Islamists to the rescue: Time for a reassessment

By Farish A Noor

During my recent visit to Pakistan-administered Kashmir, I found myself in
the city of Muzafarabad. Approaching the city one is struck by the sight and
images of Nature’s sheer brute force, which, when unleashed, is terrible and
terrifying indeed. The urban landscape of Muzafarabad is surreal to say the
least: Homes were levelled in an instant, and in many cases the second story
of houses collapsed intact on the ground floor, crushing and killing the
occupants beneath. Schools were pulverised, roads split open, bridges torn
apart. I was struck by one incident in particular: walking through the
rubble of what used to be a house, I chanced upon a broken transistor radio
that was still working. The radio was playing the hit song by the rock group
Korn, ‘Twisted Transistor’. Life’s cruel ironies come into bold relief under
such poignant circumstances.

For foreign observers such as myself, the catastrophic earthquake opened a
window of opportunity that was hitherto rare: It meant that foreigners could
finally be allowed to travel to and through Kashmir, a region formerly kept
out of bounds to many outsiders. Having found myself there I was struck by
the scope and scale of the international relief effort. The International
Committee of the Red Cross was there, as were other groups like Diakonie
from Germany and Medicins Sans Frontiers from France. Even the Americans and
Cubans were there in full force, though as the local Pakistani army
commander informed me, the two parties had to be kept apart as best as they
could!

But the most spectacular aspect of the relief operation was the presence of
so many Muslim and Islamist groups, both local and foreign, that had set up
their operations and were working side-by-side (though not necessarily
co-operating with each other.) The Turkish contingent was by far the biggest
and most visible, with Muzafarabad being turned into a ‘mini Istambul’ of
sorts. Everywhere one could see banners and posters proclaiming the
Kashmiris’ new-found love for Turkey and the Turks: ‘We Love Turkey’ blared
one poster. ‘Arm-in-Arm we welcome our Muslim brothers from Turkey’ said
another.

Also evident was the sterling efforts of local Islamist groups, notably the
Jama’at-e Islami and the Jama’atul Dawa, whose field camps, tent villages,
food centres and mobile field hospitals were the most sophisticated I have
seen in recent times. The Jama’atul Dawa’s field clinic in Muzafarabad
boasted of clean operating tables, labs, x-rays and CAT scanners - equipment
that one would be hard pressed to find even in ordinary state-run hospitals
in any other parts of the developing world.

Talking to local residents of Muzafarabad and Chikar, I was told of the
valiant efforts of the Islamists who braved the elements to rescue the
victims of the quake during the first 24 hours after it hit: “They (the
Islamists) were the first to come. They rushed into the smashed buildings
and pulled the people out by hand. They used donkeys and mules to get food,
water and medicine to the villages in the mountains. They built rafts and
boats and used them to get up river to rescue those in the remote areas”. No
doubt about it: the Kashmiri people were touched and impressed by the
efforts of the Islamists.

From Aceh, Sumatra - that was devastated by the Tsunami last year - to the
mountains and valleys of Kashmir, a common pattern emerges: In times of
radical crisis the Islamist groups are always the best organised, most
disciplined, most committed and bravest among the relief workers and
rescuers. In Indonesia the Fron Pembela Islam (Islamic Defenders Front),
known for their notorious raids on bars, cafes and cinemas in Jakarta, were
the first ones on the scene after the tidal wave destroyed much of the Aceh
coastline.

Nor are the Islamists alone: Muslim solidarity entails that their efforts
are often a collective one, with other Islamist groups from afar coming to
lend a hand. In Kashmir other Islamist groups such as the Malaysian Islamic
Youth Movement (ABIM) were also there to lend a helping hand; and ABIM
played its part by opening orphanages and schools in places like Balakot and
Mansehra.

All of this should give us reason to pause for a while in thought: It is
well known that some of the Islamist groups active in these crisis-struck
regions are either formally or informally linked to militant outfits. The
Jamaat’ul Dawa’s links to militant groups like the Lashkar-e Tayeba are well
known, and the former has seldomed concealed it. But surely the humanitarian
efforts of these groups cannot and should not be discounted either. Had it
not been for the activists of the Jamaat’ul Dawa, hundreds or possibly
thousands more might have died in the days following the October earthquake
in Kashmir.

What this suggests is that even the most militant of groups can undergo a
change in operational behaviour and tactics when the situation necessitates
it. A natural disaster compels the militant to put down his gun and take up
the medical aid kit instead, and here the door is opened for them to realise
another avatar: that of civil society institutions. Many an Islamist group
have been labelled as ‘terrorists’, ‘fanatics’ and ‘extremists’ simply
because their political agendas do not sit comfortably next to the overall
long term imaginary of Washington or their own governments, yet we forget
that these organisations have always worked with the interests of their
constituencies in mind. Their discipline, commitment and willingness to
sacrifice everything - including the lives of their members - is something
that secular civil society organisations and NGOs can learn from, and indeed
emulate.

Today, with talk of ‘civil society’ being ever so fashionable, it is
tempting to demarcate a clear line between ‘nasty’ militant organisations
and ‘good’ secular NGOs. The fact is that no such clear line exists and in
many cases the realities on the ground show that militant groups,
underground networks and even criminal organisations can and often do serve
as a parallel civil society network. Think of the aftershock following the
earthquake in Kobe, Japan, when the Japanese mafia groups came to the help
of local residents of Kobe, long before the government’s medical services
were on the scene. Ideologically these militant outfits may have
trajectories and objectives of their own, but in terms of their organisation
and structure, they mirror (and often improve upon) civil society groups and
organisations. The aftermath of the Kashmir quake and the Tsunami disaster
would therefore give us reason to reassess our view of these Islamist
groups, and perhaps we should think of them as civil society actors as well.
That, at least, would allow us to escape the simplistic logic of the ‘war on
terror’ discourse and understand their mechanics better than we ever have.