http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6030741.ece
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7907070.stm
http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGNAU200902129412&lang=e
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102821443
Maybe you've heard the buzz surrounding a cell video of a teen Pakistani female getting flogged in public for allegedly going out in public with a male who was not her husband. She is being lightly held down by 2 men, and whipped on the buttocks with a small rope by a skinny, bearded man (maybe a cleric or tribal elder?). Dozens of onlookers are nearby as she pleads for mercy. In the end, she gets to her feet (on her own power), and is led away by a man, maybe her husband. The video was purportedly filmed in Swat Valley, a tribal region notorious for Taleban rule, some violence, and lack of central government influence. Over 1,200 people have died there since anti-government fighting intensified in 2007, at the hands of the Taleban, Pakistani Army, or US Air Force. Over 100,000 poor, uneducated civilians (people overlooked by their gov't since the founding of Pakistan) have been displaced as well. Maybe some even went to fight in Afghanistan or India, maybe not. But is it all worth it for 15,000 army troops to hunt down an estimated 3,000 militants there (out of a population of 1.5M)? Amnesty International says yes, because the Taleban have closed down over 170 schools (mostly girls' schools) and committed numerous human rights violations. But at what cost do we want to de-Talebanize Pakistan's tribal belt?
In fact, currently Pakistan has more or less agreed to a recent truce with the Swat Taleban, which hinged on whether President Zadari can authorize some amount of Shari'a as official law there. You might think that the Taleban want this in order to impose 12th Century society on the people there, and it may be partially the case. But actually their main objective is to create rapid Islamic courts in those communities to expedite their form of justice, since they are pretty much cut off from mainstream Pakistan and the legal system works at a snail's pace for them, if at all. This push for Shari'a is nothing new either, and even Benazir Bhutto's regime in the 1990s agreed to it in a lesser extent. It's just taken that damn long for the innefective government to do anything.
Getting back to the beating video... it made such waves among the secular Pakistanis that the Supreme Court (and the newly reinstated Chief Justice) may investigate. Thousands of Pakistanis took to the streets to protest the Taleban. Clearly the video content was offensive, but maybe we should get real here a second. Similar material is posted on YouTube daily by Westerners who supposedly are educated, free, peaceful, and respect human/women's rights. Nurses organize fights among handicapped patients, high school girls brawl with each other, and there have been 4 mass shootings in as many weeks. That Pakistani girl, absolutely not a criminal by our standards, did something that she knew to be forbidden and was publicly beaten/humiliated for it. I am not condoning it, but the lashing was tame and will not leave permanent damage, as far as I can tell. Women are getting killed in other Islamic nations for marital "misconduct" (our allies Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and even at home in the US: http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20090216/NEWS-US-BRIDGESTV-MURDER/). So the outrage is a bit disproportional, yet I am sure that right-wing media will relish another opportunity for Islam-bashing.
In the rural, poor, forgotten areas of our country (America's Swat), women and children are getting abused every day. If mighty, just America cannot prevent those injustices, how can dysfunctional Pakistan? Worldly, secular Pakistanis took to the streets to support that poor girl, but where was their outrage when their army's shells or US bombs were slaughtering their innocent countrymen in the mountains? Is it because those victims were ignorant Muslims, so they don't count? And Defense Sec. Gates just announced that he is recommending to Congress to change the Pentagon budget to spend more on drones and less on missile defense. Probably a more efficient use of resources, and those drones may help our fights in the Middle East - but they will surely kill innocents and promote the cowardly/uncaring image of the US military to the hearts and minds that we are supposedly attempting to win over. So how can we call them barbarians for lightly flogging a girl, when we and our Pakistani allies are displacing whole villages and killing children?
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2008/09/200898164428829256.html
Some skeptics suggest that the cell video may have even been staged, or the timing/distribution of it meant to persuade Pakistanis to reject the peace deal with the Swat Taleban. The West has already expressed much displeasure over the peace accord. We worry that if you give the Taleban an inch, they will take over that fragile nuclear nation. But history shows it's not the case. Islamists won recent elections in Palestine, Lebanon, Nigeria, and Iraq, and apart from the side-effects of war, none of those nations became disseminators of religious extremism. In fact it was the opposite for Nigeria (see Newsweek article at end). Congress is criticizing Obama's plan to support Pakistan (in order to help stabilize Afghanistan) because it doesn't go far enough to kick them in the pants so they take care of their "Islamist problem". But as we know from countless Cold War examples, it's risky to force others to fight our fights, or micromanage them to fight the way we want them to. Furthermore, it's folly to think that we can totally get rid of religious extremism, just as it's folly for Al Qaeda to think it could ever topple the West and establish a global caliphate. Ideology is usually folly, but it is a part of humanity, and it is futile for one ideology to attempt to exterminate another. Sure in a context vacuum it would be great if we could just magically crack down on extremist militants and human rights abusers with the stroke of a pen. But people who outlaw music and beat their wives for talking to another man are not our enemy like Osama is.
Unbiased religious freedom is a core American value, supposedly. As we all know, people have killed and died for religion for millennia, and will continue to do so. If an outside force tries to repress or take away a people's faith, no matter how "backwards" or "dangerous" that faith may seem to us, there will be violent repercussions. Sometimes the cost is worth it, other times it's not, especially when "victory" is so vague and maybe impossible. In that sense, the Obama White House (and our society) have not yet gotten past the intellectual ball and chain of Bush's War on Terror ideology. Look what happened to Egypt's Sadat when he tried to crack down on the Islamic Brotherhood (a peaceful political rival), maybe at the behest of the West. Dictator-general Musharraf, with carte-blanche Bush support, couldn't defeat the Pakistani extremists, so I doubt his corrupt, squabbling, civilian successors will either. It's like the Jenga game. You need to make small, delicate changes slowly, or the whole structure comes crashing down. The more you rush, the harder it gets. And the more you take, the harder it gets to take more. So we should tread with real caution. But of course US politicians work on the election cycle, and may not have the cultural sensitivity and patience for a drawn-out effort to reduce Taleban influence promoting global Jihad. They want a quick-fix, like de-Ba'athification - and we know how that turned out.
We must distinguish between violent Islam (that isn't even religious actually, but uses Islam as a pretense and motivation for bloodshed) and the fundamentalist Islam that may repulse our sensibilities, but probably won't cause much geopolitical instability. At least no more than similar Western religious extremism like Hasidic Judaism, Koresh-style cult Christianity, and Scientology. There is a cultural class struggle that underlies this religious struggle though. Most nations that have Islamist insurgency problems are failed states and/or ruled by rich, corrupt dictators. These dictators and their affiliates want to hold onto power at all costs, so of course they oppose any grassroots Islamic challenge, and will leverage petrodollars or become puppets of the West if it helps their cause. It's no coincidence that many terrorists are Western-educated and from privileged backgrounds, just like the dictators they fight against. They've seen the "free world" creeping in, and the difference is they prefer the fundamentalist Muslim alternative instead of embracing/accepting the West. I'm not judging what is wrong or right, but just stating a possible explanation. As one Pakistani said on NPR, in his view the Taleban are the "new Bolsheviks", trying to help the poor and restore some moral decency from the decadent, phony-Muslim elites. Of course morality and righteousness are very subjective. But people are not that gullible - Pashtuns support gangsters and despots in the Taleban because their own government (and the West by extension) has an even worse track record with them. Same goes with Palestinians and Hamas/Fatah. But that doesn't make them terrorists or accessories to terrorism. In fact they're pragmatists, and the Islamic extremism just tags along as negative baggage. They believe in food for their families; not 40 virgins in a martyr's paradise.
It's confusing when we condemn some fundamentalism but tolerate others. It's hypocritical when we commit human rights abuses but seek to punish Muslims who do the same - and only the Muslims in unfriendly regimes (i.e. China and Saudi get a pass but Sudan and Iran do not). Of course there are varying degrees of criminality, but it's better if we can stay above the fray. And Obama's message that America is not at war with Islam gets droned out by the furor over our air strikes and such.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/187093
Few people in the [Swat] valley would say that the current truce is their preferred outcome. In the recent election, they voted for a secular party. But if the secularists produce chaos and corruption, people settle for order.... The Pakistani government is hoping that this agreement will isolate the jihadists and win the public back to its side. This may not work, but at least it represents an effort to divide the camps of the Islamists between those who are violent and those who are merely extreme... The Predator strikes have convinced much of the local population that it's under attack from America and produced a nationalist backlash. A few Qaeda operatives die, but public support for the battle against extremism drops in the vital Pashtun areas of Pakistan. Is this a good exchange?
-F Zakaria, Newsweek
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