Compulsions & emotionalism

THERE are times in every nation’s history when it has to make strategic decisions affecting not only the present generation but also its future generations. Obviously, such decisions ought to be made after cool-headed calculations of pros and cons, keeping in mind the country’s long-term, supreme interests.

Emotionalism can only distort one’s judgment. Even if there is any temporary satisfaction derived from a decision taken on emotional considerations, it must inevitably be followed by a realization of the bitter consequences of such a decision. Unfortunately, it is never of any use crying over spilt milk. This is the remorseless lesson of ordinary human experience as well as of history.

Pakistan’s history shows several instances when fateful decisions were taken primarily on the basis of emotionalism. The 1971 crisis remains a prime example, when emotionalism and lack of realism totally overshadowed rational judgment. It ended in total disaster for the country. There were so many possible ways in which the country could have extricated itself from the morass, short of the abject surrender that actually followed.

But at that time, anyone suggesting compromise risked being dubbed a traitor in the emotionally charged atmosphere that had gripped the whole country. There are other instances of policies adopted by Pakistan based on emotional and unrealistic impulses: the more recent being the decision to refuse to sign the CTBT, which has resulted in substantial economic losses for a cash-starved country.

The current Afghanistan crisis is also arousing emotionalism of the worst kind, in which rational considerations are being set aside. There are all kinds of misrepresentation as well, not only from the fire-breathing, semi-literate mullahs but also involving some of our more educated circles. Thus, our national interest demands a realistic appraisal of the facts.

The crisis arising from the terrible events of September 11 is not of our making but we are directly affected by the ensuing developments. In this context, certain ground realities have emerged which have to be noted and which simply cannot be ignored or wished away.

In the first place, any objective observer could see that the US would act decisively to take revenge for the horrors inflicted by the terrorists in New York and Washington. It could not have taken a passive view of events; this would have gravely jeopardized its credibility as the only superpower in the world today. Besides, no US administration would have survived the wrath of the American public by remaining inactive. There are some in Pakistan who argue that the US should have furnished proof of Osama’s guilt to the Taliban, for them to assess the validity or otherwise of this evidence. The reality is that the Taliban have never shown any willingness to compromise and, in this case, after taking their own time, their response would have been a negative one. To expect that the US should have waited patiently for months, hoping for a reply from the Taliban, simply shows a lack of understanding of the realities of international life.

Secondly, our geopolitical location next to Afghanistan has forced us to play a role in this crisis, whether we like it or not. The most direct access for the US military operations against Afghanistan lies through Pakistan. Besides, we were received as the only real supporter of the Taliban regime. To get at the Taliban, the US had to secure Pakistan’s assistance. Thus, Islamabad was left with no real option in the matter.

A negative response would have produced terrible consequences for Pakistan. It would also have been declared a terrorist country and would have become the target of every kind of reviling and international isolation. Economic aid for us would have been cut off, and trade greatly restricted. The struggle in Kashmir too would have been dubbed a terrorist movement. Our nuclear assets could have been attacked and this could have been followed by an outright Indian ground offensive.

In fact, the US missile attacks against Afghanistan would have been carried out even if Pakistan was opposed to the use of its airspace for such a purpose. In other words, our solidarity with the Taliban regime would not have materially made any difference for its survival but, in the process, Pakistan could have been dealt a mortal blow. It was a case of giving precedence to Pakistan’s supreme interests. The greater need must take precedence over the smaller need. To save one’s life, sometimes one must lose a limb. This is very painful but, in some circumstances, it can become unavoidable.

On the other hand, by supporting the US-led coalition, Pakistan finds itself in the mainstream of international diplomacy and is already deriving significant political and economic gains. For these reasons, it can be said that Pakistan could not have made any decision other than the one made by President Musharraf.

In the meanwhile, the real issue has been clouded by some circles which have been making all kinds of misrepresentations. These are examined below. Firstly, it is being claimed that the present operations in Afghanistan are a new crusade between Islam and Christianity. If it were so, how is it that the overwhelming majority of Muslim countries are supporting the US action? Is it also not a fact that practically all Muslim countries are opposed to the Taliban?

Secondly, it is argued by some that the US is all alone in its aggression against Afghanistan. The reality is that nearly all governments, including those of Russia and China are supporting the US. At the UN, the US-sponsored resolutions on this issue received almost total support.

Thirdly, it is alleged that the US has all along opposed the Muslims. the reality is that, only recently, Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo were rescued by the US. Even in the case of Chechnya, the only real pressure on Russia has come from the US and the European Union. America had helped the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviets. It secured the liberation of Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. The US has also given Pakistan more military and economic aid than any other country. No doubt, America has been guilty of supporting Israel in its depredations against the Arabs, but that is more of an aberration arising out of the hold of the Zionist lobby in the US. Even then, the only concessions made by Israel to the Arabs have resulted from the US pressure on Israel.

Fourthly, it is argued that the present US operation in Afghanistan is really part of the real American objective which is to secure control of the mineral resources of Central Asia. If so, why is it that Russia and China, apart from the Central Asian states themselves, are extending full support to the US action? It is also a myth that Central Asia has great resources. Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are poor and have few real resources. The US has hardly any need to seek any strong presence in these areas. the only country in this region that has important resources is Kazakhstan but it is far from Afghanistan and is unlikely to be affected by the current events.

Some sources in Pakistan claim that the US had already made plans well before the September events to occupy Afghanistan. In this context, they cite a claim made by a former Pakistani diplomat about the views of a think tank. The reality is that there are many think tanks holding or projecting all kinds of views. If there were serious plans to invade Afghanistan well before the September events, why was not a lot of hue and cry made in time, particularly by the Taliban regime itself?

It is time to look at matters in true perspective and in a mature manner. Nothing can be gained by ignoring realities and living in a make-believe world of our own. In fact, a central issue for the Muslim world now is the image of Islam itself. Is Islam to be represented by terrorists like Osama and his protectors, the Taliban, and our own mullahs and jihadist groups, or should we seek to present a rational, moderate image of Islam? let us also not forget the reality that the US is much too powerful to be brought down by verbal excesses of our demagogues or the terrorism of Osama. However, in the process, irrational attitudes of self-appointed redeemers and emancipators are doing grave harm to the image of Islam and the vital interests of the Muslim world.

The writer is a retired ambassador of Pakistan.

The tragedy of Afghanistan: LETTER FROM NEW DELHI

THE Taliban have confined Afghan ambassador Masood Khalili to a wheelchair at his house in New Delhi. They eliminated his leader, Commander Ahmed Shah Masoud, and nearly killed Khalili. But he, who carries on his body the scars of battles against the Soviets and the Taliban, remains undaunted. In the past years, he has seen his government of the Northern Alliance (also called the United Front) pushed to mere 10 per cent of Afghanistan’s territory.

But he has never faltered in the confidence that the government he represents will one day return to Kabul. He has felt relieved over the turn of events. There was a time when our foreign office was distancing itself from Khalili because it did not want to annoy the Taliban further. When Kabul fell, he was worried. The then prime minister, IK Gujral, assured him that President Rabbani of the Northern Alliance would continue to enjoy India’s recognition. When he was Afghanistan envoy in Islamabad, Khalili took up the role of the ISI-Taliban alliance with the then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. She expressed her helplessness. Still he warned her that the Taliban could one day destroy Pakistan. He feels vindicated now. New Delhi had friendly relations with Kabul till the Taliban arrived on the scene some seven years ago.

Islamabad, through the ISI on the one hand, and the madrassahs on the other, created a situation where the fundamentalists came to prevail and where New Delhi had no place. Liberal, happy-go-lucky Afghans looked odd in the ill-fitting clothes of fanaticism. But the gun and the glib talk of the mullah silenced them.

Islamabad’s interest in Afghanistan has been strategic, not religious. The idea is to have ‘depth’ by having access to the Central Asian republics through Afghanistan. Islamabad began to give shape to the plan when the republics seceded from the Soviet empire.

Pakistan has also wanted to bury once and for all the demand for Pakhtoonistan which Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (popularly known as the Frontier Gandhi in India) had raised. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, then the Pakistan prime minister, visited Kabul in the beginning of the seventies to meet Mohammed Daoud Khan, then Afghanistan’s head, and decided to bury the issue of a Pashtu-speaking state. While writing my book ‘Report on Afghanistan’ 20 years ago, I came to know about a secret pact.

Under it, Pakistan agreed to hold a plebiscite in its Pashtu-speaking area. But it was to be rigged so as to return a ‘no’ verdict on the Pakhtoonistan alternative. Daoud had assured Bhutto that he would accept the ‘verdict’ on behalf of the Afghan government. On his return visit to Pakistan in March 1978, Daoud said at Lahore that the Pakistanis were his ‘brothers.’ Subsequently, the Afghan press, radio and TV stopped all propaganda about Pakhtoonistan.

However, neither Daoud nor Bhutto lived to work their agreement through. Things changed when pro-communist Hafizullah Amin came to power in April, one month after Daoud’s visit to Lahore. Amin was so anti-Pakistan that he claimed that the territory “from the Amu to the Indus” belonged to Afghanistan. He was the one who told the then India’s foreign minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, “Let us have a secret pact: You take one part of Pakistan and we take the other,” when the latter visited Afghanistan from September 18 to 20, 1978.

After the ousting of the Soviet troops in the late eighties, Islamabad worked towards having Afghanistan as its satellite and gave all help to the Taliban. The Pakistan army saw to it that the Northern Alliance, friendly to India, was pushed out to a small tract of land. Things would have shaped better but for the Taliban’s own follies. They stymied every UN effort to effect peace and assumed the role of an armed evangelist to spread “genuine Islam” all over the world.

The international community is at a loss to understand the phenomenon because all that the Taliban represent is religious frenzy. There is no system except the command of Mulla Mohammad Omar to whom the Taliban swear personal allegiance. The government at Kabul takes pride in being fundamentalist.

The reason why the efforts to find an alternative are stalled is because autocracy, religious or otherwise, knows no broad-based set-up. The Taliban are primarily Pakhtoon and comprise 40 per cent of Afghans. The Northern Alliance has Tajiks, Uzbeks and the Hezaras but very few Pakhtoons. Its pull among the Pakhtoons weakened further when the Taliban killed Abdul Haq, the Pakhtoon leader, the other day.

If Pakistan opposes the inclusion of the Northern Alliance in the future set-up in Kabul on ethnic considerations, it would have made some sense. But Islamabad still believes that it can bring back the Taliban through the back door. When Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf talks about a broad-based government, he has the representation of the Taliban in his mind.

How can the Northern Alliance or countries like India and Russia in the neighbourhood ever agree to the Taliban’s inclusion in any government when they have sponsored terrorism in Kashmir on the one hand and Chechnya on the other? The Taliban have to go lock, stock and barrel.

Musharraf must face the fact that the Taliban signed their own death warrant when they said that they would not surrender Osama bin Laden, wanted for the September 11 happenings in New York and Washington. The Taliban cannot be part of the next government because their hands are as much stained with blood as those of Osama.

The West knows that there is no difference between the moderate and the hard-line Taliban. But its dilemma is how far it can push Pakistan? Without its ground help — Jacobabad in Sindh is the entry point to Afghanistan of troops belonging to the different countries of the anti-terrorism “coalition” — the West cannot do much. Even otherwise, Pakistan’s consent is necessary to sustain the support of the Muslim world.

Still Islamabad is not taking chances. It had “The Assembly for Peace and National Unity” sponsor a shoora at Peshawar a few days ago. The Pashtu-speaking tribal leaders, who attended it, were neither representative enough nor tall enough. But they gave vent to the feelings of Islamabad that it was no use employing military means for influencing future developments in Afghanistan.

The reason why Pakistan had the assembly demand the return of King Zahir Shah was the recognition of his unbiased approach and his insistence on having an interim 120-member set-up drawn up from different ethnic groups. There is no go from Loya Jirga, a gathering of different tribal heads at one place — the Pakhtoons, Tajiks, Uzbeks and others — to decide the complexion and the content of the future set-up.

It goes without saying that it will be broad-based. Islamabad could have made the Loya Jirga possible on its own in the last seven years when it had the run of Afghanistan. But it came to believe that it could control the Taliban through the ISI. Above all, it wanted Afghanistan all to itself.

Probably, the best way may be to give representation to different ethnic groups and tribal leaders instead of picking people from military and political formations, including the Northern Alliance. The tragedy of Afghanistan has been that some of the ethnic groups, which captured Kabul, saw to the exclusion of others. The arrangement did not work because those who were left out tried to get in through force or deceit. Outside powers invariably put their pressure on one side or the other. Afghanistan was seldom left alone. How can the same mistake be repeated?

The court carries on

FOR the first time in 66 years, the US Supreme Court convened outside its ornate Capitol Hill chambers. The justices had closed their building while it was tested for anthrax.

They set up shop in the E. Barrett Prettyman federal courthouse, with lawyers, staff, journalists and spectators crowding along. It was easy to grieve over the symbolism of another fundamental institution rocked by the anthrax attacks.

But even more powerful than the message of where the justices sat was the message of what they did: They heard arguments, issued orders and conducted their business on schedule, if not as usual. They had been shifted, but they hadn’t been stopped.

The challenge of carrying on continued to widen this week. Attorney General John Ashcroft issued another warning of possible terrorist attacks, without any specificity as to their likely nature or location.

Meanwhile, evidence of anthrax contamination turned up in more government mailrooms: inside the Supreme Court building, at the State Department and in a mailroom serving the Food and Drug Administration and the Voice of America. The cleanup task expanded beyond US borders, as State Department spokesman Richard Boucher announced that anthrax had been detected in a bundle of mail that travelled from the Brentwood post office here to the US Embassy in Lima, Peru. The department has decided to close and decontaminate mailrooms and in 240 locations overseas, he said.

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emphasized again that they believe that individuals who receive mail in the Washington area are “essentially at no risk” of inhalation anthrax. Health officials have already been surprised twice by inhalation cases turning up where they hadn’t been expected, first in the Brentwood facility and then in a State Department operation in suburban Virginia.

But environmental testing so far, including results from neighbourhood District of Columbia post offices, suggests that in this area, government mail has borne the brunt of contamination beyond the Brentwood facility. Officials continue to try to determine more exactly where the anthrax may have spread. —The Washington Post

One city, three faiths

AFTER Makkah and Madina, Bait al-Maqdis or Jerusalem is the third holiest city in Islam. Called simply “Al-Quds” (the holy) by Muslims, it was Islam’s first qiblah, or direction of prayer.

This ancient city is one of the most sacred — and hence one of the most disputed — places in the world. Destroyed and rebuilt many times in its turbulent history, it has been revered for centuries by Jews, Christians and Muslims. That it had been home to some of the greatest prophets is central to its sanctity. Also, it is held that its Wadi Jahannum — the Valley of Hinnom and the Mount of Olives — will be the scene of the Last Judgment.

Unfortunately, ever since the Crusades, which permanently damaged relations between the three Abrahamic religions, it has increasingly been a contentious place. Today, separated by decades of deadly hostility, Palestinians and Israelis both claim that Al-Quds or Jerusalem-Zion belongs to them.

Within this holy City, one single site — the site of Solomon’s Temple — has long been the scene of murderous hatred. Surrounded by walls built by the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent upon earlier foundations built by Herod the Great, this sacred area on Mount Moriah — Zion — is about thirty-five acres in extent. For the Jews and Christians this ancient Herodian Temple Compound is Temple Mount: Muslims refer to it as Al-Haram al-Sharif, (the noble sanctuary).

Definitely identified with al-Israa, the Night Journey of the holy Prophet Muhammad, and the Mairaj, Ascension to the Highest Heaven, Haram al-Sharif is a centre of Islamic devotion, the very heart of Madinat Bait al-Maqdis, the City of the Temple. Except for less than a century when it was occupied by the Crusaders, Muslims have been in control of this holy place since the Caliph Omar’s conquest of the holy city in 637 A.D.

Sacred to all three faiths, the Haram enclosure today is dotted with several structures. In the middle stands the golden Dome of the Rock. At its southern end is the silver domed Masjid Al-Aqsa. To the east is the Dome of the Chain, said to be the place where King David, using a special chain of light which possessed the faculty of unmasking liars, judged his people. In the north is the Chair of Solomon while in a far corner of the Haram a locked door leads down to an amazing underground area known as Solomon’s Stables. This whole area consists of a range of vaults, supported by eighty-eight pillars set in fifteen rows — forming endless arches spanning even more aisles. They actually form the sub-structure of a corner of Herod’s Temple, and give a fair idea of the amazing size of it.

Christian visitors to this sacred compound throng to the Oratory of Mary (Mihrab Mariam), the Oracle of Zacharias (Zakariyya) and the Cradle of Jesus (Mahd Isa), while the western supporting wall of the Haram, also called the Wailing Wall, is the most sacred of Jewish shrines.

Built of huge dressed stone blocks, this wall is the last vestige of the immense platform Herod the Great constructed on top of Mount Zion for the second Jewish temple. In A.D. 70 the Roman army led by Titus attacked and destroyed Jerusalem. Herod’s Temple, like the earlier Temple of Solomon, was burnt down. The whole Temple compound was reduced to a heap of rubble, Jews were killed or enslaved, and those who survived were forbidden to return to the site. Later, a concession was made that allowed the faithful to return once a year to the scene of devastation to weep over the stones. The tradition continues to this day, and Jews congregate in front of this western or Wailing Wall to pray and lament Rome’s destruction of their ancient temple.

For Christians, Jerusalem is the scene of their Saviour’s agony and triumph. The most famous street in all Jerusalem is, of course, the Via Dolorosa, the route Christ is believed to have taken from Pontius Pilate’s praetorium. While the Via Dolorosa skirts its northern side, none of the important New Testament sacred places are on Temple Mount.

As the major focus of Christian pilgrimage such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Gethsamane, Calvary, and the Nativity Church are situated elsewhere, Christians have been relatively less attached to the Temple Mount. During the Crusader occupation the Knights Templar even transformed much of the holy compound into barracks and a military arsenal; the underground Herodian vaults became their stables. This sacred space, so violently disputed by Jews and Muslims, has never played any important part in Christian liturgy.

While Al-Haram al-Sharif is venerated by Muslims as the site of the Holy Prophet’s Mairaj to the highest heaven, it is coveted by Israel as the site of the Jews’ Second Temple. The Haram’s western wall is the last remnant of this temple destroyed in 70 A.D. As the Angel Gabriel is believed to have tethered the heavenly steed Buraaq to its great stone slabs, Muslims call it Al-Buraaq Wall. Because this western or Wailing wall, Judaism’s holiest shrine, now forms part of a larger wall that surrounds the Muslim holy places such as the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jews and Arabs have long fought over its control.

At the end of the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel occupied not only the holy city but the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights. Contravening the Hague Convention, it formally annexed the Old City and East Jerusalem. It is no longer permissible in international law to permanently annex land conquered militarily, but in defiance of umpteen UN resolutions, Israel has adamantly refused to give back the captured Old City to the Arabs.

Since 1967, there has been continual Israeli expropriation of Arab land and, increasingly, insulting and dangerous attacks on the Haram al-Sharif. Israel has deliberately ringed Al-Quds with a chain of high-rise apartment blocks that now house some 200,000 Jews. During the first ten years after the annexation, the Israeli government seized some 37,065 acres from the Arabs. Today barely 13.5 per cent of East Jerusalem remains in Arab hands.

Though the Muslims were promised that they would continue to control the Haram, Israeli bulldozers razed the historic Maghibi Quarter to create a new plaza directly in front of the Western Wall. This demolition — the first step in the process of annexing Arab Jerusalem — was followed by the threat of a hard-liner Israeli group, the Temple Mount Faithful, to demolish all the Muslim holy places.

On August 21, 1969, a fire broke out in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, destroying the famous minbar or pulpit that Saladin had brought in 1187 from Aleppo. Thousands of Muslims rushed to the Haram, weeping and flinging themselves into the burning building. They were convinced that Jewish arsonists were out to destroy the Muslim shrines on the Haram and that the Israeli firefighters had sprayed gasolene on the flames. Throughout the city, enraged Palestinians demonstrated and clashed with the police. A sullen peace was restored only when a deranged Australian Christian “confessed” that “he alone” had set fire to the mosque in the hope that it would hasten Christ’s Second Coming.

Violent confrontations broke out in the Holy City when an MIT-educated Jewish professor of linguistics was caught planting a bomb in the Al-Aqsa Mosque and when the infamous Etzion plot to blow up the Dome of the Rock with twenty-eight precision bombs was foiled.

The struggle intensified when Israeli archaeologists started to excavate the southern end of the Haram. This alarmed the Muslims who were afraid that the excavation would damage the foundations of the Aqsa Mosque. A fresh escalation of hostilities followed when Benjamin Neta