protectors, never bother to give an acceptable justification for practicing such laws. I would recommend you to please go to Swat and live under that condition. I believe that experience give you more insights about sharia laws, than most of acamdemic degrees.
Point well taken. However,
Sharia laws and taliban are two different things and I dont see any validity in bracketing two as one and the same.
Under whose control Swat has been recently; in fact it is not Taliban but the creater of taliban - illegitimate fathers and foster mothers; in the first categories are agencies ofthe countries - USA and het stooges such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and second category is of the misdirected idologies - wahabi brand of Islam et al and world imperialism represented by capital corpotocracy driven by profit motive.
One all these are banished from Swat, and in fact FATA and Afghanistan, the local population can evolove/adopt whatever system they may choose for themselves.
If the world has no concerns on sheer explitation of feminity (look at western beauties in lingries on beach all over the world) why one should be overmindful if the women fold in afghanistan, FATA, Swat and elsewher in the Muslim countries, are dressed or made to be dressed in Hijab or whatever.
The proble is that profit-hungry corporate thugs cannot effort decrease in sale of pork, liquire, sex trade etc etc.
Here it may not be out of place to know what modern science and even christian know about pork - do view this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU5kek3D-4I - Joel Osteen teaches about PORK!!!
A few points, I believe I should mention. 1) As I am sure u know, reporters/journalists are normally commissioned or conritube voluntarily. 2) I agree with you that the Taliban and Sharia Laws are two different issues. In Saudia Arabia, there are no Talibans but Sharia Laws are practiced. But the Taliban in our region (Pak/Afg) are a tool used for implementation of a more or less the Sharia Laws as they are deriven out of Quran and the Hadith. Therefore, even keeping the two issues seperated, does not still solve the problems we face in regards to both the Taliban and the Sharia law. 3) I must say your idea of sheer exploitation of woman in the West, reminded me of Sayyid Qutub, the leading intellectual of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and '60s and his famous words in Amrika allati Ra'aytu, (America that I Saw). Although I might not necessarily agree with that point of view, as I believe in the free will of human being in making decision, the question is whether forcing someone to be good (albeit in our standards) by taking his/her right of making a decision, is better than educating someone to choose to be what he/she feels wants to be (as long as this won't violate the freedom of others)? 4) According to many reports and theories, as you said US, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or any other element or interest could be behind creating the Taliban. The point I am not sure if they would be the same people who would fix the problem. I try as impartial as I can, but still I don’t want to be deprived from my basic rights under a certain sets of laws. Laws should be there to protect my rights not to take them from me. And yes, the concepts of rights itself is a changing matter, depending very much on where you live, both geographically and periodically.
Regards.
It would not take this article at face value. It give some much mythology regarding political Islam the benefit of the doubt. For instance:
The sharia laws also sanction public executions for convicted murderers and adulterers and amputations of those found guilty of thefts.
Perhaps, but claims about a book that is so little known in the West need evidence.
One has to know what Sharia laws are all about.
Was web-wide post-execution humilation of Sadam was done under sharia laws or under American guns?
These people abuse religion to satisfy their own lust for power. It seems to me tragic and so difficult to escape from such a situation. Religious leaders in Pakistan and around the world should stand up more and forcefully condemn this obvious abuse of religion and expose these people for what they really are - no more than ignorant thugs, gangs, power-hungry hooligans.
Thanks for right focusing on the real problem - hijacking of religion (all not just Islam) and using it as a tool to usurp control over others.
Islam remains as threat for elite ruling class, also for Muslims since Karbala; they never like egalitarian teachings of Islam and try their best to mutilate and corrupt these, hence Islamphobia.
The point which, Afiya Shehrbano – a sociologist and women right activities, makes in in this article(http://www.socialmedian.com/story/2756371/re-branding-islam-through-global-faith-based-violence-studies) must be considered from religious and world power politics stand point so that negative projection of Islam must be countered and audience must know about the studies about Islam conducted by biased minds.
The problem is that it not only non-Muslims but most of us Muslims who do not, or don't want to, understand the real teachings of Islam perhaps because real Islam means that every human being has equal rights to live this temporal life in a manner which should not impinge on any other's rights and that powers that be; and it happened right after the martydom of Calip Ali (RA) that's why sharia laws have never been updated for centuries now - Quran and Sunnah are not laws but provide basis for evolving sharia laws.
Caliph Umar designed Muslim statecraft purely on the basis of true Islamic teachings but Amir Muawia reverted that back to Roman basis, that is why most of the Muslim rulers (pysedo-calips or sultan or whatever) have been ruling over masses like non-muslim kings and invaded other countries to divert masses' attention to their usurped power and illegitimate rule.
Right solution of the problem is that Muslims, anywhere in majority, must be allowed to have governments and laws on the basis of Islam (be that as they understand, even the Taliban) so as to get corrected through advancements in science and technology as well as socio-economic pressures; and not through Western dictate!
NO muslim country can pose any challenge to the Powers such as USA, UK et al; but the christian west, having granted rights of a King to their Pope, really fear that true Islamic manifestion of a government anywhere would awaken people in their countries demanding full rights and would refuse exploitation unleashed all over world by profit motive!
Therefore, the most powerful are the most FEARFUL hence the bogy of terrorism though it is simple common sense that terror flow out of power and any powerless entity can never be a terrorist. For example Bush, Mush, OBL first got rich enough and powerful enough to terrorize the world through unleashing War OF(not on) Terror - awe and shock - Abu Graib, Gitmo and torture centre all over the world!
Once again, let me remind you we have 10,000 uranium-tipped warheads, and y'all still eat with one hand, and wipe your ass with the other...
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