When religion enters politics, individual believers hope that their personal beliefs are reflected in the public sphere. When religion enters state affairs, individual believers hope that their personal beliefs are reflected in the state’s actions carried out in the name of religion.
Islam and Muslim identity have been extremely important to Pakistan since its foundation. So how does that relate to Pakistan’s tacit support of Taliban in Taliban’s war against Afghans? The earlier pretext for Taliban fighting was the presence of foreign troops. Now that the pretext no longer applies, what reason remains for Taliban’s continued war on Afghans? Taliban are seeking the establishment of an Islamic emirate and they are doing so with Pakistan’s support.
An analogy to illustrate the conundrum of Islam, Pakistan and Taliban:
A knife is picked up by a surgeon to save a life. A knife is also picked
up by a criminal to take a life. After a series of murders, do we say
about the knife in the hands of the criminal, ‘That is not a true knife.
A true knife would never kill innocents. A true knife only works for
good life saving outcomes, as a surgeon does’.
If you do say that, the criminal can say, ‘ The scriptures say knives should be used for killing when necessary. So I used a knife to kill the guilty. I killed for justice. Hence, I am not a criminal, I am a hero who demonstrated the truest most faithful use of knives. Others who don’t kill are less faithful believers who don’t have my courage.’
After such a justification by the criminal, experts and lovers of knives are expected to step forward and say to the criminal, ‘Wrong, wrong, wrong! You are no hero, just a criminal because the people you killed were not guilty of anything. Knives are to be used for preserving and enriching lives, cultures and civilizations, not for destroying all of these. Moreover, in claiming your killing by knives is justice, you are blaspheming knives. We have laws punishing blasphemy by death. No offense is greater than insulting our precious knives by gross misuse. It is worse that you do so for your own criminal, personal or political benefit.’
In Pakistan, that intervention by experts/lovers of knives/blasphemy laws to vehemently object and stop criminals from murdering with knives does not happen. The criminals destroying lives, cultures and civilizations using knives as weapons and justice as excuse are lauded as pure-hearted heroes.
In this analogy,
knives=Islam;
criminals=Taliban, Pakistan jihadi groups, Pakistan state sponsors, Pakistan Army;
people killed or persecuted=Afghans;
people debating true Islam while passively watching Afghans being labeled as guilty and slaughtered by Taliban=Pakistanis.
The Taliban claim to be acting according to the principles of Islam in their war on Afghanistan and no major entity in Pakistan-the Pakistan state, the Pakistan Army, the political parties nor religious leaders disagrees with them on this point.
Afghans are not guilty of anything at all except for existing west of Pakistan. The Afghan government is not guilty of anything at all except for its very existence. In slaughtering Afghans or persecuting them, or attempting to destroy the existing Afghan state and overthrow its constitution, Taliban are not waging a war of justice.
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan tacitly supports the establishment by Taliban of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Otherwise, for example, it would not be possible for Pakistanis to fight alongside the Taliban.
Pakistani fighters killed in Afghanistan
#AFG Governor of Ningarhar @ZiaulhaqAmarkhi tells me,“ I have handed over the bodies of 39 Pakistani militants to RED cross @ICRC_af Pakistani militants were killed in the fighting by ANDSF.Anyone who comes to kill innocent Afghans, loot&kill,their dead bodies will be sent back.”
If Pakistan stopped supporting Taliban, Taliban would be reduced to geographically disjoint disorganized groups similar to Baluch separatist groups. The Afghan Army would be able to cut off supplies and defeat them eventually. The main driver of Taliban’s success and longevity in the slaughter and persecution of Afghans is the logistical, political and religious support of the state of Pakistan, the Army and jihadi groups. There is no Pakistani objection or resistance on grounds of religion, national self-interest or humanitarianism to the strategy and actions of Taliban and its own citizens in waging war on Afghans.
Islam is normally invoked as motivation on most public occasions by the state and citizenry in Pakistan, especially by its prime minister Imran Khan who claims very often to have read the Quran. Yet, the use of Islam by Taliban as justification for the ongoing wholesale slaughter of Afghans, the destruction of Afghan infrastructure and war on Afghanistan’s elected government is not objected to by any entity in Pakistan.
The most influential religious scholars in Pakistan, the religious parties, the Pakistan government, state organs, the Army, all, do not object to any actions of the Taliban. These entities normally object immediately and strenuously to blasphemies or slights to Islam.
Pakistanis do not voice any objections on either religious or humanitarian grounds, when Taliban targets for killing, Afghan school girls, prominent citizens, government functionaries, members of the Afghan National Army, or even say, Afghans visiting hospitals.
No objections are voiced by Pakistan when the Taliban destroy buildings, dig up roads, blow up cell towers, attack irrigation dams, forbid girls from attending school or demand that all unmarried and widowed women in conquered districts become their sex slaves by forced marriage.
Not a single instance of Taliban’s actions of wanton destruction and indiscriminate cruelty has been objected to by Pakistan either on religious, political or humanitarian grounds.
One could conclude, therefore, based on Pakistan’s logistical, political and religious support of the Taliban, that the Taliban’s slaughter and persecution of Afghans and destruction of Afghan infrastructure is indeed sanctioned by Islam. The knife is being used correctly.
The other alternative is that in supporting the Taliban, all the above listed Pakistani entities including the Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and the Pakistan Army chief Qamar Bajwa are war criminals guilty of the attempted genocide of Afghans. The knife is being misused by criminals. Which is it?
Will Pakistan be true to the principles of Islam and support Taliban in the establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan through continued slaughter and persecution of Afghans, and the destruction of Afghanistan?
Or will Pakistan be true to the principles of Islam and oppose the Taliban, and thence support the Afghans, their Army, government and constitution in preserving their lives, cultures and civilizations?
Historically, Pakistan has gone with the mass deaths and widespread destruction option.
Had Islam never been mentioned by either Pakistan or Taliban, after 40 years of fighting, the Afghan War would be done and finished with tractable power sharing compromises between Taliban and other Afghans, with Taliban choosing to grow its influence in future through peaceful democratic means instead of war.
Does Islam indeed decree limitless destruction to achieve its ends as Taliban’s war and Pakistan’s support for it seem to imply?
Has the war-criminal-in-making, Prime Minister Imran Khan thought this through or is he indulging himself in romanticized fantasies and fictions about golden happy victories of Islam?
Irrespective of religion, will Pakistan as a state yet again support limitless destruction in Afghanistan to pursue its ends? How is Pakistan supporting the wholesale destruction of a neighboring state and mass killings of Afghan citizens while escaping a single statement of condemnation from the international community?
PS:
Just as in the US, blacks and other non white people are in a sense the potential targets of the white supremacists’ dreams of an ultimate glorious victory, so too are Afghans the actual targets of the Pakistani public’s romantic dreams of glorious Islamic conquest.
As humans Afghans are expendable, as vehicles of Pakistani dreams of revival of golden era of Islamic rule, Afghans are sitting ducks. It isn’t religious extremism as much as it is mass religious delusion indulged in air conditioned drawing rooms from a safe distance. The end justifies the means, and many believers are sure that the end, namely, the Islamic emirate of Taliban is glorious as long as it is Afghans not Pakistanis enjoying it. Pakistanis just want boasting rights not the actual thing.