Islamic Fundamentalism

As everybody knows, after 9/11 it is growing stronger in the west a fear of everything Muslim. This fear has lead to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but far from reach stability it had only deepened the already huge gap between two completely different worlds.

In order to understand the root of the threats we face nowadays by Islamic Fundamentalist groups we have to visit the history of Pakistan's foundation and events in Afghanistan in the last 30 years.

Pakistan 

It is here in the Indus River valley (map below) that two very different civilizations collide. To the southeast lie the fertile lowlands of the Indian subcontinent. To the west and north stretch the harsh, windswept mountains of Central Asia.

It is also where two conflicting forms of Islam meet: the relatively relaxed and tolerant Islam of India versus the rigid fundamentalism of the Afghan frontier.

Pakistan Country map

In 1947 India, a longtime British colony gains its independence and is partitioned into India and Pakistan, a nation for Muslins. 

Back in India, Mahatma Ghandi, the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India's Independence Movement believed that the question of partition should be resolved by a plebiscite in the districts with a Muslim majority and when in 1946 Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan called for a Direct Action what started a huge manslaughter Ghandi was infuriated. 

The Partition displaced up to 14 million people of the former British Indian empire meaning that  large populations moved from India to Pakistan and vice versa, depending on their religious beliefs. 

Muslim residents of the former British India migrated to Pakistan (including East Pakistan which is now Bangladesh), whilst Hindu and Sikh residents of Pakistan and Hindu residents of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) moved in the opposite direction. It was one of the biggest Human Migration in History.

Maybe what Ghandi was afraid was a manslaughter which followed. As many as a million people died in sectarian riots, massacres and killings along the way.

60 years later

Pakistan today is a country with 165 million people (97% Muslims) but so far it has never been united as one Nation. 

Since its independence It has been involved in four wars with neighbouring India and several borders skirmishes with Afghanistan which made its successive Governments spend billions on the Military while neglecting the basic needs of its people for justice, health, education, security and hope what naturally lead to a growing herd of opponents demanding a return to civilian and democratic rule. It is still a country where politics are made of assassinations, plots, bomb attacks, etc.

Ordinary people are also stifled by a government and police force that are among the most corrupt in the world, led by an army that answers to no one.

It was a similar lawlessness that drove the people of Afghanistan into the arms of the Taliban in the mid-1990s and am afraid it might be the same faith Pakistan will face whether political chaos. poverty and corruption remain.

In 1979 when then Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and brought the cold war once more to Asia, Pakistan aligned with USA which dropped millions and millions of dollars into it for financing the Mujahideen (Muslim fighters) insurgency who had fled Afghanistan. 

The problem is that what the Mujahideen have done was to declare a Jihad (Holy War) against the Soviets with American money... USA ended up financing extremists groups, among them the Al-qaeda of Osama bin Laden, so by that time Osama was an ally. (sic!)

After the war was ended it was already too late and the seeds of Fundamentalism was deeply rooted into the strongholds of northern Pakistan where these fanatics found a secure place to hide.  Combined with the misery and lack of security of the people the forces of Islamic radicalism are gaining strength and challenging Pakistan's moderate majority...

Afghanistan

A former focal point of the Silk Road and human migration, Afghanistan was destroyed during the 10 years war with Soviet Union. After the war the Americans just left the country to its own faith which lead to a Taliban takeover in 1996. 

When in power, the Taliban enforced one of the strictest interpretations of Sharia law ever seen in the Muslim world, and became notorious internationally for their treatment of women. Women were forced to wear the burqa in public. They were allowed neither to work nor to be educated after the age of eight, and until then were permitted only to study the Qur'an. They were not allowed to be treated by male doctors unless accompanied by a male chaperon, which led to illnesses remaining untreated. They faced public flogging in the street, and public execution for violations of the Taliban's laws.

Devastation of war, scars of the Taliban rule, misery and so on are still felt in Afghanistan. The country has been rebuilt slowly with the support from the international community while dealing with the Taliban insurgency.

After evading U.S. forces throughout the summer of 2002, the remnants of the Taliban gradually began to regain their confidence and launched the insurgency that Mullah Mohammed Omar had promised during the Taliban's last days in power. During September 2002, Taliban forces began a recruitment drive in Pashtun areas in both Afghanistan and Pakistan to launch a renewed "jihad" against the Afghan government and the U.S-led coalition. Pamphlets distributed in secret during the night also began to appear in many villages in the former Taliban heartland in southeastern Afghanistan. 

Small mobile training camps were established along the border with Pakistan by al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives to train new recruits in guerrilla warfare and tactics, according to Afghan sources and a United Nations report. Most of the new recruits were drawn from the madrassas or religious schools of the tribal areas of Pakistan, from which the Taliban had originally arisen. 

Major bases, a few with as many as 200 men, were created in the mountainous tribal areas of Pakistan by the summer of 2003. The will of the Pakistani paramilitaries stationed at border crossings to prevent such infiltration was called into question, and Pakistani military operations proved of little use.

There is no political stability in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Misery, violence, insurgency, lack of justice and law enforcement altogether lead to despair and frustration.

When government fails to people, people get angry. They lose faith in the system and look for alternatives which gives lots of ground to Islamists or Taliban or Al-Qaeda to grow. 

When citizens are denied their basic human rights, they become radicalized, powerless and easily manipulated.

Peshawar, northern Pakistan

A group of students from a madrassa nearby or religious school in their late teens or early 20s. They say their dream for Pakistan  is "a peaceful nation, in which justice prevails, in keeping with Islamic law." But they believe, as many there do, that Islam is under attack by America, by the West, by India and by their own Government. Under these circumstances, they say, Jihad or Holy war is justified...

What about suicide bombing? Is it sanctioned by Islam? 

"You must think we have classes here in making bombs or AK-47s" exclaims one boy and they all laugh!

We cannot label Muslims as "terrorist" cause first of all  generalizations are stupid and usually don't reflect the reality.  Islam has 1,5 billion adherents and is the second largest religion after Christianity making up 23% of world's population.

The clashes between moderates and extremists in Pakistan today reflects this rift and can be seen as a microcosm for a larger struggle among Muslims everywhere.

I live in Malaysia, a country with a majority of Muslim population. Have several Muslims friends and I dun think one of them will blow themselves anytime soon, but Malaysia is a moderate country and has a completely different Economic and politic background, but even here from time to time you can see some fundamentalism like the caning sentence imposed on Kartika Sri Dewi Shukarnor, a divorced mother of two, for drinking beer in a resort bar two years ago. Later due to pressures coming from the international community the sentence has been commuted to community service on the orders of the Sultan of Pahang.

Should the west be afraid of Muslims or Islamic Fundamentalism?