AFGHANISTAN is Pakistan’s Achilles’ heel. We need a quiet western border along the 2,500 km stretch with Afghanistan as long as we have confrontation in the east. Our nightmare scenario is confrontation — east and west — which would require huge increases in our defence expenditure.

Our ‘misalliance’ with the odious Taliban government stemmed from this imperative. Necessity knows no bounds. In the Taliban era we did not have any significant army formations on the western border; today we are said to have two and a half army corps in place. The Taliban have been replaced by the old elites returning from exile.

The resurgent elites of Kabul are among the most cultured, intelligent, creative, well educated and patriotic to be found in any world capital. Almost the entire group fled Afghanistan to the West after the Marxist coup d’etat of 1979. Contemporary history has been unkind to Afghanistan. The so-called Saur revolution of 1978 was followed by Soviet occupation in pursuance of a Communist mantra that ‘the revolution is irreversible.’

The Soviet occupation was reversed in 1989 by a US-backed, Pakistan-based guerilla war labelled as ‘The Jihad.’ In truth, superior technology won. The shoulder-fired US missile, stinger, introduced in the mid-1980s, brought down the Soviet helicopter gunships like flies.

This was the real turning point of the war. Between the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 and the rise of the Taliban in the mid-1980s, Afghanistan virtually ceased to be a state. Warlords, narco-terrorists and political parties that fought the Jihad divided the country for dominance mainly on ethnic faultlines. The result was interminable chaos.

The Taliban were initially welcomed; madressah-educated with narrow mental horizons, they were honest, ignorant of the real world and intensely fanatical. They swept away the corrupt warlords. The Taliban government was gradually subsumed by the Saudi militant, Osama bin Laden — a highly intelligent, super-rich, religio-fanatic who, by 2000, became the de facto controller of Afghanistan’s foreign policy. What happened after 9/11 is well known and need not be repeated.

The returning elites of Kabul ruled Afghanistan until 1979 under King Zahir Shah, who was overthrown by his cousin Sardar Daud in 1973. They were then and remain now, by and large, hostile to Pakistan. From time to time and up to the present day claims are laid on Pakistan territory up to the River Indus. The genesis of the claim is the 1893 treaty between Col. Mortimer Durand and King Amir Abdul Rehman, which delineated the border between British India and Afghanistan.

The Afghans claim it to be an unequal treaty. It was also said that the treaty was valid for 100 years — till 1993. Afghan maps were wont to show the NWFP and Balochistan as ‘Pakhtunistan.’ Pakistan inherited the treaty as successor state to British India. The inheritance is lawful under international law; the treaty has no shelf life. Besides, the Pathans, Balochs and Hindko people have shown little inclination to be part of a separate state other than to be part of Pakistan. In fact, between three and five million refugees from Afghanistan fled to these provinces during and after the Communist takeover.

The Taliban are the antithesis in most respects of the Kabul elites. Rough, crude, uneducated, simple, fanatical and intolerant, they are in stark contrast to the sophisticated, cultured, well-educated, savvy world-wizened elites. It is a classic case of the village vs the city. Afghanistan in Taliban times was ruled by the village. Kabul today is ruled by a dual passport-holding (mostly US) elite. At the best of times ethnic division may be less pronounced, but the base of the pyramid is solidly divided between its Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek parts.

Be that as it may, it is the elite governing class that we have to deal with today in Kabul. We have to understand the aims and objectives of the present stakeholders.

A visit to Kabul in mid-November revealed that the charge most often repeated against Pakistan was the half-baked, somewhat crazy idea of our one-time army and ISI chiefs that Afghanistan would provide “strategic depth” for Pakistan in the event of a war. This is held as proof, if any were needed, of our planning a colonial status for Afghanistan.

But has Afghanistan ever been any power’s colony in history? The proud Afghan vanquished the British, Russians, and soon the Americans too will learn the lesson of history. Could poor Pakistan ever stand a chance to colonize the world’s most fiercely independent people?

The more informed charge against Pakistan was its past and alleged present support to the Taliban. I had an opportunity to discuss our current prickly relations at some length with President Hamid Karzai and my old friend vice-president Hidayat Arsala and some ministers in Kabul during my visit.

I was met at the palace gates by US security personnel guarding President Karzai, one of whom had a huge sniffer dog on a leash. The drive to the palace itself was through a dimly lit driveway flanked on either side by neat rows of what looked like juniper trees, possibly planted some 60 to 70 years ago. Former King Zahir Shah has his apartments in a part of the palace and nearby is the office of President Karzai — a former Quetta resident during the Communist times. He is a dapper, savvy, charming person who showed much personal bravery in the final stages of the anti-Taliban strife.

President Karzai, a Pakhtun from Kandahar, has one of the toughest jobs anywhere. His problems are compounded by warlords to the north, south and west; a defiant war minister; a narcotic chain that produced 3,600 metric tons of opium this year that provided three-quarters of world heroin supply generating an estimated revenue of four billion dollars, a fair portion of which sustains the armies of the warlords; and, last but not the least, the regrouping Taliban. The Karzai government is protected by the ISAF and US forces.

Karzai’s principal concern is the regrouping of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in both our countries, which he considers is either acquiesced in by us or sponsored by the ISI. Incidentally many of the ruling elites have the conviction that the ISI is a parallel government in Pakistan with its own regional goals and agenda. Mr Karzai recounts various terror incidents in Afghanistan that have been traced back to Pakistan by Afghan intelligence. He also refers to the need for reaching out to the moderate Taliban and then rhetorically asks, “What is a ‘moderate’ Taliban? Is he a renegade or reformed individual?”

Be that as it may, the sight of an armed white foreigner is enough to boil the blood of many an Afghan nationalist. An Afghan may have little sympathy for the Taliban but he would be ready to join any group that fights the armed foreigners in his homeland. This is not exactly terrorism but an assertion of sovereignty.

Our long-term interest lies in the economic development of Afghanistan. The per capita income in Pakistan is nearly twice that of our neighbour. Our aid to Afghanistan in the shape of commodities (fertilizer and sugar), transit facilities (road and rail) and road building with Afghanistan should be stepped up. We could be more large-hearted and should consider projects like the Indira Gandhi Hospital in Kabul gifted by the Indians. No neuro-surgery or kidney units exist now in Afghanistan; we could fill this gap.

Indian diplomatic activity is hyperactive in Afghanistan. Apart from four largely staffed consular offices, there are said to be many hundreds of technicians involved with the military, hospitals, agriculture, etc. Almost the same language is used by Afghan and Indian officers if a bomb blast occurs in Kandahar or Srinagar. In both cases Pakistan is immediately cast as the bad boy and a finger pointed at the ISI for sponsoring “cross-border terrorism.” One wonders what interest Pakistan would have in destabilizing Mr Karzai; any alternative to him, especially from the Northern Alliance, would be against our interests. Could we desire that? A non-Pakhtun at the top in a country which is overwhelmingly Pakhtun would once again topple the ethnic apple cart.

I remarked to the president that the intelligence agencies world-wide have a history of exaggerating and embellishing facts and playing upon fears to serve the interests of ‘hawks’ in the decision-making coterie. The latest example is Iraq. It is now clear that the CIA played to the tune of the neo-cons in providing fictitious estimates of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and alleged nuclear activity. The CIA embellishment has landed the US in a predicament worse than tat of Vietnam.

Likewise I pointed out that the KGB assessment of Afghanistan at the time of the Soviet intervention in 1979 was tailored to meet perceptions of the ‘hawks’ in the politburo of the time. And finally Pakistan’s misadventure of 1965 ‘Operating Gibraltar’ in Kashmir was based on doctored intelligence to suggest that the Kashmiris at that time were ready to rise up in arms against India. The same may be true of India and Afghan intelligence today in respect of “cross-border terrorism” allegedly supported by Pakistan today.

Mr Karzai is profuse in his praise for Pakistan’s hospitality to Afghans in their hour of need. How can he and the three and a half million Afghan refuges ever forget this fact — he was one of them. A meeting with Loya Jirga has been called for December 10, to approve a new constitution, presidential in character with elections to follow in summer. Mr Karzai is the leading candidate. He should be supported by us. He is potentially our best friend in Kabul. But we have to convince him of our goodwill in more material ways than words.

The writer is a member of the National Assembly.

IN the court of the Abbasid caliph, Mamun-al-Rashid (r. 813-833), who had adopted an eclectic approach to theological issues, learned men from different faiths gathered periodically to present their respective positions on specific subjects. With the caliph listening in, and occasionally even participating, discussions remained civil. Something similar is said to have happened in the court of Akbar, emperor of India (r. 1556-1605). These discussions may have encouraged tolerance of religious and sectarian differences at least temporarily.

In our own region, as I remember it, debates (called “munazara”) used to be held between Sunni and Shia spokesmen and, within the Sunni fold, between the Hanafi and Wahabi polemicists. Participants in these encounters were out to highlight their differences and to “prove” that the other side was misguided or worse (perverse and heretical).

Interfaith dialogues have been taking place between the American Christian and Jewish communities since the early 1950s. As details of the “holocaust” (massacres of several million Jews in Europe) came out, Jewish scholars found and pointed out that the Pope in Rome and several western governments (including those of Britain, France, and America) knew of the massacres at the time but did nothing to stop them or even condemn them.

Christendom was thus made to feel responsible for this terrible tragedy to some degree. The dialogues, encouraged by the Pope, and sponsored by numerous church organizations in America, are intended to promote reconciliation between the Christian and Jewish communities and bring them closer together. In this new climate Christians are advised not to label the Jews of ancient Israel as the killers of Jesus; the emerging inclination being to shift the blame to the Roman rulers of that time. It is politically incorrect, even hazardous, to say anything uncomplimentary about Jewish beliefs, traditions, and culture or about their predominance in certain spheres of the American society and economy.

It is well known that the events of 9/11 generated a widespread distrust of Muslims and a certain amount of hostility towards them in America. Many commentators, including Southern Baptists and other Christian fundamentalists, began to say also that certain teachings of Islam itself made Muslims intolerant, militant, and violent towards non-Muslims. Better-knowing Christian scholars, disturbed by the anti-Muslim currents issuing from the pulpit and running into society, have pulled Muslims into interfaith dialogues in order mainly to remove misunderstandings of Islam that have crept into the minds of many Americans who had previously never given it much thought. Muslim community leaders, more than the imams in their local masjids, are welcoming the opportunity to go out and explain the Islamic way to their non-Muslim fellow-citizens.

It is important for the generality of Americans to discover what Muslims are like and whether they should be regarded as “dangerous.” Muslims, on their part, wish to continue to live and prosper in America. They want others to understand that they and their faith are by no means strange or weird, that they are not given to violence, and that there is no cause for anyone to distrust or shun them.

Al Qaeda, Taliban, and other extremist Muslim groups claim to be acting in the name of Islam. Their posture has understandably given Christians and Jews in America and Europe the impression that Islam teaches, even requires, its followers to fight and, if possible, quell non-Muslims. Muslim participants in interfaith dialogues have, thus, a two-fold objective: to show that far from being weird Islam has a great deal in common with Judaism and Christianity; and, second, that Islam does not teach violence against non-Muslims, that it is a “religion of peace.”

The common ground between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is truly vast. Jesus did not bring new law; he said that he had come to revitalize that which already existed (that is, the Judaic law). Muslims honour the Ten Commandments of Moses. Islamic law, injunctions, and the moral code are largely the same, or similar to, the Judaic law and code. Jewish prophets are accepted as such by Muslims. All of this can be reassuring to non-Muslim Americans. Doctrinal closeness can have the same effect. Some of my friends who have spoken at interfaith meetings report that their Christian listeners are pleasantly surprised to hear that Muslims accept the notion of immaculate conception, that Mary is the only woman (other than Eve) whom the Quran mentions by name, and it says that of all the women ever born she is the most beloved of God.

There are surely plenty of doctrinal and theological differences between Islam, on the one hand, and Judaism and Christianity on the other. But they need not stand in the way of building “peace and goodwill” among men. Two approaches to them come to mind. First, it should be understood that the realm of belief is not the same as that of knowledge. The dichotomy between true and false should not apply to beliefs. They may be different, one from the other, but it is not appropriate to say that one of them is right while the other is wrong. Second, one belief, or a set of beliefs, may be more “useful” than another, depending upon their respective functional consequences. If no such consequences ensue, there is no objective basis for preferring one to the other.

Take, for instance, the Christian belief that Jesus was the Son of God (whatever that means). Muslims do not subscribe to it; they believe he was a prophet. But if everything Jesus said and did had God’s approval, and if there is nothing that he did in one role that he would not have done in the other, then it does not really matter how he is regarded. Muslims can stay with their belief, Christians with theirs, and there is no reason for either of them to get upset with the other.

Muslim spokesmen are insisting also that Islam enjoins tolerance of those who subscribe to other belief systems. As I have argued before in another context, understanding does not necessarily produce amity between those who must interact with one another. If we want amity, we must approach the task of understanding with a sympathetic frame of mind: look for the good and laudable, not just the weaknesses, in the other position. We cannot develop attitudes of tolerance if we approach the other side with the assumption that it represents evil. It follows also that Muslims who participate in interfaith dialogues should become familiar with the basic Jewish and Christian texts.

In one of the interfaith dialogues of which I have read, Rev. Dean Gilliland, a professor at the Fuller Theological Seminary in California, declared: “Salvation, as Christians know it in Jesus cannot be found in Islam. Islam is not a religion of faith in God or fellowship with God, but of obedience to prescribed laws.” This attitude of mind will not let interfaith dialogue get any place. For if a participant starts with the premise that his faith is the only right or good one, he has left nothing for others to say. End of dialogue. But we find that there is also a “pluralist” approach represented, for instance, by Rev. Wesley Ariaraja, professor of ecumenical theology at Drew University, who cautions Christian clergymen that “if the supremacy of Christ is our prerequisite for dialogue, there will be no conversation.” There is only one God, he says, and nobody is excluded from His love, mercy, and protection. “He is the God of all nations.”

Nothing will be gained from entering a dialogue with the expectation of emerging as a “winner” and converting others to one’s faith. Nor will it do to claim that one’s faith is the best of all that are, or can possibly be, available. It is well to bear in mind that a man grows up in a certain faith, it becomes a part of his being, it is like his father and mother. He will not normally disown his mother and adopt another woman as mother because she is more accomplished in this or that respect than the one who brought him into this world and raised him.

Muslims should go to interfaith dialogues with a good measure of self-confidence. They should not be arrogant and aggressive, but there is no reason for them to be defensive or apologetic. The desire to appear tolerant of other faiths, and the desire to make Islam appear less threatening to non-Muslims, should not lead them to present their faith as something which in fact it is not. Take, for instance, the issue of violence. It is being said by all and sundry (including those who know little about it such as Bush, Blair, and Musharraf) that Islam is a religion of peace.

Actually, it all depends on the situation at hand. Speaking in terms of doctrine, Islam is as much for peace as are Judaism and Christianity. They will condemn unprovoked aggression, but all of them uphold the concept of a just war. Their followers have waged countless wars for both just and unjust reasons. True that in the Islamic vocabulary “jihad” means endeavour, which may take many forms. But it is preposterous to say that it does not include resort to the sword (“jihad bil-saif”).

The extremists who are currently resorting to the sword may be doing so for the wrong reasons. But if the reasons are right, and if the prospects of victory are good, Muslims are as much entitled to use force as Jews, Christians, and Hindus. Islam does not preach pacifism; Muslims are not the same as classical Buddhists or, within the Christian fold, as the Quakers.

The purpose of interfaith dialogues is to identify and stress the common ground between them and us, recognize and tolerate (perhaps even respect) the differences as elements that give each group its distinct identity, and learn to live and work peacefully together in spite of them.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, US.

E-mail: anwarsyed@cox.net

AS India and Pakistan are engaged in a flurry of good-neighbourly declarations, a thought that keeps haunting is whether the extremists on both sides would let this convivial atmosphere last. Adding to the anxiety are the impending political changes in both countries through elections or alliances. The two sides, therefore, have to proceed with speed and grace to implement the agreed measures.

In Pakistan some elements in the opposition are already accusing President Musharraf of being obsequious to Mr Vajpayee and doing what he wants without India agreeing even to talk about Kashmir. Among the accusers, not unsurprisingly, are clerics speaking on their own or for their schools. But surprising is the criticism coming from the ARD of which the PPP and Nawaz Muslim League are the chief components. Surprising because both these parties in their own times claimed to have all but settled the Kashmir dispute and complained that the army commanders intervened to scuttle it.

Vajpayee riding a bus to Lahore and Musharraf, at the time, climbing up the Kargil peaks was then made out by Nawaz Sharif as a betrayal of the Kashmir cause and still is. Musharraf, too, attributes his midnight dash out of Agra to the hawks in the Indian government who stopped Vajpayee from signing the agreed draft.

The differences between India and Pakistan on Kashmir may be forbidding and the obstacles to a solution many and awesome, but the area of agreement was narrowed down and defined by Benazir Bhutto in her talks with Rajiv Gandhi and by Nawaz Sharif and Pervez Musharraf in their respective meetings with Vajpayee, or so at least all three claim. It should be, thus, possible for the parties to go back to either of the three past trysts to move further ahead.

Every passing day of jingoism has shown that a fresh start could be made only in an atmosphere of peace and mutual trust with the common people, and not the cynics or fanatics or armchair ideologues, at the back of their negotiating leaders. Every passing year has also shown that while India can grow economically and also keep functioning as a democracy with 15 per cent of its budget going to defence, Pakistan cannot with 25 per cent.

The common people in both countries and in Kashmir, undoubtedly, stand to gain by an end to confrontation. The ceasefire in Kashmir would prevent death and injury on the Line of Control. The status of martyrdom, or its denial, is reduced to a mere rhetoric when the people dying on either side of the Line are all innocent non-combatants and kins in faith and blood. The relief and cheer it has brought to the residents of the firing zone is real and unmistakable.

The point to make is that leaving the intractable Kashmir dispute aside for a moment, the normalization of relations with India brings its own dividends to the people of all the three lands which must not be denied to them. The Kashmiris should not continue to die or suffer privations, the long parted family and clan members should be able to see each other and the unwary fishermen straying into the wrong territorial waters should not rot in jails for years together. Pakistan would get its share in the Asian tourism by making the land border crossing free for foreigners.

Only free trade and industrial joint ventures could be linked with the progress in negotiations on Kashmir. Tension and hostility spread over half a century have only hardened India’s stand. The fears that peace and amity might put off a solution are conjured up only by bigots and warmongers to promote their own creeds. The mainstream political forces like the PPP and Muslim League, whether in government or in opposition, should not become their collaborators for a passing political gain. It is for the first time that bellicose commanders are seeking peace. By opposing them the politicians will be defying the public opinion they have been elected to articulate.

The moderate politician has turned up as an unexpected joker in the pack. It is the extremists who pose a threat to normalization. It is equally true of India but the extremists there are a part of the power structure hence they can be persuaded to go along with the government. Secondly, the Indian extremists may, and do, torment their own people especially the Muslims but do not carry their militancy abroad. Yet, as the recent state elections have shown, they are on the ascendancy. L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi alone are capable of undermining the India-Pakistan talks more than our MMA lot put together.

The extremists of Pakistan are viewed as terrorists abroad. Their parent organizations openly vow to fight with arms against the oppression of the Muslims wherever it might occur and their partisan papers routinely gloat over dispatching the non-Muslims to hell in occupied Kashmir. Yet they are keen to support Musharraf only if he were to agree to relinquish the army command by a specified date.

Prime Minister Jamali frequently holds out the hope of a “good news” which is MMA collaborating with the government. It may be a good news for his shaky government but wholly inauspicious for a settlement with India. Pakistan has lost international goodwill in its differences with India, especially on Kashmir, because of the jihad doctrine. The world would be wary of backing an Islamic cum military Pakistan against a secular, democratic India when the patron-saints and practitioners of armed jihad occupy pivotal positions in Pakistan’s power structure.

India despite the presence of militants at the heart of its government has been gaining ground in Kashmir first by holding elections there and then by drawing majority of the Hurriyyat Conference to negotiations without conditions. Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, the hereditary spiritual leader of the Valley, Abbas Ansari, Ghani Bhatt, Shabbir Shah, Sajjad Lone have all gone over while Pakistan is left holding the “extremist” Syed Ali Geelani and none else worth naming.

With the odds so heavily stacked against Pakistan, it needs cool deliberation whether a government consisting of defectors backed by diverse religious elements (who got together only to force Musharraf out) will act reasonably and in unison in negotiating with India.

The inescapable conclusion is to call general elections and conduct them fairly and open to all. A coalition with the mainstream parties or a national government of talent with representative credentials (as proposed recently by Mr Mumtaz Bhutto) could be poorer alternatives to general elections yet much better than a conglomerate of defectors and extremists.

The extremists were mentioned at the beginning of this column as a potential threat to detente with India. An executive order that besides the president and prime minister only the foreign minister would speak on this subject should minimize this threat.

With the historically rigid official stands on Kashmir, the men of goodwill and reason in the two countries should assemble to show the dogmatic, nervous politicians a way out of this 56-year-old bloody impasse. A group of Palestinians and Israelis working together have shown the way. Their “Geneva Initiative” may succeed where bush’s roadmap has failed. Kashmir deserves a similar initiative.