This is the second installment in a series contributed by researchers from
the World Organization for Resource Development and Education (WORDE) as they
traveled throughout Pakistan to explore how civil society is countering extremism
at the grassroots level.
...
In a pristine, remote valley in
Kashmir, far from the theaters of war, some families are abandoning their
religious and cultural traditions in favor of extremist ideologies. The trend
began after the 2005 earthquake, when several Islamist organizations - notably
Jamaat ud-Dawa (JuD) - came to the forefront, providing food, shelter and
health supplies to devastated communities. A village elder lamented, "Many of
us were impressed by their sophisticated ambulance services, and families
willingly joined in their relief efforts." Most of these families had no idea
that JuD was in fact a front for the banned militant organization, Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Pakistanis, particularly in such
remote areas, require tools to recognize extremist ideologies and terrorist organizations
so that they can create counter-movements within their own communities. We
travelled throughout Northern Punjab and the Hazara region of Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa to learn how certain grassroots organizations have designed
effective awareness campaigns within a religious paradigm that are palatable even
to the at-risk population.
We began with the leaders of
Pakistan's moderate religious networks. Since 9/11, dozens of religious
scholars have issued public statements and fatwas against terrorism. Dr. Raghib Naeemi -- son of Dr. Sarfraz Naeemi
who was killed in 2009 after he publically denounced terrorist activities as
un-Islamic -- appears regularly on TV to promote peace and social cohesion.
Traditional Muslim networks have
organized nation-wide anti-Taliban public rallies from "Save Pakistan" to
"Ulema and Mashaikh" conventions, bringing together religious scholars and
community leaders. Last November, a "Long March" was organized from Islamabad
to Lahore to protest the increasing number of suicide attacks on Pakistan's
cultural and spiritual landmarks. Over 20 major shrines across Pakistan were
bombed last year alone. One of the core organizers of the Long March explained,
"As we proceeded, the participation grew by the thousands, and in every city,
we gave speeches and handed out fliers teaching people how to recognize
extremism."
Religious leaders have also
developed rapid response mechanisms to denounce terrorism following major
suicide attacks. Last year when the soup kitchen at the shrine of Lahore's
patron saint was bombed, the imam Mufti Mohammad Sialvi invited the media and mobilized
leaders from different mosques to condemn terrorism. When we visited the shrine
a year later, we found that students groups had maintained the campaign with freshly
painted banners.
To form a stronger unified voice
against the Taliban, religious scholars have also created a number of new NGOs.
In the rural outskirts of Rawalpindi, Pir Mudassir Shah, a dynamic young leader
versed in 14 languages, established the think tank Center for Innovative Research,
Collaboration and Learning (CIRCLe). Pir Mudassir was a prominent organizer in
a 25,000 man National Flag Day march to demonstrate support for the military
counterinsurgency operations in the Swat Valley. The march brought together
various elements of civil society, from conservative Muslim groups to the
Christian Progressive Movement of Pakistan. CIRCLe will soon launch a poster
campaign, for which they are seeking international support. One of the posters
features a girl crying with a caption: "The Taliban Took my Father."
Schools are another critical
channel through which Pakistanis generate awareness. Our journey took us to
Bhera, an ancient village known for its classic Mughal mosques, Hindu temples,
and carved wooden balconies. Deep in the heart of Punjab, Bhera's Dar ul-Uloom
Muhammadia Ghousia is the hub of a network of educational and social welfare
institutions providing free education grounded in the Sufi ethos to over 25,000
women and men. Pir Amin al-Hasanat, who leads the school, explained, "We teach
all of our students that it is not their duty to fight jihad, but to look after
the wellbeing of their community - regardless of one's faith or ethnicity." Just
last year, the school and its affiliate philanthropic and social welfare
organizations distributed hundreds of hygiene kits, established medical
facilities for over 7,000 people and rebuilt homes for flood victims. They
targeted remote areas at risk of falling under the influence of radical groups
who use relief as a means to win recruits.
We encountered other successful
models. The Pak Turk International School system has campuses throughout
Pakistan, including volatile regions like Quetta and Peshawar. Their teachers challenge
radical narratives by providing students and their families the necessary tools
for interfaith dialogue and mutual understanding, which allow them to
deconstruct the tribal, cultural, and religious stereotypes that feed militancy.
Successful counter radicalization, we were told, is not taught in a specific
class or manual but rather by example. In the Pak Turk schools, teachers are available
at all times for guidance, and visit students in their homes. Through these civil
society efforts, Pakistanis are becoming aware of the dangers of violent
extremism. According to recent
public opinion polls, a greater number of Pakistanis have a negative view
of al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban than before. "At first people were
hesitant to speak out against the Taliban," explained Pir Mudassir Shah, "but now
they are becoming more comfortable challenging extremism because the issue is
mainstreamed." Today, while barriers and police checkpoints can be seen lining
the streets of Pakistan's capital, and the army mobilizes in the tribal belt, a
parallel war is being waged in Pakistan's heartland by local communities.
In one instance in rural Abbottabad,
not far from the compound in which slain al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was
living, a group of radical mullahs
offered to build a mosque on the condition that the clerics could provide their
own teachers. Not long after, families were alarmed to see that their children
were being radicalized in classes taught at the new mosque. When parents
learned that their children were being taught that "J" stands for "jihad" and
"K" for "kalashnikov" the community held the mosque under siege until the
mullahs were forced out.
150 miles south, in a village
near Bhera, a father learned that his son was being brainwashed by a
fundamentalist community member to believe that he would enter paradise if he
became a suicide bomber. The father, supported by the Dar ul-Uloom community,
rescued the children by publically exposing the radical mullah. He challenged
the mullah: "After sending my child to paradise, why don't you send your own
son to join him so that mine won't be lonely?"
Even some segments of the
population that had been involved in militancy are now condemning extremism. Irfan,
a former "toll collector" for a militant outfit along the Pakistan-Afghanistan
Durand Line explained, "After the Taliban bombed the shrine of the Rahman Baba,
the great Pashtun poet-saint, I realized that militants are destroying our
country." Now as a taxi driver, Irfan makes it a point to lambast the Taliban in
conversations with all of his passengers.
Waleed Ziad and Mehreen Farooq are leading a project to analyze the
role of Pakistan's
civil society in countering extremism for the Washington DC-based World
Organization for Resource Development and Education (WORDE).
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