My project to review Juan Cole’s Engaging the Muslim World chapter by chapter is dragging on longer than I thought it would, but I hate leaving things unfinished, and so I soldier on. The fifth chapter, “Pakistan and Afghanistan: Beyond the Taliban,” is the one most outside of my expertise, for while I did some graduate work on Afghanistan and wound up reading about tribal populations for my dissertation, I’ve never taken much interest in modern Pakistan, the politics and society of which is critical to a comprehensive view of the area.
Juan Cole, however, is a Pakistan expert, and the first part of his chapter provides an educated overview of Pakistani politics and it social basis, as well as the causes of Pakistani grievances with the United States. A key point is that Islamic Revivalism does not have a large constituency in the country, nor are most grievances rooted in pan-Islamic sentiments. Most of the country is radically different from the tribal areas from which the Taliban Movement of Pakistan emanates, and where one finds the madrasas who took in poor and orphaned refugees from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and provided them with a rudimentary education, which did happen to be based in theologically conservative Deobandi teachings.
While Islamist parties won 2002 elections in the North West Frontier Province, Cole interprets this as a reaction to the American invasion of Afghanistan and the support it received from President Pervez Musharraf. The population was swiftly disenchanted when these parties focused on implementing Islamic law in the area rather than advancing their agenda on other issues.
After surveying Pakistan’s recent political history up to the rise of current President Asif Ali Zardari, Cole turns his attention to Pakistan, which is a very different place. A basic sense of nationalism, which underlies the modern state system, isn’t strong among any of the country’s inhabitants, with the possible exception of the Uzbeks, and where it does exist it is often directed toward linguistic groups rather than “Afghan-ness.” Cole also questions how much of the violence in Afghanistan’s south is really caused by the Taliban, and indeed much is not.
The one point in this chapter where I question Cole has to do with the old issue of the extent to which ethnicity influences Afghanistan’s conflict. Here’s the crucial paragraph:
“The conflict also has a strong, if not determinative, ethnic coloration, with some Pushtun tribesmen resentful of what they see as the Tajik-dominated government in Kabul even though Afghan bureaucrats representing that government in the southern provinces are themselves Pushtun. The ethnic lines are not drawn in an absolute way, since Karzai and many of his officials are Pushtun and they have many Pushtun tribal supporters. In some ways, the fighting in the south is the civil war between pro- and anti-Karzai tribes. Still, ethnicity is one element in the struggle – there are no Hazara Shi’ite Taliban, and the spread of neo-Taliban violence to northern provinces such as Kunduz, where German troops have come under repeated attack, has tended to occur through Pushtun clan networks.”
My question here is that can’t the given examples better support the idea that ethnicity is a minor factor? Is the lack of Hazara Taliban because they are Hazara, or because they are Shi’ites? Is the Pushtun-ness of the clan networks of neo-Taliban violence in the north really important?
That aside, this is an excellent chapter, and I strongly support Cole’s recommendations, which boil down to forming an alliance with the Pakistani people rather than particular governments.
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