Author: Yvette Claire Rosser
Publication: The Friday Times
Date: March 13, 2001
The Human Rights Commission Pakistan
issued a report in October 2000 that accused the military regime of committing
"widespread abuses in the name of political reform" and called on General
Musharraf to "immediately return the country to constitutional rule," charging
the "government had detained former officials without charge, removed independent
judges, banned public rallies, and rendered political parties all but powerless."
The HRCP made a particularly critical
point, that since the coup, "curbs on political activity" have opened up
space for "religious parties-whose authorities and institutions Musharraf
has thus far largely refrained from challenging." Not only is Musharraf
powerless to challenge the Mullahs, he knows they could bring his government
down.
The American television news program,
60 Minutes, ran a segment about Pakistan last fall called, "America's Worst
Nightmare". Samiul Haq and other clerics interviewed for the program scoffed
at the thought that the government could control their Jihadi activities.
The men behind the militant Madrassas could shut Islamabad down. And Musharraf
knows it. Unfortunately, this 60 Minutes news feature employed the same
stereotypical use of film footage predictably fed to Western audiences,
showing men at prayer, while a journalist narrates the perils of terrorism-thereby
implicating all believing Muslims. In reality, most young men in Pakistan
would rather marry an educated woman and work in the Info-Tech industry
than fight the infidels. They would rather play cricket on the weekend
in an empty lot than plot suicide missions into Kashmir. The average Pakistani
is not a fundamentalist.
Far more Pakistanis fear the militant
Mullahs and their debilitating impact on society. Mullah jokes abound,
but bitter laughter offers small reprieve. The vast majority of educated
Pakistanis dream of a prosperous economy, democratic institutions, a safe
future for their children-boys and girls. They want peace with India, peace
with the world. They are secular and sophisticated. And they are sick of
giving up everything-economic development, education, civic society--sacrificing
everything for Kashmir. "Fifty years is long enough. Let's get on with
the business of nation-building." Frustrated as they may be by the lack
of infrastructure, the growing political clout of the militant fundamentalists
is far more frightening. The gender-biased dogmatic rhetoric that revels
in a culture of fatwas, hudood and blasphemy laws, the self-appointed sectarian
clerics that depreciate diplomacy, the unemployed, well armed young men
pouring out of the Deeni Madaris, hunting heretics in the neighborhood.
. . scary indeed.
Though the religious parties have
never been supported by the electorate, they exercise a coercive psychological
influence on society. For years the narratives and symbols of the nation
have been pushed along this path. Textbooks in particular have been used
to manufacture a siege mentality-a culture of mistrust and fear to counter
the threat from Dar-al-Harb India as well as decadent Western values, while
all the while containing fissiparous provincial ethnicities. Non-Muslim/anti-national
cultural influences are blamed for regional ethnic allegiances, as in Mohammed
Sarwar's Pakistani Studies,
"At present a particular segment,
in the guise of modernization and progressive activity, has taken the unholy
task of damaging our cultural heritage. Certain elements aim at the
promotion of cultures with the intention to enhance regionalism and provincialism
and thereby damage national integration." (emphasis mine)
NGOs, HRCP, all progressive social
organizations, as well as provincial ethnic groups are, according to this
analysis, deemed anti-Pakistani and inherently anti-Islamic, "It is in
the interest of national solidarity that such aspects of culture should
be promoted as reflect affinity among the people of the provinces." Instead
of valued as parts of the whole, cultural expressions of Sindhis, Pathans,
and Balouchis are seen as a threat. Islam is employed to erase these dangerous
cultural differences.
In the official Pakistan Studies
version of history, General Zia "took concrete steps in the direction of
Islamization." In this eulogy, perhaps the pious General is stitching caps
alongside Aurangzeb, the hero that rescued South Asian Islam from Akbar's
misguided secular minded policies. Though Z.A. Bhutto is inevitably lambasted
in Pak Studies textbooks, Zia escapes criticism ignoring the fact that
he was the most cruel of the military rulers who usurped the political
process in Pakistan--just ask the Sindhis. Nonetheless Zia is a savior
fostering "complete Islamization". Each time the constitution was aborted,
placed in abeyance, or otherwise raped, textbooks describe it as a necessary
response, a repercussion stimulated by unIslamic forces. Dr. Sarwar writes,
"The political leadership did not
come up to the expectations and lacked commitment to Islamic objectives.
Moreover, the civil service had not undergone socialization process commensurate
with Islamic teachings. Bureaucratic elite had Western orientation with
secular approach to all national issues. [. . . ] the result was political
instability and chaos paving the way for the intervention of military and
the imposition of Martial Law."
No wonder the October 1999 coup
met with little resistance. Though ideology superceded accuracy in the
restructuring of Pakistani identity immediately after the break-up of the
nation, but it is during the days of Zia that the Curriculum Wing bowed
to the religious lobby and completely lost its moorings in objective historiography.
The subsequent post-martial law decade of democratic dispensations never
attempted to put the science back into the social sciences, where Zia's
warped version of the Ideology of Pakistan still directs the discourse.
In Pak Studies textbooks General Ayub Khan is accused of imposing unIslamic
laws, especially family laws to protect women; his "secular outlook brought
about his decline". On the other hand,
"During the period under Zia's regime,
social life developed a leaning towards simplicity. Due respect and reverence
to religious people was accorded. The government patronized the religious
institutions and liberally donated funds."
Textbooks cite a "network of conspiracies
and intrigues" that is threatening the "Muslim world in the guise of elimination
of militancy and fundamentalism." Here Pakistan single-handedly takes credit
for the fall of the Soviet Union and lays claim to creating a situation
in the modern world where Islamic revolutions can flourish and "the vacuum
left by the fall of the USSR will be filled by the world of Islam." With
a warning that "The Western world has full perception of this phenomena,
[which] accounts for the development of reactionary trends in that civilization",
the Pak Studies curriculum prepares for Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations,
"The Muslim world has full capabilities
to face the Western challenges provided Muslims are equipped with self-awareness
and channelize their collective efforts for the well being of the Muslim
Ummah. All evidences substantiate Muslim optimism indicating that the next
century will glorify Islamic revolution with Pakistan performing a pivotal
role."
Pakistan Studies textbooks are full
of contradictions. One page brags about the modern banking system, the
next page complains that interest (riba) is unIslamic. Self-loathing is
written into the text: politicians are inherently corrupt, industrialists
inevitably pursuing "personal benefit at the cost of national interest."
The historical narrative bounces between poles of conspiracy theory and
threats from within. Generating fear of India's perpetual Machiavellian
intentions and the West's ideological hegemony, this discourse magnifies
insecurities and deprecates sub-national identities. According to Pak Studies
rhetoric, all these problems could be solved by implementing stricter Islamic
codes and practices.
Most of the people I have met in
Pakistan long for a just and democratic system. Yet, the very people whose
voices should be heeded are often harassed by authorities and/or the Mullahs.
In the past, even democratic governments made it difficult for intellectuals
with alternative viewpoints to do research, not to mention what happened
to certain journalists. Surrounded by corruption and confronted by an ever-narrowing
definition of the nation, yet endowed with moral conscientiousness, many
scholars, educators, and professionals lament privately, despairing about
the condition of their country.
After many friends and colleagues
in Pakistan told me they are despondent about the future, depressed when
they assess the potential of their nation-state, I questioned a psychiatrist
about these shared expressions of depression. For Dr. Inayat, from the
Civil Hospital Karachi, the nation-wide depression is tangible and quantifiable,
"20 to 30 suicides occur daily, primarily among those between fifteen and
thirty, mostly upper class urbanized females and newly educated rural or
urbanized lower middle class males." During the summer of 1999, Dr. Inayat
explained that the rise in clinical depression, even among citizens with
ample economic opportunities, can be partly attributed to the death of
collective vision--even though democracy had been practiced for over ten
years, civil society had declined, there was "a loss of enthusiasm to change
the system from within, a certain resignation". The October coup only amplified
this situation.
When I interviewed Dr. Inayat again
in February 2000, he told horror stories about boys brought from Madaris
to the Psychiatric Ward in a state of catatonic shock, psychologically
abused and physically sodomized. The October 13, 2000 edition of The Friday
Times blamed the rash of suicides on fear of economic failure. However,
fear of fundamentalists and their medieval legal system-ushering in an
era of social oppression--makes financial insecurity pale in comparison.
Most of the people I have met in
Pakistan are alarmed about the "Talibanization of the nation." I was told
time and again the "CIA created the Taliban Frankenstein in Pakistan's
backyard, then walked away, leaving the monster behind." However, some
Pakistanis, inspired by the politicized sermons of the Mullah elites, vociferously
call for a "Taliban-type system" and are willing to die to reIslamize the
nation. This may be especially true among the poor, whose only access to
education is in a crowed Madrassa where they learn that Sunni Islam is
poised to take over the world of kafirs and apostates. These economically
and culturally deprived young men have been taught that a Taliban-like
system could overcome their poverty, their powerlessness and despair--caught
between conspiracies, corruption and the Holy Quran, they see no alternatives.
Sindhis in Larkana District are
afraid to go to the mosque; they may be killed--shot in the back while
praying. They are afraid NOT to go to the mosque; they may be killed for
not being outwardly orthodox. A farmer in rural Sindh told me "ten years
ago people went to the mosque when they wanted to, Eid, Ramzan, Jamaah,
no one forced you. Now, Taliban trained Mullahs from Punjab have come to
our village and built a madrassa. Three boys have gone to fight in Kashmir
and Chechnya. When the boys leave the madrassa, they are quite intolerant.
Sindhis have never been intolerant." He lamented, "We never had this
situation before, we have always been Sindhi Muslims, now we have to fake
our religiosity to protect our lives. At home, we sing Shah Latif, we are
Sufis." This gentleman-farmer, who lives with his four brothers, their
wives and children, told me, "our names are Muslim" but "our chromosomes
are Buddhist." From a mud serai in rural Sindh to a well-furnished flat
in urban Lahore, there is a fear that Taliban and its Pakistani bosses
and wannabes are coming to town.
Qazi Hussain Ahmad of Jamaat-i-Islami
issued a call to his ideological base among the Zia-trained corps commanders
of the Pakistan Army to stage a coup d'etat to bring about an Islamic Revolution.
Musharraf, perceived as a social liberal, is an obstacle to complete Islamization.
Maulana Akram Awan of the Tanzimul Ikhwan party vowed that 300,000 of his
disciples are armed and ready to march on Islamabad demanding the "enforcement
of Islam". In response to the threats, Musharraf sent Gen. Moinuddin Haider
to visit the maulanas and plead for their cooperation. In the bargain Haider
agreed to crack down on NGOs (involved in such unIslamic activities as
educating the girl child) and promised more governmental financial support
to Deeni Madaris in exchange for their promise hold back the army of the
forces of fundamentalism and placate the crores of their angry murids.
The cruel irony of US involvement
through the decades is not lost in this telling. Zia reaped the rewards
of his despotism in billions of US dollars channeled through him to fund
freedom-fighting mujahideen, as he dumped arms by the crore in the arms
of the students of the Deeni Mardis, trained to cry "Allah Akbar!" as they
waged Ronald Reagan's war against the Evil Empire's incursion in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, General Zia, who had hung his democratically elected predecessor,
implemented draconian, oppressive Hudood Ordinances and Blasphemy Laws
at home. He oppressed the polity and the people by enacting the Eighth
Amendment and an Islamization campaign that, among other restrictions,
declared it a capital offense to "criticize the Ideology of Pakistan"-financed
by American money. By contrast, General Musharraf, who sent his democratically
elected predecessor off to live in luxury in Saudi Arabia, has to deal
with the twisted militarized legacy left by the shadow of American entanglements
and intrigues. But those problems are now Pakistan's. Musharraf is isolated
internationally, criticized for harboring those freedom-fighters turned
terrorists, and condemned as a military usurper. When he suggested that
blasphemy laws were often used unfairly against members of minority communities,
he found that he could not undo even a fraction of the damage of the last
military regime that left a cadre of well-armed murids manning the forts.
Most of the people with whom I have
spoken, Sindhis, Pathans, Balouchis, Panjabis, are scared of Talibanization--frightened
by the possibility of a violent uprising of the half million strong, gun
toting, Madrassa trained, conservative Deobandi, militant Jihadis. Scared
to death. This threat is more frightening and imminent than an American
or European can fathom. No one who really values democracy, human rights
and a robust economy believes that the Taliban could ever possibly provide
such a model. I did meet one highly educated professional who said he would
welcome a Taliban type system, irregardless of the fact that his wife runs
a well known NGO and would obviously be the first targeted in a Talibanized
agenda. This esteemed professor, a top rank government servant, was hedging
his bets, sporting a flowing beard, while fooling himself into thinking
the Taliban would usher in a "truly Islamic system--Pakistan's birth right".
When I challenged his claims about the benign, beneficent corruption-free
Taliban, he said the negative images of militant mullahs and news reports
of female doctors and teachers forced from their jobs in Kabul were BBC
and CNN propaganda to blacken the face of the fundamentalists. His was
definitely not the prevailing opinion. But, is this strange displacement
of confused identities and convoluted politics an indication of things
to come?
Without a doubt, Professor Sahib
is an oddity in his middle class milieu. There is a much stronger element
in the Pakistani academia, in the press, the hospitals, in the general
population, which sees the looming Talibanization as ominous and intolerable.
They fear that the conservative Mullahs, with the help of a cadre of Gen.
Zia trained, fundamentalist junior Army officers, will stage a violent
uprising, a counter-counter-coop to take over the government and bring
in a Talibanized shari'at system. My friends and colleagues in Lahore,
Quetta, Hyderabad, Karachi, Islamabad, Larkana, even far flung towns like
Shahdadkot, go to work everyday, raise their children, celebrate festivals,
bury their dead-- they live their lives as well as we all try to do. But
underneath the intellectual activities, professional duties and family
life, underneath they are scared. Scared that on the dark, lonely road
to the future, Taliban will go bump in the night.
------------------
Yvette Rosser visited Pakistan
thanks to a dissertation fellowship from the American Institute of Pakistan
Studies and the Social Science Research Council.
