"My brethren! Today, after 9/11, people all over the world are saying that the situation has changedand the Mujahideen should learn their lesson and they should stop their activities. My brethren! If webelieve in Allah, if we believe in the Holy Quran, if we are the followers of the Prophet Mohammed (peace beupon him) and believe in him, then jihad is the destination of our lives. Jihad is our only pathand we have to follow it."
Sheikh Jamil-ur-Rahman, a political Leader in PoK: [Video I]
"The Hindus can never be our friends. The Holy Quran confirms it. In clear words, Allah also says thatthe Jews and Christians too cannot be our friends. Those who are initiating friendship between India andPakistan are misguiding the nation. They are cheating the nation. Friendship with the Hindus is unnatural,unprincipled and unlawful."
These voices are neither isolated exceptions, nor the most extreme in the ideological discourse that dominatesthe Islamist core in Pakistan.
In an address at Jamia Qadsia in Lahore, on July 9, 2004, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, founder of the Jamaat-ud-Dawaand its terrorist arm, the supposedly 'banned' Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), states:
"Islam was spread and propagated in the world through jihad. Jihad strengthens the relationbetween Islam and the Muslims and reinforces their Iman (Faith). In the past too, through jihad,infidels were defeated in the world and infidelity crushed. Islam achieved eminence and even today, jihad willlead to similar results by the will of Allah…
Earlier, on June 7, 2004, Saeed had written in Jasrat:
"The US thought that it would keep jihad limited to Afghanistan and extend its agenda of usurpingthe natural resources of the Muslim world to Central Asia. But jihad's wave spread all over the world.The US wants to control this wave. Jihad is the biggest threat to the US interest. There is nothinglike al-Qaeda. It is the figment of the US' imagination. The US has concocted an outfit like al-Qaeda tomassacre the Muslims all over the world. It has concocted false stories related to al-Qaeda with the help ofthe foreign media…
"America is bleeding these days. It has become a threat to peace. When a wounded animal becomes a threatto one's life, it is shot dead. It is time to gun down the US. The US is the enemy of our religious culture, jihad,curriculum, the two-nation theory, the people of tribal areas and Kashmir."
What is articulated by these eminences grises of the jehadi terror finds constant echoes in the Urdumedia.
In Jasarat, on June 12, 2004, Javed Kasuri, 'Deputy Supreme Commander' of the HM states: "The US,Israel and India feel threatened by those who sit on a mat and recite the Quran in madrassahs. Jihadisare the only force that can challenge US imperialism. The entire west is Islam's enemy… To save Islam, allthe Muslim sects will have to unite and wage jihad against the west."
Conspiracy theories and denial abound in this discourse. In the Nawai Waqt of May 26, 2004, Dr. AsrarAhmad, a 'well known Islamic scholar', writes:
"The US has invaded Iraq at Israel's behest. The US wants to make greater Israel by subjugating Iraq.Sharon had stated some time ago, that Iraq is part of Israel. The Iraq war is not the game of oil but securinga stable future for Israel. The 9/11 investigations have been stopped because it was masterminded by Israeland the US cannot take any action against the Jews. Europe will go to war against the US and Israel because acrusade is on the card that will be fought between the Jews and the Christians. The Europe will try to conquerthe US and Israel to make the world a Catholic colony.'
On June 23, in an interview in Takbeer, Ahmad takes the thesis further:
"9/11 was not bin Laden's brainchild but of the US, Israel and the Jews. It was masterminded to providethe US an excuse to destroy Afghanistan. In fact, the US wants to make Afghanistan another home for the Jews.It will facilitate Jews' settlement in Afghanistan…
"The UN's agenda is to promote obscenity, incest and free-sex culture in the name of'gender-empowerment'. The UN wants Musharraf to legalize prostitution, gay and lesbian marriage inPakistan…"
Ludicrous as these statements may seem to Western sensibilities, they form a substantial component of Islamist'scholarship' in Pakistan.
Worse still, as has been repeatedly noted in the past, the extremist Islamist discourse on jehad, and shahadat(martyrdom) and the 'global conspiracy' against and threat to Islam is not the province of mullahs andmilitants alone, and has penetrated every aspect of the Pakistanieducational system - and not, as is widely believed, just the extremist madrassahs.
It is useful to note that the examples drawn up in this assessment are a small selection of statements andwritings in the past less than three months. A comprehensive archive of extremist discourse in this vein forthe entire period since 9/11 would fill volumes, and would include innumerable statements by elementsproximate to, or directly connected with, the Musharraf regime.
Some of these dangers have been acknowledged, for the pre-9/11 period under its review, by the 9/11 Panel. Onewriter notes that a cursory key word search of the Panel's report recovers "more than 200 references toPakistan, many of them damning. There are less than 100 references to Iran and Iraq combined."
Nevertheless, ignorance persists at unacceptable levels. The international press and diplomatic community,largely located in protected and affluent enclaves, with their attention fixed firmly on the relativelymoderate and westernized English language media, remain substantially uncomprehending of these dangerousundercurrents. Worse, denial remains integral to the mindset of many Western - and particularly US -observers. A mention of the 'dominant ideology of Pakistan' to a senior US diplomat posted in that country,for instance, drew a sharp response rejecting the idea that any such 'dominant ideology' could actually beidentified. Such denial also characterizes the mainstream political discourse on the issue in India today, andconstitutes a danger even greater than the direct threat of contemporary terrorism, creating vast spaces forthe continuous consolidation of ideas that will breed much worse in the years to come.