Author: Ahmed Rashid
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: July 14, 2005
URL: http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/14/npak14.xml
Ahmed Rashid reports on the link
between Lahore and Leeds that has flourished over two generations but may
now have been hijacked by militant Islamic fundamentalists
For the past few days at dinner
parties, bazaars and newspaper offices in Lahore there has only been one
topic of conversation, the fear and expectancy that the London bombers
would turn out to be Pakistani.
Most were convinced that that would
be the case and when the truth came out they were immediately on their
mobiles, spreading the news repeating: "What did I tell you, I told you
so, this will really be the last straw."
Many were depressed at the thought
of being dubbed a nation that could export a handful of terrorists along
with T-shirts, Sufi music and mangoes.
Until Tuesday the fear of a Right-wing
backlash against Pakistanis living in Britain had also dominated the headlines.
That is because Pakistanis are deeply sensitive about their own, even though
after 58 years they still cannot agree on the nature of their nation -
Islamic fundamentalist or democratic.
Those who have lived in Bradford
and Leeds for two generations still come home to marry, party, holiday
and celebrate religious festivals such as Eid, or Ramadan, the month of
fasting.
Flights to and from London are packed
in the summer.
Youngsters in sneakers, the latest
jeans and speaking English in broad Yorkshire accents can be heard in Lahore's
shopping malls during any holiday period.
However more conservative parents
in Yorkshire take leave of absence for their teenage sons from their British
schools and send them home to study for a couple of terms. They either
join madrassas - Islamic schools - or secular schools, learning Urdu, the
Koran and making friends.
Those boys who join madrassa boarding
schools are often indoctrinated with fundamentalist views and return home
to Yorkshire changed people - urging their sisters to cover their heads
and their friends to pray regularly.
In the winter of 2002 Maulana Akram
Awan, a fundamentalist religious leader and politician from Chakwal in
central Punjab, set up camp outside Islamabad with thousands of followers.
He threatened to march on the capital to force the military regime to enforce
Islamic law.
Among those camping out in the fields
with him were dozens of madrassa students from Yorkshire. The elite's fear
of a backlash against British Pakistanis is heightened by the fact that
London is their second home, the favourite holiday destination to escape
the summer heat, shop till they drop and still the best place to send their
children to university. Now, during the summer sales, a visiting Pakistani
can hardly walk down a street in Knightsbridge or Kensington without bumping
into a Pakistani he knows from home.
On Tuesday night the first thought
for many of them was how suspiciously they would be viewed when they showed
their passports at Heathrow. But when they sit down to reflect as more
emerges about the London bombers, they are likely to become even more depressed.
It is already clear that one or
two of the bombers visited Pakistan recently, possibly to train with an
extremist group.
For the past two decades a small
number of militants have killed and maimed their fellow citizens in the
name of Islam, various Islamic sects or self-created concepts of male honour.
These killing fields in the name of Islam, abhorred by the majority of
their fellow citizens, were then exported abroad where Pakistani militant
groups supported fellow extremists in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Central Asia,
Chechnya and the former Yugoslavia.
Pakistani extremists have been closely
linked to the army which saw in them a cheap and non-attributable opportunity
to keep India at bay, maintain the country's Islamic influence abroad and
undermine any chance of civilian democracy at home.
This "military-mullah" alliance
is widely assumed to have been born in 1977 after the army coup that bought
General Zia Ul Haq to power. However in a new book called Pakistan - between
Mosque and Military, scholar-diplomat Hussain Haqqani shows how the alliance
goes back as far as 1951.
Many Pakistanis hoped that September
11 2001 would give the army a chance to change its disastrous policies
and end its alliance with the mullahs.
General Pervez Musharraf's military
regime could make peace with Afghanistan and India, crack down hard on
militant groups and turn its back on extremism.
Gen Musharraf promised a policy
of enlightened moderation but little has been done. Thousands of religious
schools still spew out hate against non-Muslims and leaders of militant
groups still wander the country giving sermons.
Gen Musharraf has squandered the
lavish aid and support given to him by the US and Britain after September
11. Extremism continues to flourish and democracy is further away than
ever.
This month the widely circulated
magazine Herald reports that a dozen training camps for militants, which
closed down after September 11, were revived in May with official blessing.
Last month several Pakistani-Americans
arrested on terrorism charges in California, admitted to training in such
camps. The London bombers were probably in touch with a local Pakistani
group rather than al-Qa'eda.
Pakistanis are fed up with being
in the eye of the storm and just want to lead a normal life. They want
to see an end to violence at home and a bad image abroad. When that will
happen is anybody's guess.
