Battle for our heart and soul

The tragic events of this past Sunday are a stark reminder of how deep religious extremism has penetrated the country’s social fabric. The manhandling of religious evangelist Junaid Jamshed at the Islamabad International Airport, violent protests by supporters of Mumtaz Qadri at Islamabad’s D-Chowk and suicide attack targeting the Christian community at Lahore’s Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park signify that the fight against the threat of home-grown terrorism will remain incomplete without effectively tackling the conjoined issue of religious extremism.

Notwithstanding the economic damages of $107 billion and losing over 66,000 human lives in the last fifteen years, Pakistan does not have a national counter-extremism policy. The existing counter-extremism measures in Pakistan are dispersed, disjointed and ad-hoc.

Conceptually, the correlation between extremism and terrorism in Pakistan is of reverse causality – the two feed off each other. Extremism causes terrorism and terrorism feeds into extremist tendencies in society. So the extremism-terrorism bond has to be broken to overcome the twin challenge. The entrenched presence of various extremist groups and ideologies has been pivotal in transforming radical and extremist tendencies into violent manifestations.

Over the years, the state’s policy of appeasing the clergy has resulted in permeation of extremism in those segments of Pakistani society which hitherto have remained immune from this menace. The manner in which different Barelvi groups are politicising and exploiting the issue of Mumtaz Qadri’s hanging is a case in point.

Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan Agency and various intelligence-based operations in different other parts of the country have weakened the Taliban groups. As a phenomenon, though, Talibanisation remains undefeated. It is rearing its ugly head in new forms among different strata of Pakistani society. Denial of sanctuaries, loss of infrastructure and leadership etc are redeemable for militant groups, given their regenerative capacity. However, ideological de-legitimisation deprives them of their support base and is critically important in finding a lasting solution to this problem.

Pakistan has more or less been successful in regaining control of physical space from militant groups; however, the extremist narrative dominates the ideological space unabated. The extremist message gains traction in public opinion because it is couched in religious rhetoric and feeds on popular notions like pan-Islamism and anti-Americanism. Anything presented in religious colours generates immediate public sympathy.

While it is the responsibility of the state to defeat militant groups and deny them space to operate within its boundaries, defeating extremism requires a joint state-society approach. State and local communities have to team up to deny different support structures and avenues which the extremist groups exploit to spread their propaganda in society. Ideally, the state provides the overall vision, policy direction and financial assistance while societies assist the state by rejecting attempts of the extremist groups to sow their influence amongst their midst.

In Pakistan’s context, defeating religious extremism requires simultaneous application of top-down and bottom-up approaches as well as reactive (counter-radicalisation) and proactive (promotion of moderation) initiatives. The structural factors that have empowered extremist groups have to be addressed through constitutional amendments, policy reformulations and withdrawing support from all kinds of militant groups.

At the societal level, Pakistan’s moderate silent majority will have to speak up and reclaim the peaceful narrative of Islam, which is tolerant and peaceful, from the violent minority. For the last two decades, a violent minority in Pakistan has been pushing the moderate majority in a direction it does not want to go. This violent minority is a fringe phenomenon but occupies centre stage because of society’s deafening silence and indifferent attitude. Ultimately it is societies that defeat extremism, states alone cannot do it.

Evolving a conceptual framework to understand different trends and patterns of extremism in Pakistan will be the first logical step towards a holistic and well-meaning counter-extremism policy. Briefly, a host of overlapping and opposing factors lead to radical and extremist attitudes in Pakistan. These factors are internal and external, religious and political, economic and strategic, regional and social. Given the complexity of the phenomenon, it is unpredictable, haphazard, episodic and abrupt. So, the policy of counter-extremism has to be anchored in a nuanced and comprehensive understanding of extremism in Pakistan.

After the tragic incidents of Sunday, Pakistan’s internal security policy requires a paradigm shift. This paradigm shift can act as a catalyst to devise a comprehensive counter-extremism policy within the ambit of a counterterrorism framework keeping the scope and magnitude of the issue in view.

Pakistan is faced with a perilous choice today: to take extremism head on or buy short-term respite by appeasing the ever-expanding extremist groups.

The writer is an associate research fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore.

Email: isabasit@ntu.edu.sg