Taliban brutality in Swat: Muted protests won’t do, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad

Taliban brutality in Swat: Muted protests won’t do

By Zubeida Mustafa

The Taliban by and large do not enjoy the support of the population, we are told, and so this is not a classical case of guerrilla conflict which defies conventional strategies of law enforcement. If Swat continues to be in flames even six months after Operation Rah-i-Haq was launched, there is something sinister going on up there. Has the old game of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds returned to the agenda of the defenders of this land? While the army claims it is waging a war against the Taliban, strangely enough the enemy seems to be thriving as it expands its operations.

At stake is the credibility of the army which has not been helped by the contradiction between words and deeds that is striking. This is not something we are not familiar with. In his exhaustive study of the Pakistan Army, Crossed Swords, Shuja Nawaz speaks of “local militant groups with shadowy links, past or present, to the ISI”, which was, along with other agencies, “allowed to keep open ties to Islamic groups”. Even in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks we have the US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Richard Boucher, speaking last week of delinking the Inter Services Intelligence from terrorist groups in Pakistan. We do not know how deep and in which direction these links run.

http://newageislam.com/taliban-brutality-in-swat--muted-protests-won%E2%80%99t-do/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/1142

Angry Young Muslims: Perspectives on Radical Islamism, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad

Angry Young Muslims: Perspectives on Radical Islamism

Dealing with extremism on an Islamic basis is primarily a battle for the future of the Arab and Muslim world. Particularly the first dimension of anger described above can only be tackled by far-reaching political reforms in these countries. The autocratic regimes selected as partners in alliances with the West, however, are rarely prepared to take such steps. European governments can call for and support reforms. Yet Europe's policy-makers must start thinking about how their own decisions contribute to increasing or decreasing the potential for anger in the Muslim world. Five brief proposals:

Europe should support actors in the Arab and Muslim world who take peaceful action for change in their countries. This also means accepting that civil society includes not only those involved in secular discourses, but also conservative Islamic forces. One thing is certain: without the national moderate forces of political Islam, there will be no sustainable political reforms in the Arab world.

Political change is never linear; it is always full of contradictions, detours and setbacks. It is therefore advisable to break down the concept of democracy into its constitutive elements for operational purposes. That means in particular the rule of law, human rights, independent justice, transparency, freedom of opinion and free elections, whereby these are the decisive but certainly not the first and only necessary element of sustainable political reform. Democracy – and this is essential – cannot come before a much more all-encompassing process of state building; statehood is instead a precondition for consolidated democracy.

http://newageislam.com/angry-young-muslims--perspectives-on-radical-islamism--/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/829