War on Terror in Pakistan and Afghanistan: discursive and political contestations

This paper discusses the differences in the liberal secularist and the Islamists' discourses related to the ‘War on Terror’. These views are crystallised around a number of issues and their understanding of these differentiates them from each other. These issues include attitudes towards the nature of the Pakistani and Afghan states and the place of religion in these; attitudes towards the West in general and the US in particular, and the support for and criticism of the War on Terror carried out in the name of freedom, democracy and modernity. The hegemonic discourses of the liberals and secularists and counter-hegemonic discourses of the Islamists indicate an ideological and strategic polarisation, as reflected in the condemnation of, or support for, Islamism and armed resistance by militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan.