Questions of identity and loyalty

By Irfan Husain Wednesday, 18 Nov, 2009

IMAGINE if a Hindu or Christian officer in the Pakistan army had shot dead 13 soldiers and wounded 40 in a lethal rampage. Think of the backlash in a country where our minorities are so badly treated at the best of times.

Fortunately, beyond heated speculation about his motive, and the odd threat, there has been no violence following Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s unprovoked attack on his fellow soldiers at the US army base in Fort Hood in Texas.

One line of investigation is the extent to which he acted out of an impulse to kill American soldiers. Among the many articles about this outrage posted on the internet was a presentation he gave to fellow doctors at an army facility a few months before the attack. While he was supposed to speak about a medical topic, he suddenly veered off into a long and detailed exposition about the duties of Muslim soldiers fighting for the American government.
Many of the audience were horrified at the extreme views Major Hasan expressed.
Investigators have also found an exchange of emails between the psychiatrist and an extremist preacher in Yemen. In addition, there have been some money transfers to Pakistan that have excited interest. Now, questions are being asked about why all these facts and views had not alerted the authorities to Hasan’s Islamist ideology.

Clearly, here is a case of divided loyalties. While many of us feel the tug of competing philosophies, we generally compromise and muddle along without resorting to such violent actions to resolve the contradictions of modern life.

Although being a doctor, he was not required to fight other Muslims, Hasan still felt uneasy at the prospect of serving in Afghanistan or Iraq. The fact is that he had other options to pulling the trigger: he could have resigned his commission, or refused to serve as a conscientious objector, and accepted the consequences. The fact that he decided to turn his gun on his fellow soldiers speaks of an extremist mindset, rather than a troubled mind.

In the 21st century, as unprecedented numbers move from their homeland to distant lands to seek a better life, questions of identity and loyalty are assuming greater urgency.
In Major Hasan’s case, he was clearly torn between his religious belief and his professional loyalty to the US army. The conflict arose when he was told he would soon be sent to serve in a country where the US was at war against Muslims.

Normally, people are not asked to make such stark choices when they migrate. A shopkeeper or a farm worker just gets on with his life, trying to save money for his family. But if they are Muslims, their loyalty to their host country is increasingly suspect in a post-9/11 world.
However, this inner conflict over loyalty and identity is not limited to Muslims: many American Jews have dual nationality, and soldiers from among them have received leave of absence to serve in the Israeli armed forces at times of need.

In the Yom Kippur war of 1973, many Jewish American pilots flew missions with the Israeli air force. Thus far, their loyalty has not been tested as there is no possibility of a war between Israel and America. However, there have been cases of American Jews spying for Israel.
The arrest and successful prosecution of a number of young Britons of Pakistani origin for terrorist plots and attacks has also raised questions about loyalty. Many in the UK, even very liberal and tolerant people, are appalled that these young men have turned against the country in which they were born, raised and educated. This is an extreme case of confusion over identity, and an angry rejection of the values of the host community.

In India, there was the recent furore over the fatwa issued by an Islamic group at Deoband forbidding Muslims from singing the national song, Vande Mataram. Usually sung at schools, the official song has been shorn of any Hindu content, and is a hymn in praise of Mother India. By issuing this fatwa, the Indian ulema have put their community in the difficult position of choosing to further isolate themselves from the mainstream, or risk being ostracised.

Indian Muslims in the previous generation were often viewed as a fifth column whose true loyalties lay with Pakistan. Most younger Muslims have put this sentiment behind them, and see themselves as Indians. And apart from occasional outbursts of communal violence, they are well integrated into the fabric of Indian society.

Generally speaking, dual nationality does not really pit one identity against another. At heart, the first generation of migrants retain strong links with their home country. These feelings of patriotism are diluted over the next generation, until total cultural assimilation takes place.
However, the real crisis arises when an individual’s loyalty to his adopted country is pitted against his most deeply held religious beliefs. Thus, when Muslims in the West are convinced by radicals that their adopted countries are acting to dominate and defeat fellow Muslims in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan, they are torn between these conflicting pulls.

This is not to excuse people like Major Hasan, but to try and explain why they act as they occasionally do. No religion, including Islam, teaches its followers to take up arms against innocent civilians to kill innocent civilians. And certainly, suicide is a sin in every religion.
In any case, there are several aspects to our identity, and religion is only one of them. But for some, it assumes overwhelming proportions, dominating and subsuming all others.
This is when such individuals can turn against their fellow beings in a nihilistic outburst of violence.

To rationalise this act, they cite their religious belief, as if their faith is superior to all others and somehow justifies killing innocent people.

Major Hasan’s rampage has raised deeply troubling questions, and no doubt his trial will ensure that this debate over identity and loyalty will resonate for a long time. No doubt, too, that many Muslims around the world condone and even admire his murderous attack.

But they need to consider how this single act has placed a cloud of suspicion over other Muslims serving in the American armed forces. They should also ponder over the ultimate futility of terrorism as a means of gaining political ends.

(Dawn)

In Major Hasan’s case, he was clearly torn between his religious belief and his professional loyalty to the US army. The conflict arose when he was told he would soon be sent to serve in a country where the US was at war against Muslims. —Reuters/File Photo

Christian janitor died saving Muslim students

By Ivan Watson, CNN
Islamabad, Paksitan (CNN) -- Life is slowly getting back to normal at the women's campus of Islamabad's International Islamic University.
The young women who study here chatter on the school's well-manicured lawns, their brightly-colored scarves and Pakistani dresses blowing in the wind on a sunny autumn day.
Barely three weeks ago, this quiet place of learning was the scene of a nightmare. On October 20, two suicide bombers launched near simultaneous attacks on both the men's and women's side of the campus.
Afsheen Zafar, 20, is in mourning. Three of her classmates, girls she describes as "shining stars," were killed on that terrible day.
Still, she says the carnage could have been much worse if not for the actions of a lowly janitor, who was also killed.
"If he didn't stop the suicide attacker, there could have been great, great destruction," Zafar says.
"He's now a legend to us," says another 20-year-old student named Sumaya Ahsan. "Because he saved our lives, our friends' lives."
The janitor's name was Pervaiz Masih. According to eyewitness accounts, the attacker approached disguised in women's clothing. He shot the guard on duty, and then approached the cafeteria, which was packed with hundreds of female students.
Masih intercepted the bomber in the doorway, however, and the bomber self-detonated right outside the crowded hall, spraying many of his explosive vest's arsenal of ball bearings out into the parking lot instead of into the cafeteria.
"The sweeper who was cleaning up here saw someone outside and went towards him," said Nasreen Siddique, a cafeteria worker who was wounded in the head, leg and arm by the blast. "[Masih] told him that he could not come inside because there were girls inside. And then they started arguing. And then we heard a loud blast and all the glass broke."
"Between 300 to 400 girls were sitting in there," said Professor Fateh Muhammad Malik, the rector of the university. "[Pervez Masih] rose above the barriers of caste, creed and sectarian terrorism. Despite being a Christian, he sacrificed his life to save the Muslim girls."
Masih was a member of Pakistan's Christian minority, traditionally one of the poorest communities in the country.
When the attacker struck, Masih had been on the job for less than a week, earning barely $60 a month.
Masih lived with seven other family members, in a single room in a crowded apartment house in the city of Rawalpindi. Until the attack his mother, 70-year old Kurshaid Siddique, worked as a cleaning lady at a nearby house to help make ends meet. Now, she makes a daily pilgrimage to the cemetery where Masih is buried.
Siddique is inconsolable. Asked if she was proud that some people were calling her son a hero, Siddique waved a hand in the air dismissively, answering, "My hero is dead now."
She pulls out a framed photo of her son, pictured wearing a button down white shirt and a thick mustache. When Masih's three-year-old daughter Diya sees his photo, she reaches for it, saying, "Mama, I want that picture."
From time to time, Diya turns to her mother and repeats one word, "Papa."
The Islamic University offered to give Diya a free education and employ Masih's widow, Shaheen Pervaiz.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani government has promised to award Masih's family 1 million rupees (about $12,000) for his bravery.
"He is a national hero because he saved the life of many girls," said Shahbaz Bhatti, minister of minorities in the Pakistani government. "As a Christian, a person of minority, he stood in front of the Taliban to protect the university."
But the grave of this national hero is a sorry sight. It is located in the poorer, garbage-strewn Christian half of a neighborhood cemetery, less then three feet from a muddy road.
Masih's mother and widow visit every day. One of his sisters crosses herself, then stoops down to pick up an empty pack of cigarettes someone threw onto the little mound of earth.
The family had to borrow money to pay for Masih's funeral and they are now behind on paying the rent. If the government money comes through, Masih's mother would like to decorate her son's grave.
"I would like him to have his name in cement with a nice poetry verse," she says. "And there should be a fence surrounding his grave."

(CNN)

President pardons 59 Christian prisoners on appeal of “Life for All”

Islamabad: November 12, 2009. (PCP) President of Pakistan Mr. Asif Ali Zardari approved pardon for 59 Christian prisoners here today who were falsely accused of minor crimes and were in jail without any bail or no one provided them support of legal aid or they were so poor to hire any attorney for them. These 59 Christian inmates were in Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar ans Sialkot Jails. Rizwan Paul, President of “Life for All” a civil society organization based in Lahore have petitioned government of Pakistan to pardon these Christian prisoners and sought mercy for them.From Adyala Jail, Rawalpindi: 1. Shamsher Mashi, 2. John Gill, 3. Samuel Pervaiz, 4. Rana Riaz, 5. Shahid Gill, 6. Jamshed John, 7. Pastor Samuel John, 8. Jalal Mashi, 9. Peter Riaz, 10. Rizwana Kohkar,11. Saqib Adeel, 12. David Simon, 13. Robert Mashi, 14. Asher Bhatti, 15. Nadeem Bhatti, 16. Rehmat Bhatti, 17. Paster Asher MehangaFrom Kot Lakhpat jail Lahore: 1. Sohail John, 2. Rana Maqsood, 3. Mary Aqsa, 4. John Sadiq, 5. Gorge Mashi, 6. Samuel Victor, 7. Shahid Anwer, 8. David Javed, 9. Saleem John, 10. Asif John, 11. Noman Mashi, 12. Joshua Mall, 13. Asher John, 14. Sadia Yousaf, 15. Yousaf MashiFrom Sialkot Jail, Sialkot :1. John Peter, 2. Shahid John, 3. John Asif, 4. Asher Anwer, 5. Suleman Gill,6. Shahid Gill, 7. Sunil Sabistian, 8. Sajid Riaz, 9. John MallFrom Peshawar Jail:1. Justin Javed. 2. Rana Nawaz, 3. Adrish Nawaz Khan, 4. Raymond Khan, 5. Victor Mall, 6. John Rehmat, 7. Khalid George, 8. Daud GeorgeFrom Karachi Jail: 1. Riaz Javed, 2. Reynolds Dean, 3. John Mall, 4. Sam Mall, 5. Shama Gill, 6. Daniel Mall, 7. Peter Christie, 8. David Christie, 9. John lala, 10. Solomon GillThere are hundreds of Church based and Christian/Muslim civil society organizations who claim to provide legal aid assistance to Christians and other poor people but its truth that poor in Pakistan are implicated in false cases and go behind bars for years.The organizations getting huge sums of funds from foreign donor agencies only follow cases which can give them publicity and poor are left without any legal aid.There are hundreds of Christians and thousands of poor Muslims in jails from years without any assistance of lawyer who may fight their cases.The implication of Christians in false fabricated cases in different minor charges is routine of police and they stay in prisons for years when their families can not afford any attorney.

Taliban Blame ‘Blackwater’ for Pakistan Bombings

By ROBERT MACKEY
On Monday, Al Jazeera reported that a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban said the group accepted responsibility for only some of the recent suicide bombings in Pakistan, laying the blame for others, including a deadly attack on a market last month that killed more than 100 civilians, on the American security firm formerly known as Blackwater. The spokesman claimed that the firm, now called Xe, was involved in an attempt to discredit the militants by staging deadly attacks.
This video report from Al Jazeera includes shots of of Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the broad alliance of Pakistani militant groups known as the Tehrik-i-Taliban, saying, “I want to tell the people in Pakistan and the Muslim nation that the Tehrik-i-Taliban are not responsible for the bombings, but Blackwater and Pakistan’s spy agency are behind them.”



According to The Associated Press, the spokesman tried to pass off blame for two recent attacks that were particularly deadly, saying:
The dirty Pakistani intelligence agencies, for the sake of creating mistrust and hatred among people against the Taliban, are carrying out blasts at places like the Islamic university, Islamabad, and the Khyber bazaar, Peshawar.
The A.P. also reported that the video, posted on YouTube on Sunday, bore the logo of Al Qaeda’s media wing, As-Sahab. The A.P. noted that this was “the first time the Taliban spokesman has appeared in an As-Sahab video,” suggesting that there are “growing links between the two groups.”
An earlier report on the Web site of The Daily Times, a publication based in Lahore, said that the spokesman had also suggested that the ruling Pakistan People’s Party was involved in the attacks, adding, “All these killings by the infamous Blackwater are aimed at maligning the Taliban.”
On Monday, Issam Ahmed of The Christian Science Monitor reported from Peshawar that some Pakistanis were ready to believe that the American private security firm is the enemy, rather than the Taliban. Mr. Ahmed reported:
The company’s operatives are often viewed by Pakistanis as akin to C.I.A. agents, and local conspiracy theories sometimes assert that the U.S. with the help of Blackwater, rather than the Taliban, are responsible for the suicide attacks. [...]
According to Faizullah Jan, a lecturer at the department of journalism and mass communication at the University of Peshawar, such conspiracy theories are fed by Pakistan’s mainstream media and the proliferation of underground jihadist media outlets. “In such an environment anything which is seemingly obvious is not real, and anything which is hidden is deemed to be real,” he says.
Indeed, it is not hard to find reports in Pakistan’s media that blame American private contractors and the intelligence agencies of other countries for terrorist attacks in the country. Last month the Web site Pakistan Daily reported that a former chief of staff of Pakistan’s army had claimed in a television interview that Blackwater was involved in the assassination of Pakistan’s former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. The same Web site published an editorial days later claiming that the attacks killing Pakistani civilians were carried out by “Blackwater Talibans” working on behalf of “the underground drug mafia controlled by the Zionists.” Pointing to an even broader conspiracy the same writer suggested,
Pakistan is under the attack of various Talibans which include Indian Talibans, Israeli Talibans, Karzai Talibans… British Talibans and American Talibans which of course include Blackwater.
The fact that the United States government has employed the private security firm to work in secret inside Pakistan makes it hard to knock down the wilder conspiracy theories. My colleagues James Risen and Mark Mazzetti reported in August:
From a secret division at its North Carolina headquarters, the company formerly known as Blackwater has assumed a role in Washington’s most important counterterrorism program: the use of remotely piloted drones to kill Al Qaeda’s leaders, according to government officials and current and former employees.
The division’s operations are carried out at hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the company’s contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft, work previously performed by employees of the Central Intelligence Agency. They also provide security at the covert bases, the officials said.
Weeks after that news broke, it became fodder for the Pakistani journalist and blogger Ahmed Quraishi, who dug into the Web site of the United States Training Center, which calls itself “a Xe company,” and noticed that job applicants were directed to a form — posted on the Web site Blackwaterusa.com — that includes Urdu and Punjabi in a list of languages that prospective contractors might speak.
Mr. Quraishi took one look at that form and jumped to publish his conclusion that “hiring continues as we speak for agents and for people with military training who can speak Urdu, Pakistan’s national language, and Punjabi, spoken by the natives of Pakistan’s largest populated province.” Mr. Quraishi took no note of the fact that the list of languages applicants might be proficient in also includes German, Italian, Thai and sign language.
One imagines it won’t take long for conspiracy-minded Pakistanis reading Sunday’s report in The Los Angeles Times that the C.I.A. has been bringing “ISI operatives to a secret training facility in North Carolina” to notice that the Web site of United States Training includes a photograph of its center in Moycock, N.C. above a statement that the company “is currently training select military and other government groups from U.S.-friendly nations.”
Perhaps picking up on the popular mood, Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, reportedly blamed foreign militants for the violence during a meeting with leaders of the Mehsud tribes from Waziristan on Tuesday. According to the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, Mr. Gilani “said foreign militants of Arab, Uzbek, Afghan and Chechen origin were operating in the country and were involved in terrorist activities.” Dawn also reported that the prime minister said that the tribesmen, despite their links to the former Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, were blameless:
Gilani categorically stated that the Mehsud tribes were patriotic Pakistanis and had nothing to do with the handful of terrorists who had taken refuge in their area. He lauded the role of the tribal people in the creation of Pakistan and said the nation can never forget it.

(New York Times)