Over and above the frightening levels of terrorist violence that persist in Iraq, a
major terrorist incident in London and threats against other European countries
have kept the terrorist menace high on the international agenda in 2005. Few
nations have had a more intimate and troubled relationship with this scourge than
Pakistan: a one-time supporter of the Taliban that has at the very least condoned
terrorist infiltration in Kashmir, but that now aligns itself firmly with the international ‘war on terrorism’ and whose own president has been the target of
extremist assassins. The suggestions that perpetrators of the July 2005 London
bombings might have found succour in extremist circles in Pakistan, at the same
time that Pakistani forces have been going to unprecedented lengths to hunt down
al-Qaeda, provides just one hint of the complexity of the resultant problems.
Aarish Ullah Khan, a researcher from Pakistan, worked at SIPRI as a guest
scholar for some months in early 2005. In this Policy Paper he sets out in concentrated and penetrating fashion the historical, political and strategic background to
Pakistan’s experiences with religiously motivated terrorism as both a tool and a
curse. He shows that, while Pakistan’s identity as a nation state is inseparable from
Islam, no such easy equation can be made with religious extremism or with the
related brands of terrorism. Rather, certain Pakistani leaderships (and power constituencies, like the army) have chosen to instrumentalize religious fervour and
even terrorist violence for their political and strategic purposes at various times—
not always against the wishes of Western powers. The consequences of such past
choices have come home to roost for President Pervez Musharraf, who has set his
face against all brands of terrorism but has, so far, found it much simpler to pursue
al-Qaeda and to stamp down on purely domestic extremism than to extract the
terrorist fuse from the powder keg of Kashmir. As Aarish Ullah Khan argues, only
progress in peace with India in the short term, and attention to Pakistan’s weaknesses of society, economy and governance in the longer term, can separate Islam
and terrorism as they must be separated for the future stability and dignity of the
state.
Terrorists manipulate fear through the use of violence to achieve their objectives.
An understanding of what motivates terrorists to employ mindless violence against
civilian or non-combatant targets is essential for assessing the phenomenon. The
current discussion of ‘root causes’ often focuses on finding the causes of antagonism towards civilization in the mind of a fanatic terrorist at the individual level.
The debate about what motivates a terrorist, however, overlooks the factors that
enable a terrorist to conduct terrorist activities. As argued by Walter Laqueur, even
if better control can be achieved over the extremist motivation for terrorism, there
will still be a few isolated individuals for whom the temptation to employ
terrorism—if the opportunity remains—will be hard to resist.1
While the root causes must be tackled to decrease the number of terrorists, an
understanding of the enabling factors for terrorists is also needed in order to reduce
their capacity to act. It is all the more necessary because reducing the motivation
behind terrorism is a task for a generation or more, and reducing their capacity will
demand constant attention in the meantime. Without ignoring the root causes, this
Policy Paper explores the role of the state in breaking the link (or other form of
relationship) between the motivation for and actualization of a terrorist act.
In Pakistan, a state where religion provides the only collective identity of its
people—over and above the very existence of the state—flirting with religion is an
important political activity. In the earlier East–West context of the cold war, the
religiosity of the nation’s people and the religious factor in its politics attracted
international interest and support (paradoxically, it now seems) as a basis for
securing the country’s liberal allegiance. ‘Islamism’ has subsequently become a
source of concern and ultimate threat to the whole world: but Pakistan as a state
has found and is still finding it hard to reconcile itself with this reality. This Policy
Paper attempts to establish whether Pakistan now is, and considers itself (rightly or
wrongly), a part of the world community that has come to dread religious extremist
terrorism.
https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/files/PP/SIPRIPP11.pdf
Editor