The think-tanks and mainstream
intelligentsia have been stressing upon the need of eradicating the sources of
terrorism, but its identification has been different. No adequate arrangement on
educational level and well thought out plan on policy level has been made to
take the menace of terrorism – not terrorists, extremism – not extremists,
Talibanization or Talibanism – not the Taliban – head on. An army force is a
group of men who physically fights an enemy; but think-tanks, intelligentsia,
academics, scholars, columnists, writers – and above all the ulema are meant to
take this fight to intellectual levels. Rah-e-Haq, Rah-e-Rast, Zarb-e-Azb, etc.,
are the successful operation that helped eradicate the terrorists, but nothing
has been done on the society’s, as well as governments’ levels, to cope with the
ideologies of hate and despondency.
Recently, probably on the initiations of army, this task has been taken in hands
involving mainstream scholars of various categories. I would like to invite them
to take into consideration famous jurist Sherwani Mustafa’s conclusion. He says
while it is not so easy to give an exhaustive analysis of the prevailing menace
of terrorism, as it has varied phenomena, offshoots and ramifications, but still
it has two general sources: one, ruthless western intervention in almost every
part of the world, especially the Muslim lands, and, to achieve the nefarious
designs of hegemony, creating, promoting and patronizing different terror
groups; two, sectarian hatred within the Muslim society, spread through a
sustained campaign, over decades or even centuries – so much so that each sect
considers other sects as nothing short of heretic or infidel, and the bitterest
enemy of Islam.
There is a need to launch a nationwide program, as part of deradicalization
process, of educating the masses through mosque-loudspeakers, student
gatherings, seminars and workshops. For this purpose the government needs to
show its keen interest and deep involvement in order to train the trainers
first, facilitate them to be able to deliver lectures and chart out backup plan
in order to assess the positive results of this national campaign. This can be
called the soft army of the nation.