[Reader-list] "Jemima Khan's broken country"

[Kshmendra Kaul]

Anupam - "shocking ..i didnt know there existed a theory of this sort too."
 
Sure exists. Not as some maverick comment or from a lunatic fringe but firmly believed in and propagated by many "serious" commentators. Has a strong following. 
 
At the same time, perhaps realising the idiocy of such a theory and the harm it's entrenchment is doing to Pakistan's need to introspect on how it has landed in the mess it is currently in, there are an increasing number of public voices in Pakistan who are ridiculing such 'conspiracy theorists' and asking Pakistan to 'get real'.
 
Apart from the 'there is no such thing as Taliban' opinion-set, there is also often the disctinction made between 'Good Taliban' (fight India, USA, Israel) and 'Bad Taliban' (fight Pakistan Army and Burn Schools and Behead Pakistanis etc).
 
The famous? / notorious? Gen Hameed Gul has this to say in an interview for Greater Kashmir about a question whether those being fought by the Pakistan Army in Swat are Taliban:
 
"""""" No, they are not Taliban, they are mercenaries, playing in the hands of foreign agencies; they are funded, trained and equipped by these agencies. In the guise of Taliban, these mercenaries have let loose rein of terror in the area.

The genuine Taliban are actually fighting against American and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

As for as the people of Swat are concerned I told you earlier that they wanted the legal system, that is not actually the problem. During Mughal rule the whole of India enjoyed that legal system. It is only after the Anglo-Saxon law, introduced by British; we got the present judicial system where right is wrong and wrong is right.
 
So the peoples’ demand was natural. But the Indians sitting across the Durand-Line on the other side in Afghanistan wanted to destabilize Pakistan. Taking advantage of the situation, Indians played the same game that it had played in erstwhile East Pakistan. You know they first incited people and made them migrate and then used it as an excuse and attacked Pakistan. And this is the replay of the same game being played out now.

Not only India, Israel is fully involved in this game, although they are not concerned about Sharia, they basically want to denuclearize Pakistan. Both Indians and Israelites are afraid of the nuclear power of Pakistan. """""""
 
AND ALSO:
 
"""""" Islamization, they are very much worried about that, but so far as the Talibanization in Pakistan is concerned, first of all they are not Taliban as a matter of the fact they are mercenaries who are hell-bent on destabilizing Pakistan. Secondly Americans believe that Talibanization brings a bad name to Islam and Sharia. So they are happy about it.

Taliban and Talibanization, this is not applicable in Pakistan. The real Taliban are actually fighting against foreign troops in Afghanistan and they have nothing to do with Pakistan. 
"""""""
http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=9_6_2009&ItemID=16&cat=9

It should be remembered that Hameed Gul is a very influential voice in Pakistan. And, he is just one amongst many voices who propagate similar views. 
 
Kshmendra
 

--- On Wed, 6/10/09, anupam chakravartty <c.anupam at gmail.com> wrote:


From: anupam chakravartty <c.anupam at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] "Jemima Khan's broken country"
To: "sarai list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2009, 4:19 PM


indeed very poignant. thanks for sharing.

"it’s the first time Imran has felt the need to have security — nods,
adding that there are no Taliban. They are a fabrication by Jews and Hindus
to destabilise Pakistan" -- shocking ..i didnt know there existed a theory
of this sort too.

-anupam


On 6/9/09, Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> A very well written article with some saddening and some delightful imagery
>
> Kshmendra
>
>
> From The Sunday Times
> June 7, 2009
>
>
> "Jemima Khan's broken country"
> (In Pakistan, refugee children live with the trauma of having witnessed
> beheadings, yet she still finds much to beguile her)
> EXTRACTS:
>
> - Ten men are lined up and each one is filmed talking inaudibly to camera.
> The first man is pinned to the ground by four others. His throat is slit
> like a goat at Eid and his head held aloft by his hair. The Urdu subtitle
> reads: “This is what happens to spies.” It's a Taliban home video — to
> jaunty music — of serial beheadings. There are plenty of these doing the
> rounds nowadays.
>
> - Before I leave, Imran’s chowkidar (watchman) tells me that the newspapers
> in Pakistan are all funded by Yehudis (Jews). His Kalashnikov-toting
> commando — it’s the first time Imran has felt the need to have security —
> nods, adding that there are no Taliban. They are a fabrication by Jews and
> Hindus to destabilise Pakistan. He adjusts his belt of bullets.
>
> - Pakistan pulsates with conspiracy theories. One, which has made it into
> the local newspapers, is that the Taliban when caught and stripped were
> revealed to have been “intact, not Muslims”, a euphemism for uncircumcised.
> (Pakistanis are big on euphemisms.) Their beards were stuck on with glue.
> “Foreign elements” (India) are suspected.
>
> - Two children are fighting over coloured crayons when I arrive. A girl
> with blistered burns on her face from the sun shouts at a small boy who
> turns out to be her brother: “If you don’t give them back to me I’ll tell
> the Taliban and they’ll cut your throat.”
>
> - According to the teacher in the camp, every child has witnessed public
> beheadings. Eight-year-old Amina explains quietly from behind her teacher
> how she saw her uncle’s stomach gouged out by the Taliban. Another girl’s
> mother was shot for not being in purdah. And another was shot at with her
> family when she was walking outside during the curfew. Seven-year-old Bisma,
> I’m told, has seen all the male members of her family hanged in what has
> become known as Bloody Square. She doesn’t speak.
>
> - The children are equally afraid of the army. There’s a joke going round:
> “What’s worse than being ruled by the Taliban? Being saved by the Pakistani
> army.” When the chief minister landed in a helicopter next to the camp a few
> days ago, I’m told, the children fled screaming in terror to their tents.
>
> - A boy called Salman hands me a precisely drawn and signed picture of a
> Kalashnikov. A shy eight-year-old girl sitting cross-legged next to him,
> with her grubby green dupatta half obscuring her smile, offers me hers of a
> helicopter shelling a village. “That’s my house,” she says, pointing to some
> scribbled rubble.
>
> - Their schools and homes have been destroyed. All have had relatives
> killed. An orphanage in Mingora was caught in the crossfire when soldiers
> based themselves on the roof of the building with 200 children trapped
> inside.
>
> - There’s certainly support for the Taliban in the camps. They represent,
> for many, an opposing force to an army that “drones” (it's now a verb here)
> its own people. America’s war on terror, supported by the Pakistani army, is
> unanimously viewed here as a war on Islam. Newborn twins have been named
> Sufi Mohammad and Fazlullah after the two militant leaders in Swat.
>
> - You need only to read Salman Rushdie’s Shame to understand how important
> honour (izzat) and reputation are — although I shouldn’t really write that.
> The last time I admitted to having read Rushdie (for my university
> dissertation on post-colonial literature), I had a thousand placard-waving
> beards outside my door and adverts in the papers, calling me an apostate and
> demanding that my citizenship be revoked.
>
> - Like everyone here he likes to opine: where Pakistan has gone wrong,
> where politicians have gone wrong, where the interpreters of Islam have gone
> wrong, where Imran has gone wrong and, by the end of our stay, where