Rubin: Chief Minister of Pakhtunkhwa (NWFP) -- "Peace in our province is not possible without peace in FATA. "

The Awami National Party in Peshawar has distributed the text of the policy speech of Amir Haider Khan Hoti, Chief Minister of Pakhtunkhwa (former Northwest Frontier Province) in the Provincial assembly after taking a vote of confidence on April 10th 2008.

The speech outlines a program that provides more support for the struggle against terrorism and extremism than a thousand missile strikes. I excerpt the portions of greatest interest to an international audience (livestock, irrigation, revenue generation, etc. omitted):

Mr. Speaker, Esteemed members of the assembly.

With your support and continued solidarity of this honorable house and the people of our Province, my team in the cabinet and I will deliver on the issues of basic and vital significance. I want to share priorities of our government in the first hundred days and to highlight some of the long term objectives.

My dear friends,

Our coalition government has come to office in a period of great upheaval for the people of this region. It is very painful to see that while rest of the World is advancing into higher stages of all-round development our province and FATA have been in the fore front of a tragic armed conflict imposed on us from outside. The dark forces of death and destruction have played havoc with our beautiful land and innocent people.

I want the World to know that the land of Pakhtuns is not just about madness and fanaticism. It is the land of glorious Gandahara civilization. It is the land of illuminating Islamic Renaissance of central Asia. It is the land of Pir Rokhan and Baacha Khan. It is the land of Khushal Khan Khattak and Rehman Baba. In short it is the land of peace and brotherhood. The results of the recent election have proved it beyond any doubt that our people do not support a closed society.

They are not for isolation. They want to join the mainstream and develop alongside the rest of the World. They have voted for peace, democracy and federalism.

Dear friends, standing on the floor of this August house, I want to reassure the people of the country in general and this Province in particular that peace and security remains at the top of our agenda.

Peace and Security:

The problem of violence, extremism and militancy faced by the people of our Province and in FATA is the outcome of flawed political policies of the past. In essence the problem is political with security as an important dimension of this problem.

We are convinced that there is no military solution to the complex issues and challenges vis-à-vis peace and security intensified over the years due to flawed policies. We are therefore, essentially looking for political solutions for dealing with these issues and challenges we are all faced with. Our stance on politically negotiated settlement of the issues has received an overwhelming support by the people and we are committed to our promise to the people.

We are also happy to note that a popular consensus has emerged on a negotiated settlement to the problem of militancy, not only among the political parties, but nearly all the state institutions are also in agreement with us on this point. Further, we have received credible signals from the dissidents that they are too are interested in a peace dialogue. However, while our commitments are firm on finding a negotiated settlement taking along all key stake holders, we do not wish to raise false hopes and expectations. We are well aware that there are many rejectionists at local, regional and international levels with various agendas and positions who might jeopardize the process. We are however, determined to find an indigenous solution with the participations of all genuine stakeholders. We shall not allow anyone to hold the entire Pukhtun belt as hostage.

We shall follow the path of “Sulah” ["sulh" means peace as reconciliation] as directed by Allah in the Holy Quran and we shall follow the “LAR” of Pukhtunwali. May Allah grant us “Taufique” [success -- after a quotation "Min Allah Tawfiq," success comes from God] to stay on the right path, to determine the modalities of negotiations, to identify stakeholders and to conduct negotiations. Ameen!! [This is the Arabic pronunciation of the Hebrew "Amen."]

The Provincial government will announce a peace jirga of elders with representatives from a cross section of the society. In the next session of the Provincial Assembly we shall present a comprehensive peace plan for our Province and FATA. We shall actively seek the cooperation of the Federal Government on FATA as peace in our province is not possible without peace in FATA.

Education:

During our tenure we would make sure that every child of school going age gets an opportunity to go to school. The Government is committed to providing free and quality education to all up to higher secondary level.

• We would appoint a committee of experts to prepare recommendations for providing education in mother tongue of the children at primary level.
  

• We would revise curriculum and focus on teachers training in the interest of quality education.

• We would also revise the salary and benefit package for teachers especially those working in difficult areas.
  

• Health and life insurance will be provided to the teachers at no cost to them. Further, travel and accommodation support will be ensured particularly for women teachers working in difficult and far flung areas.
  

• The government will also look into affordable housing schemes for government teachers.
  

• We shall also take the organizers of Deeni Madaris [madrasas] on board for seeking their cooperation in imparting technical training to young people. Children studying in these Deeni Madaris are an important part of our society and we would do everything in our power to provide a bright future to them.
  

• The Provincial government notes with grave concern the increase in the number of children ending up on the streets. The government will with the help of philanthropists’ set-up homes on the patterns of SOS villages for those children who are currently on the streets, after all they are our future generation.

Women Development:

Our Government is committed to providing equal opportunities for women in education, employment and decision-making.

• We shall build and protect girls’ schools.
  

• We shall ensure that women are employed in higher bureaucracy against the set existing quotas.
  

• We shall form a Provincial Commission on the Status of Women which will work closely with the National Commission on the Status of Women in reviewing discriminatory laws and practices, prepare recommendations for change and monitor multiple forms of violence against women.
  

• Recognizing the fact that women in the Province lag behind on key human development indicators, therefore, our government will extend full support to the Ministry of Women’s Development for taking effective measures to bridge the gap.
  

• Programmes, policies and plans of each Ministry will be reviewed to ensure that they address gender concerns adequately.
  

• Special programmes for technical skills development and small and medium sized business will be initiated for women.
  

• Adequate credit schemes will be designed to suit the needs of women entrepreneurs.
  

• The government will also introduce special incentives for home-based women workers to encourage them.
  

Enviornment:

Environmental degradation is the one serious problem that can not only catch up with the problem of militancy and violence, but has the potential of undermining our future as a community of people. The worst part of the problem is that there is very little awareness about the hazards that we are confronted with in this area.

• Our first priority in this regard would be to launch a massive and consistent campaign for creating awareness in the masses about environmental issues.
  

• During the first hundred days we shall formulate a comprehensive policy for protecting our natural habitat and sustainable development in the province. We shall involve all the stake holders and civil society in formation of the policy.
  

Culture:

This province has a rich cultural heritage. But unfortunately our culture has borne the brunt of violence in recent years. The provincial government will use all its resources to revive our cultural heritage and put it on the path of development.

• We shall open Nishtar Hall for healthy cultural activities. [Nishtar Hall is the main venue for music and dance performances in Peshawar. It was closed by the Islamist government of the MMA.] The government will maintain effective check over obscenity and vulgarity according to law.
  

• We will organize a systematic interaction with artists to ascertain their problems and include their suggestions in resolving those problems.
  

• We shall declare a special package for the rehabilitation of artist community who had suffered colossal dislocation due to the discriminatory policies of the past government.
  

• The provincial government will proactively take measures for the promotion of Pashtu in terms of research and publications.
  

• Our government will respect cultural diversity in the province and would provide opportunities for the development of Hindko, Kohar and all the other languages spoken in this province.
  

Media:

• The provincial government will respect and protect independence of media.
  

• Our government will provide every support to improve the working conditions and financial remuneration of the working journalists.
• We shall follow a totally fair policy of distributing advertisements among the news papers and journals. [Very important, as advertising from government bodies is one of the main sources of income for the press.]
  

Jails:

• Jails will be transferred into reformatory institutions and redundant laws and rules will be amended to bring them in line with modern concepts.
  

• Scale and variety of diet will be enhanced.
  

• Lawyers, intellectual, civil society and people from all walks of life will be requested for suggestions for improvement of Criminal Justice System.

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The Akond of Swat

Who or why, or which, or what, is Maulana Fazlullah of Swat? Recent headlines from Pakistan have been grim - pitched battles with many reports of casualties and mass migration of civilians from the conflict region. Yet, the foreign media hasn’t really focused on Maulana Fazlullah - perhaps thinking that the story of “Talibanization” covers this particular mullah just as well as it does any other (Baitullah Mehsud, in Waziristan, is slowly getting some attention, though). At a cursory glance, it all does blend in. The overall deterioration in the NWFP (North Western Frontier Province) and the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) areas in recent years - specifically in Waziristan, the Malakand Agency regions, Dir, Bajaur, Swat and areas around Peshawar - is often called “Talibanization” and is often pegged to the aftermath of the Afghanistan war of 2001. There is, though, a longer history that offers some additional venues of thought. At the very least, it tells us to pay attention to the local even as we highlight transnational movements like the Taliban.

Shah Ismail (1789-1831) and Sayyid Ahmed Barelvi (1786-1831), specifically, are pivotal figures in the memory and history of Swat.¹ In the late 1820s, they waged a religious war against Ranjit Singh’s forces for the control of Peshawar. They succeeded briefly, declared themselves an emirate where the creed of Muhammad held sway, and were swept away in 1831 - killed in battle. Shah Ismail and Sayyid Ahmed, though defeated, emerged as an integral part of the narrative of anti-imperialism. But not simply for their militant struggle for the establishment of an Islamic polity, they came to represent a profound connection to the revivalist thought of nineteenth century Muslims in India. Shah Ismail was the grandson of Shah Waliullah - the progenitor of the deobandis, who have continued to enjoy a wide following in NWFP. I know that it is more fashionable nowadays to connect Shah Waliullah to Abdul Wahhab and build an argument about some unitary “fundamentalist” strain of Islamic thought - but, it is a wrong notion. There are crucial difference, not only in history but in the theological arguments underlining deobandi and wahabbi ideologies of revivalist Islam. The deobandi, in particular, combined the idea of a polity based on Islamic Shar’ia and free from foreign influences with a more quixotic attempts to “migrate” or “settle” a Caliphate in Afghanistan. (The migration of thousands of Muslims to Afghanistan in 1920 needs recent historical attention.)

The mountainous regions between Kabul and Peshawar and across Baluchistan and Gilgit remained an odd absence in the centralizing ideology of Pakistan. Partly it was due to the linguistic and ethnic communities that stretched beyond the nation-state. Partly it was a function of the lack of political legitimacy for any federal government in the region. The Pakistani State, created with unequal halves of East and West Pakistan, proved unequal to the task of imagining itself. In 1971, Bangladesh emerged out of the political chaos and opportunism and military destruction wrought by West Pakistani armies. In 1972, Pakistan embarked on a new path to re-affirm itself. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the father of Benazir Bhutto, was the chief architect of a program of Islamization to glue together the rest of Pakistan. He looked towards the Pan-Islamic movement to position Pakistan as an international entity that wasn’t simply a footnote in the red hot Cold War. Bhutto’s Islamization efforts continued under Zia ul Haq, who overthrew Bhutto in 1977. Except, that under Zia ul Haq, they became the Sunnification efforts to counter his (and Saudi) fears of a Shi’a revolution sweeping out of Iran and across the Muslim world. The frontier, as always, of these efforts was the NWFP. It is around this moment that the Soviet-Afghan war overshadows all local narratives but I would like to put in a call to study the movement of Pashtun men out of NWFP territories and into the urban centers of Karachi and Lahore - and further to Riyadh and Doha - for economic reasons. We are sorely lacking scholarship that can trace these movements back to the origins where petro-dollars (from doing labor in the Gulf States) transformed these small communities. (It is one sad casualty of our current myopia that we are interested only in the monolithic account of Soviet-Afghan war and the “Talibanization” and continue to stress “top-down” factors in our analysis.)

In November 1994, the year old government of Benazir Bhutto faced a crisis in NWFP. Some of the Pashtun tribal chiefs, led by a Maulana Sufi Muhammad proclaimed that Shari’a needed to be enforced in NWFP. His movement, the Tehrik Nifaz-i Shariat Muhammadi (Movement for the Establishment of the Path of Muhammad), enjoyed wide-spread support. He was shutting down airports and businesses and making life hard for the PPP. So, she cut a deal. It may be shocking to remember that this same Benazir Bhutto who is now proclaiming herself as the Sole Secular Leader was none too shy about cutting deals where it suited her. The Musharraf regime also turned to TNSM and Maulana Sufi Muhammad to try and operate in the Swat region. But, the Bajaur strike and the Lal Masjid crisis ended their partnership. Maulana Sufi Muhammad is under arrest but Musharraf is actively trying to broker another deal.

The reason is Maulana Fazlullah and his declaration of open hostility against the Pakistan military. Fazlullah is the son-in-law of Maulana Sufi Muhammad and has organized his own army called Shaheen Commandos. He is operating in and around Matta and openly calling themselves the Taliban. He is young - 30 or 32 - and comes from Imam Dheri area in Swat. Around a year or so ago, as the Imam of the seminary in Imam Dheri, he established an FM radio channel in the area to deliver sermons and became a local celebrity.² After the Lal Masjid crisis, he declared jihad on the state of Pakistan. His Shaheen Commandos now control Matta. And the fight is slowly reaching the capital.

This is certainly a complex and deeply troubling development for the state of Pakistan. The rise of local militias and the oppressive reaction by the military was certainly a contributing factor in the secession of East Pakistan. And a similar pattern is clear in Baluchistan. Just two days ago, Mir Balach Khan Marri was killed - something that is sure to have wide repercussions for thatseparatist movement.

So to wrap it up: separatist religious movement in Swat, separatist nationalist movement in Baluchistan and a separate Musharraf from his dictatorship movement in the rest of the country. Things can only get better, no?

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1. See, for example, http://ghazwah-urdu.sitesled.com/Articals/Jihad/Qafla/11.htm [↩]
2. FM radio channels have proliferated in the past 3 years as the key means of transmission of ideas and information. They are very cheap to set up, mobile and can usually transmit up to 80 miles. No militant is without one. [↩]

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