Muslims attack Taliban--and more.

Due to my many years of fighting radical Islam, I often find myself with those who are equally militant in the fight against Islamists, but who also believe that Islam itself is the problem.  I stand with Dr. Daniel Pipes in saying emphatically that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam is the solution.  Many of those who demonize Muslims ask why there is no real push back by Muslims against Islamists; that is, that they provide ideological cover for the worst sort of behavior.  And it did seem for a while that I kept going back to the Mumbai Muslim community refusing Muslim burial to the 26/11 terrorists.  But look at what is happening right now:

• In February, Pashtuns attacked a Taliban office, completely gutting it and seizing the terror group's fire arms.
• Recently, Sindhi Muslims marched in large numbers through the streets of Karachi.  On the banner they carried at the head of the march was a picture of an Israeli flag.
• In New Delhi, Sultan Shaheen, a practicing Muslim, leads an organization which has credentialed and respected Islamic scholars writing theological arguments against interpretations of the Quran that radicals use to justify their activities.

And the fact should not be lost that these people did and are doing these things at some considerable risk.  A few members of the Pakistani military, Taliban allies, were present when the Pashtuns attacked the Taliban; and just ten days later, a Taliban leader warned Pashtun elders not to do it again because "the [Pakistani] military is with us."  The Sindhi are unique inside Pakistan with their positive and public show of support for Israel.  And my friend, Sultan Shaheen works constantly under the threat of radical retaliation; yet, he has revealed his findings at UN venues and elsewhere.

My book, What is Moderate Islam, makes it clear that success in defeating Islamists to a large extent is dependent on our ability to avoid the deadly polar positions of demonizing all Muslims or rejecting any criticism of Islam; recognizing friends and foes and knowing how to tell the difference.

An End to Pakistan--or a New Beginning?

For some time now, I have familiarized myself with several nationalities living in what is now Pakistan:  Baloch, Sindh, Pashtun, Kashmiris, Gilgit Baltistanis, Punjabi Hindus, and others.  Since Pakistan's creation in 1947--a statement by the Indian Subcontinent Muslim League that Muslims and Hindus cannot live together--these national groups have been chafing under various forms of oppression and the attempted eradication of their national characteristics.

Pakistan is an artificial, polyglot rump state that was once part of a large "Indian" entity; in 1971, its lost its remaining, non-contiguous Bengali portion (then called East Pakistan) when it broke away to form Bangladesh.  What makes Pakistan different from India, the other part of the British Raj's partition of the greater subcontinent?  Although Pakistan did not declare itself an Islamic Republic, with Islam as the official state religion, until 1956; it was in fact created as a Muslim-dominated country.  This is contrary to the history of India, which has maintained its status as a secular state, with no official state religion. Additionally, Indian authorities come from a range of its subgroups and nationalities.  Pakistan is and has been dominated by one:  Punjabis, and specifically Muslim Punjabis.  Further, although India has seen many incidents of serious inter-communal violence by Muslims and Hindus against one another; the minority Muslims enjoy a range of protections that the state has enforced with vigor.  Such has not been the lot for Hindus in Pakistan who complain--with a good deal of evidence--that Pakistan is guilty of an anti-Hindu jihad.  I have been to the camps in New Delhi of Hindu refugees from Pakistan and taken the refugees' testimony of their oppression--both in violent incidents and in regular day-to-day oppression of Hindus, including forced conversion which the government does not criminalize.  Thus, in Pakistan's 1951 census, Hindus were counted at 12.9 percent of the population.  In 2014, they were down to 1.85 percent with a net decrease in population of about 17 percent.  In contract, from 1951 to 2011, Indian Muslims grew from 9.8 percent to 14.2 percent with a net increase in population of almost 400 percent.

Internationally Pakistan has a well-founded reputation for oppressing its own people, supporting an intelligence service that has been defined by some countries as a terrorist group, proliferating nuclear weaponry, massive corruption, and sponsoring worldwide terrorism, especially against India.  These national groups--especially the Baloch (predominantly Muslim), the Pashtun (predominantly Muslim), and the Sindhi (predominantly Hindu)--offer a way out of this morass.  All of them have a history that eschews an official religions and welcomes others as equal members of the same polity; regardless of faith, they are strongly anti-Islamist; they believe in allowing different ethnic and national groups to develop as nations (whether within a confederation or independently); and they are fighting against the human rights atrocities that have become daily life for many inside the nation of Pakistan.  The next few years will be critical.  Pakistan and China have been developing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which the Pakistanis believe will make them immune to demands from democracies and those fighting radical Islamic terror.  That expansion of Chinese dominance all the way to the warm water port of Gwadar in Balochistan, threatens both US and Russian interests and could be the basis for the sort of common interest cooperation suggested by US President Donald Trump.  Many youth among the Baloch and Pashtun, have been looking for the West to support their insurgencies but are finding that the only real support they get is from Islamist groups.  If we do not support these efforts, it's likely that more will join with Islamists in the (probably mistaken) hope that it will bring relief to their peoples.  And there are regional implications:  Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi already has expressed support for the Baloch and has interests in what happens to its perennial rival; Afghanistan often identifies as a Pashtun state; and Balochistan is occupied by both Pakistan and Iran.  There are many restive national minorities in both countries.  Pakistan is only about half Punjabi; and Iran is only about 40 percent Persian.  There is a lot of opportunity to keep those terror-supporting nations busy trying to stay together as states, such that their pursuit of international goals would be suppressed.

We have the opportunity, and many of the leaders of these groups have told me they are hopeful of a change in US policy that will help their causes while they together end up advancing US interests. But the clock is ticking.

The Balochistan Project

One of the things that came out of the Thailand government's anti-democratic actions against our peaceful meeting (see December 9 blogpost); was a decision for us to create an NGO that would be the repository of validated information about human rights atrocities against the Baloch by the occupying powers.  "The Balochistan Project" will be a sharpened sword pointed against those who continue to commit these atrocities and suppress Baloch nationality--which existed before their own.

Next month, The Balochistan Project will convene its inaugural gathering in London.  Many of the principles who will attend have been working on our answer to Pakistani and Iranian oppression since the incident they supported in Thailand.  Thus, their anti-democratic actions in fact are having precisely the opposite impact that they intended.

The Balochistan Project is committed to truth and justice; that is, we have developed methods to verify the numerous reports already coming to us; such that we will provide world leaders with information that we know will stand up against by denials by Pakistan, Iran, and their enablers.

Principles of The Balochistan Project also have been reaching out to or contacted by other oppressed nationalities from what is now called Pakistan:  secular Pashtun, Sindhi, Punjabi Hindus, and others.  Stay tune, because you will be hearing a lot more about The Balochistan Project and eventually, the liberation of these nationalities.  Victims of a real occupation.

Narendra Modi's Game Changing Action

Indian Prime Minister has been talking about Balochistan--a lot, including this on August 13, 2016, Pakistan "bombs its own citizens using fighter planes [and will] have to answer to the world for the atrocities committed by it against people in Balochistan and POK."  To be sure, it was another clear message that the craven days of Modi's predecessors are gone, and that India will no longer roll over for Pakistan.  It also was something that few democratically elected leaders have done in this existential war against radical Islam and its enablers:  Prime Minister Modi took the fight to the enemy.

How reactive and predictable are we in the face of this enemy!  Some sad sack tries to set his shoe on fire on a plane, and we have to take off our shoes before we can board.  A few amateurs try to blow up planes with liquid explosives, and we can't take our bottle of water with us.   For years, New Delhi danced to Islamabad's tune, allowing Pakistan to commit regular violations in Kashmir then accusing India of "atrocities"; driving out Hindus then saying "popular sentiment" demands an Indian withdrawal--and India does nothing.  I saw the previous government give on point after point even after Pakistan trained and funded terrorists to attack India.

No more; not with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.  Adding to the man's accomplishment, his enemies, foreign and domestic, were ready to paint him as a racist, warmonger, and anything else they could use; but he has been able to bring India to this self-respecting position without acting in ways that make those screeds at all credible.  Even here in the United States, there is a strong current to replace our decades long Pakistan-ties with Indian ones.  And Modi's politically-motivated detractors on Capitol Hill have gone silent.

Returning to Balochistan, much of the world has been obsessed with a non-existent occupation in the Middle East while ignoring a very real and brutal one in Pakistan.  Baloch, Pashtun, Gilgit Baltstanis, Sindhi, and Kashmiris all will tell you that.  Perhaps other world leaders need to take a lesson from Modi ji and stop letting our enemies define the agenda or tell us what is just

Human Rights Groups Unite in California -- Update

The human rights meeting, referenced last month, was held in Artesia, California, on Sunday, June 26 in honor of World Refugee Day.  Jagriti and Kashmiri Hindu Foundation hosted the event.  Congressman Ed Royce, Chairman of the powerful House Foreign Relations Committee, send words of greeting and support for the multi-ethnic, multi-religious gathering.

Keynote speakers included Dr. Amrit Nehru of the aforementioned Kashmiri Hindu Foundation, Yangchen Gakyil of Tibetan Association of California, Sagir Shaikh of the World Sindhi Congress, Aziz Baloch of International Voice for Baloch Missing in Canada; and yours truly who addressed the Bangladeshi Hindu issue and our common goals and possible action.

 As I noted in my address, we have to make sure it was not another seminar or meeting where people talked about justice but did nothing to help achieve it.  In the coming months, I will be working with all of the peoples represented to advance our common struggle for justice.  More to come as we turn the goodwill into joint action.

Human Rights Groups Unite in California

On June 26, 2016, I will be the featured speaker at a seminar called to observe World Refugee Day. The invitation-only event will be held in Artesia, California and bring together representatives from several groups struggling against radical Islam:

• The Baloch
• The Bangladeshi Hindus
• The Kashmiri Hindus
• The Pashtun
• The Sindhi

They will tell the stories of their peoples' struggles, and provide evidence of human rights abuses committed against them by Islamists and their cohorts in the Pakistani and Bangladeshi governments. Then, I will provide a unified strategy that all can follow together toward victory.  If successful, this will mark a turning point in the fight against religious fanaticism, complicity by governments afraid to take a stand against it or to protect all their peoples, and inaction by world bodies, individual governments, media, and the human rights industry.

East Meets West in the land of Ignorance

Daniel Pipes, the great American scholar and expert on the Middle East, Islam, and more recently said in a Times of India interview that, “there’s a tendency in west Asia to blame western powers for whatever happens – be it as large as Islamic State or as small as a traffic jam.”  Having spent years in west Asia’s great cities and remote villages, I can confirm his observation.  Conspiracy theories abound.  They come from street vendors and auto drivers, educators and officials.  Take this exchange between an Urdu journalist (UJ) and me (RB) in Northern India:

   (UJ):  Every Muslim child knows that seven Jews control the entire world’s media.

   (RB):  Really?  I must have missed that meeting of the ‘world Jewish conspiracy.’  Who are they?

   (UJ):  Rupert Murdoch.

   (RB):  Not Jewish.  A good man; friend of Israel; but not Jewish.  [This is a well-established fact, challenged only by openly anti-Jewish sites like “Jewwatch.com.”  Murdoch attends church and holds an honor with the Catholic Church.]   Who else?

     (UJ):  Ted Turner.

    (RB):  Ted Turner?  I don’t think he even likes Jews!  [He is virulently and openly anti-Israel, has run afoul of the Jewish community many times, and in 1996 had to issue a public apology to the Jewish community for comparing Rupert Murdoch to Adolf Hitler, which is another fact making an alleged conspiracy involving the two of them nonsensical.]  It’s really shocking that you, a shaper of opinion and an educated person helps spread these blatant inaccuracies.  You’re supposed to inform your people, not feed them propaganda.

The level of ignorance about the United States especially, a nation that never colonized the region but has shed a lot of blood to save its people from terrorists, is astounding.  I once watched a rising star of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lecture a group of PhD students about how US policy was controlled by the Christian Church.  At a different university, I heard a renowned leftist professor suggest a US conspiracy against non-whites by saying that “ninety-percent” of African-Americans are in prison.  Neither even attempted to provide any objective evidence.

Our ignorance about you is equally shameful.  When I started working on human rights in Bangladesh, I was aghast at how few Americans knew where it was or even that it was a country.  At one point, many Americans at least associated it with former Beatle George Harrison; but even that has faded into history.  Then there was the college-educated American who heard I was working to save Hindus and who looked at me and very seriously asked:  “Hindus, aren’t they Muslim?”

Thus, the Pashtun who want Americans to understand their struggle so they can assess where their tax money goes, have to recognize this; the same goes for the Baloch and Sindhi.  For Americans, many of whom know little about Pakistan except the name, mere assertions of nationality are likely to fall on deaf ears.  If you want Americans to know your people and their dreams, you need to:

• Grab us on an emotional level, but not with rantings, wild accusations, and big theories. Let us see you, feel like we know you, so we can experience the same joys, sorrows, and aspirations as you.  This will take time and require a well thought out program of awareness.  As an American, I know what will do it and am anxious to help.  However, it must be done continuously, again and again without becoming boring or repetitious, and we must be proactive in addressing audiences.

• If you are going to allege any human rights abuses, incursions on your ancestral homeland, or other actions; you must make sure you have solid, objective evidence to support it. Through media and internet, we hear so many wild accusations and allegations of bad behavior that people are likely to dismiss them unless there is something else that resonates with them; and so often, the allegations turn out to be exaggerated or false.  More importantly, even if they are true, those who make them often fail to provide the convincing proof when they are inevitably challenged by those being accused.

If you do this, you will see as have so many other peoples, that Americans are the most generous people on the planet.  We have helped in disasters, used our geopolitical influence to stop human rights abuses, and even shed blood for good causes—whether it was stopping the atrocities against Muslims in Bosnia or funding the United Nations, even though it often takes positions against us and our allies.

It will not be easy or without its challenges.  However if it is done intelligently, in an organized fashion, and relentlessly, we will succeed.  You have a compelling story, and Americans are the right people to whom we should tell it.

Nationalist Muslims: Antidote to Islamists?

Most Muslim-majority nations are stitched together nations; that is, forced marriages of several other peoples with independent and even conflicting existences.  Most people, for instance, know that Iraq was formed with Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds.  Few of them, however, realize the Iran is only about 60 percent Persian.  The other 40 percent are comprised of different national groups, most Muslim, many still yearning for independence.  Pakistan's dominant ethnic group, Punjabis, make up only about 45 percent of that country.  Both Iran and Pakistan both have several Sunni Muslim peoples straining under their oppressive yokes and looking for their independence.

I've been one of the characteristics of radical Islam is that it owes no allegiance to any national entity, except perhaps for temporary, strategic reasons.  Its view is universal; we refer to a worldwide Caliphate.  The groups mentioned above reject that and emphasize nationalism.  Moreover, part of their nationalism virulently rejects Islamism and seeks to re-establish nations that are equally welcoming to people of all faiths.  They also believe that the current nations of Iran and Pakistan are tied to radical Islam; and they oppose that as much as the occupation of their countries.

Is the West missing an opportunity if it does not support these peoples?

Do they also provide a real alternative to the flailing about for non-radical Muslims, which often settles on faux moderates?

Islam's diversity opens gates for victory over Islamism

Many people in the west are desperately trying to find an answer to the scourge of radical Islam.  There are at least two problems facing them:  many push back at the thought of identifying a religion with terrorism (which often finds people at the poles of bigotry or fecklessness); lack of thorough and uncluttered information about Islam and Muslims has prevented a more complex understanding.  There is an answer to both problems.

Muslims are as diverse as any other group of people.  Many not only reject Islamism (or Islam as a political ideology); quite a few are trying to combat it, often at their peril.  If we recognize that diversity, it is a lot easier to square the recognition of Islam's role in modern-day terrorism and tyranny with our liberal western values of not vilifying people because of their faith.

By now, many people understand that many Middle Eastern countries (e.g., Iraq) were post-World War II creations of European colonial powers that threw diverse populations together without regard to their distinctions--Shia and Sunni, Kurd and Arab, Kurd and Persian, etc.  There's more than--much more--and it can be the basis of a strategy for victory over Islamism.

Take Iran, for example.  To westerners, it might seem like a country divided at times across political lines, something that the government suppresses ruthlessly.  Few westerners know, however, that only about 60 percent of the country is made up of ethnic Persians.  The remaining 40 percent is divided among several national and often restive minorities.  Some, like the Azeri, have an independent nation as well (i.e., Azerbaijan).  Others (e.g., Kurds) have been fighting for one while being spread across multiple Muslim-majority giants.  The Baloch, once had an independent state of their own (Baluchistan), which has been occupied by Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan for decades.  These and other non-Persian groups aspire to be free of Iranian hegemony that suppresses their culture and forces an alien form of Islam on them.  Some have even taken action, such as the killing of 18 Iranian Guardsmen in 2007.

Pakistan is another polyglot state with restive minorities.  The largest part of Baluchistan is occupied by Pakistan; and although Baluchistan is rich in minerals and other resources, Pakistani plunder has left it the nation's poorest province.  Other national groups--Sindhi, Pashtun, and Gilgit Baltistanis--long for independence or at least autonomy and have their own independence movements.  Many of their operatives look to regional leaders like Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for inspiration; and almost all look to Israel as a model and ally.

Finally. as ISIS has begun establishing itself in South Asia, there is division even among Islamists.  Many look at the Taliban as their indigenous movement and ISIS as a foreign entity that is attempting to take over their movement.

One of the biggest drags on western support (even clandestine) for these groups is fear by some in ruling circles that these efforts will "destabilize" the region and risk putting Pakistan's nuclear arsenal in ISIS or Taliban hands.  Both arguments are weak.  You can't destabilize something that is not stable to begin with.  Pakistan has faced Islamist attempts at a takeover at least since 2008; its intelligence service is already listed as a terror supporting organization by the United States and others.  We also have seen that ignoring nationalist movements like these only delays the struggle.  Do any of those fearful westerners see peaceful and democratic resolution of these conflicts in Pakistan's history.  And their nuclear arsenal is already at risk from both internal and external Islamist threats.  Hopefully, the United States and others have secured them in case the worst happens.  Finally, most people believe that a good part of those nukes are located in Baluchistan.  Wouldn't it be nice if they were controlled by friendly forces and not just those that tolerate us for convenience and personal gain?

Anti-Israel EU Labeling Ignores Real Occupations

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized the European Union’s (EU) decision forcing importers to differentially label Israeli products from Judea and Samaria (aka West Bank) and the Golan Heights as “hypocritical and [that it] constitutes a double standard.”

The administration of US President Barack Obama expressed support for the EU effort.  But then, as US Senator and presidential candidate Marco Rubio noted, Obama “treats the Prime Minister of Israel with less respect than what he gives the Ayatollah in Iran.”

The EU seems obsessively anti-Israel with its decision not to identify products from the West Bank and Golan as “Made in Israel” as only the latest example of that obsession.  It calls ad nauseam for Israel-Arab negotiations as the only path to peace but has already pre-determined their outcome by saying that these disputed territories are not part of Israel.  In lock step, that Obama administration spokesman who expressed support for the labeling also said that “we do not consider settlements to be part of Israel.” 

The evidence of this “asymmetrical” warfare against the Jewish State goes beyond righteous indignation, however.  That same EU labeling that targets Israel’s unconfirmed "occupation” ignores real ones, most egregiously Iran and Pakistan’s occupation of   Baluchistan.

Baluchistan stretches across southwestern Pakistan, southeastern Iran, and a small section of southwestern Afghanistan.  When the British left India, they thought they were leaving an independent Baluchistan, but the Pakistanis ruthlessly crushed it and have been treating the Baloch as virtual serfs ever since.  I’ve never heard of the EU refusing to label Balochi exports as Made in Pakistan, and their occupation is not disputed, as is the one with which they are obsessed.  Moreover, there are massive human rights violations by both Pakistan and Iran against the Baloch, and the European Union remains silent about them.  Moreover, Iran’s violations (see as one example, http://www.interfaithstrength.com/Studies%20on%20IRAN.pdf, scroll to page 196) were never even raised during the ill begotten “negotiations” on Iran’s nuclear program.  And judging by the slobbering excitement with which Europeans are greeting prospects of commerce with Iran; don’t expect them to be.

Only about 60 percent of Iran’s population is Persian.  The rest are ethnic minorities (many Muslim) whose identity is being ruthlessly crushed.  There are Baloch, Sindhi, and Pashto independence movements within Pakistan, all Muslim.  Yet, none of them is being taken up by the anti-Jewish state obsessed European Union.

It seems that the EU’s finger wagging “morality” is selective and coincides with historical European  tastes and economic interests.  When will the world wake up and stop Europe's carnage-complicit hypocrisy?