“He who battles monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster himself, and if you gaze for long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche. The arrest of a serving brigadier and four majors for allegedly having links with banned religious outfit Hizbut Tahrir has been the cause of considerable commotion recently. There are widespread displays of feigned shock at the possibility of linkages between senior army officers and a violence-advocating religious organisation. The expression of horror at this nexus by a person of reasonable comprehension is incredulous. The Islamist tendencies of some in the Pakistan Army have been known and on display for a while now.
The genesis of this religious fervour in the armed forces in general, and the army in particular, is intuitively and easily traced to the Ziaul Haq era and the Afghan war. Admittedly, this is a major contributing factor to the radicalisation of the military, but it is by no means the sole cause. The motto of the Pakistan Army as changed by Ziaul Haq is now, “imaan, taqwa, jihad fi sabilillah” (faith, piety, holy war in the path of Allah). It is interesting to compare this incredibly intense motto with the original unassuming, almost placid, national motto “ittehad, yaqeen aur tanzeem” (unity, faith and discipline). The current motto of the army is blatantly prejudiced and is completely inappropriate as the motto of an army of a nation state. This may seem trivial semantic nitpicking, since who cares about the motto anyway. While that is true for the most part, the primary purpose of slogans and mottos is not to be acted upon, but rather to mould the narrative. And our narrative is quite solidly moulded now. As an example, the implication of the motto is that no non-Muslim is eligible to join the Pakistan Army, or at least join with intellectual honesty since it is theoretically impossible for him or her to live up to or agree with the motto. The Pakistan Army website defines the three components, imaan, taqwa and jihad fi sabilillah, in sufficient detail so as to remove any doubts or aspirations that an infidel may have about joining the army.
The website of Hizbut Tahrir states that its “objective is to resume the Islamic way of life by establishing an Islamic state that executes the systems of Islam”. One can easily mistake this as an excerpt from the Objectives Resolution of the Constitution of Pakistan. Now guess from where the line, “The mission and aim of the momin is martyrdom,” is taken. A reasonable supposition could be the al Qaeda or Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) manifesto. The guess could not be more wrong, since it is from the official website of the Pakistan Army. Hence, the potential succumbing of serving army officers to the propaganda of militant, violent religious-fascist organisations should not be surprising. To put it bluntly, the Pakistan Army has not been commissioned to fight the “holy war in the path of Allah,” but rather to protect the physical frontiers of Pakistan. The army is not being paid a vulgarly large proportion of the budget to pursue the selfish goal of personal salvation, but rather to guard our borders. The phrase “holy war in the path of Allah,” may be a very honourable phrase objectively but its use becomes very tenuous when both sides to a battle are fighting ostensibly in the same path. The academic discussion on precisely what constitutes jihad or not has its place amongst believers, but its place is certainly not the armed forces. The allusion then is that it is a battle over an issue of the interpretation of jihad within the same camp, obscuring the real conflict between civilisation and savagery. My argument is not against personal faith but rather for personal faith, ‘personal’ being the operative word. Furthermore, it is insulting to those of the armed forces who gallantly lay down their lives fighting terrorists and hate-mongers. Our brave soldiers are martyred while fighting a very real, tangible, temporal and existential war, and not in an abstract theological quarrel.
George Bush Jr was widely and rightly censured for making the unbelievably idiotic and hopelessly inexact parallel of the war on terror with the Crusades. Our nation and army are constantly guilty of a similar folly as a collective. It would be slightly unfair to single out the army for this exhibition of prejudice. A provincial chief justice some time ago remarked that only a good Muslim can be a good judge. The primary and, no doubt, unintended result was not a slur at Lord Dennings or Justice Antonin Scalia etc but at the impeccable Justice Rana Bhagwan Das.
Our television anchors and writers are particularly fond of using broad, monolith terms for those outside the fold of Islam. Appealing to Jinnah’s Pakistan may not prove very reassuring. The conflation of religious and national identity begins from Jinnah’s Pakistan, resulting in the fallacy of confusing being a good Muslim with being a good Pakistani. The absurdity extends to negative stereotyping, with the most obvious example being using the word ‘Hindu’ when intending to refer to an ‘Indian’. An example of another semantic battle that is continuing at the moment is the vehemently divergent views on the use of the word maulvi by the president while referring to Nawaz Sharif. The major point of debate is whether the president has desecrated the word maulvi by employing it in an apparently pejorative manner. The specifics of the petty contest are irrelevant; however, the particular term chosen for the inordinate amount of emphasis should be disturbing.
The detailed particulars of the involvement of serving army officers with militant organisations have not been divulged yet, and if past record is anything to go by, probably never will be. However, it is important to realise that every time we use exclusionary, discriminatory religious rhetoric, we are inching towards those very militant terrorists that we seek to fight.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 29th, 2011.
This is a situation which cannot go away from Pakistan easily.
Infact it is getting worse.
And since the motto is heavily laden with religious fervor it is nearly impossible for it to be reverted back to its original form.
The society at large is tolerating religious extremism. This can be seen in the shape of amazing acceptability among people for nonsense Tableghis (preachers), corrupt religio-political parties, and religious and sectarian terrorist groups. I believe Tableghis set the soil for sowing seeds of extremism and religious political parties implant these seeds by making people believe that solution of all problems lie in implementation of SHARIAH. When these parties fail to get votes or in case of MMA in KP 2002-8 the Islamists failed to implement the obsolete system for which they were given votes, they started blaming the West for their failures. Many among of the frustrated cadres of the religio-political parties take up arms in desperation and start killing innocent people. The close relationship between al Qaeda and Jamaat Islami is a case in point as several Arab militant had been arrested from house of JI activists. To stop all this nonsense and protect innocent people from of bites of these bigots, let us start a campaign for separation of religion from politics and make Pakistan a secular and democratic republic.
What’s funny is that the army adopted the role of “defenders of ideology” during the Yayha-Rani regime; it didn’t work then, it won’t work now.
Maybe the Hizbut Tahrir and Pakistani Army websites were constructed by the same web designer and possibly copywriter too. Very Funny !
Indeed a very awful article.But it is showing the frustration of a secularist that why after all those sixty years of non-sense by liberal elite, Pakistan could not become a secular state. Secularists should confess now that being a very small minority in the society ,they should abandon their agenda and let the the society seek their islamic Ideals.
Izaz,your’s is cry in the wilderness,every argument you put forth would have done any one proud in a liberal democracy,but you know,it is not a wasted effort,sometime we have to shout hoarse sometime to be heard,some day in i hope not in distant time,you will be heard,the question,will it matter?I certainly hopes so for your country’s sake.
Well, the army officers with terrorist links then must be the holiest of holy warriors since the army is also fighting a holy war. They should be immediately released, apologised to and promoted!!
@Kashif mansoor Please move to Saudi Arabia where you will find enough Islamic (suicidal) Ideals and save us from your mindless batter of using cliches like liberal elite. What would it take for you to grow up and look at the devastation and chaos around you, caused by the same ideology and people you are defending here. Shame on you.
Tring.. Tring.. Mr. Ijaz, come to the ISI office for a OPEN ddiscussion on your article. – Pasha
@kashif manzoor:
Secularists cannot become a monority as long as the majority of Islamists remain small minded, women hating, violence abetting, judgmental bigots.
We will start to worry if you ever become open minded and tolerant.Thats not likely to happen any time soon by the looks of it.
@QK: Agree but Pakistan has moved beyond extremism. It is now in an ideological phase framed by the likes of Qadri. Former Extremists are the new moderates. The old moderates have been wiped out.
this is a superb aritcle.why hasn’t anyone of our self proclaimed tv anchors messiahs ever told us about this extent of our army’s obsession with religion?/ why no talk shows about the islamic radicalisation of our armed forces and agencies?? i mean they’ve officially turned pakistan’s army into a religion’s army !! the present army leadership should roll back the damage done by the islamic fascist zia ul haq. A de-islamization programme to reverse zia’s damage has to be done if we are to save pakistan.
if the establishment doesn’t give up its support of islamic fascism our society will be in big trouble.
@kashif manzoor
I agree with your view. Only after having enough of “Ismalic” rule most of pakistani will realize that religion should not be mixed with politics.
“To put it bluntly, the Pakistan Army has not been commissioned to fight the ‘holy war in the path of Allah,’ but rather to protect the physical frontiers of Pakistan. The army is not being paid a vulgarly large proportion of the budget to pursue the selfish goal of personal salvation, but rather to guard our borders.”
This is precisely what the constitution of Pakistan says and to which our armed forces take an oath. Isn’t going against the oath considered a SIN in Islam, how about a Jihad against this SIN for a change.
Mr. Saroop Ijaz,
Over the last 2 or 3 months you have become my favorite columnist at Express Tribune. You have a clarity of mind that shines through in your writing. This is very rare amongst the current crop of journalists in Urdu as well as English. I’m a fan!
My question: Why is there no violence and bloodshed in Vietnam today as it was in the sixties or as it is today in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan?
The right answer is that the European extremists and terrorists are NOT there anymore in Vietnam. Peace in Vietnam returned at the exit of the European terrorists. Peace in all the troubled areas of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan will return when the European terrorists and their partners in crime will be thrown out. It worked in Vietnam it will work everywhere.
Saroop, you need to realize and appreciate the fact that the militants and terrorists are carrying out their barbaric acts under the cover of Islam. What type of Muslims on earth would like to bomb mosques- the very places meant to worship their Lord?
“…the implication of the motto is that no non-Muslim is eligible to join the Pakistan Army.”
With 73 sects, the army will soon find few recruits, because with time the puritans are becoming more dominant and influential.
Now I get it. All the Defence Estates are maal-e-ghanimat acquired in the course of jihad fi sabilillah.
@ Genius – your comment is quite contradictory to your name. Vietnam is a successful country because they decided to stop fighting over ethnicity (and really never had religion as a point of conflict) and just focused on being good capitalists and building the economy.
Imagine if Pakistan’s number one export was silicon chips, computer software, or patents on treating cancer instead of terrorism?
@kashif manzoor: Please stop translating ‘secular’ as ‘laa-deeni’.
This is a superb articulation of an obvious contradiction in the very basis of running the state on the basis of an ideology which is inherently anti-state.
What a wonderful article, Mr Saroop Ijaz. Journalists & columists like you are going to be parts of the new nucleus around which a revolution putting “being a Pakistani” above “being a Muslim” is going to grow & bring Pakistan back to path of economic growth and a good stable life for its people.
Carry on the good work, Ijazsahib!