Pakistan Erased Provincial Histories: New Age Islam's Selection, 02 March 2016
New Age Islam Edit Bureau
02 March 2016
• Pakistan Erased Provincial Histories
By Dr Madiha Afzal
• Clouds over the Peace Process
By Imtiaz Gul
• Talking the Afghan Talks
By Zahid Hussain
• The Double Standard
By Anam Khan
Compiled By New Age Islam Edit Bureau
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Pakistan Erased Provincial Histories
By Dr Madiha Afzal
March 1, 2016
Six sentences. That’s all there is on the topic of “provincial cultures” in Class 10 Pakistan Studies textbooks in Punjab. Here is the paragraph in its entirety:
“All four provinces of Pakistan have their provincial cultures. There are differences in civilization to some extent, present in their customs and traditions and lifestyles. In spite of regional and lingual differences, with the passage of time, regional cultural similarities are thriving. Despite living in different regions people have the feeling of being close to each other and have a sense of being linked to each other. This gives birth to integration and cohesion. National identity is strengthened which is quite encouraging”.
Such a tidy little paragraph, the leap from difference to cohesion taken just like that, and shoved down your throat, no questions allowed.
There’s more on linguistic differences — six pages listing writers and describing the poetry of Punjabi, Sindhi, Pushto, Baluchi, Seraiki, Hindko, Kashmiri, and Brahvi. That is the penultimate topic in the book, beating only one topic in its (lack of) importance: the role of minorities in Pakistan.
That is as much material as there is on Pakistan’s provinces in the Pakistan Studies textbooks for the all-important Matric examination. What of the different ethnicities and histories of the four provinces? They are omitted. Because linguistic differences threaten Pakistan less, they are acknowledged more in the textbook. Ethnicity worries the state, because it does not want identity to be driven by it. So the state invokes and imposes religion, hoping that it will make the provinces forget their separateness; the Pakistani identity is equated entirely with Islam.
Pakistan has resisted provincial autonomy since its inception. That was not the plan. In the Lahore resolution of 1940, it was envisioned as a state where the “constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign”, in Jinnah’s words. Soon after independence though, feeling threatened by India, the Quaid called provincialism a “poison” to guard against. Pakistan was always insecure with its disparate ethnicities, and was made more so by the separation of East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh for ethnic and political reasons.
The country’s modus operandi has been Punjabi hegemony, ethnic alienation for the other provinces, and excessive centralisation. But the desired effect was never achieved. Balochistan has risen up in five insurgencies, the fifth one ongoing, never mentioned in its own country’s textbooks. In a focus group discussion at a university in Lahore, I spoke with a group of MA students in the History department about their understanding of history and their views on Pakistan today. These students were from Punjab, Balochistan, the tribal areas and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. What stood out most from a long conversation was the alienation of the Balochi and Pathan students from the state, and their unaddressed grievances — and it was not even a planned topic of discussion.
Ironically, the Pakistani state seems to have learnt nothing from the secession of Bangladesh. It has repeated its mistakes, expecting a different outcome: centralising more, suppressing more, ignoring grievances.
But acknowledging each ethnicity and province, and recognising its uniqueness and history could be exactly what Pakistan needs. As Elizabeth Cole points out in her chapter for a book titled Education for Global Citizenship: “teaching about past violence could contribute to recognition, an important component of civic inclusion and human dignity” — the idea being that acknowledging past wrongs and conflict is an important step towards making a minority feel included, and in turn a step towards reconciliation. Of course, this is difficult when an insurgency is ongoing, as in the case of Balochistan. But this may be precisely the time for Pakistan to start talking about the past of its provinces.
Take any state, and any one of its provinces. The state could have a view of history entirely opposed to that of the province for the same events, especially if the two are in conflict with each other. One way to resolve these differences is to acknowledge the two perspectives, to represent history through both lenses, and to have students discuss it — recognising that in a conflict, both sides may be in the right or in the wrong (or both).
What of ethnic heroes? When the Bacha Khan University attack happened on January 20 in Charsadda, it is likely that many Pakistani schoolchildren outside Khyber- Pakhtunkhwa were wondering who exactly Bacha Khan was. Their textbooks are to blame. In Pakistan’s narrow conception of history and in creating a national identity in opposition to India, the tragedy is that Pakistani schoolchildren do not even learn about one another.
Dr Madiha Afzal Is An Assistant Professor Of Public Policy At The University Of Maryland, And A Non-Resident Fellow At The Brookings Institution.
Source: Tribune.Com.Pk/Story/1057325/Erased-Provincial-Histories/
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Clouds over the Peace Process
By Imtiaz Gul
March 1, 2016
Sunny Kabul is abuzz with diplomatic activity. One the one hand, the National Unity Government (NUG) is striving hard to get the reconciliation process going with lots of behind-the-scenes contacts between various stakeholders. On the other, immediate neighbours such as Pakistan, India as well as other members of the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG), have intensified their efforts for getting Taliban leaders on board. The visit of the Chief of the Peoples’ Liberation Army, General Fang Fenghui also underscores the increasing Chinese interest in Afghanistan’s peace.
The NUG itself appears optimistic about the peace process, hoping that sooner than later, influential Taliban, amenable to renouncing violence, will step forward to join the talks in the larger interests of the embattled country.
But if the media reports of the last few days were any guide, the intra-Afghan peace talks are up against multiple internal and external challenges. There has been a surge in Taliban attacks — as many as 17 strikes across Pakistan that have killed about 80 people since early January, including members of Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) — alongside increasingly conflicting views on the peace process within the National Unity Government – reflected in the pro-Karzai and pro-Ghani camps.
The Karzai camp still looms large over the Afghan political scene; the former president is revered by the majority as the ‘Rahbar’ – supreme leader — and politically, he is looked up to as a national leader.
One difficulty comes from the ‘reformed’ Taliban leaders such as Mullah Zaeef, former ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Wakeel Muttawakil, former foreign minister, Mulla Habib Fauzi, Said, Akbar Agha, Abdul Salam Raketi. Zaeef, who abhors Pakistan for the treatment meted out to him after the demise of Taliban regime, for instance, sits in Kabul, interacts with media but has no kind words about the QCG efforts. His recipe for the reconciliation process is direct contacts between Kabul and the Taliban’s Dohar office. He distrusts China, Pakistan and the US for their ‘vested interests’.
An irony of this is that while these Taliban leaders shunned the path of violence, most of them remain in politically marginalised and distrusted.
Another big political obstacle is Pakistan’s image in Afghanistan; most people in Afghanistan still view Pakistan with extreme scepticism for its ‘leverage’ with the ‘Quetta and Peshawar’ Shura. They believe Pakistan wields enough clout to deliver, and even neutralise the Taliban insurgency.
Pakistan’s image in the public is another potential hurdle. Dislike of Pakistan runs so deep that the majority of Afghans refrain from mentioning its name, even for the physical infrastructure such as hospitals or educational institutions in Kabul, Jalalabad or Mazar. A number of initiatives have been completed with Pakistani funding but Afghan politicians and commentators choose not to mention this at all.
Pakistan seems to be caught up in a Shakespearian dilemma of ‘to do or not to do’. It is damned if it helps in persuading the Taliban to join the talks, and it is damned if it doesn’t.
The Murree talks simply exposed Pakistan’s contacts with the Taliban, but the Afghan media and politicians only used it to further malign Islamabad for this very fact. This should have helped in improving the narrative on Pakistan but it worked to the contrary – with the systematic exclusion of its viewpoint from public discourse. Often, comments supportive or sympathetic to Pakistan are treated as seditious.
Some observers therefore wonder if a key member of the QCG maligned and ostracised publicly, can really be helpful in the peace process. Quite obvious that if the NUG and other important stakeholders mean well, the Afghan narrative on Pakistan can change.
Last but not least, observers point out that the disunity within the NUG represents another big challenge. An editorial of in the Afghanistan Times on February 29, offered valuable insight.
“The important question which begs an answer is: how can the leaders negotiate and reconcile with the Taliban when they cannot overcome internal differences? Talking to the militant groups and convincing them to renounce violence is far too difficult a task than settling internal disputes”, opined the paper.
The paper listed rampant corruption, growing insecurity, capital flight, water and energy crises, food insecurity differences among NUG leaders, and desertions in police (36,000 in 2015), as some of the pressing problems the country is facing. All this offers little for the hyped-up peace process.
Imtiaz Gul heads the independent Centre for Research and Security Studies, Islamabad and is author of Pakistan: Pivot of Hizbut Tahrir’s Global Caliphate
Source: tribune.com.pk/story/1057320/clouds-over-the-peace-process/
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Talking the Afghan talks
By Zahid Hussain
March 2nd, 2016
CONFUSION and uncertainty surround the resumption of direct talks between the Kabul government and the insurgents. The warring Afghan sides were supposed to return to the negotiating table next week after a hiatus of more than eight months. But it is still not certain whether the Afghan Taliban are willing to join the intra-Afghan dialogue. The invite has also been extended to other Afghan insurgent groups, widening the size of the table. It is not clear, however, who else would be joining the reconciliation process.
It is apparent that the Taliban are not willing to join the talks without some preconditions. They want some preliminary steps to be taken prior to the talks that include recognition as an Islamic emirate, removal of their officials from the black list, lifting of travel restrictions, release of prisoners and unfreezing of their funds.
It is certainly a tall order for both the Kabul government and the US to accept these without a decrease in insurgent hostilities. What incentives can be offered to the insurgents buoyed by their recent successes in the battlefield to bring them to the table, however, remains the question.
It is apparent that the Taliban are not willing to join the talks without some preconditions being met.
Surely the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) made up of top officials from Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States and China, have been able to draw up some kind of a road map for peace negotiations. But that does not seem enough to get the process started. There is still a lot of ground to cover before one can expect the warring sides to engage in more serious and substantive negotiations on the future of the strife-torn country
There is deep scepticism in Kabul as well as among the Taliban leadership about the framework of the talks for entirely different reasons. Dr Naeem Wardag, the Taliban spokesperson in Qatar, says that the group is not aware of the QCG’s discussions.
Unlike the previous Murree meeting, where representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban were engaged in direct talks in the presence of observers from the US and China, this time the invitation has been extended to various factions of the Taliban and Hezb-i-Islami led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The fractious group that does not seem to have much influence in Afghanistan anymore has responded positively to the invite. What it brings to the table is another matter.
Initially, the Kabul government had not been very enthusiastic about the QCG, but it reluctantly accepted the forum to facilitate a reconciliation process. Many in the Kabul government wanted the group to be expanded by including some other neighbouring and regional countries. But that would have added to the complexities of the Afghan crisis.
China’s growing involvement in Afghan peace efforts has certainly been a very positive influence. One major contribution of the QCG is that it has helped in the improvement of bilateral relations between Islamabad and Kabul that had nosedived last year after the second round of the Murree talks were cancelled following the news of the death of Mullah Omar. Surely relations between the two countries are critical for the peace initiative to work. Still, there are sources of tension and distrust that continue to cast a long shadow over the process.
One sticking point in the intra-Afghan talks is the insistence of the Taliban to use the banner of ‘Islamic Emirate’ that is unacceptable to the Kabul government. The issue has also led to American officials calling off the Doha talks with the Taliban after a strong protest by the then Afghan president Hamid Karzai.
Most observers, however, believe the issue could be sidelined if an agreement is reached on some incentives for the insurgent group. For sure, the Afghan militia has already been legitimised after being invited for talks. There is already a suggestion to declare the militia a “domestic opposition” rather than an insurgent outfit. Such a classification is certainly not acceptable to the Kabul government, at least not for now.
Perhaps, the most serious issue clouding the proposed talks is the escalation in the Taliban offensive and the marked increase in insurgent violence taking a very heavy toll on Afghan security forces and the civilian population. Last year was the bloodiest since the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan. The Taliban have also been able to extend their offensive to the northern Afghan provinces where the militia did not have much of a support base in the past. The violence is likely to escalate further.
A major demand of the Kabul government is the cessation of insurgent violence in order to create a favourable environment. That may also bring Pakistan under pressure to act more effectively to stop the Taliban attacks. Islamabad had failed to dissuade the Taliban in the past and it is highly unlikely that it could succeed this time when the militia appears much more powerful.
For sure, Mullah Akhtar Mansour has consolidated his leadership, with most of the dissidents now falling in line and pledging allegiance to the new supreme leader. Yet there is still a strong rebel faction led by Mullah Rasool, The QCG has also invited him to the meeting, adding to the confusion. How wise is the move remains to be seen. Although it is not clear whether the rebel faction would accept the invite, it will certainly add to the confusion.
Even if the Taliban accepted the invitation there is a big question mark on who will represent the group at the meeting. According to some reports, the Kabul government has given a list of the insurgent leaders who it wants to participate in the meeting. Pakistan and Afghanistan have also decided to constitute a bilateral joint working group to work with credible members of the clergy in Afghanistan and Pakistan for their support to the peace and reconciliation process.
As in the Murree talks, Pakistan may do some arm-twisting to force the Taliban to come to negotiating table. It surely can work as most of the Taliban leaders and their families reside in Pakistan. But it cannot guarantee a positive outcome.
Zahid Hussain is an author and journalist.
Source: dawn.com/news/1242964/talking-the-afghan-talks
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The Double Standard
By Anam Khan
March 1, 2016
Punjab Governor Rafique Rajwana recently approved the 2015 Protection of Women Against Violence Bill. The law criminalises all offences against women, including domestic violence, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, economic abuse, verbal abuse, stalking, abetment of an offence and cyber crimes. A toll free number will also be introduced to receive complaints, in addition to the creation of shelter homes that will provide boarding and lodging facilities to aggrieved women seeking protection.
The new bill is designed to remove bureaucratic hurdles that normally make it impossible for women to file complaints and access any form of justice. One only hopes that the classification of violence against women as a criminal act will make perpetrators fearful of a legal system that will no longer lean in their favour and allow them to go scot-free.
I’m eager to perceive the bill as a guaranteed sign of progress, but one question still troubles me. Does the bill necessarily eradicate the myopic thought process that singles out women for being at fault for harrowing assaults inflicted on them? Our society’s tendency to immediately blame a woman’s attire or character for triggering a man’s indecent behaviour only propagates Pakistan’s widespread rape culture, along with the double standards that give rise to more abusive behaviour.
In October 2015, the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) announced that women are not required to cover their faces, hands or feet under Islamic Sharia law. Even though this judgment is considered encouraging, the CII also advised women to “follow ethics and have a careful attitude in society”. They went on to say that, “At the same time, it’s necessary to cover the face and adopt complete covering attire if there are threats of mischief”. The whole “boys will be boys” excuse is an old cliche that continues to prevail. It shouldn’t only be a woman’s job to be patient and calm. The onus shouldn’t only fall on a woman to dress ‘modestly’ and protect her self from a man’s intrusive gaze. Why is it utterly simple for men to receive the benefit of the doubt?
These poor, helpless men are apparently in danger of succumbing to temptation, which is why women must bring it upon themselves to spare them the trouble. Why can’t men ever be expected to exhibit any self-control? Why can’t they just find it in themselves to be a little more respectful and look away instead of trying to undress a woman with their eyes? It’s true that women should make an effort not to attract unnecessary attention, but how far will they have to go to protect themselves? It’s unbelievable how a woman’s choice of clothing is also called into question after she’s been assaulted or harassed.
Even though the new bill is a step in the right direction, it should also address the specific mindset that induces violent behaviour against women. Men should be expected to show some restraint instead of constantly rationalising their inappropriate conduct.
If there are any amendments made to the current bill, here is what they should include: “No matter what a woman is wearing, and no matter how much skin she’s revealing, that doesn’t justify a man’s indecent behaviour. Those actions on his part are not only illegal, but also immoral, disgusting and inexcusable.”
Source: tribune.com.pk/story/1057273/the-double-standard/
URL: https://newageislam.com/pakistan-press/pakistan-erased-provincial-histories-new/d/106518