THIS is with reference to the article ‘Extremism virus’ (July 27). While it is true that preventing extremism is not the exclusive domain of government, it is the state that bears this overarching responsibility. Undoubtedly, the enabling environment in any country underpins the increase or otherwise of extremism. Families and communities can do only that much.

On our part, we have had a long history of love-hate relationship with extremism. During the Cold War, the country saw a mushroom growth of seminaries. From just a few hundred in 1979, the current staggering number of seminaries stands at over 35,000. More than a few million children are enrolled therein. We saw how ‘Khuda hafiz” morphed into ‘Allah hafiz’, didn’t we?

Besides, Pakistan once had the world’s highest number of private armies of various hues as well as politico-religious-sectarian strands. They badly affected governance, and eventually challenged the writ of the state itself. It was not until the noose of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) surprisingly tightened around our necks that we found ourselves to be running diametrically opposite to the rest of the world. Such policies and their interplay with vested interests, as well as political incompetence gradually paralysed the state.

On a more sombre note, I can share my family experience. My elder brother, a retired army officer, was taken prisoner after the fall of Dhaka in 1971. He was just commissioned at the time, and at an impres­­sionable age of 21, he suffered the trauma of a bloody civil war. His stay at the prisoner of war (POW) camp did the rest. It left mental scars on him. But he still muddled through.

Despite having studied in Christian missionary schools and having had a liberal upbringing, a visible change started to creep in. This was somewhere in the early 1980s. By then he was married and had two sons. The environment of preaching that started fanning out at the time consumed many a soul. Unfortunately, he was one of them.

Becoming indifferent to his domestic as well as matrimonial responsibilities, he turned to be overly rigid in his lifestyle. At home, he broke the guitar of his son, disfigured and scrapped photographs displayed on the walls, and punitively disallowed anyone to watch television. Besides, he disappeared for months on preaching tours.

It was a disturbing sight for the family except for my elder sisters who encouraged his extremist tendencies. His marriage eventually fell apart. Now burdened with their own childhood inner scars, the two sons abandoned home. Mercifully, they still managed to stand on their feet.

Some four decades later, my brother is a shadow of his bright past; a veritable preacher whose own family is all but wrecked. I firmly believe that it was the country’s environment first and foremost that enabled and facilitated an educated, rational young man to become what he has.

Cdr (retd) Muhammad Azam Khan
Lahore

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2024