Its 8:18 PM of the New Year's eve and I am sitting in front of the PC at my grandmother's place, pondering over the events of this year... As I have nothing constructive to do at the moment, so thought of writing this note...
Looking back, 2009 was a year which I shall remember mainly for its political events, what with frequent suicide bomb blasts, the ongoing global economic recession, the military operations in SWAT, Waziristan, the US drone attacks, the loadshedding and catastrophic rainfall in Karachi over the summer...
Nobody likes to recount the bad events that have happened in their lives. I am no different; just another human being - flesh, bone, blood..
Sitting in this mild Karachi evening, looking forward to the clock striking mid-night when the streets of Karachi would resound with firing and fire-crackers and what not, it is only the good events of this year that I want to recall: my brother got admission into LUMS, I took courses such as Pakistan's Foreign Relations, Global Cities, bought my camera, went on so many trips, became an MFR in LUMS EMS, made so many new friends who created so many good memories for me to cherish over the years to come..
When I think about it, I do look forward to 2010; it is the year after which I will enter 2011, the big year, year of my graduation, God-willing..
I end this note with a silent prayer. May Allah Almighty make this new year a blessing for me, my family and friends, for Pakistan, and for all humanity, and may He make it a year which is safe for all of us, a year for us to remember with fondness...
Amen...
Farewell 2009 A.D.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Pakistan's Policy Towards Afghanistan
This article will look at the factors due to which Pakistan switched from supporting Afghan leaders such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Sayyaf to supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan in the 1990s, and why Pakistan continued its support of the Taliban when the entire international community and the regional countries of Asia except the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia opposed the Taliban and Pakistan’s support for them.
Pakistan’s foreign policy towards Afghanistan has always been driven by its strategic interests. Pakistan and Afghanistan are neighboring states and Pakistan shares 2430 km 1 of its 6560 km long border 2 with Afghanistan along the controversial Durand Line.
Pakistan has, for a long time, harmonized its strategic interests with those of the United States of America. This started when Pakistan entered into the fold of CENTO and SEATO in the 1950s and this trend continued in the days of the Cold War. Pakistan did not acquire a lot from this policy except for the aids and grants that this policy gained Pakistan from the West (Grover, Pg 262). Some of Pakistan’s cardinal foreign policy decisions took place when Pakistan was under military rule. Generals of the third world countries have never been farsighted or great thinkers and so is the case in Pakistan. Popular governments are always the ones that have had to clear up the mess caused by such policies afterwards. From 1988 onwards, there had been several elected governments in Pakistan which were periodically ousted from power for attempting to follow a policy which was the opposite of the one which the military wanted to follow in Afghanistan. Because Pakistan had a different government almost after every couple of years in the 1990s, Pakistani military establishment continued its own policies in Afghanistan. A cruel political reality is that Pakistani military and its agencies are largely an autonomous body which is largely not answerable to the elected governments. The proof of this is the fact that although elected governments tried to eliminate Islamic militants from Pakistani territory, these militants still were there along the Pak-Afghan border where they were getting military training from the Pakistan army in the use of guerilla warfare and explosives (Grover, Pg 263). Therefore, a discussion of Pakistan’s strategic interests in Afghanistan should rather be seen through the perception of the Pakistani military and not merely through that of the elected government. We must first discuss Pakistan’s strategic interests over Afghanistan in the light of circumstances which prevailed after the departure of the Soviets from Afghanistan in the late 1980s.
The most important issue for Pakistan was the disputed border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. This border, also called the Durand Line was erected during the British Raj in India under a treaty with Afghanistan in 1893 after the Second Afghan war of 1878-80. The area between the Durand Line and British India was accepted as “free tribal territory” and its people retained their tribal autonomy despite being under Britain’s sovereignty. The covenant was renewed time and again between the British and Afghans by more agreements in 1905, 1929 and 1930. The Durand Line proved to be a bone of contention between Afghanistan and Pakistan after the Partition of India in 1947. The Afghans now refused to accept the border which divided Afghanistan from the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. The NWFP is culturally, historically, linguistically and ethnically very close to Afghanistan and many people of the region have family members on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border. The Pakhtun tribes are all largely followers of Sunni Islam, Pashtu-speaking, but are politically divided into the settled areas of NWFP, tribal areas (FATA) and those in Afghanistan. The Afghans’ demanded that based on these factors, NWFP should be made a part of Afghanistan or else made into independent Pakhtunistan (Grover, Pg 264). The issue got further complex because of the inter-tribal wedlocks between Pakhtuns in Afghanistan and those in NWFP. The Durand Line was further made diluted by the influx of millions of Afghan refugees into Pakistani territory across the Pak-Afghan border after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. Pakistan converted a large part of the refugee population into being fighters against the Soviets (Mujahideen). This notion of Jihad brought Pakistan a large amount of financial help from the wealthy Muslim states. Pakistan also got a large amount of financial and military help from the West. Between 1979 and 1989, Pakistan reportedly got more than ten billion dollars of aid. Pakistan very selectively distributed part of this money amongst select groups of the Mujahideen and refugees to create a friendly group amongst the Afghans which would not be against Pakistan. Pakistan thought that this would cater to a number of its interests later on. Apart from settling the border dispute, it would give Pakistan the strategic depth to face India (Grover, Pg 265).
The Soviet retreat from Afghanistan led to the diminishing of foreign aid from the US to Pakistan. Pakistan now looked towards Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as a friendly successor in Afghanistan. Hekmatyar’s subsequent failure and negotiations with Rabbani’s government may be some factors which led to formation of the Taliban later on. Afghanistan did not have any charismatic person who could command the loyalties of the Afghan population. Pakistan tried to invent such a leader in Gulbuddin Hekmatyar but he was not accepted by all factions of the Mujahideen population. Subsequently, Pakistan lost its credibility in the eyes of the Afghans as a sympathetic mediator in solving the Afghan’s problems.
There were several other developments at about this time in the international world. Iran’s success in its Islamic Revolution in the 1980s gave it a sort of leadership position in the Islamic world. The Saudis felt this menace from Iran and were in favor of having a strong government in Kabul soon which could counter the growing influence of Tehran in the region.
Another development was the discovery of mineral and fuel resources in the newly independent Central Asian Republics which came into being with the breakup of the Soviet Union after the Cold War. These natural resources drew the attention of USA into the region. A US company called UNOCAL Corporation and a Saudi company called Delta Oil Company, two major oil and gas companies of the world joined hands together to make use of these resources for the markets in Pakistan and Eastern Asia. Two major pipelines were proposed over a distance of 1000 miles, costing a total of 4.7 billion dollars, in order to carry the minerals from Turkmenistan to Pakistan through Afghanistan. This was termed as the UNOCAL/Delta Oil’s Corridor to Commerce (Grover, Pg 266). It was stated in the details of the project that “one of the major obstacles to project implementation is the political instability in Afghanistan. It is fundamentally important that a single body representing the whole of Afghanistan is formed.” (Grover, Pg 267)
Under these circumstances, Pakistan was willing to assist UNOCAL/Delta Oil Company as it very well suited Pakistan’s strategic and economic goals and UNOCAL/Delta also knew of Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan during the Cold War. Pakistan tried to bring into play its past tactics in Afghanistan. It knew that a full-scale war in Afghanistan could not be victorious for it, seeing what had recently happened with the former Soviet Union which had been a superpower in its time. It therefore used religion as a basis to bring unity amongst the ethnically divided Afghans. Pakistan had previously used this tactic of using religion with some amount of success in Kashmir and Indian Punjab. It now used this strategy of exploiting religion to create the Taliban, as a substitute for the Rabbani regime in Kabul to help it in realizing its economic and strategic interests. The Taliban, like Hekmatyar, were not accepted by all the Afghans because they represent only a part of the ethnically divided population of Afghanistan. An understanding developed between General Dostum and Ahmed Shah Masood of Afghanistan and they successfully managed to evade Taliban’s assaults on Panjshir Valley. Pakistan failed for another major reason. To begin with, Pakistan is not strong enough to do such a mammoth task and it also did not realize that USA would lose its interest in this part of the world once the Soviet troops returned to Russia (Grover, Pg 267).
Ahmed Rashid wrote an article in Herald in which he quoted Diego Cordovez and Selig Harrison, stating that Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy was not right since the very start as it favored only those Afghan leaders which were its favorites, such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar against others such as Masood during the Soviet invasion. According to Rashid, Pakistan would have been far better off had it let a legitimate and credible leadership to evolve in Afghanistan which had the support of the Afghan masses. Pakistan is also accused of directing the CIA arms equipment towards its favorites and supporting Pakhtuns in order to preserve Pakhtun command in Afghanistan. Pakistan maintained this attitude when Soviet invasion ended in Afghanistan, hardly thinking that it was annoying the neighbors of Afghanistan, namely Iran and the Central Asian Republics, many of whom vehemently joined Teheran in opposing Islamabad’s actions in Kabul. It can be rightly said however that Pakistan, like other nations of the world, had never expected the Soviet Union to break apart in 1991, and Pakistan indeed attempted to tend to wounds it had caused to Iran in 1995 and 1996 when many visits took place of Pakistan high officials to Iran, including the Prime Minister’s visit to Teheran in November 1995 to eliminate Iran’s fears about the Taliban. Pakistan was in a frenzy to gain recognition of Iran and other countries for the Taliban as the Taliban moved towards the capture of Kabul (Grover, Pg 268).
Pakistan’s policy over the Taliban led it to be quite regionally isolated by the end of 1996. Iran, the Central Asian Republics and Russia were opposing it on one side and Pakistan’s Gulf friends were not giving it the financial support in the quantities that it required. Nasim Zehra’s article “Hot War over Afghanistan” in the Nation stated: “Teheran’s current policy towards Afghanistan does not alienate it regionally but Pakistan is viewed suspiciously by Russia, Kazakhstan, China and Tajikistan. Teheran-Delhi growing trade ties have now been supplemented by deeper diplomatic and political understanding between the two on Afghanistan, while Islamabad’s Washington supporters are weary of openly supporting Islamabad’s policy of backing the Taliban. Compared to Islamabad, the going is better for Teheran.” (Grover, Pg 269).
To conclude, we can see that Pakistan supported the Taliban in the face of growing international opposition for strategic and economics interests. Pakistan had initially supported Afghan leaders like Hekmatyar because it seemed that their interests would be similar to those of Pakistan if they came to power. At their failure, Pakistan began supporting Taliban because they were the ones who had managed to control most of Afghanistan and hence seemed to bring about some level of stability in the country. Many of the war-torn country’s inhabitants welcomed the Taliban as their saviors, even though many of them resented them on ethnic basis. They seemed to be a good alternative for Pakistan instead of people like Hekmatyar because they were basically Pakhtuns, and Pakistan has a large Pakhtun population in its North West Frontier Province. Therefore, Pakistan felt that a Pakhtun authority in Kabul would be suitable for promoting its interests as it would sympathize with Pakistan. It would also help in solving Pakistan’s border dispute along the Durand Line and the Pakhtunistan issue sentiments which, however lessened, still existed with Afghanistan. Pakistan already had a hostile neighbor in India and could not afford to have an unfriendly Afghanistan. For the sake of preserving its sovereignty, it needed to have clearly defined and respected borders. The Taliban were strongest in the areas surrounding the Pak-Afghan border and Pakistan felt that supporting them would prove to lead to friendly relations with Afghanistan in the years to come. Thus, it always wanted to have a friendly Afghanistan, which seemed possible to it at the time if Afghanistan came under Taliban rule. Stability of Afghanistan was also important for Pakistan due to economic reasons. The wealth of natural resources in the Central Asian Republics could be tapped by Pakistan only through Afghanistan. There was the issue of the pipelines through Afghanistan from Central Asia which could be important for enhancing Pakistan’s economy. There was possible influence from USA which never wanted Pakistan to have a gas pipeline with Iran and instead much favored gas from Central Asia. Pakistan was also becoming concerned that Turkey and Iran could deprive it of trade with the landlocked Central Asian States via Karachi and Gwadar by developing trade links through Port Bandar Abbas in Iran and through the Mediterranean via Turkey. In October 1994, Pakistan’s interior minister Naseerullah Babar undertook a highly publicized journey across Afghanistan through Kandahar and Herat and then dispatched a trade convoy along the same path in order to display the potential of Pakistan as a trade outlet to the sea for Central Asia. It was the Taliban who had protected this very trade convoy (Marsden, 132). The Taliban were in control of this trade route so Pakistan felt that helping them could be beneficial for Pakistan. The Taliban had an appeal to the young madrassah students and had no difficulty in recruitment therefore. Thus, Pakistan felt that the Taliban had an excellent chance of controlling the Pakhtun belt and could also take over the whole of Afghanistan if they were supported, just as Abdur Rahman had done with British help in the 1800s. The political stability that would come as a result would therefore give Pakistan not only trade opportunities with Central Asian Republics, but also strategic depth against its rival India (Peter Marsden, 143). Taliban were also accepted by Saudi Arabia and UAE which were friends of Pakistan and Pakistan expected that after some time other countries would also recognize the Taliban regime. It was due to these factors that Pakistan continued to support the Taliban in the 1990s in the face of increasing opposition from the international community.
Bibliography
1. "Afghanistan Border." World Map, Map of the World. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 June 2009..
2. "The Geography of border landscapes -." Google Book Search. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 June 2009..
3. Grover, Verinder. Afghanistan. Minneapolis: Deep & Deep Publications,India, 2000. Print.
4. Marsden, Peter. Taliban war, religion and the new order in Afghanistan. Karachi: Oxford UP, Zed Books Ltd., 1998. Print.
(This article was written by me for my Pakistan's Foreign Relations class taught by Ambassador Shaharyar Khan during my Sophomore year at LUMS.)
Pakistan’s foreign policy towards Afghanistan has always been driven by its strategic interests. Pakistan and Afghanistan are neighboring states and Pakistan shares 2430 km 1 of its 6560 km long border 2 with Afghanistan along the controversial Durand Line.
Pakistan has, for a long time, harmonized its strategic interests with those of the United States of America. This started when Pakistan entered into the fold of CENTO and SEATO in the 1950s and this trend continued in the days of the Cold War. Pakistan did not acquire a lot from this policy except for the aids and grants that this policy gained Pakistan from the West (Grover, Pg 262). Some of Pakistan’s cardinal foreign policy decisions took place when Pakistan was under military rule. Generals of the third world countries have never been farsighted or great thinkers and so is the case in Pakistan. Popular governments are always the ones that have had to clear up the mess caused by such policies afterwards. From 1988 onwards, there had been several elected governments in Pakistan which were periodically ousted from power for attempting to follow a policy which was the opposite of the one which the military wanted to follow in Afghanistan. Because Pakistan had a different government almost after every couple of years in the 1990s, Pakistani military establishment continued its own policies in Afghanistan. A cruel political reality is that Pakistani military and its agencies are largely an autonomous body which is largely not answerable to the elected governments. The proof of this is the fact that although elected governments tried to eliminate Islamic militants from Pakistani territory, these militants still were there along the Pak-Afghan border where they were getting military training from the Pakistan army in the use of guerilla warfare and explosives (Grover, Pg 263). Therefore, a discussion of Pakistan’s strategic interests in Afghanistan should rather be seen through the perception of the Pakistani military and not merely through that of the elected government. We must first discuss Pakistan’s strategic interests over Afghanistan in the light of circumstances which prevailed after the departure of the Soviets from Afghanistan in the late 1980s.
The most important issue for Pakistan was the disputed border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. This border, also called the Durand Line was erected during the British Raj in India under a treaty with Afghanistan in 1893 after the Second Afghan war of 1878-80. The area between the Durand Line and British India was accepted as “free tribal territory” and its people retained their tribal autonomy despite being under Britain’s sovereignty. The covenant was renewed time and again between the British and Afghans by more agreements in 1905, 1929 and 1930. The Durand Line proved to be a bone of contention between Afghanistan and Pakistan after the Partition of India in 1947. The Afghans now refused to accept the border which divided Afghanistan from the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. The NWFP is culturally, historically, linguistically and ethnically very close to Afghanistan and many people of the region have family members on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border. The Pakhtun tribes are all largely followers of Sunni Islam, Pashtu-speaking, but are politically divided into the settled areas of NWFP, tribal areas (FATA) and those in Afghanistan. The Afghans’ demanded that based on these factors, NWFP should be made a part of Afghanistan or else made into independent Pakhtunistan (Grover, Pg 264). The issue got further complex because of the inter-tribal wedlocks between Pakhtuns in Afghanistan and those in NWFP. The Durand Line was further made diluted by the influx of millions of Afghan refugees into Pakistani territory across the Pak-Afghan border after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. Pakistan converted a large part of the refugee population into being fighters against the Soviets (Mujahideen). This notion of Jihad brought Pakistan a large amount of financial help from the wealthy Muslim states. Pakistan also got a large amount of financial and military help from the West. Between 1979 and 1989, Pakistan reportedly got more than ten billion dollars of aid. Pakistan very selectively distributed part of this money amongst select groups of the Mujahideen and refugees to create a friendly group amongst the Afghans which would not be against Pakistan. Pakistan thought that this would cater to a number of its interests later on. Apart from settling the border dispute, it would give Pakistan the strategic depth to face India (Grover, Pg 265).
The Soviet retreat from Afghanistan led to the diminishing of foreign aid from the US to Pakistan. Pakistan now looked towards Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as a friendly successor in Afghanistan. Hekmatyar’s subsequent failure and negotiations with Rabbani’s government may be some factors which led to formation of the Taliban later on. Afghanistan did not have any charismatic person who could command the loyalties of the Afghan population. Pakistan tried to invent such a leader in Gulbuddin Hekmatyar but he was not accepted by all factions of the Mujahideen population. Subsequently, Pakistan lost its credibility in the eyes of the Afghans as a sympathetic mediator in solving the Afghan’s problems.
There were several other developments at about this time in the international world. Iran’s success in its Islamic Revolution in the 1980s gave it a sort of leadership position in the Islamic world. The Saudis felt this menace from Iran and were in favor of having a strong government in Kabul soon which could counter the growing influence of Tehran in the region.
Another development was the discovery of mineral and fuel resources in the newly independent Central Asian Republics which came into being with the breakup of the Soviet Union after the Cold War. These natural resources drew the attention of USA into the region. A US company called UNOCAL Corporation and a Saudi company called Delta Oil Company, two major oil and gas companies of the world joined hands together to make use of these resources for the markets in Pakistan and Eastern Asia. Two major pipelines were proposed over a distance of 1000 miles, costing a total of 4.7 billion dollars, in order to carry the minerals from Turkmenistan to Pakistan through Afghanistan. This was termed as the UNOCAL/Delta Oil’s Corridor to Commerce (Grover, Pg 266). It was stated in the details of the project that “one of the major obstacles to project implementation is the political instability in Afghanistan. It is fundamentally important that a single body representing the whole of Afghanistan is formed.” (Grover, Pg 267)
Under these circumstances, Pakistan was willing to assist UNOCAL/Delta Oil Company as it very well suited Pakistan’s strategic and economic goals and UNOCAL/Delta also knew of Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan during the Cold War. Pakistan tried to bring into play its past tactics in Afghanistan. It knew that a full-scale war in Afghanistan could not be victorious for it, seeing what had recently happened with the former Soviet Union which had been a superpower in its time. It therefore used religion as a basis to bring unity amongst the ethnically divided Afghans. Pakistan had previously used this tactic of using religion with some amount of success in Kashmir and Indian Punjab. It now used this strategy of exploiting religion to create the Taliban, as a substitute for the Rabbani regime in Kabul to help it in realizing its economic and strategic interests. The Taliban, like Hekmatyar, were not accepted by all the Afghans because they represent only a part of the ethnically divided population of Afghanistan. An understanding developed between General Dostum and Ahmed Shah Masood of Afghanistan and they successfully managed to evade Taliban’s assaults on Panjshir Valley. Pakistan failed for another major reason. To begin with, Pakistan is not strong enough to do such a mammoth task and it also did not realize that USA would lose its interest in this part of the world once the Soviet troops returned to Russia (Grover, Pg 267).
Ahmed Rashid wrote an article in Herald in which he quoted Diego Cordovez and Selig Harrison, stating that Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy was not right since the very start as it favored only those Afghan leaders which were its favorites, such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar against others such as Masood during the Soviet invasion. According to Rashid, Pakistan would have been far better off had it let a legitimate and credible leadership to evolve in Afghanistan which had the support of the Afghan masses. Pakistan is also accused of directing the CIA arms equipment towards its favorites and supporting Pakhtuns in order to preserve Pakhtun command in Afghanistan. Pakistan maintained this attitude when Soviet invasion ended in Afghanistan, hardly thinking that it was annoying the neighbors of Afghanistan, namely Iran and the Central Asian Republics, many of whom vehemently joined Teheran in opposing Islamabad’s actions in Kabul. It can be rightly said however that Pakistan, like other nations of the world, had never expected the Soviet Union to break apart in 1991, and Pakistan indeed attempted to tend to wounds it had caused to Iran in 1995 and 1996 when many visits took place of Pakistan high officials to Iran, including the Prime Minister’s visit to Teheran in November 1995 to eliminate Iran’s fears about the Taliban. Pakistan was in a frenzy to gain recognition of Iran and other countries for the Taliban as the Taliban moved towards the capture of Kabul (Grover, Pg 268).
Pakistan’s policy over the Taliban led it to be quite regionally isolated by the end of 1996. Iran, the Central Asian Republics and Russia were opposing it on one side and Pakistan’s Gulf friends were not giving it the financial support in the quantities that it required. Nasim Zehra’s article “Hot War over Afghanistan” in the Nation stated: “Teheran’s current policy towards Afghanistan does not alienate it regionally but Pakistan is viewed suspiciously by Russia, Kazakhstan, China and Tajikistan. Teheran-Delhi growing trade ties have now been supplemented by deeper diplomatic and political understanding between the two on Afghanistan, while Islamabad’s Washington supporters are weary of openly supporting Islamabad’s policy of backing the Taliban. Compared to Islamabad, the going is better for Teheran.” (Grover, Pg 269).
To conclude, we can see that Pakistan supported the Taliban in the face of growing international opposition for strategic and economics interests. Pakistan had initially supported Afghan leaders like Hekmatyar because it seemed that their interests would be similar to those of Pakistan if they came to power. At their failure, Pakistan began supporting Taliban because they were the ones who had managed to control most of Afghanistan and hence seemed to bring about some level of stability in the country. Many of the war-torn country’s inhabitants welcomed the Taliban as their saviors, even though many of them resented them on ethnic basis. They seemed to be a good alternative for Pakistan instead of people like Hekmatyar because they were basically Pakhtuns, and Pakistan has a large Pakhtun population in its North West Frontier Province. Therefore, Pakistan felt that a Pakhtun authority in Kabul would be suitable for promoting its interests as it would sympathize with Pakistan. It would also help in solving Pakistan’s border dispute along the Durand Line and the Pakhtunistan issue sentiments which, however lessened, still existed with Afghanistan. Pakistan already had a hostile neighbor in India and could not afford to have an unfriendly Afghanistan. For the sake of preserving its sovereignty, it needed to have clearly defined and respected borders. The Taliban were strongest in the areas surrounding the Pak-Afghan border and Pakistan felt that supporting them would prove to lead to friendly relations with Afghanistan in the years to come. Thus, it always wanted to have a friendly Afghanistan, which seemed possible to it at the time if Afghanistan came under Taliban rule. Stability of Afghanistan was also important for Pakistan due to economic reasons. The wealth of natural resources in the Central Asian Republics could be tapped by Pakistan only through Afghanistan. There was the issue of the pipelines through Afghanistan from Central Asia which could be important for enhancing Pakistan’s economy. There was possible influence from USA which never wanted Pakistan to have a gas pipeline with Iran and instead much favored gas from Central Asia. Pakistan was also becoming concerned that Turkey and Iran could deprive it of trade with the landlocked Central Asian States via Karachi and Gwadar by developing trade links through Port Bandar Abbas in Iran and through the Mediterranean via Turkey. In October 1994, Pakistan’s interior minister Naseerullah Babar undertook a highly publicized journey across Afghanistan through Kandahar and Herat and then dispatched a trade convoy along the same path in order to display the potential of Pakistan as a trade outlet to the sea for Central Asia. It was the Taliban who had protected this very trade convoy (Marsden, 132). The Taliban were in control of this trade route so Pakistan felt that helping them could be beneficial for Pakistan. The Taliban had an appeal to the young madrassah students and had no difficulty in recruitment therefore. Thus, Pakistan felt that the Taliban had an excellent chance of controlling the Pakhtun belt and could also take over the whole of Afghanistan if they were supported, just as Abdur Rahman had done with British help in the 1800s. The political stability that would come as a result would therefore give Pakistan not only trade opportunities with Central Asian Republics, but also strategic depth against its rival India (Peter Marsden, 143). Taliban were also accepted by Saudi Arabia and UAE which were friends of Pakistan and Pakistan expected that after some time other countries would also recognize the Taliban regime. It was due to these factors that Pakistan continued to support the Taliban in the 1990s in the face of increasing opposition from the international community.
Bibliography
1. "Afghanistan Border." World Map, Map of the World. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 June 2009.
2. "The Geography of border landscapes -." Google Book Search. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 June 2009.
3. Grover, Verinder. Afghanistan. Minneapolis: Deep & Deep Publications,India, 2000. Print.
4. Marsden, Peter. Taliban war, religion and the new order in Afghanistan. Karachi: Oxford UP, Zed Books Ltd., 1998. Print.
(This article was written by me for my Pakistan's Foreign Relations class taught by Ambassador Shaharyar Khan during my Sophomore year at LUMS.)
Monday, May 11, 2009
Globalization, Sovereignty & Pakistan
This article will look upon the concept of sovereignty of states and how the ongoing phenomenon of globalization has blurred this concept by diluting the distinctions between national and international politics in the modern world where terrorism is a major threat for the world. Lastly, it will analyze the repercussions of the current NATO drone attacks on Pakistani territory on the traditional concept of sovereignty.
The sovereignty of a state implies the independence of a state under international law and its competence and right to exercise its rules or law within its clearly defined territory at its own discretion without the intervention from outside forces. The concept also includes all matters whereby the state is permitted under international law to defend its territory and safeguard the security of its citizens without stamping upon the sovereignty of other states and the rightful authority of the state to represent its citizens abroad by engaging in treaties etc.
The concept of sovereignty is not new. It was there in the form of established traditions of international relations amongst such states as Egypt, China and Holy Roman Empire. The present concept of sovereignty of a nation has its roots in agreements which were part of the Treaties of Westphalia which took place in 1648 A.D., signed by European states. The main points of the concept of sovereignty and the rights and duties of states were laid down in Montevideo Convention in 1933. These points include the following main criteria for a state’s eligibility to be declared sovereign: that a state should have “a permanent population, a defined territory, and a functioning government” (IRDC, 13). The UN Charter basically adopts and endorses all these factors in its vision of the system of international world that it strives to maintain. The UN Charter mentions the idea of the equality of all sovereign states. This equality is the foundation over which state governments forge relations with each other and participate in different organizations. This principle of legal equality of all sovereign states has a protective advantage for smaller or weaker states so that they do not come under political pressure from the more powerful states. The United Nation’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) stated in 1949 that "between independent States, respect for territorial sovereignty is an essential foundation of international relations." (IRDC, 13) The International Court of Justice has also in the past referred to "the fundamental principle of state sovereignty on which the whole of international law rests." (IRDC, 13) Aggressive actions of states towards other states are viewed as negative in the international arena because they are a menace to the very structure of the international world as they violate the very concept of sovereignty of states which forms the basis of this structure. If the base is threatened then the entire structure could collapse. It is for this reason that states have used their sovereignty itself to condemn wars and conflicts which threaten world order, peace and security (IRDC, 13).
The concept of nonintervention in a state’s domestic jurisdiction is a very important aspect of sovereignty. This jurisdiction refers to the ability of the state to govern its citizens within its dominion. This jurisdiction is either “prescriptive” or “enforcement” (IRDC, 13). Prescriptive jurisdiction is the capacity of the state to create laws within and outside its borders. Enforcement jurisdiction is its ability to implement these laws within its borders. The United Nations Charter especially bans countries from intervening in the local affairs of other countries. Article 2 (7) of the Charter states that "[n]othing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters that are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter." (IRDC, 13)
We now turn our attention to the limits of sovereignty. The Charter of the United Nations protects the sovereignty of nations but it also addresses the issue of maintenance of international law and order. By Chapter VII of the charter, the Security Council of the United Nations can take actions or intervene in the affairs of sovereign states if they threaten world peace, or engage in aggressive actions (IRDC, 13). Simply put, sovereignty of states only matters as long as there is peace and stability amongst states and can surrender to the demands of world peace and security.
Secondly, Article 1 (2) of the said Charter states that "[a]ll Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter." (IRDC, 13) This means that all sovereign states of the world have international obligations, which can be customary or treaty obligations, and the mere idea that a state is sovereign does not mean that it can turn a blind eye to these obligations. The Charter also directs the member states of the United Nations to cooperate amongst themselves in solving problems related to economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian issues and achieving the basic human rights and freedoms of the people. Thus, the Charter raises these issues to an international level. Sovereignty of a state therefore does not mean that a state can violate international standards of human rights within its territory and expect to get away with it from the eyes of the international community (IRDC, 13).
A challenge to the traditional concept of state sovereignty arises in the cases of those states that are unable to exercise complete authority and control over their own people and over parts of their own territory. The ability of a state to achieve complete control over these dimensions is a core aspect for a state to be truly a sovereign nation. One analyst calls these states with weak authority as “quasi-states” (IRDC, 13). Some people even have the stance that such weak or failed states should not even be part of the United Nations which essentially comprises of members that are sovereign nations, because such weak states defy the United Nations Charter Article 4 which mentions that UN membership criteria for states requires that the states “are able to carry out” their obligations (IRDC, 13). A state’s incomplete control over its population and dominion casts doubts on its ability to be able to carry out such obligations. The state’s authority is essential for the protection of basic rights and is the foundation for local as well as international law and order. The proof of the failure of a state’s sovereignty is the existence of forces within the state’s domestic population which challenge the territorial sovereignty of the state. These forces bar the state from exercising its authority over its complete territory, preventing it from delivering fundamental public goods to its population such as establishment of public security and safety of the population’s life and property. Under such circumstances, what is seen to happen is the massive outflow of refugees towards safer places and the displacement of the local population (IRDC, 13). Such consequences can prompt the United Nations Security Council to legitimize foreign intervention in such a state, under consideration for the international peace and order.
An aspect of the concept of foreign intervention is the idea of "sovereignty as responsibility," created by Francis M. Deng, the Representative of the Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons (IRDC, 13). According to this idea, it becomes a state’s responsibility to request or accept foreign help or intervention if the state itself is unable to deliver fundamental public goods of security, justice and peace to its population. The state becomes answerable to two entities at the same time under such circumstances: the domestic population, as well as the international community whose responsibility it is to maintain world security and peace. In effect, this idea suggests that a state’s sovereignty gets temporarily discontinued under such circumstances and the responsibility of maintaining law and order in the country now falls with the international world (IRDC, 13).
Traditionally, security has been seen in terms of connections between nations. Today, the aspect of individual security of citizens is becoming the cardinal concern for states. A state is the principal provider of this security but in the case of states with weakened authority in their territories, it is the responsibility of the international community to come to the aid of the populations at risk.
We shall now look at how this concept of state sovereignty been seen to get diluted in recent years, particularly in the rapidly globalizing world.
The concept of “globalization” is related to the concept of “complex interdependence” between nations which is relevant to the topic under discussion in this paper. Today, the territorial state is being overshadowed by non-territorial factors which include multinational corporations, transnational social movements, and international organizations (Keohane & Nye, 236). Telecommunication and air travel have reduced the world into being a “global village” and the increase in social, cultural and economic transactions mean we today are seeing a world which increasingly has lesser or softened boundaries or borders (Keohane & Nye, 236). Multiple channels of contact between nations are making the divide between domestic and international politics insignificant. The policy attitude or stance of a state’s local population gets affected by contact with populations of other states, through the media and other sources, whether this communication is organized communication or otherwise. We today are seeing a world in which economic issues are the principal concern of states and where states and people are becoming increasingly culturally, socially, and economically interdependent upon each other. Globalization, according to political scientist David Held, is the “widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life” (FP, 1).
All around the globe we are seeing increasing numbers of organizations and companies connecting with people and the current recession in the world economy is not hindering them in doing so. It might even help to revive the economy in some cases to a certain extent (FP, 1). For example, the demand for the services of international charity organizations is increasing as more and more people lose their jobs in the current economic crisis. Religions and cults too may witness greater numbers of followers as hardships encourage interest in the after-life. Transnational terrorists would also not be hindered in their activities by the economic recession. Globalization is such a powerful and multiform factor in today’s world that the current economic recession cannot drastically hamper or transpose it (FP, 1).
The deeper a political situation is entrenched in the complex interdependence between nations, the more likely are the results of the political process going to be affected by transnational relations. Terrorism is one such issue in question. It is a collective problem for the whole world no matter in which part of the world a terrorist act may take place in. A nation fighting terrorism should not be left alone to deal with it, abandoned by other countries of the world. Rather that nation should be supported morally, diplomatically and militarily in its fight by the whole world.
While globalization has created new opportunities and possibilities for mankind, it has also created problems which we have never encountered before. For example, it has created new opportunities for militants to engage in acts of terrorism. The Taliban and Al Qaeda’s mobility internationally, recruitment ability, and financial resources to fund their endeavors have been aided by the factors of globalization such as greater and better communication opportunities, greater ease of travel and wider means of transportation, and permeable borders (FP 2).
In the 1990s, it was thought that economic ties were a remedy to prevent wars. Power, it was thought, would eventually pass from government hands into the hands of the private companies and NGOs. The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001 changed that thinking of the world. Overnight, the thinking of the world changed and these ideas went out of trend. Public security now became the topmost priority of nations. The insecurity due to the ongoing economic recession has further fuelled this cry and we have also seen an increase in public demand for greater government control in the financial sector. Skeptics of globalization argue that commercial ties amongst nations have been enfeebled due to the current global economic crisis. With the return of stronger governments, these skeptics foresee a greater intensity in the traditional power politics of the states. They cite the evidence for this in the resurgence of nationalist spirit in South Asia, Middle East, Latin America and Russia. These skeptics argue that globalization’s role in stabilizing the political situation of the world is therefore exaggerated. But we must remember that claims of a return to nationalism and strong governments are also very exaggerated. Granted that China may ally itself with Russia to counter the US in its relations with Iran, but we must not forget that Chinese and American economies are today greatly intertwined with one another (China has trillions of dollars of US debt and the US is also its main market for Chinese goods). Russia itself has been hit badly by the economic crisis and its oil revenues are falling so much so that Venezuela is calling back foreign oil companies. The crux of the skeptic’s argument is that globalization did not eliminate nationalism; rather it made it more complicated such that globalization and geopolitics exist along side each other in the modern world (FP 2).
The opposite view to these skeptics is that due to increased interdependence amongst nations as a result of globalization, the aspect of nationalism is slowly disappearing and the world today is taking on a more integrated outlook in which countries are governed more by economic and commercial concerns and the exchange of ideas and cultural and social aspects. An example is that of the European Union (EU) which comprises of nations which were formerly each other’s enemies before the late twentieth century when nationalism was on the rise. Today the countries of European Union are peaceful trade partners, working together to achieve, maximize, promote and preserve their common economic goals. The increased interaction between countries of the world has resulted in them signing more treaties with each other and becoming members of international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Asian Development Band (ADB). Signing of treaties in a way mars the sovereignty of a state because it can pose limitations on the actions of states and also raise their international obligations.
The current Pakistani leadership has been caught unsuspectingly by the numbers of Taliban as well as the intensely bitter autonomy of other militant groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Recently there have started a series of NATO drone attacks on Pakistani territory. These attacks on Pakistani territory are indeed a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty, but we must also remember that stopping the drone attacks in the tribal areas would not be a remedy against the problem of militancy because the public in those areas does not really accept Pakistani army and the United States is not very popular with them either. Pakistan could lose even its already little sovereignty in the tribal regions if something is not done soon. Pakistan has protested against these attacks but the United States argues that Pakistan has never been truly sovereign in the Federally Administered tribal Areas (FATA) as it has never been able to fully control that region ever since its independence in 1947. The United States argues that as Pakistan itself is not able to deal with the problem of militancy in the tribal region, it should allow the foreign forces to deal with the militants. I personally think that Pakistan should allow the NATO drone attacks to take place in FATA. The Taliban are becoming an increasing source of discontent and chaos in the country. They are a nuisance not only for global peace and security but also for the survival of Pakistan itself. Any attack or war against the Taliban should be welcomed in my opinion to eradicate the threat from them forever once and for all, even if it comes at the breach of our sovereignty. What use would our argument for Pakistan’s sovereignty be if Pakistan does not survive and breaks up? That would be a greater price to pay for Pakistan if it tries to defend its sovereignty at this hour. Even if we look at the principles of sovereignty as stated in the United Nations Charter, I think the NATO attacks are reasonable because Pakistan has really failed in fighting militancy in FATA. It has been unable to successfully control the tribal region for the last sixty years. It has been incapable of providing security to the population in that area and as such it is the responsibility and the duty of the international community to take the matter of fighting militants in FATA into their hands.
In conclusion, I think the overall concept of sovereignty still holds in international politics today, even though it has been diluted much by the phenomenon of globalization. Geopolitics and globalization coexist in the modern world.
Bibliography
"Foreign Policy: Think Again: Globalization." Foreign Policy - the global magazine of economics, politics, and ideas. 11 May 2009.
"1. State Sovereignty: International Development Research Centre." INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH CENTRE | CENTRE DE RECHERCHES POUR LE D�VELOPPEMENT INTERNATIONAL. 11 May 2009.
Keohane, Robert & Nye, Joseph. “Complex interdependence and the Role of Force” in Power and Independence: World Politics in Transition (1977). Pp 236-250.
(This article was written by me for my Pakistan's Foreign Relations class taught by Ambassador Shaharyar Khan during my Sophomore year at LUMS.)
The sovereignty of a state implies the independence of a state under international law and its competence and right to exercise its rules or law within its clearly defined territory at its own discretion without the intervention from outside forces. The concept also includes all matters whereby the state is permitted under international law to defend its territory and safeguard the security of its citizens without stamping upon the sovereignty of other states and the rightful authority of the state to represent its citizens abroad by engaging in treaties etc.
The concept of sovereignty is not new. It was there in the form of established traditions of international relations amongst such states as Egypt, China and Holy Roman Empire. The present concept of sovereignty of a nation has its roots in agreements which were part of the Treaties of Westphalia which took place in 1648 A.D., signed by European states. The main points of the concept of sovereignty and the rights and duties of states were laid down in Montevideo Convention in 1933. These points include the following main criteria for a state’s eligibility to be declared sovereign: that a state should have “a permanent population, a defined territory, and a functioning government” (IRDC, 13). The UN Charter basically adopts and endorses all these factors in its vision of the system of international world that it strives to maintain. The UN Charter mentions the idea of the equality of all sovereign states. This equality is the foundation over which state governments forge relations with each other and participate in different organizations. This principle of legal equality of all sovereign states has a protective advantage for smaller or weaker states so that they do not come under political pressure from the more powerful states. The United Nation’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) stated in 1949 that "between independent States, respect for territorial sovereignty is an essential foundation of international relations." (IRDC, 13) The International Court of Justice has also in the past referred to "the fundamental principle of state sovereignty on which the whole of international law rests." (IRDC, 13) Aggressive actions of states towards other states are viewed as negative in the international arena because they are a menace to the very structure of the international world as they violate the very concept of sovereignty of states which forms the basis of this structure. If the base is threatened then the entire structure could collapse. It is for this reason that states have used their sovereignty itself to condemn wars and conflicts which threaten world order, peace and security (IRDC, 13).
The concept of nonintervention in a state’s domestic jurisdiction is a very important aspect of sovereignty. This jurisdiction refers to the ability of the state to govern its citizens within its dominion. This jurisdiction is either “prescriptive” or “enforcement” (IRDC, 13). Prescriptive jurisdiction is the capacity of the state to create laws within and outside its borders. Enforcement jurisdiction is its ability to implement these laws within its borders. The United Nations Charter especially bans countries from intervening in the local affairs of other countries. Article 2 (7) of the Charter states that "[n]othing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters that are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter." (IRDC, 13)
We now turn our attention to the limits of sovereignty. The Charter of the United Nations protects the sovereignty of nations but it also addresses the issue of maintenance of international law and order. By Chapter VII of the charter, the Security Council of the United Nations can take actions or intervene in the affairs of sovereign states if they threaten world peace, or engage in aggressive actions (IRDC, 13). Simply put, sovereignty of states only matters as long as there is peace and stability amongst states and can surrender to the demands of world peace and security.
Secondly, Article 1 (2) of the said Charter states that "[a]ll Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter." (IRDC, 13) This means that all sovereign states of the world have international obligations, which can be customary or treaty obligations, and the mere idea that a state is sovereign does not mean that it can turn a blind eye to these obligations. The Charter also directs the member states of the United Nations to cooperate amongst themselves in solving problems related to economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian issues and achieving the basic human rights and freedoms of the people. Thus, the Charter raises these issues to an international level. Sovereignty of a state therefore does not mean that a state can violate international standards of human rights within its territory and expect to get away with it from the eyes of the international community (IRDC, 13).
A challenge to the traditional concept of state sovereignty arises in the cases of those states that are unable to exercise complete authority and control over their own people and over parts of their own territory. The ability of a state to achieve complete control over these dimensions is a core aspect for a state to be truly a sovereign nation. One analyst calls these states with weak authority as “quasi-states” (IRDC, 13). Some people even have the stance that such weak or failed states should not even be part of the United Nations which essentially comprises of members that are sovereign nations, because such weak states defy the United Nations Charter Article 4 which mentions that UN membership criteria for states requires that the states “are able to carry out” their obligations (IRDC, 13). A state’s incomplete control over its population and dominion casts doubts on its ability to be able to carry out such obligations. The state’s authority is essential for the protection of basic rights and is the foundation for local as well as international law and order. The proof of the failure of a state’s sovereignty is the existence of forces within the state’s domestic population which challenge the territorial sovereignty of the state. These forces bar the state from exercising its authority over its complete territory, preventing it from delivering fundamental public goods to its population such as establishment of public security and safety of the population’s life and property. Under such circumstances, what is seen to happen is the massive outflow of refugees towards safer places and the displacement of the local population (IRDC, 13). Such consequences can prompt the United Nations Security Council to legitimize foreign intervention in such a state, under consideration for the international peace and order.
An aspect of the concept of foreign intervention is the idea of "sovereignty as responsibility," created by Francis M. Deng, the Representative of the Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons (IRDC, 13). According to this idea, it becomes a state’s responsibility to request or accept foreign help or intervention if the state itself is unable to deliver fundamental public goods of security, justice and peace to its population. The state becomes answerable to two entities at the same time under such circumstances: the domestic population, as well as the international community whose responsibility it is to maintain world security and peace. In effect, this idea suggests that a state’s sovereignty gets temporarily discontinued under such circumstances and the responsibility of maintaining law and order in the country now falls with the international world (IRDC, 13).
Traditionally, security has been seen in terms of connections between nations. Today, the aspect of individual security of citizens is becoming the cardinal concern for states. A state is the principal provider of this security but in the case of states with weakened authority in their territories, it is the responsibility of the international community to come to the aid of the populations at risk.
We shall now look at how this concept of state sovereignty been seen to get diluted in recent years, particularly in the rapidly globalizing world.
The concept of “globalization” is related to the concept of “complex interdependence” between nations which is relevant to the topic under discussion in this paper. Today, the territorial state is being overshadowed by non-territorial factors which include multinational corporations, transnational social movements, and international organizations (Keohane & Nye, 236). Telecommunication and air travel have reduced the world into being a “global village” and the increase in social, cultural and economic transactions mean we today are seeing a world which increasingly has lesser or softened boundaries or borders (Keohane & Nye, 236). Multiple channels of contact between nations are making the divide between domestic and international politics insignificant. The policy attitude or stance of a state’s local population gets affected by contact with populations of other states, through the media and other sources, whether this communication is organized communication or otherwise. We today are seeing a world in which economic issues are the principal concern of states and where states and people are becoming increasingly culturally, socially, and economically interdependent upon each other. Globalization, according to political scientist David Held, is the “widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life” (FP, 1).
All around the globe we are seeing increasing numbers of organizations and companies connecting with people and the current recession in the world economy is not hindering them in doing so. It might even help to revive the economy in some cases to a certain extent (FP, 1). For example, the demand for the services of international charity organizations is increasing as more and more people lose their jobs in the current economic crisis. Religions and cults too may witness greater numbers of followers as hardships encourage interest in the after-life. Transnational terrorists would also not be hindered in their activities by the economic recession. Globalization is such a powerful and multiform factor in today’s world that the current economic recession cannot drastically hamper or transpose it (FP, 1).
The deeper a political situation is entrenched in the complex interdependence between nations, the more likely are the results of the political process going to be affected by transnational relations. Terrorism is one such issue in question. It is a collective problem for the whole world no matter in which part of the world a terrorist act may take place in. A nation fighting terrorism should not be left alone to deal with it, abandoned by other countries of the world. Rather that nation should be supported morally, diplomatically and militarily in its fight by the whole world.
While globalization has created new opportunities and possibilities for mankind, it has also created problems which we have never encountered before. For example, it has created new opportunities for militants to engage in acts of terrorism. The Taliban and Al Qaeda’s mobility internationally, recruitment ability, and financial resources to fund their endeavors have been aided by the factors of globalization such as greater and better communication opportunities, greater ease of travel and wider means of transportation, and permeable borders (FP 2).
In the 1990s, it was thought that economic ties were a remedy to prevent wars. Power, it was thought, would eventually pass from government hands into the hands of the private companies and NGOs. The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001 changed that thinking of the world. Overnight, the thinking of the world changed and these ideas went out of trend. Public security now became the topmost priority of nations. The insecurity due to the ongoing economic recession has further fuelled this cry and we have also seen an increase in public demand for greater government control in the financial sector. Skeptics of globalization argue that commercial ties amongst nations have been enfeebled due to the current global economic crisis. With the return of stronger governments, these skeptics foresee a greater intensity in the traditional power politics of the states. They cite the evidence for this in the resurgence of nationalist spirit in South Asia, Middle East, Latin America and Russia. These skeptics argue that globalization’s role in stabilizing the political situation of the world is therefore exaggerated. But we must remember that claims of a return to nationalism and strong governments are also very exaggerated. Granted that China may ally itself with Russia to counter the US in its relations with Iran, but we must not forget that Chinese and American economies are today greatly intertwined with one another (China has trillions of dollars of US debt and the US is also its main market for Chinese goods). Russia itself has been hit badly by the economic crisis and its oil revenues are falling so much so that Venezuela is calling back foreign oil companies. The crux of the skeptic’s argument is that globalization did not eliminate nationalism; rather it made it more complicated such that globalization and geopolitics exist along side each other in the modern world (FP 2).
The opposite view to these skeptics is that due to increased interdependence amongst nations as a result of globalization, the aspect of nationalism is slowly disappearing and the world today is taking on a more integrated outlook in which countries are governed more by economic and commercial concerns and the exchange of ideas and cultural and social aspects. An example is that of the European Union (EU) which comprises of nations which were formerly each other’s enemies before the late twentieth century when nationalism was on the rise. Today the countries of European Union are peaceful trade partners, working together to achieve, maximize, promote and preserve their common economic goals. The increased interaction between countries of the world has resulted in them signing more treaties with each other and becoming members of international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Asian Development Band (ADB). Signing of treaties in a way mars the sovereignty of a state because it can pose limitations on the actions of states and also raise their international obligations.
The current Pakistani leadership has been caught unsuspectingly by the numbers of Taliban as well as the intensely bitter autonomy of other militant groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Recently there have started a series of NATO drone attacks on Pakistani territory. These attacks on Pakistani territory are indeed a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty, but we must also remember that stopping the drone attacks in the tribal areas would not be a remedy against the problem of militancy because the public in those areas does not really accept Pakistani army and the United States is not very popular with them either. Pakistan could lose even its already little sovereignty in the tribal regions if something is not done soon. Pakistan has protested against these attacks but the United States argues that Pakistan has never been truly sovereign in the Federally Administered tribal Areas (FATA) as it has never been able to fully control that region ever since its independence in 1947. The United States argues that as Pakistan itself is not able to deal with the problem of militancy in the tribal region, it should allow the foreign forces to deal with the militants. I personally think that Pakistan should allow the NATO drone attacks to take place in FATA. The Taliban are becoming an increasing source of discontent and chaos in the country. They are a nuisance not only for global peace and security but also for the survival of Pakistan itself. Any attack or war against the Taliban should be welcomed in my opinion to eradicate the threat from them forever once and for all, even if it comes at the breach of our sovereignty. What use would our argument for Pakistan’s sovereignty be if Pakistan does not survive and breaks up? That would be a greater price to pay for Pakistan if it tries to defend its sovereignty at this hour. Even if we look at the principles of sovereignty as stated in the United Nations Charter, I think the NATO attacks are reasonable because Pakistan has really failed in fighting militancy in FATA. It has been unable to successfully control the tribal region for the last sixty years. It has been incapable of providing security to the population in that area and as such it is the responsibility and the duty of the international community to take the matter of fighting militants in FATA into their hands.
In conclusion, I think the overall concept of sovereignty still holds in international politics today, even though it has been diluted much by the phenomenon of globalization. Geopolitics and globalization coexist in the modern world.
Bibliography
"Foreign Policy: Think Again: Globalization." Foreign Policy - the global magazine of economics, politics, and ideas. 11 May 2009
"1. State Sovereignty: International Development Research Centre." INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH CENTRE | CENTRE DE RECHERCHES POUR LE D�VELOPPEMENT INTERNATIONAL. 11 May 2009
Keohane, Robert & Nye, Joseph. “Complex interdependence and the Role of Force” in Power and Independence: World Politics in Transition (1977). Pp 236-250.
(This article was written by me for my Pakistan's Foreign Relations class taught by Ambassador Shaharyar Khan during my Sophomore year at LUMS.)
Friday, July 18, 2008
The Multiplicity of Legal Opinions in Islam
In the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful.
In this article, I shall discuss the implications of having multiple opinions regarding legal issues and how they have a positive impact on the Muslim ummah; their legitimacy, authority, validity and correctness; why Muslims should not abandon the four madhabs and become their own “mujtahids”; the negation of the idea that accepting multiple positions in fiqh is a form of compromise in order to maintain harmony in the ummah; and the inter-relationship between hadith, fiqh and usul al-fiqh.
Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Rules of fiqh are inferred from the Quran and Sunnah (which includes ahadith) through the methodology which is called usul al-fiqh. Usul al-fiqh is the study of the origins, the sources and the practice of the fiqh. These sources include the ahadith, hence the relationship between fiqh, usul al-fiqh and hadith.
Coming straight to the point, in my opinion, plurality of legal opinion does not in any way harm the authority and legitimacy of new rules. In Ijma, there is massive plurality of opinion, yet the procedure is such that when a decision is passed in Ijma, there is no room for anyone to doubt its validity and the decision becomes binding on all Muslims to follow. If anything, Ijma, which is the product of plurality of opinions of scholars, adds to the authority of laws that are zanni or of a speculative type. In addition, all the scholars in Ijma are required to be in agreement regarding an issue otherwise Ijma is not passed. As long as there is dissent, there is the probability that one group is wrong. Unanimity removes this possibility, hence adding to the legitimacy of the legal opinion.
In ijtihad as well, no mujtahid is allowed to over-rule the verdict given by a previous mujtahid. Only the mujtahid who gave the original decision can alter it, and that too if the previous verdict was a serious miscarriage of justice or was against the law. If the mujtahid was allowed to change his decision frequently and under any circumstances, it would lead to uncertainty and hence cast doubt about the validity of ijtihad. Hence, plurality of legal opinion in matters of ijtihad too adds to the authority and legitimacy of new rulings instead of hampering it.
In the present era, where revelations from Allah and the coming of new Prophets has been terminated, it is ijtihad through which we can continue to get guidance by which to stay on the right path in the light of Quranic teachings and Sunnah in the face of changing circumstances. The rules whereby the previous ijtihad of a mujtahid can be changed are very strict. All this promotes stability and continuity of Islamic law.
The first implication of plurality of legal opinion in Islam that comes to mind is the spirit of tolerance that prevails amongst the Muslim scholars, a feature rare to find in the jurisprudence of other religions. In the case of Ijma, different scholars come up with different solutions or answers to the same problem. They then unanimously accept a particular view. In this way, Ijma can be said to promote a culture of tolerance. The plurality of legal opinions here does not in any way harm the unity of the ummah in the case of Ijma. On the contrary, it promotes unity when Muslims unanimously agree on something. We can also mention here the tolerance that Muslims of one madhab are supposed to show to followers of the other three madhabs; they are required to accept all four madhabs to be of equal validity and respect all four of them. Here again, the plurality of legal opinion does not harm unity of the ummah.
An advantage of plurality in legal opinion is that through it the very best solutions to a problem can be found out. For instance, in Ijma, all opinions of the scholars are heard and the best and most suitable one is adopted. If there was no plurality of legal opinion and only one authoritative person’s opinion was supposed to be implemented, it is possible that there might be an opinion that was better than that person’s opinion which, if implemented, could have had even better consequences.
Plurality of legal opinion, in my opinion, can also be related to the adaptive capability of Islam under changing circumstances. For example, in Ijma, the best solution proposed by all the mujtahids regarding a new problem is adopted, hence playing a role in the evolution and adaptation of Islam in the face of new situations.
Moreover, the motive behind the idea of having plurality of legal opinions is that it makes people ponder over the commandments of Allah. A mujtahid is supposed to come up with his own ijtihad in a matter. He may not imitate another mujtahid or allow a more learned mujtahid’s decision affect his own ijtihad. This way, Islam makes the mujtahid ponder over the teachings of Allah.
Yet another implication that came to my mind is that plurality of legal opinion gives people more choice as to who to follow. They can choose and follow the opinion which they like and which they find most suitable and easy to follow and which they are most comfortable with. This highlights the characteristic of Islam that Islam makes religious practices easier for people to follow.
Due to the above mentioned facts, I think plurality of legal opinion is a positive characteristic of Islamic law.
Does plurality generate negative heterogeneity? The arguments already given above in support of the idea that plurality of legal opinion promotes notions of authority, legitimacy, stability and continuity can be used to argue that plurality would not in any way generate negative heterogeneity amongst Muslims. However, in my opinion, these characteristics minimize the possibility of negative heterogeneity but do not altogether eliminate it. History tells us that in the early centuries of Islam, there were a lot of disagreements and confusions amongst the ulema regarding matters of fiqh. It was after Imam Shafi’i laid down the methodology or usul al-fiqh that these differences, though they existed later on in the four madhabs, were largely minimized. It was, in my opinion, precisely because of these differences that the four madhabs were formed, otherwise only the madhab of Imam Shafi’i would have been there and no other schools of thought would have emerged. These differences continue even today but are of a lesser intensity than before. The greatest proof that these differences have been minimized and brought under control is that all four madhabs respect each other and Muslims have not adhered to or formed any more new madhabs. Jurists have always endeavored to get their opinions coincide with the prevailing opinion of the madhab they belong to, hence minimizing heterogeneity. One might say that there should be only one madhab so that there would be no heterogeneity at all, but we must be grateful that there are not more than four madhabs, else there would have been increased chances of conflict in my opinion.
Can multiple positions in legal matters be valid and/or correct? To understand the answer, we must, logically speaking, look at how these multiple positions are arrived at. The mujtahid who is a highly qualified Islamic scholar, when performing ijtihad, uses considerations of justice and fairness and the established usul al-fiqh to perform various forms of analysis such as qiyas and istihsan which are all based on the Quran and Sunnah. In the case of Ijma, all opinions are analysed and the most suitable one is agreed upon. Obviously, it is agreed upon because it is correct. Logically too, the decision adopted is the unanimous decision of a lot of highly qualified people and is selected from a wide variety of other opinions so it must be correct. All the decisions of all the mujtahids are accepted as correct in Islam. For ordinary Muslims, accepting the validity of the Ijma is a divine command whether they like it or not. Hence, multiple positions in my opinion are valid and correct. It is not hard to realize that this acceptance of multiple positions as being correct is the very basis of tolerance between the followers of the four madhabs.
One might wonder whether accepting multiple positions is an apologetic stance aiming to gloss over irreconcilable positions. I think the greatest argument against this view is the fact that a mujtahid is not allowed to take the ruling of another mujtahid over his own ijtihad even though the other mujtahid may be more learned than him. A mujtahid is bound only by his own ijtihad. He is not even allowed to adhere to the rulings of his madhab but must derive the rulings himself. If accepting multiple positions was an apologetic stance aiming to gloss over irreconcilable legal positions, then surely the purpose of the stance would have been to bring about harmony which can only be brought about by having minimum legal positions rather than multiple ones. The real reason why Islam allows the possibility of having multiple legal positions is to make people ponder over the instructions given by Allah.
In my opinion, it would be impractical for an ordinary individual to take it upon himself to evaluate the Quranic ayats and ahadith in the light of his own knowledge or aql. First of all, we must realize that the four madhabs have not developed in one night. They have been improved, added into, and updated by highly qualified scholars for centuries. A layman cannot claim to have gained enough mastery of Islam so as to practice his own ijtihad in legal matters. Secondly, for a person striving to become competent enough, he must first master Arabic in addition to gaining all the required knowledge of the Quran and Sunnah. This is because it would be unadvisable for anyone to read translations of the Quran or the ahadith in order to become a master of fiqh as translations often are unable to convey the exact essence of the meaning of the text as mentioned in the reading “Al-Fatiha”. Arabic has a very rich and diverse vocabulary and often translations of Arabic works lack the proper words required to convey the exact meaning of the text. As mentioned in the reading “Understanding the four madhabs”, another obstacle in the path of such a person, if he is a non-Arab, can be the fact that not all Arabic works are available in other languages. For example, many authentic books of ahadith are not there in English. This would be a serious handicap in the knowledge of an amateur attempting to come up with his own decisions regarding judicial matters. Such a stance is likely to create much confusion and discord in the ranks of the Muslims and can be successfully exploited by the enemies of Islam to undermine the unity of the ummah. Furthermore, becoming a mujtahid is a time-consuming and difficult job. If all Muslims tried to become mujtahids then all the other affairs of the ummah would come to a standstill. It is for this reason that Muslims have been asked to keep in touch with scholars rather than becoming their own mujtahids. I agree with Maulana Kamaluddin Ahmed’s notion in class where he mentioned the chains representing the different madhabs linked to the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him). He said that this chain would break down if ordinary people took the matters of judicial decisions in their own hands instead of following the madhabs.
To conclude, I think that having multiple legal positions in religious and judicial matters is a blessing for Muslims and a positive feature of Islamic law. I consider these multiple positions of the mujtahidun to be perfectly valid, correct and legitimate, and I do not think that accepting their authority is by any means a form of compromise in order to maintain the sanctity of the ummah. More so, in my opinion, ordinary Muslims should not strive to come up with their own interpretations of religious matters unless they are competent enough in their knowledge of these matters.
(This article was written by me for my Islamic Studies class taught by Mufti Kamaluddin Ahmed during my Sophomore year at LUMS.)
In this article, I shall discuss the implications of having multiple opinions regarding legal issues and how they have a positive impact on the Muslim ummah; their legitimacy, authority, validity and correctness; why Muslims should not abandon the four madhabs and become their own “mujtahids”; the negation of the idea that accepting multiple positions in fiqh is a form of compromise in order to maintain harmony in the ummah; and the inter-relationship between hadith, fiqh and usul al-fiqh.
Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Rules of fiqh are inferred from the Quran and Sunnah (which includes ahadith) through the methodology which is called usul al-fiqh. Usul al-fiqh is the study of the origins, the sources and the practice of the fiqh. These sources include the ahadith, hence the relationship between fiqh, usul al-fiqh and hadith.
Coming straight to the point, in my opinion, plurality of legal opinion does not in any way harm the authority and legitimacy of new rules. In Ijma, there is massive plurality of opinion, yet the procedure is such that when a decision is passed in Ijma, there is no room for anyone to doubt its validity and the decision becomes binding on all Muslims to follow. If anything, Ijma, which is the product of plurality of opinions of scholars, adds to the authority of laws that are zanni or of a speculative type. In addition, all the scholars in Ijma are required to be in agreement regarding an issue otherwise Ijma is not passed. As long as there is dissent, there is the probability that one group is wrong. Unanimity removes this possibility, hence adding to the legitimacy of the legal opinion.
In ijtihad as well, no mujtahid is allowed to over-rule the verdict given by a previous mujtahid. Only the mujtahid who gave the original decision can alter it, and that too if the previous verdict was a serious miscarriage of justice or was against the law. If the mujtahid was allowed to change his decision frequently and under any circumstances, it would lead to uncertainty and hence cast doubt about the validity of ijtihad. Hence, plurality of legal opinion in matters of ijtihad too adds to the authority and legitimacy of new rulings instead of hampering it.
In the present era, where revelations from Allah and the coming of new Prophets has been terminated, it is ijtihad through which we can continue to get guidance by which to stay on the right path in the light of Quranic teachings and Sunnah in the face of changing circumstances. The rules whereby the previous ijtihad of a mujtahid can be changed are very strict. All this promotes stability and continuity of Islamic law.
The first implication of plurality of legal opinion in Islam that comes to mind is the spirit of tolerance that prevails amongst the Muslim scholars, a feature rare to find in the jurisprudence of other religions. In the case of Ijma, different scholars come up with different solutions or answers to the same problem. They then unanimously accept a particular view. In this way, Ijma can be said to promote a culture of tolerance. The plurality of legal opinions here does not in any way harm the unity of the ummah in the case of Ijma. On the contrary, it promotes unity when Muslims unanimously agree on something. We can also mention here the tolerance that Muslims of one madhab are supposed to show to followers of the other three madhabs; they are required to accept all four madhabs to be of equal validity and respect all four of them. Here again, the plurality of legal opinion does not harm unity of the ummah.
An advantage of plurality in legal opinion is that through it the very best solutions to a problem can be found out. For instance, in Ijma, all opinions of the scholars are heard and the best and most suitable one is adopted. If there was no plurality of legal opinion and only one authoritative person’s opinion was supposed to be implemented, it is possible that there might be an opinion that was better than that person’s opinion which, if implemented, could have had even better consequences.
Plurality of legal opinion, in my opinion, can also be related to the adaptive capability of Islam under changing circumstances. For example, in Ijma, the best solution proposed by all the mujtahids regarding a new problem is adopted, hence playing a role in the evolution and adaptation of Islam in the face of new situations.
Moreover, the motive behind the idea of having plurality of legal opinions is that it makes people ponder over the commandments of Allah. A mujtahid is supposed to come up with his own ijtihad in a matter. He may not imitate another mujtahid or allow a more learned mujtahid’s decision affect his own ijtihad. This way, Islam makes the mujtahid ponder over the teachings of Allah.
Yet another implication that came to my mind is that plurality of legal opinion gives people more choice as to who to follow. They can choose and follow the opinion which they like and which they find most suitable and easy to follow and which they are most comfortable with. This highlights the characteristic of Islam that Islam makes religious practices easier for people to follow.
Due to the above mentioned facts, I think plurality of legal opinion is a positive characteristic of Islamic law.
Does plurality generate negative heterogeneity? The arguments already given above in support of the idea that plurality of legal opinion promotes notions of authority, legitimacy, stability and continuity can be used to argue that plurality would not in any way generate negative heterogeneity amongst Muslims. However, in my opinion, these characteristics minimize the possibility of negative heterogeneity but do not altogether eliminate it. History tells us that in the early centuries of Islam, there were a lot of disagreements and confusions amongst the ulema regarding matters of fiqh. It was after Imam Shafi’i laid down the methodology or usul al-fiqh that these differences, though they existed later on in the four madhabs, were largely minimized. It was, in my opinion, precisely because of these differences that the four madhabs were formed, otherwise only the madhab of Imam Shafi’i would have been there and no other schools of thought would have emerged. These differences continue even today but are of a lesser intensity than before. The greatest proof that these differences have been minimized and brought under control is that all four madhabs respect each other and Muslims have not adhered to or formed any more new madhabs. Jurists have always endeavored to get their opinions coincide with the prevailing opinion of the madhab they belong to, hence minimizing heterogeneity. One might say that there should be only one madhab so that there would be no heterogeneity at all, but we must be grateful that there are not more than four madhabs, else there would have been increased chances of conflict in my opinion.
Can multiple positions in legal matters be valid and/or correct? To understand the answer, we must, logically speaking, look at how these multiple positions are arrived at. The mujtahid who is a highly qualified Islamic scholar, when performing ijtihad, uses considerations of justice and fairness and the established usul al-fiqh to perform various forms of analysis such as qiyas and istihsan which are all based on the Quran and Sunnah. In the case of Ijma, all opinions are analysed and the most suitable one is agreed upon. Obviously, it is agreed upon because it is correct. Logically too, the decision adopted is the unanimous decision of a lot of highly qualified people and is selected from a wide variety of other opinions so it must be correct. All the decisions of all the mujtahids are accepted as correct in Islam. For ordinary Muslims, accepting the validity of the Ijma is a divine command whether they like it or not. Hence, multiple positions in my opinion are valid and correct. It is not hard to realize that this acceptance of multiple positions as being correct is the very basis of tolerance between the followers of the four madhabs.
One might wonder whether accepting multiple positions is an apologetic stance aiming to gloss over irreconcilable positions. I think the greatest argument against this view is the fact that a mujtahid is not allowed to take the ruling of another mujtahid over his own ijtihad even though the other mujtahid may be more learned than him. A mujtahid is bound only by his own ijtihad. He is not even allowed to adhere to the rulings of his madhab but must derive the rulings himself. If accepting multiple positions was an apologetic stance aiming to gloss over irreconcilable legal positions, then surely the purpose of the stance would have been to bring about harmony which can only be brought about by having minimum legal positions rather than multiple ones. The real reason why Islam allows the possibility of having multiple legal positions is to make people ponder over the instructions given by Allah.
In my opinion, it would be impractical for an ordinary individual to take it upon himself to evaluate the Quranic ayats and ahadith in the light of his own knowledge or aql. First of all, we must realize that the four madhabs have not developed in one night. They have been improved, added into, and updated by highly qualified scholars for centuries. A layman cannot claim to have gained enough mastery of Islam so as to practice his own ijtihad in legal matters. Secondly, for a person striving to become competent enough, he must first master Arabic in addition to gaining all the required knowledge of the Quran and Sunnah. This is because it would be unadvisable for anyone to read translations of the Quran or the ahadith in order to become a master of fiqh as translations often are unable to convey the exact essence of the meaning of the text as mentioned in the reading “Al-Fatiha”. Arabic has a very rich and diverse vocabulary and often translations of Arabic works lack the proper words required to convey the exact meaning of the text. As mentioned in the reading “Understanding the four madhabs”, another obstacle in the path of such a person, if he is a non-Arab, can be the fact that not all Arabic works are available in other languages. For example, many authentic books of ahadith are not there in English. This would be a serious handicap in the knowledge of an amateur attempting to come up with his own decisions regarding judicial matters. Such a stance is likely to create much confusion and discord in the ranks of the Muslims and can be successfully exploited by the enemies of Islam to undermine the unity of the ummah. Furthermore, becoming a mujtahid is a time-consuming and difficult job. If all Muslims tried to become mujtahids then all the other affairs of the ummah would come to a standstill. It is for this reason that Muslims have been asked to keep in touch with scholars rather than becoming their own mujtahids. I agree with Maulana Kamaluddin Ahmed’s notion in class where he mentioned the chains representing the different madhabs linked to the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him). He said that this chain would break down if ordinary people took the matters of judicial decisions in their own hands instead of following the madhabs.
To conclude, I think that having multiple legal positions in religious and judicial matters is a blessing for Muslims and a positive feature of Islamic law. I consider these multiple positions of the mujtahidun to be perfectly valid, correct and legitimate, and I do not think that accepting their authority is by any means a form of compromise in order to maintain the sanctity of the ummah. More so, in my opinion, ordinary Muslims should not strive to come up with their own interpretations of religious matters unless they are competent enough in their knowledge of these matters.
(This article was written by me for my Islamic Studies class taught by Mufti Kamaluddin Ahmed during my Sophomore year at LUMS.)
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