No reconciliation

Devoid of ideas that can be defended through civilized argument, the militants have no future

The attack on Malala Yousafazi once again raises the question whether it is possible to have a dialogue with the Taliban. The attack indicates the hidden fear pervading the TTP leadership about the fragility of their ideology. The network has lost hope, if ever it had any, of winning over people through arguments. They know that their Stone Age ideas can only be implemented through terror, by killing those who do not agree with them.

The militants knew that if the allowed the 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai to live, she could foil their attempts to deprive the girls in Swat of education.

They found that people considered her arguments more convincing than theirs. Malala stood for the education of girls and for the children’s rights. This was unacceptable to the militants who have destroyed hundreds of schools, particularly those imparting education to girls in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (KP) and the tribal areas. What annoyed them was the people in Swat and elsewhere in KP disregarded their edicts and were sending their daughters to schools following Malala’s example. They wanted to eliminate her physically because she was becoming a role model in the region.

According to a report “The State of Pakistan’s Children-2011”, around 600,000 children in KP have missed one or more years of education due to militancy. The report launched during a function organized by Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child at the Peshawar Press Club in August also revealed that a total of 710 schools, 121 alone in Swat, had been destroyed or damaged by militants in the province.

Taliban have nothing to offer the women other than a servile life within the four walls of their homes. As Sufi Muhammad, one of the TTP’s ideological mentors once put it, a woman can leave the precincts of her household only on two occasions, for performing the Haj or when taken to the graveyard.

Malala wanted women to take part in all spheres of life including politics. Unmindful of threats that she received from the militants, the courageous girl wanted to set up her own political party after completing her education. The idea was another source of worry for the TTP warriors living in caves. What if the younger generation followed in Malala’s footsteps and more and more girls in Swat and surrounding tribal areas started to abandon the seclusion the TTP wanted to impose on them? With more and more women in the KP joining the struggle for democracy, considered un-Islamic by the Taliban, it would be the undoing of the militant organization.

The Taliban thus decided to commit the horror which is now being condemned almost with one voice in Pakistan. Adding a touch of callousness to the misdeed the TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehan has owned the brutality, maintaining that his henchmen attacked Malala because she was propagating anti-Taliban and ‘secular’ thoughts among the youth. And if she survived, he said, more attacks would be launched to kill her.

The attempt at Mala’s life should make the apologists for the militants to do some heart searching.

The hollowness of the argument that the militants indulge in terrorist attacks only as a reaction to the presence of the US-led NATO troops in Afghanistan is becoming clear with every passing day. The explanation is often offered by Imran Khan in a vain attempt to gain their sympathy. The TTP spokesman never mentioned the invasion of Afghanistan as a motivating factor behind the attack. His argument was that Malala was to be eliminated because, as he put it, she had preached secularism “and so-called enlightened moderation”. Further “It’s a clear command of sharia that any female, that by any means plays a role in war against the mujahideen, should be killed.”

Malala never spoke openly against the “mujahideen”. She was by no standard a westernized school girl. She wore the traditional Pakistani dress along with a scarf. She did not campaign in support of the US policies either. But the TTP knew that her advocacy of girls education and her commitment to help them lead a fruitful life negated their primitive ideals. This was considered unpardonable. The militants have always opposed democracy as a secular system. Sufi Muhammad rejected parliament, constitution and the Supreme Court as false gods worshipped by the fans of democracy. He vowed to establish Islamic Khilafat through the barrel of the gun. Even if the US-led NATO forces left Afghanistan, the militants would continue to detonate bombs, launch suicide attacks and destroy schools. How can anyone desirous of seeing a modern, democratic and pluralistic Pakistan reconcile with the TTP?

There are others who want to support a dialogue with the militants. There are still others who favor bringing the TTP into the mainstream. Knowing what the militants are aiming at, these people are in fact advocating capitulation.

On Sunday, Ehsanullah Ehsan leveled the same charge of secularism against Imran Khan. Pakistani politicians, he maintained, were of two types. Those in power, like the PPP, MQM and ANP, were openly hostile to Islam and mujahideen, but those who were not yet in power, like the PML-N and PTI, were also “secular and slaves of the West”. They considered Imran Khan, he said, a secular and liberal person as he himself proudly claimed.

Women all over the Muslim world are increasingly participating in social life shoulder to shoulder with men. In Pakistan they take prominent part in politics. In 2008 elections, as many as 16 women contested and won on open seats defeating their male rivals. Pakistani women are no more contented with professions like teaching and medicine. They also fly fighter jets, work as engineers, architects and bankers and have been appointed ambassadors. In Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, women continue to play active role in politics. Women belonging to practically all religious parties, which participate in elections, have been members of parliament. The awakening is not confined to Pakistan alone. In Iran, Turkey, and Egypt, women are playing equally significant role in social life. Even in the Salafi-dominated Saudi Arabia, women are demanding the rights enjoyed by their sex in other Muslim countries. This year Saudi women participated in London Olympics. All over the world the Taliban ideology is on the retreat.

The militants have lost the war in the Muslim world. They are only fighting a rear guard action. Devoid of ideas that can be defended through civilized argument, the militants have no future. It is futile to try to rollback the advancing wheel of history. Thos who advocate negotiations with thy TTP want the country to capitulate.

The writer is a former academic and a political analyst.