Because three of the four July 7 London bombers were of Pakistani origin and visited Pakistan the year before the bombings, and also because of allegations that one of them had become a militant while studying in Pakistan, there has been a barrage of stories in the international media that Pakistan is a haven for Al-Qaeda; that a number of madrasas in the country actively promote radicalism; that, unable or unwilling to clamp down on the militants, the government is effectively soft on terrorism. Pakistan has reacted strongly to such attempts to shift the blame on to it for the bombings. If British Muslims have been radicalized, Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram retorted, it is a British problem, and the result of Britain’s policies in the Middle East at that.
That is a moot point. The media speculation has not stopped however. The statement by the Cairo police immediately after the Sharm El-Sheikh bombings that they were searching for several Pakistani nationals in relation to the bombings had added color to the story. Even though Egypt has now told Pakistan that no Pakistani national was involved in the bombings and though the London assault is believed to have involved Somalis rather than second or third generation Pakistanis and the suicide bomber identified as responsible for the holiday resort blasts, Yousseff Badran, was from Al-Areesh on the northern coast of the Sinai Peninsula, it is not going to stop the barrage. The media, like politicians, need to blame someone for the atrocities; in the minds of its detractors, Pakistan too conveniently fits the bill.
But it is wrong and unfair to demonize Pakistan simply because there are supporters of Al-Qaeda and the Taleban there. Though not to the same extent, there are supporters of Al-Qaeda in the UK, in Turkey, Italy, Spain, France — in dozens of countries. Yet no one holds those places to blame for international terrorism. Perhaps they should. For years, the British refused to extradite to France an Algerian accused by the French of masterminding the 1995 Paris bomb attacks. Only last month did the Blair government finally change its mind, but not before the French accusations that Britain was soft on tackling global terrorism. If Pakistan can be accused of not doing enough to counter the militants, then London and Madrid certainly deserve similar condemnation. Well after 9/11, both allowed foreign militants to flourish unchallenged.
This demonization of Pakistan has to stop for another reason: There is a real danger that it could become a self-fulfilling prediction. President Pervez Musharraf is working hard to isolate the extremists and weaken their appeal. Pakistan is committed to the war against terrorism, investigating the activities of militants at home and providing information to foreign governments to prevent attacks abroad. A constant diatribe of anti-Pakistani blasts undermines those efforts. It could alienate public opinion and push it into a siege mentality. The only people to gain advantage from that would the militants.
