Countering extremism: Time to break out of state of denial, says Farhatullah

ISLAMABAD: Senator Farhatullah Babar Monday said countering extremist narratives is not possible without coming out of state of denial.

“We cannot employ enormous power of media to fight extremism until we come out of the state of denial and call a spade a spade,” he said while addressing a workshop on countering terrorism through media organised by the Pakistan Institute of Parliamentary Services (PIPS) in Islamabad for members of the Parliament Monday.

Senator Babar said item 14 of the National Action Plan (NAP) calls for demolishing structures of militants narrative but little attention has been paid to it. “Narratives are made up of words and have tremendous power and significance. Quran says that the Universe was created with one word "kun" (Be it) and Bible expresses the same thought that in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God,” he said.

He said the militants narrative began to be constructed in 80's when special syllabus was constructed in seminaries that taught “Alif sai Allah, Bai sai Bandooq (gun), Jeem sai Jehad, jeem say Jahannum (hell), Kaaf sai Kafir (infidel), K sai Kashmir, meem say mujahid and Te sai Toap and teenager mujahids holding guns to 'kafirs'.”

Senator Babar said this syllabus was reinforced when Zia adopted motto of "Iman, Taqwa, Jehad fi sabillillah" and privatised Jehad inside and outside Pakistan's national boundaries and today we are reaping the fruits of that syllabus. “No wonder that narratives glorifying war in the name of religion leads to violence in the name of religion,” he said.

He said the extremists narrative is that kufr and apostasy are crimes punishable with death and that it is our duty and right to punish kufr.” That non-Muslims are born to live under subjugation of the Muslims and any government of non Muslims is illegitimate and must be thrown out by force. They desire one single state of the Muslims of the World under a khilafa,” he said.

Senator Farhatullah Babar said building counter narrative requires intellectual infrastructure based on academic freedom, tolerance for dissent, plurality and critical thinking. It will not be built in the places where the emphasis is on unity of command and not to encourage dissent,” he said adding that most importantly it requires for us to come out of the state of denial. He said proscribed organisations like Jaish are protected from UN action, banned outfits allowed to reappear under different names and promises made to choke terror financing are not fulfilled but few speak up. “We are still living in a state of denial and until we come out of it there is little hope of success in countering extremist narrative,” he said.