The Morning After

Zeba Khan

Monday morning, the day after the US launched strikes against Kandahar and Kabul, saw Islamabad changed. The calm, however tense, was shattered. Monday morning, army personnel put barbed wire and barricades around the Parliament Building. A bright red banner of warning accompanied the barricade. The banner reads, quite matter-of-factly; ‘Any man who tries to cross this line will be shot’. Security in and around Islamabad has been stepped up, not for fear of invasion or Afghani refugee insurrection, but for preventing civil war. This is a show of force from the Pakistani government, to the Pakistani people.

Popular sentiment here is furious. The Pakistani populous feels betrayed by their leadership, and civil war is no longer whispered about. It is shouted about by religious groups who maintain that killing the Afghanis to smoke out un-convicted terrorists is morally reprehensible, no matter how politically correct.

“Last year I have traveled to Afghanistan,” Saleem*, a young Pakistani ‘mujahid’ told this reporter at a rally, “And I have seen the destruction that existed even before these new attacks. I have traveled from Kandahar from Kabul, and there’s nothing valuable left to bomb. No factories, no buildings. The people there are alive, but they have nothing left, this is an injustice. The Taaliban couldn’t hand over Osama anyway, it’s not Islamically proper. He sought asylum with them, they’ve given him sanctuary, and they cannot give him up until they’ve been shown proper evidence. But all they’ve been shown is bombs.”

Driving through the city the morning after, hundreds of young men were seen walking towards the International Islamic University of Islamabad Campus with long bamboo sticks, metal poles and 2 x 4’s. Some were stopping to break sizeable branches from trees before resuming their march. As it turns out, the crowd of men with sticks was part of an anti-US demonstration that began at the IIUI campus and ended in a peaceful sit-in in front of the American Center in Blue Area, Islamabad. The sit-in, arranged by the Afghan Defense Council, culminated in a speech by an ADC leader who warned Americans in Pakistan to leave within two days, if they valued their lives.

Carol Khan, an American who lives in Islamabad, has no plans of leaving and says “Americans are Pakistan’s allies, and people who say we aren’t are undermining their own government.” Referring to a five hundred thousand rupee bounty issued on American heads by an extremist group (since closed-down) last week, she said “I know that 99.9% of all Pakistanis are peace-loving, but it only take one guy to take my own head off, so of course I’m scared. I leave the house as little as possible, I always go out with a family member and I always cover my head. Muslims in America are uncovering their heads to be safe, and here it’s the opposite.”

Despite intense publicity that includes banners, posters, a music video and a new national slogan (‘Pakistan is our life, Pakistan comes first’) the Pakistani Government’s attempt to promote national solidarity seems to be failing. Demonstrations similar to the ADC sit-in, also protesting the US air strikes though not threatening US citizens, occurred in every major city of Pakistan on Monday morning, and have continued every day since. Demonstrators met in Lahore, Karachi, Quetta, Hyderabad, and Peshawar as well as Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Police and protestors clashed in the highly Pushton cities of Peshawar and Quetta, as well as in Karachi, a Pakistani port-city famous for its turbulent political scene. As a result major roads and streets there have been blocked off to control rioting.

Where there isn’t rioting and possible civil war, there is at least vocal political dissatisfaction with Musharraf’s decision to lend Pakistani airspace and intelligence to Operation Enduring Freedom. PML and MQM, two major political players in Pakistan, have staged protests, and other political parties are expected to follow suit. Denounced as a traitor to innocent Muslims in Afghanistan and an ally to the world’s biggest terrorist, America, Musharraf has been losing political support rapidly, on a grassroots level as well. “If you walk through any of the tribal northern areas, and pull aside an man and ask him who his leader is, he’ll say Mullah Omar. No one is acknowledging Musharraf,” Saleem said. “They all follow Mullah Omar. They’re burning buildings in Peshawar and Quetta, they’re fighting with the police. Civil war will begin if it hasn’t already.”

So far the damage to Pakistan from civil insurrection has been nominal, but unless Musharraf does something drastic, the possibility of civil war may actualize. Here it is believed that even if Bush’s plans are successful, and Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar are killed, that will only be the beginning, not the end of the situation. “If you kill one ‘terrorist’ you create six more just from his household alone,” Saleem said, “because the injustice you committed angers them, and they stand up to avenge his death.”

The number expected to stand up is immense, one ADC leader at the American Center sit-in boasted of 20,000 students who signed up to fight. What the government was once calling a small but vocal minority of ‘extremists’ has gained support and numbers since the US air strikes began.

“Do you know why this is?” Saleem asked. “Because Osama is not just a person in this aspect, he’s a symbol, an institution, and when America attacks Osama, they are attacking what he stands for….myself and many other people like me, will help Osama in any way, with anything we can. We can take up arms, we can pray for him, we will do anything.”

Anything is what the Pakistani Government has to be prepared for now with tensions rising, and surfacing, rapidly. Whether or not Pakistan is launched into a war of its own depends on how far the religious groups decide to go, and how far Musharraf will go to control them.

*Saleem; name changed for purposes of anonymity

Date/Time Last Modified: 7/6/2002 7:32:00 PM

© 2004, Human Development Foundation. All rights reserved.
1350 Remington Road, Suite W, Schaumburg, Il. 60173
Toll Free: (800) 705-1310 | Email: info@yespakistan.com | Privacy Policy