Farhat Taj

It is ridiculous to compare the foreign-assisted war militias in Afghanistan with the anti-Taliban lashkars in FATA and NWFP. Pakistani lashkars are not supported by any foreign powers. The proof is that they have far inferior weapons than the Taliban and suffer from lack of finances

This is in response to Dr Mohammad Taqi’s rejoinder ‘Rallying the diaspora’ (Daily Times, January 17, 2010) to my piece ‘Pakhtun diaspora: irresponsible and insensitive’ (Daily Times, January 9, 2010). I welcome his response to my article, particularly his call to support Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy (AIRRA). Now I will address some of his comments with all due respect.

I never said that the war on terror is only the Pakhtuns’ war. I have repeatedly raised two points. One, the Pakhtun have been forced into the forefront of the war. The fellow non-Pakhtun Pakistanis must support them for their own (non-Pakhtuns’) self-interest. They (non-Pakhtun Pakistanis) will be next in the line of fire if the Taliban and al Qaeda defeat those on the frontline.

Two, the only thing that I have been specifically requesting the Pakhtuns is to stand up for what they are in terms of culture and history. I ask this because in the context of the war on terror, no other culture has been so much ‘orientalised’ than the Pakhtun. Take any research report or book. What one frequently finds is nothing but stereotypes, fabrications, lies, and all this presented as facts of the Pakhtun culture and history. For example, the Pakhtun gave refuge to al Qaeda terrorists under the code of Pakhtunwali; the tribal people in FATA hate to integrate in a modern state structure; Talibanisation is indigenous Pakhtun class war; Taliban are Pakhtun nationalists; the tribesmen (not Taliban) are attacking state institutions and innocent civilians all across Pakistan because they (the tribesmen) hate the US and so on. Whose responsibility is it to challenge all these hilarious fabrications? I am afraid the situation will continue to be so unless the Pakhtun themselves challenge all this.

Dr Mohammad Taqi writes that the Shias of Kurram are the ‘direct neighbours’ of the Pakhtun. I assume this is a typing mistake. Because I understand that the author would know that the Shias of Kurram are an integral part of the Pakhtun ethnicity, culture and history and not ‘direct neighbours’. Similarly, many Pakhtuns are Barelvi.

There are many people in Pakistan, including some prominent civil society activists, who object to the idea of making armed lashkars against the Taliban. Their basic argument is that because they (the lashkars in Afghanistan) turned into warlords, therefore the lashkars in FATA and NWFP will also produce warlords. This reasoning contradicts history, and is a judgmental opinion in violation of human rights. I say this on the basis of information I collected through in-depth interviews with the villagers and some of the lashkar leaders for my forthcoming book Taliban and Anti-Taliban.

The formation of anti-Taliban lashkars is an exercise in self-defence, hence a basic human right. What should the citizens do when their state is unable or unwilling to protect their lives and their leaders are too compromised to take a clear stance? Should they keep requesting the state to protect them and the leaders to give up compromises? In the meanwhile, should they leave themselves exposed to serious dangers or take whatever life-protecting measures may be possible? Much of the upper-middle class — detractors of the anti-Taliban lashkars — always go for the second option, particularly outside the NWFP and FATA. They hire private security guards to protect their families. What should the poor villagers, often living under the poverty line, in FATA and NWFP do? They neither have the means to hire private security guards nor the possibility of moving to the safety of foreign lands. They will naturally look into their tradition to deal with the situation, which in this case is building of lashkars. I attempted to explain in my column ‘Tormenting of the tribes’ (Daily Times, December 26, 2009) that tribal lashkars never became a security problem for the local Pakhtun or the wider society in Pakistan. The lashkar leaders whom I interviewed told me repeatedly this is not the life they wish for and that they were forced by the circumstances to raise anti-Taliban lashkars. They said they would be the happiest men the day the state provided security to their villages and thus lashkars will cease to exist. In this context, I understand that the people who keep their lives well protected through private security guards have no moral standing to question the formation of lashkars.

Moreover, world history shows that the working class people took up weapons in self-defence without producing warlords. If the working class militias in self-defence had led to warlordism, Europe and the US today would have been under the rule of warlords. As late as the 1930s, the workers at General Motors for instance defended themselves with grenades and guns when they occupied some plants in Flint. Italians, French, Norwegians, Dutch and all others occupied by Nazi Germany, built militias to resist fascism. German workers themselves organised militias to fight Nazi brutalities. Likewise, in Italy and Spain, two other countries that had passed into the hands of fascism, workers built militias in self-defence. Above all, lashkars are no novelty in FATA. For centuries, we have a tradition of lashkars, not warlords.

It is ridiculous to compare the foreign-assisted war militia in Afghanistan with the anti-Taliban lashkars in FATA and NWFP. Warlords in Afghanistan were not a product of lashkars but CIA-ISI manipulation to defeat the Soviets back in the 1980s. These warlords were encouraged to fund their jihad with drug peddling. The illiterate Pakhtun villagers never had the sophistication to develop the technology of heroin-making. They were given the technology to ‘self-finance’ warlordism through drug money. Pakistani lashkars are not supported by any foreign powers. The proof is that they have far inferior weapons than the Taliban and suffer from lack of finances. The mainstream media in Pakistan ignores them and they are clearly an anomaly in the state’s scheme of strategic depth in Afghanistan. On top of that, powerful individuals with access to public fora continue to tarnish their image with twisted arguments.

Even if there is a remote possibility that some lashkar leaders in FATA or NWFP would end up as warlords, given the fact that so many regional and global powers are eyeing the area, should we allow the Taliban to keep slaughtering the tribal people lest this remote possibility should come true? The detractors must come out with the alternatives in terms of security of the villagers. Giving up the idea of lashkars is not an option at all from the perspective of the villagers, who daily face the threats of kidnapping for ransom and killing by the Taliban.

In my view, it would be appropriate to make workable plans in consultation with the lashkars that would minimise the possibility of warlordism and maximise the capacity of the lashkars for protection of life. But for that to happen, some people will have to come out of the safety of foreign lands and private security guards and reach out to the lashkar villages. Is there anyone to do so among the protected ones? The lashkar people, at least those whom I interviewed, are willing to cooperate with any fellow Pakistani to facilitate their local anti-Taliban resistance within the contours of the law till the time the state effectively provides security. It was in this context that I requested the diaspora to help. It is not about just donating money. It is about making plans for a transparent use of the donations. Some may say this is too much to expect from the diaspora. If so, I would request them to refrain from tarnishing the reputation of the lashkars through judgemental opinions. If you cannot facilitate their harsh struggle, please do not make it even harsher through one-sided assumptions.

The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo, and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy. She can be reached at bergen34@yahoo.com