- Great idea!
What do you do when you’re in the middle of a meeting organised by an international watchdog to monitor funding for terror groups, where you might be put on the grey-list for failing to stop funding for terror groups? You increase funding for terror groups.
On Thursday, the exact same day that the US had called the second review of Pakistan during the FATF meeting in Paris, wherein – as was later discovered – both China and Saudi Arabia backed out from supporting Pakistan, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government decided to allocate funds of Rs277 million for Darul Uloom Haqqania.
The move could not have been better timed had all of Pakistan’s enemies, the biggest of which it is itself, had conspired in unison.
Forget democracy, even the democratic façade that Pakistan had on has been thrown to the dogs, with the help of all the mighty institutions that prefer staying above criticism and accountability, so that they don’t accidentally see the wretched self-reflection
Darul Uloom Haqqania is the alma mater of multiple batches, and at least three generations, of the Taliban. The fact that it continues to exist and function exactly how it wants to is owing to the small technicality that differentiating between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban is – also known as the good/bad rendition of the notorious South Asian tragedy.
Darul Uloom Haqqania is run by Sami Ul Haq, fondly known as the ‘Father of the Taliban’, who is yet to condemn suicide bombings in a career spanning four decades, and brimming over with countless opportunities to do so.
The PTI is cozying up to Sami Ul Haq, not just because of more than just the soft corner that their chief has for all forms of Taliban, and the imperialistic monstrous jihad that they wage on just about anything that doesn’t look like them, but the new political alliance that has been reaffirmed with the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Sami).
The first installment of this alliance was sent two years ago, when the KP government allocated Rs300 million to Darul Uloom Haqqania, which means that the total funding for the seminary that is the breeding ground for jihadists now amounts to Rs577 million, just on the brink of the Senate elections, where the PTI has vowed to back Sami Ul Haq.
Again, the fact that this is happening at all is pitiable and reeks of gory masochism, but for it to coincide with FATF is taking counter-terror duplicity to a point where it no longer is duplicitous. For, the flipside no longer exists, and all anyone with eyes that don’t have jihad-tinted glasses on can see is a state so obsessed with radical Islamism in all its ghastliness that it is willing to self-amputate just so there’s something to prey on.
Although to be fair to the PTI government their love-in isn’t limited to Darul Uloom Haqqania and they’re willing to do the same for all madrassas – and help breed the jihadist ideology that is growing from self-amputation to eventually self-decapitation.
Needless to say that madrassas all over the country need attention, but the sort that reforms them into institutions that propagate a significantly reformed version of Islam, that condemns armed jihad and disowns Muslim supremacism.
But of course the PTI is staying true to its backers, or are in the process of trying to transform the Parliament into a fish market of jihad, where all the venders would converge to sell their rotten catch.
How does Pakistan even come close to forming a defence when the groups affiliated with Hafiz Saeed – the main focus of the allegations against Pakistan at the FATF meetings – are not only functioning openly, but the Milli Muslim League is planning to contest elections?
What about the Tehrik-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLY) that actually held the state hostage at the end of last year, getting the money rewards – literally – in envelopes of appreciation from those that are going out of their way to cling on to their jihad-mongering as both a foreign policy and security tool?
Forget democracy, even the democratic façade that Pakistan had on has been thrown to the dogs, with the help of all the mighty institutions that prefer staying above criticism and accountability, so that they don’t accidentally see the wretched self-reflection.
What Pakistan now has is a three-month window to prove to the world that it is doing its best to counter terrorism, lest it nosedive all the way into the FATF, where only North Korea and Iran have the privilege to exist.
This while Hafiz Saeed and Sami-ul-Haq contest for the Parliament.
