A conversation with Muhammad Jibran Nasir, a symbol of Pakistan’s battle against the demons of the past

The December 16th massacre of Peshawar has inflicted a huge blow to the entire Pakistani nation, sparking a heated internal debate about the responsibilities of terrorism. For years, the country has been the scene of frequent terrorist attacks, which have caused tens of thousands of victims. Nevertheless, the authorities have always shown a certain reluctance to distance theirselves from religious extremism, even by its most bloody expressions.

Pakistan has an extremely complicated relationship with terrorism. For years, it has supported terrorist groups active in India and Afghanistan and several clues suggest that it is continuing to do so. The reasons for this support reside primarily in its strategy to use any kind of tool to face the Indian enemy and expand its influence in the region.

This policy has long been carried out in the belief that the state authorities would be able to control groups to which they provided support, but it did not happen. As stated in 2011 by the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a message addressed to Pakistan “you can not keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors.”

In recent years, the need to counter terrorist groups operating in the country has become increasingly apparent, finally resulting in the decision to conduct a broad military operation (called “Zarb-e-Azb”) in the border areas with Afghanistan, where the majority of these groups is established. However, this does not seem to have produced a wider reconfiguration of Pakistani strategic paradigm, as evidenced by the support still provided to groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and to its leader Hafiz Said, responsible for several attacks, including one in Mumbai in 2008, which resulted in the killing of 166 people.

These policies have facilitated the spread of religious extremism, causing a gradual ideological radicalisation of Pakistani civil society. The Peshawar attack, with its extreme brutality, seems to have stirred a country too accustomed to violence to try and react. One of the main symbol of this “redemption” is certainly Muhammad Nasir Jibran, lawyer, activist and independent politician, who is leading a protest movement against all forms of collusion with religious extremism by the authorities. The main target of this campaign is represented by Maulana Abdul Aziz, cleric of the Lal Masjid in Islamabad, for years an epicentre of ideological extremism in the country. In 2007, the mosque was the scene of serious clashes between religious students and security forces, which favored the departure of the then head of government, the retired General Pervez Musharraf. Maulana Abdul Aziz is the focus of a controversy for having initially refused to condemn the attack in Peshawar. He is very well known in Pakistan for his radical positions. In 2007, when the security forces launched a military operation against the Lal Masjid, he tried to flee wearing a burqa, but he was recognized and stopped. A few months ago, he dedicated one of the libraries of the mosque to Osama bin-Laden, the historical leader of al-Qaeda. Recently, the female students of Jamia Hafsa, a madrasa adjacent to the Lal Masjid, have released a video in which they declared their oath of allegiance to the Islamic State.

A very controversial personality who has become the symbol of a country that for too long has granted virtual impunity to all forms of extremism and it is now trying to react. And it does so thanks to the courage of Muhammad Jibran Nasir, a man whose ideals are stronger than the death threats received in recent days. An example for a country too long hostage to fear.

The attack carried out in Peshawar on December 16 was one of the worst tragedies in the history of Pakistan. Who should be held responsible?

Muhammad Jibran Nasir: I believe that Pakistani nation is as responsible as the Taliban and the reason for that is that all of the measures which the governament is taking now should have been taken years ago before the Taliban grew their network in Pakistan. So had this nation become united before, had the governament take action earlier, we could have actually avoided this tragedy. So I believe that the blame should be shared, because it is also our ignorance and our inefficiency which allowed the Taliban to successfully make that attack. I’ll give you an example: when the 9/11 happened in America, America did not have any history of terror attacks, so to a certain extent America took its security for granted. But Pakistan has a history of terror attacks. We have been targeted time and again. We have lost more than 50,000 civilians, so we shoul have been more cautious.

What prompted the authorities to act now with greater determination in the fight against terrorism?

MJN: The gruesomeness of the tragedy, the barbarism which the Taliban have made clear. They are not following any code of war, they are not following any ethics of war, for them anything goes, for them even little children as young as they may be can be specific target. Usually the debate has been that children and women die in war as collateral damage, that, you know, they died in the crossfire or something. But now the chidren were specific targets. Now they were actually the only target. So I believe that is what has shook up the entire nation. That who we are dealing with are indeed animals.

Do you think the Peshawar attack will somehow be a turning point for your country?

MJN: I hope so. I hope to God that this is our turning point. Well, see, if you follow news coming out from Pakistan, the government is working very hard, and new security plan has been given, the chief of army staff is working with all the parties. All the approving parties are very willing to work with the government, goals are rolling in all corridors of power, so I believe that this may be our turning point and the nation, as a people, as a civil society, as the common men and women of Pakistan we are getting our protest and our struggle on the streets to keep reminding the government. Yes, this should be, and this must be, our turning point.

Do you belive that the lifting of the moratorium on the death penalty for terrorism crimes is a useful measure to fight terrorism?

MJN: I believe that the moratorium should not be lifted as a blanket cover. The Pakistani government know who are the head honchos, who are the top commanders and we know that these guys can never be rehabilitated. These guys will never go back and try and live their lives as law abiding citizens. These guys will continue to take every opportunity they can get to send a message out to the Taliban to continue the terrorist attack and that it is not Pakistan deciding to hang these criminal elements. It is the criminal elements who have not left Pakistan with any other option but to hang them. But then again, I say, this should only be limited to specific terrorists. Not everyone who has done a crime should be punished by a capital punishment.

Pakistan has long made a distinction between “good” and “bad” Taliban, considering the former as a useful tool to assert its regional agenda. Do you believe that today this distinction no longer exists?

MJN: I believe that Pakistan inherited this distinction from the West because it was first created with Osama bin-Laden celebrated as a hero in the Eighties and the Nineties by the American press. This distinction was first created when the American Whitehouse used to welcome delegations of the Taliban throughout the Nineties to negotiate with them. We actually inherited this distinction from the West, and of course, yes, this is present in Pakistan but we need to know how it was created. It was created through a state policy, through a state funded policy, the media play a big part in it, and the media usually influences the dialogue and sets the narrative.

Pakistan supported the Taliban in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion because the CIA was working with us and we together created mercenaries in Afghanistan. We created a situation of civil war in Afghanistan. Through that civil war we wanted the Taliban to come into power in Afghanistan and that civil war is now spilled over in Pakistan, and the same civil war is in Pakistan and people are confused between the good Taliban and the bad Taliban.

There is of course a generation gap. My father grew up in Eighties and in the Nineties, and during that time Taliban were celebrated by everyone. I have grown up in the late Nineties and in the last decade post 9/11 and when I grew up the Taliban were demonised alla around the world. So for my father’s generation the Taliban were heros, for my generation Talibans are demons. This has done a lot to create a good Taliban, bad Taliban narrative. You cannot force people to change their views overnight, you cannot impose views on them. This will take sometime, but I know now slowly and gradually Pakistan is coming towards a single point agenda, and that is the Taliban whether good or bad are not in favour of Pakistan. Rather than questioning why now, I think that what should be celebrated is that finally we have realised. I think we should be looking towards the future.

Why is Hafiz Saeed allowed to run free in the country and to publicly inciting to violence against India?

MJN: Hafiz Said, for good or for bad reasons, actually runs one of the biggest social services networks in Pakistan. Through this front , he has very smartly, conivingly and cleverly reached out to millions of Pakistanis with a lot of relief aid. When there were floods, when there were earthquakes in Pakistan, Hafiz Said was providing relief to millions of Pakistani. Now take it from that perspective that for example, God forbid, your house is destroyed in an earthquake, and you know that your house got rebuilt and you got all relief aid from a man called Hafiz Said. Now tomorrow when the government says that he is a terrorist, even though he may be, you would personally be feeling endebted to him because he built your house for you and he gave you all the relief at that time. So the confusion is within. Because at one end you are feeling so much gratitude for the guy, but at the other end he is a wanted criminal in many cases. So because Hafiz Said has very cleverly used to that whole social aid front to actually creep into the society and come out as a social services champion, that is what has created the confusion and the Pakistani government, our military, have a hard time taking action against him. Millions of people in Pakistan have benefitted from Jamaat-ud-Dawa’s aid and find it difficult to question his actions, and this is compunded by the fact that Pakistan also suffers from extreme poverty and lack of education. Our low literacy levels means we think anybody giving us aid as a hero, we image anybody helping us out in a national crisis as a hero. You need an educated mind to separate different features and facts about people, you know. So we need to realise that when looking at Pakistan we should not be comparing it or its democracy, to any country in Europe. We need to realise that Pakistan is a country where more than half population is not literated, where around 25 million kids or more have never been to school. We need to take into all these things and you realise that an uneducated mind is gullible, an uneducated mind is vulnerable, and Hafiz Said has used that vulnerability of lack of education in the Pakistani nation to his advantage and the likes of him, many other organizations have done the same. See, nobody is going to roam around in the streets and say I am a terrorist, I’m carrying a gun, I’m killing people but Hafiz Said roams around freely in the country. He roams around doing charity in the country. He’s not killing people on the streets of Lahore. He is doing charity on the streets of Lahore. The Pakistani government first need to deconstruct this whole facade which the likes of Hafiz Said have built. They need to deconstruct his whole image as a philanthropist before they take him out.

Are they really going to do so?

MJN: I believe they are serious about it, I believe that they are working towards it, and I know that these things will take time. I have met a lot of parliamentarians in this past one week, since the attack has happened and all of them seem to mean business and all of them seem to be onboard and, like I said this country is a country of around 200 million people. We have a lot of wise minds in this country as well, and we are surviving in one of the worst condition possible. We are surviving against all kinds of condemnations from all around the world, we are considered a terrorist nation by half the world, we are considered a nation of Taliban apologists by half the world and still we have lost more civilians, we have lost more countrymen than any other country in the world after 9/11, more than Iraq, more than Afghanistan, and yet we continue to fight the good war. I believe what the media around the world need to do is understand Pakistan’s dilemma before they criticise us. Because, and like I said, I am a Pakistani and I can tell you that Hafiz Said is not my hero. I’m a Pakistani and I can tell that if in any attack on any foreign soil a Pakistani was involved, if, they are not my heros.

Using slogans like #NeverAgain and #ReclaimYourMosques, your campaign has made the fight against Maulana Abdul Aziz and “his” Lal Masjid its symbol. Why do you think that his arrest is so important for Pakistan?

MJN: It is important to Pakistan to send out a message that the government is serious, exactly what I have been talking about, that every political party, the Pakistan army, they are all serious about change, then that’s my point if they are serious about change then the arrest of Abdul Aziz will be a prime example because even after the Peshawar attack Abdul Aziz represents that kind of sick perverted mentality of Taliban apologists who just to save their own necks and just to maintain their fear amongst the people of Pakistan will continue to take the people of Pakistan for granted and will continue to sympathise with the killers just so that they could also impose themselves on the society and when they align with the killers they actually threaten the people of Pakistan that if you rise against me those killers will also come and kill you because they are my brothers. This is a guy who has had a militant war with the army of Pakistan in which he’s killed soldiers in the past, this is a man whose affiliated wing is a body of women which has publicly declared allegiance to ISIS. When he threatened to harm our lives, when he threatened to kill us, when he actually tries to give our protest a sectarian colour by saying that we are protesting because we belong to a particular sect, which is far from the truth, he is actually instigating sectarian violents in Pakistan and that is another crime under the anti-terrorism laws. Now we have booked him under those charges so if he has been booked and he should be arrested like any other common man and woman of Pakistan would have already been arrested. I mean had it been me and had the FIR been against me for this serious crimes I would have already been in court, but he is not. So Pakistani government needs to send this message because once you arrest Abdul Aziz you empower the people, you let the people know that he has defied an FIR, if you try to take someone who’s influential and who’s a Taliban symphatizer to task the government, the rule of law will be upheld, the state institutions, the law enforcement agencies will take action.

You have recently been threatened by TTP. Where do you find the courage to carry on your fight?

MJN: I find the courage through only one thing: that I am a Pakistani and all those 50, 55 Pakistani civilians that died before me, they died for me and if they can lay down their lives for their motherland then how am I any different. Their deaths, their resilience, their feel of sacrifice gives me the courage. They have told us that if this is what is required to make a better future for our children then so be it. The Pakistani nation will give every sacrifice for the betterment of our country. We do not want any foreign force or army to come and liberate us. We have it within ourselves, we have it within the nation of Pakistan to rise up against any kind of adversary whether grown on home soil or whether imposed by a foreign army. We as a nation will not quit.

@raskolnikov86