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Jihadi media
Ali K Chishti
General Musharraf said in 2005 that terrorist groups have mushroomed in cities and recruit people openly, train them, collect donations and publish and distribute jihadi literature. His claim may well be true with the number of jihadi publications fast multiplying
Our curriculum at private and state managed schools and madarssas uses propaganda to educate like the Urdu alphabet letters bey for bandooq (gun) instead of bakri (goat) and jeem for jihad instead of jahaz (ship)
Most of the jihadi literature or magazines are also sectarian in nature and carry out provocative and hate filled Q&A sessions against Shia, Ahmadiyya and even Agha Khani communities
Throughout the years, the number of jihadi writings has grown enormously in Pakistan. Nowadays, books and fatwas on any given subject related to jihadi thoughts can easily be found and downloaded from the internet. The business of jihadi literature which initially started to fund various Jihadis organisations in Pakistan now is used not just to spread certain propaganda but is often used to recruit potential jihadis, radicalise minds and even spread encoded messages. And its not limited to visual media alone. Our curriculum at private and state managed schools and madarssas uses the same propaganda to educate like the Urdu alphabet letters bey for bandooq (gun) instead of bakri (goat) and jeem for jihad instead of jahaz (ship). These jihadi public schools which adopts hate literature printed by banned organisations manufacture the Kasabs and Shezad Tanvirs of our world, who when asked about their identity, proudly call themselves Muslims first and Pakistani second. In reality they face a serious identity crisis. Thanks to such literature we are slowly creating millions of non-state actors whose handlers could prod them into doing anything by evoking emotions through misquoting even Quranic verses at times.
Jihadi media, a combo of journals, audio and CDs and the Web 3.0 which took off during the Afghan-Soviet. Its originated in 1962 when the a state functionary of the government, the Council for Islamic Ideology promoted the censorship of media and manufactured public opinion initially through radio Pakistan and later targeted curriculum where hate provoking literature was thrust into Pak-Studies and Islamiyat books. Thus the manufacturing of a set-public opinions using Iqbals lingo of mard-e-momin and shaheen . In fact the man tasked by the Ayub regime to do this was Syed Ubaidul Islam, a veteran worker of Radio Pakistan who wrote the book titled, Idara-e-Moarraf-r-Islami (Islamic journalism) which created a new paradigm for journalism to mould Pakistani society according to an Islamic ethos. The idea was later taken up by the security establishment, especially during the Zia tenure when the 1 Muslim = 10 Hindus analogy was manufactured.
So bold have been militant Islamist organisations in Pakistan that they have started there own publishing houses spreading their own version of jihad via customised magazines and curriculum books which can be picked up from any news stand or book shops. It is estimated that some twenty six different publications are printed and distributed by various militant and banned Islamist organisations in Pakistan alone and over 12,000 schools and madarssas are teaching this hate to their students, mostly in Urdu and even in English for the new generation-X crowd. These publications are specifically and deliberately targeted towards the youth with a heavy dose of pictures of mutilated bodies of Muslims around the world (obviously for a purpose as traditional Ahl-e-Hadith and Deoband views prohibit pictures).
Interestingly Dr Afia Siddiqui because of her sentence in the US was the favorite topic of jihadi magazines where numerous references have been made to her case by different groups, including Jaish-e-Mohammad in their weekly online magazine, Al-Qalam . The arrest/torture of our innocent, Muslim sister by the infidels rhetoric plays on the honor code and anti-western sentiments of young Pakistani men whom militant leaders aim to attract and recruit. Siddiqui was brought up again in a recent joint interview by Hakimullah Mehsud and Wali-ur-Rehman in October 2009; the video ended with the question who will rescue our sister Dr Aafia Siddiqui from these Christian barbarians? That the new TTP leadership via their own youtube channel and literature continues to use Siddiqui as subject matter to appeal to their audiences shows the extent of her importance to the Pakistani jihadi propaganda mill. At one Deoband mardarssa just outside Karachi Aafias mention was in the curriculum, portrayed as Islam ki Beti (daughter of Islam).
Jamaat-ud Dawa, a parent organisation of banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, claims to sell more than 200,000 of its Majalah al Dawa magazines each-month and had an interesting chapter on Aafia Siddiqui. The author singles out Aafia Siddiqui, who has her hopes hitched on us Muslims now. Examples are given of Fatima and Noor who in their letters from Abu Ghraib prison claimed: every day 10 U.S. soldiers assault/abuse us at one time. Such melodrama!
The most interesting part of the whole jihadi media is that whatever acts the Government of Pakistan officially denies, these jihadi organisations take credit for and glorify such crimes in their respected literatures and web portals. Lets take an example of previously published Jihad Times and Al-Hilal operated by Masood Azhers organisation Jaish-e-Muhammad. They were banned and subsequently published under new names, Muslim Times and Al-Muhammad , and took full credit for the Indian parliament attacks in 2001 and the Indian Airlines flight 814 hijacking in 1999. In an article published in Jihad Times, Maulana Masood Azhers brother took full responsibility of carrying out the hijacking and termed it, the greatest achievement of Mujahideens.
Newer versions of jihadi literature are an even better read where the emphasis of authors is obdurately on two topics, democracy and secularism. In Zerb Momin, a hardcore and hard to find exclusive magazine of jihadis the authors claim that democracy hurts and damages Islam. They state that it pervades Muslim rules and gives unbelievers power over Muslims. This is also why the authors reject setting up ones own political party or entering parliament. Secularism has been mentioned in dramatic terms as well; the worship of the idol of secularism is responsible for moral decay in the Muslim worlds educational facilities and hampers the spread of Islams message, leads to the persecution of Islamic preachers and, interestingly, leads to the cancellation of the duty to perform jihad. Most of the jihadi literature or magazines are also sectarian in nature and carry out provocative and hate filled Q&A sessions against Shia, Ahmadiyya and even Agha Khani communities.
While Pakistani government did take steps to curb jihadi literature after 2005, there is irrefutable evidence of Pakistans double speak and play where it is proved on numerous occasions that the government has actually promoted, aided and circulated certain jihadi magazines. A former top intelligence official said, It is what we call, funding proxies and since it is hard to fund one suitable jihadi organisation directly due to tighter monetary control and surveillance, the easiest way is to print 100,000 copies of a publication, buy it off for a set price, and then distribute it.
The best example of jihadis using media were seen on the 1st of October when Osama Bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda chief finally broke his silence in an eleven minute audio tape titled, Stop the Method of Relief Work (which has a rather bizarre meaning). The message from the Sheikh as described by an Arabic media website as, that the floods were Allahs punishment against the Pakistani people for not following Islamic law.
The author is a political analyst specialising in counter-terrorism and can be reached out at akchishti@hotmail.com
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