S Hamid
We are a global village; communication has shrunk distances to seconds. Numerous things have changed in terms of their context unfortunately the negatives are also getting augmented with the advent of technology. Terrorists are not centric anymore they spawn like “starfish” according to experts obtaining more than nine lives in the process. Terror financing is also constantly evolving revealing sources that used to be unheard of in the past. There are many Maddaris and other organizations that finance terrorist organizations such as IS (Daesh), Al Qaeda, Tehreek-e-Taliban and the list goes on and their major financial contributions come during Ramadan and Hides collected during Eid-ul-Azha.
Eids are an industry, it boosts the economy in all extents even foreign currency deficit eases; Eid-ul-Fitr generated a trillion Rupees in business alone this year. According to a study carried out in 2015, on average we donate Rs. 650 billion in charity, 68% is collected during Ramadan, and 73% of the respondents donate to mosques and religious seminaries, on an average that stands at a staggering Rs 474.5 billion. Last year 7.3 million animals were sacrificed on Eid-ul-Azha, generating around Rs. 6 billion in direct retail of hides, around Rs 50 billion are estimated to be generated from value added goods from these hides. In 2015, 40% of the annual demand of the tannery Industry in Pakistan was fulfilled by Eid-ul-Azha sacrifices alone, on an average the figure roughly stands around 30% per year. One very important factor to be considered here is the fact that the leather prices were down by 40% last year, the previous year i.e. 2014 the retail business generated around Rs 11-12 billion. GALLUP Pakistan puts the number of people donating hides to mosques and Maddaris each year around 40% and political party donations stood at 14% hence it is safe to assume that the donations that they received last year are more than a billion Rupees. Without doubting the intentions of the donors it is still important to ascertain the extent of funds a dubious foundation or party can raise during all occasions. Pakistan is only now beginning to realize the potential of the terror links and their evolving nature.
Mosques and Maddaris remain one of the best sources to disburse Zakat, Sadqa and Khairat; the strong Islamic fundamentals that form the roots of their processes are the key to the vested trust of Pakistanis at large. There are clandestine networks though which are exploiting our bond with religious institutions, the same people who want to drive us away from Islam. Hence we must really be careful at the individual level about our donations. There are things that we can do to foil the enemy’s plans and the damage to them can be major by our small steps. First and foremost planning is very important we should decide on the organization where we are giving hides beforehand secondly vigilance is necessary, we should know where our funds are going, if it is a Maddaris then just knowing people there for decades should not be enough anymore. We should enquire about where the money will be used and try to ensure at the local level that there are no affiliations with any extremist source. Thirdly repeating this practice annually helps, last but not the least keeping an update on crackdowns on local and national terrorist outlaws may also be helpful.
The government is also displaying signs of vigilance. The Punjab government has prohibited organizations from collecting hides without obtaining NOC from district administration. Sindh government has followed suit, with a ban on posters and camps as well. This may not be enough as this was tried last year as well and allegedly banned organizations obtained NOCs by getting registered as Welfare Organizations having false names, it has been difficult for the government to keep checks and balances.
We have to admit that currently everyone has too much on their plates, some even literally but that is a debate on another forum but the fact remains that we are at war, whether you are rightist or leftist. More than 80 people laid lives in Quetta, a generation of lawyers wiped of a province already deprived in many ways, this occurred in a country still reeling from the terror of Army Public School Attacks of December 16, 2014. We cannot expect the government to do everything, we have to fight ourselves as there are no borders for terrorist and they have reached our homes. We need to stand united with our forces and with the government and remain vigilant. As an individual a hide this year may seem cheap to you and the haggard old man at your doorstep or the van driver may seem to be the most under privileged but they may not be what they seem but having a big heart does not necessitate closed mind, we must question everything especially where our money is going. According to Global Terrorism index we stood at number 4, one of the biggest victims of terrorism. There are countries that simply cannot stand our relationship with China or the fact that CPEC is changing us. They will not stop hence we must not let our guard down, even on Eid-ul-Azha, we must not become a source to empower our own enemies.
