Fighting terror

In order to combat the widespread sectarian terrorism that has destroyed the social fabric of our society, a long-term and carefully planned strategy is the need of the hour.

Some political analysts attribute – quite wrongly - the ongoing terrorist insurgency to Pushtun nationalism. It is true that most of the terrorist hideouts are situated in the tribal belt dominant by the Pushtun ethnic group. But one cannot ignore the fact that it was the Pushtun who, on the 18th of February 2008, elected the most secular and democratic mainstream political party in Pakistan, the Awami National Party, thus totally rejecting the idea of the Pushtun being a fanatically religious people.

Secondly, the terrorists who belong to the Deobandi sect of Islam do not enjoy massive support among their other Deobandi brothers; the Deobandi sect, which follows the Saudi sect of Wahabbism, is blamed by many for bringing the NATO armies to our borders. This is a massive distortion and oversimplification of facts and ground realities.

Thirdly, these terrorists are not like the Maoist guerrillas of the 1930's China or the Viet Minh guerrillas of the 1960s and 70s who enjoyed massive rural and urban support against the Japanese and American invasions. On the contrary, the Taliban terrorists are frowned-upon and have no roots among the masses.

Fourthly, the Taliban terrorists offer no solution to the global financial crisis or to the torturous exploitation of the informal sector (which accounts for the vast majority of workers) in Pakistan. Their bosses - commonly and accurately - are regarded as drug barons and arms dealers. They run their organisation like the Columbian mafia. This is the reason why those who want to quit the Taliban find it nigh impossible to do so. There are numerous examples of mid-level Taliban leadership who secretly show willingness to abandon terrorism and join the Kabul regime but their wishes never materialise.

This war against sectarian terrorists cannot be won by applying the means and resources of the state alone. The first positive step in combating the Taliban-style terrorism is to organise the innocent civilian population into neighbourhood defence committees. Unless the citizens are armed with the courage and the will to become part of a wider network of the anti-Taliban militia, sectarian violence cannot effectively be fought.

Furthermore, the civil society organisations, commonly known as NGOs, which are involved in awareness, advocacy and development projects, should be strengthened. The NGOs are considered as vital organs for social mobilisation. They can play a significant role in helping to glue what is an intellectually, emotionally and socially-fragmented society into a secular and democratic force.

The NGOs exist because the state cannot fully address the social, political and economic issues prevalent in a society. In the absence of a nationwide grassroots-level political network that could serve as a means to develop social cohesion among different ethnic and minority groups, the NGOs can not only provide a political platform for the beginning of a unified fight against terrorism, but they may also prove to be the foundation for the creation of a modern, secular, democratic and tolerant social fabric.

Therefore, the NGOs, along with the civil defence committees, can become the very means by which organised sectarian terrorism can be defeated; a job which cannot be left to the state machinery alone to accomplish.