Pakistan_ A Hard Country - Anatol Lieven [247]
Tribal dissidence and religious radicalism have therefore been partners in the Muslim world for many centuries. On the one hand there is the anarchy of the tribes, ordered only by their own traditions: in the Arabic of the Maghrib the bled-es-siba, in the Pathan lands and Iran yaghestan: the land of unrest (or ‘the land of defiance’, as Afghanistan has sometimes been called in both the Persian and Indian traditions): opposed to the bled-es-makhzen or hukumat, the land of government. A rather gloomy Pathan proverb sums up the disadvantages of both ways of life: ‘Feuding ate up the mountains, and taxes ate up the plains.’
The great majority of the Pathan tribal revolts against the British were orchestrated by religious figures in the name of jihad: all of them, naturally, described by the British as ‘mad’. These included the Akhund of Swat in the 1860s, the Hadda Mullah, the Manki Mullah, the Fakir of Buner and the Powindah Mullah in the 1890s, and in the 1930s the Fakir of Ipi, against whose rebellion the British deployed two divisions (including my maternal uncle’s Gurkha battalion).
The Fakir of Ipi’s rebellion took place in Waziristan, later the heartland of Taleban support after 9/11 and the US overthrow of the Taleban. Incidentally, all these revolts were influenced to a greater or lesser extent by news from other parts of the Muslim world (albeit often extremely twisted) about clashes between Muslims and the Christian imperial powers; so the notion that Pakistanis being influenced by developments in Palestine or Iraq marks a new departure is completely wrong.
Waziristan was also the site of major uprisings in the 1890s, and in 1919 when the Wazirs and Mahsuds rose in support of the Afghan invasion of India. It may be noted incidentally that just as at the time of writing the US and Pakistani forces have not yet killed or captured much of the top leadership of Al Qaeda or the Taleban, so, despite deploying some 40,000 troops in Waziristan, the British never caught the Fakir of Ipi, who died in his bed in 1960 – by that stage, interestingly enough, preaching Pathan nationalism and an independent Pashtunistan.
Almost forty years before the emergence of the Afghan Taleban, the great anthropologist of the Pathans, Fredrik Barth, wrote the following about the orchestration of revolt in the name of Islam:
A more temporary organization [than the regular relationship between a local saint and his followers] may be built around persons of less established sanctity, based on the Islamic dogma of the holy war and the blessings awaiting the soldier (ghazi) who figures in one. This line of appeal requires considerable demagogic powers and is mainly adopted by mullahs. Essentially, it depends for its success on the presence of a fundamental conflict in the area, and the ability to play on ideals of manliness and fearlessness so as to whip up confidence among the warriors of the community.16
The Taleban, however, are a new variation of this old pattern. They are an alliance of newly risen younger mullahs, rather than single ‘authoritative clerics’ possessing individual baraka. Their chief leaders, like Beitullah Mahsud and Fazlullah, emerged to prominence when they were in their late twenties or early thirties. This is not quite such a shift as the Pakistani elites make out. The Pathan tradition in general is far more egalitarian in spirit than those of the other parts of Pakistan, and, within that tradition, those of some of the tribes of the Frontier have always been famous for the unwillingness of the tribesmen to bow to hereditary chieftains. ‘Traditionally, the dominant characteristic of the Mahsud was his independence – in a sense, every man was his own malik.’17 Leadership has generally been through merit, and especially courage and skill in fighting. Though of course the leaders of the Pakistani Taleban are very pious Muslims, unlike previous leaders of revolt against the British such as the Mullah of Hadda they are not regarded as saints by their followers, but only as especially able and tough military commanders.