Not many recognise that the period in which violence, extremism and terrorism has expanded with devastating effect in Pakistan in the wake of the epochal 9/11 in the United States has coincided with the timelines of rapid expansion in the media landscape in Pakistan. When 9/11 occurred and triggered a global impact, there were less than 2,000 journalists in Pakistan, no private radio station or tv channel and only a few dozen newspapers of repute or impact.

Now there are over 18,000 journalists, more than 90 tv channels including about 40 24/7 current affairs news channels and nearly 150 independent radio stations. The readership of newspapers, which have in the interim mushroomed to hundreds in number, has climbed from about 3 million with the turn of the millennium to nearly double at 6 million now.

This increase in media space, media practitioners and media soundbite and its impact has generally been well-documented in opinion, analysis and research by various individuals, experts and institutes in Pakistan over the years since.

However, one aspect that has, sadly, not acquired deserved attention is the parallel expansion in the militant discourse and its methodologies adopted by a myriad of state and non-state militant and extremist groups to influence the perceptions and opinions of target audiences, including the public at large.

Until now, that is. A ground-breaking new book investigates this dimly lit field to provide greater light on what has been happening in Pakistan. Extensively researched, marked by academic rigour and penned by Peshawar-based Faizullah Jan, The Muslim Extremist Discourse: Constructing ‘Us’ versus ‘Them’, examines how Muslim extremists construct sociopolitical reality of the world, especially in the context of 9/11 and the "war on terror." To this end, the author, currently engaged with the University of Peshawar at its Department of Journalism and Mass Communications, has analysed the discourse of pro al-Qaeda militant organisations in Pakistan on the ‘Self’ and the ‘other’. It’s a fascinating account.

Jan notes that in the poststructuralist tradition, reality can never be reached outside discourse; therefore, discourse itself has become the object of analysis. Following Laclau and Mouffe (1985), the author believes that this conceptualisation has serious implications for Pakistan and the larger world when the militant discourse demonises the ‘other’ and legitimises violence in the name of jihad. This is also important because human behaviour is informed more by the subjective interpretation of reality than by the objective reality of a situation.

People produce their understanding of the world and their place in it in discourse, before they choose to act in a certain way. "People are guided to act in certain ways, and not others, by their discursively produced understanding of the world and their place in it." Through discourse actions of the ‘self’ are legitimised while those of the ‘other’ are delegitimised.

The book demonstrates how the militant discourse conceptualises the assassination of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, the controversial YouTube film Innocence of the Muslims, and noted activist Malala Yousafzai’s shooting. In the militant discourse, the assassination of OBL, the YouTube film and the shooting of Malala are constructed as different manifestations of an existential threat. The three incidents are linked together in chains of equivalences with ‘cultural attack,’ ‘violation of state sovereignty,’ ‘under siege’ and the ‘danger of annihilation.’

To create this system of equivalences, the religion Islam is used as a totalised system, which encompasses culture, sovereignty, and civilisation. These elements, which are floating signifiers, themselves refer to Islam to recognise themselves in their unity. That is, they acquire their meaning from their relationship with Islam. Thus, an attack on culture and violation of state sovereignty is constructed as an attack on Islam, whereas encircling Pakistan or Muslims is equated with encircling Islam.

Jan argues that within the universe that the militant discourse constructs, Muslims are in a ‘state of siege’ and the only solution is to choose between the two: total submission, which is equated with ‘humiliation and annihilation’, and fighting back, which is jihad. The book quotes authors who explain that escape from "the state of siege and occupation" is through ‘the logic of martyrdom.’

Therefore, the militant discourse makes a hegemonic intervention in favour of a ‘legitimised violence’ in the name of jihad by excluding alternative interpretations of sociopolitical reality. By this construction of a sociopolitical reality, the militant discourse takes a final step toward confrontation with the ‘other’. In a state of siege, it becomes a question of survival; therefore eliminating the ‘other’ is made justifiable. The individual ‘self’ is destroyed in order to destroy the enemy and break the siege. The martyr instead of dying attains a higher status of life, which is eternal, while at the same time the siege is broken to ensure freedom for the posterity.

According to Jan this construction of sociopolitical reality has material implications, because it makes certain paths of action possible, while others become unthinkable. As Mullah Omar says in his rare interview: "In their pain and frustration, some [Muslims] commit suicide acts." Thus, terrorist attacks are constructed as the only survival tool to escape the state of siege. Embracing the death becomes the only option open to the under siege, who in the process takes away other peoples’ lives too. In the logic of martyrdom, the material body is not important, rather its ‘destruction’ leads to a higher spiritual existence. As Omar says, "They feel they have nothing to lose" when suicide bombers attack the ‘other’ by blowing themselves up.

Source of the militant discourse’s legitimacy is derived from the Quran, Hadith, commentary of contemporary scholars and history of the early Islam. History is also used as a "tool of validation" to emphasise the fatality and perpetuity of the attack by the ‘other.’ The past and present are conflated, which re-enacts old battles the symbolic reality of past, long-forgotten traumatic events. "Thus, things which mean nothing all of a sudden signify something, but in a different domain."

In a series of chains of equivalences, the militant discourse erases the boundaries marking the "here and now" from the "there and then" by analogical reasoning. For example, the assassination of Bin Laden is equated with the Battle of Badr and the YouTube film is equated with the Crusades (an existential threat). Malala’s shooting is articulated with a ‘declaration of war’ against Islam.

The author notes the world, according to this discourse, is divided into two opposing geographies or poles -- the land of Islam and the land of the infidel. The land of Islam is rooted in a moral value system which is based on divine revelation, while the land of the infidel is anti-divine with moral values drawn from human-constructed knowledge. One represents the Kingdom of God and the other the Kingdom of Evil. These two poles are constituted in a relationship of contradiction with each other, where the ‘other’ is not just an adversary, with whom one can coexist, but an ‘other’ whose presence prevents the ‘self’ from being totally itself

As the book blurb notes, Faizullah Jan provides a path-breaking study on an aspect of the media landscape of Pakistan that is not well documented and how Pakistani militant extremist organisations are using media messages and images in the battle for hearts and minds of the local Pakistani population.

According to academic R S Zaharna of American University, the book combines rare cultural and political insights with a rigorous, systematic analysis of the discourse that the militants use to cultivate an identity, define enemies, and perpetuate a vision of the sociopolitical reality for the Muslim ummah in the ‘war on terrorism’. A must-read, then, for anyone interested in understanding the use of media by the extremists in Pakistan and their designs.