Pakistan in Media

Daily Times, Pakistan
Monday, May 11, 2009
Syed Mansoor Hussain

The liberal and secular ethos is limited to a tiny minority. Most Pakistanis are not only beholden to religion in a big way but are intrinsically opposed to western style democracy and especially the freedoms that come with it

The fight against Taliban is at this time primarily a fight by the Pakistani state to enforce law and bring order to its territory. As such, all citizens of the country and those that wish Pakistan well must support the army in this effort to restore the ‘writ’ of the state. But that is not all this is about.

First what it is not about. It is not about the US or the drone attacks. It is not about India and Kashmir. It is not about the Taliban fighting the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. And it is definitely not about the Bilderberg Group.

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What Pakistan has seen since the death of Mohammad Ali Jinnah in 1948 is essentially a fight between competing visions of piety. For the first twenty years of its existence, Pakistan was under the sway of a ‘kinder and gentler’ version of Islamic practice as envisioned by the Sufi influenced Hanafi-Barelvi majority of the country.

Once General Zia-ul Haq took over and the Afghan war started, the religious centre of the country rapidly shifted under official patronage towards the more austere and extreme Wahhabi-Deobandi interpretation of Islam. The Taliban are a product of that interpretation and find support within the country from those that adhere to that vision of Islam even outside the border areas.

Even today, it was only after the religiously conservative political forces led by the PMLN and the organisations belonging to the Hanafi-Barelvi school came out against the Taliban that the Pakistan Army agreed to embark on a major offensive against the Taliban. I sincerely hope that this action is successful in restoring the rule of law in the disputed areas in Swat and eventually even in the western borderlands.

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The second point worth considering is that for the army to succeed, it needs the full support of the people. This can only happen if the religiously inclined people of Pakistan that oppose Taliban-style Islam are willing to come out openly and forcefully in support of the army. This, however, will have its own set of consequences.

Once the non-Taliban types are fully mobilised, what we will see is not necessarily a victory of secular democratic forces but rather of the Islamic ideation of a different mindset; but still very much Islamic and perhaps even equally extreme in its own way. I do not believe that Pakistan is headed towards an Iranian-style theocracy but we might not end up too far from it either.

Let us not forget that we came pretty close to having the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution (The Sharia Bill) just ten years ago, and the political party that wanted to pass it is, according to many, poised to take control of Pakistan come the next general elections. If that party does come to power in a few years and if the present military action has indeed spawned another lurch towards religious extremism, all bets are off as to what might happen next.

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