Honolulu (May 10, 2011) -- Extremism in Pakistan cannot be defeated until the Pakistani government, as well as its uneasy ally, the United States, focus on addressing the underlying causes of rising militancy, according to Pakistani and American journalists who participated in the East-West Center’s inaugural Pakistan-U.S. Journalists Exchange last month.
The journalists in the program visited each others’ countries and spoke with a wide variety of official and grassroots sources, then met at the EWC in Hawai‘i in late April to compare notes. Both groups agreed that deep underlying problems would have to be addressed if extremism is to be curbed in Pakistan.
(Read participants’ comments on the impact of the bin Laden raid.)
“You can kill or arrest terrorists, but the extremist mindset is the real problem, and you need to look at the causes behind that,” said Malik Arshad Aziz, an editor at the Daily Aaj in Peshawar, a city that is on the front lines of military action against Taliban militants along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. “In Pakistan, we have an energy problem; we have poverty, unemployment, lack of education. When you solve these problems, the extremist organizations will be finished.”
“As Pakistanis, we need to realize that, more than America or anyone else, we need to help ourselves,” said Mehmal Sarfraz, op-ed editor of the Daily Times in Lahore. Some of Pakistan’s problems are due to external factors, such as U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, she said, “but most of the extremism is because of our own failed policies.”
“Yes, the U.S. and others nurtured jihadis during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan,” she said. “But after the U.S. left, instead of dismantling jihadist organizations, we fostered them to counter the Indian threat … and now there is this whole rising extremist mindset that threatens the basic fabric of Pakistani society.”
It’s often maintained that there is a “moderate, silent majority in Pakistan,” Sarfraz said, “but they are silent, that’s the problem. It’s either that they’re afraid to speak up, or perhaps the public mindset has totally changed and actually is more extremist – and that is something that is very, very worrying for me as a Pakistani person.”
Kamal Siddiqi, Karachi-based editor of The Express Tribune national newspaper , agreed that “one of our biggest problems is that the Pakistan government and army are selectively fighting some extremists and supporting others, which they see as a sort of wing that can put pressure on India or have influence in Afghanistan. As a state, in the long term I think we are hurting ourselves.”
Both the Pakistani and American journalists said during a public discussion panel that lack of access to education is a major driving force of extremism in the region. “My experience in Pakistan was that people have an insatiable intellectual curiosity ‑ every one we met seemed so informed and concerned about international affairs,” said Karen Fragala-Smith of Newsweek magazine. “But despite that, we know that Pakistan has an extremely high rate of illiteracy – more than 50 percent according to most sources.”
Sarfraz agreed that education is a key issue. “Unless and until we can educate our children, we will not be able to fight this extremist mindset,” she said.
Several of the American journalists said that many people they talked to in Pakistan blamed illiteracy, poverty and other social inequities on the persistence of a “feudal” system of wealthy landlords and poor tenant farmers. To put it bluntly, said Fragala-Smith, “it’s not necessarily in the interest of Pakistan’s ruling parties to have educated lower classes, because then who’s going to do the cheap labor?”
Another issue that was raised by both groups was Pakistan’s dependence on U.S. and other foreign aid. Several of the journalists said that many Pakistanis would actually like to see the U.S. reduce its aid, since they view it as having a corrupting influence on the country’s fledgling democracy, further eroding the public’s already extremely low confidence in the relatively new civilian government.
But before Pakistan can become more economically self-reliant, several of the journalists said, it needs to solve its frequent power outages and other infrastructure barriers to development, and especially needs to reform its corruption-riddled tax collection system. According to a recent Agence France Presse news report, barely 1 percent of the Pakistani populace pays any taxes at all, and less than 10 percent of the country’s GDP comes from tax revenue
The journalists in the program visited each others’ countries and spoke with a wide variety of official and grassroots sources, then met at the EWC in Hawai‘i in late April to compare notes. Both groups agreed that deep underlying problems would have to be addressed if extremism is to be curbed in Pakistan.
(Read participants’ comments on the impact of the bin Laden raid.)
“You can kill or arrest terrorists, but the extremist mindset is the real problem, and you need to look at the causes behind that,” said Malik Arshad Aziz, an editor at the Daily Aaj in Peshawar, a city that is on the front lines of military action against Taliban militants along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. “In Pakistan, we have an energy problem; we have poverty, unemployment, lack of education. When you solve these problems, the extremist organizations will be finished.”
“As Pakistanis, we need to realize that, more than America or anyone else, we need to help ourselves,” said Mehmal Sarfraz, op-ed editor of the Daily Times in Lahore. Some of Pakistan’s problems are due to external factors, such as U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, she said, “but most of the extremism is because of our own failed policies.”
“Yes, the U.S. and others nurtured jihadis during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan,” she said. “But after the U.S. left, instead of dismantling jihadist organizations, we fostered them to counter the Indian threat … and now there is this whole rising extremist mindset that threatens the basic fabric of Pakistani society.”
It’s often maintained that there is a “moderate, silent majority in Pakistan,” Sarfraz said, “but they are silent, that’s the problem. It’s either that they’re afraid to speak up, or perhaps the public mindset has totally changed and actually is more extremist – and that is something that is very, very worrying for me as a Pakistani person.”
Kamal Siddiqi, Karachi-based editor of The Express Tribune national newspaper , agreed that “one of our biggest problems is that the Pakistan government and army are selectively fighting some extremists and supporting others, which they see as a sort of wing that can put pressure on India or have influence in Afghanistan. As a state, in the long term I think we are hurting ourselves.”
Both the Pakistani and American journalists said during a public discussion panel that lack of access to education is a major driving force of extremism in the region. “My experience in Pakistan was that people have an insatiable intellectual curiosity ‑ every one we met seemed so informed and concerned about international affairs,” said Karen Fragala-Smith of Newsweek magazine. “But despite that, we know that Pakistan has an extremely high rate of illiteracy – more than 50 percent according to most sources.”
Sarfraz agreed that education is a key issue. “Unless and until we can educate our children, we will not be able to fight this extremist mindset,” she said.
Several of the American journalists said that many people they talked to in Pakistan blamed illiteracy, poverty and other social inequities on the persistence of a “feudal” system of wealthy landlords and poor tenant farmers. To put it bluntly, said Fragala-Smith, “it’s not necessarily in the interest of Pakistan’s ruling parties to have educated lower classes, because then who’s going to do the cheap labor?”
Another issue that was raised by both groups was Pakistan’s dependence on U.S. and other foreign aid. Several of the journalists said that many Pakistanis would actually like to see the U.S. reduce its aid, since they view it as having a corrupting influence on the country’s fledgling democracy, further eroding the public’s already extremely low confidence in the relatively new civilian government.
But before Pakistan can become more economically self-reliant, several of the journalists said, it needs to solve its frequent power outages and other infrastructure barriers to development, and especially needs to reform its corruption-riddled tax collection system. According to a recent Agence France Presse news report, barely 1 percent of the Pakistani populace pays any taxes at all, and less than 10 percent of the country’s GDP comes from tax revenue