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Out-recruiting Pakistan's extremists

By Mehreen Farooq and Waleed Ziad Share

This is part four of a series contributed by WORDE researchers, as they traveled through 35 cities and villages in Pakistan - from FATA to interior Sindh - to understand how civil society is countering extremism.

In a moderate madrassa on the border of Pakistan's rugged Khyber Agency, an imam demonstrated a new computer program to teach religious studies. This CD-ROM has been distributed to madrassas across Pakistan by a foreign source to promote radical Salafi ideologies that are linked to militant organizations. Crouching over one of the five PCs in his computer lab, the imam opened the program to show us how extremists are trying to infiltrate moderate institutions. The first e-lesson he selected instructed students to hate those who did not conform to strict Salafi belief system.

Elsewhere, in major universities across Pakistan's bustling cities, extremists are winning recruits by embedding Islamist narratives into their lectures. A professor in Lahore explained how she witnessed several students attend such lectures and change their behavior overnight. "The first sign of radicalization was in their dress code," she explained. "Within weeks they assumed the role of moral police for the student body and began advocating for Taliban-style Shariah law."

Facing increasing unemployment and political disillusionment, youth are by far the most important demographic for Taliban recruiters. This is a particularly disturbing trend considering that an estimated 102 million Pakistanis, or 59% of the population, are under the age of 24. Without outlets to channel their energy, this age bracket can easily become Pakistan's most lethal powder keg.

To stem youth radicalization in Pakistan, both secular schools and moderate madrassas have had to seek innovative solutions. In July 2009, a youth NGO called Barghad hosted the "All Pakistan Student Leaders Conference" to address how students can openly challenge extremist influence on college campuses. Remarkably, even in the frontier provinces, the epicenter of the conflict, students are turning out in high numbers to promote peace. In 2010, when the Sustainable Peace and Development Organization (SPADO) held a "Peace Walk" to protest gun violence at Peshawar University, 500 students participated. Building off such initiatives, the Young Parliamentarian caucus in the National Assembly is organizing a series of college debates to engage students on sensitive issues such as terrorism. The caucus is led by Member of the National Assembly Dr. Donya Aziz, whose bill criminalizing violence against women was recently passed with the support of religious scholars.

Minhaj ul Quran, one of Pakistan's largest religious school networks, created the Muslim-Christian Dialogue Forum to promote a tolerant worldview. Each year, Minhaj's Muslim students celebrate Christmas with Lahore's Christian community. Many madrassas also encourage students to participate in anti-terror rallies. After Lahore's landmark Sufi shrine, Data Darbar, was bombed in 2010, students at the nearby Jamia Nizamia Rizvia participated in demonstrations denouncing all forms of terrorism. Dr. Raghib Naeemi, the son of Dr. Sarfraz Naeemi, who was murdered by extremists for speaking out against the Taliban, told us that he gave his students a day off to participate in "Save Pakistan" rallies.

According to Reza Shah Khan, the Executive Director of SPADO, "Many Pakistani youth have immense potential to lead counter-extremism programs because they have high skill sets on par with students in the West. The challenge is that they lack the platforms to achieve and utilize their potential." To address this, SPADO created the "Youth for Peace Network" which involves thousands of young Pakistanis in participating in peacebuilding programs and public awareness campaigns. Other civil society leaders and activists are training youth in civic engagement and in organizing peace initiatives.

At Bahria University in Islamabad, we met with Professor Ali Jafari, who pioneered a course on leadership and social responsibility. Every semester he challenges students to hit the streets and create sustainable community development projects in at-risk areas, from building schools to creating job opportunities. Students use video-logs to document "before-and-after changes" in the communities.

National crises -- natural and manmade -- have also been an impetus for mobilizing youth. After the constitution was suspended in 2007, pro-democracy youth movements came together to form the urban activist network, Pakistan Youth Alliance (PYA). Today PYA organizes rallies and peace vigils, and gets students to roll up their sleeves to participate in humanitarian relief. Last August, PYA arranged a street theater performance in the Swat valley at a notorious street corner where the Taliban would hang corpses when they controlled the area. The performance was designed to encourage youth to speak out against extremist ideologies.

Meanwhile, in the deserts of Sindh Province, we spoke with young women activists who are part of the NGO network Web For Human Development. We met in their office in Makli, minutes away from the world's largest ancient necropolis, with miles of magnificent sandstone monuments. Here, young activists provide rural schools with workshops on Government 101, human rights, and peace building.

Youth across Pakistan are applying these types of skills, using the media, blogosphere, arts, and public rallies to challenge jihadism and extremist world views.

Pakistan's new media is rapidly becoming a space to mainstream controversial issues from terrorism to homosexuality and there are concerted efforts to bring youth into these discourses.  Nationwide, the Open Minds Project trains students in dozens of schools and madrassas in journalism and conflict reporting. Their students have appeared on national news shows. In the frontier regions, the Center for Research and Security Studies invites students to share their stories of conflict affected areas on radio stations broadcasting in Kohat, Abbottabad, and Peshawar.

Taking examples from the Arab Spring, Pakistani youth are also using social media forums such as Twitter and Facebook to promote peace initiatives. Online petitions like www.amanittehad.com, which has over 15,000 signatories, urge Pakistanis to foster pluralism. Similarly, Facebook pages like "A call to youth to bring peace in Karachi" mobilized students from major universities in the city to participate in a march against targeted killings in August 2011 when political violence was at its height.

According to Dean Salima Hashmi at Beaconhouse National University, art is another powerful medium for countering extremism. She took her class to the streets of Lahore, to disseminate messages of peace through chalk art graffiti. Other students developed slogans and designed tee-shirts. "For many," Dr. Hashmi explained, "this was the first time they got involved in public activism."  Art has also been used by NGOs like Pakistan Rising to rehabilitate youth affected by the war in Swat after the Taliban offensive ended last year. Even the government has recognized art as a powerful tool. Last August, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani called upon leading Pakistani artists for a "Dialogue with the Prime Minister" to help build a national counter-extremism strategy.

On national television, the show Coke Studio has captivated Pakistan by introducing a new mechanism for peace-promotion. We met with the lead singer of the women's rock band "Zeb and Haniya" who described that every week on prime-time TV, Pakistan's top musicians perform new music on themes such as tolerance and diversity. Additionally, by combining pop music with traditional poetry, there has been a resurgence of interest amongst youth in Sufi culture, which has championed these values for over a millennium.

While these programs provide great models, they need to be expanded and integrated in order to successfully push back against the tide of radicalization.  In particular, universities, moderate madrassas and civil society organizations should network and pool their human capital. Additionally, the Government of Pakistan should be brought on to generate public service initiatives for the youth.

Naturally, one of the biggest obstacles is funding. There are very few financial resources within Pakistan for non-profits, and most NGOs lack the institutional capacity to tap into international sources. For Pakistan's next generation to coordinate a country-wide movement against extremism, youth require substantial training in capacity building, social mobilization, and leadership development. Fortunately, there is an immense opportunity for international organizations and private institutions to partner with Pakistani organizations to provide this training. At the end of the day, this collaboration at the civil society level can help rebuild trust between the US and Pakistan at this critical juncture.

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).

BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images

 

DR. KUCHBHI

11:46 PM ET

February 29, 2012

After us the deluge - The age old Pakistani refrain

If I had a dollar for every time I heard Pakistanis say that if the west doesn't provide money, extremists will get their hands on Paki nukes...

In parts of Chicago, there's another word for this, "Protection money".

Extremism in Pakistan is not limited to nut job madrassas but is widely prevalent even in schools where kids are taught in ENGLISH. In a mandatory course called "Pakistan studies" and various other books that purport to teach history, kids are taught hate from an early age.

It is hence no surprise that The Pew Research Center poll in 2010 found that:

85% of Pakistanis FAVOR making GENDER SEGREGATION in the workplace a law in the country

85% of Pakistanis FAVOR punishments like WHIPPING and CUTTING OFF HANDS for crimes like theft and robbery

82% of Pakistanis FAVOR STONING people who commit adultery

78% of Pakistanis feel that people who convert from Islam to another religion should DIE.

 

DR. KUCHBHI

11:54 PM ET

February 29, 2012

Show a few kid pictures on the first page and ..

the westerner pockets begin to open up already.

Just to be sure, you then shame the westerners by telling them that if they don't pony up and PAY, there will be a "loss of trust".

Check out this last paragraph.

"Fortunately, there is an immense opportunity for international organizations and private institutions to partner with Pakistani organizations to provide this training. At the end of the day, this collaboration at the civil society level can help rebuild trust between the US and Pakistan at this critical juncture."

Sorry guys, but we've seen this movie before. We pay up and then your extremists (paid for by your own intelligence services) get nice whiteboards and projectors to show their propaganda even better.

 

MARTY MARTEL

12:28 AM ET

March 1, 2012

Give me money or I will become a terrorist - so says Farooq/Ziad

Here are two more Pakistanis seeking more handouts from the world community or else those poor kids will become terrorists.

Is ’poverty, lack of economic development or lack of education’ a valid excuse to promote, spawn, shelter and support umpteen terrorist outfits on Pakistani soil? What if every poor country in the world was to become a breeding ground for terrorism like Pakistan is?

Of all the people, well-educated lawyers showered the suspected killer of a prominent Pakistani governor with rose petals when he arrived at court and an influential Muslim scholars group praised the assassination of the governor who was recommending to reform Pakistan‘s sharia laws.

The Pakistani parliament’s joint session convened on 5/13/11 after Osama’s killing and ended after adopting a unanimous resolution condemning the American raid on the Abbottabad compound in which al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed.

Pakistani parliamentarians (Pakistani people’s elected representatives) were not bothered about Osama living in Abbottabad for the past five years and in other parts of the country since 9/11.

Osama bin Laden was a hero in Pakistan even prior to his death and remains one now as well.

Nobody forced Pakistani government to facilitate relocation of Osama bin Laden from Sudan to Afghanistan in 1996. Democratic government of Pakistan chose to do so of its own free will.

Nobody forced Pakistani Army and Intelligence to create what ex-CIA official Bruce Reidel called ‘this jihadist Frankenstein’ monster in 1990s. Pakistani Army and Intelligence chose to do so with the full financing provided by Pakistan ’s democratic governments at the time.

Pakistan has been successful - of producing cadre of terror as in a hatchery, of funding them, of selecting targets for them to attack, of nuclear proliferation and of running drugs internationally. Whenever the international society has confronted it with evidence of its complicity, it talks its way out brazenly.

How is it that Pakistan is able to get away with being dangerous to the rest of the world? Its footprint is clearly linked to terror strikes in most parts of the world. As former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said, “Seventy per cent of terror plots in the UK have their source in Pakistan .”

 

HASSAN RAZA

5:03 AM ET

March 1, 2012

good

As the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) tries to recruit teenagers and children, Uzbek authorities are taking steps to thwart their efforts, analysts and government employees say.

The IMU is recruiting youngsters in Afghanistan and Pakistan rather than in Uzbekistan, according to Novbokhor Rosulova, a National Security Service (NSS) specialist on Islamist organisations.

"In Uzbekistan, they also try to recruit children, but in the majority of cases, the special services foil them," she said. "However, we receive much information from our sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan saying … the IMU has been more successful in recruiting teenagers there."

The Uzbek government is trying to rein in the situation, said Bakhtiyer Yakubov, a deputy in the Uzbek parliament’s lower chamber.

"This is the result of efforts by state agencies and the clergy and (shows) the level of education of the young generation of Muslims in the republic," he said. "The makhallas – the citizens’ self-governing bodies – play far from the smallest role."

The IMU uses children because they attract little suspicion, Rosulova said. One of the biggest IMU cases involving teenagers occurred in Tajikistan in 2007, when a court convicted 14 teenagers of illegally crossing the border, preparing and carrying out terrorist acts, organising a crime ring, and calling for overthrow of the government. The convicted defendants included three female Uzbeks.
A teenager poses with a weapon in this photograph from a jihadist website. Uzbekistan is working to keep militants from recruiting children and teens.

A teenager poses with a weapon in this photograph from a jihadist website. Uzbekistan is working to keep militants from recruiting children and teens.

"It’s easy to fool children," Rosulova said. "After all, adults often are an authority figure for them, and they don’t doubt what they hear from (adults). That’s precisely why we conduct many operations on the local and international levels to prevent (terrorist) youth recruitment."

The NSS analytical department has a video recording that shows 6-year-olds in an IMU camp learning how to handle an AK-47, said Bakhrom Okoyev of that department.

"The tape comes with a narration saying these are ‘representatives of the new generation of warriors of Islam,’" he said. "The recording was filmed in an extremist camp on the Afghan-Uzbek border. We believe it’s an IMU camp."

The NSS has information that Islamists operate academic centres and madrassas in areas of Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries, Okoyev said. In such places, extremists train children and teenagers to carry out various tasks, he said.

"It’s not just terrorist acts but also carrying messages, shadowing people and recruiting," he said.

"In order to lure teenagers to their side, the militants use intimidation," Okoyev said. "The teenagers, understanding that obedience will keep them alive, and still unaware of the possible consequences of their actions, frequently participate in killing other children."

"Extremist forces have often used and still use minors," Rosulova said. "According to different estimates, no fewer than 1,000 children have been recruited into IMU armed units."

Rosulova recalled once, in a Tashkent prison, meeting a convict who was a teenager in the 1990s. His own father had lured him into IMU activity, and he had continued as an adult. "He bitterly regretted that his father had dragged him into this and expressed certainty that he would never let his own children become terrorists," Rosulova said.

Today Uzbek authorities are paying special attention to efforts to recruit the children of migrant labourers into the IMU, Rosulova said.

The legion of migrants and refugees includes numerous female activists belonging to fundamentalist Islamic sects, said political scientist Yelena Fattakhova. Those women are well-prepared and trained in the concepts of jihadism and caliphate-building, Fattakhova said.

"They use them, for example, as couriers," she said. "But the teenagers imbibe radical ideas and have a high certainty that this ‘weapon will spread and fire’ far beyond the borders of Uzbekistan in a few years."

In this age of new information technologies and access to different forms of communication, pro-Islamist terrorist and extremist organisations use the internet and cartoons to lure children, Rosulova said. She cited, as an example, al-Qaeda cartoons meant to recruit for jihad.

"On their sites, extremists, with the help of cartoon heroes, put out information in a different and understandable form accessible to this age category," she said.

Authorities carrying out routine operations this year detained a suspected IMU militant with a notebook computer, recalled Khabidzhon Matlyubov, an employee of the Interior Ministry’s department for fighting terrorism.

The suspect told Matlyubov that "computer technology and the internet have long been used by his ‘brothers in faith’ to propagandise their viewpoints among youth, gather information, and of course, organise communications," Matlyubov said.

Mosques remain fertile recruiting turf.

"That’s precisely why the special services monitor mosques and madrassas, as well as monitoring families of terrorist suspects," Rosulova said.

thanks
professional web design

 

C. NANDKISHORE

11:01 AM ET

March 7, 2012

$2.2 billion spent in 2011 to increase the nuclear stockpile

Well, asking for money is the birthright of every Pakistani. As per ICAN Pakistan spent $2.2 billion in 2011 to increase its stockpile of nuclear weapons to 110 nos. Maybe Mehreen Farooq and Waleed Ziad should be asking for money from Rawalpindi.

 

MAXIMB

12:12 PM ET

March 19, 2012

Most of the decade was given

Most of the decade was given over to solving the problem of the Great Depression. So, the US concentrated on domestic policy. Trade and other commercial activities continued but on a lesser amount than before the Depression. Toward the end of the decade, the unrest in Europe caused by Mussolini and Hitler began to focus US attention on foreign policy. FDR followed some of Hoover's policies dealing with Latin America. Some of our troops were pulled out but we did not intervene in Cuba due to the Platt Amendment. The Stimson Doctrine was an attempt to maintain our influence in China via the Open Door Policy. FDR did recognize the Soviet Union and we exchanged Ambassadors. Check the site below..

"Is rio orange war always forfait b and you inevitable ?"
MaximB