criterion vol 3 no 2
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Quarterly Magazine, based on Political analysis.TRANSCRIPT
Criterion
April/June 2008
Volume 3, Number 2
EditorialNew Government, Old Problems S. Mushfi q Murshed 3
Governance Reforms in Pakistan Ishrat Husain 8
A Liberal Islam in South Asia A.G. Noorani 25
Muslim Radicalism, Western Concerns. Tanvir Ahmad Khan 47
The Bomber and the Burqa Farhana Ali 65
The Law of Aerial Bombardment and Civil Casualties: Kosovo and Afghanistan Prof. Hayatullah Khan 86
Security Alliances and Security Concerns: Pakistan and NATO Shahwar Junaid 121
Zulfi kar Ali Bhutto’s Legacy and the Rebuilding of Pakistan Iqbal Ahmad Khan 138
EssaysOf Tongues and Languages: The Tao of Translation Toheed Ahmad 163
Dimension and Consequences of NATOExpansion to Eurasia:Reviewing Iran’s Security Environment Arif Kemal 187
Publisher
S. Iftikhar Murshed
Editor-in-Chief
S. Mushfi q Murshed
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Tanvir Ahmad Khan
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Editorial
NEW GOVERNMENT, OLD PROBLEMS
Despite the imperfections of the 18 February election, the outcome
was consequential. Analysts have waxed eloquent about the rout of the
so-called king’s party and the religious right as well as the ascendancy
of moderates.
Yet indecision typified the victors of the election who, for several
weeks, procrastinated on government formation. While politicians
dithered about power sharing, chaos ensued. Extremists unleashed a
chain of suicide bombings in the main cities of Pakistan.
Negotiations for establishing a national consensus government at
the centre culminated in the Murree Declaration between the PPP and
the PML (N). The six-point document contained the following critical
element:
“This has been decided in today’s summit between the PPP and
PML(N) that the deposed judges would be restored on the position as
they were on November 2, 2007, within 30 days of the formation of the
Federal Government through a parliamentary resolution.”
Self-adulation and premature optimism ensued obscuring a
fundamental flaw in the arrangement which led to the formation of the
coalition government. Joint statements and overly optimistic banter
camouflaged a core difference between the two parties.
PPP co-chairman Zardari, like president Musharraf, is apprehensive
about the restoration of the pre-3 November 2007 judiciary. For the
former, the possibility of a reversal of the National Reconciliation
Ordinance weighs heavily while the latter fears the invalidation of the 5
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CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
October presidential election.
Nawaz Sharif, despite the attack on the Supreme Court by PML
loyalists during his second prime ministerial term, has extended full-
fledged support to the lawyer’s movement on the restoration of the judges.
Any other course would have been unacceptable to civil society and
resulted in adverse political consequences. Should the two mainstream
parties fall apart, a new PPP-led coalition can be put together at the
centre while the Punjab would be governed by the PML (N). This would
be reminiscent of the friction between the centre and Punjab in the late
1980’s when the two parties were bitter adversaries.
After intra-party negotiations and inter-party conspiracies, Syed
Yousaf Raza Gillani secured a unanimous and unprecedented vote of
confidence from the National Assembly and was finally sworn in as
prime minister on 25 March 2008.
Gillani’s first act as prime minister was to free the judges under
house arrest. This resounded positively countrywide and rekindled
the hope that the Murree Declaration would be implemented in letter
and spirit. The lawyers’ fraternity accordingly decided to hold their
agitation in abeyance in order to enable the government to work out the
modalities for the restoration of the judges.
In his maiden speech the prime minister also declared: “The war
on terror has become our war, because it has posed serious threats to
our own country.” The measures enunciated by Gillani to deal with
the problem of extremist violence include a comprehensive economic
and social package for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the
prospective scrapping of the Frontier Crimes Regulation, and Madrassa
reforms.
The prime minister extended the olive branch to militants. While
addressing the parliament on 29 March 2008 he said, “We are ready
to talk to all those people who are ready to give up arms and embrace
peace.” The Tehreek-e-Taliban, in response to this offer, laid down its
own preconditions which include the imposition of Shariah and Jirga
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Editorial
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system and severance of all ties with the US. The Taliban leaders
reiterated that their jihad against the Americans in Afghanistan would
continue and that they would oppose Pakistan if it worked for “American
interests as its ally.”
This show of confidence and arrogance on the part of the Taliban
is indicative of the dominance they have over the tribal areas and their
utter disregard for the writ of the state.
A similar situation prevails in Swat. The militants that were routed
by the army a few months ago have regrouped and returned under the
leadership of Maullanah Fazlullah. The NWFP government has been
negotiating with them and the prospect of implementing the Shariah is
on the cards.
Negotiations under these conditions and dictates should not even be
considered by the government. These miscreants and their oppressive
and obscurantist interpretation of Islam cannot be given such leeway.
Any compromise by the state will further embolden their movement.
Cowardly suicide bomb attacks on women, children and girls schools
will become a norm in all cities of Pakistan. The Lal Masjid episode,
the weak-kneed reaction of the state and the chaos that followed in the
federal capital is an example of what can be expected.
The problem is complex and multi-layered. The solution lies in a
mix of military, political, economic and ideological initiatives.
Gen Kayani has affirmed the constitutional obligations of the
armed forces and this means the military has to be depoliticised and
work in tandem with the elected government. Only then can an effective
civilian-military partnership so essential for the fight against terror be
established. The ban on army officers from associating with politicians
and their recall from civilian posts are welcome first steps.
Politically, the old administrative system of assistant commissioners,
deputy commissioners and commissioners has to be revived. In FATA,
the responsibility of dealing with the tribesmen, who should be associated
6
Editorial
CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
with implementing state policy, must revert to the political agent.
The Political Parties Act of 1962 has to be implemented in the tribal
areas. The lack of secular political parties has provided religious outfits
an unopposed playing field through the management of mosques and
madrassas.
Madrassas have been referred to as “factories of terror” as they have
been used to train and indoctrinate militants in Pakistan. One of the
prime reasons for the success of the seminaries has been their ability
and willingness to offer basic amenities, such as board, lodging and
education, which the state has failed to provide to families living below
the poverty line.
The government has to reclaim the public services provided by
religious seminaries. Massive projects on a national level pertaining to
low income housing, educational and vocational training, health care
and employment opportunities have to be implemented. A recent study
has shown that amongst the approximate 1.8 million students enrolled
in madrassas, economic and social reasons account for 89.58 percent
of madrassa enrolment and the remaining 10.42 percent for religious,
educational and political considerations. Once these basic necessities
are met only then can the ideological battle against extremist violence
yield results.
Recently Sheykh Waheeduddin Khan, a prominent Indian scholar
stated that Dajjal, a concept that some theologians equate with the
Islamic antichrist, is not a person, but is a manifestation of violence
and terrorism. Shortly afterwards, no less than 20,000 Deobandi clerics
collectively declared terrorism as un-Islamic.
The Taliban in Pakistan are also mostly Deobandis although the
links with the Dar-ul-Uloom of India were severed after partition in
1947 and replaced by Wahabi influence and money. The question that
arises here is whether genuine madrassa reform can eventually erode the
extremist ideology taught in the seminaries of Pakistan.
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Editorial
CRITERION – April/June 2008
This four-pronged political, military, economic and ideological
approach to effectively combat terrorism can only yield results through
a collective effort involving the elected government, a reformed military
and above all civil society.
The new government faces formidable challenges. It has inherited
a constitutional crisis, terrorism, power outages, inflation and food
shortages. However, the problems are not insurmountable and can be
overcome through pragmatic measures reinforced by good governance.
S. Mushfi q Murshed
Editor-in-Chief
GOVERNANCE REFORMS IN
PAKISTAN
Ishrat Husain *
Abstract(Broad-based economic growth and social development are
inextricably linked to good governance. Through the years, various
commissions and committees have been established in Pakistan to
reform the administrative system. These have failed. The reluctance to
grant adequate provincial autonomy and over-centralization impeded
both good governance and development at the local level. The striking
down of the statutory job security guarantees, the erosion of real incomes
and political patronage have cumulatively impacted adversely on the
quality and effi ciency of the civil services. The National Commission for
Government Reforms, established in April 2006, has been working on an
agenda designed to restructure government and revitalize institutions.
The provision of education, health care, water sanitation and security
have been identifi ed as the core functions of the state. It remains to
be seen whether workable proposals are eventually formulated and
faithfully implemented for the benefi t of ordinary citizens. Editor).
Governance, Institutions and Development
The link between good governance and economic and social
development has been well established in the last few decades. Although
it is hard to have a precise defi nition of governance there is a wide
consensus that good governance must lead to broad-based inclusive
economic growth and social development. It must enable the state, the
civil society and the private sector to enhance the wellbeing of a large
* Ishrat Husain is a former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan , former chairman
National Commission on Government Reforms and presently Director Institute of Business
Administration.
9
Governance Reforms in Pakistan
CRITERION – April/June 2008
segment of the population. If this defi nition is accepted then economic
growth in Pakistan is likely to become unsustainable if a widespread
perception persists that the majority of the population has not been
gaining from recent growth. This perception, whether right or wrong,
erodes political support for continuation of present economic policies
and reforms.
Why does this perception persist? The main reason is that the overall
governance structure through which economic policies are intermediated
and translated into economic and social benefi ts for the vast majority
has become corroded and dysfunctional. The governance structure of
any country consists of judiciary, executive and legislature. If access
to the institutions of governance for common citizens is diffi cult, time
consuming and costly, the benefi ts from growth get distributed unevenly
as only those who enjoy preferential access to these institutions are the
gainers. How far is this true can be gauged by reference to the current
state of governance prevailing in the region but particularly applicable in
Pakistan? The 1999 and 2005 reports on Human Development in South
Asia aptly summarize the situation in the following two extracts:
“South Asia presents a fascinating combination of many
contradictions. It has governments that are high on governing and low
on serving; it has parliaments that are elected by the poor but aid the
rich; and society that asserts the rights of some but perpetuates exclusion
for others. Despite a marked improvement in the lives of a few, there
are many in South Asia who have been forgotten by formal institutions
of governance. These are the poor, the downtrodden and the most
vulnerable of the society, suffering from acute deprivation on account
of their income, caste, creed, gender or religion. Their fortunes have not
moved with those of the privileged few and this in itself is a deprivation
of a depressing nature.”
(Human Development South Asia Report, 1999)
“Governance constitutes for {ordinary people} a daily struggle for
survival and dignity. Ordinary people are too often humiliated at the
hands of public institutions. For them, lack of good governance means
police brutality, corruption in accessing basic public services, ghost
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Ishrat Husain
CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
schools, teacher-absenteeism, missing medicines, high cost of and low
access to justice, criminalization of politics and lack of social justice.
These are just few manifestations of the crisis of governance.”
(Human Development in South Asia Report, 2005)
In the face of this overwhelming evidence of failure of institutions
of governance empirical work across countries suggests that economic
performance is greatly determined by the quality of institutions.
Differences in the quality of institutions help explain the gap in economic
performance between rich and poor nations. In addition to the fi ndings
linking institutions with aggregate growth, there is some association
between the distribution of income and institutional quality with very
unequal distribution of income being associated with a lower quality of
institutional development.
How have institutional reforms been successfully carried out
elsewhere? One of the key factors is that civil servants of high
professional calibre and integrity are attracted, retained and motivated
and allowed the authority and powers to act in the larger interests of
the public at large. This can be accomplished by introducing a merit-
based recruitment system, continuous training and skill up-gradation,
equality of opportunity in career progression, adequate compensation,
proper performance evaluation, fi nancial accountability and rule-based
compliance.
Another important factor is responsiveness to public demands.
The World Bank (1997) in its report asserts that governments are
more effective when they listen to businesses and citizens and work
in partnership with them in deciding and implementing policy. Where
governments lack mechanisms to listen, they are not responsive to
people’s interests. Decentralization can bring in representation of local
business and citizens’ interests.
Is there any evidence about a particular form of government that has
been relatively successful in implementing these reforms? In Pakistan as
elsewhere it has been demonstrated that the nature of the government -
military, democratically elected, nominated, selected – has not mattered
11
Governance Reforms in Pakistan
CRITERION – April/June 2008
much. There is no systematic correlation found between the reforms of
the underlying institutions and a particular form of government. The
challenge of reforming these institutions is formidable as the vested
interests wishing to perpetuate the status quo are politically powerful
and the coalition and alliances between the political leadership and
the benefi ciaries of the existing system are so strong that they cannot
be easily ruptured. The elected governments with an eye on the short
term electoral cycles are not in a position to incur the pains from these
reforms upfront while the gains accrue later on to a different political
party. The authoritarian governments are not effective as they do not
enjoy legitimacy for sustaining reforms. Changing institutions is a slow
and diffi cult process requiring, in addition to signifi cant political will,
fundamental but tough measures to reduce the opportunity and incentives
for powerful groups to capture economic rents.
The imperatives of globalization in the 21st century have given a
further impetus to governance reforms. The pathway for countries as
to how they can successfully compete with other countries and surge
ahead is clearly laid out. The successful countries can bring about
an improvement in the wellbeing of their population through markets,
trade, investment and exchange. But the state has to play an equally
important role in nurturing and creating markets that foster competition
and provide information about opportunities to all participants, acting
against collusion and monopolistic practices, building capabilities and
skills of people to engage in productive activities, setting the rules of
the game in a transparent manner and adjudicating and resolving the
disputes in a fair and equitable manner. To perform these functions the
capacity, competencies and responsiveness of the institutions of state
have to be upgraded along with the rules, enforcement mechanisms,
organizational structures and incentives.
According to Acemoglu and Johnson, (2003) good institutions
ensure two desirable outcomes - that there is a relatively equal access to
economic opportunity (a level playing fi eld) and that those who provide
labour or capital are appropriately rewarded and their property rights are
protected.
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CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
The above analysis and the future needs indicate clearly that
institutions play a critical role in economic performance and distributional
consequences. The question that arises is how these institutions can
be made effective and functional in the context of Pakistan so that the
majority of the population are accorded the opportunity to engage in
fruitful market activity and improve their wellbeing through their own
efforts and through the interventions of the state? Before the agenda
for reforms in Pakistan is spelled out, it is essential that the historical
evolution of governance is examined in order to understand the context
in which this agenda is to be implemented.
History of Governance in Pakistan
At the time of its independence, Pakistan inherited a well-functioning
structure of judiciary, civil service and military but a relatively weak
legislative oversight. Over time, the domination of the civil service
and the military in affairs of the state disrupted the evolution of the
democratic political process and further weakened the legislative organ
of the state. The judicial arm, with few exceptions, trudged along
vindicating the dominant role of the military and the civil service.
The institutions inherited from the British colonial era, suited and
were relevant to the requirements of the rulers of those times. After
independence, those requirements expanded in scope and content
while the level of expectations from the public and their elected
representatives was heightened. But these inherited institutions failed to
adapt themselves to meet the new challenges of development and social
changes and respond to the heightened expectations and aspirations of a
free people. The “business as usual” mode of functioning, the approach
and attitudes of the incumbents holding top and middle-level positions
in the bureaucracy and manning these institutions did not endear them to
either the political leaders or to the general public. Several commissions
and committees were constituted in the fi rst twenty fi ve years after
independence for reform of the administrative structure and civil
services. Some changes were introduced during Ayub Khan’s regime in
the 1960s to improve the effi ciency of the secretariats but the proclivity
towards centralized controls and personalized decision making became
13
Governance Reforms in Pakistan
CRITERION – April/June 2008
more pronounced in this period. The reluctance to grant provincial
autonomy to East Pakistan – the most populous province of the country
- so remote physically from the hub of decision making i.e., Islamabad
led to a serious political backlash and eventual dismemberment of the
country into two independent nations.
Pakistan continued to suffer from what has been termed as “confused
federalism” in which weak local and provincial bodies are unable to
match the ability of the central government to mobilize resources and
provide services. Whether it is health or education or highways or
agriculture, the federal government has much larger programmes under
implementation than the provincial or local governments. Although the
money is spent in the provinces or districts, the inability to identify,
design, approve and implement these projects caused resentment among
the provincial governments.
In 1973, a populist government headed by the charismatic Zulfi kar
Ali Bhutto took the fi rst step to weaken the pervasive hold of the civil
services by eliminating the constitutional guarantee of job security. He
also demolished the exclusive and privileged role of the Civil Service
of Pakistan (CSP) within the overall structure of the administrative
system.
The next twenty fi ve years witnessed a signifi cant decline in the
quality of new recruits to the civil services as the implicit trade-off between
job security and low compensation ceased to operate. Furthermore, the
expanding private sector including multinational corporations offered
far more attractive career opportunities. The erosion of real wages in
the public sector over time also resulted in low morale, de-motivation as
well as ineffi ciency and, in the process, corruption became widespread
in all echelons of the civil services. The abuse of discretionary powers,
the bureaucratic obstruction and the delaying tactics adopted by the
government functionaries are all part of the manoeuvring to extract
illegal benefi ts for supplementing their emoluments. In real terms the
compensation paid to higher civil servants is only one half of the 1994
package. The low wages mean that the civil service no longer attracts
the most talented young men and women. Some of the incumbents of the
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CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
civil services, in their instinct of self-preservation, became vulnerable
to the machinations of the political regimes in power and many of them
got identifi ed with one political party or the other. They also benefi ted
from the culture of patronage practised by the politicians. During the
1990s the replacement of one political party by the other in the corridors
of power was followed by changes in the top bureaucracy. This growing
tendency of informal political affi liation for tenaciously holding on to
key jobs was also responsible for the end of an impartial, neutral and
competent civil service responsive to the needs of the common man.
Loyalty to the ministers, the chief ministers and the prime ministers
took priority over the accountability to the general public. The frequent
takeovers by the military regimes and the consequential screening of
hundreds of civil servants led to subservience of the civil service to the
military rulers, erosion of the authority of the traditional institutions of
governance and loss of initiative by the higher bureaucracy.
The 2001 devolution plan dealt another major blow to the Civil
Service of Pakistan as the posts of commissioners, deputy commissioners
(DC) and assistant commissioners (AC) were abolished and the reins of
district administration were transferred to the elected nazims. To ordinary
citizens, the government was most tangibly embodied in these civil
servants. It was the DC and AC that they approached on a daily basis. The
substitution of the civil servant by an elected head of the administration
is quite a new phenomenon and will take some time to sink in. While this
transition takes place, the checks and balances implicit in the previous
administrative setup have become redundant. The police as a coercive
force has, as a consequence, assumed greater clout. The opportunities of
collusion between the nazim and the police have multiplied and in many
instances alienated the common citizens and diluted the impartiality
of the administration at the grass roots levels. The sanctity of private
property rights has been threatened in several cases when the nazims
have given orders to make unauthorized changes in the land records in
the rural areas in collusion with the government functionaries to benefi t
themselves and their cronies. The district administration is yet to grow
as an autonomous institution in the face of a hostile environment of
centralizing administration, and inequitable resource distribution.
15
Governance Reforms in Pakistan
CRITERION – April/June 2008
Reform Agenda for Pakistan
The governance reform agenda for the future should therefore be
designed to aim at restructuring government and revitalizing institutions
to deliver the core functions of the state i.e., provision of basic services
– education, health, water sanitation and security – to common citizens
in an effective and effi cient manner and to promote inclusive markets
through which all citizens have equal opportunities to participate in the
economy. The restructuring should lower transaction costs and provide
access without frictions by curtailing arbitrary exercise of discretionary
powers, reducing over-taxation, minimizing corruption, cronyism and
collusion and ensuring public order and security of life and property.
To achieve sustained economic growth, a competitive private
sector has to be nurtured and relied upon. Therefore a major area of
reforms in Pakistan is to create space for the growth of new entrants
in the private sector by removing the constraints created by the state
in their entry and smooth operations. Despite the pursuit of policies of
liberalization, deregulation, de-licensing and disinvestment during the
last fi fteen years, the overbearing burden of government interventions
in the business life cycle looms large. The diffi culties faced by new
businesses in acquiring, titling, pricing, transferring and possessing of
land, in obtaining no objection certifi cates from various agencies, in
getting water and gas connections, sewerage facilities, reliable electricity
supply, access roads, in securing fi nances for green fi eld projects or new
enterprises using emerging technologies are still horrendous and nerve
wrecking. The powers of petty inspectors from various departments/
agencies are so vast that they can either make or break a business. The
growing trend towards “informalization” of the economy particularly
by small and medium enterprises is a testimony to the still dominant
nature of the government. Over 96 percent of the establishments reported
in the economic census of 2005 fall in this category. The attitude of
middle and lower functionaries of the government in the provinces
and districts towards private business remains ambivalent. Either the
functionaries harass the business to extract pecuniary and non-pecuniary
benefi ts for themselves or they are simply distrustful, hostile or hesitant
towards private entrepreneurs. The multiple agencies involved, too
16
Ishrat Husain
CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
many clearances needed and avoidable delays at every level raise the
transaction costs for new entrants. Unless the ease of entry and exit is
facilitated the competitive forces will remain at bay and the collusive
and monopolistic practices of the large businesses will continue to hurt
the consumers and common citizens.
The second area is the absence of accountability for results. There
is both too much and too little accountability of those involved in
public affairs in Pakistan. On the one hand, the plethora of laws and
institutions such as anti-corruption bureaus, National Accountability
Bureau, Auditor General’s reports, Public Accounts Committees of
the legislature, parliamentary oversight, judicial activism and the
ombudsman system have created an atmosphere of fear, inertia and
lack of decision making among the civil servants. On the other hand,
instances of rampant corruption, malpractices, nepotism and favouritism
and waste and ineffi ciency have become common occurrences in the
administrative culture of the country. Too much emphasis on the
ritualistic compliance with procedures, rules and form has taken the
place of substantive concerns with the results and outcomes for welfare
and justice.
Introducing transparency through simplifi cation of rules and
regulations, codifi cation and updating and wide dissemination through
e-governance tools such as a dynamic websites, information kiosks, on-
line access to the government functionaries can help in enforcing internal
accountability standards while, at the same time, making it convenient
for the citizens to carry out hassle-free transactions. Strong pressure
from organized civil society advocacy groups on specifi c sectors or
activities from the media, the political parties, private sector and think
tanks can also compel the government departments and ministries to
become more accountable for the results.
The third area of reforms has to do with the size, structure, scope
of the federal, provincial and local governments; the skills, incentives
and competencies of the civil servants. The entire value chain of human
resource policy from recruitment to compensation needs to the reviewed
and redesigned. Similarly the division of functions and responsibilities
17
Governance Reforms in Pakistan
CRITERION – April/June 2008
between the different tiers of the government has to be clarifi ed and
delineated. The elongated hierarchy within the ministry/division has
to be trimmed down and the relationship between the ministry and the
executive departments, autonomous bodies has to be redefi ned.
The governance agenda outlined above should not be considered
as a technocratic exercise as it is essentially a political exercise that
takes into account the existing power relationships in which the polity
is rooted. The balancing of diverse interests of the various stakeholders
involves many politically tough choices which cannot be made by the
technocrats. The sustainability of reforms requires broad consultation,
consensus building and communication to articulate the long term vision.
People should see beyond the immediate horizon and buy into the future
changes. Concerns, criticism and scepticism should be addressed. The
scope, phasing, timing, implementation strategies, mitigation measures
for the losers from the reforms should be widely discussed and debated.
If things do not proceed the way they were conceptualized, corrective
actions should be taken in the light of the feedback received. Citizens’
charters, citizens’ surveys and report cards, citizens’ panels and focus
groups should be used as instruments for receiving regular feedback
about the impact of reforms on society and its different segments.
Care should also be taken to ensure that the governance reforms are
not perceived to be driven by external donors. The resistance against
these reforms by internal constituencies is invariably quite fi erce to
begin with but any semblance that they are being carried out under
external pressure will lead to their premature demise. The argument that
externally motivated reforms ignore the domestic context and constraints
and are, therefore, unsuitable gets currency and stiffens the resistance.
However, there is no harm in looking at the successful experiences of
other countries, gain insights or learn lessons from these experiences
and apply them in the specifi c circumstances of Pakistan with suitable
modifi cations.
Guiding Principles for Reforms
The government established the National Commission for
Government Reforms (NCGR) in April 2006 and mandated it to prepare
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proposals for governance reforms in Pakistan. The Commission decided
that the following broad principles will underpin reforms in each area
of responsibility:
Civil Services
Open, transparent merit–based recruitment to all levels and i)
grades of public services with regional representation as laid
down in the constitution.
Performance–based promotions and career progression for ii)
all public sector employees with compulsory training at post
induction, mid-career and senior management levels.
Equality of opportunities for career advancement to all iii)
employees without preferences or reservations for any
particular class.
Replacement of the concept of Superior Services by equality iv)
among all cadres and non-cadres of public servants.
Grant of a living wage and compensation package including v)
decent retirement benefi ts to all civil servants.
Strict observance of security of tenure of offi ce for a specifi ed vi)
period of time.
Separate cadre of regular civil services at the federal, provincial vii)
and district levels co-existing with contractual appointments.
Creation of an All Pakistan National Executive Service (NES) viii)
for senior management positions drawn through a competitive
process from the federal, provincial and district level civil
servants and outside professionals.
Introduction of three specialized cadres under the NES for ix)
economic management, social sector management and general
management.
Structure of Federal, Provincial and District Governments.
Devolution of powers, responsibilities and resources from the a)
federal to the provincial governments.
Establishing inter-governmental structures with adequate b)
authority and powers to formulate and monitor policy
formulation.
Clear separation of policy making, regulatory and operational c)
19
Governance Reforms in Pakistan
CRITERION – April/June 2008
responsibilities of the ministries/provincial departments.
Making each ministry/provincial department fully empowered, d)
adequately resourced to take decisions and accountable for
results.
Streamline, rationalize and transform the attached departments/e)
autonomous bodies/subordinate offi ces/fi eld offi ces etc.,
into fully functional arms of the ministries for performing
operational and executive functions.
Reduce the number of layers in the hierarchy of each ministry/f)
provincial department.
Cabinet secretary to perform the main coordinating role among g)
the federal secretaries on the lines of the chief secretary in the
provinces.
Revival and strengthening of the secretaries committee at the h)
federal/provincial governments to become the main vehicle for
inter-ministerial coordination and dispute resolution among
various ministries.
District level offi cers interacting with the general public in i)
day-to-day affairs should enjoy adequate powers, authority,
status and privileges to be able to resolve the problems and
redress the grievances of the citizens.
Police, revenue, education, water supply, and health are the j)
departments which are highly relevant for the day-to-day
lives of the ordinary citizen of this country. The internal
governance structures of these departments, public grievance
redress systems against these departments and checks and
balances on the discretionary powers of the offi cials have to
be introduced.
Business process re-engineering
All laws, rules, regulations, circulars, guidelines issued by any i)
government ministry/department/agency should be available
in its most up-dated version to the general public free of cost
in a user-friendly manner on web pages and in electronic and
print forms at public places.
Service standards with timelines for each type of service ii)
rendered at the district, thana and union level should be
20
Ishrat Husain
CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
developed, widely disseminated and posted at public places in
each department.
Rules of business at the federal, provincial and district iii)
governments should be revised to make them simple,
comprehensible empowering the secretaries/heads of
departments/district coordination offi cers to take decisions
without multiple references, clearances and back and forth
movement of fi les. Post-audit of the decisions taken should be
used to ensure accountability rather than prior clearances.
Delegation of fi nancial, administrative, procurement, human iv)
resource management powers should be revisited and adequate
powers commensurate with the authority should be delegated
at each tier of the hierarchy.
Estacode, Financial Rules, Accounting and Audit Rules, v)
Fundamental Rules and all other rules in force should be
reviewed systematically and revised to bring them in line with
modern management practices.
E-government should be gradually introduced in a phased vi)
manner. Technological solutions, hardware and software
applications are the easy part of the process but the most diffi cult
aspect is the training and a change in the culture, attitude and
practices. E-government should be driven by business needs
rather than crafted as an elegant technical solution.
Proposed Approach
There are several ways to approach the task assigned to the National
Commission for Government Reforms (NCGR). One option is to spend
several years in preparing a comprehensive blueprint and plan for
bringing about the desired changes covering all aspects of the structure,
processes and human resource policies of government. This option has
the disadvantage that by the time the report is ready, ground realities
might have changed. Political support for reforms under this approach
is most likely to wane as high costs are incurred upfront in pushing
through complex, unpopular and diffi cult decisions but the benefi ts
of the reforms do not become visible in the lifecycle of the political
regime in power. The advantage of this option is that all defi ciencies and
21
Governance Reforms in Pakistan
CRITERION – April/June 2008
weaknesses are addressed simultaneously in a comprehensive manner.
The second option is to prepare a long-term vision and direction
in which reforms should aim and move but combine this with an
opportunistic approach whereby easy to implement changes are taken up
fi rst and the more diffi cult reforms are taken up later. The disadvantage
of this option is that the changes introduced may be imperceptible and
the time taken for the whole process to complete may be too long. But
the advantage is that incremental changes that create a win-win situation
for all the stakeholders including politicians have a much better chance
of getting accepted and implemented. The Commission has adopted the
second option as the modus-operandi for its working.
The preference for this option which is less elegant and imperfect
lies in a dispassionate reading of the past history of reforms in this
country. A large number of erudite commissions and committees
have spent virtually thousands of man-years in seeking out views and
opinions from a diverse set of opinion makers and public at large,
prepared elaborate diagnostic studies and presented very sensible set of
recommendations. But except for some tinkering here and there most of
the recommendations were not implemented because of lack of political
will and courage.
The sequencing, phasing and timing of the various reforms and their
implementation will be guided by the speed at which consensus is built
among the stakeholders and the decisions are made by the top policy
makers but it is important to lay down the overall direction in which
these reforms will move
While the comprehensive reforms will be implemented incrementally
a second track will also be followed in which some quick-win reforms
will be implemented from time to time as an opportunity presents itself.
For this purpose, the Commission will follow a more fl exible route.
For example, it has decided to focus on four major areas where the
interaction between the ordinary citizen and administrative machinery
of the government is most intense. These four areas are:
Police and enforcement of laws.1.
22
Ishrat Husain
CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Land revenue administration2.
Education3.
Health4.
The Commission has formed four sub-committees to review and
examine the efforts being made by the government, private sector and
civil society in each of these areas and come up with solutions that will
make the existing system more effi cient and responsive to the needs
of the public in the immediate or short run. The Commission has also
formed another sub-committee to recommend revision in the Rules of
Business for removing impediments in the functioning of the government
departments/ministries/ agencies and empowering the heads of the
departments to deliver results.
The preliminary recommendations of the sub-committees were
presented to focus groups of stakeholders drawn from diverse segments
of society – secretaries committee, political leaders, businessmen, NGOs,
academic refi ned civil servants etc., – for soliciting their feedback and
views. After incorporating the feedback the sub-committees fi nalized
their recommendations which were discussed by the Commission and
then presented for consideration and decisions by the steering committee.
The high-powered steering committee is co-chaired by the president and
prime minister and consists of the four chief ministers. The committee
has decided to provide a legal cover to the Commission so that the
recommendations approved by the steering committee are implemented
by the federal and provincial governments without further reviews.
The Commission will also act as a facilitator and conduit for the
reforms formulated by the federal ministries/ provincial governments
and table them, after its own analysis for the decisions by the steering
committee.
To conclude, those who agree that there is a need for these reforms
have serious reservations about their implementation. They contend
that these reforms cannot be implemented in the real sense unless the
bureaucratic actions are insulated from political interference. According
to this school of thought, the problem of maladministration and poor
23
Governance Reforms in Pakistan
CRITERION – April/June 2008
governance stems from this interference. It must be recognized that in
democratic forms of governance, elected leaders will have to respond
to their political constituents and the associated vested interests. The
accountability for results, rest largely on these politicians and not on the
civil servants. If the interference of the politicians is aimed at serving
the narrow parochial interests of few individuals or groups rather than
the broader collective interests of their constituencies they may end up
paying a heavy price at the time of the next elections. Their opponents,
the opposition parties and the media scrutiny will keep a watch on their
actions and expose them before their constituents. With the passage of
time and successive purges at the elections, the impulse to interfere in
the affairs of the civil servants for personal and parochial factors will
be contained and replaced by the urge to pay greater attention to the
collective interests of their constituents. No system is perfect and some
elected leaders as well as civil servants will continue to misuse their
powers and authority but the extent of such misuse will be reduced with
greater accountability.
24
Ishrat Husain
CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
BIBLIOGRAPHY
World Development Report (1997)1.
World Development Report (2002), Building Institutions for Market 2.
(Washington D.C., World Bank.
World Economic Outlook (205), Building Institutions Chapter-III 3.
(Washington D.C. IMF September).
Acemoglu, D and S. Johnson (2000), ‘Unbundling Institutions’ NBER 4.
WP 9934 (Cambridge Mass. NBER)
Islam, Roumeen and Claudio Montenegro (2002 ‘What Determones 5.
the Qaulity of Institution?’ WB Policy Research Working Paper 2764
(Washington DC World Bank)
Kaufmann D, A. Kray and Zoid-Lobaton (1999) Governance matters, 6.
World Bank Policy Research working paper 2195 (Washington DC
World Bank)
Rodrik D, A. Subramian and F. Trebbiu (2004) “ Institutions Rule: The 7.
primacy of institutions over Geography and Integration in Economic
Development” Journal of Econ-Gmoth Vol. 9 No. 2.
Knack S. and B Keefer (1997) ‘Why don’t poor countries catch-up? A 8.
cross-national test of institutional explanation, Economic Inquiry 35
(July).
A LIBERAL ISLAM IN SOUTH ASIA
A.G. Noorani *
Abstract(Historically intellectual stagnation in the Islamic world long
preceded revivalism and its hideout offshoot, fundamentalism. Western
imperialism inspired revivalism. Its opportunism aided fundamentalism.
Accordingly, any reform in the Islamic world must grapple honestly with
four related tasks: (i) interpretation of some Quranic verses in the light
of the times, as against others which are of enduring relevance for all
time; (ii) weeding out hadith (compilation of the Prophets sayings) of
dubious credibility; (iii) rejection of the authority of the ulema (clerics);
(iv) a sound appreciation of Islam in history, especially the role of the
fi rst four caliphs, as distinct from Islam in the Quran. Author).
“What the Muslim League has done is to set you free from the
reactionary elements of Muslims and to create the opinion that those
who play their selfi sh game are traitors. It has certainly freed you from
that undesirable element of maulvis and maulanas. I am not speaking of
maulvis as a whole class. There are some of them who are as patriotic and
sincere as any other; but there is a section of them which is undesirable.
Having freed ourselves from the clutches of the British Government, the
Congress, the reactionaries and so-called Muslims, may I appeal to the
youth to emancipate our women. This is essential. I do not mean that we
are to ape the evils of the West. What I mean is that they must share our
life, not only social but also political.”1
Even when Jinnah spoke thus at the Muslim University Union in
the Strachey Hall in Aligarh on 5 February 1938, liberal thinking among
the Muslims of the sub-continent was under fi erce attack. Two of their
outstanding thinkers were obliged to compromise fl outing a strong
* A.G. Noorani is an eminent Indian scholar and expert on constitutional issues.
26 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
A.G. Noorani
tradition of free thinking that went back to Shah Waliullah (d.1762) and
was nurtured by the founder of the Aligarh Movement, Sir Syed Ahmad
Khan (1817 – 1898) and his yet bolder colleague, Maulvi Cheragh Ali
(1844 -95).
Iqbal gave up a projected work on ijtihad on the advice of Sayyed
Suleiman Nadvi.2 Maulana Azad suppressed the third volume of his
commentary the Tarjuman al-Quran.3
How did this come about? Iqbal explained it all too clearly in the
late 1930s in a letter to Akbar Shah Mujibabadi: “The infl uence of the
professional maulvis had greatly decreased owing to Sir Syed Ahmad
Khan’s movement. But the Khilafat Committee, for the sake of political
fatwas, had restored their infl uence among Indian Muslims. This was a
very big mistake (the effect of) which has, probably, not yet been realized
by anyone. I have had an experience of this recently. I had written an
English essay on ijtihad, which was read in a meeting here and, God
willing, will be published, but some people called me kafi r. We shall
talk at length about this affair, when you come to Lahore. In these days,
particularly in India, one must move with very great circumspection.”4
Jinnah’s secular politics did put the mullahs back in their proper
place. But in 1939, when he propounded the two-Nation theory, they
fl ocked to his support, which he accepted, more so after the 1940
Lahore Resolution on Pakistan. The Congress had begun playing this
game much earlier. It supported not only the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Hind
but also the Shia Conference. This Jamiat serves in India, still. The
pro-Muslim League ulema founded the All-India Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-
Islam at Calcutta (now Kolkata) on 26 October 1945, and it fl ourishes
in Pakistan under a changed name, JUI Pakistan. Another poisonous
export was the Jamaat-e-Islami. It was founded by Abul Ala Maudoodi
in 1941 at Pathankot. He opposed the demand for Pakistan as also the
tribal raid in Kashmir. In Pakistan, he took up the Ahmadiya issue in
1949 and fl ourished thereafter, with Saudi backing and, later, Zia’s.
In Pakistan, the revivalists hold the public and the State to ransom
despite electoral debacles. In India, Muslim society struggles to free
27CRITERION – April/June 2008
A Liberal Islam in South Asia
itself from their shackles. Every now and then, poets, scholars and
artists are treated to their wrath. To cite an instance, the highly respected
Director of the Khuda Baksh Library at Patna, Dr. Abid Raza Bedar, was
denounced for his reported remark, at the A.N. Sinha Institute at the
launch of Prof. S.M. Mohsin’s book, Keynote of the Holy Quran, that
the word kufr (unbelief) has been misinterpreted and has affected our
national integration.5
To what a rich tradition have the Muslims of South Asia turned their
backs. Professor Abdullah Saeed, Director of Study of Contemporary
Islam at the University of Melbourne, recalls: “Modern trends in the
interpretation of the Quran may be traced to Shah Waliullah of India (d.
1762). In the course of Shah Waliullah’s life, several monarchs occupied
the throne in Delhi. The Mughal Empire continued to decline and break
up until it was replaced by a Western power in the form of British Raj
… Shah Waliullah reacted to this changed situation for Muslims in India
by initiating his reform movement. He rejected taqlid (blind imitation
of early scholars) and advocated ijtihad (independent judgment) and the
application of fresh ideas in interpreting the Quran. In emphasizing a
move away from the blind following of tradition, Shah Waliullah rejected
some accepted views related to the principles of exegesis (usually al-
tafsir).
“Though Shah Waliullah’s reformist ideas about interpretation are
not radical from the perspective of the twenty-fi rst century, they seemed
so at the time. They became quite infl uential, particularly in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” According to J.M.S. Baljon,
from the end of the nineteenth century, “Shah Waliullah was loudly
acclaimed in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent as the man who discerned
the signs of his times. And when at present an Urdu-writing modernist
is looking for arguments from Muslim lore, he weighs in with opinions
of the Shah.”6
Perhaps one of the most radical attempts to reinterpret the Quran
in the modern period was by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan of India (d. 1898)
who published a six-volume work on the Quran from 1879. He believed
that Muslims needed to reassess their tradition, heritage and ways of
28 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
A.G. Noorani
thinking in line with newly emerging knowledge, values and institutions.
The gulf between Western and Islamic modes of thought was vast, and
Muslims who had been educated in the West or infl uenced by Western
education were no longer able to comprehend the religious discourse of
the ulema of the time. The widening gap threatened the very relevance
of Islam as a religion for many Muslims.
But such is the clime today that when Rafi q Zakaria pleaded with
the Vice-Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University, Syed Hashim
Ali, and Prof. Atiq Ahmed Siddiqui, Director of the Sir Syed Academy,
to publish an English translation of Sir Syed’s commentary on the
Quran, he found them hesitant as they feared that it might provoke a
fundamentalist backlash.7
Less known is Cheragh Ali who spent the better part of his career
in the service of the Nizam of Hyderabad. In 1833 he published from
Bombay The Proposed Political, Constitutional and Legal Reforms in
the Ottoman Empire and Other Mohammedan States. In 1885 appeared
a work which is of direct relevance to the situation in 2008. It was A
critical Exposition of the Popular “Jihad”. In 1984 the Idarah-i-Adabiyat-
i-Delli (Sic.) published a reprint. The bulk of the book was devoted to
establishing, with learning and reasoning, that Islam does not enjoin
wars of conquest “Neither the wars of Mohammad were offensive, nor
did he in anyway use force or compulsion in the matter of belief. All the
wars of Mohammad (PBUH) were defensive.”
Cheragh Ali, however, did not stop there. He submitted the Anglo-
Muhammadan law in British India, which passed for Shariah, to merciless
scorn; particularly the Hedaya. In his Conclusions he wrote: “The
Mohammedan Common Law is by no means divine or superhuman.
It mostly consists of uncertain traditions, Arabian usages and customs,
some frivolous and fortuitous analogical deductions from the Koran, and
a multitudinous army of casuistical sophistry of the canonical legists. It
has not been held sacred or unchangeable by enlightened Mohammadans
of any Muslim country and in any age since its compilation in the
fourth century of the Hejira. All the Mujtahida, Ahl Hadis, and other
non-Mokallids had had no regard for the four schools of Mohammadan
29CRITERION – April/June 2008
A Liberal Islam in South Asia
religious jurisprudence, or the Common Law.” (pp. 159 – 160).
Forty-Five years later, in 1930 Iqbal had much the same things to
say in his famous lectures The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in
Islam (Sang-e-meel, Lahore). Chapter VI on The Principle of Movement
in the Structure of Islam is particularly relevant. “I have no doubt that a
deeper study of the enormous legal literature of Islam is sure to rid the
modern critic of the superfi cial opinion that the Law of Islam is stationary
and incapable of development. Unfortunately, the conservative Muslim
public of this country is not yet quite ready for a critical discussion
of ‘Fiqh,’ which, if undertaken, is likely to displease most people, and
raise sectarian controversies, yet I venture to offer a few remarks on the
point before us. In the fi rst place, we should bear in mind that from the
earliest times, practically up to the rise of the Abbasides, there was no
written law of Islam apart from the Quran. Secondly, it is worthy of note
that from about the middle of the fi rst century up to the beginning of the
fourth not less than nineteen schools of law and legal opinion appeared
in Islam. This fact alone is suffi cient to show how incessantly our early
doctors of law worked in order to meet the necessities of a growing
civilization…..
“Turning now to the ground work of legal principles in the Quran, it
is perfectly clear that far from leaving no scope for human thought and
legislative activity the intensive breadth of these principles virtually acts
as an awakener of human thought….. Did the founders of our schools
ever claim fi nality for their reasoning and interpretations? Never. The
claim of the present generation of Muslim liberals to re-interpret the
foundational legal principles, in the light of their own experience and the
altered conditions of modern life, is, in my opinion, perfectly justifi ed.
The teaching of the Quran that life is a process of progressive creation
necessitates that each generation, guided but unhampered by the work
of its predecessors, should be permitted to solve its own problems…. In
view of the intense conservatism of the Muslims of India, Indian judges
cannot but stick to what are called standard works. The result is that
while the peoples are moving the law remains stationary.”
Turning to the Hadith (the sayings of the Prophet) he held; “we
30 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
A.G. Noorani
must distinguish traditions of a purely legal import from those which
are of non-legal character. With regard to the former, there arises a very
important question as to how far they embody the pre-Islamic usages of
Arabia which were in some cases left intact, and in others modifi ed by
the Prophet. It is diffi cult to make this discovery, for our early writers do
not always refer to pre-Islamic usages. Nor is it possible to discover that
the usages, left intact by express or tacit approval of the Prophet, were
intended to be universal in their application. Shah Wali Ullah has a very
illuminating discussion on the point. I reproduce here the substance of
his view. The prophetic method of teaching according to Shah Wali Ullah
is that, generally speaking, the law revealed by a prophet takes especial
notice of the habits, ways, and peculiarities of the people to whom he
is specifi cally sent. The prophet who aims at all-embracing principles,
however, can neither reveal different principles for different peoples,
nor leaves them to work out their own rules of conduct. His method is to
train one particular people, and to use them as a nucleus for the building
up of a universal Shariat. In doing so, he accentuates the principles
underlying the social life of all mankind, and applies them to concrete
cases in the light of the specifi c habits of the people immediately before
him. Shariat values (Ahkam) resulting from this application (e.g., rules
relating to penalties for crimes) are in a sense specifi c to that people;
and, since their observance is not an end in itself, they cannot be strictly
enforced in the case of future generations.”
Iqbal concluded his analysis by saying “It is, however, impossible
to deny the fact that the traditionalists, by insisting on the value of the
concrete case as against the tendency to abstract thinking in law, have
done the greatest service to the Law of Islam. And a further intelligent
study of the literature of traditions, if used as indicative of the spirit in
which the Prophet himself interpreted his Revelation, may still be of great
help in understanding the life-value of the legal principles enunciated in
the Quran.” Iqbal lamented “the closing of the door of ijtihad” and “this
voluntary surrender of intellectual independence.”
Far less known is another comment by Iqbal in his Presidential
Address to the All-India Muslim League at Allahabad on 26 December
1930. His advocacy of “autonomous Muslim States along the North-West
31CRITERION – April/June 2008
A Liberal Islam in South Asia
border” aroused interest. It was to be a member of the Indian federation.
Only on 21 June 1937 did he advocate partition of India “The Muslims
of North-West India and Bengal be considered as nations entitled to
self-determination…. I think that the Muslims of north-West India and
Bengal ought at present to ignore Muslim minority provinces.”8 But to
what end?
On this, Iqbal was explicit in his Presidential Address: “for Islam;
an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian Imperialism was
forced to give it, to mobilize its laws; its education, its culture and to
bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and with the
spirit of modern times.”9 Iqbal’s Pakistan then was to be a State in
which Islam, shorn of the dross accumulated over the centuries, would
fi nd a liberal rational expression with the spirit of modern times. (Note
also that, unlike Jinnah’s two-nation theory, Iqbal’s “Muslim nation”
was confi ned to the north-west and Bengal).
But after independence the Muslims of South Asia had no one
of such high political stature to guide them. The Munir Report 1954
(Report of the Court of Inquiry to enquire into the Punjab Disturbances
of 1953) subjected the religious leaders’ rhetoric on Islam and on the
Islamic State to pitiless scrutiny and exposed their falsehoods.
A minority that feels besieged becomes a conservative minority.
That apart, the Muslim leadership in India, such as it was, came within
the sway of a motley crowd; comprising the Muslim League in the south
and the old pro-Congress Jamiat-ul-Ulema in the north. Aligarh Muslim
University was torn apart by factions. Since 1973 the All-India Muslim
Personal Law Board acquired a monopoly on “the reform” of Muslim
law and exerted itself to avert the day which would put its leaders out
of business.10
In Pakistan, President Mohammed Ayub Khan tried manfully to
arrest the trend. It is suffi cient comment on Indian Muslims that they
view with suspicion his Family Laws Ordinance 1960, which reforms
the law of marriage and divorce on the basis of Shariah.
32 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
A.G. Noorani
Fazlur Rahman Malik (1919-88) was a major and signifi cant scholar
of Islam. He founded the Islamic Research Institute (now attached to
the International Islamic University) in Islamabad in 1960. One fellow
researcher described him as “probably the most learned of the major
Muslim thinkers in the second-half of the twentieth century, in terms of
both classical Islam and Western philosophical and theological discourse.”
His father, Maulana Shahab al-Din, was a scholar at Deoband. Fazlur
Rahman received his doctorate from Oxford University and taught at
Durham University and McGill University before returning to Pakistan
to set up the Islamic Research Institute.
The Diaries of Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan 1966-1972
contain two revealing entries about him. One of 30 April 1967 reads: “Dr.
Fazlur Rahman of the Islamic Research Institute came to see me. He was
engaged in writing a book on ideology of Islam. I read his fi rst chapter.
It is fascinating, but the language he has used is scholarly and diffi cult.
It has been arranged to attach a couple of knowledgeable people with
him so as to discuss the theme of each chapter and then put it in simple
language. The doctor can then review it to ensure that his theme has
been properly brought out. I am sure that this book, when written, will
be a real contribution in the service of Islam.”11 The President clearly
wanted to encourage the study of a liberal scholarly view of Islam. But
he was powerless to protect the great scholar.
The entry of 5 September 1968 reads: “Dr. Fazlur Rahman, Director
of the Islamic Research Institute came under countrywide adverse
criticism fanned by the ignorant and politically motivated mullahs. The
allegations, which were totally false, were made against some remarks
made in his book, Islam, which he wrote some years ago and which was
later published by the Oxford University Press. This book is a highly
scholarly work written for a European audience and an attempt to
remove some false impressions about Islam. When the criticism gained
momentum he held two press conferences refuting all the allegations.
These clarifi cations would have satisfi ed any honest critic, but the
mullah, who regards any original and objective thinking on Islam as
his deadly enemy, was not going to be pacifi ed. This sort of argument
is just the grist he wants for his mill. Meanwhile, the administrators at
33CRITERION – April/June 2008
A Liberal Islam in South Asia
the centre and the province got cold feet. Some of them persuaded the
doctor to resign. He must have also got frightened. After all, it is not
easy to stand up to criticism based on ignorance and prejudice. So I had
to accept his resignation with great reluctance in the belief that he will
be free to attack the citadel of ignorance and fanaticism from outside
the government sphere. Meanwhile, it is quite clear that any form of
research on Islam which inevitably leads to new interpretations has no
chance of acceptance in this priest-ridden and ignorant society. These
people will not allow Islam to become a vehicle of progress. What will
be the future of such an Islam in the age of reason and science is not
diffi cult to predict.”12
The tacit prediction came true. Dr. Fazlur Rahman moved to the
University of Chicago and won undying fame. His work Islam &
Modernity is a classic.13
There are three legacies from the past which Muslims must discard
– the ossifi ed Sharia which confl icts with the Quran; the notion of the
“Islamic State” which the Quran does not support and which never existed
in history; Jihad which is a perversion of the concept as propounded in
the Quran.
Accordingly any reform in the Islamic world must grapple honestly
with four related tasks: (i) interpretation of some Quranic verses in the
light of the times, as against others which are of enduring relevance for
all times; (ii) weeding out hadith (compilation of the Prophet’s sayings)
of dubious credibility; (iii) rejection of the authority of the ulema
(clerics); the fatwa is a mere opinion. During the Raj, fatwas were sold
to the British; (iv) a sound appreciation of Islam in history, especially
the role of the fi rst four Caliphs, as distinct from Islam in the Quran.
It was only a century after the Prophet’s death that the task of
compiling the hadith was undertaken. There is not the slightest doubt
about the integrity and authenticity of the Quran. One cannot say that
of the hadith. The Prophet died at Medina on 8 June 632. Al-Bukhari,
a man of piety and compiler of the most respected of the hadith, was
born in the ninth century (194 of the Hejira, he died in 256). He was
34 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
A.G. Noorani
methodical. Having collected 600,000 hadith, he retained only 7,257
omitting 4,000 repetitions.
“Thus less than two centuries after the Prophet’s death there were
already 596,725 false hadith.” Al-Bukhari told off a king who wanted
him to read some excerpts in private. “Go,” he told the emissary, “tell
your master that I hold knowledge in high esteem, and I refuse to drag
it into the antechambers of sultans.” Islamic history would have been
different if others had his integrity.
This brings us to the question, precisely what had Fazlur Rahman
done to invite the trouble. There was a long standing debate among
Muslim scholars on the distinction between Sunnah and Hadith. To
S.M.Yusuf. for example, Sunnah “refers to practice as distinct from any
documentation of it (hadith).” Practice, unbroken and untainted, is a
proof by itself.14
Fazlur Rahman’s “offence” is described well by Prof. Daniel Brown
in his work Rethinking Tradition in modern Islamic thought. To recall
the promise of that era is to realize the intellectual poverty in South
Asia’s Muslims today. He writes: “A similar but much more sophisticated
attempt to separate the authority of sunna from the strict authenticity of
hadith is found in the work of the Pakistani modernist Fazlur Rahman.
Rahman articulated his views on hadith, sunna, and other relationship
during the 1960s when he served as director of Pakistan’s Central
Institute for Islamic Research, an institution established by the regime
of General Ayyub Khan to aid in promoting modernist interpretations
of Islam compatible with the needs of the regime. His work on sunna
must be understood against the background of religious politics in
Pakistan during the 1960s and, in particular, against the background
of the controversy between Ghulam Ahmad Perwez and his opponents
among the Pakistan ulama. Perwez’s radical rejection of sunna and his
particular vision of the Islamic state as true heir to Prophetic authority
was associated in the minds of his opponents with the efforts of the
Ayyub government to bypass the ulama in order to promote modernist
Islam. A number of controversial government actions seemed to suggest
that Ayyub was sympathetic to Perwez’s ideas.
35CRITERION – April/June 2008
A Liberal Islam in South Asia
“Opponents of the government suspected, quite correctly, that
Ayyub was intent on bypassing traditional sources of religious authority
in his formulation of policy. They concluded, probably incorrectly, that
Perwez’s ideas were exercising an undue effect on government policy.
Thus the debate over the relationship between religion and state and the
relative role of the ulama and the government in formulating policy on
religious questions became focused on Perwez’s ideas, and particularly
on the issue of sunna. Attention was also focused on the regime’s major
voice in religious matters, the Central Institute for Islamic Research
and its director. Against this background of heated controversy, Fazlur
Rahman entered the fray with the publication of a series of articles on
the authority of sunna and the authenticity of hadith.”15
By his own account he was responding through these articles16 to two
quite separate, although interrelated, controversies. He was responding,
fi rst of all, to the immediate controversy in Pakistan aroused by Perwez’s
radical rejection of sunna. But he was also responding to the ongoing
international scholarly debate about Joseph Schacht’s sceptical views on
the authenticity of hadith which had been published some years earlier
in his Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. Fazlur Rahman refuted
Schacht.
In 1981 came a vindication of sorts, belatedly, in a ruling of the Federal
Shariat Court in a case concerning rajm (stoning to death for adultery)
which is contradicted by a Quranic verse (24:2) prescribing a hundred
lashes.17 Justice Salahuddin’s remarks touched a raw nerve. “Apart from
the fact that Hadith cannot override the defi nite and clear injunctions of
the Quran, the Ahadith (particular to the case) themselves suffer from
infi rmities. In the circumstance it is neither safe nor reasonable to found
a grave punishment like that of (rajm) on such Ahadith and make it an
obligatory rule of law.”
In 1968 the mullahs decided that the debate had to be ended. Fazlur
Rahman had to go. A debate of great promise and consequence was
aborted to the loss of Muslim scholarship in the entire region. Elsewhere
it picked up speed. Fatima Mernissi, a Moroccan scholar, submitted it
to rigorous scrutiny in Women and Islam.18 It is neither the Quran nor
36 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
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the Messenger of Allah but certain hadith that have served as texts to
sanctify oppression of women.
“Al-Bukhari’s work (Sahih) has been one of the most highly
respected reference for 12 centuries. This Hadith is the sledgehammer
argument used by those who want to exclude women from politics,”
indeed from much else.
Al-Bukhari retained as authentic only 7,257 Hadith, if the repetitions,
which number 4,000 are eliminated. The great lesson to be drawn from
Al-Bukhari’s experience in coming to grips with the fl ight of time and
failing memory is that one must be true to one’s method and honour
it, by continuing to mistrust, all those who regulate their affairs with
the help of Hadith. “If at the time of Al-Bukhari – that is, less than two
centuries after the death of the Prophet – there were already 596,725
false Hadith in circulation (600,000 minus 7,275 plus 4,000), it is easy
to imagine how many there are today. The most astonishing thing is
that the scepticism that guided the work of the founders of religious
scholarship has disappeared today.”
In two whole chapters Mernissi takes two signifi cant cases of
“misogynistic hadith” by witnesses of dubious repute whose false
testimony played havoc for centuries. One is Abu Bakra, not to be
confused with the great fi rst Caliph, Hazrat Abu Bakr al-Siddiq. He
reported the Prophet as saying “those who entrust their affairs to a
woman will never know prosperity.” He recalled this and other saying
at convenient moments. He was convicted of and fl ogged for false
testimony by the legendary Caliph Umar Ibn Al-Khattab. Al-Tabari was
against exclusion of women from politics.
Another such witness was Abu Hurayra. Mernissi points out: “There
is no trace in al-Bukhari of ‘A’isha’s refutation of the Hadith. They told
‘A’isha that Abu Hurayra was asserting that the Messenger of God
said: ‘Three things bring bad luck: house, woman and horse.’ A’isha
responded: ‘Abu Hurayra learned his lessons very badly. He came into
our house when the Prophet was in the middle of a sentence. He only
heard the end of it. What the Prophet said was ‘May Allah refute the
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Jews, they say three things bring bad luck, house, woman and horse.’
“Not only did Al-Bukhari not include this correction, but he treated
the Hadith as if there was no question about it. He cited it three times,
each time with a different transmission chain. Thus procedure generally
strengthens a Hadith and gives the impression of consensus concerning
it.”
Is it any wonder that both the Caliphs Abu Bakr al-Siddiq and Umar
ibn Al-Khattab forbade the citation of hadith; the latter, even whipping
the offenders.
But Sir Syed’s legacy was rejected and his intellectual heir, Fazlur
Rahman, had to quit his country. The Indian scholar Asghar Ali Engineer
remarks: “Quran gives equal rights and equal dignity to both men and
women but hadith literature is full of ahadith contradicting this Quranic
approach. For example in Bukhari we fi nd a hadith which stands in
contradiction to the Quranic verse 33:35. The hadith is narrated thus:
‘The Prophet (PBUH) urged the women to be generous with their gifts,
for when he had glimpsed into the fl ames of hell, he had noted the vast
majority of people being tormented there were women. The women were
outraged, and one of them instantly stood up and demanded to know
why that was so. ‘Because’, he replied ‘you women grumble so much,
and show ingratitude to your husbands.’ Even if the poor fellows spent
all their lives doing things for you, you have only to be upset at the least
of thing and you will say, ‘I have never received any good from you.’ At
that the women began vigorously to pull off their rings, and throw them
into Bilal’s Cloak (Bukhari 1.28. Abdu Dawud 439).
“See the content and tenor of this hadith. It is full of anti-women
attitude and women are supposed to be, in this hadith, ungrateful to
their husbands. As against this see the Quranic verse 33.35 which says:
‘Surely the men who submit and women who submit, and the believing
men and the believing women, and the obeying men and the obeying
women, and the truthful men and truthful women, and the patient men
and patient women, and the humble men and humble women, and the
charitable men and the charitable women, and fasting men and fasting
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women, and the men who guard their chastity and the women who
guard, and the men who remember Allah and women who remember
–Allah has prepared for them forgiveness and mighty reward.”
“See how in this verse Quran treats men and women equally and talks
of equal degree of forgiveness and equal reward. In the above hadith, on
the other hand, more women than men are consigned to fl ames of hell
because they are ungrateful to their husbands.”19
A team of reformist Islamic scholars at Ankara University, acting
under the auspices of the Diyanet or Directorate of Religious Affairs,
the government body which oversees the country’s 8,000 mosques and
appoints imams, is said to be close to concluding a “reinterpretation”
of parts of the Hadith, the collection of thousands of aphorisms and
comments said to derive from the Prophet Muhammad and which form
the basis of Islamic jurisprudence or sharia law.20
The Quran is the only source that escapes criticisms of unreliability.
Out of a total of 6,236 verses, revealed over 22 years, between 200 –
500 are estimated to be law-like rules.
Mutazilites were the ulema whose school of thought became
important in the mid-eighth century (Christian Era) and who ascribed a
key role to reason in their research – as opposed to those who constantly
invoked the hadiths in their creation of new laws. The Mutazilites
explained the Quran itself by constantly referring to reason. They made
reason the very criterion of religious law. In this way, they were able
to develop extremely bold legal constructs. They were hunted down as
infi dels as early as 546 (CE). Their writings were thoroughly destroyed.
It is only in the last century or less, since the rediscovery of ancient
manuscripts, that we have had direct access to their writings. With the
crushing of the Mutazilites, the spirit of imitation carried the day over
the spirit of refl ection. The gates of ijtihad (reasoning), itself a source
Islamic law, were closed.
What the founder of the Aligarh Movement wrote of the hadith over
a century ago will shock the Muslims in the subcontinent today: “It is
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A Liberal Islam in South Asia
the most sacred of all Islamic lore, yet Caliphs Abu Bakr and Umar had
forbidden people to narrate a hadith. The latter even whipped offenders
and imprisoned Ibn Masud. Abu Darda and Abu Masud Ansari for
narrating traditions. In fact Abu Bakr burned all those traditions, which
he had collected. Evidently the collection of tradition started in earnest
only after the death of Caliph Umar (644)” whom Caliph Uthman
succeeded.21
Hafeez Malik, a distinguished Pakistani scholar records: “The
founding of four schools of jurisprudence started the decline of ijtihad.”
People began to follow them blindly – they do so to this day. Many
ulema fabricated false hadith. He set out 38 of them, which Sir Syed
Ahmad Khan had listed in 1871. Some are still in vogue.
It is, then, on the Quran that we must largely depend. Fazlur Rahman’s
“double movement” theory is brilliant: “If we look at the Quran, it
does not in fact give many general principles for the most part it gives
solutions to and rulings upon specifi c and concrete historical issues, but
as I have said, it provides, either explicitly or implicitly, the rationales
behind these solutions and rulings, from which one can deduce general
principles. In building any genuine and stable Islamic set of laws and
institutions, there has to be a two-fold movement. First one must move
from the concrete case treatments of the Quran – taking the necessary
and relevant social conditions of that time into account – to the general
principles upon which the entire teaching converge. Second, from the
general level there must be a movement back to specifi c legislation,
taking into account the necessary and relevant social conditions now
obtaining.”22
He complains that no serious effort is made to read the Quranic
verses in the order in which they were revealed. That would show the
context. If the Quran must be read in context, the hadith can do with
close scrutiny and the ulema must be properly sized up. Maududi has
been called “erudite” by some. Fazlur Rahman held that “he was by no
means an accurate or profound scholar.”
In none of the states of South Asia – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh
40 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
A.G. Noorani
and Sri Lanka – would the Muslims have welcomed such views, judging
by the recurring outbursts over trifl es; more likely than not, tolerated
Fazlur Rahman even after the fame he had won in the entire world of
Islamic scholarship.
But the problems which Muslims of South Asia face are in no hurry
to run away. They persist and will continue to persist unless they are
faced and resolved honestly and boldly. That is where this scholar’s
greatest service lies. He pointed out: “The fi rst essential step to relieve
the vicious circle is for the Muslim, to distinguish clearly between
normative Islam and historical Islam. Unless effective and sustained
efforts are made in the direction, there is no way visible for the creation
of the kind of Islamic mind I have been speaking of just now. No amount
of mechanical juxtaposition of old and new subjects and disciplines can
produce this kind of mind. If the spark for the modernization of old
Islamic learning and for the Islamization of the new is to arise, then the
original thrust of Islam – of the Quran and Muhammad – must be clearly
resurrected so that the conformities and deformities of historical Islam
may be clearly judged by it.23
Another South Asian who struck a fresh note is Shabbir Akhtar.
Born in Pakistan, he settled in Bradford, England after graduating
in philosophy at Cambridge and winning a doctorate in comparative
religion. His book A Faith for All Seasons: Islam and the Challenge of
the Modern World24 is little known.
This is one of the most stimulating and original works on Islam that
has appeared in a long while. Its main purpose is to prod Muslims to
overcome the paralysis of the mind that has affl icted them and rendered
them unable to respond to the challenges of secular modernity. “Modern
Muslims are as a group of people, embarrassingly unrefl ective: it were
as though Allah had done all the thinking for his devotees… After
developing a great national philosophical tradition, the adherents of
Islam have lapsed into an intellectual lethargy that has already lasted half
a millennium… Owing to an absence of sceptical and liberal infl uences,
itself traceable to the lack of an extant philosophical tradition, few
Muslims have even recognized the threats of secularity and ideological
41CRITERION – April/June 2008
A Liberal Islam in South Asia
pluralism that our current circumstance brings in its train.”
His counsel to Muslims is not to turn their backs on Islam, but to
discover for themselves that Islam is, indeed, “a faith for all seasons.”
He defi nes three problems which are discussed throughout the book –
the religious ban on critical assessment of revealed claims; “the true
offi ce of religion in theology” and the justifi cation for “the inquiring
mind in matters theological.” Far from turning their backs on the faith,
he emphasises the need for its renewal.
The call for Islamic liberalism is in essence a call for the renewal
of the faith. A devout Christian scholar, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, who
taught Islamic history at the Forman Christian College in the 1940s held:
“Our own view is that liberalism and humanism in the Muslim world, if
they are to fl ourish at all, may perhaps be Islamic liberalism and Islamic
humanism; or that: in any case, some basis must be found for matters of
this weight.”25
Yet another South Asian offers the same wise counsel. But he also
lives abroad. He is Muqtedar Khan. Born in India in 1966, where he
earned a degree in engineering and an MBA, he received his doctorate
in government from Georgetown University and is now on the faculty of
the University of Delaware. His forthcoming book on Islamic democratic
theory should be thought-provoking, judging by his essay in Islam in
Transition : Muslim Perspectives26 Read this: “Reason, as Imam Shafi
himself suggests, is Allah’s greatest gift to humanity. Without reason
the human agent is nothing but a beast incapable of conceiving or
realizing his/her divine purpose. Reason is the singular element that
constitutes the human and enables everything else. Even the Quran
needs reason to make itself available to us. The limitation of reason
in the theory of ijtihad has had an adverse effect on the very theory of
knowledge in Islam. The epistemological dilemma of using reason for
practical and other purposes such as medicine, while circumscribing it
in Islamic studies in order to conserve legal thinking has led Muslims
to reach and maintain mutually contradictory positions. For example,
nearly all Muslim thinkers, particularly those grounded in the Islamic
traditions and genre, maintain the unity of knowledge as a fundamental
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A.G. Noorani
epistemological truth. These same Muslims continue to maintain a stated
or implicit boundary between secular and sacred knowledge. Reason
reigns in the former while the latter is supposed to be ruled by revelation.
Indeed, traditions and metaphorical thinking masquerade as revelation
in the realm of sacred knowledge. The most signifi cant consequence
of this double-think has led to the decline of both forms of knowledge
in the Muslim world. There is no doubt in my mind that the decline or
rather stagnation of Islamic thought in all realms is due to the leash that
the fuqha (jurists) have placed on reason.”
There is a vibrant movement for reversal of Islam which has been
noticed by Westerners. Nicholas D. Kristof noted that apart from “the
thread of fundamentalism” equally real is “the thread of reform.” Islamic
history has never been without dissenters and heretics. Particularly
strong is the Muslim women’s voice for reform.27
Prof. Mehran Kamrava of the California State University, Northridge
produced a timely and telling collection of writings by creative Muslim
thinkers whose views were neglected by those obsessed with the
utterances of the fundamentalists, The New Voices of Islam: Reforming
Politics and Modernity. 28 He notes that over the past two decades or so,
at a time when the forces of Islamic fundamentalism have emerged as
the dominant face of Islam in the West, “a vibrant and highly infl uential
discourse by a number of prominent Muslim thinkers is seeking to
reform and reformulate some of the main premises of Islamic theology
and jurisprudence. Throughout the Muslim world, from Indonesia and
Malaysia in Southeast Asia to Algeria and Morocco in North Africa,
there has emerged a group of highly articulate and infl uential public
intellectuals whose ideas are inspired by reformist interpretations of
Islam. Their voices might be faint and diffi cult to hear, downed by the
boisterous violence of self-righteous fundamentalists whose claims of
exclusivity leave no room for discourse and debate.”
Their writings form “part of a proud tradition of reformist Muslim
thought that dates back to at least the late eighteenth century and
even before.” Today’s reformists do not represent a novel or new
phenomenon in Islam. What they do represent is a vision of Islam and
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A Liberal Islam in South Asia
its role in human polity that is radically different from that advocated
by orthodoxy. Included in the book are 13 of the most renowned and
infl uential Muslim reformist thinkers alive today – Leila Ahmed (Egypt
and the United States), Nasr Abu Zaid (Egypt), Moahmmed Arkoun
(Algeria and France), Hasna Hanafi (Egypt), Fethullah Gulen (Turkey),
Mohsen Kadivar (Iran), Fatima Mernissi (Morocco), Tariq Ramadan
(Switzerland), Muhammad Shahrour (Syria), Abdolkarim Soroush
(Iran), Mohamed Talbi (Tunisia), and Amina Wadud (United States.).Not
included because of space limitations are Huseyn Atay (Turkey), Rachid
Ghannouchi (Tunisia), Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari (Iran), Anwar
Ibrahim (Malaysia) and Abdurrahman Wahid (Indonesia), among
others. A notable exception is the South African Scholar Farid Esack, a
powerful advocate of the Islamic theology of liberation. Another notable
exception is the Tunisian Mohamed Charfi ’s work Islam and Liberty :
The Historical Misunderstanding.29 The work draws heavily on writings
in French by Arab and European scholars, which are not cited in English
books. The author’s analyses are based on the Quran.
He faced the problems boldly at the very outset. “Islam is no less
capable of evolution than Christianity or Judaism. But whereas, over the
past few centuries Europeans have undergone profound technological,
economic, cultural and political changes, often amid considerable
suffering and with major ebbs and fl ows, the Muslim peoples have fallen
greatly behind in all spheres. This is not a fate to which they are doomed
for ever, it is possible for them to close the gap.”
Historically intellectual stagnation in the Islamic world long
preceded revivalism and its hide-out offshoot, fundamentalism. Western
imperialism inspired revivalism. Its opportunism aided fundamentalism
(witness : Afghanistan and Somalia).
Year after year the gulf has been widening between an idealized
ancestral system, which is held sacred and disseminated through school,
and a new system that is ever more widely regarded as an alien import
contrary to Islam. This is a grave discrepancy that tears people apart
and brings them to the verge of schizophrenia for they do not wish to
sacrifi ce either Islam or modernity. They are as attached to the Islamic
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A.G. Noorani
religion, as they are to the structure of the modern state, which they
insist should be genuinely democratic and representative.
The political Islamist wants his imagined historical Islam to prevail
over modernity. The modernist seldom rises to the intellectual challenge
of understanding Islam as well as modernity. “There is no credible
counter-discourse,” especially among Muslims of the subcontinent.
Most of them think in stereotypes. For the lay Muslim, the disconnect
between the faith he learns at home and the rationalism and knowledge
he acquires at school and in college is painful. He wants to be a good
Muslim; yet fi nds the Islam preached from the pulpit strange, almost
irrelevant. A Muslim student learns one “truth” at an English-medium
school, another from devout parents at home. Baffl ed, he either clings to
the faith or abandons it. Neither course does homage to reason or justice
to the faith and the role of religion in an individual’s life.
If in Muslim countries, an authoritarian state stifl es free debate, the
same job is undertaken in countries where Muslims are a minority by the
bigoted, ignorant mullah in complicity with Muslim politicians. Without
free thought and free discourse, Muslim society stagnates intellectually
and morally, even if some Muslims prosper economically.
The gravest, most fateful mistake by Muslims over the centuries is a
palpable, wilful misconstruction of Quranic messages on marriage. This
is a scripture, not a statute.
Judges say that the worst way to read a Constitution is to read it
literally and that every document must be read as a whole. Now read the
Quranic verses for yourself in the Fourth Surah (chapter) on Women.
The second verse in this Sura enjoins: “render unto the orphans their
possessions.” The third says: “If you fear that you shall not be able to
deal justly with the orphans, marry women of your choice, two or three
or four: But if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly (with
them), then only one. That will be more suitable, to prevent you from
doing injustice.”
This verse is clearly illustrative, not mandatory. Honestly read,
45CRITERION – April/June 2008
A Liberal Islam in South Asia
monogamy is what it enjoins; polygamy is permitted in that specifi c
situation and subject strictly to the overriding condition of equal
treatment. Later on, another verse (129) in the same Surah says in
categorical terms; “And you cannot do justice between wives, even
though you (wish it).”
To the true believer the Holy Quran is in the Word of Allah. This
is His assessment of the nature of His creature, man. It implies a clear
prohibition of polygamy. Abdullah Yusuf Ali records in his commentary
on the Quran that the immediate occasion for the verse was the battle of
Uhud, which left behind many orphans and widows. This brings us to a
fundamental of Quranic interpretation – reading the text in its context.
Even those who disagree with that, cannot honestly ignore the overriding
prohibition (4 : 129). It is, however, on a dishonest reading of the Quran,
that Muslim women have suffered for centuries at the hands of men and
mullahs. They still do.
It is the same story in regard to divorce. The law in force in India
is not Islamic law of the Sharia, but Anglo-Mohammedan law, which
the courts followed during the Raj. In 1905, an English judge of the
Bombay High Court, Justice Batchelor, was honest to admit that “there
can be no doubt that talaq-ul-bidat (the triple, irregular divorce) is good
in law, though bad in theology.” These instances reveal the perversion
of the faith by men in authority; the denial of ijtihad.
It is a parlous situation. The ulema lack the intellectual equipment,
the courage and the desire to think afresh. Politicians feed on the
people’s ignorance. Intellectuals are either apathetic or seek short cuts.
The winds of change sweeping over the Muslim world elsewhere, the
intellectual ferment, stop at the shores of the South Asian subcontinent.
“Verily never will Allah change the condition of a people until they
change it themselves.” (Quran; 13 : 11).
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A.G. Noorani
References:
1 Speeches and Writings of Mr. Jinnah, compiled and edited by Jamiluddin Ahmad, Sheikh
Ashraf, vol. 1, p.43.
2 Fazlur Rehman, 1982, p.120.
3 Ali Ahraf and Mushirul Hasan, Islam and Indian Nationalism, Refl ections on Abul Kalam
Azad, Manohar, 1992, p.116.
4 Muhammad S. Ikram, Modern Muslim India and Pakistan, 1970, pp.175-6.
5 Vide The Times of India, 2 June 1992 for the details of the instructive episode.
6 Modern Muslim Koranic Interpretation (1880-1960), L.J. Brill, 1968.
7 The Times of India, 26 November 1988.
8 Hafeez Malik, Iqbal, 1971, p.388.
9 Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada (Editor), Foundations of Pakistan: All India Muslim League
Documents, vol.II 1924-1927; p.160.
10 Vide the writer’s Muslims of India. A Documentary Record 1947-90, Oxford University
Press, 2003.
11 Diaries of Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan 1966-1972, Edited and annotated by
Craig Baxter, Oxford University Press, Karachi, p.90.
12 Ibid., p.253.
13 Fazlur Rahman, Islam and Modernity, University of Chicago Press, 1978.
14 S.M.Yusuf, An Essay on the Sunnah, Lahore, 1966.
15 Prof. Daniel Brown, Rethinking Tradition in modern Islamic Thought, Cambridge
University Press, 1996, p.102.
16 Published in Islamic Studies in 1962. A compilation appeared in Islamic Methodology in
History,Karachi, 1965.
17 Hazoor Baksh vs. Federation of Pakistan; All Pakistan Legal Decisions. 1981, FSC.
18 Mernissi, Fatima, Women in Islam, Blackwell Publishers, 1991.
19 Janata, weekly, Mumbai, 17 February 2008.
20 Ian Traynor Guardian, 27 February 2008.
21 Quoted in Hafeez Malik; The Religious Liberalism of Sir Sayyid Khan, The Muslim
World, Vol. LIV, No.3, 1964, p.163.
22 Islam and Modernity, p.20.
23 Ibid., p. 141.
24 Akhtar, Shabbir, Islam and the Challenge of the Modern World, 1990, Ivan R. Dee,
Chicago.
25 Islam in Modern History, 1957, p.303.
26 Donohue J John, Esposito L John, Islam in Transition: Modern Perspectives, Oxford
University Press, 2006.
27 International Herald Tribune, 16 October 2006.
28 Kamrava, Mehran, The New Voices of Islam: Reforming Politics and Modernity, I.B.
Tauris, London, 2006.
29 Charfi , Mohamed, Islam and Liberty: The Historical Misunderstanding, Zed Books,
London, 2006.
MUSLIM RADICALISM, WESTERN CONCERNS
Tanvir Ahmad Khan *
Abstract.(Religious extremism as a source of violence has a long history
and the three great monotheistic religions have grappled with issues
of just wars and illegitimate use of force for centuries. Islam has clear
injunctions on the concept of a just war and abhors coercion and
violence outside their ambit. Yet, since 9/11, western discourse has
tended to argue that violence is intrinsic to Islam. A far more
profi table approach is to contextualise current events in the Muslim
world in historical situations of external aggression, occupation and
national humiliation. There is also an urgent need to recognise that
movement of labour from the South to North is an inevitable consequence
of globalisation. Creative solutions have to be found for tensions
generated by the growing number of expatriate communities in western
societies. Author)
There is widespread concern in the West about the problems of
Islamic radicalisation in Pakistan and the region in which it occupies a
sensitive geopolitical location. It is often argued that global peace and
stability depend in no small a measure on the outcome of the so-called
war on terror now being waged by a US-led coalition of nations in this
particular theatre. Apart from the fairly large contingent of American
troops battling the resistance since the invasion of 2001, soldiers of
some European NATO member states are in harm’s way in Afghanistan.
The war they are embroiled in has divided European opinion as few
issues in contemporary history have done. According to NATO offi cials,
* Tanvir Ahmad Khan is a former ambassador and foreign secretary of Pakistan. This essay
is based on a presentation made by him to an international conference held in the Netherlands
in October 2007.
48 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Tanvir Ahmad Khan
the future of their military alliance - easily the most powerful in modern
history - hinges on victory in that war-torn land. This rather startling
assessment is made against the backdrop of pervasive opposition to this
confl ict seen in European parliaments and in the larger battles of public
opinion.
By now the struggle in Afghanistan has become indistinguishable
from its spill-over into Pakistan. There is, indeed, a three-decade old
nexus between Muslim activism in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The
hope that Pakistan could somehow ward off the inter-connectedness of
events in the two neighbouring countries ---- what in the semantics of
our times is often called a “blowback” — has turned out to be illusory
and nearly one hundred thousand Pakistani troops are stretched along a
2,500 kilometre border to contain what has been described as a “twilight
struggle against a network of non-state actors” waging a holy war.
The region also includes Iran where one of the great revolutions of
the 20th century overturned an existing internal and regional order. This
revolution which established the term ‘political Islam’ in contemporary
discourse has not run its full course; nor has it found a modus vivendi
especially with powerful states that have been seeking its reversal for
twenty eight years. A state of siege is still a cause for rekindling the fi res
of the Iranian revolution as, indeed, for the Iranian quest for defensive
space around the heartland of the revolution. In much of Central
Asia, the successor states of the Soviet Union have not been able to
accommodate even mild Muslim revivalism and have thus contributed
to its radicalisation. Since 1989, Muslim militants have challenged
Indian control of Kashmir. In fact, in the entire region a legacy of anti-
colonialism fuses with a more particular Muslim resentment against
what is widely perceived as a resurgence of imperial attitudes, a virtual
western re-conquest of the greater Middle East.
Before one turns to the question whether Muslim activism in a
country like Pakistan has become part of a seamless global Islamic
war against the West and if so to what extent and why, it is salutary
to recall briefl y the dynamics of Muslim revival in South Asia. There
was a long period of decline before Great Britain delivered the coup de
49CRITERION – April/June 2008
Muslim Radicalism, Western Concerns
grace and destroyed Muslim power from one end of the sub-continent
to the other. Initially, the Muslims bore the brunt of British reprisals
against the forces that tried to drive them out of India in 1857. As they
recovered from the initial shock, their responses to the tragedy of their
fall varied signifi cantly. There was the refuge offered by a quietist Sufi
interpretation of Islam that side–stepped questions of resistance. Some
of the Ulema sought to evade strife by declaring that British colonial
rule in India did not interfere with the observance of Islam and was not
manifestly unjust; India, therefore, was Darul Aman (abode of peace)
and did not need armed resistance. A different tradition exemplifi ed
by Shah Waliullah, Shah Ismail and Sayyid Ahmad of Rai Bareilly
emphasised the concept of a just war (Jihad) to save the Muslims of the
sub-continent from the emerging Sikh and Marhatta warlords as well as
from a creeping annexation of Muslim lands by the East India Company.
Sensing a danger from evangelical proselytising Christian missions, the
Muslims turned some of the madrassas like the famous Deoband into
fortresses for the defence of faith and doctrine. The revolt of 1857 was
a watershed. A section of the community concluded their introspection
on the decline of Muslim power by seeking a creative encounter with
the New Age. Led by Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, the founder of Aligarh
Muslim University, a group of Muslim notables saw amelioration of the
plight of Muslims in modern western education rather than in reversion
to orthodoxy and armed struggle. A fundamental difference in strategies
advocated to secure the future of Islam in South Asia thus initiated an
unfi nished dialectical tussle between tradition and modernity.
The controversial address of Pope Benedict XVI delivered at
the University of Regensburg on 12 September 2007 differentiated
between Islam and Christianity on the grounds that the Judeo-Christian
civilisation had created a synthesis of Faith and Reason through an
interaction with Greek philosophy. For the reformists in the Indian sub-
continent and in many other Muslim countries which were reacting to
the colonial dominance with a robust intellectual revival, Islam has had
its Hellenic moment long before the Christian world. They now sought
reconstruction of Islamic thought by reviving that lost renaissance
in the dominant Islamic discourse. The Islamic modernists in India
attributed the Muslim decline to the Ulema clinging to ‘an atrophied
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and skeletal tradition’ that caused stagnation. By abandoning critical
thought and innovation, they had left Islam ‘devoid of its erstwhile
depth, diversity, and critical apertures.1 They argued that there was
no contradiction between Revelation and Reason. They went back to
the Quran to substantiate their view that ‘revelation emanated from a
divine and transcendent source within history and is understood by the
human mind.2 As his editor put it, the Pakistani Islamic scholar Fazlur
Rahman had ‘attempted to provide a complex theory of revelation that
linked philosophical and psychological arguments with a sociology
and anthropology of history. The fl ux of time demanded that Muslims
discover once again the ability to grasp the kinesis at work in a dynamic
tradition. “(The) process of questioning and changing a tradition – in
the interest of preserving or restoring its normative quality in the case
of its normative elements,” maintained Fazlur Rahman, “can continue
indefi nitely and that there is no fi xed or privileged point at which the
predetermining effective history is immune from such questioning and
being consciously confi rmed or consciously changed.”3 Though scholars
like Fazalur Rahman were unpopular with the conservative Ulema, they
were developing their radical interpretation of Islam — the word radical
being used in an entirely different sense from the current usage that
confl ates it with militancy and violence----not so much in an apologetic
response to western orientalists but by way of reconnecting with a lost
tradition within the Islamic canon. It is important to recall their seminal
work because of a tendency, particularly since the catastrophic events
of 9/11 to bury Islam under utterly untenable allegations against its very
essence. At the practical level, the modernists played an important role in
reconstituting Muslim societies and empowering them in a manner that
enabled them to accelerate decolonisation and lead to the emergence of
independent Muslim nation states, including Pakistan.
It is often said that Islam is a religion of laws. This is meant to
be a derogatory perception of the last of the three great monotheistic
religions; it is designed to underline the preoccupation with Sharia
on the part of the extremist movements that threaten to supplant the
modernists in many Muslim states and communities. This perception,
however, is fallacious. Islam’s pristine emphasis is on justice (adal)
and compassion (ihsan). The distinctive feature of Islam is the yearning
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Muslim Radicalism, Western Concerns
for an egalitarian, equitable and democratic social order; the denial of
such an order has been the cause of much strife within Islam. The poet-
philosopher Muhammad Iqbal who envisioned an independent Muslim
state in post-colonial South Asia was not a revolutionary in the usual
20th century sense but when it came to the new and strange gods of his
times - Capitalism, Fascism and Communism - he was an iconoclast. As
a matter of fact when lights were going out one after the other all over
Europe, the main independence movements in the colonised world were
guided largely by democratic forces.
In fact, a major fountainhead of Muslim rage that has spawned the
other kind of radicalisation that leads to much confl ict now is a pervasive
sense of injustice. This sense of injustice and the contingent outrage are
directed as much towards the Muslim rulers as towards major powers.
The modernist movements helped usher the era of freedom from direct
alien rule but failed to deliver progress and security for all partly because
of intrinsic factors and partly because of continued foreign interventions.
Palestine, Kashmir, the CIA’s successful operation to bring down
Mossadegh and the invasion of Egypt by Israel, France and the United
Kingdom became symbols of perpetual injustice and a perennial source
of a sense of victimhood amongst the Muslims to which the modernists
and reformers of Muslim thought had no easy answer. Over a period of
time, localised grievances became a global narrative of rejection and
denial by a predatory West.
Huntington’s clash of civilisation thesis owes its central motif to
the prolifi c “orientalist” Bernard Lewis. In much of the Muslim world
Bernard Lewis is synonymous with long standing plans to fragment
the world of Islam into small ethnically-based and compliant states.
Huntington is retrospectively seen as having written not an academic
dissertation but a manifesto, a virtual scheme that the neoconservatives
were to implement as soon as they seized power in the United States. It
was a scheme for an aggressive return of western armies to the broader
Middle East. It went far beyond the control of the energy resources and
the establishment of military bases to fi ll the gaps in a global deployment
of strategic forces for the new century. In the Muslim perception, every
piece fi tted into a giant jigsaw puzzle. Iraq’s 7000-year old cultural
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Tanvir Ahmad Khan
heritage was ravaged and almost 3.5 millions Iraqis displaced internally
and externally to demonstrate that the only history that mattered was
that of the West. The world, it was argued, was being returned to the
era when it was divided between central, metropolitan people and the
peripheral people bound to them by tributary relations.
What turned these apprehensions into a spiral of mindless violence
by Iraqi resistance and terrifying reprisals by western armies--- Fallujha
epitomising the gory drama for history--- was partly the result of the
ever shifting grounds for invading Iraq. By the time the rationale for the
invasion of Iraq crystallised into a declaration of intent to reconfi gure
and reconstitute the broader Middle East, it had revived layers of fears
accumulated over centuries. Islam has a long and proud history of its
own and nothing could have been more provocative than to apply the
18th century concept of a civilising mission in proclaiming liberty and
freedom as the purpose of a massive military intervention. The menu
offered to the region was not only democracy but also a transformation
of its dominant faith. In his 1988 book Islamic Liberalism, Leonard
Binder made the following trenchant observation to make the point that
the world of Islam believes that it can progress without paying such a
heavy cultural price : “From the time of the Napoleonic invasion, from
the time of the massacre of the Janissaries, from the time of the Sepoy
mutiny, at least the West has been trying to tell Islam what must be the
price of progress in the coin of the tradition which is to be surrendered.”
In 1992, after witnessing murder and mayhem in Bosnia Herzegovina,
the western-educated Arab intellectual, Rana Kabbani, wrote: “How
are we to tackle our problems rationally; handicapped as we are by
an overpowering sense of grievance? Both towards a West that has
long colonised, manipulated and despised us, and towards our own
governments, which are shamefully silent, corrupt and castrated. We
have yet to earn our independence as Muslims: the rich nations amongst
us are mere vassals, the poor ones, full victims.”
Given the Quranic injunctions on a just war, the Muslim mind
should have no diffi culty in differentiating between jihad and martyrdom
on the one hand and terrorism on the other. If this distinction has got
blurred today, then there is something gravely wrong with the Muslim
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Muslim Radicalism, Western Concerns
imagination and the forces that are trying to bend it to their will. The
difference is so clearly embedded in the historical memory of Islam that
a true Muslim instinctively knows when there is resort to illegitimate
and impermissible violence in the name of Islam. There is the haunting
memory of Ibn Muljam assassinating the fourth pious Caliph, Hazrat Ali.
Here is the immutable difference between the terrorist and the martyr.
Then there is the awesome moment of the grandson of the Prophet
of Islam sacrifi cing his life at Karbala. This is the Muslim individual
redeeming an entire culture by standing up to the state terrorism of a
usurper. Islam refuses to resign itself to perpetual injustice and repression.
Drawing upon Ali Shariati’s “Iqbal, Ma’mar Tajdid Banaye Taffokar-I
Islami “ (Iqbal, the architect of the reconstruction of Islamic thought)
and his seminal Shahadat (Martyrdom), Mannochehr Dorraj makes the
following observation about Shariati and, by implication, about Iqbal :
“For Shariati, one of the greatest and most revolutionary contributions
of Islam to human society has been to instil a sense of devotion and
sacrifi ce in the pursuit of justice. Through martyrdom a society refi nes
itself. By sacrifi cing the most precious possession (one’s life) the
individual also affi rms his/her faith in the ideals of the collectivity and
adds to the credibility and sanctity of this ideal.” The western failure
to distinguish between lawful resistance to foreign occupation and
mindless terrorism that stalks the world of Islam today is the root cause
of the rapidly growing mutual incomprehension.
Millions of Muslim denounced in unequivocal terms the outrage in
East Africa in 1998, the World Trade Centre attack in 1993, the ghastly
tragedy of Twin Towers, the terrorist bombing in Madrid, the bombs
of Bali and every other atrocity committed in some twisted logic of
defending Islam. But what they get in return is the tarnishing of their
faith as “Islamofascism” not only by opinion-makers such as the novelist
Martin Amis who wrote an anti-Muslim polemic entitled The Age of
Horrorism in Sunday Observer but also by leading western politicians
including President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair.
In a remarkable essay entitled ‘Muslims and Democracy,’ Abdou
Filali-Ansary sought avenues of better mutual understanding and co-
existence.4 He conceded that Muslim confrontation with European
54 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Tanvir Ahmad Khan
colonial powers in the nineteenth century gave birth to some great and
lasting misunderstandings, as a result of which Muslims have rejected
key aspects of modernity as alienation and a surrender of the historical
self to the “Other”. But then he also reminded us that ‘the rule of law is
a notion that expresses something that Muslims have longed for since
the early phases of their history, and have felt to be part of the message
of Islam.” The Muslims seek higher universalism for the concept of the
rule of law in the conduct of international relations and will not accept
another century of dominance, subjugation, humiliation and exploitation
by the West or its new surrogates.
The Muslim world does not deny that a high degree of natural
cosmopolitanism is inherent in economic globalisation; it is willing to
accept it as an evolutionary process. But it is a delusion to think that
by applying overwhelming military force, local cultures hallowed by
thousands of years can be bludgeoned into the total homogeneity of
a superfi cial western culture. In fact, it is a recipe for confl icts lasting
generations. Justifying this project as a post-Enlightenment civilisation
dragging a pre-Enlightenment culture into a creative encounter with
modernity is sheer hubris.
The events of 9/11 were a manifestation of pure primordial evil
which can never be condoned. But they signalled a new stage in a
new kind of warfare which has only been expanded by the retribution
extracted from the Taliban in Afghanistan and during a far more
indefensible invasion of Iraq. Professor Michael Mazarr speaks of
‘twilight struggles against non-state networks of evildoers.” The new
confl icts are not wars waged by regular, organised armies, however
lethally armed, across vast swathes of European or Asian land mass They
do not belong even to the tradition in which less powerful peoples made
hit and run raids to prosecute the classical anti-colonial and national
liberation movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. “We
are not fi ghting,” writes Professor Nazarr, “proto-Bismarcks, who want
nothing more than to seize power and start operating as realpolitikers.”5
It is a fi ght against a ‘fantasy ideology,” a mind set and ‘the central
route to war in such psychological dramas is national humiliation and
society-wide alienation.” For a battle for the society, for its mindsets
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Muslim Radicalism, Western Concerns
and psychologies, (and) to address sources of grievance and anxiety,
to shore up institutions of governance,’ Mazarr proposes a theory of
psychopolitik resting on three pillars of statecraft: restraint, compassion,
and fi scal responsibility. He is aware of the danger that the West would
persist in its faith that traditional conventional confl ict is the dominant
mode. Were it to do things differently, his recipe for at least mitigating
the threat of new radicalism, is stated thus: attend to identity; attend to
the global economy; practise the greatest restraint possible in foreign
policy; avoid humiliating others; do not become the focus of alienation.
This recipe would obviously not be acceptable to the hardcore Al-Qaeda
that is already beyond reverence for life, beyond the insights of the
three monotheistic religions, beyond the fruits of settled civilisations
and beyond the four walls of international law. But it could still make
a profound impact on thousands of radicalised young men and women
who are engaged in battles of alienation and mutual incomprehension.
As stated in the beginning of this paper, Muslim activism in
the Indian sub-continent aimed primarily at reviving a vanquished
community. In reconstructing Muslim thought its main proponents
tried to cut through cobwebs of ritualism and esoteric practices that
induced a passive acceptance of life under foreign domination. Even
when they successfully mobilised Muslim separatist sentiment and
demanded a “Muslim homeland” in South Asia, the emphasis was on
constitutionalism and democratic assertion in Muslim majority areas.
The Indian Muslims steered clear of all anti-British movements that
embraced political violence as a tool of the independence struggle.
Pakistan’s emergence as an independent state however created a
new dynamic. The founding fathers believed that they would be able to
accommodate Islamic aspirations in a largely secular state structure of an
elected parliament, independent judiciary and modernising bureaucracy.
This was challenged by Islamic parties not so much by rejecting the
state organisation as by demanding that it should be the instrument
of creating an Islamic state. The principal parties like Jam’ati Islami,
which was established by the internationally renowned scholar Abul Ala
Maududi in British India in 1941, and Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i- Islam took
up the banner of Islamisation engaging the state peacefully through the
56 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Tanvir Ahmad Khan
established institutions. Since the early years of Pakistan’s history were
marked by a vocal if small Marxist movement that opposed military
alliances and propagated a leftist revolution, much of the energy of the
Islamic parties was expended on combating communist radicalism.
The fear of an ideology alien to Islam also created a rapidly expanding
apolitical movement - the Tablighi Jamaat - that concentrated on
reviving the basic knowledge of Islam amongst the masses through
low key frictionless contact with individuals and susceptible groups
such as students. In the 1950s and 1960s, some of the Islamic parties
in Pakistan received western support. By and large, the Islamic parties
have garnered very limited electoral support except in 2002 when they
were able to gain signifi cant representation in the National Assembly
and two provinces by exploiting the anti-American wave unleashed by
the American invasion of Afghanistan. They have failed to repeat their
success in Pakistan’s general election in 2008.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Pakistani state responded to demands for
Islamisation with a gradualist policy of incorporating elements that did
not alter its basic organisation. Pakistan’s Constitution forbids parliament
to enact a law that is repugnant to Islam. First a state-funded Institute
of Islamic Research and then a Council of Islamic Ideology emerged
as forums for study and research on how Islam could interface with
the modern world. Pakistan also created a Sharia Court with a parallel
existence to the established system of traditional courts inherited from
the British Raj.
The subsequent drift towards radicalisation was caused by intrinsic
factors as well as by momentous changes in Pakistan’s strategic
environment. First and foremost, Pakistan experienced along with
several Arab-Islamic countries the failure of the nationalist secular elites
that had emerged during decolonisation to provide political stability and
suffi cient economic growth. In Pakistan’s case, periods of high economic
growth were marred by an accentuation of class and income disparities.
Disillusionment with the post-colonial modern state fuelled the urge
for a return to the pristine values and true tenets of Islam. The failure
of the state to provide universal education led to a rapid expansion of
the traditional seminaries, the religious madrassas, which now have an
57CRITERION – April/June 2008
Muslim Radicalism, Western Concerns
enrolment of nearly a million young people and account for a signifi cant
percentage of literacy in a certain age group.
The external developments that radicalised Muslim politics in
Pakistan and the neighbourhood include several seminal events: the
Soviet Union’s direct military intervention in Afghanistan in 1979 to save
a tottering Marxist regime; the Islamic revolution in Iran; the refusal of
Israel to withdraw from Arab territories occupied during the 1967 war
and later colonised heavily; the suppression of Palestinian intifada, the
Iran-Iraq war; the eventual American interventions to liberate Kuwait
and later in 2003 to occupy Iraq for an indefi nite period of time; and
the collapse of the Soviet Union that brought freedom to predominantly
Muslim Central Asian states. The emancipation of Central Asia---
played an important role in radicalising the Kashmiri movement against
India with attendant consequences for Pakistan’s polity; it was taken
as affi rmation of the view that a local armed struggle could change the
status quo otherwise preserved and sanctifi ed by nuclear deterrence
stability in the sub-continent.
In Afghanistan Islamist politics emerged because of the country’s
brief experiment with parliamentary democracy in 1960s. It was also
a distinct reaction to the growing Marxist trends amongst the educated
classes. Pakistan’s Islamic parties kept contact with Afghan parties
such as Hizbe Islami because they were never enthusiastic about the
irredentist claims of Afghan leaders typifi ed by Sardar Mohammad
Daoud who was to lose his life in the Marxist-led military putsch in
1978. These links played an important part in forging a formidable front
against the Marxist regime and then in organising the great Afghan Jihad
against the Soviet Union. The Jihad was largely outsourced to Pakistan’s
intelligence services which, with strong American assistance, radicalised
the Afghans Mujahidden and their Pakistani partners. The madrassas that
had imparted a conservative Sunni education based upon a centuries old
curriculum became a special focus of anti-Soviet militancy. In the mid-
1990s the madrassa students on both sides of the border constituted the
Taliban who intervened strongly in a fi erce power struggle amongst the
Mujahideen leaders. The Taliban had much of Afghanistan under their
medievalist control when they were overthrown by the American attack
58 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Tanvir Ahmad Khan
in October 2001.
The Afghan Jihad brought thousands of Muslims, mostly Arabs,
to Afghanistan and the neighbouring districts of Pakistan. Amongst
them were Shaikhs who commanded veneration for their knowledge of
fundamentalist Islam and who raised the awareness of the Pakistani and
Afghan Islamists from the local to the global. People of both the countries
had always taken a strong interest in Muslim causes all over the world
especially in Palestine. But the Arab component of the Afghan Jihad
provided them with a conceptual framework for a perpetual struggle
against powers that continued to humiliate the Muslims and usurp their
lands directly or through indigenous surrogates. Pakistan’s reversal of
policy on Afghanistan in 2001 and the wholehearted participation of
the Pakistani army in the project to build a new democratic Afghanistan
aroused great hostility amongst this ideological enclave of the erstwhile
Afghan Jihad. Pakistan has ended up importing the ongoing confl ict in
Afghanistan where the Taliban have re-surfaced as the main resistance
group into Pakistan. Its tribal belt now has militants called local Taliban
and the losses suffered by the Pakistan’s security forces exceed the
aggregate of American and NATO losses since 2001. The Pakistan
government has not carried conviction that the country needs to fi ght
the militants for its own security and prosperity. The armed forces
are currently engaged in re-establishing the writ of the government
in Waziristan where the jihadis have created a rival authority. It is a
costly enterprise in military losses and government’s popularity ratings.
The ever widening perception in the country that the government is
fi ghting America’s war in Afghanistan by itself has become a factor in
the radicalisation of Islamists in the country. The post-election political
government in Pakistan is mindful of this factor and is currently engaged
in exploring avenues for diversifying the strategy for combating
extremism so as to include offers of negotiations with amenable groups
of militants enraged by an excessive reliance on military counter-
insurgency operations.
European Concern
As a citizen of a country from where considerable emigration to
59CRITERION – April/June 2008
Muslim Radicalism, Western Concerns
Europe, especially the United Kingdom, has taken place one cannot
but understand the increasing anxiety about the inroads that Muslim
activism is making into Muslim expatriate communities in Europe. Nor
can one be indifferent to the reactive implications of this phenomenon
for European societies and for inter-state relations in a globalising world.
If the European liberal -left feels that Muslim radicalism has intensifi ed
the shift in the European political spectrum to extreme right, the Muslim
world is equally apprehensive of irrational Islamophobia. Not since the
crusades and the Spanish Inquisition has Islam been vilifi ed the way it
is being done in this age.
What are the easily recognisable aspects of the situation that need to
be addressed? First and foremost, it is the fear of demography. Muslims
tend to concentrate in urban centres for obvious economic reasons. They
have a high birth rate. According to Timothy M.Savage,6 there are 15.2
million Muslims in the original pre-expansion European Union (EU).
France with fi ve million, Germany with four million, the UK with 1.6
million, Italy with a million, and the Netherlands with 886,000 lead the
charts. Austria, Belgium, Greece and Sweden have Muslim populations
ranging from 300,000 to 450,000. Muslims in the New EU member
states are estimated at 290,000 out of which Cyprus alone accounts
for 200,000. One estimate visualises a doubling of Muslim population
in Europe as a whole by 2015. While it is possible to dramatise the
confessional situation in a particular city like Bradford in England, a
situation that certainly calls for appropriate interventionist strategies,
the overall demographic profi le of Europe does not justify paranoid
reactions. Surely, the cause is more qualitative than quantitative.
Three aspects of the qualitative situation stand out. The Muslims are
reluctant to shed their identity; in fact, they are mobilising themselves
more earnestly than ever before to preserve it. Even though they are
not a monolithic group, European Muslims “increasingly identify fi rst
with Islam rather than with either their family’s country of origin or the
European country in which they reside.” Here is an abiding confl ict of
values. Second, they are prone to “the seductive lure of a transnational
Muslim identity forged in foreign policy grievances, a culture of
victimisation and a sense of alienation that is only partially fed by socio-
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Tanvir Ahmad Khan
economic factors.” {Jonathan Paris) Third, even for those who are not
unduly distressed by the new diversity produced by Muslim cultures,
in the plural, there is a putative threat to the state and the society.
Analysing the scene in the Netherlands, Professor Paul Sniderman
argues that multiculturalism encouraged an ambiguity of commitment;
the fundamental issue, it turns out is not diversity but loyalty. Fourth,
there is anxiety that Muslim communities in Europe, aggrieved as they
feel, may not be fully forthcoming to cooperate with intelligence and
law enforcement agencies in eliminating terrorist cells.
Unfortunately, Europe, like Pakistan, is reluctant to admit that an
uncritical acceptance of the metaphor of a global war against terrorism
has worked against the initiatives for greater harmony and integration.
The two seminal strategies--- multiculturalism adopted as a policy by the
United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Scandinavia etc., and assimilation by
France --- might have had a better chance if Iraq had not happened the
way it did and Afghanistan was not mishandled after the initial success
against the Taliban. It would be unnatural to expect that Muslims
anywhere in the world would not be outraged by the destruction of Iraq.
They were prominent in the peace marches because of their race and
religion; the demonstrations were otherwise overwhelmingly composed
of Europeans whose time-hallowed post-Enlightenment values were
grossly violated by the invasion and its sordid aftermath. The perception
that the US-led West was waging war against Islam was as much a
product of the fevered imagination of Muslim communities as of the
reckless semantics used increasingly by western leaders once it became
clear that the invasion had turned into a fi asco. The morally untenable
over-simplifi cation that any Muslim failing to show submission to the
US grand design for the broader Middle East must either be a terrorist
or a sympathetic accomplice has contributed greatly to the radicalisation
of Muslims all over the world.
One of the new clichés is that the project to build multi-cultural
societies in the West has collapsed because of ‘political Islam.’ It is
possible to revive both multiculturalism and assimilation provided they
are subjected to a critical reappraisal. The British are backing away from
multiculturalism partly because they have not as yet factored into their
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Muslim Radicalism, Western Concerns
assessment the blowback of the policies of the Blair era. France has
to rethink its literalist interpretation of assimilation which over-blows
issues like the wearing of scarves. Such potentially emotive matters
are often a substitute for hard solutions for the harsh realities of the
banlieues. The British academic, David Drake, pertinently asked why so
much political, intellectual and emotional energy has been spent on the
issue of a teenager wanting to wear a head scarf rather than on far more
pressing issues of integration such as the high rates of unemployment
and deprivation in the Muslim community. The explanation that the
apprehensions of the French state are rooted in the memory of the bloody
struggle for secularisation after the French Revolution and through
the counter-revolutionary movements for restoration of the old school
system does not make much impression on Muslims who consider the
scarf as an ordinary statement of identity. For many Muslim analysts,
Islamophobia is an escape from a cluster of realities. It has an undertone
of racism that the West does not want to admit. There is a touch of
imperial nostalgia that manifests itself into a hierarchical arrangement
of people from former colonies. It is also a state of denial about the fact
that many western countries have lost their distinctive status because of
globalisation, American hegemony and now a rapid shift of economic
power to the emerging Asian nations.
An effective strategy to combat the rise of radicalism will have to
address issues of foreign and security policies and those of integrating or
assimilating Muslims into European societies simultaneously. Seeking
to bring about a forcible disconnect between the two has already been
shown as counter-productive. At the psychological and emotional plane,
it is as diffi cult to make Muslims indifferent to the disastrous new wars
in the Middle East as to expect Jewish communities in the United States
and elsewhere not to concern themselves with the fortunes of Israel.
Secular western states often show an understandable bias in favour
of Christian minorities in other lands particularly when they become
victims of an oppressive majority, as was the case of East Timor under
Indonesian control. The harm done by European procrastination over a
ceasefi re in Lebanon in August 2006 was incalculable as every additional
day provided to Israel to wreak havoc in Lebanon was being carried to
millions of homes all over the world in real time. The recent history
62 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Tanvir Ahmad Khan
of Arab-Muslim people from Palestine to Afghanistan has regrettably
highlighted how little is the impact of the mass of liberal people in the
West on the policies of their governments. It has gravely undermined
the European moral authority. With its unrivalled experience of other
cultures and climes spanning at least three hundred years, Europe is
expected to exercise a moderating infl uence on American policies. The
popular perception in the Muslim world is not only of the insensitivity
of American decision-making to honest advice but also of Europe not
even tendering such advice.
Muslims do not expect Europe to unleash an insurgency against what
is often described as the new global American empire. But they do think
that Europe can strengthen its own initiatives for Good Neighbourhood
policies towards Muslim lands across the Mediterranean and on its
eastern rim from Turkey southwards. On issues like Palestine that fuel
radicalism, Europe has not tried hard enough to present a different
profi le. If Prime Minister Tony Blair was lured to the Iraq war by a
subliminal desire to recapture the lost glory of the British Empire, then
the outcome should open our eyes. Iraq has emerged as the new epicentre
of radicalism and given Al-Qaeda a new lease of life.
Even on its own, Europe in partnership with Arab-Muslim countries
can help create a civilisational infrastructure of education, professional
knowledge, economic reforms and technology transfer that would stop the
rapid expansion of the space where deprivation and frustration translate
into radicalism. Europe can also disseminate liberal and democratic
values by demonstrating that in the fi nal analysis it is not on the side of
local despots and dictators. Unfortunately the present evidence points
to the contrary; Europe is still seen to prefer puppets that can keep the
natives on a tight leash.
Internally, Europe must make a distinction between those who
have signed up for mindless violence and the rest including those given
the derogatory title of “fence sitters.” If further recruitment is denied
the hard core will succumb before long to better law enforcement,
intelligence and international cooperation. Europe needs to deconstruct
myths being popularised by the extreme right wing and the American
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Muslim Radicalism, Western Concerns
evangelists trying to hasten the second coming. It is often said that the
Muslim minority is “encroaching upon the collective identity and public
values of European society.” We need to sift the truth in such assertions
from deep-seated historical prejudices which project themselves as a
paranoid fear of the “other.” Thirteen European states have been listed
as not recognising Islam as a religion. Many of them do not even bestow
minority rights embodied in their constitutions on Muslims because they
are not a recognised ethnic group. No less than 19 percent of Germans
were reported in a survey to favour a ban on Muslim worship altogether.
Several European states create serious hurdles in the construction of
mosques. Discriminated against frequently, the ghettoised mind can
only resist assimilation. That resistance is stronger amongst the young
is as much an indictment of the European societies as the false charisma
of the radicalised Imams. Loyalty comes more easily if one has a stake
in the state and society.
Reforming Islam
The present crisis in the West’s relations with the Muslim world
emanates in no small a measure from an infl exible hostility towards
what is often referred to as ‘political Islam.’ The term is becoming
synonymous with terrorism. Political Islam is considered on a priori
basis as antithetical to modernisation, democratic choice and liberal
values. Embracing an essentialist view of Islamist movements, the
US-led West seems to have taken upon itself the task of reconstituting
Islamic civilisation. Since political Islam is pathology, a surgical use
of force is considered legitimate. The fact of the matter is that the
major “Islamist” movements in Morocco, Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia
and Indonesia reject neither modernity nor development. Nearly all of
them are willing to stake their claim to political power through free
and fair election. What is, however, true is that they also share their
opposition to confl ating modernisation with westernisation. “History,”
writes Menderes Cinar, “is narrated accordingly: the pious Muslim
people reacted to the colonisation of their lands by waging a war of
independence, but since then an alienated, Westernising elite grabbed the
power of the state and acted as internal colonisers.” Cinar recommends
that Islamism be accepted as a legitimate political movement, advancing
64 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Tanvir Ahmad Khan
a moral criticism of politics which is a sine qua non of democracy.7 This
proposal to “normalise” Islamism as an alternative vision that is willing
to fi gure in a democratic battle of ideas resonates well with much of
liberal Muslim opinion which regards the western pressure on Muslim
rulers to exclude the Islamist tendency from the equation as playing into
the hands of militants and terrorists. Muslim politics cannot be severed
by force from assertion of a Muslim identity by segments of the polity;
the balance can be found only in the adoption of democratic procedures.
The West, at the moment, is seen as clearly arrayed on the side of non-
democratic regimes willing to advance its agenda of re-establishing
control of physical resources of the Muslim world. That religion is not a
factor per se is seen in the readiness of most of the Islamic movements to
support increased ties with non-Muslim or secular states such as China
and India.
In Muslim history, a transnational awareness of the Ummah has
never abolished local identities. At best it was unity in diversity even
at the zenith of the Caliphate, a concept left far behind by modernity.
A great deal of the sacred has survived in all Christian sects despite the
Enlightenment and the Jacobeans. A great deal of the sacred will shape
the Muslim imagination wherever the Muslims live as a community. They
will imbibe modern sciences and technology and yet retain some sense of
mystery in their understanding of the Genesis and the purpose of human
life. How it can threaten European values is simply incomprehensible.
Nor would it stand in the way of Muslims integrating in non-Muslim
states as loyal citizens as they have done for 1400 years.
References:
1 Rahman, Fazalur, Revival and Reform in Islam, One world, Oxford 2006. P.7
2 ibid p 13
3 ibid p 21
4 Abdou Filali-Ansary. Journal of Democracy 1999
5 Mazarr, Michael J,www.realclearpolitics.com March 6, 2006
6 Savage, Timothy M.,, Europe and Islam: Crescent Waxing, Cultures Clashing, The
Washington Quarterly; Summer 2004, pp 25-50
7 Cinar, M, 2002, From Shadow boxing to Critical Understanding, Totalitarian Movements
and Political Religions, 3.1, 35-57
THE BOMBER UNDER THE BURQA
Farhana Ali*
Abstract(Since March 2003, when the war in Iraq began, the participation
of women in that country in suicide terrorism has increased by nearly
30 percent. This year alone there have been eight attacks committed by
women compared to six in 2007. The exponential increase in female
suicide bombings suggests the trend will continue to rise unless security
officials, the Iraqi government, and the international community seek
new solutions to counter the rising violence by an important non-state
actor. Author).
Introduction: Why Women Kill
Over the past six years, more Muslim women appear ready to
conduct suicide terrorism for reasons similar to their male counterparts.
On the surface, women seem to be no different than male terrorists and
appear to be equally affected by their local context, driven to suicide
terrorism in part by their personal, familial, organizational, and societal
responsibility to protect their families, communities and nations perceived
to be under attack. Many assume that women, like men, are motivated
by an extremist interpretation of Islam that promotes, if not legitimizes,
suicide terrorism (i.e., martyrdom operations) to defend the faith against
perceived infidels. While Islamic doctrine is used to encourage and incite
violent jihad, women’s communiqués, interviews and online statements
indicate that religion is the least common denominator for the would-be
female bomber.
The literature on women in armed conflict, war, and political
* Farhana Ali is a scholar and the author of several internationally published research
papers.
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Farhana Ali
violence is growing, but few studies focus on the motivations that drive
Muslim women to support the violent jihad. The reality of many women
engaged in terrorist activities is that they, unlike men, are invisible
to local security forces and the outside community. Through their
anonymity, Muslim women have successfully perpetrated attacks with
the bomb under the burqa which provides them an additional layer of
protection; by wearing the burqa or the abaya (Arabic term), women are
able to mask their intentions and master the art of deceit and deception.
While recent studies of female suicide terrorists highlight the
Islamic dress, partly attributed to Western fascination with “veiling” and
“patriarchy,” this focus fails to recognize the psychological factor that
contribute to women choosing suicide terror. Therefore, by highlighting
the dress code of Muslim women, and the Islamic societies from which
suicide terrorism increasingly emerges, Western scholars have confused
Islam with terrorism.
Why and how are Muslim women recruited by male terrorists or
volunteer for suicide attacks? For terrorism analysts, the answer often
lies in the woman’s connections, direct or indirect, to the terrorist leader,
other group members, organization or the conflict. The answer may be
traced to the ideological, historical, socio-political, or economic factors
that impact their decision to choose suicide as a tactic of warfare. Some
Western scholarship on this subject has emphasized the role of female
emancipation within Islamic patriarchal societies, assuming that all
would-be female terrorists are second-class citizens.
Overcoming the increasingly accepted argument that women
commit attacks to attain equality, this article integrates some of the
unconventional norms that have unjustly been used to categorize
Muslim women into a single framework. This narrow view discounts
the important variables that reflect a woman’s decision to choose suicide
terrorism, such as culture, religious practice, and the familial/societal
role of Muslim women in any given environment. The reality is that
Muslim female bombers vary considerably along the lines of culture,
religion, national identity, as well as their own personal perceptions of
their roles within the nuclear - and extended - familial systems to which
67CRITERION – April/June 2008
The Bomber under the Burqa
they belong.
A full account of Muslim female activism - and by extension, the
role of men who recruit women - requires further attention, and should
consider the impact of values and norms within a particular society
that could act to persuade some women to choose violence. How these
norms are violated with respect to women is a point worth highlighting.
For example, in most conflicts today, including the non-Muslim world,
women are also victims of rape, torture, kidnappings and other heinous
crimes committed by men as acts of vengeance or simple blood-letting
and/or barbarism.
Therefore, women who do not join terrorist groups also fall victim
to violence. As victims of war, women suffer from rape, kidnappings,
and torture. Radical Iraqi men, similar to men in other Muslim countries,
exact revenge against the women of their society. In a newly released
report by the Women for Women International, created by Iraqi-born
female activist, Zainab Salbi, almost two-thirds of the 1,500 Iraqi
women questioned for the survey she conducted in Iraq said that violence
against them had increased.1 According to Salbi’s survey data, only 26.9
percent of women questioned were optimistic about the situation in
Iraq. Like Salbi, Iraqi-born Dr. Rashad Zidan, who was voted Person of
2006, refl ects the growing concerns of women, especially widows. She
exposes the conditions of Iraqi women to the West, noting the loss of
their men, including brothers and son to ongoing wars. In an interview
with US reporters, Zidan states, “I would say to the American Congress,
your war has ruined my country. You need to repair what you have
ruined and then leave us alone.”
Of equal value is the cultural psychology of men. Female acceptance
by male leaders is key to gaining access into terrorist organizations and
perpetrating suicide attacks - a tactic that has helped alter the assumption
that women are pacifi sts, moderate and non-violent. Thus, the role of
culture and ideas, as interpreted by male extremists and their followers,
can alter the choices women make and convince them that there is glory
in suicide attacks. Couched in religious symbols and language, some
Muslim women might choose to express their real-world grievances
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Farhana Ali
through violence.
Although it is accepted that we may never know the full range
of motivations that female bombers might use to rationalize suicide
terrorism, and their reasons may vary from person to person, group to
group, and confl ict to confl ict, certain common themes and patterns
among female bombers can provide a framework for analysis. Drawing
on earlier research and interviews of female extremists, this author
frames the mujahidaat’s motives for suicide terrorism under broad
categories into what is called the fi ve “R’s”:
Reform • to the confl ict through a peaceful settlement and for
future generations
Revenge• for the loss of family members, and/or loss of community/
nation;
Respect • from the larger Muslim community for her sacrifi ce;
Reassurance• that she is a capable and equal partner in affecting
change in war;
Recruit• other women to follow her example.
This list is not meant to exclude other factors that could inspire
women to participate in terrorism. Professor Andrew Silke maintains
that certain factors exist within a given community that enables groups
to employ suicide. His argument assumes that groups using suicide
have a “cultural precedent for self-sacrifi ce; the confl ict is long-
running…and involves casualties on both sides; and the protagonists
are desperate.”2 In a separate article, Silke highlights the psychology
of vengeance, social identifi cation (i.e., the need to belong to a local or
international community of believers), accessible entrée into a terrorist
group, status and personal rewards, and the feeling of exclusion from
mainstream society which leaves individuals vulnerable to religious
indoctrination.3
No Two Confl icts Are Alike
Local confl icts are critical motivators, but each one is unique and
must be viewed from a specifi c set of circumstances, such as the historical
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The Bomber under the Burqa
framework from which confl ict emerges, to assess the factors that drive
women in various parts of the world to suicide terror. For instance,
aside from being linked by gender, the mujahidaat in Chechnya have
little in common with women in Palestine, and women in Saudi Arabia
have absolutely nothing to share with their “sisters” in Uzbekistan.
Therefore, different people generate different reactions to local and
global confl icts.
Like men, women understand the importance of propaganda (i.e.,
the “CNN” factor) in fi ghting for a cause they believe in. No different
from men, women have chosen suicide attacks to call attention to their
confl ict, raising the level of awareness from the world community to
the heightened frustration, alienation, and despair experienced in local
confl icts. Increasing awareness with instant media coverage, however,
has not always guaranteed an end to confl ict or increased involvement
by regional or other actors, such as the United States, to mediate for a
peaceful solution to confl ict. In some cases, news of female bombers
helps to create more anger and disillusionment from the general
population, while motivating other women to commit the same act. For
example, four Palestinian women committed suicide attacks within four
months after Wafa Idris’s suicide bombing in January 2002.4
While confl icts and motivations vary, a woman’s decision to pursue
violent action is impacted by personal experiences and outcomes.
Coupled with the absence of change to her own local confl ict, of which
she is a part of, a woman is more apt to volunteer or be recruited for a
terrorist operation to end her own suffering, or that of the people she
identifi es with.
Suicide is the preferred tactic when Muslim women believe that their
social structure, which is the fabric of an Islamic society, is threatened or
has been violated by the prevailing authority. Veteran Palestinian jihadist
Leila Khaled said, “we are under attack…the Palestinians are ready to
sacrifi ce themselves for the national struggle for the respect of their just
rights,” extolling female bombers like Wafa.5 Following Idris’ bombing,
Hanadi Jaradat detonated a bomb in October 2003 in the Arab-owned
restaurant, Maxim, in Haifa, Israel, which killed nineteen people. In an
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Farhana Ali
excerpt aired on 16 August 2005 on Al Jazeera, Hanadi says: “By the
power of Allah, I have decided to become the sixth female martyrdom-
seeker, who will turn her body into shrapnel, which will reach the heart
of every Zionist colonialist in my country.”6
The perceived threat against Islam also serves as a powerful
motivator that has justifi ed the use of violence as an effective means
of communication. Convinced that the local Muslim community can
no longer afford inaction, some Muslim women enlist in operations
to ensure the survival of the Muslim community. For the believer of
martyrdom, subjugation to the faith (i.e., Islam) is rewarding. The
individual, knowing that death is likely, “inspires other Muslims to
continue the struggle and the martyr’s death is kindling wood for jihad
and Islam.”7
Accepting that other motivations are likely, two factors offer
women a heightened sense of awareness of the world in which they
live: a breakdown of a woman’s societal structures (including foremost
the loss of her family and community) and increased opportunities for
women to volunteer for or join terrorist groups. Through the latter,
women - even those not living in war, occupation or armed struggle
- can become members of a larger community, or what Islam calls the
Ummah (Global Islamic Community). Scholars and psychiatrists refer
to this as embracing a “collective identity.”8 Terrorism experts Dr. Jerold
Post and Paul Horgan stress the importance of the social psychological
perspective as the “most powerful lens through which to examine
and explain terrorist behaviour.”9 Through the identifi cation process,
the mobilization of women into terrorist organizations represents an
evolving network.10
With a wide range of possibilities, it is therefore diffi cult to draw
fi rm conclusions about the motivations of all mujahidaat for a number
of reasons. First, there is limited data on women’s motivations for
suicide terrorism, particularly in emerging confl icts such as Iraq. In
older confl icts, such as the Arab-Israeli crisis, empirical evidence has
been collected over time by thoughtful researchers, although one could
argue that the bulk of this research is that of Israeli scholars and former
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The Bomber under the Burqa
defence offi cials. There is little to no evidence provided by Palestinian
experts, writers, and/or activists, probably due to a lack of access to failed
suicide bombers inside Israeli prisons and/or the lack of interest.11
Second, the history of female involvement in terrorist organizations,
including secular/nationalist groups, indicates women providing
logistical support including protection for male fi ghters. In the author’s
recent interviews in Kashmir, female militants noted the wide range
of support they offered to the mujahideen, ranging from offering their
homes for protection against authorities to cooking their meals.12 Other
women join extremist groups or participate in warfare to protect their
honour and dignity. In the same region (i.e., Jammu and Kashmir),
women have formed armed groups to protect their interests, their
homes, and families from Islamic militants, rather than kill in the name
of Islam. According to one female fi ghter, “we were subjected to mental
and physical harassment by militants who would force us to provide
them with food and shelter, and in some cases, sexual favours,”13 and
this induced women to use guns and grenades for their own survival.
Third, women participating in terrorist activities suggest no clear
pattern. Existing data on female operatives render it nearly impossible
to profi le the female bomber. They are both young and old, single and
married, educated and illiterate, and few are mothers. Thus, the wide
range of women in female suicide terrorism today discounts any one
“profi le” of a female bomber. The preponderance of evidence suggests
that the mujahidaat could be anyone. The increased invisibility of the
female bomber today also makes profi ling an ineffective exercise.
Rather, an important area of research that “profi les the circumstance”
may be a more useful mechanism, but will require further exploration
before drawing preliminary conclusions.14
Female Bombers in Iraq: Why the Trend Continues
In Iraq, the trend of female suicide terrorism is unpredictable and
unprecedented. As the war in Iraq continues, more Iraqi women will
be ready to make the ultimate sacrifi ce: to use their bodies as human
shields. The US Government and other experts are asking: Why now?
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Farhana Ali
Why has there been a spike in attacks in Iraq committed by women?
More important, how will the new role of women as suicide bombers
change the nature of this confl ict?
Since March 2003, when the war began, Iraqi women’s participation
in suicide terrorism has increased by nearly 30 percent. This year alone
there have been eight attacks committed by women, compared to six in
2007. The exponential increase in female suicide bombings suggests the
trend will continue to rise, unless security offi cials, the Iraqi Government,
and the international community seek new solutions to counter the rising
violence by an important non-state actor.
Over the past year, publicly available data of Iraqi female bombers
has shown that women are now the driving force of suicide terrorism.
To understand the psychological factors that stimulate such acts, there
are three likely motivations relevant in Iraq: a mother’s love for her
children - a cathartic desire for revenge that has motivated mothers, who
had lost children to sectarian violence, to become suicide bombers; a
woman’s love for her country - like men, Iraqi women are also die-hard
nationalists and have the right to protect their families against sectarian
attacks and foreign occupation; a woman’s love for her body - suicide
terrorism becomes an act of restitution for women who perceive violence
as a way to cleanse themselves of sinful acts. An additional explanation
is related to men’s exploitation of women’s vulnerability and exposure
to violence by other groups, foreign troops, and/or Iraqi security.
These factors can be summarized in the following way:
Extremes of maternal love. • The cathartic revenge mothers feel
for losing their son(s) is exceptional. No one is of more value
to an Iraqi woman than her son, for whom she will “rip out her
heart,” according to a former professor of Baghdad University.
The loss of a son, a mother’s prized possession, is turning young
mothers into “cannibals,” according to the Baghdad University
scholar. She says, “These women have no reason to live,” and are
therefore more susceptible to violence.
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The Bomber under the Burqa
Survival instinct• . During Saddam’s era, many women were
given light arms training to protect their families from the threat
of Iran. Today, these same women are in charge of protecting not
only their families (i.e., when a husband dies or is not available)
but are also die-hard nationalists. Consider the fi rst suicide attack
by two women in March 2003. Both young women asserted their
national duty to save their country from the US-led occupation.
In the early days of the confl ict, other Iraqi women expressed
their primal fear of being ruled by an external force and were
thus willing to conduct acts of violence in defence of their
homeland.
To die for Iraq.• Information on Arabic websites from Iraqi-based
Sunni insurgents and Shia militias suggests that their women are
ready to sacrifi ce themselves for the “love of their country and
faith.”15The Abu al-Boukhari Islamic Network indicates that
because Islam is under attack from the Crusaders, women have
an obligation to defend their faith.16 Therefore, the restriction
imposed on women to stay in their homes is lifted in jihad. A rare
martyrdom video from 2003 shows Wadad Jamil Jassem saying,
“I have devoted myself to Jihad for the sake of God and against
the American, British, and Israeli infi dels and to defend the soil
of our precious and dear country.” Increasingly, the effect of the
occupation and insurgent attacks against women (i.e., torture,
rape, kidnapping) has invariably resulted in growing despair,
disillusionment, and depression among Iraqi women, which
could explain their decision for death over life.
Exploitation by men. • On the Internet, male extremists encourage
women to become actively involved in the confl ict in Iraq.
The evidence on Sunni and Shia websites clearly demonstrate
that women are increasingly participating in the confl ict as
fi ghters, suicide bombers, and “mothers of the martyrs.”17 This
reprehensible exploitation of women is a nightmare for Iraqi
security offi cials as well as US forces trying to counter female
violence.
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Farhana Ali
Aside from conducting suicide operations, Iraqi women are
honoured for taking care of male insurgents. For example, in a pro-
insurgent web page known as the Iraqi League, an Iraqi woman from the
city of Falluja is celebrated for remaining in the city during the siege.
This woman provided her home to the insurgents, baked them bread,
and buried them in her own garden; for her efforts, she has been called
“the mother of martyrs.”18 Insurgents also encourage Muslim women to
support their husbands in jihad. The Islamic Army in Iraq, for example,
posted an article entitled “This is How Women Should Be” to carry this
message. Other women support insurgents by offering to marry them,
albeit temporarily. These women agree to marry Sunni men, accepting
no dowry in exchange for a ‘temporary’ marriage. Sunni girls who
choose to marry would-be insurgent fi ghters are seen as devout to their
religion and their country - a sign that the girls’ only wish is to free Iraq
from occupation.19
While temporary marriages were banned during Saddam Hussein’s
regime, it is a widely accepted practice in Shia culture. Known as a
“muta’a” marriage, a couple is permitted to live together as husband
and wife so long as they sign a contract and agree to a fi xed term. This
practice is used to recruit Mehdi Army fi ghters to encourage young men,
who cannot otherwise afford a heavy dowry, to join the militia. In one
statement, Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr motivated Shia girls to agree
to a temporary marriage to “provide enjoyment and pleasure in their
bodies and money to the fi ghters who are sacrifi cing their souls for the
Imam.”20
Finally, women’s inclusion in the war is intended to confuse the
enemy and make it more diffi cult for Iraqi and coalition forces to identify
the female bomber. It is the invisibility of female bombers in Iraq that
poses a grave security concern. The anonymity of the female bomber
protects her personal identity and cloaks the terror groups’ location,
membership, and activities. Because she is an invisible non-state actor,
a female supporter of terrorism makes it diffi cult for authorities to
profi le her. Only recently have security forces been able to suspect and
stop women from detonating. On 6 June 2007, a woman dressed in the
abaya who refused to respond to Iraqi police was shot at, causing the
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The Bomber under the Burqa
explosives underneath her dress to explode before she reached her target.
A report from Aswat al-Iraq (Voices of Iraq)21 in January 2008 indicated
that Iraqi police had intelligence information that ten female suicide
bombers entered the province of Diyala, while in March, US troops
arrested a male recruiter of female suicide bombers north of Baghdad.
According to the later report, the male cell leader intended to use his
wife and another woman to conduct suicide attacks.22
So long as the war in Iraq continues, women could become
increasingly available and ready to commit suicide attacks. Because the
trend is recent, there is an urgent need to understand why these women –
once considered the liberated females of the Middle East - are resorting
to such extreme acts of violence. It is important to identify why, in
their misplaced zeal for jihad, they inevitably choose suicide terrorism
and will instigate others to do the same. This alarming development,
so poorly understood, demands serious and immediate research to pre-
empt the acceleration of suicide attacks perpetrated by women in Iraq.
The ultimate question is will an end to the occupation decrease
the level of violence by women in Iraq? The US withdrawal from the
country may not necessarily restore women’s rights though America
can play a leading role in helping them rebuild their lives by providing
security, economic opportunities, educational freedom, and other wide-
ranging reforms. A former Baghdad professor told the author, “Iraqi
women were equal to men under Saddam’s regime; today, women are
targeted for abuse and violence. We need to give women back what they
deserve.”
Scholars Support Female Martyrs
To isolate this study from the ideological underpinnings of suicide
terror, as delineated by some members of the Muslim clergy, would be
to misplace the importance of scripture in determining when, and how,
violence can be used. The current debate in various Islamic circles about
the utility of suicide, and conversely, the use of women in warfare, has
divided the Muslim ummah (community).
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Farhana Ali
The Muslim clergy have failed to reach consensus on whether
suicide is an acceptable means of warfare, but several scholars in the
wake of September 2001 and the subsequent July 2005 attack in London
have issued various fatwas (edicts) condemning suicide bombings. The
former head of the Al-Azhar Fatwa Committee, Shaykh ‘Atiyyah Saqr,
uses references to historical Islamic literature to argue that the Prophet
Muhammad said a believer would be forbidden from entering Paradise
if he committed suicide.23 More recently, a prominent Syrian cleric,
Abdel Mon’em Mustafa Abu Halima, issued a fatwa prohibiting suicide
operations. A resident of London, Abu Halima, also known as Abu
Naseer Al Tartusi, said “whoever hurts a Miuslim has no Jihad reward,”
and quotes the Prophet as having said: “whoever murders a non-Muslim
enjoying protection under the Islamic state would never smell the scent
of Paradise.”24
Despite these references, religious extremists justify new rules of
warfare to defeat their enemies, including the use of suicide operations.
Rather than suicide, these actions are considered martyrdom operations
(‘amaliyat istishhadiyya). Using this term helps to legitimize, promote,
and activate future male and female bombers. First, martyrs are held in
high esteem in Islam, but some Islamic theologians and contemporary
jihadis distort several hadith to suggest that: 1) women receive fewer
rewards for martyrdom than their male counterparts; and 2) the male
martyr is entitled to more rewards, though his entitlement to these rewards
is mentioned neither in the Qur’an or popularly cited traditions of Imams
Bukhari and Muslim. Rather, some of the rewards attributed to male
martyrs may be intentionally circulated to motivate, inspire, and activate
the male bomber. For example, a well-known and widely transmitted
hadith of Imam Ahmad al-Tirmidhi explicitly notes that male martyrs
will enjoy the pleasure of 72 virgins in paradise. Tirmidhi’s opinion on
the rewards for the male martyr appears to be all-encompassing and
arguably enticing for a would-be male fi ghter:
The Martyr has seven special favours from Allah:
He [or She] is forgiven his sins with the fi rst spurt of blood,
He sees his place in Paradise; He is clothed with the garment
Of faith. He is wed with seventy-two wives from the beautiful
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The Bomber under the Burqa
Maidens of paradise. He is saved from the Punishment of the
Grave. He is protected from the Great Terror (Judgment Day).
On his head is placed a Crown of Dignity, a Jewel better than
The world and all it contains, and he is granted intercession
For seventy people of his household to enter Paradise.25
Of the seven favours listed above, the most controversial but at the
same time widely accepted among violent jihadis is the promise of 72
“maidens of paradise” for the male martyr. The promise of 72 virgins
is even “reminiscent of the medieval Assassins’26 doctrine, involving
the paradise that awaits the holy terrorists,”27 but the concept is not
recognized by all Muslim scholars. The translation of the word “virgin”
in the hadith is characterized in a sexual manner, but other scholars
insist that the word houri is closer to ”the most pure,” a likely reference
to the Prophet’s pious companions.28 Outside of Tirmidhi’s narrative,
the Qur’an makes no reference to the black-eyed virgins or admitting 70
of the martyr’s relatives to heaven. And yet jihadi literature continues to
cite this reference to incite would-be male bombers to conduct terrorist
operations.
Well-known clerics in the Muslim world, such as Doha-based
Shaykh Yusuf Qaradawi, and the late Dr. Abdallah Azzam, along with
several Saudi sheikhs, continue to support martyrdom as a holy concept,
rejecting the Western use of the word “suicide.” They argue that women
can participate in jihad because it is not “suicide.” According to
Qaradawi, the word “suicide is incorrect and misleading,” and prefers
to use the phrase, “heroic operations of martyrdom.” In an interview in
an Egyptian newspaper, Qaradawi justifi es suicide on the basis that it is
“the weapon of the weak.29
Qaradawi fi rst issued a fatwa on the role of women in jihad
following the suicide attack by Wafa Idris, the fi rst Palestinian Muslim
woman to perpetrate an attack on 27 January 2002 when she detonated
explosives at the entrance to a shopping mall in Afula, a city in northern
Israel. First published on the HAMAS Internet site, www.palestine-
info.info in January 2004, Qaradawi said that Muslim women could
disregard certain codes of dress and Islamic law to participate in suicide
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Farhana Ali
operations: “when jihad becomes an individual duty, as when the enemy
seizes the Muslim territory, a woman becomes entitled to take part in it
alongside men…and she can do what is impossible for men to do,” even
if it means taking off her hijab (headscarf) to carry out an operation.30
Before Qaradawi, one of the leading proponents of jihad was Umm
Mohammad, the wife of the late Dr. Abdallah Azzam who was Osama
bin Laden’s spiritual mentor and leader of the Afghan Arabs. In an
interview to Al Sharq al-Awsat in April 2006, Umm Mohammed said
she became the “mother fi gure” who coordinated amongst the wives
of the mujahideen (male fi ghters) in Peshawar. In a memoir from late
1990, Umm Mohammed wrote: “I ask my Muslim sisters to encourage
their husbands and sons to continue with the jihad.” Both husband
and wife supported the empowerment of women in jihad. In his book,
Defense of Muslim Lands, Abdullah Azzam, said women did not need
their husband’s permission to participate in jihad. In a separate fatwa
published in 1984,31 Azzam declared that “jihad was the action required
(fard ‘ayn) of every Muslim, regardless of gender.”32 He appealed to
Muslim women to support the male fi ghters. In Part Two of Join the
Caravan published in 1988, he wrote: “What is the matter with the
mothers, that one of them does not send forward one of her sons in the
path of Allah, that he might be a pride for her in this world and a treasure
for her in the hereafter through her intercession?”33
As Azzam states, mothers were essential to the jihad in Afghanistan
against the former Soviet Union. Through their support for male family
members, which included their sons, husbands, and brothers, women
were seen as playing a key ideological role. Similarly, the wife of the
veteran terrorist leader in Iraq, Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi - also named
Umm Mohammad - posted a letter in July 2006 on the Mujahideen
Shura Council website, calling on Muslims everywhere to defend the
honour of her husband and participate in jihad. Interviews of would-
be suicide bombers have also shown the strong affi nity women have
towards securing a better future for their children. The maternal instinct
for Muslim women is powerful and rooted in Islamic doctrine. According
to the Prophet of Islam, Heaven lies at the mother’s feet and therefore, a
mother’s role in the family - and by extension, her community, society
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and nation - is incomparable to the role played by men, who are seen as
providers and protectorates of the family.
The world’s most glorifi ed ideologue, Osama Bin Laden, also
extolled the role of the Muslim woman in jihad in his 1996 fatwa: “Our
women had set a tremendous example of generosity in the cause of
Allah; they motivated and encouraged their sons, brothers and husbands
to fi ght [for Allah].” Shortly after the September 11 attacks, Bin Laden
told Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir: “I became a father of a girl after
September 11. I named her Safi a after Safi a who killed a Jewish spy at
the time of the Prophet. [My daughter] Safi a will kill enemies of Islam
like Safi a of the Prophet’s time.”34 Aside from this single statement, bin
Laden is not known to support female suicide terrorists, but has glorifi ed
the auxiliary roles of early Muslim women, with specifi c reference to
Khadija, the Prophet’s fi rst wife and the fi rst Muslim convert in pre-
Islamic Arabia. Bin Laden honoured Khadija for inciting men at the
time of the Prophet to participate in jihad against the Quraysh, Islam’s
fi ercest and fi rst enemy. In his Declaration of War against Americans,
Bin Laden stated: “Our women had set a tremendous example for
generosity in the name of Allah. They motivate and encourage their sons,
brothers, and husbands to fi ght for the cause of Allah in Afghanistan,
Bosnia-Herzigovina, Chechnya, and in other countries …Our women
encourage jihad.”35
Al-Qaeda’s number two, Dr. Ayman Zawahiri also proudly cited
examples of female jihadis, probably to encourage other women to
fi ght for the cause. In an interview with Al Majallah, Zawahiri said:
“A British Muslim woman called Umm-Hafsah carried out another
operation during which she killed two Americans.”36 Religious enablers
of jihad also include key Al-Qaeda ideologues such as Yousef al-Ayyiri,
the former head of operations for Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia until he was
killed by Saudi security forces in 2004. A prolifi c writer, Ayyiri also
wrote The Role of Women in Jihad Against the Enemies; referring to the
early Muslim female fi ghters, he stated: “behind every Mujahid stood
a woman,” which suggests that women were the primary instigators of
jihad.
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Farhana Ali
Today, the debate among the ulama on the permissibility of suicide
continues to divide the Muslim world; some view suicide as a legitimate
tactic while others defy it on the basis that it was never employed by
the Prophet of Islam, and therefore, suicide is haram (forbidden).
Many scholars argue that suicide is one of the major sins in Islam that
annuls one’s faith,37 and those well versed in religious text often cite the
Qur’anic verse that clearly rebukes those who kill: “He who kills anyone
not in retaliation for murder or to spread mischief in the land, it would
be as if he killed all of mankind, and if anyone saved a life, it would be
as if he saved the life of the whole people.”38
A Short-Lived Panorama
The liberal door that now permits women to participate in operations
will close once male jihadists gain new recruits and score a few successes
against the war on terror. The sudden increase in female bombers over
the past year may represent nothing more than a temporary wave of
Al-Qaeda’s success rather than an enduring feature of global jihad.
Male jihadists could fi nd it diffi cult to accept a female operative as the
revolutionary vanguard of Islam, and while younger members of Al-
Qaeda and like-minded groups are encouraging Muslim women to join
the ranks, there is little indication that they would allow the mujahidaat
to overshadow images of the male folk-hero. There is also no evidence
that Muslim female operatives will have contact with senior male
leaders, calling into question the male jihadists’ willingness to directly
deal with women on an equal footing.
The more conservative terrorist regards a Muslim woman as key
to maintaining the family structure, while the new, younger generation
of terrorists could increasingly encourage women to join their ranks to
offset the losses of male operatives. She provides the male jihadist with
multiple operational advantages, but while she is indispensable to the
war effort, she also is expendable.
While a female fi ghter might not enjoy the same status and rank as
her male counterpart, her participation in suicide bombings could, in
the near-term, provide impetus for other women to participate in future
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The Bomber under the Burqa
operations. A Muslim female academic states that: “by resorting to this
tactic [suicide], women would most likely appeal to the female Muslims
in the world; that is, to those who are not aware, or have been prevented
from becoming aware of the actual teachings of the Qur’an.”39 Suicide
arguably attracts those women who have a distorted view of Islam; that
is, they have subscribed to the patriarchal interpretations of the Qur’an,
rather than understand the religious verses in their historical context.
Coupled with the dire socio-political conditions under which some
Muslims live, these women probably believe they have nothing to lose in
this life, but have everything to gain from that-world (the Hereafter).
Should suicide attacks become a trend among Muslim women, it
would be the exception rather than the rule. Some terrorism experts
understand that the jihad movement is not homogenous, and there are
places where social mores are perhaps conducive to more ‘progressive’
treatment of women’s status. Even in Muslim societies where female
fi ghters are the norm, (i.e., Palestinian territories) it still remains unclear
whether traditional societal norms will make adjustments to afford
women equal rights once the confl ict ends.
Conclusion: Empowering Women
A formidable challenge for countries where women are active
participants in war is how states integrate them into mainstream society
in the post-confl ict phase. Disrupting female networks and the conditions
that are conducive to violence, necessitates a multi-faceted approach.
This must not only serve to identify, target and counter such women
but also put in place an effective strategy for detecting male handlers,
clerics, and terrorist leaders.
A holistic approach is therefore one that aims at improving
intelligence capabilities, increasing outreach efforts between local
law enforcement with religious leaders and community fi gures, and
involving women in peace and security initiatives. The latter point is
often overlooked but studies have shown that women’s inclusion in
democratic change and institutions affords them greater opportunities
to participate and shape civil society. Giving women a chance at peace
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Farhana Ali
means placing them in positions of authority to manage security issues -
often reserved for men - in order to advance the process of peace. Doing
so can help women develop relationships with women across society
and ensure that females prone to violence or vulnerable to terrorist
recruitment are included in the peace process.
With a policy platform that is inclusive of their interests, women
across different classes, traditions, ethnicities, and religious sects can
facilitate cohesion in the movement and prove invaluable for feminist
lobbying efforts to ensure that women’s agendas are heard. For example,
in the endeavour to provide radical women political opportunities,
institutions backed by state support can contribute towards reintegrating
them into society. Through amnesty for female terrorists, the state can
create an enabling environment within which they can be brought back
into the fold of society. The inclusion of former female terrorists into
women’s movements and organizations helps strengthen their efforts
to lead “normal” lives and offers them a way to mitigate divisions
with other members of the society that might arise as a result of their
participation and support for war and confl ict.
Ultimately, the next step for governments to reduce the rise of female
terrorists is to improve the lives of women by providing basic necessities
such as education for their children, protection for their families during
times of war, and equal rights to women wishing to participate in post-
confl ict resolution. By encouraging females to participate in the post-
confl ict phase, for instance as peacemakers, there is a greater likelihood
that society will be able to rebuild, particularly in the Islamic world
where the primary responsibility for rearing and nurturing the family
system falls on women.
In most cases, however, governments do not have a uniform plan
to protect and provide for women who wish to return to a “normal”
life. Governments should reconsider their current programs in favour
of a community-based approach that aims to improve the socio-
economic opportunities for women in the pre and post confl ict phase;
fund community development projects; centre activism on education
and social issues that matter to women; and support various women’s
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The Bomber under the Burqa
organizations and social movements to encourage their participation in
the political process. By protecting the social and political development
of women, states can reduce, to a large extent, the rate at which females
are drawn towards terrorist groups.
References:
1 For the full report, see Stronger Women, Stronger Nations: 2008 Iraq Report, Women
for Women International, accessed at http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/
RMOI-7-CF2M
2 Andrew Silke, “The Psychology of Suicide Terrorism,” in Terrorists, Victims, and Society,
Andrew Silke (ed.) (Sussex, England: Wley, 2003), pp.105-107.
3 For background of these factors, see Andrew Silke (ed.), “Becoming a Terrorist,” in
Terrorists, Victims, and Society, (Sussex, England: Wley, 2003), pp.37-51.
4 Wafa Idriss was the fi rst Palestinian female suicide operative in January 2002. She
detonated explosives at a Jerusalem shopping district, killing one Israeli and injuring over
150 people. Some analysts have argued that she was seeking revenge from occupation
and retribution from her husband for being barren and divorced. While personal reasons
are cited for her attack, it remains unclear and unknown if Wafa’s unmarried status and
other personal factors were taken into consideration before she committed the attack.
5 Westerman, Toby, “Cheerleader for female suicide bombers,” WorldNetDaily.com,
2002
6 Al Jazeera, “Al Jazeera Airs Special on Female Suicide Bomber,” 24 August 2005.
7 Lustwick, Ian S., “Terrorism in the Arab-Israeli Confl ict: Targets and Audiences,”
in Martha Crenshaw, ed., Terrorism in Context. University Park, Pennsylvania: The
Pennsylvania State University, 1995. p. 536.
8 See John Horgan, 2005, Post, 1986, 1987, 1990
9 Jerold Post, “The Psychological roots of Terrorism,” in Addressing the Causes of
Terrorism: The Club de Madrid Series on Democracy and Terrorism, vol. 1 (Madrid:
Club de Madrid, 2005); Jerold Post, E. Sprinzak, and L. Denny “The Terrorists in Their
Own Words: Interviews with 35 Incarcerated Mddle Eastern Terrorists,” Terrorism and
Political Violence, vol. 15, no. 1 (2003), pp.171-184; and John Horgan, The Psychology
of Terrorism (London: Routledge, 2005) and (2008, forthcoming).
10 See Mia Bloom, “Mother, Daughter, Sister, Bomber,” in Bulletin o the Atomic Scientists,
Nov/Dec 2005. Bloom indicates that historically, women have served supporting roles
but the “advent of suicide bombers has not so much annulled that identity as it has
transformed it. Even as martyrs, they ay be portrayed as the chaste wives and mothers of
revolution.” (p.56)
11 It is diffi cult to explain the lack of scholarship by Palestinians; of worth noting is that
data collected by a female U.S.-based expert, Nichole Argo, a PhD candidate at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and former work by Nasra Hassan have proved
useful to this author’s assessment. However, there is no evidence of recent scholarship by
an Arab and specifi cally, a Palestinian of this phenomenon.
12 Interviews conducted by the author with two Kashmiri women in February 2008; these
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Farhana Ali
two women were the fi rst to cross the Line of Control from India into Pakistan. They
are both celebrated and honored by male militants for the support they provided to men
during the confl ict.
13 Prakriti Gupta, “Muslim Women Take Up Arms Against Islamic Militants in Kashmir,”
10 September 2005.
14 This paper does not consider the circumstances that drive women to suicide terrorism but
rather, presents several different likely motivators for different women across different
confl icts. Because profi les no longer prove useful in terrorism studies, profi ling the
circumstances or environment from which terrorism breeds (i.e., the roots of terror) can
offer a useful framework from which to analyze the causal relationships between terrorists
and their societies, as well as look at individual relationships between the female bomber
and the male handler, leader, or source of inspiration.
15 A website called The Iraqi Diaspora in Switzerland Forum posted an article and opened
a discussion through its chat room on the subject of “The Girls of the Insurgency and the
Tempting Offer.” Accessed through http://www.iraqi.ch/forum/index.php?showtopic=64
8&pic=2512&mode=threaded&start=
16 http://www.abualbokhary.info/vb3/showthread.php?t=12910
17 Ibid. Also see http://www.iraqiarbita.org/index3.php?do=article&id=8267 and http://
vb.roro44.com/42952.html, accessed in July 2007. In the latter webpage, a woman by
the name of Noofa Ghargan, 40 years of age, is considered the fi rst Iraqi female woman
to fall at al-Qa’im battles, where she fought with men against U.S. marines in al-Anbar
province.
18 http://www.iraqirabia.org/index3.php?do=article&id=8267
19 http://www.iraqi.ch/forum/index.php?showtopic=648&pid=2512&mode=threaded&star
t=
20 Here, the imam is a reference to Imam al-Mahdi, the last of the twelve imams who is
believed to return to restore order to the world.
21 Voices of Iraq, January 22, 2008, accessed at http://www.iraqupdates.com/p_articles.php/
article/26433
22 Patrick Quinn, “U.S. captures female bomber recruiter in Iraq,” Associated Press, March
2, 2008
23 ‘Ask the Scholar,” IslamOnline.net. 21 May 2003. www.islamonline.net
24 “Salafi Jihadi Trend Theorist Turns against Al Qaeda and Issues a Religious Opinion
of the Imipermissibility of Suicidal Operations,” Al Sharq Al Awsat, 2 September 2005.
News from Al Mendhar. www.almendhar.com
25 From verse 9:111 from the Qur’an.
26 For a historical background on the Assassins, see Akbar, M.J., The Shade of Swords:
Jihad and the confl ict between Islam and Christianity (New York: Routledge, 2002),
195
27 Hoffman, Bruce, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 99.
28 Muhammad Asad, a Muslim scholar, translates the Arabic word to mean ”one who is
most pure” and “white” but refutes the term “virgin.”
29 “Debating the Religious, Political and Moral Legitimacy of Suicide Bombings,” MEMRI
– No. 53, 2 Ma 2001. http://memri.org
30 “Ask the Scholar,” IslamOnline.net, 22 March 2004. www.islamonline.net
31 The idea that jihad is fard, or an obligation on all members of the Muslim society,
demand that women, like men, play an active role in militant organizations. Even when
jihad is not fard and is instead, fard kifaya (duty for select male members of society),
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The Bomber under the Burqa
women were not obliged to fi ght but did participate in warfare in the early days of Islamic
history, as indicated earlier. While the concept of jihad as a religious obligation for all
Muslims is not new, its reintroduction into contemporary jihadi literature signals a shift
towards mandating jihad for all Muslims worldwide, making it incumbent for Muslims
living outside of confl ict to help those in need (i.e., wage jihad). Borrowing from the
ideas of classical theologians, Azzam reinvents jihad by attaching to it symbolic drama to
propagate a consistent Al Qaeda message: Muslims comprise a single “Nation” and must
unite to resist anti-Islamic aggression through the use of obligatory defensive jihad.
32 “The Union of Good”, www.intelligence.org.il/eng/sib/2_05/funds_f.htm
33 Azzam, Abdullah, Join the Caravan, Part Two, (London, U.K.: Azzam Publications,
2001),
34 Cited from Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, “Lady Killer,” September 11, 2006, at
TNR Online.
35 The full text of bin Laden’s fatwa can be found on the PBS web page, accessed at http://
www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html
36 “Paper Cites Al-Zawahiri’s Al-Majallah Interview, ‘Sensational Revelations,” in Al Arab
al Alamiyah, December 17, 2001.
37 Abualrub, Pp. 209-211.
38 Verse 32.
39 Interview with female Muslim professor in the United States who teaches courses on
Islam and gender. September 2005.
THE LAW OF AERIAL BOMBARDMENT AND CIVILIAN
CASUALTIES:KOSOVO AND AFGHANISTAN
Prof. Hayatullah Khan Khattack*
Abstract(Although rules applicable during armed conflict originated in
ancient times, a universal system for regulating conduct during war
and offering protection to civilians did not exist. With the advance of
technology and the resort to aerial bombardment, war became more
deadly and civilians could no longer be insulated from the ravages of
conflict. It was in the 20th century that rules began evolving for the
protection of civilians. These included the Hague Conventions of 1907,
the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the two Additional Protocols
to the 1949 Conventions. A controversial belief also emerged that air
warfare and precision weapons had significantly “humanised war.” The
strikes against dual use and so-called emerging targets have resulted
in unacceptable civilian casualties. Furthermore, the application of
the rules of engagement during air warfare has not been uniform as is
evident from the conflicts in Kosovo and Afghanistan. Editor).
Introduction
A belief has emerged that airpower can deliver a strategic victory in
modern conflicts. In the West, and in particular the US, this perception
has been reinforced by the decisive military victories in the two Gulf
Wars, former Yugoslavia and in Afghanistan. Winning the peace is often
overlooked. Nevertheless, it is likely that the trend to rely on airpower
* Prof. Hayatullah Khan Khattak is a faculty member of the National Defence University,
Islamabad. He also chairs the Directorate of Collaboration and Publication at ISSRA.
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The Law of Aerial Bombardment and Civilian Casualties
to achieve strategic victory will continue. This belief, with serious
consequences, has been extrapolated to the tactical level in the fight
against terrorism and insurgencies. From the international humanitarian
law (IHL) perspective, airpower is also credited with achieving decisive
military victories with minimum civilian casualties. Some writers have
gone so far as to proclaim:
“ … Air warfare over the past decades has significantly
humanised war - if such a phenomena is possible.
Tremendous technological strides in the use of precision
weapons, as well as development in air and space
intelligence-gathering tools, have made it far easier to
distinguish between military and civilian targets and then
effectively strike the military ones - in short, modern
warfare has reduced casualties among both attackers and
attacked”1
Much of the discussion about the adequacy of IHL revolves around
the core issue and concept of distinction. Specifically, can the claim that
the use of airpower in modern conflicts has reduced civilian casualties
be substantiated? As the armouries of very few countries can match
that of the US in terms of precision weapons, can general conclusions
be drawn from the case studies of the use of airpower’s implication for
IHL? The relevance of these questions is obvious from the criticism
such attacks in various regions have attracted especially in undermining
counter-terrorism efforts
This study will focus on Additional Protocol I of the Geneva
Conventions, specifically on the use of airpower in two areas of conflict
where the boundaries between combatant and non-combatants and
military and non-military objects are blurred. Difficulties of targeting and
distinction arise when aerial bombardment is contemplated in urban areas
as also with objects that have dual-use i.e., both civilian and military.2
This will continue to cause difficulties in spite of the increasing use of
smart weapon systems. Societies are becoming progressively complex
and institutions are acquiring both military and civilian functions. Often,
the weaker belligerent, usually a developing country, tries to draw the
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Prof. Hayatullah Khan Khattack
stronger side into urban warfare.3 Predictably, therefore, issues relating
to distinction will continue to cause legal, moral and ethical dilemmas.
In the Kosovo and Afghan conflicts, Western governments have
maintained that airpower was used within the framework of the Geneva
Conventions and international customary rules.4 However, in both
instances the use of airpower has been vehemently criticised on the
ground that it was indiscriminate and in violation of international norms.
The debate continues in the Afghan conflict.
Section I – Rise of the Right to Protection of the Civilian
Jus in Bello
Homer’s Achilles brings the wrath of the gods on himself when he
desecrates the corpse of Hector. Rules applicable during armed conflict,
‘jus in bello,’ originated in ancient times.5 Sun Tzu, circa 500 B.C.
enunciated important humanitarian principles applicable to warfare
and the Viqayet, written by Arab scholars in the 13th century, covers all
aspects of a code of wartime behaviour. As Quincy Wright has noted:
“Taken as a whole, the war practices of primitive people
illustrate various types of international rules of war known
at the present time: rules distinguishing types of enemies,
rules determining the circumstances, formalities and
authority, for beginning and ending war; rules describing
limitations of persons, time, place and methods of its
conduct, and even rules outlawing war altogether.”
However, a universal system for regulating conduct during war, and
offering protection to civilians, did not exist. Belligerents entered into
bilateral agreements for a specific conflict, specific period of time and
for specific parties. Parties to a conflict set rules on themselves. But
rules there were.
As overlapping collections of conventions, treaties and customary
law, the period from 19th century onwards is where modern IHL proper
(or Law of Armed Conflict or Laws of War) sprout. If one single cause
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The Law of Aerial Bombardment and Civilian Casualties
can be identified as leading to development of “universal” rules for the
conduct of hostilities then it must be the emergence of the nation state
and modern warfare in terms of the horrors that it entailed. It was not
surprising that the 1925 and 1929 Geneva Conventions were responses
to the horrors of World War 1. The ratio of civilian to military death was
1:200 during the First Great War. During the Second World War the
ratio changed to 1:1. It was therefore natural that rules for the protection
of civilians were introduced in the 1949 Geneva Convention.6 Max
Huber, as early 1945, strikingly put it in the following terms: “war, as
it becomes more and more total, annuls the difference which formerly
existed between armies and civilian populations in regard to exposure
to injury and danger.”7
IHL, therefore, as rules governing the conduct of military operations,
the protection of civilians, and treatment of prisoners blossomed in the
20th century. The three major steps in the development of the law were
the Hague Conventions of 1907, the four Geneva Conventions of 1949,
and the two 1977 Additional Protocols to the 1949 Conventions. The
1907 Hague and 1949 Geneva Conventions re-affirmed and developed
customary law and conventions on the methods and means of warfare,
the protection of victims of war (including prisoners of war) and the rules
concerning the protection of civilians in occupied territory. This stream
of law focused mainly on international conflict. The provisions in these
treaties affirmed the limits that military commanders have in application
of use of force. The 1977 Additional Protocols further developed rules
of conduct for the protection of civilians and non-combatants from the
effects of hostilities. Additional Protocol II extended the law dealing
with non-international armed conflict.
As Geoffrey Best notes, these two additional protocols hugely
extended the protection offered to civilians and came as “a cloud burst
after a long drought. It is catching up seventy years of inaction and
inadequacy.”8 Although the central idea embodied in the Jus in Bello
concept, i.e., the idea of civilian protection or immunity from harm, can
be traced back several centuries, civilians had been largely insulated
from belligerent actions - until the appearance of modern warfare and
in particular airpower. Prior to the emergence of modern warfare, IHL
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Prof. Hayatullah Khan Khattack
did not have to address the protection of the non-combatant. Thus Best’s
comments are true to a point: prior to the emergence of airpower, a
nation could be attacked by first destroying its army, civilians generally
were not a direct target as they were to become in the First and Second
World Wars.9 The 1949 Convention was specifically drafted to protect
civilians in the aftermath of the horrors of the Second World War. The
earlier 1907 Hague Conventions, although limited, also restricted armed
conflict in order to protect civilians and the League of Nations in 1938,
condemned the deliberate bombing of civilians as illegal. IHL reacted to
developments in warfare as new circumstances arose in a slow but sure
way. Thus, as Sandoz notes:
“in view of the rapid development of modern weaponry,
states have felt the need to impose further restrictions, in
particular the prohibition against bombing, starving or
terrorizing the civilian population as a means of forcing the
enemy to capitulate, and the principle of proportionality
between the anticipated military gains of an attack and the
risk of collateral damage to civilians and their property”10
In Europe the intellectual reasons for distinguishing between
civilians and combatants, and thus the legal and political theory of Jus
in bello, were sown by such writers as Grotius,Vattel and Rousseau
from the 17th century onwards culminating in the 20th century into the
full blown IHL as known today.11 Civilian protection, as noted above,
much predates this intellectual foundation in the 17th century but the
culmination in the 20th century of Additional Protocol I (and II) of the
1949 Geneva Conventions12 took the idea of civilian protection to new
heights and gave a clear legal statement as to the distinction of a civilian
in armed conflicts. The Geneva Conventions have also been bolstered
by other developments in IHL after 1977 that have further affirmed
civilian protection. New laws on landmines, and chemical and laser
weapons, combine with the statute of the new International Criminal
Court and the UN Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia and
the Special Court for Sierra Leone to create a growing framework for
civilian protection in war and from genocide.
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The Law of Aerial Bombardment and Civilian Casualties
The 1977 Additional Protocol I13
It was the brutalities of the conflicts in Vietnam, Middle East,
Nigeria, etc., and decolonization that gave a further impetus to reaching
agreement on the two 1977 Additional Protocols: it was an achievement
not to be belittled and “something perhaps rather great [was achieved].”14
The “greatness” was in the degree of protection that the civilian was
being given for the first time and the almost universal acceptance of
the Protocol by nation states. But even more important is the global
acceptance of the values embodied in it. This was demonstrated by
the persistent public discourse on IHL pertaining to the use of force
in the Second Gulf War. The main protagonist in the conflict, the US,
was constrained to vehemently counter accusations of violating the
Conventions although it had not even a ratified Protocol I.15
As so often in the past, it was the International Red Cross that
proposed substantial rules in 1969 to supplement existing IHL.16 Many
of these were included in UN General Assembly Resolution 2675
outlining draft rules for the protection of civilians. These Draft Rules
became the basis of the final texts of Additional Protocols I and II to the
Geneva Conventions 1949 adopted, through consensus at the Diplomatic
Conference convened by the Swiss Federal Council.
Protocol I, for the first time in the history of IHL, defined the civilian
caught in a conflict and expressly distinguished “between the civilian
population and combatants and between civilian objects and military
objects.”17 Article 50 defines a civilian as a person not directly involved
in hostilities and a civilian population consists of such persons. The basic
rule is that the parties to a conflict should distinguish between civilians
and civilian objects on the one hand and combatants and military objects
on the other, and should direct their military operations against the latter.
However, even where civilians are not directly the objects of an attack
their proximity to a valid military objective may result in it not being
attacked if the civilian casualties would be excessive in relation to the
military advantage to be gained.
More importantly, a considerable amount of ambiguity as to who is
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Prof. Hayatullah Khan Khattack
or is not a civilian has been removed by the requirement that “in case
of doubt whether a person is a civilian that person shall be considered
to be a civilian.”18 Nevertheless, for example the Afghanistan conflict
illustrates, disputes as to distinguishing between civilians and combatants
continues to hinder the application of IHL.
Articles 51, 52 and 57 are important in that opposing forces are
required to limit their attack to military objectives but of more significance
from our perspective is Article 54 which requires protection of objects
indispensable to the survival of the civilian population. Article 51(5a)
regulates bombardment in populated areas in that it is prohibited to attack
a whole area as one target if in that area several military objectives are
located. Article 51 (5b) is worth quoting in full because it refers to the
important principle of proportionality (codified for the first time):
Among others, the following types of attack are to be
considered indiscriminate -:
“An attack which may be expected to cause incidental
loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian
objects, or a combination thereof, which would be
excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military
advantage anticipated.”
This article requires the commander to weigh the consequences
of his decision to attack in terms of the military objective as against
possible civilian casualties. This, in itself, is a subjective exercise and
depends on the prevailing situation on the field.
Article 52, though important, has generated controversy. It prohibits
attacks on non-military objects and defines military objects as “objects
which by their very nature, location, purpose or use make an effective
contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction,
capture or neutralisation, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offer a
definite military advantage”
The interpretation of Article 52 has been debated extensively. For
example, when does an advantage become definite? Some states, such
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as the US, have taken a liberal view of what constitutes a ‘military
objective‘19 while others have adopted a more restricted approach and
consider only those objects that have a more direct link with the military
to be a military objective.20
Article 57 reaffirms:
“.. those who plan or decide upon an attack shall:
take all feasible precautions in the choice of means and
methods of attack with a view to avoiding..., incidental
loss of civilians life, injury to civilians and damage to
civilian objects;”
The above is a summary of the salient Articles of Additional Protocol
I relevant to our study and we shall now turn to the important principles
enshrined therein and examine those.
Section II – Developments in Air Power & Legal Concepts
The 1977 Additional Protocols constitute a significant development
in the protection of the civilian. Specific steps were required to be taken for
protecting the civilian and civilian objects during international conflict.
Most of the principles and legal concepts contained in Protocol I have a
long established basis in customary international law. The main elements
relevant to our case studies are those of distinction (or discrimination),
proportionality, military necessity and military objectives. There are
difficulties in interpretations of these principles which are further
complicated by targeting policies and dual-use facilities. The increasing
impact of technological developments in weaponry and aerial warfare is
also of consequence.
Precision guided ammunitions (PGMs), satellite-launched/guided
missiles and aerial bombardment have changed the face of battle as
never before. Development in the precision of weapons has given
military planners freedom and flexibility in the use of force.21 In theory,
it is to comply potentially with the distinction requirements of Protocol
I between combatants and non-combatants on one hand and protected
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property and military objects on the other. But in practice this potential
has proved controversial as our case studies will illustrate. The precision
of modern bombardment has highlighted several grey areas in IHL such as
the targeting of belligerent leadership or dual use targets. Technological
developments have had the impact of stretching the boundaries of IHL.
Developments in air power have had a particular influence in the
evolution of IHL. But are there rules and regulations restraining aerial
bombardment law? Land Warfare Law is certainly well developed and
so is, unarguably, Naval Warfare Law. Attempts have been made to
regulate aerial bombardment by treaty law but the development in this
respect remains non-existent.22 It is ironic that the advent of airpower
has had such an impact on giving impetus to development of laws for
the protection of civilians, but the rules and regulations for the conduct
of air warfare itself remains nascent. It is to this we turn our attention to
first, and, then the legal concepts within Protocol 1 so far as relevant to
air warfare.
Air Power and IHL
As mentioned earlier, before the advent of air power civilians were,
in general, immune from the effects of war unless, of course, an army was
on the march and requisitioning or the civilians were part of a besieged
town. With the development of air power, attacks could be launched well
behind enemy lines only not against the enemy’s armed forces but also
against supply depots, logistics and lines of communication. Inevitably,
and increasingly, civilians became casualties.
The changed nature of warfare in the early twentieth century was to
have other consequences. The heavy demands of the large but mobile
conscripts armies that were put into the field in the Second World War
and their increasing reliance on mechanization meant that civilians had
to be employed in factories producing weapons, warships and military
aircraft, their armaments and components, and in installations producing
the fuel to drive vehicles and the raw material such as steel needed to
build ships. The emphasis of targeting was shifting away from enemy
combatants to the equipment and supplies on which they depended, but
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at great cost to the enemy’s civilian population. Though still protected
by IHL from direct attack, they were not protected from the incidental
damage caused as a by-product of attacks on war production facilities.
Bombing was still far from precise.23
The Second World War started with a commitment by all the major
belligerents to avoid casualties to civilians from aerial bombardment.
But three years into the war, the inviolability of civilians was totally
discarded, especially by the US and Britain. Civilians became deliberate
targets. The following description of the effects of a US bombing raid
could be mistaken for the attack on Hiroshima or Nagasaki:
There were reports of babies being torn by the high winds
from their mother’s arms and sucked into the flames.
Many died trapped in the burning wreckage of buildings.
Upon entering air-raid shelters, would-be rescuers found
nothing but bones suspended in congealed fat. Women
and children were charred as to be unrecognisable.24
But that was the fate of the German civilians of Hamburg where
harm was intentionally inflicted as a military policy through aerial
bombardment. Within 25 years of its first use on the western front,
Britain and the US took aerial bombardment (strategic bombing) to
new heights. Hamburg was to lose 45,000 civilian in one night whilst
Dresden, after 14 hours of aerial bombing, over 100,000. Similarly 5
Japanese cities were fire-bombed before the atomic attacks on Nagasaki
and Hiroshima. The rationale for aerial bombardment was to destroy
the enemy morale. The justification for civilian casualties was that they
had become too integrated into the military effort to be isolated from the
consequences of war.
IHL was slow to react to developments in air warfare. This was
probably because, initially, airpower was intended only for transportation
and not for bombardment.25 At the battle of Marne during the early
years of First World War, air reconnaissance proved decisive for the
French and disastrous for the German war plans. But air power, in terms
of a method of bombardment, was never even contemplated to play a
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tactical role let alone a strategic one as it is now. Field Marshal Foch
had declared in 1912 that flying was a fascinating sport but not of the
slightest interest to the armed forces, notwithstanding the fact that a year
earlier the Italians had dropped bombs over Libya for the first time from
an aircraft. Hindrance to the development of the rules and codifications,
in this area have also been influenced and affected by other factors
characteristic to aerial warfare: rapid technological development,
relative recent emergence of the aircraft and its dual use as a weapon
and serving peaceful civilian purposes. It is thus not surprising that no
single set of international rules or treaty governs the conduct of aerial
bombardment. Most of the rules that are applied to aerial bombardment
are those that derive from the general rules of warfare in the Hague and
Geneva Conventions as discussed below.26
However, some specific legal regulation relevant to air warfare
was introduced in 1899 when the First Hague Peace Conference
adopted three Declarations and three Conventions. The first prohibited
the launching of projectiles and explosives from balloons or similar
objects.27 The measures were temporary (lasting from 4 September 1900
until 4 September 1905) justified by the inaccuracy of such methods
in discriminating. However, the regulations were too restrictive and
hindered further developments for a permanent ban. The Hague
Declaration of 1907, once again, renounced “the discharge of projectiles
and explosives from balloons or by other new methods of similar nature.”
But application of the Declaration had been conditioned by a general
participation clause, and since the Declaration had not been ratified by
the various belligerents in the First World War, it was binding on no
one. Nevertheless, the 1907 Convention did establish restrictions on
the means used to injure the enemy and stop property being destroyed
unnecessarily. Restrictions were also placed on bombing structures such
as hospitals and places of worship during sieges and bombardment.28
Article 26 also stated that belligerents “do all in their power” to give the
civilian population warning of what was coming; but this fell far short
of the total inviolability civilians would receive in 1977. The Geneva
Conventions was to be expanded on these provisions to include medical
shipments and convoys, and hospital zones.29
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Specific attempts at regulating aerial warfare and protection of
civilians from aerial bombardment by treaty, understandably, occurred
in the aftermath of the First and Second World Wars. However, these
attempts failed. In 1923, a Commission of Jurists drew up a draft of
Rules of Air Warfare, which would have forbidden aerial bombardment
of civilians or of injuring non-combatants and additionally defined
military objectives to which attacks were to be confined.30 Once again,
four years after the Second World War, the International Committee of
the Red Cross formulated Draft Rules for the limitation of the Dangers
incurred by the Civilian Population in Time of War.31 These were similar
to the 1923 Rules which prohibited attack on civilian populations and
permitted attacks only on military objects. However, what militated
against the acceptance of the Rules by governments, was its prohibition
on target-area bombardment and its extensive precautionary requirements
in attack.
Although no treaty resulted from the above attempts at regulating
aerial warfare, both, especially the one of 1923, had a profound impact
on customary international law governing aerial warfare which, together
with state practice and pronouncement, contributed to the emergence of
general principles. A consensus appears to have emerged that civilians
should not be the object of attacks and that the incidental harm caused
to civilians through the bombardment of military objectives should not
be out of proportion to the military advantage to be gained and. to the
extent possible, precautions should be taken to protect civilians.32 These
principles, as we have seen above in Section I, found their way into
Protocol I. However, in this context, it is also worth mentioning the
1969 UN General Assembly Basic Principles on Armed Conflict that
had relevance for aerial bombardment. There were 8 principles and 5 of
them are of particular relevance:
2. “…In the conduct of military operations during armed conflicts,
a distinction must be made at all times between persons actively
taking part in the hostilities and civilian populations.
3. In the conduct of military operations, every effort should be
made to spare civilians from the ravages of war, and all necessary
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precautions should be taken to avoid injury, loss or damage on
civilian population.
4. Civilian populations, as such, should not be the object of military
operations.
5. Dwellings and other installations that are used only by civilian
populations should not be the object of military operations.
6. Places or areas designated for the sole protection of civilians, such
as hospital zones or similar refuges, should not be the object of
military operations.33”
Air Power & Protocol I
The various provisions of the two conventions (1899 and 1907)
and the two Rules were to be the building blocs of Protocol I. Protocol
I does not specifically address aerial bombardment although Article
49 provides that all its articles concerning the protection of civilians
apply to all means of attack. As we have discussed in Section 1,
Protocol I clearly prohibits attacks against civilians, civilian objects
and protected property. Protocol I obliges belligerents to take measures
to limit loss of civilian life and damage to civilian property incidental
to attacks on military targets. The Protocol underlines the critical
concepts of distinction, military necessity and proportionality: these are
the concepts that determine any targeting decisions of planners of air
warfare. The absence of treaty law does not mean complete freedom in
the use of means and methods during air warfare. Aside from the rules
in Protocol I natural law and customary law also impose restrictions.
Customary international law restraints on warfare are premised on the
idea that violence and destruction that are unnecessary to actual military
necessity are wasteful, counterproductive and immoral. The principle of
humanity both complements and limits the doctrine of military necessity,
proportionality being central to the latter. How are these principles, and
consequently Protocol I, applicable to air warfare?
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Distinction
Distinction is the most fundamental, and uncontroversial, principle
of customary international law. It provides that non-combatants must
be distinguished from combatants and military objects from civilian.
As discussed earlier, the core principle of distinction is to be found in
Article 48 of the Protocol. Under Article 50 of Protocol I, a civilian is
any person who is not a member of the armed forces in the sense of
Article 43 of Protocol I. Members of the armed forces, as so defined, are
legitimate objects of attack, except in so far as the law of war extends
protection to them in various circumstances. Article 50(2) states that the
totality of the entire civilian constitutes the “civilian population.” The
presence of soldiers within the civilian population does not deprive the
latter of its immunity nor does the presence of large number of soldiers
within the civilian population give the former immunity.34
Article 51 (4 & 5) states:“Acts or threats of violence the primary
purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are
prohibited.” However, the fact that attacks upon legitimate military
objectives may cause terror among the civilian population does not
make such attacks unlawful. Terrorising civilian populations by aerial
bombardment had been practiced during the two World Wars, and in
the 1960s, in violation of international law; the Rules discussed above
would have forbidden terrorising the civilian population. In view of this,
the above rule was inserted into Protocol I. This Article also prohibits
aerial bombardments to destroy civilian morale. Technically there may
be a distinction between terror and morale attacks but in practice they
are treated the same. What may be a morale bombing to the attacking
force will be a terror bombing to the targeted civilians. As such, aerial
bombing intended to force civilians to overthrow their government or
leadership would be unlawful bombing.
Central to the principle of distinction is the concept of the military
objective, or the legitimate target. The definition of “objects” has two
elements: (a) their nature, location, purpose or use must make an effective
contribution to military action, and; (b) their total or partial destruction,
capture or neutralisation must offer a definite military advantage in the
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circumstances ruling at the time. It is a requirement that both elements
of the definition must be met before a target can be properly considered
an appropriate military objective. Without this limitation to the actual
situation at hand, the principle of distinction would be void, as every
object could in abstracto, under possible future developments become
a military objective. The drafters of Protocol I tried to avoid too large
an interpretation of what constitutes a military objective. The Protocol
I definition has been criticised by some American scholars as focusing
too narrowly on definite military advantage and paying too little heed
to war sustaining capability, including economic targets such as export
industries.35 The British view also appears to be that the Protocol
definition is too narrow and include as targets such as broadcasting and
television stations as military objectives.36
It may be that, for practical purposes, a definition of a civilian object
in the Protocol would have been more satisfactory. But because it is
not the intrinsic character of an object but the use made of the object
that defines it as a military object, military objects had to be defined.
Indeed, every object other than those benefiting from special protection
(protected property) may become a legitimate object of attack.
Perceived successes of aerial bombardment, and in particular use of
PGMs, in modern conflicts, has also raised questions as to the rationale
behind the limitation to military objectives, pointing out that the aim of
modern conflicts is the capitulation of (usually dictatorial) governments.
As Clausewitz has claimed, the aim of every armed conflict is to defeat
the enemy’s will. Acquiring a non-military advantage over the enemy
can more effectively accomplish that aim. Traditionally, Clausewitz
argued that the centre of an enemy’s gravity was its armed forces. Now
some strategists argue that the centre of gravity is no longer the armed
forces but may be the political leadership or the political support of the
civilian population.37 So, the argument goes, why limit attacks to just
military objectives?
Proportionality
Concentrating unduly on the principle of military objective might
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lead one to ignore civilian casualties or consider them as collateral damage
in the course of legitimate activities. The principle of proportionality
counters this tendency by requiring a constant weighing of military and
humanitarian values. Although the term proportionality is not mentioned
in Protocol I, equivalent terms such as “excessive damage” or “excessive
injury” are used in Articles 15, 57 and 85. Therefore, notwithstanding
the customary law aspect of the concept, the principle of proportionality
clearly does bind parties to the protocol.
As the US is the major protagonist in the case studies to follow
and a non-ratifying state of the Protocol, it is important at this juncture
to comment on its attitude to the principles enshrined therein. The US
has declared its intention to be bound by those principles that reflect
customary international law.38 The US Air Force Pamphlet advises
that, in applying international legal limits to air attacks, the following
precaution must be taken:
1. Do everything feasible to verify that the objectives attacked are
neither civilians nor civilian objects….
2. Take all precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack
with a view to avoiding, and in any event to minimising, incidental
loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, and damage to civilian
objects; and
3. Refrain from deciding to launch any attack which may be expected
to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage
to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be
excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage
anticipated.39
It will be noted that paragraph 3 embodies the principle of
proportionality while 1 and 2, embody the principles of discrimination
and humanity respectively. Therefore, the US expressly recognizes
Article 51 as a customary international law and it will not have escaped
attention that the Air Force Pamphlet enjoins attack against civilians in
terms virtually identical to Article 51.
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However, whether or not a state is a party to the Protocol, its armed
forces are required to respect the customary rule of proportionality
which attempts to balance military and humanitarian consideration.
When applying this rule, those who decide upon an attack must take
into account the effects of the attack on the civilian population in their
pre-attack calculations. They must determine whether those effects
are excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage
anticipated. A balancing act must be carried out depending on various
factors:
a) the importance of the target and the urgency of the situation;
b) intelligence about the proposed target, i.e., what is being, or
will be, used for and when;
c) what weapons are available, their range, accuracy and radius of
effect;
d) conditions affecting accuracy of targeting such as terrain,
weather, night or day;
e) factors affecting incidental loss or damage, such as the proximity
of civilians or civilian objects in the vicinity of the target or
other protected objects or zone and whether they are inhabited,
or the possible release of hazardous substances as a result of the
attack;
f) the risks to his own troops posed by the various options open to
him.40
In practice the balancing test is extremely difficult to conduct as
it requires comparing and quantifying dissimilar values i.e., military
advantage and incidental injury. How, for example, is one to measure
the suffering caused to civilians during attack on a bridge against the
military advantage of disrupting enemy logistics/supplies? Furthermore,
the value attributed to a target or the incidental injury depends on who
is making the assessment and the value is never constant in practice as
it should be. Does the concept apply to individual facets of an attack or
the attack as a whole? The latter appears to “represent(s) the weight of
opinion, (although) consensus remains elusive.”41
The emphasis on precise aerial bombardment and from a safe
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distance without placing the attacking force in danger has created what
Schmitt, who has made a special study of the subject, has termed a
“false dilemma regarding proportionality.” It has been argued that aerial
attacks from a safe distant create increased civilian casualties and the
attacks are therefore disproportionate. Schmitt asserts that this argument
“wrongly excludes preservation of one’s own forces as an important
military advantage to be considered when conducting proportionality
calculations.”42
Dual Use Objects and Urban Operations
Aerial bombardment of dual-use objects and of targets in urban
areas creates particular dilemmas. Precision guided munitions have, to
some extent, eased the dilemma of the military planner but experience
indicates that accuracy cannot be taken for granted. Additionally, only
a very limited number of states have the capability to deploy PGMs or
the resources to afford them. Whilst the targeting of dual use objects
raises complex issues in relation to operations in urban environments,
the ultimate question revolves around the principle of distinction and
proportionality.
The military and civilian populations often use common power
sources, transportation networks, and telecommunication systems.
Distinguishing between the military and civilian infrastructure is difficult
and it may be impossible to disable or destroy only those elements
servicing the military.
It would appear from the restrictions within Protocol I that attacks on
dual use objects may be unlawful but the issue is not clear-cut and is open
to interpretation. It is also not clear from the literature whether there is an
absolute prohibition on attacks on dual use objects in terms of customary
international law. The US, as a constant objector to and violator of the rule,
would adopt the stance that it has not been accepted as a norm. Attacks
on dual use objects can have extensive effects on the civilian population
and raise concerns about proportionality. Disagreement centres on the
weight to be given to the immediate and direct injuries to civilians or the
longer indirect effects of an attack on a civilian population. The US and
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Prof. Hayatullah Khan Khattack
the UK adhere to the former interpretation when making proportionality
calculations43 and tend to liberally interpret “military objective” when it
comes to dual use objects.
Aerial bombardment in an urban area poses serious problems
for compliance with principles of discrimination and proportionality.
Urban environments increase the chances that military attacks will
harm civilians and even the impact of small precision munitions can
be devastating for the population. The structure and organisation of
urban centres where military and civilian institutions can be adjacent
to each other or even in the same building creates targeting restrictions
and limitations difficult to overcome. To compound these difficulties
belligerents may deliberately place military objects or combatants
within urban centres.
In the above circumstances any aerial bombardment would still have
to comply with proportionality principles and refrain from attacks likely
to result in excessive civilian casualties in relation to military gain
Section III – Operation Allied Force
Introduction
Having reviewed the legal principles underlying the protection of
civilians and the laws of war pertaining to aerial bombing, we now turn
to the use of air power in two case studies: Kosovo and Afghanistan.
Tentative conclusions will be drawn from the estimates of casualties
and the degree of adherence to Protocol I when air power is used.
Whilst it is possible to investigate and evaluate specific instances of
civilian casualties within a particular case study, it is difficult to draw
concrete conclusions for comparison purposes between the case studies.
One of the main reasons is that there are no consistent and transparent
sources for the compilation of figures on civilian casualties.
In both conflicts the US was the main air power, and the military
doctrine and air assets used were to some extent uniform. The two theatres
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of operation were in different continents, under different politico-social
conditions. What was politically acceptable in Afghanistan was not so
in Kosovo. What critical examination by the media (“CNN” Effect) of
aerial bombardment in Afghanistan there was, conceding the context
of September 11, could not match that received by Kosovo. The CNN
effect was certainly important in determining the freedom of how aerial
bombardment was used. Restraint and pressures within the US-led
coalitions and the political scrutiny of force was not consistent in the
conflicts
The geography and demography of the two regions was starkly
contrasting; this in turn had consequences for the way air power was used
and the “accessibility” of targets. Population density in the target area
determined the size of causalities as well as the degree of restraint.
The type and number of munitions used were important factors: the
number of PGMs employed in the Afghan conflict was far greater than in
Kosovo. The duration of the conflicts is yet another factor: the Kosovo
war lasted for 78 days and the Afghan 103 days. The ground forces used
in Afghanistan were much larger than in Kosovo. This, of course, meant
that in the Kosovo war, air power “achieved” the goal of winning a war
on its own. The complexity and effectiveness of air defence systems,
including fighter cover, also varied: it was highly effective in Kosovo
but non-existent in Afghanistan. In both conflicts command of the air by
the US-led coalition was achieved at an early stage and air operations
took place freely and with impunity.
But the greatest obstacle to securing accurate estimates of civilian
casualties is the absence of official records and the difficulty of obtaining
information. In Afghanistan this is even more problematic because
of the country’s impenetrable terrain and the consequent inability of
independent assessors to move about freely. The virtual absence of
independent sources as well as the difficulties posed by cultural practices
such as the quick burial of the dead in accordance with Islamic traditions
collectively result in the absence of accurate data on casualties.
The Kosovo conflict was fought almost exclusively with air power.
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Prof. Hayatullah Khan Khattack
Unlike the Afghan war, the political leadership, anticipating a brief
campaign, retained control over the use of air power.44 This ensured
greater restraint, discrimination and proportionality. NATO had openly
opted for air power to stop human rights violations and ensure withdrawal
of Serb forces. Reliance on air power alone made the achievement of
political objectives diffi cult and, after six weeks of bombing, there were
more Serb forces in Kosovo than before the campaign.
An important truism is that media presence impacts on the number
of casualties. This is amply demonstrated by the Kosovo confl ict
were media exposure ensured fewer casualties while in Afghanistan
the numbers were much higher because of the relatively weak media
presence. The latter’s watchdog role thus sensitises public opinion and,
consequently, compliance with IHL.45 In democracies, media exposure
inevitably also infl uences political direction of targeting policy and the
operational freedom of the military.46
NATO policy on the use of air power and targeting policy were well
known: fi rst targets to be hit were Serbian surface-to-air missile sites,
military installations and troop concentrations. Others included those
used by civilians and military such as communication facilities, roads
and bridges. Attacks on dual-use facilities, such as power stations, oil
and petroleum depots received particular media attention. Considerable
efforts were, therefore, made to limit attacks to military targets and
avoid civilian causalities and damage to civilian objects. Targeting was
tightly controlled by constant review of its legal, political and military
terms at the NATO headquarters (SHAPE) and national capitals of the
participating NATO members. Dual-use targets were to have a distinct
military component to secure approval for attack.47
The US-led Operation Allied Force began on 24 March 1999 when
Richard Holbrooke’s attempt at mediation failed and OSCE monitors
withdrew from Kosovo. Fourteen NATO member-countries launched air
attacks from 24 European bases and 3 aircraft carriers. The war, that was
supposed to last a few days rather than weeks, concluded after 78 days
resulting in the deaths of 500 civilian and about 600 Serb military and
police.48 NATO conducted over 37,000 sorties and used approximately
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The Law of Aerial Bombardment and Civilian Casualties
40 percent PGM.49 Two-third of the fi rst month of aerial bombardment
took place during the night and, more importantly, in the fi rst month
of the campaign 50 percent of the strike sorties were cancelled, tons of
bombs were dropped in the Adriatic due to bad weather, under the rules
of engagement imposed by the politicians.50
“Morale” Targeting
During the Kosovo confl ict several targets were hit raising worldwide
concerns and publicity. Similar incidents occurred in Iraq and later in
Afghanistan more frequently but never received the same media attention
and hence there was no important restraining infl uence. In Kosovo
such incidents included the attack on a passenger train transporting
internally displaced civilians, the Chinese embassy, bridges, Serbian
television and the electric grid systems. Some of these were targeting
errors because of faulty intelligence, some were accidents, whilst other
were deliberate attacks justifi ed by military necessity. Human Rights
Watch (HRW) found that “all too often NATO targeting subjected the
civilian population to unacceptable risks” either in its illegal targeting
or failing to take adequate precautions to verify civilians presence when
attacking mobile targets.51 The HRW reports question whether civilian
casualties were suffi ciently taken into account or whether NATO’s
strategy of psychological warfare was intended to harass civilians.
NATO’s high altitude bombing was specifi cally identifi ed as a reason
for the unacceptable risks taken with the civilian population.
The Chinese Embassy incident on 7 May 1999 was admitted as a
mistake by the US Air force and was attributed to incorrect information.52
A mobile target that was attacked resulting in large civilian casualties
was the Djakovica convoy on 14 April 1999. The target was found
to be a civilian object although NATO claimed that all the available
intelligence indicated that it was military and that the attack was called
off when it was realized that the object attacked was civilian.53 In practical
terms, air power without suffi cient ground intelligence made targeting
vulnerable to human error and NATO’s dependence only on non-ground
intelligence made it diffi cult to achieve political objectives.
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Prof. Hayatullah Khan Khattack
The Djakovica incident raised several issues. One was NATO’s
policy of bombing from an altitude of 15,000 feet in order to minimize
risks to the pilots especially from hand held surface-to-air missiles and
ant-aircraft artillery; another was rules of engagement for air patrols
seeking target opportunities without verifi cation.54 Protocol I imposes a
duty to undertake all “feasible precautions” before commencing attack.
Hans-Peter Gasser comments:
The keyword is feasible: the law does not expect the
impossible, but it asks the Commander or the staff Offi cer
to do what he can do. The United Kingdom’s declaration
on signing Protocol I give appropriate indications for the
interpretation of this notion. ‘the word feasible means
that which is practicable or practicably possible, taking
into account all circumstances at the time including those
relevant to the sources of the military operations.55
Protocol I would require a pilot to get close to the target to identify
it correctly whilst military necessity and advantage, would require
pilots to fl y at a suffi cient height to reduce risk. Also relevant is the
rule mentioned earlier of presumption when there is doubt i.e., when
the identifi cation of a target is in doubt it must be presumed to be a
civilian. In situations where states are not party to Protocol I, customary
international law requires attacking only military objectives. Although
unclear from available literature, the level of care would not be higher
in customary international law than in Protocol I, namely “do all that is
feasible.” Clearly, the requirements of IHL and military advantage are in
confl ict and this is an area that requires further research.
Milosevic’s intransigence compelled NATO to change its strategy
and attack dual use targets plus those that would instigate the public to
exert pressure on the political leadership. Public morale thus became
a target towards the middle of the 78 day campaign, while in the Gulf
confl ict it was targeted from the start.56 Yugoslav electric installations
and industrial structures began to be hit on the 40th day of the campaign
and almost 70 percent of the power was disrupted. The HWR report,
states that targets were chosen to harass civilians and that these included
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The Law of Aerial Bombardment and Civilian Casualties
bridges and radio and television stations.
Serbian Television and Radio
In the early hours of 23 April 1999, NATO aircraft attacked the
Serbian State Television (RTS) in Belgrade killing 17 civilians. At the time
at least 120 people were in the building and the attack generated heated
international controversy: RTS was entitled to the protection granted
to civilian objects, though not absolute protection, was it therefore a
legitimate military objective? Was state control and ownership of a “pro-
government propaganda apparatus” suffi cient to regard it as a military
target especially when 17 civilians died? Alternatively, was the attack
proportional? Finally, were the civilians forewarned about the attack?
NATO argued that RTS was targeted because it had become the
mouthpiece of Milosevic and was responsible for fostering ethnic
nationalism and hatred. It however primarily relied on the dual-use of
RTS to justify its aerial bombardment: the RTS was linked to the C3
(command, control and communication) network. At a press conference
prior to the bombing, NATO declared RTS a military objective, but
apparently gave no warning to the civilians to vacate the premises.
Although not journalists,57 in the traditional sense of the word, the RTS
personnel were protected persons as Protocol I equates them to civilians
during armed confl ict.58 However, as the ICTY Committee opined, if
the additional use of the facilities was that of an integral part of the C3
network, then it was a legitimate target.59 This view approximates that
of Protocol I that a dual-use object may be a lawful military object when
the criteria of Article 52 have been met (see Section I above).
The Final Report also concluded that although civilian casualties
were high, the attack on RTS was not disproportionate. This conclusion
was reached by counterbalancing the civilian deaths with the overall
concrete and “direct military advantage anticipated” from attacking the
specifi c dual-use component of the network. The coordinated targeting
of the radio relay buildings were intended to deny communications to
Serb troops and afford NATO military advantage.
110 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Prof. Hayatullah Khan Khattack
Even if the concept of proportionality affords the attacker
considerable latitude, he is required to limit damage to civilians and take
all feasible precautions as stipulated in Article 51 and 57 of the Protocol.
In this respect, serious reservations have been expressed whether NATO
did in fact take the necessary measures to protect the civilians from
harm. Its warnings were contradictory, unclear and too little.60 The Final
Report concluded that although there were confl icting testimonies,
NATO should have given suffi cient advance warning.61
Finally, the ICTY Committee concluded that the use of the media
to incite hatred may justify its destruction but propaganda alone
was not suffi cient to warrant such an attack.62 NATO’s claim was
that the destruction of RTS for its propaganda role was secondary, if
complementary, to that of its C3 function. However, it is unavoidable
that during a confl ict, state controlled media is involved in propaganda
and journalists, therefore, should be accorded protection.63
On balance, in the light of articles 51, 52 and 57 of Protocol I, the
attack on RTS was a violation of IHL. Although the Protocol was not
ratifi ed by some of the attacking states, the principles enshrined in these
articles were the same as in customary international law.
On balance, however, the degree of compliance with IHL during
Operation Allied Force was exemplary especially the extent to which
NATO forces went out of their way to avoid casualties. On the other
hand, the conditions under which Operation Allied Force took place
were exceptional and problematic for comparison purposes.
Section IV – Operation Enduring Freedom
If Operation Allied Force was characterized by restraint and is likely
to be highly scrutinised, Operation Enduring Freedom was anything but
restrained and unlikely to be scrutinised seriously because of the aftermath
of 11 September 2001. The Taliban’s harsh rule and links to Osama Bin
Laden alienated international sympathy. Furthermore, Afghanistan was
neither located in Europe nor did it have large oil reserves to generate
the sympathy of the international media. The mainly US-UK coalition
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The Law of Aerial Bombardment and Civilian Casualties
with NATO support began bombing of the Taliban regime on 7 October
2001 to bring about regime change.
Operation Enduring Freedom was fundamentally different in other
ways too. Unlike the two other campaigns, aerial bombardment did not
have any worthwhile targets such as complex industrial structures or
extensive electrical grid systems, or even dual-use facilities: the Russian
occupation of Afghanistan in 1979 and the subsequent civil war that
had raged since 1992 had left the country denuded of targets. With the
absence of civilian objects that could be bombed, civilians became
targets with little regard to proportionality or precautionary measures.
Most of the US aerial bombardment occurred over 9 of Afghanistan’s 32
provinces which comprise less than 25 percent of the country’s territory
but more than 50 percent of its population.
The context of the Afghanistan confl ict, as that of any other, is
important. The context of any confl ict determines the way adversaries are
viewed or treated. For Afghanistan, 11 September 2001 is important for
two reasons: the attitude of the US to international norms, its perception
of the threats and how it reacted to these; secondly, criticism of US
violation of IHL was muted because of post-9/11 global sympathy.
The Project on Defence Alternatives (PDA) concluded in its study
of the confl ict:
Despite the adulation of Operation Enduring Freedom as a
“fi nely-tuned” or “bulls-eye” war, the campaign failed to
set a new standard for precision in one important respect:
the rate of civilians killed per bomb dropped. In fact, this
rate was far higher in the Afghanistan confl ict - perhaps
four times higher - than in the 1999 Balkan war. In absolute
terms, too, the civilian death toll in Afghanistan surpassed
that incurred by the NATO bombing over Kosovo and
Serbia; indeed, it may have been twice as high.64
Estimates on the number of civilians killed in Afghanistan from
October 2001 till the end of March 2002, vary greatly.65 The US, as
112 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Prof. Hayatullah Khan Khattack
per policy, does not maintain casualty records but various organizations
have estimated civilian deaths between 1000 and 3,400. PDA estimates
that between 1000 to 1300 civilians died as a consequences of bombing,
whilst Human Rights Watch puts the fi gure at around 1000.66A much
disputed estimate by an American academic, Prof. Marc Herold, puts the
civilian dead between 3000 - 3400 during the period under consideration.67
Compilation of data by the various organizations and individuals of
casualties have their weaknesses but all point to heavy civilian losses.68
The diffi culties with estimating casualties are compounded by the US’s
refusal to release their fi gures of civilian casualties, and also the US
decision to purchase all the exclusive rights to all the satellite images
from Space Imaging Inc.; these images would have made it possible to
corroborate damage from aerial bombardment.69
Although 60 percent of munitions used in Afghanistan were PGMs,
compared to 38 percent in Kosovo, the casualty estimates are surprising.
There were other distinguishing features: greater reliance on bombers as
compared to tactical aircraft, aircraft on longer fl ights en route to sorties,
majority of sorties were undertaken by tactical naval aircraft and fi nally
the majority of the PGMs used were satellite guided as compared to
Kosovo where laser guided munitions were more extensively deployed.70
Several other factors contributed to the higher rate of casualties: e.g.,
the lack of fi xed targets, foes’ indistinguishable characteristics from the
civilian population and reliance by the US for targeting intelligence on
forces opposing the Taleban.71 But because of the safety mechanism
inserted into Protocol I and customary international humanitarian law,
the excessive civilian casualties should still not have occurred.
In the name of targeting Al-Qaeda, scores of civilians were killed
in different incidents with no apparent respect to proportionality and
distinction. As we saw above, in the case of Kosovo, where large numbers
of civilians were killed in a few incidents the worldwide publicity and
scrutiny was understandable. However, in the case of Afghanistan no
such examination has been forthcoming in spite of the larger number
of incidents. In October 2001, for example, the following incidents
were reported by the British papers: 11th October, village of Karam was
bombed leaving over 100 dead;72 13th October, over 15 civilians killed,
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The Law of Aerial Bombardment and Civilian Casualties
US claims a stray missile was responsible for deaths;73 21st October,
bomb kills over 80 in a Herat hospital;74 and 31st October, Red Crescent
Clinic hit killing 12 civilians in Kandahar.75 The same month there were
other incidents of refugees, ambulances, wedding celebrations being
attacked from the air with sizeable civilian casualties but these remain
unconfi rmed. In subsequent months numerous other incidents occurred
where civilian casualties ran into scores.
Afghanistan’s limited civilian infrastructure did not remain intact
after a few weeks of the aerial bombardment. On 15 October the main
telephone exchange was knocked out killing 15 civilians; on 28 October
the electric grid system in Kandahar, the spiritual capital of the Taliban,
was destroyed depriving the whole province of electricity; on 31
October several attacks were launched against the Kajakai dam; and on
12 November a direct hit on Al-Jazeera news agency in Kabul raised
concern as earlier Secretary of State Powell had asked the agency to
tone down its reports of casualties in Afghanistan.76
Despite the large number of civilians killed in dubious circumstances,
no attempt has been made by either the US, UK or international non-
governmental agencies to hold an enquiry such as those held after the
Kosovo confl ict. The military was given complete freedom in targeting
policy as western politicians did not have a constituency to be concerned
about if Afghan casualties ever became known.
Emerging Targets and Civilian deaths
The vast majority of the US-UK strikes during operation Enduring
Freedom were carried out against what is termed “emerging” targets –
targets that are not pre-determined and do not exist on maps and which
require immediate military response. Air attacks against emerging
targets are inherently inaccurate and indiscriminate. It is attacks against
emerging targets that caused the greatest number of civilian casualties.
One such incident was the attack on a convoy of Afghans, including tribal
leaders, from the province of Paktia on their way to the inauguration of
the interim Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai.
114 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Prof. Hayatullah Khan Khattack
The incident on 30 December when the village of Qalai Niazi was
struck is instructive as to the degree of violations of Protocol I and, in
particular, the principle of proportionality and the advance warning rule
enshrined in Article 57. The incident also demonstrates the indifference
of the western media about civilian deaths in Afghanistan compared to
Kosovo.
The US, which at fi rst denied the incident, contended that the village
sheltered Taliban and Al Qaeda fi ghters and had ammunitions dumps.
Western reporters confi rmed weapons stockpiles as well as civilian
casualties including children. British papers reported the incident in
graphic detail.77 The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times merely
touched upon the event as a backgrounder to the inauguration of Hamid
Karzai’s interim government. The Times reported a few months later that
the UN estimates of civilians deaths were 52 including 25 children;78 the
Guardian, however, estimated between 57 and 107 fatalities but added
that “innumeracy, rapid burials, damage to bodies, propaganda and
remoteness” impeded verifi able statistics.79
Granted that Qalai Niazi was a legitimate target, and there is no
evidence to indicate that the US did not genuinely believe this to be the
case, questions still arise whether suffi cient warning was given to the
civilians or whether the force used against the village was proportional
to the military advantage. The evidence gathered by journalists indicates
that the answers are in the negative.80
To eliminate the alleged presence of Taliban and Al-Qaeda fi ghters,
three waves of B-52 bombers struck the village followed by helicopter
strikes. UN sources reported that civilians, including children, were
strafed whilst running for cover. Since the attack had been planned
several weeks in advance,81 it was not an emerging target and, therefore,
the failure to give prior warning to the civilian was a violation of IHL. It
was also reported that British forces were on the scene within a day of
the attack, and this raises questions as to the method used to strike Qalai
Niazi i.e., an alternative form of attack was available.
Afghan air defences were non-existent in comparison with that of
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The Law of Aerial Bombardment and Civilian Casualties
Kosovo where NATO aircraft were constrained to fl y higher and civilians
became more vulnerable. In Afghanistan pilots fl ew at low altitudes
and made greater use of PGMs and this should have resulted in fewer
civilian casualties. Notwithstanding that casualty fi gures could have
been infl ated or inaccurately reported by the media and human rights
organizations, Afghanistan underwent the most devastating air bombing
of civilians in recent times. Human Rights Watch reported:
The US military takes precautions to minimize civilian loss
of life during its operations – but obviously not enough.
There is now a pattern of mistakes, apparently as a result
of faulty intelligence, that has led to too many civilians’
deaths and no clear changes in the way the United States
plans and carries out military operations.82
Section VI- Conclusion
A general conclusion is that efforts to comply with Protocol I when
airpower was used were exemplary especially in the discrimination of
civilians and strictly civilian objects. In neither of the case studies were
civilians directly and intentionally targeted. However, the striking of dual-
use facilities was extensive and in Afghanistan, emerging targets were
always presumed to be terrorists/Taliban fi ghters, thereby continuously
causing large civilians casualties.83 It appears that in Afghanistan, the
avoidance of civilian casualties was not accorded priority in planning
strikes. The military was given a free hand and the Bush administration
did not have political constraints.
The extent of political involvement, as opposed to allowing the
military a free hand in targeting, is important for compliance with IHL.
There are two contradictory but important considerations: politicians
desire a “zero-casualty war” on the one hand, and on the other, they
are averse to mass media projection of casualties. The CNN effect is
diffi cult to ignore because international public opinion is anti-war.
Political rather than military necessity has become the decisive factor
in targeting.
116 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Prof. Hayatullah Khan Khattack
Although the two case studies are not entirely comparable, in the
1999 confl ict force was used to seek compliance with limited objectives
whereas in the Afghan confl ict the US sought the elimination of the
Taliban regime and Al Qaida. In the wake of 9/11, the objectives of the
Afghan war had domestic and international support. This enabled the
US military to adopt rules of aerial engagement in Afghanistan that may
perhaps have been unacceptable in 1999.
References:
1 Col. Phillip Meilinger, ‘Precision Aerospace Power, Discrimination, and the future of
war’ Aerospace Power Journal (Fall 2001), 1. See also George and Meredith Friedman,
The Future of War (New York: Crown, 1996). For a contrary view on the impact of
modern weapons see Charles Dunlap, ‘Technology: Recomplicating Moral life for the
Nation’s Defenders’, Parameters (Autumn 1999)
2 The term aerial bombardment includes, among other things “dropping munitions from
manned or unmanned aircraft, strafi ng, and using missiles or rockets against enemy targets
on land.” U.S. Dept of the Air Force, Air Force Pamphlet No. 110-31, International Law
-- The Conduct of Armed Confl ict and Air Operations, November 19, 1976, para. 5-1 at
5-1
3 The militia armies in and around the Mosque of Imam Ali in Najaf , Iraq being a case in
point.
4 The US may have not signed up to the 1977 Protocols “… But [the US] considers itself
guided if not bound by the relevant provisions of the most”. Amy J. Hyatt, Ordered Chaos:
The increasing complex rules of lawyers in Targeting (National Defense University,
20000) p4. The 1976 US Airforce Pamphlet and the 1991 US Rules of Engagement
Pocket Card during Operation Desert Storm refl ected provisions of protocol 1 in regard
to distinction, proportionality and necessity. See Mathew Waxman International Law
and the Politics of Urban Air Operations (Santa Monica: RAND, 2000) p12. See
also Michael Matheson, “The United States Positions on the Relation of Customary
International Law to the 1977 Protocol Additional to the 1949 Geneva Convention”,
American University Journal of International Law and Policy, Vol.2 (1987)
5 Many of the ancient texts such as the Mahabharqata , Bible and the Koran have references
as to how enemies during war should be treated. From a historical and from various
cultural aspects of the roots and development of IHL see International Dimensions of
Humanitarian Law (Paris: UNESCO, 1988)
6 M. Sassoli & A. Bouvier, How Does Law Protect in War ?, ICRC, Geneva, 1949,
p145
7 Jean Pictet, ed., “Commentary Geneva Conventions”, Vol. IV (Geneva: ICRC , 1958),
p5
8 Geoffrey Best, Humanity in Warfare: The Modern History of the International Law
of Armed Confl ict (London: Methuen, 1983) p325 (paperback ed.)
9 It is generally believed that civilians did not suffer that much during the First World War
but recent research has shown the opposite. See Ruth Harris, “The child of the Barbarian:
117CRITERION – April/June 2008
The Law of Aerial Bombardment and Civilian Casualties
Rape, race and nationalism in France During the First World War”, Past and Present,
No. 141, 1993. Also note Clausewitz comment in reference to 18th Century warfare: “Not
only in its means but also in its aim was increasingly became limited to the fi ghting force
itself ... All Europe rejoiced at this development.” Karl Von Clausewitz, On war (Book
8) P 87.
10 Yves Sandoz, “Protecting People in Times of War”, The UN Chronicle , Winter 1999,
36:4, p214
11 For a historical development of IHL see Best, Humanity at War and also Best, War and
Law since 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994)
12 Henceforth to be referred to as the Protocol I.
13 On 26th June 2004 , 161 states had ratifi ed the Protocol I see Appendix B for list of
states and dates treaty ratifi ed (source ICRC at http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteen0.nsf/
htmlall/party_gc)
14 Best, Humanity at War, p320 and pp315 - 319 for a discussion of the politics that
determined the fi nal draft of the Protocols.
15 The US has indicated for many years that accepts the various parts of the Protocols but
not the whole. It has never indicated publicly which specifi c parts it accepts and which
it not and why. It would appear, however, that The US has problems with the following
provisions of the Protocol: 1) certain provisions are viewed as politically motivated: the
granting of prisoner of war status to members of liberation movements 2) provisions that
grant irregular fi ghter legal status 3) provisions that limit means and methods of warfare
including prohibition on nuclear weapons and 4) provisions that limits attack on dual-use
facilities. Thus, the US and Turkey, currently remain outside the treaty system.
16 Hans-Peter Gasser, “some Legal Issues concerning Ratifi cation of the 1977 Geneva
Protocols” in Michael Meyer (ed.), Armed Confl ict and the New Law (London: British
Institute of International and Comparative Law, 1989) p82
17 Additional Protocol I, Article 48 (See Appendix A)
18 Additional Protocol, Article 50, Para 1.
19 See Marco Sassoli, “Legitimate Targets of Attacks under International Humanitarian
Law”, IPCR Policy Brief, January 2003. See also William Fenrick, “Attacking the enemy
civilians as a punishable offence”, Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law,
7:539and W. Parks “Air War and the Law of War”, The Air Forces Law Review, 32:1
20 ICRC, Commentary on the Additional Protocols of 8 June 1977 to the Geneva Convention
of 12 August 1949 (Geneva: Maritime Publishers, 1987) (available on on-line at http//
www.icrc.org.)
21 Development and research into precision weapons, it is argued, is in part fuelled by
desire to reduce civilian casualties See John Alexander, “Optional Lethality”, Harvard
International Review, Vol. 23:2, 2001,
22 Col. Jay Terry, “The evolving Law of Aerial Warfare”, Air University, November-
December 1975, p13
23 A. P. V. Rogers, “Zero Causality Warfare”, International Review of the Red Cross, No.
837, 31st March 2000, p166
24 O. David , The Holocaust and Strategic Bombing: Genocide and total war in 20th
Century (Boulder: Westview, 1995) p159
25 Michael Howard (ed.) , Restraints on War: Studies in the Limitations of Armed
Confl ict, (Oxford: UP, 1979) pp58-65
26 Javier Gomez, “The Law of Air Warfare”, International Review of the Red Cross, no.
323, 30th June 1998, pp 347 - 363
118 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Prof. Hayatullah Khan Khattack
27 Declaration to Prohibit for the Term of Five years the Launching of projectiles and
Explosives From Balloons , and other Methods of a Similar Nature (Hague IV, I), July
29, 1899.
28 Hague Convention IV, Art. 27,
29 Geneva Convention IV, (1949), Art. 18 - 23
30 Rules of Air warfare, drafted by a Commission of Jurists at the Hague, 1923, Art. 23 and
24 (See ICRC website, www.icrc.org.)
31 Draft Rules for the limitation of the Dangers incurred by Civilians Population in Time of
War, (Geneva: ICRC, 1958), p166 (2nd)
32 Col. Jay Terry, “Evolving Law of Aerial Warfare Law”, op. cit.
33 Quoted in International Dimensions of Humanitarian Law, pp116 - 117
34 Article 50 (3)
35 A.P.V. Rogers, Law on the Battlefi eld (1996), cited in William Fenrick, “Attacking the
enemy civilians as a punishable offence”, Duke Journal of Comparative International
Law”, 7: 539. The ICRC proposed list of proposed categories of military objectives does
not include television and broadcasting stations. In respect of the war sustaining entities,
of the US perspective, see US Navy’s Commanders Handbook on the Law of Naval
Operation, in Michael Schmitt, “The Impact of High And Low-Tech Warfare on the
Principle of Distinction” , Briefi ng Paper HPCI (November 2003), p3
36 W. Hays Parks, “ Air War and the Law of War”, Air Force Law Review (1990), 32:1,
pp138
37 William Fenrick, “Targeting and Proportionality during NATO Bombing Campaign
against Yugoslavia”, E.J.I.L. (2001), p491,n6. See also Michael Schmitt, “The Impact of
High And Low-Tech Warfare on the Principle of Distinction”, pp7-8.
38 Michael Matheson, “The United States Position on the Relations of Customary
International Law to the 1977 Protocols Additional to the 1949 Geneva Conventions”,
American University Journal of international Law and Policy, 2 (1987), pp419 -431.
39 Air Force Pamphlet No. 110-31, at 5-1.
40 A.P. V. Roger, “Zero-Casualty Warfare”, op. cit.
41 Michael Schmitt, “Rethinking the Geneva Conventions”, Crimes of War Project, 30th
January 2003, p3.
42 Michael Schmitt, “Impact of High and Low -Tech Warfare on the Principle of Distinction”,
pp 10-11
43 Kenneth Rizer, “Bombing Dual-Use Targets: Legal, Ethical, and Doctrinal Perspectives”,
Air and Space Power Chronicles, 1 May 2001, p4.
44 For a discussion of the restrictions placed on the military operating by politicians in
avoiding civilians casualties see Phillip Meilinger, “Winged Defense: Airwar, the Law,
and morality”, Armed Forces and Society, 20:1 (Fall 1993). Differing views, political
and military, within NATA was another important factor constraining compliance with
IHL
45 Although the “CNN factor” was coined during the Iraq confl ict, the media’s impact of
that war on public opinion was not comparable to that of the confl ict at the door step of
Europe and worldwide publicity of white Europeans being involved in ethnic cleansing.
NATO launched 23,000 bombs against Yugoslavia and only 20 went astray but these 20
generated more publicity and outcry then the 23,000 that hits their target.
46 Grant Hammond, “Myths of the Air War over Serbia: Some ‘Lessons’ not to Lear”,
Aerospace Power Journal, 14:4 (winter, 2000) at on-line: www.airpower.maxwell.
af.mil/airchrincles/apj/apj000/win00/hammond.htm
119CRITERION – April/June 2008
The Law of Aerial Bombardment and Civilian Casualties
47 Protocol 1, Article 82 requires legal advisor to review targets and advise commanders
on targets. The Kosovo confl ict has been referred to by some writers as the “Lawyers
war”. At the time of the confl ict in 1999 Turkey, US and France were the only members
of NATO not signatory to the Protocol. Most of the NATO states had instructed their
aircrews not to take part in attacks of dubious legality.
48 Human Rights Watch, Civilian Deaths in the NATO Air Campaign, (NY: HRW, 2000) at
on-line http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/nato/Natbm200-01.htm
49 Human Rights Watch, ibid. p5.
50 Timothy Thomas, “Kosovo and the Current Myth of information Superiority”, in Parameters
(Spring 2000) at on-line http://carlile.www.army.mil/uaawc/parameters/000spring/
thomas.htm
51 See Human Rights Watch, “Civilian Deaths in the NATO Air Campaign”, 12:1 (February,
2000)
52 UN, ICTY, Final Report o the Prosecutor by the Committee Established to Review
the NATO Bombing campaign Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 8 June
2000, pp39-41 paras 80-85.
53 The ICTY report determined in this instance that neither the aircrews nor the commanders
showed the degree of recklessness in failing to take precautionary measures in identifying
the target that would sustain charges. Ibid, pp30-33 paras 63-70
54 Ibid. Although the Prosecutors Report did not fi nd evidence of recklessness it did fi nd
that the rules of engagements did contribute to the incident occurring.
55 Op. Cit., p88
56 As discussed earlier attacks on public morale are unlawful under the protocol. See also
the opinion of the ICTY Committee which asserted that attacking civilian morale is not a
military objective. Final Report 55 and 76
57 The casualties were technicians, make-up artists and auxiliary artists
58 Protocol 1, Article 79. The Convention does not defi ne journalism.
59 Final Report, paras 55 and 76
60 See Amnesty international, “NATO/Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Collateral Damage
or Unlawful Killings? Violations of the Laws of War by NATO during Operation Allied
Force”, June 2000. See also Human Rights Watch, op. cit. where it is claimed that the
Yugoslav authorities did not believe that STR was in any threat. P9.
61 Final Report, para 77.
62 Final Report, paras 47 - 55
63 The BBC, in wartime, by virtue of its Charter can be enlisted in the war-time effort; does
that make BBC journalist a legitimate military target?
64 Carl Conetta, “Operation Enduring Freedom: Why a higher Rate of Civilian Bombing
Casualties”, Project on Defense Alternative Briefi ng Report, No. 11, Revised Version
24th January 2002, pp 1 -2 at online www.comw.org/pda/0201oef.html
65 Aerial bombardment, even up to now continues but the period chosen represents a
convenient cut-off point although the Talebans had given the capital, Kabul, up in the
fi rst two months of the campaign.
66 Carl Conetta, op. cit. p5. Human Rights Watch, “Civilians Deaths in Afghanistan”, 20th
June 2002, Press Release.
67 Marc W. Herold, “A dossier on Civilian Victims of United States Aerial Bombing of
Afghanistan: A Comprehensive Accounting Revised]” at online www.cursor.org/stories/
civilian_deaths.htm see also BBC, 3rd January 2002, “Afghanistan’s civilian deaths
mount” quoting Prof. Herold as saying: “I think that a much more realistic fi gure would be
120 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Prof. Hayatullah Khan Khattack
around 5,000. You know for Afghanistan, 3,700 to 5,000 is a really substantial number.”
68 For the methodological weaknesses of casualty fi gures see Lucinda Fleeson, “The
Civilian Casualty Conundrum: Have American news Organisations soft-pedalled the
‘collateral damage’ of the fi ghting in Afghanistan? Or have foreign news outlets and
academic studies grossly infl ated the toll”, American Journalism Review, April 2002 at
online www.ajr.org/article_printable.asp?id=2491
69 See Carl Conetta, op. cit. p8. Talebans claimed that over 5,000 civilians were killed and
10,000 wounded.
70 ibid., p3
71 ibid., p3
72 Talebans claim over 200 dead. See the Guardian, 12th October 2001.
73 The Observer, 14th October 2001.
74 The Guardian, 22nd October 2001
75 The Times, 1st November 2001
76 Carl Conetta, op. cit. p4
77 See The Independent, 1st January 2002 (“ US accused of Killing 100 civilians”), The
Times, 1st January 2002 (“100 villagers Killed” in US Air strikes’) and the Guardian, 1st
January 2001 (“US accused of killing over 100 in Village Airstrikes”)
78 The Times, 1st April 2002
79 The Guardian, 1st July 2002
80 Despite the high rates of civilian deaths in Afghanistan there does not appear to be
extensive research carried out although what there is is by journalists.
81 The Times , 1st April 2002
82 John Sifton, Human Rights Watch, Press Release 13 December 2003
83 Even as this conclusion is being drafted the media is reporting 17 civilians, including
three children, death during an aerial attack on what was believed to be a terrorist safe
house. This has been a regularly occurrence in the Afghan confl ict. Newsnight. BBC 2
Television, 2nd September 2004.
SECURITY ALLIANCES AND SECURITY CONCERNS:PAKISTAN AND NATO
Shahwar Junaid *
Abstract
(With the end of the Cold War, NATO’s role has undergone a radical
transformation from providing collective defence to Western Europe
against a possible Soviet-led ground attack to dealing with threats such
as those emanating from global terrorism and sub-national militancy.
Today issues such as energy security and even the fallout from climate
change are also in the NATO agenda. The thrust of the Organization
has accordingly become more global than transatlantic. Consequently
NATO has evolved from a geographical concept of security to a functional
approach. Thus in the mid-1990s after the Srebrenica massacre, the US
and NATO made serious efforts to end the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina
which led to the Dayton Peace Accord of December 1995. NATO
deployed troops and this was its fi rst ever out of area deployment
thereby establishing a precedent. Subsequently in March 1999, NATO
forces moved to end the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. This signifi ed a
transformation from being primarily a deterrent force to using its
military capabilities to achieve humanitarian goals. The way was thus
paved for other interventions. All NATO members along with a number
of its partners have contributed troops to the International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF) which is operating in Afghanistan. There have
been declarations that ISAF will remain in Afghanistan for decades in
the fi ght against global terrorism. Pakistan’s continued cooperation in
* Shahwar Junaid, a former Communications Media Consultant to the
Pakistan government, is an eminent writer and intellectual. Her latest book is
titled Terrorism and Global Power Systems, Oxford University Press, 2006.
122 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
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this effort should be on the basis of a formal association. –Editor).
Before embarking on a discussion of specifi c issues concerning the
activities of multilateral security alliances in South Asia and the adjoining
region, as well as Pakistan’s concerns and interests in this regard, it
is necessary to examine the purpose, origin, terminology and culture
of strategic alliances - particularly those transatlantic and European
strategic alliances in the economic and security fi elds that emerged after
World War II and operated exclusively within the transatlantic arena
for about four decades. Thereafter they began to extend operations to
other regions through modifi ed mutual defence arrangements under the
umbrella of NATO and the United Nations.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Economic
Community emerged after World War II in response to concerns about
the economic, political and territorial future of a weakened Western
Europe that shared several national borders with the vast territories of
the Soviet Union1 and the emerging communist East European countries
that were its allies. The primary purpose of NATO was the collective
defence of Western Europe against a possible USSR-led ground attack by
communist states. An attack on one member state was to be considered
an attack on all NATO members. Enhancing the stability of the region
through a collective security system was expected to foster and protect
the economic reconstruction of war-torn Western Europe. A collective
security system had become necessary because of a series of events that
took place in post-World War II Europe.
Between 1939 and 1945, communist governments had been installed
throughout Eastern Europe and territorial demands were made by the
Soviet Union2. Moscow was reported to be a party to destabilizing
political developments in Greece and Iran. The Soviet Union was also
known to have acquired competence in atomic technology. These
developments prompted the signing of a common defence treaty (the
Treaty of Dunkirk) between Britain and France as early as 1947.
However, it was clear that the combined forces of both countries would
be no match for the forces of the Soviet Union in case of an attack.
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Thereafter the European Recovery Plan3 was rejected by East
European states and cominform4, a European Communist organization,
was created. The 1947 establishment of Cominform led to the signing of
a collective defence treaty known as the Brussels Treaty (1948) by most
European states. It was again clear that the combined forces of all the
Western European states would be no match for the forces of the Soviet
Union in case of an attack. In January 1949, the USSR established
COMECON, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, in order to
coordinate the rebuilding and expansion of the economy of the USSR
and the war-ravaged East European states on strictly socialist lines. It
was considered the Soviet counterpart of the European Recovery Plan5
and the European Economic Community rolled into one. COMECON
branched into international trade and commerce. Subsequently it
supplied aid to the communists in China who were eventually victorious
and established the Peoples Republic of China. The blockade of Berlin
began in March 1948. It led to common defence negotiations between
Western Europe, Canada and the United States. As a result of these
negotiations the North Atlantic Treaty was signed on 4 April 1949.
NATO was created through the North Atlantic Treaty.
The Treaty itself consisted of a preamble and 14 articles. Its
purpose was to promote the common values of its members and “unite
their efforts for collective defence”6. Article 1 called for the peaceful
resolution of disputes. Article 2 pledges the parties to economic and
political cooperation. Article 3 deals with the development of defence
capacity. Article 4 calls for joint consultations when a member state is
threatened. Article 5 promises the use of members’ armed forces for
collective self-defence. Article 6 defi nes the areas covered by the Treaty.
Article 7 affi rms the precedence of members’ obligations under the
United Nations’ Charter. Article 8 provides safeguards against confl ict
with any other treaties to which members are signatories. Article 9
creates a Council to oversee implementation of the treaty. Article 10
stipulates admission procedures for other nations. Article 11 covers the
ratifi cation procedure. Article 12 allows for the reconsideration of the
Treaty. Article 13 lays down withdrawal procedures. Article 14 calls for
the deposition of the offi cial copies of the treaty in the US Archives.
124 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Shahwar Junaid
The North Atlantic Council was designated the highest authority
within NATO7. It was composed of permanent delegates from all member
states, headed by a Secretary General to run the secretariat and handle all
the non-military functions of the alliance. The Council was the decision-
making body of NATO and responsible for general policy, administration
as well as the organizations’ budget. The secretariat, various temporary
committees and the Military Committee were expected to report to the
North Atlantic Council. The temporary committees were for specifi c
assignments determined by the North Atlantic Council.
The NATO Military Committee was expected to meet twice a
year to consider overall policy. It consists of the chiefs of staff of the
armed forces of member states. Between these meetings, the Military
Committee remained in permanent session with representatives of the
members attending, in order to defi ne military strategy on a day to day
basis. These representatives were often the Military Attaches of the
embassies of member states stationed closest to NATO headquarters.
In a number of cases they were special appointees. Below the Military
Committee various regional commands are responsible for deploying
armed forces in their areas. Policy making within NATO was, and still
remains, a matter of continuous consultation and accommodation: the
national interests and political priorities of member states may not
always coincide. When the original purpose of establishing a purely
transatlantic collective defence organization became redundant with the
dissolution of the USSR in 1991, NATO began to look into issues of
political consolidation of former Warsaw Pact states and the expansion
of its membership. A series of new threats to the transatlantic alliance
were identifi ed. These included, among others, global terrorism and
sub-national militancy. Today, energy security and even climate change
are on NATO’s agenda and its thrust is more global than transatlantic8.
Allies in the pursuit of this agenda include former adversaries such as
Russia and China.
The original signatories of the North Atlantic Treaty were twelve in
number9. The Western European powers relied on the massive nuclear
arsenal of the United States to deter a Soviet ground invasion. Eventually
NATO technology rendered the power of Soviet ground forces irrelevant.
125CRITERION – April/June 2008
Security Alliances and Security Concerns : Pakistan and NATO
The NATO arsenal included sophisticated psychological, electronic and
information warfare capability as well as non-lethal weaponry sourced
from member states. Greece and Turkey were admitted to the Alliance
in 1952, West Germany in 1955 and Spain in 1982. In 1990, unifi ed
Germany replaced West Germany as a NATO member. In 1955, six
years after NATO was established, the Warsaw Pact, a Communist
military alliance was created by the USSR to counter NATO, signalling
the beginning of the Cold War. This was also the signal for the creation
of a powerful defence industry on both sides of the ideological divide.
The global defence industry is an important partner in any military
arrangement in the world - it has a vested interest in war because its
wares, from the sale of which it derives its income, are only utilized in
confl ict situations10. Similarly strategic alliances have a vested interest
in continuity.
In order to understand the raison d’etre, the organizational culture
and military capability of NATO during the Cold War it is necessary to
consider the sheer size of the military adversary the transatlantic allies
were facing and the intensity of the threat they felt during the period.
The boundaries of the USSR11 changed from time to time until the end
of World War II in 1945, when the last major territorial annexations
of the Baltic states, eastern Poland, Bessarabia and some others took
place. Initially established as a union of four soviet socialist republics
(Russia, Trans-Caucasian Russia, Ukraine, Belarus) the USSR grew
to contain 16 constituent republics of the union by 195612.The Soviet
Union’s growing global infl uence in the post-World War II era led to
the establishment of a communist system of states united by economic
and military agreements. COMECON (Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance, 1949) was the Communist equivalent to the European
Economic Community. The military counterpart to COMECON was the
Warsaw Pact.
During the 1970s, the Soviet Union achieved approximate nuclear
parity with the United States and subsequently overtook it. According
to estimates the USSR had a stockpile of 39,000 nuclear weapons at the
time of its dissolution. Despite its position as the second service in the
armed forces hierarchy, the ground forces of the USSR were the most
126 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Shahwar Junaid
politically infl uential Soviet service. Senior ground service offi cers held
all important posts in the Ministry of Defence and General Staff. In
1989, ground forces had 2 million men in four combat arms and three
supporting services. This was the force that was exposed to attack in
an unfamiliar theatre as a consequence of the Soviet intervention in
Afghanistan in 1978.
The USSR was weakened by the failure of its military intervention
in Afghanistan where its forces faced cross-border resistance from
militants who were organized, supported and equipped by the United
States and Pakistan. This enterprise was the fi rst encounter between
a new generation of local militants, born after World War II and the
region’s decolonization, and United States technology. It was brokered
by Pakistan’s forces and sowed the seeds of future military and
ideological confrontation in the area. The entire region was fl ooded
with technologically advanced arms which were freely traded by
militants of different ideological persuasions. There was no common
agenda to bind them into a cohesive force. Eventually an agenda did
emerge: a conservative Islamic state supposedly based on Shariah
law was established by the Taliban in 1996, about fi ve years after the
Soviets left Afghanistan. Initially it was accepted by the United States
and its representatives were even invited to discuss cultural matters in
Washington.
After the dissolution of the USSR and the creation of the
Commonwealth of Independent States in 1991, it was estimated that
Russia, the successor state of the USSR, had an arsenal of 16,000 active
and inactive nuclear weapons13, as well as a large number of tactical
nuclear weapons. Nuclear warheads based in Belarus, the Ukraine and
Kazakhstan were transferred to Russia under the terms of the Lisbon
Protocol to the NPT (Non- Proliferation Treaty), following the Trilateral
Agreement (1995) between Russia, Belarus and the United States.
Russia’s strategic nuclear forces include land-based missile forces,
a sea-based fl eet and strategic aviation. The 1970s had begun with some
agreements as a result of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT
I) but both the United States and the Soviet Union continued to build
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Security Alliances and Security Concerns : Pakistan and NATO
their respective military arsenals despite on-going efforts at détente. In
2002, the United States and Russia agreed to reduce their stockpiles
to not more than 2200 warheads each in the START treaty. In 2003,
the US rejected the Russian proposals to further reduce both nations’
nuclear stockpiles to 1500 each. This refusal was considered a sign of
US aggression: Washington was accused of leaving the danger of US and
Russia’s mutual destruction, in place. According to the Russian military
doctrine published in 2003 tactical nuclear weapons could be used to
prevent political pressure against Russia and its allies in Moscow’s
“near abroad.” Russia continues to produce and develop new nuclear
weapons. Since 1997 it has manufactured Topol-M (SS-27) ICBMs
(Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles). After the dissolution of the USSR
the two million strong Soviet ground army, which had been hard hit
by the war in Afghanistan, began to disintegrate. Under treaties signed
with the United States and others, the defence industry of the former
Soviet Union was wound down and plants were established with US
funding to destroy stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. The
protection of technology and related human resources in the territories
of the former USSR and Warsaw Pact became a major concern during
the period14. Russian technology and arms were available on the black
market at throwaway prices and they began to surface in Third World
countries
During the late 1980s, political upheaval led to the removal of
communist governments in Eastern Europe and East Germany was
absorbed into West Germany to form the Federal Republic of Germany
(FDR) in 1990. After the formal end of the Cold War in 1991 the original
raison d’etre for the creation of NATO, the protection of territorial
boundaries, practically ceased to exist. A great restructuring of military
resources at the disposal of NATO began. The restructuring was primarily
limited to the traditional transatlantic theatre. Consultations that took
place between NATO members led to plans for a systematic reduction
of troops and restructuring to create highly trained and technically
competent expeditionary cadres that would be available to respond to
crises anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice. The United State’s
Missile Defence Program was introduced. Under this program secure
and armed missile defence units, controlled by the United States, were
128 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Shahwar Junaid
to be established at strategic locations across the globe. States were
offered incentives in order to provide territory for setting up these
missile defence units.
In the London Declaration of July 1990, NATO heads of state and
government called for “a process of adaptation commensurate with
the changes that were reshaping Europe.” In an effort to foster better
relations with the members of the Commonwealth of Independent
States, NATO established the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. It
was a forum for consultations between NATO members, East European
states and the former Soviet republics. The adoption of the New
Alliance Strategic Concept in November 1991 led to NATO’s Long
Term Study to examine Integrated Military Structure and put forward
proposals for related reforms15. This provided guidance for defi ning the
scope of missions for NATO with which the command structure would
have to cope. By this time the process of enlargement of NATO was
contributing to the development of the European Security and Defence
Identity. Consultations culminated in the presentation of a proposed,
new military command structure to Defence Ministers on 2 December
199716. Implementation commenced in 1999. The Cold War Command
Structure was reduced from 78 headquarters to 20 headquarters, with two
overarching Strategic Commanders (Supreme Allied Commanders), one
for Europe and the other for the Atlantic. Three regional commanders
were assigned to the Atlantic SAC and two regional commanders were
assigned to the Europe SAC. During this period new security challenges
of the 21st century, were identifi ed and further changes were made to the
command structure to allow for an effective response to such threats.
Consensus on the approach to tackling international terror and sub-
national militancy as well as commitment of resources for the purpose,
proved elusive.
Apart from setting up the North Atlantic Cooperation Council as a
consultative body, in 1993 NATO members endorsed a proposal to offer
former Warsaw Pact members limited association with NATO under the
Partnership for Peace (PFP). This program was a means of extending
the NATO umbrella of security cooperation throughout Europe. It
was to include information sharing, joint exercises and participation
129CRITERION – April/June 2008
Security Alliances and Security Concerns : Pakistan and NATO
in peacekeeping operations, with full membership as a possibility
after the fulfi lment of membership requirements with NATO military
development assistance. In March 1999 Hungary, Poland and the Czech
Republic joined the alliance. In 2002 Russia became a limited partner
in NATO as a member of the NATO-Russia Council. The PFP program
has 26 participating members.
Between 1995 and 1999 two signifi cant initiatives were taken
by NATO. These followed a great deal of soul searching within the
transatlantic alliance. After the Srebrenica massacre, the seizure of UN
peacekeepers as human shields, the failure of the United Nations mission
and EU-led Peace Plans, the United States and NATO began serious
efforts to bring an end to the continuing war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The genocide of Bosnians was threatening European stability. After
weeks of air strikes, the Bosnian Serbs were ready to negotiate and
eventually signed the Dayton Peace Accord (December 1995). At the
height of the campaign, NATO deployed a force of about 80,000 troops
from 32 countries. Thereafter NATO deployed another multinational
Implementation Force (IFOR) to monitor and enforce the ceasefi re in
Bosnia. A year later this was replaced by a Stabilization Force which
has helped rebuild Bosnian security institutions. This was NATO’s fi rst
ever out of area land deployment and created a precedent.
In March 1999 NATO forces moved against the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia which had begun the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo leading
to the eventual exodus of over a million civilians from the province. Air
strikes were launched after Yugoslavia refused to accept an international
peace plan that would have put an end to ethnic cleansing and granted
limited autonomy to Kosovo. Instead of capitulating, the Serbs intensifi ed
violence forcing the largest mass migration in Europe after World War
II. A NATO force was sent in. The Kosovo peace keeping force (KFOR)
at its height numbered 50,000 troops from 39 NATO as well as non-
NATO countries. A force of about 16,000 is still in place to guarantee
security. When Kosovo declared independence in March 2008, KFOR
personnel were attacked by groups of ethnic Serbs and sustained one
casualty.
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Shahwar Junaid
The Bosnia and Kosovo interventions exposed differences of opinion
within the expanded membership of NATO and the diffi culty of sustaining
military action that requires the consensus of the entire membership of
an expanded military alliance. It highlighted the differences of opinion
that can arise as a result of unique cultural and historical links, not shared
by all members within the expanded membership. NATO had moved
from being a primarily deterrent force to using its military capability to
achieve humanitarian goals. This paved the way for other interventions
and signalled a fundamental transformation within the transatlantic
alliance: NATO moved from a geographical concept of security to a
functional approach17. In keeping with this a military transformation
also took place: The reorganization of NATO, after the dissolution of the
USSR, led to the development of expeditionary capability for operations
at a distance from the alliance’s Euro-Atlantic theatre. This has led to a
perception that long before the actual invasion of Afghanistan through
ISAF (International Security Assistance Force), supposedly in retaliation
for the 9/11 attacks on US territory, and the subsequent invasion of Iraq
in pursuit of non-existent weapons of mass destruction, NATO was
planning to expand its area of operation and sphere of infl uence through
global interventions
After the dissolution of the USSR, there was a period during
which US ascendancy in global affairs was a reality. It was no longer
clear where US foreign policy ended and that of the United Nations,
refl ecting the interests of the international community, began. This
preponderance of US infl uence in world affairs added a new dimension
to the transatlantic alliance and collective defence concepts. An alliance
is defi ned as a “formal association of states for the use (or non-use) of
military force, in specifi ed circumstances, against states outside their
own membership”18.
A strategic alliance is also defi ned as a formal arrangement between
two or more independent parties engaged in the pursuit of common
goals, or, working to meet common critical needs. Such alliances may
be formed in any fi eld of activity, including business and trade19 and
at the bilateral, regional or international levels. NATO, for instance, is
strengthened by social, economic and trade ties between the states of the
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Security Alliances and Security Concerns : Pakistan and NATO
European Union, the United States and Canada. Such ties can create a fund
of political goodwill that is helpful when governments take a position on
international security issues that do not have a direct impact on their own
country but do have an impact on allies. However, the transformation
of NATO from a geographically limited alliance to a functional one20,
acting in consort with other multilateral and international agencies, with
an interest in nation-building subsequent to military intervention, has
altered the strategic concept within which the alliance functions: there
is a need to review the political rather than merely military determinants
of NATO in the present security environment21. For instance views on
the legitimacy of pre-emptive military action differ within NATO and
the EU states. This is particularly important vis-a-vis the policy of the
United States towards Iran’s nuclear program and the massing of battle-
ready US warships off the coast of Syria and Lebanon22. An American
force is already stationed in the Gulf and these are reinforcements.
Observers are concerned that this strengthened presence presages a US
military operation in the region.
Post-Cold War security realities have been transformed by events
in the regions in which NATO is operating today. Before making
commitments under a new NATO agenda, member states may need to
consider their domestic political agenda and the fallout of casualties
and other losses during military operations that do not have a direct and
immediate impact on their national security. A review of the political
consensus within NATO which gave direction to administrative change
and military policy after the dissolution of the USSR has also become
necessary. All NATO members have contributed troops to ISAF which
is operating in Afghanistan. So have a number of NATO partner states.
A number of nations are now reconsidering their position as present
policies fail to produce results23.
Nevertheless, there have been declarations that ISAF will remain
in Afghanistan for decades to come: the objective of such a deployment
without policy change with the intention of securing outcome, is
questionable. Some conspiracy theorists even believe that the repeated
publication and reproduction of texts and cartoons that are offensive to
Islam in NATO member states is deliberate and orchestrated to provoke
132 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Shahwar Junaid
violent reaction in conservative Muslim states in the region. Violence
will provide an excuse for prolonging military intervention in a region
that remains aloof and out of the sphere of infl uence of the transatlantic
alliance regardless of NATO’s presence there.
The 18 March-1 May 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent
occupation of that country by a coalition of forces took place because Iraq
was supposed to have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Not
a single stockpile was found. Nevertheless, Coalition, United Nations
Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) as well as NATO forces and a
large force of American military contractors continue to occupy Iraq. As
of 23 August 2006 twenty seven countries, including the United States,
were listed as contributing troops to the occupation of Iraq. Australia,
New Zealand and Japan, lying outside the geographical sphere of the
transatlantic alliance, have contributed troops and consider themselves
potential partners of NATO. The questions that need to be asked today
are: What are all these countries getting out of the occupation of Iraq?
What is the return on their investment in human and fi nancial terms?
For the answer to these questions analysts will need to re-examine
the meaning of various terms that have been used to describe strategic
arrangements and the implication of the offshoots of these arrangements.
These offshoots include the terms “international coalition”24 and
“strategic networks”25. These terms are used to indicate differences
and gradations in the purpose of a strategic alliance, and its operational
and functional limits. All these terms are current in modern security
terminology and applicable to security alliances that are operating in
various parts of the world at this time under various multilateral and
international arrangements sanctioned by international law.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an example of a full-
fl edged regional strategic alliance with the collective defence of its
members as one of its major goals. A “coalition” is simply defi ned as
a temporary combination into one26. The purpose of combining forces
and resources on a temporary basis implies that the parties concerned
share an immediate need but may not necessarily share long-term goals
or a vision of the future. For instance, ISAF (International Security
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Security Alliances and Security Concerns : Pakistan and NATO
Assistance Force) is the name of a NATO-led security mission that was
established by the United Nations Security Council on 20 December
200127. A series of coordinated suicide attacks that had taken place on
US territory on 11 September 2001 were thought to be the work of Al
Qaeda, which was based in Afghanistan. ISAF was expected to remove
the Taliban government, secure Kabul and the surrounding area from
the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other militant factions and pave the way for
the establishment of the Afghan Transitional Administration which was
to be headed by Hamid Karzai28. In October 2003, the United Nations
Security Council authorized the expansion of the ISAF mission to cover
the whole of Afghanistan. This expansion took place in four phases.
The main headquarter of the mission continues to be in Kabul. There
are fi ve Regional Command Centres under which there are Provincial
Reconstruction Teams that have a fl exible mandate. On 31 July 2006
NATO-ISAF took over the administration of Southern Afghanistan.
Attempts to transform international coalitions into full fl edged
security alliances are not likely to be successful unless the objectives of
all members of the coalition are served by such a transformation. This
has not happened in Afghanistan and this is the reason why the United
States, the senior partner in ISAF, is fi nding it diffi cult to muster troops
from the original members of the coalition and has been trying to induce
states in the region to come to its assistance one way or another.
Stages of Alliance Formation
The typical strategic alliance formation process involves a number
of steps. These include strategy development, partner assessment, and
negotiation of terms of association, command structures and operating
procedures as well as the conditions for terminating the alliance. Apart
from identifying objectives and rationale for creating an alliance, the
feasibility of establishing it must also be examined. Selection criteria will
have to be established in order to analyze the strengths and weaknesses
of potential partners, their motivation for joining the alliance as well
as their ability to contribute to it. These contributions will determine
the status of various partners within the policy making and command
structure of the organization. This will include an evaluation of existing
134 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Shahwar Junaid
arrangements dealing with the objectives of the proposed alliance as
well as other issues and challenges to the establishment of the alliance.
As far as Pakistan and its contribution to ISAF in particular is
concerned, it is essential for policy makers to remember that Pakistan
has existing arrangements dealing with situations that the United States,
NATO and ISAF would like to tackle in the Tribal belt of the country, in
Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province, which share a border
with Afghanistan. The government of Pakistan merely needs to perform
its duties and fulfi l its obligations to the people of the area as a guarantor
of their freedom, security and sovereignty. When the people of the
region voted to become part of the country that was to be Pakistan at the
request of Quaid-e-Azam, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, they were counting
on association with a competent federation that had the capability to
negotiate with external forces and bring prosperity to their area.
A clear delineation of common goals and objectives makes it
possible for partners within a security alliance such as NATO to arrive
at arrangements for pooling resources and efforts for the achievement
of those goals while remaining independent entities and pursuing
independent policies in other matters. Partners within the arrangement
may contribute funds, human as well as physical resources, knowledge
and expertise, equipment and logistic support. Such individual
contributions create synergy which multiples the strength of the
collective effort, despite the divergent strategic cultures of members of
the alliance29. A key component of pooled resources within strategic
security alliances is the geographical location of partners within the
alliance. This element of strategic security alliance culture creates a
unique and infl uential niche for associates and partners who may not
qualify for full membership on the basis of other criteria for membership.
Now that NATO is undertaking function-based tasks and moving out
of its traditional geographic mode it may need to reassess established
criteria for membership of its policy-making command institutions and
the protection and support that is available to their members. Without the
possibility of a formal association of this nature, countries like Pakistan
should not even consider compromising their existing external policy
arrangements.
135CRITERION – April/June 2008
Security Alliances and Security Concerns : Pakistan and NATO
The perception in Pakistan is that no good has come out of the
collaboration between the United States and Pakistan’s military as a
result of NATO’s counterterrorism presence in Afghanistan. There
is little public support in Pakistan for association with US military
initiatives anywhere in the world. Institutional support has been provided
by Pakistan to ISAF initiatives secretly and without knowledge of the
public30. This is no basis for considering a formal partnership with a
security alliance. Any windfall in the form of fi nances or hardware has
been of limited and superfi cial benefi t to some military institutions in
Pakistan. On the other hand, association with US and NATO expeditions
have wiped out grassroots public support for the institution as a whole
and have weakened it. The militarization and brutalization of Pakistan’s
territory bordering Afghanistan, where US guided missile attacks on so-
called terrorist hide-outs without regard for massive collateral damage
have become commonplace, and have created an untenable situation.
This is the sum total Pakistan has gained from its military association
with the most powerful member of NATO, the United States and its
regional coalition, ISAF.
In fact Pakistan’s citizens have been facing the fallout of escalating
violence as a result of US and NATO activities in neighbouring
Afghanistan for some time now. In Afghanistan, the nature, size and
capabilities of the adversary NATO forces are facing, is radically
different from any they have encountered before. The mindset they are
facing is alien to them. The terrain is different, so is the culture of the
countries surrounding the theatre of war. For these countries, including
Pakistan, the rewards of any cross-border military cooperation with an
offshoot of NATO remain dubious. Just as the intent and purpose of
NATO intervention in Afghanistan remains dubious. A great deal must
change before there can be fruitful cooperation. Above all, Pakistan
must make peace with its own people fi rst.
136 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Shahwar Junaid
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13 Russia ’s Nuclear Capabilities: Adrian Blomfi eld: Telegraph: 5 June 2007.14 Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism: Joint Fact Sheet July 2006: http://
en.g8russia.ru/docs/7/html)
15 (i) Duffi eld, John S.: Nato’s Functions After the Cold War: Political Science Quarterly:
Vol 109, No.5: 9Winter 1994-1995: Pages 763-787.
(ii) NATO Europe spends UDS 12 billion a year on research and development. See
Stephen Flanagan, “Sustaining IS-European Global Security Cooperation”: Strategic
Forum (No.217) September 2005 Pages 1-6.
137CRITERION – April/June 2008
Security Alliances and Security Concerns : Pakistan and NATO
16 Solomon, Gerald B:The NATO Enlargement Debate 1990-1997: the Blessings of Liberty (The Washington Papers): Praeger paperback: March 30 1998:208 pages.
17 The Evolution of NATO: Expanding the Transatlantic Tool Kit: Michael Ruhle: American Foreign Policy Interests, 29: January 2008: ISSN: 1080-3920 Copyright 2007 NCAFP: Pg 237-242.
18 Snyder, Glenn: Alliance Politics: Ithaca , N.Y:Cornell University Press, 1997: page 4.19 Strategic Alliances-An entrepreneurial approach to globalization: Yoshino and Rangan,
Michael Y. and U. Srinivasa: 1995: Library of Congress Catalog ISBN 0-87584-584-3.20 The Evolution of NATO: Expanding the Transatlantic Tool Kit: Michael Ruhle: American
Foreign Policy Interests, 29: January 2008: ISSN: 1080-3920 Copyright 2007 NCAFP.21 War Plans and Alliances in the Cold War: Threat Perceptions in the East and West( Cass
Series on Security Studies): Editors: Vojtech Mastny, Sven Holtsmark, Andreas Wenger: Routledge: May 30, 2006 : Pages 324: P.73. etc
22 Kramnik, Ilya: Invisible US Forces in the Middle East: reproduced in The Nation, World Focus, March 16, 2008.
23 Read:Benjamin Scheer, German Institute for International and Security Affairs and Asle Toje, Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies: Financial Times: March 12, 2008.
24 Porter and Fuller:1986.
25 Jarillo: 1988.26 The Little Oxford Dictionary of Current English: compiled by George Ostler, Third
Edition revised and supplemented by J. Coulsen: Clarendon Press: London 1941.27 United Nations Security Council Resolution 1386 S-RES-1386 (2001) May 31 2001
(UNSCR 1386) retrieved 21.09. 2007.
28 The Nation: Page 9: Friday, December 28, 2007.29 NATO and European Security: Alliance Politics from the End of the Cold War to the
Age of Terrorism: Alexander Moens, Loenard J. Cohen and Allen G. Sens: 216 Pages: Praegar Publishers: March 30, 2003.
30 The Monks of War: Barnett Thomas P.M.: Esquire: March 2006: Pages 214-215.
ZULFIKAR ALI BHUTTO’S LEGACY AND THE REBUILDING OF PAKISTAN
Iqbal Ahmad Khan *
Abstract(The present PPP-led coalition government faces problems of
Himalayan proportions. The country, following eight years of military
and quasi-military rule, sits on the brink of a precipice. The situation is
not much different from that inherited by the founder of the PPP, Zulfi kar
Ali Bhutto, in December 1971. Yet, despite overwhelming odds, within
the space of a few years he managed to build a new Pakistan which
was democratic, vibrant, confi dent and progressive. That was no mean
achievement. As the government of Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani takes its
fi rst steps to rebuild the country, it should seek inspiration and guidance
from the words and deeds of Pakistan’s most popular prime minister.
This would be the greatest tribute to him and to the bravest daughter of
Pakistan, Ms Benazir Bhutto. Author)
Following a long period of military and quasi-military rule, Pakistan,
not for the fi rst time in its history, stands at the edge of a precipice. The
constitution embodying the fundamental principles and laws governing
the state and society lies emasculated, victim of a military dictator’s
lack of understanding and contempt for human rights and liberties, the
hallmark of a civilized society. The state, confronted with the breakdown
of institutions, appears impotent in discharging its basic responsibilities
of protecting the life and property of its citizens and providing basic
amenities. Despair and hopelessness, engendered by iniquitous economic
policies, crumbling and unresponsive state institutions and lack of
fundamental freedoms, has enveloped the people from the Khyber to
Karachi and from Chaman to Tharparkar. It is ironical that the national
* Iqbal Ahmad Khan is a former Ambassador of Pakistan.
139CRITERION – April/June 2008
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s Legacy and the Rebuilding of Pakistan
security of Pakistan in which successive governments, in particular
those led by the military, have invested the major chunk of the country’s
meagre resources to maintain the armed forces, have not been able to
successfully confront the threat from a small ragtag body of religious
extremists.
On 17 October 1999 after his coup, General Pervez Musharraf
described the prevailing situation in the country in the following
words:
“Today, we have reached a stage where our economy has crumbled,
our credibility is lost, state institutions lie demoralized, provincial
disharmony has caused cracks in the federation and people who were
once brothers are now at each other’s throat. In sum, we have lost our
honour, our dignity, our respect in the comity of nations.” Anybody
reading this and unaware of its timing cannot be blamed for assuming
that it was a description of contemporary Pakistan. The accuracy of this
depiction of the situation prevailing in the country in autumn 1999 is
debatable. However, with the exception of the economy, which has not
crumbled, but could very well be heading towards a partial meltdown, it
is a precise portrayal of present-day Pakistan eight years after Musharraf
removed the democratically elected government of Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif. In the same address, General Musharraf promised to:
a. Rebuild national confi dence and morale.
b Strengthen the federation, remove inter-provincial disharmony
and restore national cohesion.
c. Revive the economy and restore investor confi dence.
d. Ensure law and order and dispense speedy justice.
e. Depoliticize state institutions.
f. Bring about the devolution of power at the grass-roots level.
g. Ensure swift and across-the-board accountability.1
The performance of the various governments during Musharraf’s
rule has been pathetic. He cannot claim to have achieved even one of his
objectives. His popularity can be gauged from an opinion poll conducted
in June/July 2007 by the reputable United States’ International Republican
140 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Iqbal Ahmad Khan
Institute (IRI). The fi ndings of the IRI, which had in previous years been
touted by the government to demonstrate the president’s popularity,
revealed that 64 percent opposed Musharraf’s re-election as president
and 62 percent wanted him to resign as the chief of army staff.2 The
benighted country is, by all accounts, worse off today than it was when
Musharraf usurped power eight years ago.
All the four military governments that the people of Pakistan suffered
in the past 60 years painted the politicians as devils out to spread nothing
but evil, promised the nation the moon and fi nally departed leaving behind
a desolate graveyard to be tended to and transformed into a blossoming
garden by the very ‘devils’ they claimed to have exorcised. This pattern
has not only been observed in Pakistan, but also in Latin America and
Africa where former colonial control gave way to military dictatorships
which left in their wake political and economic wastelands. In many
instances callous external powers, normally the former colonialist or a
neo-colonialist power aided and abetted the coup-makers to further its
narrow strategic goals.
Zulfi kar Ali Bhutto himself a victim of a general’s lust for power
undertakes an in-depth analysis of military coup d’etats in his remarkable
book, “If I am Assassinated,” written in his “stinking death cell” with the
paper “resting on my knee.” In the process of analyzing the extremely
important and relevant subject of civil-military relations, he reaches the
following conclusion.
“The events of the last twenty years have made me arrive at the
unambiguous conclusion that, at present, the greatest threat to the
unity and progress of the Third World is from coup-gemony. The era of
colonialism is all but dead. Only a few places remain where colonialism
has still to be buried. In those places also, the burial is at hand. The Third
World has to guard against hegemony, but the best way to guard against
hegemony is to prevent coup-gemony. The biggest link of external
colonialism is internal colonialism, which means that hegemony cannot
thrive in our lands without the collaboration of coup-gemony. Military
coup de’etats are the worst enemies of national unity. Coup d’etats
divide and debase a free people. If there was any doubt on the subject,
141CRITERION – April/June 2008
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s Legacy and the Rebuilding of Pakistan
the events in Pakistan have shown that the people of the Third World
have to primarily guard against the internal enemy, if foreign domination
or hegemony is to be resisted. Coup-gemony is the bridge over which
hegemony walks to stalk our lands.3
Zulfi kar Ali Bhutto is of the view that unlike Africa or Latin America
there is a historical and deeply entrenched democratic tradition in South
Asia. This was manifest in the panchayat system, in the fact that the
subcontinent was a huge land mass with an enormous population, in the
numerous people’s uprisings and movements that had taken place since
the time of Asoka and fi nally in Britain conceding successive instalments
of democracy to the people of India leading to total independence in
1947. For over three decades, Bhutto states, civilian leaders like the
Quaid-e-Azam,and Gandhi led the masses of the subcontinent in
intensive struggle for independence and freedom. Without political
consciousness, without political awakening, agitations against the salt
tax, the Khilafat movement, the Quit India and Direct Action movements
would not have been possible, and without those convulsions the pillars
of British Raj would not have collapsed. “Nowhere in Latin America
or Africa or in the Middle East, had the lesson in mass awakening been
so long and so persistent as it had been in the subcontinent. The people
of the subcontinent, both the Muslims and the Hindus, aroused and
inspired by their civilian leaders, struggled and sacrifi ced not to merely
hoist two new fl ags but to get the fruits of freedom and democracy.
Nowadays we are told ever so often that Pakistan was created in the name
of Islam. This is true, but who created Pakistan? The Muslim masses,
galvanized under the civilian leadership of the Quaid-e-Azam and not
under a coterie of generals, created Pakistan. This country came into
being by the massive movement of the Muslim masses and not through
a midnight coup d’etat. The Muslim population and not the military
generals created Pakistan. The country was created by the people and its
independence can be sustained only by the people through their chosen
leaders. Only those who created Pakistan in the name of Islam can order
their chosen representatives how to ordain that name. A usurper or a
coterie carries no mandate to fulfi l the task. Nor has the usurper or his
coterie been empowered by the people to determine whether this State
is being administered in the name of Islam. The interpretation has to be
142 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Iqbal Ahmad Khan
done collectively in Parliament and not by an individual or a gang with
guns in their hands. The name of Islam does not come out of a barrel of
a gun.”4
Bhutto then narrates an incident wherein he asks General Zia ul Haq
for his views on the 1973 Attock Conspiracy case. The general gave him
a detailed account of his evaluation of the causes and impulses behind
the plot. “After hearing him patiently I was struck by the personal and
selfi sh factor that aroused the conspirators. Not a trace, not even the
pretence of an objective motivation was available in the cause of that
attempt. What made it more melancholy was that it came so soon after
the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971. This meant that the historical
tragedies arising out of military rule meant nothing to power blind
individuals. The fl ow of blood was like water down a duck’s back. The
blunders of military regimes, both internal and external, were not eye
openers. The pollution of the armed forces by its involvement in politics
had not conveyed any message. The catastrophe of East Pakistan
and the surrender of 90, 000 prisoners of war did not teach a single
elementary lesson.” These impressions recorded by Bhutto in his book
reveal perhaps an “appetite for aggrandizement, the unquenchable thirst
for naked power” on part of the armed forces which in his words could
become “a habit-forming drug.”5
Military-civil relations in Pakistan have been adversarial and
mutually suspicious. Inherent in the word civilization, is supremacy of
civilians; yet for more than half of Pakistan’s history it is the military
that has been in charge of the country’s affairs and during the remaining
period its shadow has loomed menacingly over the civilian set-up.
The consequences of this state of affairs are there for all to see and
lament. The presence of the military on-stage or back-stage has proven
to be disastrous for peace, progress and prosperity of the country. On
occasions it appears that the negative implications of military rule are
appreciated by the military itself. In a rare display of courage and candor
several hundred retired military offi cers on 31 January 2008 called upon
General (Retd) Pervez Musharraf to hand over power to the deposed
Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and to hold elections under
a neutral caretaker set-up. The chairman of the meeting Air Marshal
143CRITERION – April/June 2008
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s Legacy and the Rebuilding of Pakistan
Asghar Khan expressed solidarity with the lawyers and journalists and
assured them full support on behalf of the servicemen in their struggle for
the independence of the judiciary and freedom of the press. Regrettably,
the assembled generals, air marshals and admirals were evasive when
queried regarding their respective roles in previous martial laws. Air
Marshal Asghar Khan was among the strongest supporters of General
Zia ul Haq’s martial law and Lt. Gen. Chisti was Commander 10 Corps
at the time of Zia’s takeover and became his partner in all the despicable
actions taken by the military dictator. Those assembled were simply not
prepared to admit any wrongdoing.6
It is against this background of the experience and fate of their
leader Zulfi kar Ali Bhutto and the mind-set of the military that the new
PPP led coalition government has taken over the reins of the country.
As the government faces a mountain of problems, it would be wise
to remember the fear expressed by the founder of their party, Zulfi kar
Ali Bhutto: “If a coup d’etat becomes a permanent part of the political
infrastructure, it means the falling of the last petal of the last withered
rose. It means the end.” Merely remembering Mr. Bhutto’s words will
not suffi ce. Too much water has fl own under the bridge. The government
needs to act upon this warning from the death cell, so that history does
not repeat itself. “Martial law is not law,” he asserts. “A regime not
established by law is devoid of the attribute to dispense law. A regime
which puts in a bunker the highest law in the land does not have the
moral authority to say that nobody is above the law. I do not want to
escape from the law. I do not want anybody to escape from the law. But
I defi nitely want to escape from the lawlessness of Martial Law. I want
the whole nation and every citizen to escape from this lawlessness. My
struggle for the restoration of the Rule of Law shows that I do not want
anybody to escape from the majesty of law.7 The government must take
steps to ensure that now and in future the armed forces function strictly
in accordance with the provision of the constitution which clearly lays
down that the armed forces “shall, under the direction of the Federal
Government, defend Pakistan against external aggression or threat of
war, and, subject to law, act in aid of civil power, when called upon to
do so.”8
144 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Iqbal Ahmad Khan
In the event the Armed Forces deviate from their constitutional
duty, and in particular violate Article 6 of the Constitution, the full force
of law should be brought to bear upon the violators. Professor Rasul
Bakhsh Rais, a perceptive political analyst, concludes one of his recent
articles titled “The Third Transition” by drawing his readers’ attention
to the debate in the country about trying the perpetrators of the treason
committed on 12 October 1999. “That call must be heeded because a
vigilant civil society, free media and the accountability of coup-makers
are essential in saving the country from military takeovers in the future.”9
Some observers contend that had Mr. Bhutto brought to trial the top
brass of the army for their acts of commission and omission in East
Pakistan following the debacle in December 1971 and exposed to the
public their wrong-doings perhaps the 1977 coup might not have taken
place. Accountability and transparency must be the hallmarks of the new
government so that some amongst us are disabused of the impression
sedulously created by the coup-makers that the politicians are the bane
of our society and essentially responsible for all its ills.
That the new political dispensation emerging from the 18 February
elections is deeply conscious of the cancer of militarization of Pakistan’s
body-politic seems obvious from a reading of the Charter of Democracy.
The Charter was signed on 14 May 2006 by former prime ministers
Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in London, where both were living
in exile. The present coalition government in Pakistan is led by Benazir
Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party and Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League is
its principal partner. Not only have the two leaders drawn attention to the
damage caused by military governments and military’s interference in
political affairs, but outlined measures to lend accountability and ensure
civilian control of military affairs. Some of the salient points contained
in the Charter include:
- Military dictatorships have played havoc with the nation’s destiny
and created conditions disallowing the progress of our people and
the fl owering of democracy. Even after removal from offi ce they
undermined the people’s mandate and the sovereign will of the
people;
145CRITERION – April/June 2008
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s Legacy and the Rebuilding of Pakistan
- Drawing history’s lesson that military dictatorship and the nation
cannot co-exist – as
military’s involvement adversely affects the economy and the democratic
institutions as well as defence capabilities, and the integrity of the
country - the nation needs a new direction different from a militaristic
and regimental approach of the Bonapartist regimes, as the current
one;
- National Security Council will be abolished. Defence Cabinet
Committee will be headed by the prime minister and will have a
permanent secretariat.
- An effective Nuclear Command and Control system under the
Defence Cabinet Committee will be put in place to avoid any
possibility of leakage or proliferation.
- No party shall solicit the support of the military to come into power
or to dislodge a democratic government.
- All military and judicial offi cers will be required to fi le annual
assets and income declarations like Parliamentarians to make them
accountable to the public.
- The ISI, MI and other security agencies shall be accountable to the
elected government through Prime Minister’s Secretariat, Ministry
of Defence, and Cabinet Division respectively. Their budgets will
be approved by DCC after recommendations are prepared by the
respective ministry. The political wings of all intelligence agencies
will be disbanded. A committee will be formed to cut waste and
bloat in the armed forces and security agencies in the interest of
the defence and security of the country. All senior postings in these
agencies shall be made with the approval of the government through
the respective ministry.
- Defence budget shall be placed before the parliament for debate and
approval.
146 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Iqbal Ahmad Khan
- Military land allotment and cantonment jurisdictions will come
under the purview of defence ministry. A commission shall be set
up to review, scrutinize, and examine the legitimacy of all such land
allotment rules, regulations and policies, along with all cases of state
land allotment including those of military urban and agricultural
land allotments since 12th October, 1999 to hold those accountable
who have indulged in malpractices, profi teering and favouritism.10
In addition to the commitment made in the Charter of Democracy
to remove military’s shadow over civilian life, it would also appear
worthwhile to read and implement some of the points made by Sherry
Rahman, Secretary Information of the Pakistan People’s Party and
member National Assembly of Pakistan, in her article published in the
English daily newspaper Dawn on 29 June 2005 under the title “Enigma
of the defence budget.” The highlights of her article are given below:
- Despite defence absorbing more than a quarter of the national wealth,
the subject has become inured from public debate and exempt from
any Parliamentary accountability.
- Without explanation, the formal defence allocation account appears
as a two-line statement divided into defence administration and
defence services in the federal consolidated fund in the demands for
grants and appropriations every year.
- Given the constant talk of transparency and good governance
emanating from the government, it is not just surprising but shocking
that the defence budget in Pakistan remains above public scrutiny as
well as the law.
- If lawmakers in Pakistan cannot discuss, let alone question the
allocations and management of this chunk of the country’s wealth,
then it is clear that once again, almost 30 per cent of the budgeted
amount will remain out of parliament’s purview. This in turn means
that the army’s business interests will also remain outside the public
accountability mechanism.
147CRITERION – April/June 2008
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s Legacy and the Rebuilding of Pakistan
- When parliamentarians or donors read the allocation for defence
over the next fi scal year, it will not include the military pensions,
which now run into 35.6 billion rupees. Nor will the defence outlay
include allocations for the combatant accounts of the defence
division which include the Maritime Security Forces, salaries for
defence production, allocation for the civil armed forces, Pakistan
Rangers, Frontier Constabulary, Pakistan Coast Guards, nor the
substantial amount set aside for military schools, cantonments and
other residuals.
- Why does Pakistan need a huge defence budget that is close to four
per cent of its GDP, when India is spending 2.8 per cent? The entire
justifi cation for maintaining a high defence budget is negated by
the welcome downturn in hostilities with India; the rationale for
Pakistan remaining hostage to its Cold War garrison-state identity
should also naturally be under review. For a country that has fallen
behind all of South Asia in its human development index, including
Nepal and Bhutan, an urgent redefi nition of outdated concepts of
national security is surely expected.
- The question of maintaining the eighth largest standing army in the
world, when huge undisclosed amounts on the nuclear option are
disbursed, becomes critical, for the simple reason that the nuclear
deterrent capability was meant to substantially reduce the need for
such a large conventional force. As it stands, one of the many reasons
for continued high defence spending remains a large percentage of
wasted resources which has arisen out of lack of oversight from
non-military sources. While purchases of bullet proof limousines
by the cabinet division can be questioned because they fall under
civilian oversight, no such queries can be directed at the luxury
cars and goods purchased by the military, its appointment of
surplus employees, nor the expenditure accruing from duplication
of activities or wrongdoing. From 1977 onwards, when Ziaul Haq
began the practice of maintaining funds by the corps commanders
who were at liberty to use them at their discretion, many scandals
over money being siphoned for political activities have surfaced.
148 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Iqbal Ahmad Khan
- The inter-services intelligence agencies remain above the law
and unaccountable, even though they reportedly absorb seven
to 11 per cent of the military’s budget and use secret funds and
ghost bank accounts to destabilize civilian political parties and
their governments. The Mehran Bank scandal is an example of
such fi nancial corruption, when bribes worth Rs 14 million were
unearthed as paid out by the ISI to manipulate the 1990 elections, a
fact which was admitted in court by General Aslam Beg, the former
COAS.
- Despite public clamour about the military’s vast real estate holdings,
no equation is factored in to provide for the creeping militarization
of the mainstream economy. The issue which is now constantly
questioned without any satisfactory response is the size and quantum
of the military’s holdings in what are traditionally commercial
sectors.
- The military’s four major welfare foundations are increasingly the
subject of growing public disquiet because they pay no direct taxes
on their corporate activities, operate as virtual monopolies, and
elbow out civilian private enterprise in their subsidized operations.
They function as military welfare trusts but provide a haven for
retired and serving military offi cers who run a multitude of corporate
ventures ranging from sugar, cereal, fertilizer production to running
airlines, real estate, education, advertising and others.
- The four military foundations — the Army Welfare Trust, the Fauji
Foundation, Bahria Foundation and Shaheen Foundation — for
instance, now run a parallel commercial empire, but end up leaving
scant traces of the net fi nancial burden they impose on the public
sector, because large allocations are made from the opaque defence
budget.
- Despite the fact that most of the foundations were raised with initial
funding from the public sector and the sale of evacuee properties
after 1971, their profi ts remain sky high because they remain above
scrutiny even in their tendering for contracts and other market
149CRITERION – April/June 2008
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s Legacy and the Rebuilding of Pakistan
activities. The fact that government service rules prohibit public
servants from running private enterprises is often ignored, while
the military control of Pakistan’s public sector continues unabated
as retired generals and brigadiers pick up lucrative posts and double
pensions to run everything from public utilities, universities and
accountability and national reconstruction boards.
- The military as a class does itself a disservice when it allows
rumour to replace public disclosure. Perhaps many of its legitimate
procurement and modernization demands will then not be eclipsed
by the paper-trail of undocumented purchases and irregularities
unearthed by the auditor-general for Defence if it develops an
institutionalized mechanism of requisitioning public money for its
needs.
- The people are not opposed to the military’s spending money
in principle. They don’t even mind occasionally upgrading the
proverbial barracks, but only if they know where the money is
going. 11
The measures referred to in the Charter of Democracy and Sherry
Rahman’s article can only be implemented in phases. For them to see the
light of day continued commitment of the principal political players, sound
understanding and effective cooperation and coordination between them
and backing of the people are essential pre-requisites. The fundamental
motivation in restricting the armed forces to their legal role emanates
from the belief that no individual and no institution transgresses the role
that is envisaged for it in the constitution of the country. Deviations from
this sacred document and absence of accountability for the deviators
constitute the underlying causes of political and social instability in
Pakistan.
In his historic and brilliant letter that Zulfi kar Ali Bhutto wrote from
his death cell to his daughter Benazir Bhutto, he expresses his “greatest
satisfaction in giving the country an all-party constitution by democratic
means. The Constitution of 1973 was the fi rst unanimously approved
constitution by a democratic assembly to bless Pakistan with a fundamental
150 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Iqbal Ahmad Khan
framework based on Islam, democracy and autonomy. It was the
voice of the people of the four provinces of Pakistan articulated in a
constitutional document by their chosen leaders. Autonomy, which
had defi ed solution for over a generation and which had been the
bane of the politics of the Subcontinent from time immemorial, was
at long last settled to the satisfaction of the people and their chosen
representatives. I experienced the kind of joy, the thrill of happiness
which brings tears to the eyes. With high expectation and new-born
confi dence we started to function under the umbrella and discipline of
the Constitution of 1973. Provincial autonomy had been democratically
defi ned. It began to function in all the four provinces. This was a
spectacular accomplishment.”12
The Constitution indeed was a historic achievement. Passed
unanimously by the fi rst-ever directly elected 146-member National
Assembly of Pakistan it represents a lasting tribute to Zulfi kar Ali
Bhutto. In his fi rst address to the nation Mr. Bhutto assured his countrymen
that he would give top priority to the rule of law and to the making of a
constitution. “And this constitution will not be my constitution because
I am an elected representative of the people of Pakistan. I am not making
an empty promise. My dear brothers, friends and sisters, I will give you
a constitution according to your requirements and actually what you
want.”13
Considered in historical perspective, no other Constitution had the
full backing of the people of Pakistan as did the one of 1973. It was
framed by a legislature directly elected in the freest general elections
in the history of Pakistan. The opposition parties were consulted by the
ruling party before fi nalizing the draft of the Constitution. The result was a
consensus. By virtue of their complete unanimity, the Constitution can be
taken to have satisfi ed the existing demands and aspirations of the people.
According to the offi cial website of the Pakistan People’s Party, “Time
has shown that it cannot be replaced. Constitution making in Pakistan
was bedevilled, since the birth of the State, by three unresolved issues:
(i) The role of Islam in the State, (ii) the degree of Provincial Autonomy,
and (iii) the Nature of the Executive. Mr. Bhutto managed to bring all
the political parties to agree to a consensus on the Constitution, thus,
151CRITERION – April/June 2008
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s Legacy and the Rebuilding of Pakistan
permanently resolving all the three issues. A new institution, the Senate
of Pakistan, was created in which the provinces had equal representation,
in order to redress the balance of power in Pakistan, probably the only
country in the world where one federating unit has an absolute majority.
The creation of Council of Common Interest also gave to the provinces
a greater weight in the federal dispensation. Islam was declared to be
the State religion and the Council of Islamic Ideology given charge of
Islamisation of laws. The never ending tussle between the Head of State
and Parliament was resolved by empowering the Prime Minister. No
better tribute can be paid to the foresight and sagacity of the martyred
leader.”14
The importance of restoring the constitution to its pre-12 October
1999 glory by clearing it of the distortions introduced by General
(retd.) Pervez Musharraf and his rubber-stamp parliament is certainly
not lost upon the new government. This would be in consonance with
the understanding contained in the Charter of Democracy wherein the
leaders of the two major parties in the coalition government have agreed
to revive the Constitution as it existed on 12 October 1999; to entrust
the chief executive who is the prime minister with the appointment
of governors, the three services chiefs and the Chairman Joint Chiefs
of Staff Committee; to set up a commission which would formulate
recommendations for appointment of judges to the superior judiciary
and forward a panel of three names for each vacancy to the prime
minister, who shall forward one name for confi rmation to a joint
parliamentary committee for confi rmation of the nomination through a
transparent public hearing process; to forbid any judge from taking an
oath under any Provisional Constitutional Order or any other oath that
is contradictory to the exact language of the original oath prescribed
in the Constitution of 1973; to set up a Federal Constitutional Court to
resolve constitutional issues, giving equal representation to each of the
federating units and to increase the strength of the Senate of Pakistan to
give representation to minorities in the Senate.15
But for the rebuilding of Pakistan to succeed, an atmosphere of peace,
security and stability is essential. The indispensability of a conducive
environment was fully appreciated by Zulfi kar Ali Bhutto as he worked
152 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Iqbal Ahmad Khan
day in and day out to cement together the socio-economic and political
fabric of the country. In order that Pakistan evolved into a self-suffi cient
and self-reliant nation, peace with India became the prerequisite. “We
should be free from the strains and burdens of an armaments race so
that both India and Pakistan can devote their energies and resources to
productive development,” Bhutto wrote in an article “Pakistan builds
Anew” in the American journal “Foreign Affairs.”16 The result of Mr.
Bhutto’s vision and strenuous efforts was the Simla Accord signed by
him and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at Simla on 2 July 1972. The
agreement expressed the resolve of both governments to “put an end to
the confl ict and confrontation that had hitherto marred their relations”
and asserted their determination that “the principles and purposes of the
Charter of the United Nations shall govern relations between the two
countries.”
When he went to Simla, the Pakistan army lay defeated and
demoralized, 90,000 soldiers languished in Indian captivity, thousands
of square miles of territory in West Pakistan was under Indian occupation
and the economy was in tatters. Yet, during one week of intense and back-
breaking negotiations with the victorious Indians he was able to stitch
together an agreement which started a process and ultimately brought
back the POWs and vacation of Pakistani territory by Indian forces. The
Accord has generally preserved peace between India and Pakistan since
1972. Both Siachin and Kargil are exceptions to the rule and call for an
enquiry commission to ascertain their causes and implications.
The Simla Accord was a master stroke of diplomacy on Mr. Bhutto’s
part. Behind it lay days and nights of hard work, extensive consultations
and strategy sessions and above all a clear sense of the direction in
which to steer the ship of state. In a marathon address on 14 July 1972
Mr. Bhutto informed the National Assembly of Pakistan that “we made
all the preparations that were humanly possible, because as I have said,
we had nothing in our hands. We had no trump cards; we had no levers;
the only lever was to consult our people, meet them, and also to visit
foreign countries, fraternal countries, friendly countries, Russia and
China. It was a fatiguing endeavour, but it was done in the supreme
national interest and I think it paid dividends.”17
153CRITERION – April/June 2008
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s Legacy and the Rebuilding of Pakistan
The importance that Mr. Bhutto attached to the power and will of
the people in the Herculean tasks that he set about to undertake was
also evident in the realm of foreign policy. On his return from Simla,
Mr. Bhutto arrived at the Lahore airport on 3 July 1972 and told the
huge crowd assembled there that as promised he had not made any fi nal
decision on Indian soil. “Whatever decision would be reached between
the two countries as a result of negotiations would be subject to your
approval. You have seen now that I have adhered to that promise. The
agreement that has been arrived at with India can be accepted or rejected
by the National Assembly of Pakistan which represents you. The fi nal
approval will, therefore, rest with you. My Government will not decide
on our future relations with India. The decision in this respect shall be
made by you, the people of Pakistan and by our valiant soldiers. The right
of consent is yours. With that end in view, that is, to obtain your verdict
on the agreement and on our negotiation with India, I am convening a
session of the National Assembly which will debate this issue and each
member will have full liberty to express his views on it. Members will be
free to point out its defects, and I would be very happy to learn if there is
anything wrong with it. But I want to tell you that there is nothing wrong
with it. This is a comprehensive and successful agreement.”18 The Simla
Accord was hotly debated by the people’s representatives sitting in the
National Assembly of Pakistan which approved it on 14 July 1972 and
the instrument of ratifi cation was delivered to India on 18 July 1972.
Students of politics and international affairs observe the sharp
contrast in the manner in which the Simla Accord was achieved and
the veiled and arbitrary decision taken by a coup-maker and his coterie
enveloping Pakistan in the war on terror. No wonder, both the decision
and Pakistan’s participation in the anti-terror campaign have not only
become controversial but also counter-productive. This is not to say that
the war on terror is solely America’s war and that by placing itself on
the frontline in the war Pakistan was fi ghting America’s war; it is not
to say that the rise of terrorism and religious extremism is not a threat
to democracy; it is not to deny that the ideology of the extremists runs
counter to that of the founder of the nation Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad
Ali Jinnah who had envisioned Pakistan as a moderate and democratic
welfare state. The terrorist killings of Pakistani political leaders, of the
154 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Iqbal Ahmad Khan
armed and paramilitary forces, police and government offi cials and
ordinary labourers and workers can never be justifi ed and condoned.
It is for this reason – the fact that the terrorist has struck at the very
historical and ideological foundations of Pakistan and spread terror and
fear among the citizenry - that the war on terror is far too important to be
left in the hands of a few generals. In 2007 more Pakistanis were victims
of terrorism than in all the years from 2001-06 put together. There is,
therefore, an urgent need to undertake a wide-ranging review of both the
policy and strategy related to the war on terror.
At this stage it would be useful to heed the remarks that the late
Benazir Bhutto made at the Council on Foreign Relations, New York
in August 2007. “We cannot allow parallel armies, parallel militias,
parallel laws and parallel command structures. Today it’s not just the
intelligence services that were previously called a state within a state.
Today it’s the militants who are becoming yet another little state within
the state, and this is leading some people to say that Pakistan is on
the slippery slope of being called a failed state. But this is a crisis for
Pakistan that unless we deal with the extremists and the terrorists, our
entire state could founder.” Ms. Bhutto claimed that there existed a broad
consensus in Pakistan between the major political parties that General
Musharraf had taken the right step in joining the war against terrorism.
Both the PPP and Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League were committed to
fi ghting terrorism and extremism. But while it may have been a diffi cult
decision for Musharraf at one level, there was a consensus within
Pakistan that terrorism was a threat to the outside world as well as to the
people of Pakistan. The linkage of a people with the government and,
in particular, a people who have benefi ted in terms of jobs and schools
and drinking water, helped create a vested interest and the will for the
people to save their own community. But when there was a government
that was non-representative, the public became alienated, and turned
against the government. It was in this way that a democratic government
was stronger because it could reach out to the people and it could pull
together the law enforcement. Terrorism was as much a military situation
as it was an investigative criminal situation. Her party, Ms. Bhutto said
had the ability to eliminate terrorism and give the people security, which
would bring in the economic investment that would help reverse the
155CRITERION – April/June 2008
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s Legacy and the Rebuilding of Pakistan
tide of rising poverty in the country, which in turn would undermine the
forces of militancy and extremism.19
A welcome emphasis on the process of decision-making was
manifest when the newly elected Prime Minister, Yousaf Raza Gillani,
reportedly told a visiting delegation of senior US offi cials that in future
all key decisions would be made in consultation with the representatives
of the people sitting in parliament.20 The US delegation was in Islamabad
to exchange views with Pakistani leaders on different aspects of US-
Pakistan relations and to ascertain, in particular, the thinking of the new
government on the issue of terrorism. Explaining his position on the
issue, Prime Minister Gillani reportedly made the following points:
a. The new government was determined to fi ght terrorism in all its
forms, because it concerned Pakistan.
b. His party’s approach had been consistent and its sacrifi ces
included the martyrdom of its leader Benazir Bhutto.
c. Pakistan backed the US-led war on terror.
d. The new government favoured a comprehensive approach
which included political solutions.
e. Economic development of the tribal areas was important in
addressing the curse of extremism.21
The terrorism question is arguably the most important issue facing
the new government. It has endangered the lives and property of
ordinary citizens as also the vision of the founder of the state. It calls for
immediate attention. Hard work, diplomatic skills, political consensus
and popular support ensured the success and durability of the Simla
Accord. If the terrorism issue is addressed in the same fashion as the
Simla Accord, it will only be a matter of time before it is consigned to
the dustbin of history. As the government directs its energies towards
eliminating this scourge, emotionalism will have to be eschewed so that
objectivity and realism can prevail.
The challenges before the new government are multifarious and not a
single one has a simple and immediate solution. Civil-military relations,
the use of force in the tribal areas and Balochistan, the restoration and
156 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Iqbal Ahmad Khan
building of institutions and the war on terror are indeed few among the
multitude of problems facing the government that cannot brook delay
and cry out for solutions. Ironically, the most pressing of the problems
is the extreme economic distress to which the overwhelming majority
of the population is subjected. Ironically, because both General (retd)
Musharraf and former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz never ceased to
remind the people that they had wrought an economic miracle in Pakistan.
The World Bank’s Vice President Praful Patel has warned that unless
Pakistan made painful adjustments it risked a slowdown.22 There is
particular concern about the widespread and extremely annoying power
outages that have affl icted the country, in particular the mega-city of
Karachi, the shutdown of industries and manufacturing facilities, rise in
unemployment, the huge balance of trade and current account defi cits,
rising infl ation and falling production, food shortages, increasing poverty
levels and escalating oil and food prices.
The economy inherited by Mr. Bhutto was in shambles. Both the
industrial and agriculture sectors, subject to strains of various kinds,
were gripped by stagnation and uncertainty. Production in the mills and
factories was down as was the output in the farmlands. Side by side
with laying the groundwork of a democratic polity, Bhutto launched an
elaborate series of major socio-economic reforms designed to level up
inequalities and iniquities of Pakistani society, to end an unjust status-
quo and foster a welfare state and an egalitarian society. In his article
“Pakistan builds Anew” in the April 1973 issue of the American journal
“Foreign Affairs” he outlined the purpose of his socio-economic program
in the following words: “Our target in our socio-economic program is not
only a statistically gratifying increase in the GNP but an improvement
in the lot of the common man, in the living standards of workers and
peasants and a radical change in the social milieu. Such a change has to
be felt by the people and not only measured by economists, if it is to be
real.”23
Among the many disservices that the different governments under
Musharraf’s rule have done to the country, perhaps the worst has been
the cynicism that it has bred among the people. Neither the elite, which
incidentally has benefi ted immensely from the rich-friendly policies of
157CRITERION – April/June 2008
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s Legacy and the Rebuilding of Pakistan
these regimes nor the ordinary citizen have any faith in the credibility
and effi cacy of the whole state apparatus. Unless the new dispensation
is able to restore the trust of the citizen in the government’s ability to
safeguard his life and property and promote his welfare, it will not be
able to mobilize the power of the people in support of its policies.
It is the theme of people’s power that forms the leitmotif of Zulfi kar
Ali Bhutto’s rule and to a great extent explains some of his astounding
successes in extremely adverse circumstances. In his letter to Benazir
Bhutto titled “My dearest daughter” he extols the virtues of people-
friendly policies. “Your grand-father taught me the politics of pride,
your grandmother taught me the politics of poverty. I am beholden to
both for the fi ne synthesis. To you, my darling daughter, I give only
one message. It is the message of the morrow, the message of history.
Believe only in the people, work only for their emancipation and
equality. The paradise of God lies under the feet of your mother. The
paradise of politics lies under the feet of the people. I have quite a few
achievements to my credit in the public life of the subcontinent but, in
my memory, the most rewarding achievements have been those which
have brought smiles of joy to the weary faces of our miserable masses,
achievements which have brought a twinkle to the melancholy eye of
a villager. More than the tributes paid to me by the great leaders of the
world, within the four walls of this death-cell, I recall with greater pride
and satisfaction, the words of the widow in a small village who told
me “Sadko Warryian solar sain” when I sent her only peasant son on a
foreign scholarship.”24
Even if the vehicle that Mr. Gillani’s government prepares to extricate
the Pakistani nation out of the present mess is sturdy and durable, it
might fi nd it diffi cult, indeed impossible, to reach its destination safely
and securely if it is powered by fuel that is contaminated. In other words,
policies and measures may be excellent and intentions unimpeachable,
but if corruption, wastage, sifarish and lack of accountability, the bane
of our society, are not confronted boldly the government may fail to
inspire confi dence among the people towards whose welfare the policies
are directed. In his very fi rst address to the nation, which was extempore,
Mr. Bhutto warned that he would come down with a very heavy hand on
158 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Iqbal Ahmad Khan
corruption. He told the bureaucracy to do its job and work like he worked
night and day and to be at the service of the people. He underscored the
importance of the ordinary citizen who should be able to get his work
done without ‘sifarish.’ “I have no relations, I have no family. My family
is the people of Pakistan….So it must be known clearly to everyone that
there will be no “sifarish” from anyone, no nepotism, no corruption and
no maladministration.”25
As the new democratically elected government endeavours to bring
the nation out of the shadow of eight years of military and quasi-military
rule, it would do well to remember the inspiring words of Zulfi kar Ali
Bhutto on his assumption of offi ce as the president of Pakistan. “I want
to tell you my dear countrymen that I have come in at a very late hour,
at a decisive moment in the history of Pakistan. We are facing the worst
crisis in our country’s life, a deadly crisis. We have to pick up the pieces,
very small pieces, but we shall make a new Pakistan, a prosperous
and progressive Pakistan, a Pakistan free of exploitation, a Pakistan
envisaged by the Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, founder of the
nation, a Pakistan for which the Muslims of the subcontinent sacrifi ced
their lives and their honour in order to build this new land. That Pakistan
will come, it is bound to come. This is my faith, and I am confi dent that
with your cooperation, understanding and patience, we will emerge as a
stronger and a greater state. I have no doubt about it.”26
The greatest tribute that the present government can pay to Zulfi kar
Ali Bhutto, the most popular prime minister of Pakistan and Benazir
Bhutto, the bravest daughter of the soil is to tirelessly dedicate itself to
the building of a strong and democratic Pakistan.
159CRITERION – April/June 2008
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s Legacy and the Rebuilding of Pakistan
References:
1 Address to the nation by General (retd.) Pervez Musharraf on 17 October 1991.
2 Public opinion poll conducted by United States International Republican Institute (IRI)
in June/July 2007.
3 Bhutto, Zulfi kar Ali, If I am Assassinated.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 The News, 1 February 2008.
7 Bhutto, Zulfi kar Ali, If I am Assassinated.
8 Article 245 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
9 Rasul Bakhsh Rais, “The Third Transitions, Daily Times, 25 March 2008.
10 Text of “Charter of Democracy,” 14 May 2006.
11 Sherry Rahman, “Enigma of the Defence Budget,” Dawn, 29 June 2005.
12 Letter by Zulfi kar Ali Bhutto “My dearest daughter,” to Benazir Bhutto/
13 President Zulfi kar Ali Bhutto’s address to the nation, 20 December 1971.
14 Website of the Pakistan Peoples Party.
15 Text of “Charter of Democracy,” 14 May 2006.
16 Zulfi kar Ali Bhutto, “Pakistan Builds Anew,” Foreign Affairs, April 1973.
17 Speeches and Statements by President Zulfi kar Ali Bhutto, published by the government
of Pakistan.
18 Ibid.
19 Ms Benazir Bhutto’s address to the Council on Foreign Relations, New York, August
2007.
20 Daily Times, 27 March 2008.
21 Ibid.
22 Daily Times, 28 March 2008.
23 Zulfi kar Ali Bhutto, “Pakistan Builds Anew,” Foreign Affairs, April 1973.
24 Letter by Zulfi kar Ali Bhutto, My dearest daughter, to Benazir Bhutto.
25 Address to the nation by President Zulfi kar Ali Bhutto, 20 December 1971.
26 Ibid.
Essays
OF TONGUES AND LANGUAGES:The Tao of Translation
Toheed Ahmad *
Abstract
(Pakistan does not seem to have grasped the meaning or signifi cance
of translation. A close nexus exists between translation skills and national
development. The promotion of a translation culture is also important to
foster values of tolerance and peaceful coexistence among faiths, races
and countries. The paradigm of Dialogue/Clash of Civilizations is best
tackled through book translations rather than leaving the fi eld open for
the media which are in a hurry to sell their daily and hourly products in
an increasingly noisy marketplace of ideas. Author).
The fi sh swims in the water but they don’t realize ‘the water.’
The birds fl y riding the wind but they don’t realize ‘the wind.’
The man exists inside The Tao but they don’t realize ‘The Tao.’
The Tao is formless.
The Tao exists since the beginning.
The Tao have no beginning and ending.
The meaning is very complex and diffi cult to understand. The meaning
is too wide, so it is very diffi cult to be explained by the word clearly.
The simplest meaning of The Tao is “The Way” or can be said too as
“The Law,” “The Rule” and others.
Lao Zi, the grand Prophet of Taoism
In Pakistan we don’t seem to have grasped the meaning or
signifi cance of translation. Yet we are a multilingual society where people
use Translation (or its oral equivalent of Interpretation) daily. Imagine
a Sindhi speaker reading the English newspaper Dawn or the Urdu
Jang, a Punjabi speaker reading The News or Nawa-e-Waqt, a Balochi
* Toheed Ahmad is a former Ambassador of Pakistan.
Essay
164 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
or a Brahvi speaker watching the news bulletin of Aaj TV, or a Pashto
speaker tuning in to PTV’s Khabarnama. They are all translators. Its
time we wake up to the importance of this subject and study the process
of Translation rather than solely consuming its products – whether in the
literary or education fi elds or for commercial, legal, scientifi c texts and
documents, or in the burgeoning media world (fi lm sub-titles, television
voice-overs, radio broadcasts) newspaper/magazine content, book
publishing industry, computer literacy and software localisation or in
international marketing and brand promotion. A close nexus thus exists
between translation skills and national development.
Though ancient as the hills, Translation has emerged as an academic
discipline only in the last thirty years or so. In the late 1970s, the subject
began to be taken seriously, and was no longer seen as an unscientifi c
fi eld of enquiry of secondary importance. Throughout the1980s interest
in the theory and practice of Translation grew steadily. (In that decade
we were one with the world when in the early December of 1985 the fi rst
National Seminar on the Issues in Translation was held in Islamabad. In
the same decade the National Language Authority issued several books
on the subject). In the 1990s, Translation Studies fi nally came into its
own for this proved to be the decade of its global expansion. Today
interest in this fi eld has never been stronger and the study of Translation
is taking place alongside an increase in its practice all over the world.
But in Pakistan we have neither formal education in this area nor any
mentionable training programme for translators. The biggest casualty
of this gap is the Urdu-English-Urdu area, which is ironically the most
common area of our nation’s use of translation and interpretation. (For
example, in a recent conversation with me, the Vice Chancellor of the
Government College University, Lahore, lamented that people of his
English Department did not liking talking to the people of the University’s
Urdu Department). Barring a few gifted and brave individuals, quackery
rules this profession much like we saw in architecture during the fi rst
four decades after independence, and in photography and fi lm making
even in the seventh decade of our national existence.
We have all heard of the great Translation enterprises of Abbasside
Baghdad and Muslim Andalusia, and yet are content to believe that
Essay
165CRITERION – April/June 2008
those Muslim translators were salvaging ancient knowledge in science,
medicine, philosophy and the arts to serve the cause of European
Renaissance, implying thereby that these Muslims had no intrinsic use for
this artful skill. George Saliba, Professor of Arabic and Islamic Science,
Columbia University, notes that: “No civilization has experienced a
renaissance in its history in one form or another without that renaissance
being preceded or coming contemporaneously with a translation
movement. Whether it was the ninth century Baghdad or in Europe’s
Renaissance age, the translation movements ushered in remarkable
periods of cultural upsurge.” Later we shall examine this unparalleled
translation enterprise of human history. In our own times, the evolution
the European Union is the biggest translation project in the world.
Working in over 20 languages, the EU is the single largest employer
of translators and interpreters followed by the UN which deploys these
skills only in its six offi cial languages. What are we missing here?
“The fi rst step towards an examination of the processes of
translation must be to accept that although translation has a central
core of linguistic activity, it belongs most properly to semiotics, the
science that studies sign systems or structures, sign processes and sign
functions” writes Prof Susan Bassnett of University of Warwick in her
famous book, “Translation Studies,” (latest edition 2002). She goes on
to say: “Beyond the notion stressed by the narrowly linguistic approach,
that translation involves the transfer of ’meaning’ contained in one set
of language signs into another set of language signs through competent
use of the dictionary and grammar, the process involves a whole set of
extra-linguistic criteria also.”
“Language is a guide to social reality...human beings are at the
mercy of the language that has become the medium of expression for
their society. Experience is largely determined by the language habits of
the community, and each separate structure represents a separate reality.
No two languages are ever suffi ciently similar to be considered as
representing the same social reality.. and no language can exist unless it
is steeped in the context of culture, and no culture can exist which does
not have at its centre the structure of natural language. Language, then,
is the heart within the body of culture, and it is the interaction between
Essay
166 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
the two that results in the continuation of life-energy. In the same way
that the surgeon, operating on the heart cannot neglect the body that
surrounds it, so the translator treats the text in isolation from the culture
at his peril.”
According to Prof. Bassnett, “the purpose of translation theory
is to reach an understanding of the processes undertaken in the act of
translation, and not as is commonly misunderstood, to provide a set of
norms for effecting the perfect translation.” She then goes on to pose the
question whether there can be a science of translation or is translation
a secondary activity. Believing that any debate about the existence of a
science of translation is out of date, she says that “there already exists,
with Translation Studies, a serious discipline investigating the process
of translation, attempting to clarify the question of equivalence, and to
examine what constitutes meaning within that process. But nowhere is
there a theory that pretends to be normative, and (we are) a long way from
suggesting that the purpose of translation theory is to be proscriptive.”
Here she gives the last word to Octavio Paz, the 1990 Noble Laureate
for Literature, who made a case for Translation Studies, and translation
itself. All texts, Paz claims, being part of a literary system descended
from and related to other systems, are ‘translations of translation of
translations,’” and she quotes him saying: “Every text is unique and at the
same time, it is the translation of another text. No text is entirely original
because language itself, in its essence, is already a translation: fi rstly, of
the non-verbal world, and secondly, since every sign and phrase is the
translation of another sign and another phrase. However, this argument
can be turned around without losing any of its validity: all texts are
original because every translation is distinctive. Every translation, up to
a certain point, is an invention and as such it constitutes a unique text.”
I would like to tell you about this latest Translation initiative in the
Arab world. Kalima, a non-profi t company is based in Abu Dhabi and
funded by the Emirate’s Authority for Culture and Heritage. While its
aim is to “address a thousand year old problem” principally by getting
100 books of knowledge translated into Arabic and published every
year – an awesome ambition indeed. Its driving philosophy is that
Essay
167CRITERION – April/June 2008
“Translation is not just some base skill but a key to a glorious treasure of
thinking, ideas and invention from all around the world that can provide
a platform for more advances.” Its website (www.kalima.ae) lists the
following four objectives that they wish to achieve:
To fund the translation and publication of books from other (i)
languages into Arabic.
To support marketing and distribution initiatives.(ii)
To support and promote the Arabic book industry on the (iii)
international stage, like International Book Fairs.
To invest in translation as a profession, to encourage more and (iv)
better quality translators.
There are 250 million Arabic speakers in the world, but only a very
small proportion of translated foreign material available to read. To put
this into context:
Spain translates in one year the number of books that have been •
translated into Arabic in the past 1000 years and
For every one million Arabs only one book is translated into •
Arabic each year
(Source: UNDP Arab Human Development Report, 2003)
Add to this inconsistent product quality, poor distribution and piracy
and it’s no wonder that interest in books has suffered in the Arabic
world.
What is this “thousand year old problem” that Kalima aims to
address? What was happening in Baghdad, a thousand and more years
ago, on the translation front? The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
has recently issued a book of Prof George Saliba under the title “Islamic
Science and the Making of the European Renaissance” which takes an
in-depth look at the enabling socio-economic factors for the rise of world
beating science and technology in the Islamic lands. He postulates that
“scientifi c and philosophical ideas fl ourish through open discussion.”
Language mediation or translation played a crucial role in the emergence
of pioneers of astronomy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, philosophy,
Essay
168 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
geography etc. Translation of Greek, Persian, Syriac and Sanskrit texts
into Arabic enabled the Muslim scholars to converse freely with the
great minds of these civilisations and thus while preserving the jewels
of the ancients through translations into Arabic, they also created new
knowledge. The great philosopher Al-Farabi once wrote that philosophy
was fi nally freed (of persecution at the hands of Byzantine emperors and
Christian Church) when it reached the lands of Islam.
Many of the Baghdad scientists, mathematicians, physicists, and
philosophers were also translators. Two of the most sophisticated Greek
scientifi c texts – the Almagest of Ptolemy and Elements of Euclid – were
translated into Arabic by al-Hallaj. The language of these translations,
says Saliba, is impeccably good, Arabic technical terms and all and the
Arabic translation even corrects the mistakes of the original Almagest.
Who taught al-Hallaj the technical terms and who taught him how to
correct the mistakes of the original asks Saliba. “Early translations
usually struggle with technical terminology and usually do not go beyond
the letter of the text and would never have corrected its mistakes, if they
could understand the text in the fi rst place,” he observes.
“Furthermore we know that al-Hallaj’s translation of those scientifi c
works was not the fi rst. In fact, we are told by some sources that those
two books were already translated (into Arabic in Baghdad).... and
thus we must allow for a longer period of translation so that more than
one generation of translators would create enough output to produce
technical terminology and teach the sophisticated mathematics and
linguistic skills that were required to render Almagest, the Elements,
and similar books into the kind of coherent Arabic in which they are
preserved.”
Let’s take a look at the genesis of astronomy and algebra and the
role played by translation as narrated by Saliba. “During the reign of al-
Ma’mun, we also witness the creation of the new discipline of Algebra
by Musa al-Khwarizmi (circa 830 AD), already in a mature format –
treating, for example, the fi eld of second-degree equations in its most
general form. This happened before the translation of the work of
Diophantus and other Greek sources. This does not mean that classical
Essay
169CRITERION – April/June 2008
Greek sources, or for that matter ancient Babylonian sources, did not
include algebraic problems, but the coinage of the new terms for algebra
(al-jabr), and the statement of the discipline in general as different from
arithmetic, required a kind of maturity that could not have come with
the fi rst generation of translators.
“Similarly, a few years later, or even contemporaneously with
Khwarizmi, we witness the creation of the discipline of Hay’a
(astronomy), as ‘ilm al-hay’a, which also did not have a Greek parallel.
And that too could not have come about, as it did in the work of Qusta
bin Luqa (e.g. translation of Arithmetica of Diophantus, still preserved
in an Oxford manuscript), during the fi rst generation of translators.
Moreover, it is remarkable to note that Qusta himself, like other
accomplished translators of his time, was already composing his own
new scientifi c books, like his book of Hay’a just mentioned, while he
was still translating older, more common Greek scientifi c texts. Hunain
bin Ishaq (outstanding physician and translator) did the same, and so did
many others in this period.
“All that could not have come about at the hands of people who were
translating for the fi rst time, and needing to create the new technical
terminology for their translations as well as their original compositions.
In Qusta bin Luqa’s Arabic translation of Arithmetica of Diophantus
there is a clear adoption of the algebraic language that was developed
by the Arabic-writing algebraists of Qusta’s time, as is evident in from
Qusta’s reference to the title of Diophantus’s work as sina’at al-jabr (Art
of Algebra), a term that does not exist in Greek. This kind of liberty with
the translation clearly demonstrates the dynamic nature of the translation
process of the early ninth century. Classical Greek scientifi c texts could
easily be acclimatized within the current Arabic sciences of the time,
thus transforming the translation process into a simultaneous creative
process as well. Furthermore, the remarkable advances that were made
by Habash al-Hasib (circa 850 AD) in the fi eld of trigonometry and
mathematical projection go far beyond what was known from the Indian
and Greek sources, and they could not have been accomplished by
someone who was only a benefi ciary of an early stage of translation.”
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170 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Let us examine the coinage of scientifi c terms carried out in the early
decades of the last century at Osmania University, Hyderabad Deccan
(established 1917), where medical, science, and engineering education
was imparted in Urdu. Although I have not seen any analytical study of
their translation process, I have seen the two volume dictionary of these
terms published by the National Language Authority. While we can
see the quaintness of these terms, I suspect that these translators were
not of the category of al-Hallaj, Qusta and Hunain mentioned above.
The Deccan translators were just that and did not produce any original
work in Urdu in any of the scientifi c fi elds for which they established
voluminous books of terminology. As fi rst generation translators of
terminology (though some work had been accomplished at Sir Syed
Ahmad Khan’s Scientifi c Society) we salute their achievement but fi rst
it was not the kind of work that had gone in Abbasside Baghdad, nor was
it followed up by a second and third generation of translators to affect
refi nement and improvement. May be the abolition of the Nizamate and
the Urdu-Hindi controversy in the Freedom Movement was the undoing
of this ‘experiment.’
For did not Marshal Hodgson, the infl uential author of The Venture
of Islam (published 1975) note: “It is hardly accurate, despite certain
West Pakistani claims, to call Urdu an Islamic language, in the strict
sense. It was the insistence of some Muslims on treating it that way, and
opening a meeting on fostering Urdu with Qur’an readings, that drove
Urdu-loving Hindus away from it and may, in the end, have meant the
ruin of Urdu in its motherland.” Hodgson chose not to talk about the
other side of the debate when the Hindu culture chauvinists denounced
Urdu as the brainchild of the British imperialism, specifi cally William
Gilchrist, Principal of the Fort William College, Calcutta, for having
produced hundreds of translations and manuals and dictionaries, with the
aim to divide and rule in colonial India. I dare say that Urdu was ruined
in Pakistan too, where ironically it was upheld as the national language.
While Teaching of English is being offered as a specialised subject at
post-graduate level in many universities of Pakistan, teaching of Urdu,
to my knowledge, exists as a subject for elementary level teaching only.
Here we don’t even need to mention the highly developed British export
industry of Teaching of English to Foreigners. Do we have anything
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171CRITERION – April/June 2008
comparable for spreading Urdu at least among the six million overseas
Pakistanis – we should not then wonder why our diaspora’s cultural
connection with the homeland is limited to observance of the rituals
of Islam (Imagine the cultural alienation of the non-Muslim Pakistanis
abroad).
Meanwhile the world has moved on. In the last 30 years, Translation
Studies has come to be accepted as an academic discipline and is being
increasingly taught at many universities. In fact the drive to create
knowledge-based economies has led many countries to actively promote
Translation Studies. As per the World Competitiveness Report 2006,
just one Arab country, Jordan, ranks among the top 60 countries. It is
directly related to the much lamented fact that the total number of books
translated into Arabic in the last 1000 years is less than the number
of books translated into Spanish in one year. The other three Muslim
countries in this list are Malaysia, Turkey and Indonesia – all three
countries with active state-sponsored translation programmes. Malaysia
is the only Muslim country to have its universities ranked among the top
200 in the world today. Signifi cant books produced in major languages,
and important journals, are reproduced in Bhasha and Turkish almost
instantaneously. Iran is doing something similar - there people are thus
kept abreast of what the world is thinking. Our elites, while maintaining
a strict knowledge censorship for the masses, restrict themselves to the
Anglo-Saxon worldview. Small wonder then that Pakistan is yet to fi nd
a mentionable place on this Competitiveness Scoreboard.
The Competitiveness criteria relevant to our discussion of
translation, language skills and culture are as follows;
1. University Education: Whether University Education meets
the needs of A Competitive Economy
2. Economic literacy: Is economic literacy generally high among
the population
3. Education in Finance: Does education in Finance meet the
needs of enterprises
4. Language Skills: Are Language Skills meeting the needs of
enterprises
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172 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
5. Knowledge Transfer: Is Knowledge transfer between
companies and universities highly developed
6. Attitudes towards Globalization: Whether attitudes towards
Globalization are generally positive in the country
7. National Culture: Is the national culture open to foreign ideas.
If you are not an entrepreneur, put the above questions to any factory
owner, banker, university student/lecturer, media person, a bureaucrat or
any labour leader in Pakistan. The answer will be a resounding no. Our
competitiveness gurus are missing this whole point. The truth is there is
no place to hide anymore.
It is said that ambition is fundamental to competitiveness.
The conclusion of the World Competitiveness Report 2006 is that:
“Successful nations and fi rms have the ability to raise the general level
of ambition everywhere and for everybody. Such an attitude may very
well be the ultimate engine for competitiveness.” And this is further
borne out by a truism in Translation Studies that most of the work done
in translation is in the area of scientifi c, technical, commercial, legal and
administrative or institutional translation. Despite this our literati think
of translation as primarily a literary phenomenon. “The full signifi cance
of non-literary translation in cultures is drastically underestimated. This
is not because, as is commonly thought, literary translation enjoys a
monopoly of attention and prestige in the academy (it does not) but
because the cultural and intellectual stakes of non-literary translation are
rarely spelled out in any great detail and are generally referred to in only
the vaguest possible terms – ‘promoting understanding,’ ‘encouraging
trade’” (Prof. Michael Cronin, cited below).
URDU TRADITION OF TRANSLATION
According to Prof Nisar Ahmed Qureshi, the foundations of early
Urdu poetry and prose appear to have been mainly laid by translation.
The plots of ancient Deccan masnavis were taken from Persian and
Arabic sources. The earliest known prose translator was Shah Meeranjee
Khudanuma of Deccan who translated the Arabic language book
“Tamheedat Hamadani” into Urdu in the early 17th century. (Turjuma:
Rivayat va Fun, 1985, National Language Authority, Islamabad). The
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173CRITERION – April/June 2008
late Mughals also added translation to the court arts taught to the
royalty. It was thus that the unfortunate Prince Dara Shikoh (1615-
1659), elder brother of Emperor Aurangzeb, translated selections from
the Upanishads from Sanskrit into Persian. These texts were further
translated into Latin by Anquetil Duperron in 1801, which according to
Prof. Annemarie Schimmel, “so deeply infl uenced German philosophy
of the 19th century” and thus became Europe’s fi rst introduction to
Hinduism.
While Shah Waliullah (1703-1762) fi rst translated the Quran into
Persian, his sons Shah Rafi uddin and Shah Abdulqadir separately
translated the Holy Book into Urdu in 1785 and 1790 respectively. The
fi rst Urdu translation of the Bible appeared in 1748. So the Bible was
available to the Indian populace several decades before the Quran. All
these were essentially individual projects involving translations from
Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit into Urdu. The fi rst institutional Urdu
language translation was seen at the Fort William College, established
in 1800 at Calcutta to train British civil servants and army personnel
for service in India. According to Schimmel, “The abolition of Persian,
the old language of higher instruction – (it) had been the depository of
the cultural and intellectual heritage of Indian Islam and had produced
a large literature, local languages possessed more or less only religious
or folk poetry – opened the way for the development of Indian regional
languages which started, from the scientifi c point of view, at Fort William,
and which entailed not only a large literary output in the different local
languages but brought into existence little by little the art of translation
which produced adaptations of European literature and technical works”
(Gabriel’s Wing, A Study into the Religious Ideas of Sir Muhammad
Iqbal, 1962).
Dr. John Gilchrist, the College Principal, who had produced an
English-Urdu dictionary in 1796, assembled scholars and writers from
all over the country and tasked them to produce books in simple Urdu
and also Urdu versions of masterpieces of other languages, this time
including English. This galaxy included stalwarts like Mir Aman Dehlavi,
Haider Buksh Haideri, Mir Sher Ali Afsos, and Nihal Chand Lahori who
were the fi rst generation of professional and paid translators.
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174 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
Similarly, the Delhi College, established 1792, pushed Urdu
translation further and produced local versions of scientifi c and scholarly
texts between the years 1842 and 1877. According to Gail Minault’s
article on Delhi College and Urdu (www.urdustudies.com), in the early
1840s, Principal Felix Boutros started the Vernacular Translation Society,
which translated books in medicine, law, sciences, economics and
history from English into Urdu. Teachers and students both participated
in the work of translation, creating their own textbooks in the process
– an interesting blending of the oral and written traditions. Individual
local benefactors helped fi nance the fi rst translations and publications.
The sales of texts helped the effort along. The government also agreed
to fi nance the translations of math and geometry texts in Urdu to bring
western sciences to students in the oriental section of the College.
The list of the Society’s publications includes basic textbooks such
as Euclid’s Elements, and histories of England, Greece and Rome and
the geography of India. Science texts included both natural philosophy
and Tibb (also from Arabic). The famous names associated with this
movement were Mamluk Ali Naunatvi, Maulana Altaf Hussain Hali,
Maulana Mohammed Hassan Azad, Maulvi Zakaullah and Maulvi Nazir
Ahmed. The Vernacular Translation Society made it possible for students
of Delhi College to participate in both the revival and improvement of
Urdu literature and the promotion of the knowledge of the sciences.
Incidentally, the Delhi College was the precursor of two supposedly
opposing centres of Indo-Muslim cultural revival and reform in the 19th
century, Aligarh and Deoband.
Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (1817-1898) the great visionary of Indian
Muslim culture, established the Scientifi c Society of Aligarh, the fi rst
scientifi c association of its kind in India. Modeled after the Royal Society
and the Royal Asiatic Society, the Society assembled Muslim scholars
from different parts of the country. The Society held annual conferences,
disbursed funds for educational causes and regularly published a journal
on scientifi c subjects in English and Urdu and translated Western works
into Urdu. Sir Syed felt that the socio-economic future of Muslims
was threatened by their orthodox aversions to modern science and
technology.
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175CRITERION – April/June 2008
It is interesting to make a quick comparison of these Urdu translation
enterprises with that of the Bait-al-Hikma of Abbasside Baghdad. While
they helped popularise western subjects, these projects, do not seem to
have inaugurated any worthwhile knowledge movement. Three main
points come to mind:
1. While the Bait-al-Hikma was patronised by the Caliphs of Islam
and their courts, the Urdu translation enterprises were “sponsored”
early on by the colonial British authorities. While Fort William
College was meant to produce vernacular texts to train the colonial
offi cials, the goal of Delhi College, Sir Syed’s Scientifi c Society,
and Osmania University to provide the Indian Muslim community
access to modern education. It was a slave-master paradigm that
drove these Hindustani initiatives.
2. Though both Arabic and Urdu were in their early stages of
development as prose languages when the Muslims embarked upon
their great translation enterprise in Syria and Iraq and when fi rst
foreign texts were produced in Urdu, the Bait-ul-Hikma’s knowledge
catchment area was vast and varied, ranging from Transoxania in
the east passing through the grand Sassanian civilisation of Iran,
the splendour of the Byzantine libraries and Greek and Roman
treasuries of knowledge to Andalusia in the west. Urdu’s knowledge
outreach, by contrast, was limited to what was available in the
subcontinent in Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit and English. Calcutta,
Delhi and Hyderabad, unlike Baghdad, had no pretence of creating
new science or of devising technologies to apply them. Hindustani
translation energies were mostly consumed by literary and religious
texts, while only a few books, mainly teaching texts, were produced
in the fi eld of science.
3. The Urdu-Hindi controversy which burnt many a creative spirit
raged on during most of the 19th century and beyond. Scholars were
pushed into taking sides and, ironically, felt the safest inside their
language trenches. The chorus of the slaves in Hindustan was but
a whimper unlike the raging Muslim intellect that informed the
Baghdad translation projects.
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176 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
The translation situation in Pakistan remains a hangover of this
controversy, as its early proponents had all cut their teeth in a linguistic
version of the Two Nation Theory and could not shake off their minority
syndrome. Though a Translation House was established in Lahore and
some work was done by the Pakistani version of the Urdu Development
Society in Karachi, the agenda remained the same – to produce texts
for education of the ‘Muslim community.’ The predominant concern of
our literati then was to get the Urdu language promulgated as the sole
national and offi cial language. There was no vision beyond the trenches
in which these scholars had been born. Apparently no one had access to
the details of the Baghdad translation initiative, and may be no one still
bothers about analyzing it to draw lessons for us today.
The fi rst serious attempt to examine the situation was made at
a three-day seminar arranged in Islamabad by the Urdu Language
Authority in December 1985. Scholars and academics from around the
country examined issues in translation during three sessions, in the areas
of science and technology, law, as a working language, and in media
and literature. After the formal opening, the fi rst session was devoted
to Overview of the situation. The next year, the National Language
Authority published the proceedings of the Seminar in Urdu, edited
by Ijaz Rahi, who contributed a pithy introduction to the volume. He
wrote that the participants agreeing that translation was our national
requirement discussed various problems and issues around translation.
The need for translation, he wrote, was felt by those nations who yearned
to acquire knowledge. In history, the nations which excelled in spiritual
and material fi elds were those who gave a high priority to learning
from the knowledge of other nations. In this outreach, translation,
always served as the diplomatic bridge. In the glory days of the Islamic
civilization, Muslims scoured the world in search of knowledge, and
through translations, empowered their scholars and scientists.
Science and technology, he further wrote, were fast changing and
developing and no society could hope to progress without keeping pace
with the world. It has been established that in order to benefi t from
world knowledge, nations have to acquire the ability to translate the new
knowledge in their own languages. Ijaz Rahi goes on to make a seminal
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177CRITERION – April/June 2008
point that post-colonial societies whose languages were damaged and
downgraded under foreign rule have the twin challenge of repairing and
then restoring the centrality of their languages, and at the same time to
keep abreast of the world in knowledge. A tough call indeed!
In its concluding session, the Seminar passed 16 resolutions. Below
I reproduce texts of 10 of those resolutions with their original serial
numbers to highlight the various dimension of our national translation
imperative.
No 1. This Seminar recommends that a Joint Committee of National
Language Authority and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting
be set up which may prepare a Dictionary of words and terms used in
Media and Communications giving their standard Urdu equivalents,
including new words and terms, and supply it to Media Institutions.
This Joint Committee may work on a permanent basis.
No 2. In view of the importance of scientifi c and literary translations,
this Seminar recommends that Translations be included as a category
for books awards.
No 4. This Seminar recommends that all fees paid to Translators of
scientifi c, literary, technical and scholarly texts should be exempt from
income tax.
No 5. Recommended that all Universities of Pakistan, which
currently do not have this practice, should admit Translations of portions
of any book as dissertations for Masters Degrees.
No 6. Recommended that the Translation House of the National
Language Authority should be upgraded on a large scale for which
necessary funds should be provided to the Authority.
No 7. Recommended that the National Language Authority should
establish a specialised library of all old and new Urdu translations as
part of the Library of its Translation House.
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178 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
No 8. Recommended that the National Language Authority should
arrange for translations of the most important books into Urdu and
publish them.
No 10. Recommended that the National Language Authority should
be given the authority for authentication and standardisation of terms
coined by various individuals and institutions. Only such terms should
be used for all Urdu books and publications.
No 11. Recommended that in view of the shortage of good translators
a Translator Training Centre should be established under the aegis of
the National Language Authority. Teaching of Translation should be
introduced at all Universities of Pakistan.
No 16. Since use of new machine technology has facilitated
translation between the national language and the regional languages,
recommended that necessary measures be taken to utilise this facility.
You will see that in the year 1985, these scholars were dimly aware
of the machine translation facility but had not yet heard of computer
aided translation or computer literacy which were subjects, it must be
said, that had just begun to surface in the west. These scholars were not
yet aware of the trade related needs of translation skills, nor were the
subject of translation and external promotion of Pakistan or industry-
university linkage broached at the Seminar. Given the grim translation
gap in Pakistan today, we can safely assume that the recommendations
of this important seminar were forgotten. Its 23 years now, no follow-
up event has been reported from any quarter in Pakistan. Nor has
any mentionable book been produced on the subject of Translation
Studies, nor is it a subject at any Pakistani university or college. And
these precisely were the decades that the world woke up and adopted
translation as a serious academic discipline and upgraded the profession
to the highest level.
An area of particular concern in this domain is the near-total
absence of the science of linguistics in the Urdu tradition. I had a phone
conversation with the Vice-Chancellor of the Karachi University which
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179CRITERION – April/June 2008
once had an active Translation Centre. “No more active” was his reply
to my query. To be fair to him he did ask the Dean of the University’s
Arts Faculty to follow this up who called me a few days later to assure
me of their interest in pursuing this conversation further in view of the
importance of the subject. Recently I visited the Oriental College of the
University of Punjab, where I was told that Translation was formally
taught only as part of the Master of Arts courses in the Arabic language.
They had no linguistics expert of any of the languages taught there.
I had a conversation on this subject with Dr. Saleem Malik, Head of
the Urdu Department of the College, who told me that he had earned
a Masters degree in Linguistics from Karachi University which he had
stowed away in his desk and never felt the need for the subject. He
confessed he had earned his living off his Urdu degrees. Some years ago
I had a similar conversation with the Brigadier-Rector of the National
University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, who confi dently told me
that a special group of his academics were doing a translation project
relating to the Chinese supplied equipment at the Heavy Mechanical
Complex, Taxila. So much for the understanding of the subject from the
head of the nation’s premier languages university. While the Kinnaird
College showed no interest to my proposal on Translation Studies, the
Beaconhouse National University and the English Department of the
Punjab University seemed interested but reported no follow up. Lahore’s
University of Management and Technology offers a Ph.D. in Applied
Linguistics which has a module on Translation. The situation is grave
indeed for Translation Studies in Pakistan.
Another building block of the inter-disciplinary area of Translation
Studies is Comparative Literature, which like Urdu linguistics, is another
glaring gap on our academic map. No university or college in Pakistan
teaches the subject of Comparative Literature. We don’t have academics
trained in this area of literary studies. Not long ago I happened to see
the result card of someone who had passed the examination to get a
Master of Arts degree in Urdu of the Punjab University. One of the
subjects he had passed was called Alami (World) Classics. Upon my
asking he told me that he had read a Shakespeare play and extracts from
Milton’s Paradise Lost, Maupassant stories, selections from Goethe,
some Chekov stories and Attar’s Conference of the Birds and some
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180 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
tales from Rumi’s Masnavi, all in Urdu translation. So here we have
the early stirrings of Comparative Literary Studies. I doubt if any of our
university’s English Departments offers a similar course.
Foreign Language education is another connected area for the
promotion of Translation Studies. “Language learning, without
which translation is impossible, is, if nothing, a form of prolonged
interaction with another people, language and culture. It is diffi cult,
unpredictable, occasionally humiliating and often exasperating, like all
other engagements with difference. Remove language and the risk is a
multicultural sweetshop of tamed, sanitized differences, the dangerous
ingredient of linguistic diversity corralled off backstage in kitchens and
call-centres,” writes Prof Michael Cronin (cited below).
We have a long tradition of teaching English, Persian and Arabic
languages. Some degree courses are also offered in French and German,
while the National University of Modern Languages also offers degree
programmes in Chinese and certifi cate level instruction in Russian,
Turkish, and Bhasha etc. It is interesting that except for Persian and
Arabic, which are taught through Urdu, the medium of instruction for all
other language courses is English. Why are we not teaching French and
German and Chinese through Urdu? For one this is censorship by default
– to deny our Urdu knowing masses access to advanced knowledge in
languages other than English. Secondly, it needs hard work by scholars
and academics to erect such linguistic bridges. Why should anyone
bother about any other language when our ruling elite have “command”
of sorts over English? A Translation Studies programme will necessitate
a wholesome and rigorous foreign language education programme at the
tertiary level.
It is said that writers create national literature while translators
create world literature. One of the reasons the world knows so little
about us is that so little of our rich literature, of Urdu and other Pakistani
languages, has been translated into the major world languages. Most
of what has been translated into English has been done by Pakistanis
with no pretension to knowledge or training in Translation Studies. The
golden rule here is that translators can effectively translate only into their
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181CRITERION – April/June 2008
native languages. I witnessed a demonstration of this principle recently
in the offi ce of Mr. Shahzad Ahmad, Director, Majlis Taraqqi Adab
(Board for Advancement of Literature), Lahore, when a Pakistani friend
who owns a language company in London was visiting the offi ce of the
Majlis. We were talking about the standard of translation in Pakistan.
He saw a book of English translation of short stories of the late Ahmed
Nadeem Qasmi lying on a corner table and picked it up. Opening its
fi rst page, he offered to get its fi rst paragraph reverse translated in to
Urdu through his London offi ce. We met up again after a fortnight and
he read out the Urdu translation. Mr. Shahzad Ahmed and we all were
shocked to fi nd that the two texts had nothing in common. The Pakistani
translator did not realise that his target language was not English but
gibberish. Unfortunately much of what passes for English translations
of Ghalib, Iqbal, Faiz etc., is really an unintelligible language. Though
some great translations have been made into German (by Annemarie
Schimmel) and French (by Eva de Vitray-Meyerovitch) and Arabic (by
Abdul Wahab Azzam and Ali Sawi Sha’lan), poor Iqbal has yet to fi nd
a quality English translator, of the kind that Rumi and Tagore found.
Way back in 1920 Prof. R.A. Nicholson put the Secrets of Self into
English followed by Prof. A. J. Arberry’s Persian Pslams (1948). Victor
Kiernan’s translation effort remains a labour of love.
Mr. Amjad Islam Amjad, the famous poet-playwright, once told me
that the literature produced in Urdu between the 1930s and 1960s must
rank as among the highest literature produced in any world language.
While he is an honourable man, there is no way this claim can be proved
in the absence of world quality translations in the major world languages.
To illustrate the power of translation as a medium of external projection,
let me quote a paragraph from Annemarie Schimmel’s Gabriel’s Wing:
“Some time after the publication of my Turkish prose translation of
the Javidname, I received a letter, its very bad Turkish orthography
manifesting that the writer was an unlearned man; but he expressed his
admiration for Iqbal’s work, and asked for more books of his Turkish
translation. He was a bearer (he wrote ‘karson’) in a restaurant in a small
town of Eastern Anatolia – that seems to be suffi cient proof for Iqbal’s
unquestionable appeal to simple minds too, who do not grasp properly
the philosophical implications of his poems but are moved just by the
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182 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
energy they feel, even through the medium of translation.”
Now that we are talking of the power of translation, let me tell you
about one of my historic achievements relating to this fi eld. Chachnama,
the account of the Arab conquest of Sind, was translated from Arabic
into Persian by Ali son of Mohammed Kufi , a resident of Uch, in 1216
A.D. It is said to be the oldest book of history of the subcontinent. The
original text was lost, only its Persian translation survived in several
editions and disparate parts. Mirza Kalichbeg, Deputy Collector,
Naushahro, Hyderabad District pored over several texts and published
the complete book for the fi rst time in English translation, in Karachi in
1900. Later, Dr. N. A .Baloch, the celebrated scholar of Sindh, worked
hard to piece together the Persian text of the Chachnama and published
it as a parallel English-Persian edition titled Fatehnama Sindh. He gifted
me a copy which kept lying in my books. Once Dr. Baloch visited
Syria during my posting there, and this led me to dream of getting the
Fatehnama translated back into the original Arabic. I was able to secure
the agreement of the Arabic translator of the Iranian Cultural offi ce in
Damascus to take on the project. This is how this great text of sub-
continental history was published after it was checked and authenticated
by Dr. Sohail Zakar an eminent Syrian historian.
In this information age, literacy has been redefi ned. If you don’t
know computer operation, you are illiterate. The world now consist of
knows and knows-nots. A lot is being said and written about this Digital
Divide. To keep up with the world, nations face an urgent challenge – to
make their populations computer literate, and fast. For this to happen
societies must be wired and languages made computer compliant.
Pakistan is making commendable progress in providing the internet and
telecom infrastructure. By the middle of this year, more than 50 percent
of the population will be connected through mobile communications,
including the fi rst in the world nationwide roll out of the state of the art
WIMAX technology. Broadband penetration is set to rise dramatically
in the next three years. What is lacking is the language compliance.
There is no machine translation capability in any Pakistani language.
Some initial work has been done at the National Language Authority’s
Centre for Urdu Informatics and at the Centre for Research in Urdu
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Language Processing at the Lahore Campus of FAST National University
of Computer and Emerging Sciences. Yet it is said 90 percent of the
work remains to be done. Without speedy localization, the vast majority
will remain devoid of computer use. While mobile communications
provides voice connectivity, data processing is all done via English.
Given the present very low rate of English literacy in Pakistan, we can
never hope to get our computer literacy ratio into double fi gures. Are we
then doomed to remain a nation of knows-nots?
But there is hope on the horizon. The Punjab government has recently
agreed to fund a modern Translation House at the Majlis Taraqqi Adab,
in Lahore to be headed by Mr. Shahzad Ahmad. At a recent meeting in
his offi ce setting up of a machine translation group was under discussion.
Also present were Dr. Jamil Jalibi, the formidable scholar of Urdu and
Dr. Majid Naeem, Head of the Computer Science Department at GCU.
Dr. Naeem was requesting for provision of two experts of linguistics – of
Urdu and English – and offered to arrange for funding and promised to
provide the fi nal machine translation capability for Urdu in three years.
So the effort is on.
According to Dr. Jalibi’s magnum opus History of Urdu Literature,
the fi rst grammar of Urdu was written in Dutch language by John
Kettler, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Netherlands to the Mughul
court. Called Lingua Hindostanica, it was published in 1743. At that
time, and for centuries to come, the Urdu discourse was dominated by
religious writing. No wonder today we lack expertise in Urdu linguistics
and grammar in Pakistan. Here you will also see some rationale for the
comment of Marshall Hodgson on the poverty of Urdu language given
above.
An area of substantial growth in the translation industry over the last
two decades has been the activity of software ‘localization.’ Localization
clearly relates to the translation needs generated by the informational
economy in an era of global markets, states Prof Michael Cronin in his
book, “Translation and Globalization.” It essentially involves taking a
product that has already been designed and tailoring it to the needs of a
specifi c local market. For 1999, the world market for software and web
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localization was estimated to be $ 11 billion, expecting it to rise to $ 20
billion by 2004. More than 80 percent of e-mail and data content in the
world, and 91 percent of secure websites are in English language. 70
percent of the books published today are in English, French, Russian
and German languages. More and more countries are seeking to provide
these technologies to their people in their native languages, the biggest
of them being China, Japan, Korea, Germany, France, Italy, Russia and
Iran. In this localization drive, Prof Cronin sees the new opportunity for
English speaking Asians. For us in Pakistan the preparations will begin
with foreign language competencies and Translation Studies.
Prof. Cronin, who heads the Centre for Translation and Textual
Studies at Dublin City University, Ireland, begins his book by a reference
to a novel The Last War, or the Triumph of the English Tongue, written
by Samuel W. Odell in 1898. “The new world is now the United States of
the World and the ‘English race’ has conquered the globe. The triumph of
the English language is made easier by the mobilization of 1500 airships
laden with bombs and an unquenchable primitive fi re. Faced with certain
death from the air, speakers of languages such as French, German and
Chinese decide that translation is the better part of valour and they set
about translating themselves into the language of the superior airpower.
In Odell’s book of revelation, when the tongues of fi re descend, the
message is not to go out and preach in diverse languages but to stay
inside and speak one.”
This is the paradigm for Cronin’s thesis on the increased signifi cance
of translation in this era of globalization, especially for the minority
cultures which face extinction because of the raging might of the
languages of major powers. (Here we have nothing to fear from the
“language-less” India, its constitution recognises 22 spoken languages,
besides the classical Sanskrit and the co-offi cial English; the country is
fast becoming an ape-civilisation of US). “Translation, and by extension
translation studies,” he says, “is ideally placed to understand both the
transnational movement that is globalization and the transnational
movement which is anti-globalization.” He examines this aspect in
some detail with a view to “showing those outside the discipline that
translation engages with questions which are of real importance for the
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185CRITERION – April/June 2008
past, present and future of humanity.”
An active sense of citizenship must involve translation as a core
element. While discussing translation-interpretation as vital skills for a
knowledge-based foreign policy, he states that “Imperial Rome, Classical
France and Romantic Germany accord translation a privileged role as
a means of bolstering the position and standing of the vernacular” as
well as their economies and national power. Should it surprise us that
we have failed to market our export products in language rich societies
like the Arab world, Japan, China, Germany, Russia, Brazil, and Spain?
A customer always buys in his own language. So it is incumbent on
the seller to know the language of his target markets. I don’t think
that this truth has sunk in with our Trade Development Authority. Our
manufacturers certainly are aware of this but lack facilitation advice or
support.
“The Comparative Advantage of nations is to take the waiting
out of wanting. Peripherality is no longer geographically defi ned, but
now is chronologically defi ned. It is defi ned by the speed with which
information-rich (fi nancial products, on-line support, telemarketing of
products and services) and design-rich (popular music, web design, and
advertising) goods and services can be delivered to potential customers.”
Again “objects created in the post-industrial world are progressively
emptied of their material content. The result is the proliferation of signs
rather than material objects.” This has been called ‘aestheticization.’
Taken together this highlights the fact that industrial and business
creativity now increasingly depends on the translation capabilities of a
society.
Promotion of a translation culture is also important to foster values
of tolerance and peaceful coexistence among faiths, races and countries.
The paradigm of Dialogue/Clash of civilisations is best tackled through
book translations rather than leaving the fi eld for the media which are in
a hurry to sell their daily and hourly products in an increasingly noisy
marketplace of ideas. “Making knowledge and information available
in minority languages is not only an effective way of extending the
range and usefulness of the language concerned but it also allows the
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186 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
regional, the national and the global to be made local in a way that
is politically enabling and allows for the beginning of a recovery of
control over people’s political, economic and cultural fates.” Its the
translation stupid!
DIMENSION AND CONSEQUENCES
OF NATO EXPANSION TO EURASIA:
REVIEWING IRAN’S SECURITY
ENVIRONMENT
Arif Kemal*
Abstract
(NATO expansion on Iran’s northern flank is a reminder of the
latter’s encirclement which reached a pinnacle earlier in the decade
with the US ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. However the driving
force behind NATO expansion in the Eurasian region is energy and
trade centred thereby signifying an obvious European dimension. A
“new Great Game” is being enacted in the region in which Czarist
Russia and Imperial Britain have been replaced on the one hand by
the US-led coalition and, on the other, by Russia and China. A neo-
Cold War could be in the making. To achieve the multiple objectives of
energy security, trade corridors, stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan and
stemming the resurgence of the Taliban, co-opting rather than isolating
Iran is essential. Policy revisions, therefore, need to be made by both
Washington as well as by Tehran. Editor)
NATO expansion on Iran’s northern flanks is a reminder, if any
were needed, of the country’s encirclement. Earlier in the decade,
the process had reached its zenith with the US military ventures in
Afghanistan in the east, and Iraq in the west. Yet the accretion in the
‘encirclement’ caused by NATO’s expansion is primarily motivated
by energy and trade interests thereby signifying an obvious European
connection which, in turn, implies that it is not patently Iran-specific.
The measure lacks the potency to outweigh Iran’s geo-political standing
* Arif Kamal is a former Ambassador of Pakistan
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188 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
or to deny it the dividends that are built into the very opening of the great
landmass of Central Asia and the Caucuses to Europe and the Indian
Ocean. Furthermore, NATO presence in the region faces competition
from Russia and China, which casts doubt upon its sustainability. The
‘New Great Game,’ being played out on Iran’s northern flanks, therefore,
presents both challenges as well as opportunities that are critical to the
country’s current strategic environment as it confronts, in parallel, the
sanctions’ regime imposed by the US after the 1979 Revolution.
‘The New Great Game’ in the contemporary Eurasian scene is a
replay of the 19th century contest for advantage in the region. The old
actors, Czarist Russia and Imperial Britain, have been replaced by the
US-led coalition with a sizeable West European interest on the one
side, and, on the other by Russia (as well as China). The competing
players do share common ground on the perceived threat emanating
from ‘terrorism’ and ‘extremism’ in the backdrop of 9/11. However,
the game as it emerges today, essentially relates to control over energy
resources, development and pricing, and supply routes that are vital to
the Western economies. It has already set in motion NATO’s active
engagement, both economic and military, with newly independent states
in the region, and has led to an evolving response from Russia and China
that smacks of a neo-Cold War in the making. Concurrently, the contest
holds the promise of greater openings in trade to and from Central Asia
and of its long-term development. In the scenario, Iran ought to be seen
as the foremost gatepost in the neighbourhood and thus very much in
the fall-out range.
To recall, NATO’s ascent in Central Asia was at first identified
with the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) Programme started
in the mid-1990s and later with the high visibility gained with its
military presence. The alliance has, since 2003, successfully negotiated
military transit agreements and other support arrangements with several
Central Asian governments in order to linkup with its operational bases
in Afghanistan. It is now designated as an area of NATO’s “special
focus.”1
The core US objectives in Central Asia relate to “securing access
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189CRITERION – April/June 2008
to energy resources”2 (energy supply routes in more specifi c terms),
besides efforts to limit ‘terrorism’ and ‘Islamic extremism,’ as well as
promote human rights and democracy. The primacy of energy in its
agenda is based on the premise that, in the coming decades, energy
scarcity and manipulation are likely to become the most likely causes
of armed confl ict in the European theatre and the surrounding region.
In this context, NATO has a new “expanded role in energy security”3
and, towards this end, is forging strategic partnership equations with the
energy-rich states in Central Asia and the Caucuses.
The focal points of the Western interest to-date are the evolving
route maps of energy supply to Europe, whether potential or actualized,
and the investments that come in the way. Interestingly, these ventures
rest upon the premise of minimizing the Russian and Iranian connections
and thus denying these geographically contiguous powers any leverage
they could possibly exercise. The case in point is the BTC pipeline,
“designed to challenge Russian hegemony over energy in the Caspian
region”4 and already regarded a success story. It “relives Azerbaijan from
dependence on Russia”5 and brings dividends to Azerbaijan as well as
Europe. Similarly, the option to carry Turkmen gas to the Indian Ocean
via western Afghanistan, by-passing Iran, has been in the offi ng for quite
some time. It would serve “as a symbol and milestone”6 analogous to the
window that BTC is already providing. These developments are seen as
“a help to break the Russian and Iranian energy transit monopoly.”7
Conversely, Russia’s drive in the region aims at enforcing its role as
the source and conduit of energy supply to Europe. Moscow’s economic
goals extend to ensuring that its fi rms participate in developing the
region’s natural resources and the “Central Asian oil and gas exporters
continue to use Russian pipelines.”8 In pursuing the objectives, it would
like to maximize its inherent geographical advantage and interdependence
from the Soviet era, including transport infrastructure for oil, gas and
electricity. Concurrently, Russia continues to increase, in qualitative
terms, its military activity in Central Asia around the erstwhile nucleus
it inherited from the Soviet era.
The evolving Russian posture in the contemporary setting relates
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190 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
to “restoring Moscow’s infl uence”9 in the region as a matter of priority
rather than acquiesce with its exclusion. (Interestingly, President Putin
is reported to have described the Soviet Union’s collapse as one of the
greatest catastrophes of the 20th century”).10 Russia’s message across the
board in Central Asia is to caution against the US presence as a major
source of instability, in the wake of its drive for ‘democratization’ and
‘human rights,’ and to call for greater interdependence within the region
to ward off US pressure.
The resurgence of Russia–China ‘community of interest’ in check-
mating the American inroads into Central Asia, even though in low key,
is a phenomena of considerable interest. Both have shared an ‘unease
at the elevated US deployment’11 in Central Asia since 2001 and have
cooperated to “reduce the US infl uence in the region.”12 Besides the
traditional Russian stakes, a newer driving force in the direction is
China’s growing energy needs and efforts to acquire greater assets in
the fi eld. Their leverage to prevent US encroachment into the spheres
of infl uence would enlarge as they accrue more Central Asian energy
assets. Contrary to earlier projections, the post-Soviet era Central Asia
is “not an object of rivalry”13 between Moscow and Beijing but ‘rather a
major unifying element’ in their relationship.
An overarching objective in the Sino-Russian Strategic Partnership
(1996) and its culmination in the Good Neighbourly Treaty of Friendship
(2001) (‘love thy neighbour camaraderie’14), is to ‘limit US infl uence in
Central Asian geo-politics.’15 This came to the fore with the 2005 Sino-
Russian military exercises, seen as a ‘grand affair’ that took place to the
exclusion of US troops even though located in proximate bases. In the
current scenario, the Shanghai process has emerged as a fl ag-carrier of
the new direction. The process though initially precipitated by a drive
against ‘terrorism’ and ‘extremism,’ is now vital from the standpoint of
its core participants: energy-rich Central Asians, and from the agenda
that can take shape from a Sino-Russian convergence of interests.16 The
SCO summit (2005) caused a stir when it called the US and its allies
“to set a timetable for their military withdrawal”17 from the region. The
non-renewal of the US base in Uzbekistan in the period was indeed a
test case in this regard.
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191CRITERION – April/June 2008
What does the contemporary Eurasian scene signify for Iran and
its security preoccupations? The region’s proven oil and gas reserves18
are indeed tempting and perceived important as a strong alternative to
the Persian Gulf energy.19 It offers the possibility to ‘reduce the West’s
perennial vulnerability to price increases and threatened cut-offs.’ The
West is not ready to overlook the potential threat from political turmoil or
terrorist threat in the Middle East and from the vulnerability of the Straits
of Hormous, the lifeline of oil fl ow from the Gulf. “The use of energy as
an overt weapon” is no more seen as theoretical.20 Only a halt in Iran’s
export of 3.5 million barrels a day carries the potential of destabilizing
the world energy market.21 In more specifi c terms, a contracting interest
in Iran as a viable energy source even though a distant possibility, raises
questions regarding Iran’s economic security. Secondly, the development
of Eurasian energy potential and related infrastructure would not be
unwelcome in the contemporary globalized environment. However,
Iran’s exclusion in an expanded development, especially related to
infrastructure linkup with Europe, would run counter to the country’s
long-term interest. It is therefore, in Iran’s benefi t to avail opportunities
to participate in Central Asian infrastructure development projects, even
as a minor investor, so as to keep its foothold in the arena, work towards
eroding the US sanctions regime and thus relieve pressures. The ‘Great
Game’ in which Russia and China are players, also holds the promise of
dividends for Iran as a gatepost.
NATO’s operation on Iran’s northern fl ank has unfolded a mix
of the alliance’s ‘soft power’ (expressed in funding through the Euro
Atlantic Partnership Programme) and ‘hard power’ (military bases/
transit facilities) in line with activation of its energy–related interests.
The military presence, though ostensibly a bridgehead for Afghanistan,
tends to accentuate Iran’s fears arising from the US policy of containment.
The northern factor, however small and transient, remains fl agged
in the wake of the massive US presence in Afghanistan and Iraq and
operational bases in the Gulf. At least on the psychological level, this
acquires particular signifi cance amidst the oft-repeated possibility of
surgical strikes against Iran’s nuclear installations.
Threat perceptions, whether rhetorical or real, have fuelled the fi re of
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192 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
turbulent relations between Iran and the West, particularly the US, in the
past decades since 1979. The Islamic Revolution was regarded a strategic
loss22 to the West’s primary interests in relation to Middle Eastern oil
and Israel’s defence. The fears of what is seen as the country’s role in
promoting ‘terrorism’ and now the focus on the nuclear programme, are
only sequential to this concern. In the long journey through the sanctions’
regime, Iran has been viewed as the “single country that may pose the
greatest danger to US interest.”23 This, in turn, has convinced the US
about the need to clip Iran’s wings and pursue a policy of containment.
The US policy of containment that overshadowed Iran’s security
environment since 1979, is indeed up for a ‘reality-check’ so as to
gauge its potency in the contemporary scene. Since the unfolding of the
Islamic Revolution, Iran’s relations with the West and its proxies in the
neighbourhood have been turbulent. The country “felt politically isolated,
insecure and, above all, threatened24” in the backdrop of its exposure to
WMD-capable Iraq, an unstable region and lack of international support.
Almost three decades later, however, ‘most conditions have changed in
Iran’s favour.’25 Hopes for a change of regime have faded away. With
the demise of al-Baath, there is no real threat to Iranian security from
Iraq. In contrast to past decades, Iran enjoys good relations with most of
the states within the region (Israel excluded) and is establishing growing
economic relations with major powers. The sanctions’ regime has not
bought about the isolation of Iran that was intended.
Ironically, the containment of Iran carried with it the seeds of
reverse effect as well. Iran has been the greatest though un-intended,
benefi ciary of the US ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq: the fall of the
Salfi -driven Taliban and of the Saddam-led Al-Baath. The collapse of
the rivals on both fl anks had, in turn, opened fl ood gates of Iranian
infl uence beyond the traditional realm.26 It also generated fears amongst
the status quo forces regarding the so-called Shia Crescent which, in
effect, transcends the sectarian divide.27 There is a climatic change: Iran
is acknowledged and respected as a regional player,28 not just feared or
dismissed as a coordinate point of radical forces. Rather than isolate
and put the ‘squeeze’ on Iran, it would serve Washington’s interests
more, if it pursues the opposite policy. Through co-opting Tehran, the
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193CRITERION – April/June 2008
US would be better placed to unknot the Iraqi quagmire and to stabilize
Afghanistan so as to thwart the resurgence of the Taliban.
The potency of any particular threat from the north is perceptibly
marginal in the overall containment scenario faced by Iran. Moreover,
it carries greater inbuilt safety valves when compared with other fl anks.
First, Iran’s geographic disposition and its position as the region’s point
of access to the outside world is indeed greater and more enduring
than what any contrary assessment may like to project. Second, this
advantage is re-enforced by institutional arrangements29 which now
extend to coordination and response to encroachments that come from
extra-regional forces. Iran’s entry as an observer in the Shanghai process,
besides being a member of the Economic Cooperation Organization and
the club of Caspian region, adds to the strength30 of the argument that it
is relevant to contemporary security concerns in the region. Third, an
organic linkage between ‘Russian resurgence’ and its ‘strategic stakes’
in Iran is indeed a vital factor in the current scenario.31 The competing
interests of Russia (and of China) in Eurasia provide Iran suffi cient time
and space to increase its economic engagement in the region, specially
a foothold in energy-related infrastructure investment, and thus, further
erode the impact of the sanctions’ regime.
The American sanctions regime already suffers from fatigue and
erosion32 and therefore, newer steps unfolded in the direction are out
of touch with reality. The US pronouncements and actions vis-à-vis
Iran, though impregnated with negative images, continue to carry
acknowledgement of the country’s important standing as a repository
of the third largest oil and second largest gas reserves in the world and
its ‘central location between Asian and European markets.33 Today, the
prime interest for stability in the oil-bearing region would be best served
through a better understanding of the Iranian situation on three counts:
First, Iran is now a front-ranking regional power in spite of the sanction-
ridden history. Second, what Iran seeks today is recognition of this status
rather than exporting revolution. The nuclear issue ought to be seen as
one major denominator of this urge. Third, isolation of the Iranians is
likely to push them back to the psyche of the post-revolutionary period,
which should be avoided. Notwithstanding the neo-conservative mindset
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194 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
and Israeli interests, it is important from the standpoint of American
interests to have a re-engagement with Iran even though incremental,
and to benefi t from the Iranian factor in assuring long-term stability in
the region. This may come in time with the increasing US need to fi nd
an ‘exit strategy’ from Iraq and for that, a reduction of tensions with Iran
would be needed.34
The Russia-China convergence of interests in response to NATO’s
expansion in Eurasia and their appreciation of Iran’s standing, is indeed
a source of strength for the Iranian endeavour to look beyond the ‘era of
containment.’ This also raises questions about the very sustainability of
NATO’s presence in the region. Iran can hopefully rely upon this factor
as a balancer while factoring in the need for a future reconciliation with
the US.
References:
1 Richard Weitz, “Averting a New Great Game in Central Asia”, The Washington Quarterly,
(Summer 2006), pp. 155-167.
2 Ibid.
3 U.S Sen. Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Dick Lungar, “Lungar Speech in
Advance of NATO Summit”, The Power and Interest News Report, (November 22,
2006).
4 Michael Piskur, “The B.T.C Pipeline and the Increasing Importance of Energy Supply
Routs”, (The Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation, August 8,
2006).
5 Nicklas Norling and Niklas Swanstrom, “The Virtues and Potential Gains of Continental
Trade in Eurasia”, Asian Survey, Vol. XLVII, No. 3, (May/June 2007).
6 Ibid.
7 Ariel Cohen, “US Interests and Central Asia Energy Security”, Backgrounder # 1984,
(The Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation, November 15,
2006).
8 Richard Weitz, “Averting a New Great Game in Central Asia”, The Washington Quarterly,
(Summer 2006), pp. 155-167.
9 Ariel Cohen, “US Interests and Central Asia Energy Security”, Backgrounder # 1984,
(The Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation, November 15,
Essay
195CRITERION – April/June 2008
2006).
10 Richard Weitz, “Averting a New Great Game in Central Asia”, The Washington Quarterly,
(Summer 2006), pp.155-167.
11 Ibid.
12 Ariel Cohen, “US Interests and Central Asia Energy Security”, Backgrounder # 1984,
(The Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation, November 15,
2006)
13 Richard Weitz, “Averting a New Great Game in Central Asia”, The Washington Quarterly,
(Summer 2006), pp.155-167.
14 Priyanka Singh, “Russia and China Joint War Games: What Lies Beneath?”, (September
8, 2005): http://www.ipcs.org/China_east_asia_articles2.jsp?action=showView&kValue
=1848&keyArticle=1009&issue=1009&status=article&mod=a
15 Ibid.
16 Rukmani Gupta, “The SCO: Challenging US Pre-eminence?”, (June 20, 2006): http://
www.ipcs.org/China_east_asia_articles2.jsp?action=showView&kValue=2056&issue=1
009&status=article&keyArticle=1009&mod=b
17 Richard Weitz, “Averting a New Great Game in Central Asia”, The Washington Quarterly,
(Summer 2006), pp.155-167.
18 According to the Energy Information Administration of the United States, Kazakhstan’s
proven oil reserves amount to 40 billion barrels per day whereas her natural gas reserves
range between 65-100 T cf. Proven oil reserves of Caspian region in totality range from
17-49 billion barrels per day and its natural gas reserves currently amount to 232 T cf.
Persian Gulf region, on the other hand possesses oil reserves of 728 billion barrels per
day i.e. 55% of world’s proven oil reserves, whereas its Natural gas reserves currently
stand at 2509 T cf i.e. over 40% of world’s total natural gas reserves
19 Ariel Cohen, “US Interests and Central Asia Energy Security”, Backgrounder # 1984,
(The Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation, November 15,
2006)
20 U.S Sen. Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Dick Lungar, “Lungar Speech in
Advance of NATO Summit”, The Power and Interest News Report, (November 22,
2006).
21 Tariq Fatemi, “Is US determined to attack Iran”?, Dawn Newspaper, (February 18,
2006).
22 Dr. Subhash Kapila, “Iran: United States - Strategic Options Re Examined”, South Asia
Analysis Group, (April 18, 2007): http://www.saag.org/%5Cpapers23%5Cpaper2213.
html.
23 Jim Saxton, “Iran’s Gas and Oil Wealth”, The Joint Economic Committee Study of United
States Congress, (March 2006)
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196 CRITERION – Volume 3 No.2
24 James E. Doyle and Sara Kutchesfahani, “Time for a US/Iran Patch up”, (March 21,
2006): http://www.carnegieendowment.org/fi les/LosAlamos_Iran.pdf.
25 Ibid.
26 Geoffrey Kemp, “Iran and Iraq: The Shia Connection, Soft Power and the Nuclear
Factor”, Special Report 156, (November 2005): http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/
sr156.pdf.
27 The term “Shia Crescent” has been used by Jordan’s King Abdullah twice during 2004-
2006 to denote the expanding Iranian infl uence among states and non-state actors in West
Asia. A convergence of interest amongst the non-state actors across the sectarian divide,
was repeatedly expressed in the period: e.g Hizbullah and Hamas shared fora to mobilize
political support. Similarly, Iraq’s Shia leader Muqtada Sadr proclaimed himself as the
“beating arm of both Hamas and Hisbullah….” (Khutba at Kufa Grand Mosque during
2004 revolt in Faluja).
28 Ray Takeyh and Nikolas K. Gvosdev, Pragmatism in the Midst of Iranian Turmoil”,
The Washington Quarterly, (The Centre for Strategic and International Studies and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Autumn 2004)
29 Priyanka Singh, “Russia and China Joint War Games: What Lies Beneath?”, (September
8, 2005): http://www.ipcs.org/China_east_asia_articles2.jsp?action=showView&kValue
=1848&keyArticle=1009&issue=1009&status=article&mod=a.
30 Rukmani Gupta, “The SCO: Challenging US Pre-eminence?”, (June 20, 2006): http://
www.ipcs.org/China_east_asia_articles2.jsp?action=showView&kValue=2056&issue=1
009&status=article&keyArticle=1009&mod=b.
31 Dr. Subhash Kapila, “Iran: United States - Strategic Options Re Examined”, South Asia
Analysis Group, (April 18, 2007): http://www.saag.org/%5Cpapers23%5Cpaper2213.
html.
32 Lt Col Robert C. Dooley, “Iran: Threat or Opportunity? A Selective Economic Engagement
Strategy Proposal”, (Washington: National Defence University, National War College:
http://www.ndu.edu/library/n4/n045601I.pdf.
33 For insights into the American view of the Iranian potential, see: “Iran’s Gas and Oil
Wealth”, The Joint Economic Committee Study of United States Congress, (March
2006).
34 For a fuller review of the subject, see International Crisis Group, “Iran in Iraq: How much
Infl uence?” (March 2005, Brussels)