How can the patient be helped if the patient refuses to acknowledge that he or she has fallen prey to a illness?
Are we in denial about terrorism?
Reality check
Friday, April 10, 2009
Shafqat Mahmood
A fundamental debate is on among the intelligentsia of our country regarding terrorism. The way it plays itself out will determine whether we win or lose. A consensus will help put all our energies towards winning. Discord or confusion will certainly lead to defeat.
One set, perhaps a majority, believes that we have no inherent problem of terrorism. It is only a reaction to American presence in Afghanistan. The attacks on our cities are explained away and sometimes condoned as a punishment for our support to the American war effort.
When confronted with evidence regarding presence of armed and dangerous foreigners in our tribal territory, the explanation is ingenious. They came here in the eighties, we are told, because the Pakistani government, with American help, invited them to fight the Soviets. After the Afghan war was over, meaning after the Taliban victory, they were living peacefully here until the Americans invaded Afghanistan.
The first part is true as far as Arabs are concerned. They indeed came here in the eighties motivated by jihad against the infidel Soviets. And they were facilitated by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence, which was managing the Afghan war on behalf of the Americans. But it is factually incorrect that they continued to live here peacefully after the Taliban took over Afghanistan.
Al Qaeda, whose members were living in FATA, had claimed responsibility for the attack on the American navy ship Cole in Yemen and on American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Osama bin Laden later also took credit for the 9/11 attacks in the United States. One of his accomplices, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, has confessed to his role and given details of how the attack was planned and carried out.
But no heed is paid to these accepted facts. The last part, particularly, is greeted with incredulity because, does not everyone know that 9/11 was an American intelligence operation launched with the help of the Israeli Mossad!
Leaving aside whether the Americans were attacked from Pakistani territory or not, the bare fact that these Arabs, Uzbeks, Chechens, Afghans and even Chinese Turks are illegal aliens in our country is of no concern to the "all because of America" cabal. Any activity on the part of the Pakistani government to apprehend these people is thus treated with ridicule and condemned.
Little note is taken, if indeed it registers, that "our best friends in the world," the Chinese, have formally complained to the government that their dissidents have established headquarters in FATA. Other countries, including many in Europe and the Middle East, have also expressed fears that attacks on their territory may emanate from here. President Obama has actually said as much.
This almost unanimous concern in the West and the United States is brushed aside and seen through a conspiracy lens. These people are out to get us because we are a nuclear power. They are creating circumstances, we are told, to invade and defang us. Remember, Baitullah Mehsud is their agent. We gave them his coordinates, yet he was not killed. Indeed, this entire insurgency in FATA has been engineered by the Americans aided by the Indians. The Indians, particularly, have a special role in training the Taliban. This Maulvi Fazalullah is probably working for them, and so on.
Let us believe that a part of what they say is correct. The Americans, the Europeans, the Indians and sundry others are indeed fearful of our nuclear power and would, if they could, take control of our nuclear assets. And let us also assume that to achieve this nefarious end they want to destabilise the country and create so much chaos that they have grounds to intervene.
The question is, why should we make it easier for them by allowing our territory to be used for terror attacks in their countries? Would our fears not become self-fulfilling prophecies if we continue to give our adversaries a cause to get angry with us?
One reason why we fail to reach a rational conclusion is that the security fears of other countries are not acknowledged by us, at all. If the 9/11 attacks are rubbished as a CIA/Mossad operation, then it follows that the London train attacks or the Spanish bombing in which hundreds died were also internal operations carried out by the British and Spanish intelligence agencies. In a similar vein, the person who tried to blow up airplanes in the sky, the Shoe Bomber, must also be an agent, and so also everyone else who has been plotting planning or carrying out terror operations in the West.
This line of thinking is not complete if the rationality behind the conspiracy is not explained. Why would the Americans and others kill their own citizens in hundreds and thousands and create so much fear? That pet answer is that they needed an enemy because none was left to fight after the end of the Cold War.
In other words, it is being said, that they have killed their own people in large numbers, emptied their treasuries fighting wars, created massive security apparatus at great public inconvenience, curtailed their citizens' liberties through intrusive surveillances and done much else only as a decoy to create Islam as an enemy.
The absurdity of this argument is not obvious to the "we are a target" crowd. The sad part is that even others who aware of the world and have no particular prejudice against the West, get taken in. Paranoia lurks in recesses of the brain and when problems or difficulties are not easy to explain, it takes charge. Collective paranoia is particularly dangerous because it leads to irrationality and fascism. It happened in Germany and Italy and Spain. Why should we consider ourselves immune?
One way to overcome irrational fears is to look within carefully and identify what we can do to make things better. The conspiracy cabal will however take issue with everything that is proposed. To the argument that no one should be able to use our territory to launch attacks outside, and that it is our duty to prevent them, there is no logical answer. Yet, this does not deter them from diverting the topic and saying how nasty and offensive others are.
If told that if our territory is used to launch attacks outside it is just as much a breach of our sovereignty as the American drone strikes, there is outrage. How can drone assaults be put in the same category as alleged terror attacks emanating from here. The fact is there is a huge blind spot when it comes to our own culpability. And this by well-meaning people who are not extremists. Those who believe in the Taliban version of a state actually applaud such attacks.
It is time that we as a nation open our eyes and understand what is happening. District by district our territory is being taken over by the extremist. It was FATA and Swat yesterday now Buner, Dir, Hangu, Mansehra, and even Mardan and Charsadda, are under direct threat. We are being occupied and yet we cannot agree on who our enemy is.
The world is becoming increasingly concerned and is prepared to help, but only if we are ready to help ourselves. If we remain in denial, a terrible catastrophe awaits us.
Email: shafqatmd@gmail.com
Readers should know that Shafqat is a former Senator.
