Lessons Learned and Unlearned: 9/11 Ten Years Later

Ten years ago, I spent most of the September 11, scratching my head and trying to figure out how the assassination of the "Lion of Panjshir," Ahmad Shah Massoud would impact Afghanistan, and by extension, India.  Massoud had been assassinated two days before, and suddenly it seemed that Pakistan-backed Taliban were not only unstoppable but unbeatable.

I spoke that day to a friend, an Afghan refugee who worked on mental health issues for young children, trying to apply his education from Delhi University to people in the refugee camps in India.  At twenty-five, his homeland etched in his memory, yet his upbringing firmly done in north India, he would often hum Manna Dey's famous song, eliding both his longing for Afghanistan and his love for Bollywood in one go.  On September 11, 2001, I remember his desperation at Massoud's killing. "It is over. It is lost. We will never return."

Yet a few hours later, things had changed dramatically. All the channels had the same image of the airplanes flying into the Twin Towers. Although the myriad emotions continued to play havoc in my mind for a very long time (and inspired - and were worked out in - my second novel, With Krishna's Eyes), after those first anxious hours of phoning and locating friends and family, a ritual that follows terrorist attacks that we in India were already so accustomed to, and that the Americans learned on that bright September day, my focus turned back to figuring out the impact of the attacks.

The impact on America appeared clear: even in my years of living there, I had noticed a propensity to extreme positions, with little understanding of the long term consequences. In my twenties, and still a history buff, I had ascribed this American trait to a lack of historic grounding: most other nations have lived through - and more importantly - survived multiple depredations of war, famine, disease. Most of us, around the world, have embedded cultural memories, if that is not too much of a shorthand, of the possibilities of utter destruction; we take moments of peace and calm as anomalies, luxurious ones, but still rare and to be cherished. The US, on the other hand, has had a nearly charmed national life. Despite the hiccups of history, it seems to have eluded the travails that time brings to nations. Until of course you consider that five hundred years are merely a blink of an eye in time.

After 9/11, it was inevitable that US would go to war, all guns blazing. That in itself was a game-changer for Afghanistan. More importantly, for me, considering the impact of the attacks in New Delhi, the American urge for war would also be a huge game-changer for Pakistan.  What, of course, I could not foresee, on that evening of September 11, was the USA's idiotic and entirely self-defeating military action in Iraq.

And perhaps that is the other, unintended consequence of 9/11 that needs to be considered. USA obviously learnt no lesson, except that having achieved predictable sympathy for its military action against the Taliban, it grew quickly drunk on its own might and victim narratology, gave up all veneer of being anything but the newest avatar of imperialism. L'roi est mort, vive l'roi indeed!

Over a year later, as the American drums of war grew louder, the reports of swift but clear erosions of its democratic principles at home and international conventions abroad grew louder, I found myself in a long discussion with a motley group of journalist and analyst friends about USA's apparently unchecked and growing hegemony and the policies India needed to adopt to deal with it.

Since mid-90s as the impact of climate change has become apparent, I have argued that India's greatest challenge in the 21st century shall be an impending refugee crisis as increasing amounts of Bangladesh's low lying lands are swallowed by a rising sea. I have seen this as a creeping issue, reaching catastrophic proportions towards the middle of the century.  (An aside: having consistently analysed Pakistan's nuclear capacities in the past twenty years, I have always believed that India could - in the worst case scenario - suffer a devastating but not a mortal blow. The consequences of such a blow for Pakistan however would be fatal. And this is a completely political, military analysis not an emotional, human one).  However, with the changed global scenario in the aftermath of 911, and the increasing numbers of American projects gaming the break up of Pakistan, I found myself altering the factors, geographically and chronologically.

Even in 2002, it was apparent that Pakistan was rapidly heading towards failure as a state, with a potential break up. The erosion of Saudi Arabia's influence is a given, with the only crucial point being the time scale. It has neither a sustainable economy nor a clear model of human development that can replace its oil-based politico-economic influence in the future. At the same time, despite Pakistan's many apologists in the US, mostly Americans who had benefited from the Afghan-Soviet war, the writing has been clear on the wall.  This artificial buffer state as discussed in details in the Mountbatten papers, declassified by UK at the start of the millennium, has little to sustain it. The issue is not if Pakistan will splinter, but when and how. For India - at the risk of sounding cold - the issue is not of dealing with Pakistan until that date, but working out a strategy for containing the fall out when the inevitable occurs.

While our politicians will meekly declare that "a strong, stable Pakistan is in India's interest," few will go further. The splintering of the state would not only create issues of nuclear weapons falling into hands of various rogue non-state elements (see aside above), but also create a major humanitarian catastrophe. Fact still remains that we abut Pakistan's longest and most accessible border. Can we honestly say we will be able to turn away millions of clamouring civilians fleeing unimaginable violence, hunger and other travails, when Pakistan falls apart? Will we be able to withstand the enormous international pressure brought to bear upon us? And worse still, how would we cope with admitting millions of a people raised in what is mostly a dictatorship, mostly illiterate and brainwashed for three or more generations to hate everything about India? At the very least, we would have to write off all chances of seeing a "shining India" in any shape or form for many decades.

I still hold by this scenario that I sketched out at that discussion nearly ten years ago. The only change I make to it is this: our analysts and policy-makers are still avoiding all thought of it even as the date for facing this challenge grows ever closer, ever faster.  But there are other consequences of that September attack on the US, most unforeseen and not all devoid of hope and grim.

The "Arab Spring" is clearly on the way to disproving the myth of the global ummah as a monolith. As political aspirations drive major changes in the West Asia and North Africa, identities other than religious ones are occupying their rightful space in the political imaginary. This shattering of the simplistic myth of a monolithic global Muslim identity, one that has often meant that bulk of Indian Muslims have been seen as traitors to the Islamist cause by jihadist groups (and yet suspected of secret sympathy by far too many both in India and abroad), is also one that is backfiring on Pakistan. With Saudi Arabia demanding that Pakistan pay the piper with its own troops, Bahrain using Pakistani mercenaries to suppress its own populace, and other countries in the region discovering that religion alone is no foundation for political aspirations (a lesson that we all should have learned in 1971) means long-standing political disputes - internal and external - will need to be negotiated and discussed on different parameters.

The splintering of this monolith shall be most painful for Pakistan. As General Zia once quipped (and I paraphrase): If Turkey stopped being Muslim, it would still be Turkey; if Egypt stopped being Muslim, it would still be Egypt; but without Islam, Pakistan will just be India. The dangers of constructing an artificial national identity based solely on religion, and by exclusion of all else, have never been clearer!

Nowhere is this more important - for India at least - as in the case of Kashmir.  In the past ten years, India has benefited from USA's wars with foreign jihadis ignoring the region to fight elsewhere. Just the figures on ex-filtration of jihadis from Kashmir since 9/11 are evidence of this. This ex-filtration has contributed to the diminishing influence of the Kashmir separatists: each call for bandh has been less likely to be enforced with violence and therefore less likely to succeed; as fear diminishes, voter turn outs have improved and political engagement increases. However, much remains to be done, mostly by the Indian state and polity: a strengthened human rights commission (like the one that produced the recent report on the unidentified graves) is a good start, as is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission proposed by Omar Abdullah.  Other steps need to be taken at centre and state levels which will be discussed in a different post (too many and too long for this one).  However one thing is clear: Kashmir ought to be, now and in future, off the agenda for any talks with Pakistan, or indeed elsewhere. There is no point "negotiating" a resolution with a state teetering on failure,and one that would likely cease to exist in the foreseeable future.

Fortunately, the above two factors - a failing Pakistan and the long term consequences (still many unseen but hinted clearly) of the "Arab Spring" - also point to one last point: it is time for India to grow out of its narrative of Partition. As identities other than religion come to fore, it is time for India to recognise that we need not be held hostage to the narratives of the past century. No where is this more obvious than in Kashmir which ought to be treated as another part of the nation-state and not in quick repeats as a spoilt child, a hostage, or a symbol of the success of our non-religious national identity. As changes sweep through West Asia and North Africa, the urge and need for victim narratives for Islam as well as the efficacies of usual red flags is being steadily eroded.

This provides us - India - a clear opportunity of forging a new national narrative that can move beyond simplistic Hindu-Muslim binaries. The internal political and economic impact of this can be extraordinary, while building on our long standing tradition of secularist polity.  Moreover, this realisation can help us re-forge earlier external links, formulate clearer foreign policy towards West Asia and north Africa, one based on mutual interests and not the fear of an imaginary fifth column within. This also would mean recalibrating our relationships with many nations around the globe, to our own advantage. (Again, too many steps and ideas on this but will write another post soon).

Ten years ago, there a fold in history that impacted all of us. Although much violence and sorrow has followed, it also opened up a moment of extraordinary opportunity, especially for us in India.  If we can sieze it, then when history is recorded, not too many decades in the future, the ghost of Partition would be seen to have been laid to rest on a bright September morning in New York. 

Still Angry at the Hoax. And It is Not Just About Amina

Days after the Amina hoax came to light, and despite the reams of virtual ink wasted by the media on the story, I have found myself feeling furious each time I think of the way the story unfolded.

I got news of the story when it suddenly showed up on my twitter feed, with various activists and journalists being informed that “Amina” had possibly been abducted by Syrian security forces.  I re-tweeted the initial abduction tweet and then checked the blog in question.  And that is where things got messy!

While I am no Syria expert, I noticed some odd details, none of which made the story impossible but did stand out as improbable: “Amina” seemed to have a close, very physically affectionate relationship with her father, with a level of intimacy that seemed unusual. Perhaps, this was the Indian in me – and we share quite a few cultural traits with west Asian cultures – but the idea of a father writing on his daughter’s body – even if it were identifying details to prepare for a demonstration – seemed somehow culturally implausible.  Similarly, the idea of any father standing up to state security in a totalitarian state with impunity seemed fanciful.

The third and to me, most telling detail, was the lack of access and information “Amina” had to and about feminine cultural spaces.  Regardless of sexuality, and very much like India, most west Asian cultures continue to have numerous, intimate, powerful communal spaces for women.  In fact, as a teenager and young adult in New York and Boston, I had experienced this lack of shared feminine spaces as a distressing albeit hard to articulate aspect of culture shock. I still find myself seeking these in Europe, and often find them amongst friends from Africa and Asia, instead of amongst European or American women. As a result “Amina’s” lack of access to women and indeed, her lack of relationship with any women (even her mother) except lovers baffled me.

However, perhaps my own prejudices came through as I decided that these discrepancies were a result of “Amina’s” bi-national identity. Perhaps, I told myself, she was too American, much like the “diaspora” kids we see in India who have little understanding or knowledge of cultural codes.  This sense was heightened as some of the posts reminded me of the old French “harem” paintings, recognisable and yet somehow indefinably fantastic.

Yet I felt also guilty in doubting someone I knew little about. Perhaps it is a measure of my own location – from a former colony, with extensive personal experience as a racially marginalised other in many western countries – that I felt upset by my own doubts.  Accustomed to having my own experience and knowledge doubted and questioned on a regular basis by self-proclaimed “western,” “liberal,” generally white and male experts of India, and especially as I do not fit their accepted colonially-rooted stereotypes of a woman of colour, I felt acutely disloyal at doubting one of the sorority on such grounds.

And here again, is the continuing tragedy of our pasts: the powerful feel no need to question their lack of knowledge; while the historically dis-empowered and marginalised are hesitant to assert what we know to be true!

I also felt particularly hesitant in pointing this out as any doubts expressed about “Amina’s” identity were quickly shouted down on social media. A telling discrepancy showed up here: Arab bloggers and tweeple who were the first to express their doubts were shouted down by “Amina” supporters from Europe and north America. Those doubting her accounts, despite their greater knowledge of the Syrian culture and politics (and great potential risk to themselves as they looked for this fictional heroine in Assad’s prisons) were branded “homophobic” by primarily white liberal supporters from Europe and America.  Ugly prejudices of race trumped any kinship on sexuality, just as feminism(s) of women of colour has been clipped by white middle-class female condescension for decades past! 

Soon after the initial look at her blog, I stepped out of that debate, mostly refusing to comment or re-tweet the hysteria that built around the story. Still, I followed the story, all the while plagued by doubts: had this young woman built so many layers of anonymity that she could not be located? Were the cultural discrepancies intentional as part of the exercise of hiding from authorities? That perhaps she was indeed suffering in some prison and I was being unfair?

And perhaps this is what continues to make me angry about the Amina Hoax:  First, the apparently “new and equal” world of social media replicated the ancient colonialist dynamic of first, locating a cultural informer who fit “western” criteria of acceptability based on what should be long-discarded cultural stereotypes; second, other reliable cultural voices were doubted and drowned out as they neither pandered to nor fit the stereoptype of the reliable cultural informer; and finally, although many from the region (most notably Electronic Intifada) were involved in debunking the hoax, it finally needed western (and white) journalists to provide the weight of credibility to the debunking!

While Macmaster is a rather common example of a particularly reprehensible brand of ideologue and activist, the wider issues mentioned above are far more disturbing as they is go far beyond this particular hoax.  

Edward Said’s daughter Najla Said said her father would think the hoaxer “Tom MacMaster a perfect example of Orientalism itself.”  I can not but agree!  This works on two levels: first, there is little doubt that Macmaster feels he could portray the “subaltern other” better than she could himself, and indeed, shows little remorse or any moral compunction in self-righteously appropriating a trebly marginalised voice – that of a lesbian woman in Syria – despite or indeed perhaps because of his status as a privileged white straight man!

Second, much of the western media – as spiked has point out – actively colluded in the marginalisation of other voices and privileging “Amina’s” over them simply because she confirmed their own prejudices and agendas. (Here, hats off to the handful of dedicated journalists who first debunked the story and have since refused to insert themselves into the story as heroes!)  

While spiked does not mention the imbalance of power linked to race and ethnicity at the heart of the current hoax, this is worth considering.  Much of western discourse about the other continues to be filtered through a series of approved cultural informants, who are chosen not for their accuracy or veracity but for their ability to continuously re-affirm the accepted narratives about the “other.”

A look at a whole range of news stories, novels, films all point to this. The “immigrant” novel, the breathlessly narrated “behind the veil” accounts, the “save the natives from themselves” movies, all contain one or both of the following: a white authoritative privileged narrator whose race alone confers veracity to the account; and/or native informers whose veracity is conferred not by their own ability or story but because of a the white male narrator’s acceptance of it.

It was this dynamic that Macmaster embodies and exploited.  Sadly enough, much of the US and EU mainstream and social media actively participated in his game, and continues to do so.  

Osama bin Laden: What Next for Pakistan

Osama bin Laden was killed earlier this week, a result inevitably determined and irrevocably scheduled on 9/11, although there are many who insist he was on USA's radar well before the destruction of the iconic towers; he may well have been, but on that September morning, his fate was ensured.  That he was killed in Pakistan, in the heart of the country's military establishment, may surprise the naive but seems equally inevitable to someone who not only spent a few years growing up in General Zia's Islamabad but has followed that country closely in the past two decades.

I do not want to go over again over the numerous bits of rumour, political spin and misinformation about the operation that resulted bin Laden's death. Instead, I want to reflect on some of the country's past and perhaps try to glimpse a bit of its immediate future. And for that I go back to a blistering hot summer day in 1980 when we arrived in that country.

For a family used to the rough living of forward camps in India's north-east (one of our homes was a bamboo hut with dirt floors), Islamabad seemed gleamingly modern: wide avenues that seemed to echo Lutyen's Delhi with more than a dash of scenes from American movies.  Rawalpindi and Lahore, however, were similar to crowded, untidy towns from our own side of the border, except that people were either exaggeratedly friendly (something that discomfited me) or erupted into mysterious aggression.  Peshawar was chaotic but friendly and once past the Jamrud Fort - where national government writ did not apply - we felt as safe amongst the Pathan warlords as we would in Indian territory.

Strangely, for a country with two of its neighbours engaged in bloody wars (Afghanistan and Iran) through out the 1980s, with seemingly unending train of refugees pouring into its own impoverished villages and towns, Pakistan seemed single-mindedly focussed on one issue: India. 

It took a long time for me to understand that India posed an existential threat to Pakistan in a way that war on its other borders could not: cleaved from India, the country desperately needed a national  identity that would not only distinguish it clearly from its eastern neighbour but also confirm a sense of self that would not need no reference to India. Unlike most Indians who feel that our shared features are grounds for friendly relations, I learned - thanks to years in Pakistani schools - that those very commonalities threaten the ongoing national project of Pakistani self-hood. 

To ensure this distinct identity, General Zia had, not long before, embarked on a national "Islamisation" programme. The extent and impact of this decades-long national programme is perhaps little understood: with ample Saudi financial support, the programme was meant to steadily construct an "Islamic" national identity, replacing the various streams of the faith and ancient local cultural traditions with the austere Wahhabi version imported from the Gulf.  Over time (and as 30 years of the programme bear fruit now), army and other government institutions were to be populated by these new "true Muslims," with recruitment, promotions, assignments all geared to ensure the gradual cleansing of the old guard who were seen as weak and non-Islamic (and under the new definition, therefore, un-Pakistani enough). 

At the same time, a vast change was brought to the educational curriculum: Pakistan's history was rewritten to highlight its Islamic identity and cleanse it of its Hindu, Buddhist, Jain past. We found a stark example of this at the Takshashila monastery ruins where the government guide insisted that the monks' living quarters were prison cells and the abbotts' rooms - slightly larger than the rest - were the torture and execution chambers. You see, there was no room for Buddhist glory in Zia's newly Islamising nation! None of us who had heard that guide on that day in 1983 were surprised by the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001: Zia's tree was bearing fruit!

Even Urdu - that wondrously hybrid linguistic miracle - suffered the same fate as it was steadily "purified" and words from Sanskrit, Prakrit and other Indic languages were replaced with Arab ones. 

What does all this have to do with Osama bin Laden, you may well ask? Well, this was also the time when Pakistan's Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was increasingly empowered (it had existed since 1948) and with the long-running campaign in Afghanistan - with US support in terms of training and weaponry and Saudi funds - grew in stature. Over time, it also became increasingly strident and a powerful cell within the army, and began to establish itself as a separate centre of power, with vast funds and resources but also able to call on an unofficial cadre of ideologically driven footsoldiers from the jihadist groups it supported, funded, trained and ran. By early 1990s, the ISI was often acting against the wishes and without the knowledge of the main army brass.  At this time, army and civilian governments were often all too happy to claim ISI's successes as their own, even as some expressed reservations in private (Benazir Bhutto was one of these). It is also important to note that over time and given its involvement in Afghanistan, the ISI also became far more imbued with fundamentalist ideology than many other parts of the Pakistan state and populace. 

However, to believe that the army is some how "liberal" is a mistake: three decades of Zia's "Islamisation" have ensured that it also fully partakes of the fundamentalist ideology. There is, however, a basic difference: Pakistan's army also has impressive economic assets and political power; it also is cognizant of the need for working with the rest of the government - even the much-derided politicians - and is circumspect about maintaining its status quo.  This leads the Pakistan army to often make what may seem like "compromises" in the national and international arena, although it must be noted that the institution has been very effective in ensuring that civilians and politicians take the fall for these necessary "compromises." One notable exception to this has been Gen. Musharraf who was eased out with a gentleness that Pakistan's army can only extend to  its own.

With this backdrop in mind, it is worth looking back at the past ten years (although the Kargil fiasco is also a factor in these internal power games). Pakistan's army and civilian government have attempted to walk a very fine line: unable to check the ISI-jihadi bloc, it has attempted to maintain a facade of "alliance" with US and others in the post-9/11 "war on terror," while trying to curtail some of ISI's influence. Unfortunately, ISI (and some parts of the larger army) have shown little interest in the longer term, economic and political interests of the nation. Instead, still convinced that it - not geopolitics - defeated Soviet Union with the fabled "death-of-a-thousand-cuts," it believes it can continue unchecked: the various attacks in India, including the 2008 Mumbai ones as well as its continued machinations in Afghanistan and the country's own tribal areas, are an evidence of its convictions.

Sadly, Pakistan's policies of the past thirty years are ripping it apart today: army with its collaborating wing of civilian polity is increasingly facing a network of terrorist groups backed, funded, armed and often manned by direct and indirect members of the ISI.  This is one answer to the mystery of who the US informed (and didn't inform) and who all in Pakistan government establishment knew about bin Laden's whereabouts!  Given the situation in the country, it is likely that various parts of Pakistan's army, ISI and other goverment agencies knew different bits of information and received varying briefings. Unfortunately for Pakistan (also ultimately for bin Laden), although fortunately for the US, these various Pakistani factions are acting against each other!  

So what happens now? Terror attack warnings have already gone out across the world. There is little doubt that various groups ideologically linked to Al-Qaida will attempt to avenge his death. There is also the issue of succession to bin Laden, although he was - at time of his death - more of a symbol than a major leader of any jihadist terrorist group. However, the top spot is now available to whole array of successors and succession wars will mean that each heir-apparent will attempt to stake his claim by staging competitively spectacular attacks. 

Another aspect to consider is the timing of the operation: by most reliable accounts suggest that US had suspicions about bin Laden's location at least as far back as 2008. It also appears that they knew "almost certainly" by middle 2010 that he was at Abbottabad. It is worth keeping in mind that operations of this kind require a few months of planning, which means they would only ready by the first quarter of 2011. 

However, killing bin Laden would have yielded greater electoral benefit for Barack Obama later in the year, once the campaign had begun to heat up.  So why now? Did US fear that bin Laden would be tipped off by one side in Pakistan's internecine rivalry and escape again? But then given that last three presidents have failed, that would hardly have been a major disaster. Or did the US feel it was being rendered irrelevant to the Middle East by the events of the Arab Spring and killing bin Laden would symbolically help them assert a military, if not political, power that most of the world believes is waning? No doubt there shall be more answers in the next few weeks as more information emerges. 

However, here are my some of my predictions:  in the next eighteen months, we shall see increased violence within Pakistan as the army-civilian establishment goes up against the ISI-jihadi alliance.  The former will be attempting to salvage what is possible of the national cause while the latter will not only be driven by revenge but an increasing threat to their very survival (The Arab Spring also impacts financing and support of Islamist groups by regimes who are increasingly fighting fires on their own home-fronts).  I do not envy the average Pakistani citizen who will be caught in the cross-fire of this "informal" warfare.