Yvette C. Rosser
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
The University of Texas at Austin
Address: 2403 Trafalgar Drive,
Austin, TX 78723
Phone: 928-9557, Email: y.r.rani@m...
(I am a PhD student in the Department
of Curriculum and Instruction at UT Austin with a specialization in the
history and culture of the Indian Subcontinent.)
September 13, 2001
To the South Asian Desk at the U.S.
State Department And To Whomever Else It May Concern:
The horrors of the past few days
are beyond belief. I am completely saddened and totally horrified by the
attacks on NYC and DC. I cringe at the thought of how many lives were so
violently ended, and how many dreams and hopes eviscerated by such calculated
cruelty. I feel dreadfully sorry for the families of those thousands of
innocent guileless victims who were murdered so ruthlessly and with such
hateful, purposeful glee.
Though it seems almost heartless
at this time of mourning and human tragedy, I would like to offer the following
comments about the impact this event may have international diplomacy.
It is very likely that this WTC attack will bring long overdue international
attention to India's claims concerning Islamic fundamentalist groups and
their madrassa schools (institutions attached to mosques) that have mushroomed
during the last decade along India's long international borders.
Several times in the past few years
India has called for technical and strategic assistance in dealing with
the internationally funded, militant Jihadi groups that are operating in
neighboring countries and also within India. Now India will hopefully find
much needed strategic support from the USA and other countries to help
with her battle against the international Jihadi groups that have become
institutionalized in the Indian Subcontinent and that have the capacity
to destroy the heart of an entire city in one horrifying felled swoop.
The series of events that resulted
in the deaths of thousands of innocent people on September 11, 2001, and
such vast and overwhelming destruction and devastation, was a conspiracy
and an infiltration and an intelligence failure that has highlighted the
fact that these groups have huge funding, massive amounts of money from
Jihadi groups all over the world from Nigeria to Saudi Arabia to Indonesia,
and I would speculate, from other sources who hate the USA, such as the
infamously wealthy Colombian cocaine cartels.
The strategic capabilities that
went into this terrorist attack, unparalleled in its destructiveness and
unprecedented in its precision, is proof of the vast resources available
to the Jihadi groups. Ultimately, the brutal images of the carnage give
credence to India's repeated requests for assistance in dealing with terrorism.
Numerous times, at the highest diplomatic levels, India has brought this
issue up to the American government and at the UN. It was a major topic
of discussion when Clinton visited India in March 2000.
For this inconceivable crime against
not only America but against humanity at least there may be one repercussion
which may positively impact India, who will hopefully be the beneficiary
of some belated but essential anti-terrorism technical assistance. Now
that DC and NATO have pledged to wage an all out war on terrorism, it will
hopefully benefit India's on-going fight against terrorism in South Asia
sponsored by internationally connected Jihadi groups that have headquarters,hide-outs,
and training camps in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and numerous other
predominantly Islamic nations. From a very dependable diplomatic source
in Dhaka, I was assured that these Jihadi groups in Pakistan, Bangladesh,
and Afghanistan, all have deep ISI sponsorship (Inter Services Intelligence--Pakistan's
CIA). These Jihadi groups, facilitated by the ISI and funded by international
sources have made significant covert penetrations into India... and now,
hopefully the US government will pay attention.
The USA should also pay attention
to the historical reality of the cruel irony of our involvement in the
South Asian region and a decade of free-flowing dollars that helped to
promote the mujahideen groups who trained in Pakistan to fight the USSR
in Afghanistan in the eighties. General Zia-ul Haq, the military despot
who ruled Pakistan for eleven years, reaped the rewards in billions of
dollars channeled through him to fund mujahideen, referred to by the U.S.
State Department as freedom-fighters. Through the tentacles if the ISI,
the USA dumped massive military hardware into the arms of the students
of the Mosque schools, who were trained to cry "Allah Akbar!" as they waged
Ronald Reagan's war against the Evil Empire in Afghanistan. Twenty years
later, the anti-communist freedom-fighting mujahideen have turned into
anti-American terrorists. The military savvy and technological capabilities
that the American military establishment helped them to procure and trained
them to use, are now aimed at the USA, and within closer sights of their
cross hairs, aimed at India.
The previous Pakistani dictator,
General Zia-ul Haq, who hung Z.A. Bhutto, his democratically elected predecessor,
implemented draconian, socially oppressive Hudood Ordinances and Blasphemy
Laws at home. He oppressed the polity and the Pakistani people by enacting
the anti-democratic Eighth Amendment and an Islamization campaign that,
among other restrictions, declared it a capital offense to "criticize the
Ideology of Pakistan"-all financed by American money.
By contrast, today's military dictator
in Pakistan, General Parvez Musharraf, sent Nawaz Sharif, his democratically
elected predecessor, off to live in luxury in Saudi Arabia. Musharraf must
deal with the warped Islamized militarized legacy left by the shadow of
American entanglements and intrigues with General Zia's anti-democratic
regime that twisted the symbols of Islam for political use. Last year,
when Musharraf suggested that blasphemy laws were often used unfairly against
minority communities, the clerics were outraged and threatened to take
over the government. Musharraf found that he could not undo the damage
of the last military regime that left a cadre of well-armed murids (Islamic
student-warriors) manning the mosques and the passes to Afghanistan. Musharraf's
image as a modern-day South Asian Ataturk is belied by his support and
aid to Jihadi groups when he was the Commander of the Pakistani Army. (Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk of Turkey is, by the way, denounced by devout Muslims all
over the world as a secular dictator who disbanded the Caliph. and tried
to secularize and Westernize Turkey, a majority Islamic nation.)
In Pakistan, the religious parties
have never been supported by the electorate, however they exercise a coercive
psychological influence on society. For years the narratives and symbols
of the nation have been pushed along the fundamentalist path. Along with
anti-Western tirades in the Urdu press, officially approved Social Studies
textbooks have, in particular, been used to manufacture a siege mentality-a
culture of mistrust and fear to counter the threat from Dar-al-Harb India
(seen as a non-Islamic country of Kafirs), as well as decadent Western
values, while containing the expressions of fissiparous decentralizing
provincial ethnicities. Anything non-Muslim is inherently anti-national
including regional ethnic aesthetic expressions such as Sindhi poetry.
As can be seen in this quote from a Pakistani Studies textbook, by Mohammed
Sarwar, modernization and progress are considered harmful to the nation.
"At present a particular segment,
in the guise of modernization and progressive activity, has taken the unholy
task of damaging our cultural heritage. Certain elements aim at the promotion
of cultures with the intention to enhance regionalism and provincialism
and thereby damage national integration."
NGOs, the Human Right Commission,
UNICEF, any progressive organizations, as well as provincial ethnic groups
are, according to this analysis, deemed anti-Pakistani and inherently anti-Islamic.
In offical Pakistani parlance, Islam is militantly employed to erase dangerous
cultural differences and combat decadant Western influences.
Textbooks published in Pakistan
often complain that among non-Islamic countries there is a "network of
conspiracies and intrigues" threatening the "Muslim world in the guise
of elimination of militancy and fundamentalism." In this interpretation
of world events, Pakistan single-handedly takes credit for the fall of
the Soviet Union and lays claim to creating a situation in the modern world
where Islamic revolutions can flourish and "the vacuum left by the fall
of the USSR will be filled by the world of Islam." This Pakistan Studies
textbook gives a warning to the Ummah to beware of ploys by non-Muslims
that would thwart the coming world-wide Jihad, "The Western world has full
perception of this [Jihad]phenomena, [which] accounts for the development
of reactionary trends in that civilization". The Social Studies curriculum
is preparing Pakistani school children for a Clash of Civilizations,
"The Muslim world has full capabilities
to face the Western challenges provided Muslims are equipped with self-awareness
and channelize their collective efforts for the well being of the Muslim
Ummah. All evidences substantiate Muslim optimism indicating that the next
century will glorify Islamic revolution with Pakistan performing a pivotal
role."
In Pakistan the historical narrative
and the political rhetoric bounce between poles of conspiracy theory and
threats from within. Generating fear of India's perpetual Machiavellian
intentions and the West's ideological and economic hegemony, this discourse
magnifies insecurities and deprecates sub-national identities. According
to this institutionalized textbook rhetoric, all these problems could be
solved by implementing stricter Islamic codes and practices.
Most educated Pakistanis fear the
militant Mullahs and the Jihadi groups and abhor their debilitating impact
on society and on Pakistan's standing in the world community. Mullah jokes
abound in Lahore and Karachi, but bitter laughter offers small reprieve
from the growing political clout of the militant fundamentalist factions.
The gender-biased dogmatic rhetoric that revels in a culture of fatwas,
hudood and blasphemy laws, the self-appointed sectarian clerics that depreciate
diplomacy and advocate violence, together with the unemployed, well armed
young men pouring out of the madrassa schools, hunting heretics in the
neighborhood and abroad. . . scary indeed.
Most Pakistanis are alarmed about
the "Talibanization of the nation." I was told time and again while visiting
in Pakistan that the "CIA created the Taliban Frankenstein in Pakistan's
backyard, then walked away, leaving the monster behind." However, other
Pakistanis, inspired by the politicized sermons of the Mullah elites, vociferously
and violently call for a "Taliban-type system" and are willing to die to
reIslamize the nation, which is already very, very overtly Islamic. This
perspective is especially true among the poor, whose only access to education
is in a crowded madrassa where they learn that Sunni Islam is poised to
take over the world of kafirs and apostates. These economically and culturally
deprived young men have been taught that a Taliban-like system could overcome
their poverty, their powerlessness and despair. Caught between conspiracies,
corruption, and the Holy Quran, they see no alternatives.
Most of the scholars and intellectuals
with whom I have spoken in Pakistan--Sindhis, Pathans, Balouchis, Panjabis--are
scared of Talibanization, frightened by the possibility of a violent uprising
of the half million strong, gun-toting, Madrassa trained, fundamentalist
Deobandi, militant Jihadis. Scared to death. This threat is more frightening
and imminent than an American could have fathomed until the horrible and
inconceivable events on September 11, 2001 brought it home. This a persistent
and growing problem that India has faced for decades.
Among the middle class, hard-working
citizens of Pakistan, there are many who see the looming Talibanization
as ominous and intolerable. They fear that the conservative Mullahs, with
the help of a cadre of Gen. Zia trained, fundamentalist junior Army officers,
and ISI operatives and agencies, with the blind-eye but tacitly helpless
approval of President Musharraf, will stage a violent uprising, a counter-counter-coop
to take over the government and bring in a Talibanized shari'at system.
My friends and colleagues in Pakistan live their lives as well as we all
try to do. But underneath they are scared of daily ominous threat of Jihadi
inspired violence. Scared that on the dark, lonely road to the future--
the Taliban will go bump in the night.
And now the violent Jihadi tentacles
that exploded a car-bomb in front of the Red Fort in Delhi, threatened
to kidnap the Indian Prime Minister, continue to mastermind violence in
places such as Andhra Pradesh (not to mention in Nigeria, Jakarta and beyond)
have now come to New York City and Washington, DC. These international
organizations, driven by hatred and Jihadi ideological fervor, are part
of the same agenda that perpetrated the carnage almost a decade ago at
the Bombay stock exchange, with a huge loss of life and property.
It is time for the USA and allies
to validate India's position and recognize India's valiant efforts to face
a militant foe with an trans-national fundamentalist Islamic face while
at the same time keeping its own Muslim-Indian citizens safe from retaliatory
violence such as unfortunately occurred in the USA against Muslim-Americans
in the wake of the terrorist attacks. These events and the trail left by
the heartless Jihadi perpetrators demand that the USA and other democratic
and freedom-loving nations join together with India. Only an international
effort can root out violent Jihadi groups that are bent on causing murder
and mayhem, a real and terrifying threat to democratic countries such as
India and America.
In this moment of crisis it is very
important to remember that these violent, fundamentalist Islamic Jihadi
groups are an inconceivably frightening threat looming in the lives of
millions of sophisticated and secular Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, and
other liberal modern Muslims around the world, who see the Taliban and
other fundamentalist groups and Jihadi outfits as evil incarnate, and a
blight on Islam. And of immediate international concern, a force that has
garnered support and is rapidly gathering adherents across the Muslim world.
Jihad, as manifested by fundamentalist militant Islam, is a mission bent
on destroying the world as we know it and ushering in a future "filled
by the world of Islam."
Musharraf is in an impossible position.
If he allows the US Army to use Pakistani soil as a staging ground, or
if he actively attempts to close down militant madrassas, the clerics will
mobilize their jihadis and close Islamabad down, and Musharraf knows it.
It would undoubtedly be against the long term interests of the USA if billions
of dollars are once again funneled through Pakistan's Army under various
veiled 'promises', and thinly disguised lies. It would be like appointing
the wolf to manage the hen house. The Pakistan army is already operating
in Afghanistan lending support to the Taliban's war against the Northern
Alliance. Any further involvement would only strengthen the Taliban-ISI
nexus and wreak more havoc in democratic India.
India has been on the intimate receiving
end of this proselytizing phenomenon for over a thousand years. America
would do well to learn lessons from India's past, and to come to India's
aid and to work together to disempower, discredit, and destroy violent
Jihadi groups bent on destroying civilization.
God Bless America!
God bless us all!
God hold tightly the hapless victims
of religiously inspired hate crimes.
May all beings be happy, peaceful
and prosperous.
Yvette C. Rosser
