The Horrific New Sharia Mini-State
Allowing the Taliban to impose Islamic law is turning life into a nightmare for residents in a Pakistani province.
In February, the Pakistani Army and the Taliban signed a truce that, in effect, granted the latter an unencumbered right to impose Sharia law on Swat, formerly a tourist-friendly region of Pakistan located about an hour away from Islamabad. The stated aim of this marriage of convenience (and cynicism) was to drive a wedge between the more reactionary jihadist element and the so-called “moderate” exponents of Islamism. What this deal amounted to was an acquiescence to barbarism, and it didn’t take long before the fetid yield was apparent to all. According to the New York Times, days after the truce was signed, “a member of a prominent anti-Taliban family returned to his mountain village, having received assurances from the government that it was safe. He was promptly kidnapped by the Taliban, tortured and murdered.”
Hundreds of thousands of Swat residents have fled since the Taliban gained de facto — and now de jure — control over key parts of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). This means that Pakistan is not just faced with the problem of an Islamist statelet metastasizing within its own borders; it also faces a mounting internal refugee crisis. Seventy percent of Swat is today governed by a self-appointed clerisy that has instituted a total ban on music, alcohol, female education, and non-Islamic literature. Despite reassurances from Taliban leader Muhammed Molana Izzat Khan — who must have been laughing as he made them — that Sharia law would not equal the dispensation of Islamic justice, all evidence to date has contradicted this quaint prognosis.
As the Weekly Standard’s Bill Roggio reports:
The Taliban carried out three suicide bombings just this weekend; sixteen police and paramilitary troops were killed in suicide attacks in Islamabad and North Waziristan, while 24 Shia worshippers were murdered in a suicide attack outside of a mosque in central Punjab province. Very rarely are any of the terrorists behind the attacks captured. Pakistani political leaders seem to express more outrage at the occasional American airstrikes that target al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders than at the near-daily suicide attacks throughout the country.”
In a country where suicide-murder is par for the course, what hope is there to excite popular or entrenched opinion on behalf of civilization? We’re a visual species, and very often an image or series of them will do. Consider this video, which has emerged in the past week, of a veiled 17-year-old girl being flogged for the “crime” of leaving her home with a man who was not her husband (despite the fact that her family members were in the home at the time of his visit). Recorded on a cell phone camera (truly never has the fusion of medievalism and modernity been more darkly exemplified), the victim, Chand Bibi, is held down by three bearded men while a fourth beats her backside repeatedly. “Please stop it,” she manages to cry in between wails of pain. “Either kill me or stop it now.” According to Pakistan’s Dawn News, the man who recorded the gruesome episode says it took place two weeks ago and that Bibi’s corporal “punishment” came after she refused to marry a local man, who in his battered male pride decided to do some battering himself and joined the Taliban.
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Michael Weiss is a senior editor of Tablet Magazine and a culture blogger for The New Criterion. He also writes occasionally for Slate, The Weekly Standard, City Journal, The New York Daily News and Standpoint.
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29 Comments
1. Anonymous:“When we compromise everybody wins,” eh? Doesn’t work with bullies (including the Taliban).
Apr 8, 2009 - 2:33 am 2. Delia:“No mother or father alive can watch the video without experiencing sheer revulsion and hatred for the men responsible.”
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You got that right there, Mr. Weiss. The plight of Pakistani women under ‘Sharia law thuggery’ is indeed upsetting and sad on a deeply human [emotional] level.
Is there really such a thing as a “moderate Islamist”?
Apr 8, 2009 - 2:57 am 3. Meryl:And sharia law sprung from the same Islam that obama says was a formative influence in the development of the United States of America!
Why is the civilized world not laughing out loud at and RUNNING FROM this dangerous fraud?
We are truly frogs in the slowly heating pot, along with the Pakistani government.
Every Senator and Representative in our Congress should be brought up on charges and impeached if they don’t soon go after Soetero. They promised to uphold and defend our Constitution. They are not doing it.
Apr 8, 2009 - 3:23 am 4. Dougf:While the Taleban are their usual thuggish selves what is really concerning about these trends is the REASON why they can be ’successful’. They are in charge of Swat now because the Pakistani State lost the battles there and is in deadly fear of the contagion spreading throughout Army Ranks.
And its not just the Taleban use of violence at every possible opportunity although that certainly keeps the strayers in line. It’s the POPULAR demand for Sharia Courts BECAUSE the ‘official’ system is incompetent, corrupt, and terminally SLOW. The problem that ‘we’ must have with Pakistan is not that it won’t (read -can’t) fight off these medieval monsters; it’s that its very institutions CREATE the environment in which these ‘creatures’ thrive. Pakistan is a Failed State in all but name. The Taleban are a symptom of the rot, but even if they magically disappeared the rot at the core of that ‘State’, would still be there. Used to be that in Pakistan at least the Army was to be sort of trusted as at least minimally competent. Now I don’t even think that is true.
This isn’t over, and it won’t end well, in the short/medium terms, given the current trend lines. Against a competent ‘State’, the Taleban would have a pretty hard time. Against the Pakistani State, all they have to do is BE THERE, and the power that the failing State cannot exercise or even retain in its grasp, simply flows increasingly to them. The problem is in Islamabad not in Swat. And it ain’t going away.
Apr 8, 2009 - 4:18 am 5. Andrew Lale:If you paid attention to the progression of events in Iraq, you would not fear this development. Wherever sharia is forced on people who lead largely secular lives, they hate it. Even the ones who initially welcome it get bored with the rediculous seventh century restrictions. Having just been in Jordan, and enjoyed numerous evenings in the bar, beering it up with the locals, I’d say most Muslim countries would never tolerate sharia with all its excruciating drudgery for very long.
Apr 8, 2009 - 4:27 am 6. marinelurp:The ‘person’ trying to hold down the poor girl, (read that she is only 17) is dressed in a Burka style and must be a woman. The one holding her legs was reported to be her brother, he at least seems to avoid looking at her. The ASSH*le Taliban man indeed enjoys repressing and beating her. The Taliban are nothing more than the local expression of Wahabi followers (not the 80% moderate muslims) who demand ‘holy jihad’, back to the early days of Islams’ expansion. This is the “WHO” that the War on Terror should be fighting against, please take note, Mr. President. God Help USA.
Apr 8, 2009 - 4:45 am 7. Mary Jackson:Death before Dishonor,
Recon-Swift, Silent, Death to our true enemies!
“No mother or father alive can watch the video without experiencing sheer revulsion and hatred for the men responsible.”
No normal mother or father to be sure. But for one infected with Sharia, this would be quite normal. Witness the honour killings so prevalent among Muslims, endorsed by fathers, brothers, uncles and even mothers.
Apr 8, 2009 - 6:10 am 8. tanstaafl:The creation of The Horrific New Sharia Mini-State is an advancement of the Islamist agenda inside Pakistan and (yet another) indication of a weak Islamabad government in disarray.
The official designation of such an enclave should be impossible in these times, but there it is. All primitive Islamists/fundamentalists are ecstatic at this turn of events and encouraged in their goal of talking over the entire region, Afghanistan, Pakistan and beyond.
There is a relationship between the semi-official approval of Shari’a law in Swat and an increase in devastating, suicide bombings, the latest, an attack on a Shi’a mosque. Presumably the pro Sunni/Taliban will feel no compunction in slaughtering Shi’a Muslims, just as was so for al Zarqawi in Iraq.
The US President’s paeans to Islam and Muslims are completely beside the point in this whole story, beyond providing some laughter to the sadistic floggers of this young girl.
Apr 8, 2009 - 8:00 am 9. karlstro1:If anyone in the US thinks we are not at war with traditional Islam then you are very naive. No amount of dialog will bring peace. They want the total destruction of a free society. Obama lacks the leadership skills to protect America.
Apr 8, 2009 - 8:35 am 10. LynnS:Well this is not a surprise. Any predominately Muslim Country is one second from Sharia even sadly Iraq. The religion teaches that the female is one half the value of the male, and all the honor hangs around her like a heavy yoke. I hear that in countries where killing a female to save honor is against the law or strictly prosecuted, girls and women are being pushed to commit suicide.
I exactly agree with those who find President Obama exaggerated and repeated overtures to the Islamic Faith and the foreign leaders who tout Sharia as ideal a terrible tragedy.
Apr 8, 2009 - 9:20 am 11. mohammed:Well well well. The last time we checked, these countries were allies of George Bush. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt… go figure.Don’t bring Obama into it. Obama is probably bad news to the rulers of these countries because he appeals to the masses. George has not relinquished his and his family’s interests in oil companies gorging on the riches of arabia.
Apr 8, 2009 - 11:47 am 12. Marc Malone:#11 mohammed – So what if they’re allies? They are all Muslim countries, slaves to foul Islam. This stuff happens in all muslim countries. We talk about it happening in Pakistan, only because it has strategic value to us right now. It is typical of what happens to any country heavily infected with the disease of Islam.
Obama will do nothing, as he is a Muslim taqiyya, as evinced by his bowing to the Sa’ud King. He was never apostate, just a sleeper agent.
Apr 8, 2009 - 2:25 pm 13. LynnS:Obama is in it. But go ahead and make excuses for him. Last time I checked he was Bow Wowing the Saudis. Seems to me the Saudi few have done a good job themselves of exploiting the riches for themselves, sterling silver cars, palaces as big as city blocks, golden toilets, and western fun to the few that share in the wealth.
Go ahead and blame that on us. The Middle East rarely takes responsibility for their own actions.
Apr 8, 2009 - 2:29 pm 14. marymcl:mohammed @11
Well, well, well yourself Kemosabe. Your point being what, exactly? I guess it’s no big deal to go around whitewashing sexual sadism in the name of Allah, especially when you can protect Obama’s good name and preserve the riches of Arabia in the process, huh?
But then, you agree with what was done to that girl, don’t you? You’re right, let’s leave Obama out of it and just talk about you. Flogged anyone lately?
Apr 8, 2009 - 2:41 pm 15. Doug Purdie:Pakistan has effectively given up sovereignty over the Swat region. I guess that means the US can invade without compaint from the Pakistan government, right?
Apr 8, 2009 - 4:24 pm 16. Meryl:15. Doug…good point. I would think so.
Apr 8, 2009 - 5:34 pm 17. MiamaMan:No, a peaceful Islam is an oxymoron, there are only the bad Islam and the worse.
Apr 8, 2009 - 7:12 pm 18. Eric:mohammed @11
If the eco-Marxists and their Democrat allies would let us drill for our OWN oil we wouldn’t need to import oil from repressive Islamic countries. In my opinion it is the Left that is wholly responsible for US funding of 3rd world petroterrorist states.
Apr 8, 2009 - 7:38 pm 19. Peggy:“We should remind ourselves of the girl from Swat every time some “pragmatist” such as Fareed Zakaria or President Obama himself sounds the need for distinguishing “moderate” Islamists from their more extreme and primitive counterparts.”
And Camile Paglia actually had the NERVE to say today of Obama that “we have waited a long time for another president who dreams big.”
If the comment didn’t make me want to punch a wall, it would be hilarious.
Obama means the return of the kind of “pragmatism” that sells women and children up the f*ing river in exchange for an endless and useless exercise in “engagement” and “dialog” both code words for what is essentially busy work meant to look like something is being done while the status quo is carefully preserved for both sides. No real effort is made. No real risk is taken. Neither side has to worry about the other expecting any real change or even worse, forcing it.
We wouldn’t want to impose such “cultural” values such as the idea that it is good to treat women as equals and wrong to beat them like dogs in the street! It’s all so relative, really. (end sarcasm).
We had a President who dreamed big. Bush’s dream was to take down people like this and impose upon them an end to treating human beings, especially women, like crap. Whatever Bush’s failings, and there were many, this was a big dream and a great one. I miss him the most whenever I am reminded that we are back to the days of pragmatism in foreign policy and that ending the suffering of millions of people under tyrannical regimes is no longer as much of a priority as getting along with everyone and being able to have a good talk with our enemies.
Apr 8, 2009 - 8:17 pm 20. PatriotUSA:We should remind ourselves of the girl from Swat every time some “pragmatist” such as Fareed Zakaria or President Obama himself sounds the need for distinguishing “moderate” Islamists from their more extreme and primitive counterparts. Not only is this a self-serving dichotomy, focusing on whether a group’s avowed aim is attacking the West or just oppressively ruling the roost at home, but it invites the unconscionable flagellation of human rights.
So why is anyone surprised about the results the world is seeing in the Swat region? Here you have it, sharia law, the same one that people in the obuma administration are saying
should be integrated in with US law. Got that?
No, we MOST LIKELY will not see young women being beaten for such trivial offenses but sharia law is sharia law. Just like the mistake that the paks made, the one the US and other countries gave their not so silent approval of…when the paks give in to the taliban and gave them the Swat region to terrorize. Women under islam in general do not fare well. Women under islam and enforced sharia law are living in hell.
Since when are there moderate muslims?? How do you separate them from the militant ones? You can’t. In the mullah obamaham’s world this is what he is reaching out to. You cannot remove sharia from islam and islam cannot be removed from sharia. Jihad is jihad folks. Read Ibn Warraq’s book “The Legacy of Jihad”, islamic holy war and the fate of non-muslims. It will show the true face of jihad, sharia, persecution, subjugation of women, slaves, captives after and under islamic conquest. islam is AT WAR with us and has been since the 7th century. mullah obamaham and his musse sympathizing dhimmi stooges can keep their collective heads where the sun does not shine and pretend that we are not a war with islam. For many of us see things quite differently. islam equals war against infidels, kuffars. That makes islam my and should be your enemy. Read the qur’an, hadith and suras. Yes, I have and I close with this:
There is no peace within islam, and with islam there can be no peace.
Apr 8, 2009 - 11:01 pm 21. Meryl:PatriotUSA: Your last sentence says it well.
Islam is not and never was “just another religion”. It is, simultaneously, a domineering and cruel religion (especially to its adherents) and a totalitarian form of government.
Islam was never intended to be “just a religion”.
The intention and design of Islam was and is to subjugate (or behead) anyone who disagrees and then, once successful in that, continue to subjugate (and let the beatings begin) those who surrender.
In this (still free) land of bookstores and libraries, anyone who refuses to educate themselves about the historical and contemporary record of Islam is part of the problem.
Apr 9, 2009 - 3:09 am 22. LynnS:#19 Peggy
Hear! Hear!
If anyone is interested in President Obama’s opinion of Afghanistan and Sharia Law sneaking in, here it is….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceP3VAgR4qo
Respect the customs people! Respect Islam! Same old, same old.
Apr 9, 2009 - 6:47 am 23. kelly k:“… the need for distinguishing ‘moderate’ Islamists from their more extreme and primitive counterparts.”
If they did a better job of distinguishing themselves, the pragmatists wouldn’t have to expend so much energy insisting that there is a distinction.
Apr 9, 2009 - 10:25 am 24. Oscar the Grump:Talking about this mini-state, this video of a girl being beaten is nothing. I have a video where these same bearers of justice decapitate a half dozen men and stand proudly enjoying being video taped. Its so bad that when I showed it to my wife, she became ill.
Apr 9, 2009 - 3:17 pm 25. Linda Mae:Google Fitna and watch the 16 minute documentary to see what life is like for those who are not “good” Moslems. I thank God that my nephew’s wife was able to leave Iran in 1995 because her mom realized the dangers living in that country. We need to write to our Congressmen and our media expressing outrage that they do not cover this behavior.
Apr 9, 2009 - 8:47 pm 26. ked5:a little less than a year ago, Kenya held elections, and the muslim candidate lost. riots exploded. obama went to Kenya, supporting his cousin Odinga in imposing sharia law in a “minority” muslim country.
Apr 10, 2009 - 9:49 am 27. ked5:No mother or father alive can watch the video without experiencing sheer revulsion and hatred for the men responsible.
~~~~~~~~~~
Actually, there are any number of news stories of muslim fathers (in Europe, Israel, and the US) who’ve done worse to their own daughters. all in the name of “honor”.
Apr 10, 2009 - 10:06 am 28. ked5:My point was, this is not limited to taliban muslims in muslim countires. this is a muslim practice, and those who object are seen as rebellious.
Apr 10, 2009 - 10:20 am 29. Blackwater:The lesson from Swat Pakistan is clear and old as dirt: Give the islamists an inch and they’ll take a mile. Nobody should ever make concessions to islamists. Not Irael with the islaimists in the Palestinian territories, not America with al queda, not coalition forces with the taliban, not Lebanon with hezbollah, etc. We also need to come together to defeat islamofacism like we did with communism. We need the same level of effort and resolve. We need to embark upon a secularization effort targeted specifically at islam. No other religion condones and encourages using militay force to spread their religion. It’s time we stop being politically correct and recognize that ugly truth. If these islamists had the military might to spread their religion by force to the entire world they would. Islam itself is a facist and imperialistic ideology. It’s time we treat it like one rather than treating it like the other worlds great religions like Christianity and Buddhism.
Apr 10, 2009 - 11:15 am