Daily Times

Civil conflict appears to be contagious and analysts have shown that it makes followers more likely to rebel when incited by leaders. However, conflict occurs when both rebels and the state engage in conflict. How do state authorities respond to the potential for civil conflict to spread? I argue that elites will anticipate the incentive altering effects of civil conflicts abroad and increase repression at home to pre-empt potential rebellion. Using a Bayesian hierarchical model and spatially weighted conflict measures, one can find robust evidence that a state will engage in higher levels of human rights violations as civil conflict becomes more prevalent in its geographic proximity. It is no surprise therefore to find evidence that the Punjab government violated rights as a reaction to violent internal politics.

In the last quarter of a century, religion has emerged as something of a ‘dark force’ in socio-political affairs. Its negative associations have come from two main sources: one is the prevalent stereotype about religious-political movements under the rubric of cults, and the other is the perceived threat posed by fundamentalism. Headlines about the threat of political violence in the name of religion have thus focused on two types of groups that appear radically dissimilar: religious/political groups that operate outside conventional religious charters and fundamentalists who claim to represent historic religious traditions.

It is clear that when religious groups appear to lose ecclesiastical power struggles, they respond by creating their own cult leader and parallel institutions. This has included resurfacing religious organisations into political movements, publishing houses, religious conferences, denominational structures and educational institutions. This was in part a function of their rejection by fundamentalist groups but it also symbolised the religious-political groups’ own conviction that the larger society was pervaded by sinfulness.

The cult stereotype asserts that a combination of malevolent leaders, brainwashed followers and poisonous belief systems lead such groups to engage in violence against both society and the law. In fact, the Lahore Model Town incident and in the other dharna (rally) cases, there is sufficient evidence to support this assertion. Nonetheless, such beliefs have been sufficiently widespread to politicise many new and unconventional religious groups. This seems a rational explanation to followers for extreme violence in situations in which the state of order is not acceptable to the cult. Such explanation is the cult of martyrs, heroes and leaders. This cult may get out of control and fuel violence, or excessive sacrifice from the standpoint of their affiliated religious or political group. Changes in macro politics have ushered in a new era of conflict and fragmentation among political elites in Pakistan and militias operate as private armies for these elites. This is highly dangerous but the goal of this violence is to alter the political landscape, increase power for patrons, protect supportive communities and hinder opponents.

By an unstated convention, a small number of what might be termed the ‘canonical cases’ occupies much of the popular religious-sect vote bank in Pakistan. These conventional groups are basically religious organisations dedicated to conventional teaching but also politically very active. In certain cases they have provoked situations that might equally well be considered irresponsible and furiously disruptive threats such as the inqilab (tsunami) confrontations with the government, dharnas and other agitation demonstrations in public places. Their self-prophesised commitment to peace does not alter the truth of the proposition that these groups often initiate violence.

The character of the Model Town attack requires an approach that goes beyond the analysis of beliefs to include the analysis of intentionally dramatic social acts. Analysing social behaviour through the conventions of dramaturgy is neither recent nor novel. Increasingly, this metaphor is finding its way into examinations of religiously driven violence. It appears apt, both because of the public character of violent acts with its presumption of a witnessing audience and because of the centrality of ritual in religious activity. While some religious rituals are performed by the solitary individual, many are enacted collectively. An additional reason for extending the dramaturgical metaphor is the increasing awareness that many acts of religious violence are not obviously instrumental. That is, unlike the hostage-taker who may release captives on the fulfilment of specific demands, the religious cult may not demand any specific performance or abstention from potential victims or audience. Indeed, those responsible for acts of communal violence often do not claim responsibility for their acts or otherwise identify themselves.

This has led me to speak of religious terrorism as performance violence. Analysis construes that acts of violence are played out before audiences and are therefore meant to be witnessed. It also suggests that they are performative, in the sense that in addition to their symbolic meaning, they possess a certain power of their own. Thus they possess both theatrical and numinous qualities. Their theatricality is inherent in their dramatic, public character, while the numinous quality comes from gigantic props in a grandiose spectacle in which the collective fantasy of their concept of ultimate political power is brought vividly to life. They function as elements in the theatre of performance violence. Mercifully, the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) is not engaged in Clausewitzian warfare, in which military assets are deployed for calculated strategic advantage. Instead, people in Pakistan are facing a religious leader whose actions have significance only in terms of his own religious and political ideology.

The confusion surrounding justice and unfairness has increased because of the fashionable tendency to regard religion as a surrogate for more encompassing conflicts between entire political parties. While this position has been most closely associated with Imran Khan, it has not been lost on Dr Tahirul Qadri. To the extent that he defines the concept — he understands it to involve new surges in commitment, relevance and sacrifice by erstwhile casual believers.

In the interest of clarity, it might be better to retire ‘fundamentalist’ to the lexicon of abandoned terms, in the same manner as the equally dubious ‘cult’. However, where the former is doubtlessly too entrenched in both common and academic usage to permit such a simple solution, the latter is also barely buried in our society. At the least, statements about the political behaviour of religious believers need to be handled with great care. There is no simple, unilinear relationship between violence on the one hand and religious variables on the other; whether religious characteristics involve charismatic leadership, textual literalism, charges of official laxity or resistance to compromise.

No matter how bizarre a belief system appears to onlookers, it is regarded as real by those who hold and act upon it. These conclusions rest upon public perceptions of religious ideology rather than objective dangers. In the eyes of outside observers, either a religious-political group or its adversaries may incorrectly estimate the danger the other poses or the intractability of its position. What matters, however, is not some presumed ‘real’ danger, but rather the way a particular actor evaluates danger, since for that actor, the perception is the reality.

The writer is a professor of Psychiatry and consultant Forensic Psychiatrist in the UK. He can be contacted at fawad_shifa@yahoo.com