Rehabilitation exercise

Across tribal areas, young men bearing guns are on the prowl again. Sporadic battles rage on in Bajaur; in Mohmand a suicide bomber has claimed a terrible toll on life. Tensions are said by local residents to remain high in South Waziristan, and even in Swat, where bazaars teem with life once more, people remain wary of elements they fear are linked to the militants. The victory claimed by our armed forces has not been easy to sustain. Perhaps the victory cries came a little too early. Perhaps it was necessary to raise them to keep up morale and bolster the effort of soldiers fighting a guerilla war for which they have limited training in a hostile terrain.

We know little about the reality given that the media, for many months, has been taken into the conflict zone only on escorted trips and permitted to see only a small slice taken from the whole picture. But other portions from that picture reach us in the form of verbal accounts from the residents of tribal areas, occasional articles, blogs or letters. It seems clear that people in the conflict zone desperately seek peace, but realise  that this will always be elusive till such time that some kind of initiative is taken by both state and society to end the violence and conflict.

Meanwhile young people continue to see the Taliban as heroes, ready to take on authorities they see as unjust and often the rich who have played the role of oppressors in many parts where feudalism lives on, and also ready to take on the sole superpower in the world. Of course, whether this is in fact really true, as in the actual motive for the Taliban doing what they do, is a moot point.

We need a rehabilitation plan. There are in the north – and many other parts of our country too – a large number of teenagers and other youngsters who know little else but to fire a gun. This phenomenon indeed began with the Afghan war following the 1979 Soviet occupation of that country. Through the last three decades the number of these militants has grown. We are today in many ways paying the price not only of the decision to involve ourselves so deeply in the Afghan war but also for not making a bid in the years after it ended to re-induct those who had fought there into mainstream society, teach them skills that would enable them to earn livelihoods and to move on after the war.

In many cases these ‘commanders’ from the Afghan ‘jihad’ set up the militant bands which set off bombs in cities or attempt to impose a tyrannical order in the north. For all those who form these outfits – and particularly for the young among them – we need job training schemes combined with sophisticated ‘de-brainwashing’ techniques aimed at preventing them from living lives only as killers. The military is reported to have set up one such centre for children recruited as suicide bombers, with psychologists working with the boys.

We need more institutions run for this purpose and targeting also those who are a part of the Taliban or who sit for the moment on the fence, waiting to see what side they should take. Also what would help would be a thorough reform of the mainstream system of schooling – and not just in Fata but all across the country since it is conducive towards the establishment of an intolerant and narrow worldview. Regulation of madrassa, who have been left to their own devices, also needs to become a reality if we want to seriously do something about recruitment by the Taliban and other extremists in the region.

It may be possible to seek help in the rehabilitation exercise from the Saudis who have stated they have had some success in this area. Other countries with experience in this realm could be approached and efforts focused on educating militants about the true message of Islam and indeed all religion rather than the distorted version force-fed to them for years.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 19^th, 2010.