Irfan Yusuf: Pakistanis unfairly painted as willing hosts to terrorism

Opinion

A respected cable television show Capital Talk began with: "Forces from the Taleban and other dehshat gardion [terrorists] have struck yet again, this time in a co-ordinated attack on three police and military targets in Lahore.

"Just a few days ago, they attacked the main military headquarters in Rawalpindi. Our cities are under attack, and it seems nowhere is safe from dehshat gardi [terrorism].

"Yet ordinary Pakistanis go on living their lives as if such news no longer shocks them. It's a sad fact that we have become accustomed to such attacks."

That was how the host of the Urdu-language current affairs programme introduced his show in mid-October last year. It was the fifth major attack in 10 days. Virtually all victims were Pakistanis.

No doubt few Pakistanis would have disagreed with the host's assessment that they are indeed resigned to living under the shadow of terror. Six months on, and the terror has not stopped.

Last Tuesday, a celebratory rally in Peshawar near the Afghan border suffered a major bombing attack. As always, the bulk of the casualties were ordinary Pakistanis.

Thousands had gathered when a suicide bomber killed himself and 50 others. Militants then attacked the nearby United States Consulate and killed four Pakistani guards.

The Taleban claimed responsibility and promised more attacks. It's the modus operandi of allegedly Islamic terrorists in Pakistan and elsewhere - they want to destroy those they deem infidels by killing as many Muslims as possible.

Thanks to the dish on their roof, my parents have had the luxury of flicking between cable channel Aaj, PTV (Pakistan's public broadcaster) and other channels to get the non-sanitised view of events in what must be the world's most unstable country.

Since the resignation of military strongman Pervez Musharraf, Pakistanis have enjoyed some benefits of democracy.

They have also seen their country turned into an international pariah, blamed for doing little to fight terrorism while seeing the body parts of their countrymen and women blown apart by terrorists on TV.

Pakistan is accused of being a hotbed of religious extremism. Obviously, no one can deny that terrorists are having a field day in the country.

But there is little within Pakistani social and political cultures which would justify painting the nation as uniformly extreme.

Religion-dominated theocratic political parties in Pakistan rarely gain more than 10 to 15 per cent of the vote.

The only exception was an election stage-managed by Musharraf in which he ensured his theocratic allies gained over half the vote.

Compare this to Pakistan's neighbour India, where the major opposition BJP coalition consists largely of Hindu chauvinist parties responsible recently for the mass murder of Catholics and destruction of Catholic churches in Orissa and elsewhere.

So, while the Pakistani Muslim Taleban is on the run, India's Hindu Taleban is running for parliament in elections while openly threatening religious minorities.

If the Taleban are on the run, it is little thanks to the illegal drone attacks by US forces that have killed scores of Pakistani civilians.

Since President Obama took office, the use of drones has expanded dramatically.

The drones are operated not by the US Army but by the Central Intelligence Agency, launched from within Pakistan itself.

Since January last year, around 500 suspected militants have been killed by drone attacks. Yes, you read that correctly.

The people killed were suspected militants. They included 80 teenage boys studying the Koran at a religious school, some aged only 12.

Robert Fisk cites a journalist from Peshawar for the Independent: "I was in Damadola when the drones came. They killed more than 80 teenagers - all students - and, yes, they were learning the Koran, and the madrasah, the Islamic school, was run by a Taleban commander.

"But 80! Their parents came afterwards, all their mothers were there, but the bodies were in pieces. We didn't know how to fit them together."

Legal experts cited by the Wall Street Journal state that such attacks represent unlawful killing and violate international law.

Pakistani hatred of the Taleban is perfectly understandable, but we in the West must understand that these kinds of tactics will not endear us to ordinary Pakistanis.

And we can't expect our own Pakistani communities to support such brutality.

* Irfan Yusuf, a Sydney lawyer, is author of Once Were Radicals: My Years As A Teenage Islamo-fascist.