CPTnet
12 November 2007
PAKISTAN REFLECTION: Resistance to military rule

[Note: The following piece by CPT Director Emeritus Gene Stoltzfus is
adapted from a longer reflection, entitled "Pakistan," available at
http://www.gstoltzfus.blogspot.com/]

In late 2001 and early 2002, I was in Pakistan as part of a trip to
Afghanistan. The people I met in the northwest frontier city of Peshawar
and surrounding areas are much on my mind these days as Pakistan continues
its sixty-year long rhythm of military rule alternating with constitutional
government.

Since Alexander the Great, foreign forces have met defeat at the hands
Pashtun people in this border region. When their life was threatened by the
Soviets in the 1980s, their fighters welcomed the outpouring of U.S.
support, largely channeled through Pakistan's military. Today the
rebellious and independent inhabitants of those mountains have been
temporarily renamed "Al Qaeda supporters" or "Taliban protectors," and the
U.S. Special Forces plan to work with the Pakistani military to rid the area
of "terrorists." The Pakistani generals know that quelling Pashtun
resistance may be an unrealistic goal. But they are willing to carry on
perfunctory counterinsurgency efforts to keep generous U.S. military aid
flowing.

Resistance to emergency measures and military rule is not the sole
prerogative of the Pakistani lawyers demanding constitutional rule, whom we
have seen clashing with the police on the news. Pakistan has a civil society
connected to the historic nonviolent struggle against British colonialism.
Badshah Khan was a devout Muslim Pashtun who worked with Gandhi as part of
that effort. Khan founded the Khudai Khidmatgar (Servants of God), whose
100,000 participants became one of the largest nonviolent armies in history.
The organization's soldiers were legendary for dying at the hands of the
British Empire's police and military.

When I visited Peshawar in 2001, I found threads of curiosity and interest
in this nonviolent struggle weaving their way through Pakistan's world.
Little reported because of the world's fascination with terrorism and
entertainment violence, the legacy of Badshah Khan survives, although the
man and his nonviolent army are long forgotten. This legacy is a
restraining influence on unbridled military domination, and gives legitimacy
to Pakistani lawyers advocating the rule of law rather the rule of the gun.

One day in Peshawar, I went to visit a private organization that provided
educational programs to remote villages in Afghanistan during the long night
of Taliban rule. The director's first words to us were, "Peacemaker Teams,
where have you been all these years?" We felt those words coming from the
deepest chambers of his heart. He described the enormous levels of violence
that people were going through and invited us to think together about
peacemaking and building a culture of peace.

Now as the violence in Afghanistan increases, and the military gains even
more power in Pakistan, I remember my Pashtun friends in Peshawar and Kabul.
I remember their invitation for us to come and work with them. And I
remember our inability to respond then with teams of trained and committed
people. The absence of sustained support for grassroots peacemaking is one
factor that led to conditions for emergency military rule and initiatives to
send U.S. Special Forces.

Oh Lord how long?