Daily Times

We hardly see reports in newspapers or on TV channels about the psychological impact of militancy on children even though we see regular reports of attacks on schools in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Since there are no reports on the emotional trauma children are going through, we do not feel the need for a remedy for their emotional wellbeing and to immunise them from developing serious physiological issues that could be exploited later by terrorist organisations using them as tools.

This section of society has suffered more than any other in the ongoing war on terror. Apart from the hundreds of children who were killed or maimed as a result of three decades of militancy, millions are affected psychologically by state-sponsored indoctrination, which spreads to schools, religious institutions, media, and the very homes they grow up in.

There is hardly any refuge for children. They are left at the mercy of powers that leave no opportunity to snatch their childhood from them. Understandably, we have become insensitive emotionally and take these things in our stride. Nor does any government agency take serious steps for the wellbeing of affected children. The discussion rarely becomes a topic for ratings-driven talk shows, and the guests seem devoid of any understanding of the gravity of the problem.

Four days before his martyrdom, I met Dr Farooq Khan in Mardan who was working on a project to deradicalise around 150 young suicide-bombers under the age of 18, previously recruited and indoctrinated by the Swati Taliban. I enquired about his findings after working for months with these children. He enlightened me with three: first, 95 percent of the students came from government and private schools; second, the boys were indoctrinated by teachers of Islamic Studies and Arabic Studies in these schools and third, in all cases the father-figure was missing. On whether the programme was working for these children, Dr Farooq Khan said the main hurdle was distrust of these children of their teachers, since they were so deeply brainwashed at their former seminaries, losing their innocence and humanity. Dr Farooq was faced with absurd questions from his students, like whether he was sent by the Jews and Hindus to hatch a plot against the warriors of Islam, he told me with the smile that always adorned his face.

“Bringing them back to their life and childhood was not easy. There were things which would look so trivial to us but were too big for them to overcome,” he said. He recalled how one student told him how he did not want the beard he had grown during his militant training but was having difficulty in going back to his people with a shaved face.

During a personal interview with a suicide bomber who refused to carry out an attack and has now been rehabilitated, I was told: “I was not happy with my life; I wanted to get rid of it. It had nothing to do with God or going to paradise. Life had become a burden and I wanted to release it.”

“What made you suffer so badly that you wanted to take yours and others’ lives?” I asked him. He had no clear answer to that, except that he found nothing good about life where there was no pleasure and entertainment, where cultures were torturous and the future was devoid of hope. It was this defeatism that his militant trainers exploited. According to him, he was told that since he was willing to die, why not die for God and earn a place in heaven. When I asked what changed his mind about suicide-bombing, he said during his stay at a camp on the Pak-Afghan border he noticed that the people running the camp were doing many things that were un-Islamic, like smoking hash, and abusing would-be suicide-bombers physically and emotionally. “I thought if this is what they are doing in the name of God I am out, and availed the first opportunity to flee.”

His story substantiates my assessment that it is not just religious indoctrination that is pushing children towards militancy but also the households they grow up in.

I met several teenagers who, with a little preaching, would fall easily into the trap, which raises the question of why they drift towards militancy; is it because the Taliban propaganda machine is so appealing and rich in its content? Or is it the culture and the environment they grow up in that works like a nursery for the militants. Unfortunately it is both. The propaganda part is important to understand first. When we go through Taliban propaganda material, we find that most of it comes from the Urdu press and is published and broadcast by a leading media group.

We need to understand that it is not the hardcore militants we should fear but their supporters and sympathisers sitting in urban centres writing articles and appearing on talk shows. I put them in the category of ‘intellectual terrorists’. They give terrorists justification and present their acts as revenge even if it kills unarmed and innocent civilians. Another section whose speeches and statements are used as propaganda are politicians and retired military men. I call them ‘political terrorists’. These include Tehreek-e-Insaaf, Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat-e-Ulema-i-Islam. Their typical stance after every inhuman act is that it could not be done by a Muslim even if the perpetrators claim responsibility. The second thing that helps the Taliban in their recruitment is a closed Pashtun culture, which gives little opportunity for entertainment and is suffering under a Wahabi onslaught since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Gradually this is becoming a way of life in the Pashtun belt and doing away with it is not going to be easy, whether the Americans leave or otherwise. Fast-track economic development, political processes to keep the youth busy, and progressive education could help stop militancy becoming a way of life.

Golda Meir once said, “We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.” We need to love our children and not let them become part of militancy, like one of my very bright students who lost his life as a militant. It is time we realise the seriousness of the issue before it is too late and we lose a whole generation to militancy.

The writer is a freelance journalist and can be reached at kaharsalmay@yahoo.com