Stephen Schwartz

Wednesday

Stephen Schwartz

The global force behind Mumbai’s agony is in our midst

Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi say that LET — the Army of the Righteous — is a worldwide Islamist organisation which is well-established in Britain. The Mumbai atrocities are further proof that the march of Islamic extremism is the central fact of our time The usual suspects are declaring that the ‘cause’ of the Mumbai bombings was Kashmir or some other local grievance. But what happened in Mumbai was no more a local event than the 7 July 2005 attacks in London or the assault in Madrid on 11 March 2004. Pakistani propaganda about its claims in Kashmir is almost entirely phony rhetoric intended to justify the predatory instincts of the Pakistani army and intelligence bureaucrats.

Wednesday

Stephen Schwartz

Pakistan needs more than elections. Only a new political class will do

Stephen Schwartz says that, in this failing state, the ballot box is also a tinderbox. Even if Monday’s election goes ahead, Pakistan might well end up in a worse state than before: exporting terror, spawning confrontation, at war with itself The most important country in the world right now faces the most dangerous election in recent times. The country is Pakistan, not America, and the elections for parliament take place this coming Monday. Policy experts speak of ‘failed states’, and Pakistan is just about as close to failure as it is possible for a state to be. That’s one reason the world will be watching on Monday.

Wednesday

Stephen Schwartz

A threat to the world

With the foiling of the alleged conspiracy by radical Islamists to devastate transatlantic air travel — at the height of the US–UK tourist season — Britain has emerged, a little more than a year after the London Tube bombings, as the apparent main target for jihadist terror in Europe. This has little to do with British policies, poverty, discrimination or Islamophobia. Simply put, a million or more Sunnis of Pakistani background, who comprise the main element among British Asian Muslims, also include the largest contingent of radical Muslims in Europe. Their jihadist sympathies embody an imported ideology, organised through mosques and other religious institutions, rather than a ‘homegrown’ phenomenon, as the cliché would have it.

Saturday

Stephen Schwartz

Literary courtesan

Cultural tourism can be an edgy adventure when promoted by intellectuals, no less than when pursued by ordinary travellers. Backpacking across the Pakistan–Afghanistan border could get a foreigner killed. The tourist mentality inhabiting Western literary circles, however, carries no such fatal risk.