Pakistan in Media

THE murder in Bahawalnagar of a five-year-old boy by his own father cannot fail to shock. Accused of slitting his son’s throat, the man told the police that he committed the crime upon the command of his pir. The barbaric act is illustrative of the manner in which so-called spiritual leaders and faith-healers gain inordinate influence over a superstitious and under-educated populace. There is no dearth of cases where pirs exploit their devotees to extract livestock, goods, cash and even land. In some reported incidents, women and children are given over into the ‘care’ of pirs, condemned thereby to anything from a life of prostitution to slavery. In the Bahawalnagar case, it is difficult to immediately perceive how the pir stood to gain from instigating the crime; nevertheless, it is clear that if the pir indeed gave such instructions, his influence was unquestioned and absolute.
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Daily Times, Pakistan
COMMENT: Syed Mansoor Hussain

I have often asked many of my friends that have a soft corner for the Taliban about what exactly the Taliban want within Pakistan. Other than anti-Americanism and some vague mutterings about sharia law, nobody has been able to answer my question

One of the great problems of modern times is that many of our attitudes are based not on well thought out principles but rather on a visceral response to what we see on TV. As such, to the West, Muslims are what they do and that is of course terrorism and extremism. For the Muslims, what the United States does is drone attacks and daisy-cutters, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

For most people in this part of the world, the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan seem to be all-out wars against Muslims and thus by proxy against Islam. The reverse is that for most people in the West, Muslims represent 9/11, suicide bombings, beheadings of ‘non-believers’, and floggings of ‘errant’ women; all this being an obvious negation of what western civilisation stands for

Both sides are right and both sides are wrong. The United States justifies its actions against Muslims through national interest based on ‘homeland security’, while Muslims defend their actions based on what to them seems an unjust and excessive US response to terrorism, both perceived and real.

Soon after the fall of the USSR and the emergence of the United States as the sole superpower in what were arguably more ‘innocent’ times, Francis Fukuyama came out with his concept of ‘the end of history’ and Samuel Huntington presented his thesis about the ‘clash of civilisations’. Fukuyama felt that western-style liberal democracy had triumphed and would forever be the paradigm for governance.

Huntington argued that after the end of the Cold War, future conflicts would be civilisational and not ideological. He rather arbitrarily divided the world into different ‘civilisations’ that in his opinion would vie for dominance with each other. Much of the nineties were spent by academics and intellectuals arguing against this proposition, Edward Said and Amartya Sen prominent among them.

With the new century came two major man-made disasters, the Supreme Court-directed election of George W Bush as President of the United States, and 9/11. The confluence of these two factors brought the Bush Doctrine, which essentially accepted Fukuyama’s point about the supremacy of western democracy and made it a part of official US policy to introduce such democracy, even through the use of force if needed, in the Middle East.

Also in line with the Huntington point of view, the Bush administration embarked on a ‘war on terror’, which was a thinly disguised war against Islam and the Muslims, using at times ambiguous terms like ‘Islamo-facism’ to justify their actions. Countries like India and Israel that had long standing territorial disputes with neighbouring Muslim countries immediately jumped on this ‘war of civilisations’ bandwagon.

With the election of Barack Obama, some sense is being restored to US foreign policy but too much harm has been done. Disentanglement in Iraq and the pacification of Afghanistan are difficult end points and might preoccupy the Obama administration for some years.

Repairing relations with Muslims in general might even take longer but will eventually happen if the US follows the stated objectives of President Obama in this context. He has already debunked the war of civilisations idea and has it seems given up on imposing western-style democracy in the Middle East by force.

As a liberal I have always tried my best to understand and, if possible, even accept points of view that are contrary to my beliefs. This attitude is of course dependent on an abiding belief that most people are intrinsically good and try to do what is not only best for themselves but also for people around them. And more importantly on the idea that there is always more than one way to solve almost any problem.

However, I could not, even after trying my utmost, find any redeeming value in the policies of the Bush administration. The Bush presidency is fortunately over. Almost the entire world is now rooting for Barack Obama to succeed and undo the harm done to the US and the rest of the world by the misguided policies of the Bush-Cheney duo.

As I sit in Lahore a few days after the terrorist attacks here, in Peshawar and elsewhere, and at the same time read about the army action in Swat, many of my pre-conceived notions as a liberal are being severely put to test once again. When I came to Pakistan a few years ago I was very pleasantly surprised that I got along famously with many people that I would have thought of as religious extremists.

Frankly, if I am asked today whom would I trust more in Pakistan, a devout practicing Muslim or a westernised liberal member of our self-styled ‘civil society’, I will go with the former every time!

But what the Taliban stand for is still a mystery to me. Are they a populist movement using religion to establish control over parts of Pakistan or is it the other way around, and are they really a religious group using populist anti-imperialist rhetoric to achieve the same result?

In this connection, I have often asked many of my friends that have a soft corner for the Taliban about what exactly the Taliban want within Pakistan. Other than anti-Americanism and some vague mutterings about sharia law, nobody has been able to answer my question in a satisfactory manner. As far as the talking heads on TV are concerned, they are entirely clueless.

The Taliban do not fit into either the ideological or the civilisational paradigm of conflict and thus essentially negate both the Fukuyama and the Huntington points of view. Or perhaps they really stand for nothing and are just a ‘rabble without a cause’. That might then be why, in the crunch, most Pakistanis have come out in support of the army action against them.

Syed Mansoor Hussain has practised and taught medicine in the US. He can be reached at smhmbbs70@yahoo.com

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Editorial, Dawn, Pakistan
By Asghar Ali Engineer
Friday, 29 May, 2009

RELIGION is basically a spiritual experience and must be valued as such. Politics, on the other hand, is a game of power which is often played with no holds barred.

Truly religious persons who are inspired by core religious teachings and fundamental values should critique the power holders who do not deliver rather than becoming power wielders themselves. When religious organisations or personalities become participants in the power game they betray religious teachings and create fanaticism, arousing extreme emotions to better their chances of winning the power game.

We have seen in Islamic history how the controversy about the ‘createdness’ of the Quran was used by Abbasid rulers to win the power game. They persecuted eminent theologians who refused to endorse their doctrine of the ‘createdness’ of the Quran. Similarly, in our own time we see the phenomenon of fundamentalism and terrorism, fuelled by the politicisation of religion. All religions stand on ethical and moral foundations and the power game is often won by weakening this base.

Imam Abu Hanifa refused to accept the office of the chief qazi under the Abbasids because he feared that he would have to endorse the misdeeds of the rulers; he did not want to pollute his pure soul. He withstood all coercion, including a cruel prison term imposed by the caliph, but he did not accept the office offered to him.

How can one critique the powerful (mustakbirun) and stand by the weaker sections of society (mustadifin) if one becomes part of a ruling establishment? Those who run after power can never be truly religious in spirit. The Sufis kept themselves aloof from power when they saw how religion was becoming a tool of the powerful, and destroying all values. When a Delhi sultan wanted to visit Nizamuddin Auliya in his hospice he told Khusro there were two doors to his hospice; if the sultan entered from one, he would leave from the other.

Religion should never be politicised. Its politicisation produces disastrous results. In recent years, the Indian polity was thoroughly communalised by the BJP using the Ram Mandir–Babri Masjid controversy. It brought unprecedented communal polarisation in India. Demolition of the Babri Masjid was followed by communal riots in Mumbai and several other places. It was Mr Advani who was the architect of this controversy which paid him short-term dividends but with disastrous consequences for the longer term.

In the recently concluded Indian elections, the people reasserted their case for a secular polity. The election results came as a pleasant surprise for many and as a shock for communal forces. The people do not want extremists and communalists; they want moderates who can address their problems. Yes, it is also true that once in a while the people’s religious emotions can be played up but the masses soon see the political misuse of religion and stop responding to such forces.

Mr Advani was all ready to take over as prime minister and the media was repeatedly referring to him as a favourite. We were holding our breath. If in this election communal forces had come to power, not only would secular values have suffered, many secular institutions would have been infiltrated by communal forces which in turn would have weakened India’s secular democracy, if not destroyed it.

However, not much credit goes to the Congress for winning these elections. The credit rests with the people of India. The BJP was a bit unsure how much the Hindutva factor would pay but was under pressure from extremists to use Hindutva as a main plank and when Mr Varun Gandhi made a highly communal speech in Pilibhit, UP, from where he was to be nominated as a BJP candidate, BJP leaders saw in it an opportunity. Even Mr Advani, who was posing as a moderate in order to become prime minister, rushed to support Varun Gandhi and ignored the Election Commission’s notice not to nominate him as a candidate in view of his highly communal speech. But the BJP went ahead and nominated him.

Many BJP leaders after the results said that it was a mistake and that they should not have backed Varun Gandhi. It sent a wrong message to the people. Similarly, the BJP banked much on Narendra Modi who is not only an extremist but also directly responsible for massacring 2,000 Muslims in Gujarat. BJP leaders thought he was an asset and was much in demand for the campaigning. In fact, he became a liability. BJP analysts later maintained that they lost the elections because of him.

Let us learn a lesson from history and not allow politicians to play with our religious sentiments and emotions.

The writer is an Islamic scholar who also heads the Centre for Study of Society & Secularism, Mumbai.

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