Jamal Khan drove 45 miles from his home in White Plains, N.Y., to 46th Street and First Avenue in front of U.N. headquarters in Manhattan, on April 26. He wanted to add his voice to the condemnation expressed by more than two dozen supporters of Awami National Party (ANP), who had gathered to protest bomb attacks on its candidates ahead of the May 11 landmark elections in Pakistan.<\/p>\n
Khan, who runs a fried chicken business and has been in the U.S. since 1991, shouted slogans in unison with his comrades. \u201cWe want peace\u201d; \u201cStop killing Pashtuns\u201d; \u201cStop terrorism\u201d and \u201cStop target killing ANP candidates\u201d were some of the demands that reverberated against a background of traffic and nearby construction noise. The protesters were referring to Taliban violence against the ANP’s predominantly Pashtun (also spelled \u201cPakhtoon\u201d) leadership.<\/p>\n
ANP is a Pakistani political party with a support base in the country’s mostly Pashtun northwest. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has announced plans to target three major secular parties \u2014 the ANP, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), to which President Asif Ali Zardari belongs, and the Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). Around 60 people have died in bomb attacks on ANP, PPP and MQM campaign workers and leaders across Pakistan since the beginning of April.<\/p>\n
The Al-Qaeda-affiliated TTP, an umbrella group of over two dozen Taliban outfits, is based in the North Waziristan region of the restive Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) corridor along Pakistan’s porous border with Afghanistan. It is blamed for the scores of terrorist attacks that have claimed the lives of over 40,000 Pakistanis since 2004.<\/p>\n
The protesters converged in front of the U.N. in response to a call from the U.S. chapter of the ANP. Unlike Khan, the majority of the participants had travelled from Brooklyn’s Coney Island Avenue, of \u201cLittle Pakistan\u201d fame. Almost all major Pakistani political parties maintain their presence in the United States mostly as non-profits. Some of these non-profits often raise campaign funds for their parent parties in Pakistan.<\/p>\n
\u201cStop the killing of ANP leadership and innocent Pakhtoons in the Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan,\u201d said Taj Akber Khan, organizer of the protest who is also president of the U.S. chapter of ANP, reading from a resolution over a megaphone. The interim government, said Taj, should provide a peaceful environment for holding free and fair elections by taking action against those committing \u201cthese evil acts.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to bring to the attention of the international community the organized violence against secular parties in Pakistan,\u201d Taj told party supporters. The U.N., he demanded, should press Pakistan’s interim government to create a conducive atmosphere for campaigning.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, electioneering is just taking place in Punjab (Pakistan’s most populous province) but candidates in the other three provinces (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and parts of Sindh) cannot reach their electorate,\u201d he said, fearing that fair elections might become a distant reality under such conditions. ANP says it has lost over 700 of its leaders and supporters over the past few years in attacks by extremists.<\/p>\n
The small but noisy protest in front of U.N. headquarters received big coverage in Pakistan’s mainstream television channels, since it coincided with a powerful bomb explosion in the country’s southern port city of Karachi. Eleven ANP supporters were killed and 50 injured when a bomb exploded near a small campaign gathering for the ANP candidate for the Sindh province’s legislature, of which Karachi is the capital. The Taliban instantly claimed responsibility for the attack.<\/p>\n
Taliban attacks are a new phenomenon in Karachi, which has seen political, sectarian, ethnic, militant and criminal violence for the past many years. According to a report by the United States Institute of Peace, the violence has claimed more than 7,000 lives since 2008. The Taliban violence has induced old political rivals \u2013 the MQM and ANP \u2013 to join hands against a common enemy. The two parties have rivaled each other for years to win political space in the port city.<\/p>\n
Just hours after the protest in Turtle Bay, Taj Akbar joined local leaders and supporters of the MQM at a restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens, to condemn the attacks. Pakistan Club, USA, a Queens-based community organization, hosted the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen candidates cannot run their election campaigns freely, how can the elections be fair?\u201d Anees Siddiqui, of the MQM, asked a small audience at the Kabab King restaurant located at 73rd Street and Broadway. The event’s host, Raees Warsi, shared Siddiqui’s sentiments.<\/p>\n
Extremists dictating election results?<\/strong><\/p>\n The Taliban do not believe in a secular democratic system, claiming Pakistan was created in the name of Islam and thus their brand of Sharia [Islamic law] should be the supreme law of the land there. The Taliban explained on April 29 that it was targeting the three parties because of their secular ideology and support for military operations against the group.<\/p>\n But not everyone sees this as the sole reason for their latest bloody campaign against pro-democracy political parties.<\/p>\n Arif Ansar, the founding CEO and chief analyst at Washington DC-based think tank PoliTact, believes the violence is connected to wider trends in the Middle East. \u201cThe liberal space is continually shrinking and nationalist and conservative forces are resurgent in the Middle East, as they have been in Pakistan,\u201d he told Voices of NY in response to an email query. \u201cThere are different reasons for this, but one of them is the war on terror. It may also be linked to the dysfunction of the liberal autocrats that triggered the Arab Spring.\u201d<\/p>\n Ansar fears that the violence could have far-reaching domestic, regional and international implications. \u201cIt can decisively shift the balance in favor of conservative, nationalist and religious elements in the elections. These forces were already resurgent due to factors such as the war on terror and the failure of secular parties to govern and deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n Ansar believes that if the conservatives or religious elements come into power as a result of this shift, they will exert influence on the reconciliation process in Afghanistan and the direction of Pakistan’s relations with India and the U.S.<\/p>\n Many in Pakistan and the community here in the U.S. fear that the upsurge in violence could delay the elections. But Arif Ansar doubts there will be a delay. \u201cBarring some major tragedy, like assassination of a major political leader, there is little chance of this happening,\u201d he says, adding that even the murder of Benazir Bhutto failed to stop the 2008 elections. He says the international community also wants these elections on time \u201cirrespective of how imperfect they may be.\u201d<\/p>\n The impact of violence on the election results makes many Pakistanis nervous, including Khan, who is a native of Swat valley in the country’s mountainous northwest, an area which was liberated from the Taliban in 2009 after a military operation.<\/p>\n \u201cI don’t think elections will be fair. The militants are sidelining the Pashtuns from the national mainstream,\u201d he said, while blaming the country’s security establishment for failing to provide adequate protection to the election candidates. Explaining the urgency that drove him to join the small protest, leaving his business to his employees, Khan said: \u201cThe stakes are higher than the profits from a day’s business.\u201d<\/p>\n By Jehangir Khattak, Voices of NY<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jamal Khan drove 45 miles from his home in White Plains, N.Y., to 46th Street and First Avenue in front<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1012],"tags":[2120],"class_list":["post-20137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","tag-travel"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"Jamal Khan drove 45 miles from his home in White Plains, N.Y., to 46th Street and First Avenue in front","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["Travel"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":150,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":6,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"Travel<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}