SPECIAL Terrorism in Pakistan: the psychosocial PAPER context and why it matters Asad Tamizuddin Nizami,1 Tariq Mahmood Hassan,2 Sadia Yasir,3 Mowaddat Hussain Rana4 and Fareed Aslam Minhas5 1Assistant Professor, Institute of its west, China and the landlocked Asian countries Psychiatry, World Health Terrorism is often construed as a well-thought- Organization Collaborating out, extreme form of violence to perceived to its north and the Arabian Sea to its south. Centre for Mental Health, Benazir Pakistan gained independence from British colo- Bhutto Hospital, Rawalpindi injustices. The after effects of terrorism are Medical College, Rawalpindi, usually reported without understanding the nial rule in 1947 and is the only Muslim country – Pakistan; email drasadnizami@ underlying psychological and social with nuclear weapons a nuclear device was gmail.com – 2 determinants of the terrorist act. Since ‘9/11’ detonated in 1998 and is thus part of the infor- Assistant Professor, Providence ‘ ’ Care Mental Health Services, Pakistan has been at the epicentre of both mally named nuclear club. Pakistan is a feder- Kingston, Canada terrorism and the war against it. This special ation of four provinces (Punjab, Sindh, Khyber 3 Consultant Psychiatrist, Shifa paper helps to explain the psychosocial Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Balochistan), a capital International Hospital, Shifa College of Medicine, Islamabad, perspective of terrorism in Pakistan that leads territory (Islamabad) and a group of federally Pakistan to violent radicalisation. It identifies the administered tribal areas in the north west, 4 Director General, Centre for terrorist acts in the background of Pakistan’s along with the disputed area of Azad Jammu Trauma Research and Psychosocial Interventions, history, current geopolitical and social and Kashmir. ’ National University of Sciences scenario. The findings may also act as a guide Pakistan is the world s sixth most populous and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan on addressing this core issue. country with an average population density of 2 5Head Institute of Psychiatry, 229 people per km (World Bank indicators; World Health Organization http://www.tradingeconomics.com/pakistan/urban- Collaborating Centre for Mental Health, Benazir Bhutto Hospital, population-growth-annual-percent-wb-data.html). Rawalpindi Medical College, Since independence in 1947, Pakistan has been Most nations are unable to reach a consensus on a Rawalpindi, Pakistan challenged not only by the trauma inflicted by its legally binding definition of ‘terrorism.’ The term colonial occupiers but also by the mass murder Acknowledgements. We thank seems emotionally charged and, as such, govern- Tanya Tran from the Department of people migrating to the ‘new’ country. ments have been devising their own definitions. of Psychology at Queen’s Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, University and Dr Sobia Haqqi, So far the United Nations has been unable to Consultant Psychiatrist at Sir Syed looted, raped or burnt alive. At the same time, devise an internationally agreed-upon definition Medical College in Karachi for the stability of this fledgling country was signifi- their help in preparing part of this of terrorism. Terrorism is suggested to be ‘the cantly hampered by the lack of resources. Just a manuscript. use of intimidation or fear for advancement of pol- few years later, due to political instability and sep- itical objectives’ (Kruglanski & Fishman, 2006). Conflicts of interest. None. aratist movements and terrorism, the east wing of Since the ‘9/11’ incident, Muslim countries in par- the country was separated from Pakistan; this © The Authors 2018. This is an ticular feel emotionally threatened with the word Open Access article, distributed paved the way to the creation of a new country, terrorism and perceive it as synonymous with the under the terms of the Creative Bangladesh, in 1971 (Wadhwani, 2011). Commons Attribution- acts of terror carried out by so-called Muslim The Soviet–Afghan war, which began in 1979, NonCommercial-NoDerivatives extremist groups. This is further complemented licence (http://creativecommons. provided a breeding ground for terrorism in the org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which in the media by the unjust linking of such horren- region. A fundamental change was witnessed permits non-commercial re-use, dous terror attacks to Islamic Jihad. distribution, and reproduction in that altered the very character of the existing any medium, provided the ori- Terrorism has brought an enormous burden Pakistani society. Withdrawal of the Soviets ginal work is unaltered and is on South Asian countries through the adverse properly cited. The written per- revealed a Pakistani society that had been forced mission of Cambridge University impacts on their social, economic, political and into one of violence and weaponisation, plaguing Press must be obtained for com- physical infrastructure. Pakistan has suffered par- mercial re-use or in order to cre- Pakistan with so-called ‘Kalashnikov culture’ and ticularly excessively from the social, economic and ate a derivative work. ‘Talibanisation’ (Wadhwani, 2011). human costs due to terrorism (Daraz et al, 2012). Pakistan’s social landscape has for the most Surprisingly, Pakistan is portrayed as being on the part been plagued with illiteracy, disease, insecur- front line in the international war against terror- ity and injustice. Since the 9/11 incident, Pakistan ism and at the same time has been wrongly has been intricately linked with the many facets of labelled as a sponsor of international terrorism. the ‘war on terrorism.’ Some argue that Pakistan Terrorism in Pakistan is a multidimensional phe- is a breeding ground for terrorist outfits, but it nomenon and, among many precipitating factors, is certain that all of this havoc has resulted in the psychosocial factors play an important role. the significant loss of innocent lives as well as This paper attempts to address what we believe loss of economic revenue. These fragile conditions are significant psychosocial determinants to ter- provide a fertile ground for terrorism to grow. rorism in Pakistan. Historical developments Psychological influence Pakistan is a Muslim majority nation in South East The act of carrying out terrorist activity does not Asia with India to its east, Iran and Afghanistan to come from a single moment of inspiration but 20 BJPSYCH INTERNATIONAL VOLUME 15 NUMBER 1 FEBRUARY 2018 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. 28 Sep 2021 at 09:23:33, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use. rather from a complex process of cognitive accom- Urdu-medium government schools and madrassas modation and assimilation over accumulating were from poorer households than those in steps. It is wrongly reductionist to label the terror- English-medium private schools. The primary ists as mad or psychopaths (Atran, 2003; Horgan, reason for parents to send their children to 2008). Terrorists’ motivation may involve a deep, madrassas as opposed to mainstream schools was underlying quest for personal meaning and sig- that these institutions provided a good Islamic nificance. Several analyses of such motives have education. The second most common reason appeared in recent years. There are differences was that the madrassa provided education that is in these analyses regarding the type and variety low in cost along with the provision of food and of motivational factors identified as critical to ter- clothing (Cockcroft et al, 2009). rorism. Some authors identified a singular motiv- Another survey indicated that in Pakistan only ation as crucial; others listed a ‘cocktail’ of motives a minority of the religious schools promoted an (Sageman, 2004; Bloom, 2005). extremist view of Islam (Bano, 2007). An interro- The socioeconomic adversity combined with gation of 79 terrorists involved in anti-Western political challenges were bound to have a detri- attacks found that very few had attended a mental impact on the psyche of the average madrassa. This suggests that terrorist groups may Pakistani. A terrorist adopts a dichotomous way selectively recruit better qualified people for tech- of identifying their victims, the black-and-white nically demanding tasks (Bergen & Pandey, thought that ‘I am good’ and ‘you are evil,’ with 2006). However, the religious seminaries have no intermediary shades of grey. This thinking been implicated as playing the role of recruitment leaves no doubt in their minds and they find it centres for the suicide bombers (Nizami et al, easier to kill their opponents with little or no 2014). sense of remorse or guilt. In an effort to break this incorrect perception The unmanned army drone strikes killed and the Darul Uloom Deoband, the largest Islamic maimed thousands of innocent civilians in poor seminary in the world, hosted an anti-terrorist and difficult to access regions of Pakistan. This conference in 2008. This was attended by 6000 infuriated people, leading them to take up arms Imams declaring that ‘Islam is a religion of against the perceived aggressors. This triggering mercy for all humanity. Islam sternly condemns of the relatives of the deceased to engage in all kinds of oppression, violence and terrorism. such activity is the culture of revenge in It has regarded oppression, mischief, rioting Pakistan, which unfortunately can last for and murder among sins and crimes’ (Press generations. Trust of India, 2008). However, it is yet to be Self-sacrifice and martyrdom has been expli- ascertained how many religious schools in citly used