Pakistan’s Militant Conspiracy Theorist: Zaid Hamid
Pakistan’s Militant Conspiracy Theorist: Zaid Hamid
Farhan Zahid
According to a 2014 Pew Poll, a mere 14 percent of Pakistanis have favorable views of the United States (Pew Poll, July 2014). There may be other reasons for growing anti-Americanism in Pakistan but Islamist militant conspiracy theorists play a pivotal role. According to another poll, Pakistanis appeared to be confused as far as terrorism is concerned, with 62 percent of the population lacking a definitive opinion of the Islamic State organization (Express Tribune, Nov 19, 2015). Zaid Hamid has been a key actor in fueling anti-Americanism and creating confusion regarding Islamist terrorist groups among the Pakistani masses. Hamid’s conspiracy theories, jingoistic and war-mongering attitude, and consistent belligerence toward the U.S., Afghanistan, India, and Israel have contributed to confusion among all strata of Pakistani society. Hamid’s rants are typically against the “foreign hands” behind terrorist attacks claimed by al-Qaeda and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). He alleges the Indian intelligence agency (Research and Analysis Wing or RAW), the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and Israeli Mossad were behind all these attacks in order to destabilize Pakistan as part of their “Hindu-Zionist” agendas, though he fails to provide any evidence.
Born as Syed Zaid Zaman Hamid in Karachi, Pakistan in 1964 to an army officer father and a homemaker Kashmiri mother, Hamid completed his engineering at NED University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi (Express Tribune, May 9, 2010). During his student years, he became an active member of Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami’s student wing, Islami Jamiat-e-Tulba (Express Tribune, May 9, 2010). With the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Jamaat-e-Islami sent scores of its activists to attend training camps established at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in order to provide foot soldiers to Afghan mujahedeen groups. Hamid joined Hizb-e-Islami (specifically the Gulbeden Hekmatyar faction) and claimed to fight against the Soviets [1]. The Hekmatyar faction was close to Jamaat-e-Islami and most of the recruits preferred to join the ranks of Hizb-e-Islami and fight in Afghanistan. Hamid also remained associated with Hekmatyar’s rival, Ahmad Shah Masoud’s Jamiat-e-Islami, after developing differences with Hekmatyar.
Hamid now prefers to be classified as a defense analyst, and is regularly appears on primetime current affairs talk shows on Pakistani news channels. Another of his regular themes on the talk-shows is Ghazwa-e-Hind, or the “Armageddon in South Asia.” He runs a think-tank called Brasstacks, which claims to specialize in “advance threat analysis” by “defense security advisors,” and considers himself a strategic analyst and security consultant. Though accused of being funded by the Pakistani security apparatus, Hamid has denied such allegations. In 2013, a former member of his think-tank accused him of instigating mutiny in Pakistan’s army against the government and also compiling a hit list (Dawn Nov, 21, 2013). In fact, Zaid was arrested in June 2015 in Saudi Arabia for inciting people against the Saudi royal family while on a religious pilgrimage to Medina. He was sentenced to an eight-year imprisonment and 1,000 lashes, but was quietly released (Dawn, Oct 3, 2015).
A hardcore Islamist by virtue of his ideology, Hamid accuses the U.S., India, and Israel of destabilizing Pakistan and terms the alliance as “Hindu-Zionist.” For Zaid Hamid, Jihad with India is based on prophetic sayings. For some years he also hosted a program, also called Brasstacks, on which he presented most of his conspiratorial ideas in a well-articulated manner and managed to impress and engage many educated Pakistani youth. He also gave talks at many different college campuses where he presented his views and also held Q&A sessions with the students. From 2004-2009, he continued to attract followers, especially among urban youth, until opponents brought to the surface some of his past religious activities and statements which damaged his popularity.
Ideology and Conspiracy Theories
Hamid’s focus is on establishing the Islamic Caliphate in Pakistan. He is virulently anti-democracy and has blamed democracy in Pakistan for the country’s ills [2]. He termed his mission “establishment of a caliphate in Pakistan or martyrdom,” and his hatred for democracy can be seen in his book Khalifat-e-Rashida: Asr-e-Hazir mein Falah-e-Insaniyat ke liye jaded tareen maesi nizam, [3] in which he writes that the “modern system of Kufr has three pillars: democracy, judiciary and economic[s]…” [4]
According to Hamid’s beliefs, Pakistan is failing because the country’s ruling elite has failed to reinvigorate jihad, establish Islamic caliphate, and enforce Sharia law. [5] He considers democracy a new system, as it was adopted by “Christian nations” as recently as the 19th century, whereas the Islamic Caliphate is much older. He said, “The drama of democracy started when the concepts such as freedom, equality and representative government were introduced, and the powers of monarchy were given to the parliament.” [6]
Hamid has emphatically emphasized that “economic terrorism” is a common means of undermining Islamic countries. In explaining the phenomenon, he has mostly relied on the anti-imperialist rhetoric of Noam Chomsky, which he usually combines with Islamic nationalism. Hamid coined the term Hindu-Zionism [7], and Hindu-Zionism has been a consistent theme in all of his conspiracy theories. [8] Whether it is economic terrorism by the Western countries, adoption of the gold standard, the Mumbai attacks (he believes Hindu-Zionists were responsible), or the suicide bombers in Pakistan (whom he considers Hindus), the Hindu-Zionists and their role in destabilizing Pakistan in particular and Muslim countries in general is always the major theme (Times of India, Dec 2, 2008).
Conclusion
Hamid’s presence on Pakistani media appears to be aiding Islamist militants. His ultra-Islamist views have the same agenda of other Islamist political parties in Pakistan such as Jamaat-e-Islami, [9] whose leaders have been accused of covertly supporting the Islamist militants in Pakistan (SATP, 2004). Hamid has been able to divert blame from Islamist terrorist groups to India’s RAW, Israel’s Mossad, the CIA, and Afghanistan’s NDS, increasing the Pakistani masses’ uncertainty, skepticism, and doubts about Islamist terrorism.
Zaid Hamid is an especially dangerous conspiracy theorist because he has managed to attract a considerable following as a result of his education, jihadist credentials, command of English and Urdu, and craftiness in manipulating facts. He capitalizes on the fact that the overall literacy rate of the audience he targets is no more than 50 percent and the quality of its education is abysmally low. His relationship with likeminded TV anchors is another factor that allows him to present his conspiratorial views before millions of Pakistan during live current affairs shows.
Notes:
[1] Discussion with Amir Rana, Director, Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies. [2] For details on Zaid Hamid’s ideas on democracy please see, Zaid Hamid, Rightly Guided Caliphate: The Most Modern System for Economic Progress of Humanity (Khalifat-e-Rashida: Asr-e-Hazir mein Falah-e-Insaniyat ke liye jaded tareen maesi Nizam), Brasstacks Publishers, March 2013. [3] Ibid, p. 13. [4] Ibid. [5] Ibid. [6] Ibid, 113. [7] Osama bin Laden in his Fatwa against the U.S. and its allies used the term ‘Islamic Front against Jews and Crusaders’ in September 1998. [8] Hamid believes there is a collusion between Zionist (i.e. Israel) and Hindu extremists (i.e. India) to destroy Pakistan, and Islamist terrorists in Pakistan are indeed their agents (including suicide bombers), and that both Hindus and Jews were involved in Mumbai attacks, and other incidents in which there is clear evidence that Pakistani Islamist terrorist groups were involved. [9] Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the mastermind of 9/11 attacks, was arrested at the house of a Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) leader in Rawalpindi in 2003. Scores of JI workers joined al-Qaeda and some of them, such as Dr. Waheed, were killed in a U.S. drone strike in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
