Talibanisation: what kind of war?

LOOKING at the movement of Talibanisation in the Pashtun belt, we find three prominent theoretical frameworks.

First, the Taliban are fighting a war of liberation. Second, the Taliban’s war is to bring about an anti-feudal and anti-capitalist revolution. Third, the Taliban’s war is a fully fledged insurgency that will end in anarchy and chaos. On the basis of observations in Swat and Fata recently, I would like to offer readers some realities regarding these frameworks.

Several Pakistani officials and people from the state intelligentsia have been busy describing the Taliban of Afghanistan as a resistance movement waging a liberation war against occupation forces. Interestingly, this theoretical framework is deemed fit only for the Taliban of Afghanistan and not for the Taliban of Pakistan. These official circles would have us believe that the Taliban movement in Afghanistan does not have any link with the Taliban of Pakistan.

Official circles in Pakistan think that the Taliban movement initially started to bring about some method to the madness perpetrated by Afghan warlords and later switched to the agenda of liberation after US forces dislodged the Taliban in 2001. They conveniently ignore the fact, to quote Ahmed Rashid, that “up to 60,000 Pakistani Islamic students … three-quarters of whom were educated in Pakistani madrassa[h]s” fought alongside the Taliban during the 1990s.

They also ignore the MMA’s avowed support for the Taliban government, and later on the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. They want us to forget about the continuum of the Taliban code from the south-eastern parts of Afghanistan to Fata and later on the settled districts of north-western Pakistan. In this way, the pro-establishment writers have tried in vain to justify their not-so-covert support for the Taliban of Afghanistan. Their mindset also sheds light on the slackness, disorganisation and uncoordinated use of force, for ideological and geostrategic reasons, against the Taliban of Pakistan.

The second framework, that the Taliban are fighting an anti-imperialist war, is more interesting than the first. Writers and ideologues in this category offer examples from the Fazlullah militia’s action against the local khans and Baitullah’s strikes against tribal elders.

Irrespective of the classical notion of class war, one is surprised to see that the code for which the Taliban of Pakistan and Afghanistan are fighting is antithetical to the interests of the very class they are presented to be fighting for. The people living in areas under the influence of the Pakistani Taliban are faced with three core issues: marginalisation and particularisation through the FCR and Pata regulations, need for economic and infrastructural development, and lack of representative governance.

The Taliban movement in Fata and the NWFP wants to replace the FCR and Pata regulations with a medieval legal framework that is reminiscent of the Arab tribal era. If implemented, it will further marginalise the subalterns of the areas under Taliban influence. Moreover, those who are killed in bomb blasts and suicide attacks, and those who are decapitated by this ‘Islamic’ brigade, are none other than the already exploited and marginalised. A careful estimate of those killed in these attacks shows that 80 per cent of them are the subalterns. None of the Taliban outfits has yet come out with a comprehensive charter of demands that addresses the real issues of the people in areas under the influence of militants.

The Taliban in different parts of Fata and NWFP have, however, been busy dishing out vigilante criminal justice. They have come down hard on criminals to get the people’s support but feel comfortable with all those criminals who join their ranks.

The huge presence of criminals in Mangal Bagh’s brigade, Fazlullah’s militia and Baitullah’s army is ample proof of this thesis. The Taliban movement has yet to challenge any economic paradigm that increases disparities between the haves and the have-nots. The militants use lethal modern weapons and other technically advanced war apparatuses, as well as modern vehicles, but despise technology that may interest or benefit the marginalised classes.

It is also a matter of great interest to analysts to visualise the impact of the Taliban’s so-called anti-imperialist war. They have, intentionally or otherwise, paved the way for the American empire to get a foothold in a geostrategically important part of the world.

The talk these days in Washington about raiding Fata and the recent visit by US congressmen who wanted to convince the Government of Pakistan that such raids should be allowed are the culmination of this so-called anti-American war by the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan. A large number of people living in the affected tribal areas have already started aspiring for US intervention as the reality of the Taliban movement and the failure of the local security apparatus to put a stop to it is all too clear to them.

The Taliban movement in Pakistan and other parts of the world is bent on disrupting state institutions without providing for any alternative. It seems to be a full-fledged insurgency which has to be debated in parliament and dealt with accordingly. It is important to keep the following questions in mind while debating the issue of Talibanisation in the Pashtun belt.

Do we want to keep the nation state on the assumption that it will in due course of time develop institutions that will do away with structural violence? If we suppose that nation states like the US, Pakistan, China, Iran, Russia, India, etc are part of the problem then what is the alternative? If we think that nation states have the right to use force against non-state actors to establish their writ and the rule of law, what will be the intensity of the force used? Is it possible for the Pakistani state to single-handedly fight militant organisations that are out to obliterate whatever worthwhile is left in the Pashtun belt? Should we allow the militants leeway on the assumption that they represent a ‘revolutionary force’? Do we want the US to stop all kinds of intervention in the Pashtun belt?

The writer is coordinator for the Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy.

Khadim.2005@gmail.com