Sufism A Peace-building and Resilient Strategy to Curb Violent Extremism in Pakistan

Abstract

This paper aims to emphasize the need to develop a counter-narrative strategy by the state of Pakistan in order to dismantle and deconstruct Taliban’s proliferating ideology that is currently challenging the writ of the state. The mindset and ideology of Taliban legitimize the use of violence or cause terror by harming or endangering people’s life and security and promote legal impunity against them. The phenomenon of global terrorism was surfaced after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on US and Pakistan had to confront the long-term consequences of its unconditional support as a frontline ally of US to fight the global war against terrorism. On the other hand, the ideological contours of Taliban focus on two key agendas that are abhorrence towards the anti-Islamic and imperialist states and to entice and recruit new supporters to the cause. On the other hand, the state and society are failed to construct an effective counter-narrative. The state’s approach to tackle the issue by using hard power and military strength led towards the birth, growth and proliferation of terrorist outfits. However, the use of traditional kinetic approach to curb violent religious extremism has been proved unsuccessful. Resultantly, the US after spending several billion dollars and tons of state of the art military weapons, had to withdraw its forces for the second time by terminating the longest physical and military mission in Afghanistan after two decades without achieving success. The paper tries to explore that Sufi approach instead of traditional hard military power can prevent and counter violent religious extremism (P/CVRE) in Pakistan and can bring peace and stability.