While Imran Khan holds the country hostage with his pointless sit-in at Islamabad, the army is ostensibly trying to find and fight the terrorists who have killed 50,000 Pakistanis in less than seven years. NATO is busy trying to prick Russia by supporting a discredited, militant government in Kiev to fight its own people, while arguably it should focus on the mess that US intervention has created in Iraq. The Arab world is in turmoil as Libya remains torn apart by competing militias struggling to fill the power vacuum left after the murder of Muammar Qaddafi: the destabilising effects of this are being felt throughout north and central Africa, as far away as the Central African Republic, where Muslim and Christian extremists commit daily atrocities. The wave of militancy has spread to Mali, Chad and even Uganda, while Somalia remains a hotbed of extremism and chaos on the Horn of Africa. In Syria a brutal civil war has killed tens of thousands while Afghanistan may be on the verge of civil war after a contentious presidential election. With the decline in the stature of nation states brought about by western disregard for international law and the chaos left behind by shortsighted and selfish global interventions by the west, into the vacuum has stepped extremist Islamist militancy that is making its malign presence felt in many parts of the world. Let us not exonerate ourselves either for launching the Taliban. From Lebanon and Syria to North Waziristan, a covert network of militancy is rapidly growing, aided by success on the battlefield and ineffectual leadership and division among the political forces that should represent sanity and progress. Sadly, it is the latter’s internal contradictions and hypocrisies that have disenchanted their citizens who, with no rational voice to stand up for them, are turning towards extremist, revanchist militants to provide them with leadership. First it was the Taliban, a movement that could adequately be described as a blot on the face of humanity, now it is the Islamic State (IS), a group so brutal that it needs no introduction. Al Qaeda, once the repository of all extremist evil, is now seen as jaded and ineffectual in jihadist circles. Has the world gone so mad that we will soon long for the days of Osama bin Laden as a voice of ‘moral leadership’ and ‘moderation’? In the face of IS beheading Shias and Yazidis, crucifying Christians and unleashing terror on any who oppose it, nothing is beyond imagination any longer.
We should of course thank the west for not only committing the sin of aggression, but then committing the even greater sin of leaving before the job was done, as they did in Iraq and now plan to do in Afghanistan. The bumbling response of the White House to IS’s victories in Iraq is just one sign that strategic momentum lies with the militants and that they are building a narrative to solidify their legitimacy, even while the rest of the world remains caught up in bickering and age old enmities. Reports of IS’s supposed arrival in Pakistan have engendered a mild panic, and undoubtedly, with people willing to believe the worst, that was the plan. The truth is that IS, the Taliban, even the new Jamaatul Ahrar, share ideological and material goals, and their coordination is no surprise. Where the Taliban have been difficult to destroy because of their organisational incoherence, IS reportedly has a well-defined structure that gives it command and control efficiency, one reason for its quick successes. Success has the added benefit of conferring legitimacy and momentum, and where just a few weeks ago claims of a new ‘caliphate’ were scorned, today the group’s survival and growth is being seen as a sign of its heavenly mandate. Reports that IS graffiti has appeared in Kashmir, and that four Indian Muslim men were caught trying to enter Bangladesh to join the radical outfit are disconcerting because they show they depth of discontent that so many people feel in the modern world, dominated by materialist hubris. Presenting a viable alternative is not only a challenge, it is a necessity, because the dark tide of radicalism spreading throughout the Middle East and South Asia threatens to swallow us all.
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