By Amir Zia
The News
August 24, 2012
Jinnah’s Pakistan is not meant for fanatic clerics, the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, who feel that they serve Islam by killing innocent people, terrorism and blowing up schools. We have to reclaim the Pakistan of our founding fathers from these forces of darkness, operating under the sacred name of Islam.
In its sixty-sixth year of independence, Pakistan’s ideological vision continues to remain blurred and fragmented. There are those radical and militant religious forces, which want to transform Pakistan into a theocratic state in line with the ideology of their respective Islamic school of thoughts. From ballot to bullet, one finds advocates and practitioners of all sorts of tactics among these legal and outlawed groups as they attempt to restructure the society in accordance to their narrow interpretation of Islam, which remains rigid, intolerant, confrontationist and averse to modernity and rational thinking.
Then there are liberals and fringe leftist groups who want to see Pakistan as a secular, modern and egalitarian state. But they appear to be trying to implant borrowed and imported ideas which find few takers among the majority of Pakistanis, who by-and-large are traditionally religious, but at the same time abhor zealotry and extremism espoused in the name of Islam. Therefore, despite their passion for democracy, the Pakistani liberals and leftist hold little ground when it comes to the rough tough politics of the masses. Nonetheless, they make their presence felt in the battle of ideas through non-government organisations, rights and cultural groups and the English-language press in at least the country’s main urban centres.
Between these two extremes, there are traditional mainstream political parties, which stand non-committal, maintaining a deliberate ambiguity in their stance about the ideology and vision for Pakistan. We find them performing a balancing act between Islamists and liberals, but they overwhelmingly tend to strike compromises with the religious forces on vital issues – from establishing the writ of the state to fighting rampant intolerance and various shades of extremism in our society. Important issues relating to women and minorities’ rights, pro-people legislation, including scrapping laws from General Ziaul Haq’s era that allow murderers to go free in the name of qisas and diyat, or framing a modern education system – all are often sacrificed as the mainstream parties try to appease these retrogressive forces. Their lip-service to the cause of Islam is indeed hypocritical but it prevents the genie of Islamic radicals and extremists launching a direct assault on them. These political parties stand more for self-preservation rather than rising up to the challenge of the extremist Islamic mind-set threatening the country’s social and political fabric.
Although the legal Islamic parties have a history of faring poorly when it comes to the politics of ballot, they wield tremendous influence because of their organised radical rank-and-file, which remain directly or indirectly linked to the banned militant organisations. These forces have been dominating the popular political narrative since the 1980s when they were nurtured, supported and groomed by the military establishment for its adventures in Afghanistan and India.
It is ironic that these forces are now at loggerheads with the institution which helped them set-up the private “jihad industry” to confront the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan at the behest of the United States and its free-world allies and monarchs of the Middle East. But that is in the past and cannot be undone.
However, our current predicaments stem from this self-destructive 1980s policy of using religion and non-state actors to stifle the country’s democratic movement and as a foreign policy tool.
Former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf tried to gradually alter this course by banning militant groups, but failed to change the political landscape, given the penetration of these groups in our society, lack of consensus within the establishment on the alternative course of action and absence of counter ideological narrative to the challenge of radical Islam.
The democratic dispensation that followed ignored confronting the fundamental challenge of extremism on political grounds and through reforms as it got entangled in its battle of survival.
The military largely spearheaded this fight, but operational measures and partial battleground victories without an ideological narrative can only be of limited success.
No wonder attacks on security forces such as the recent one in Kamra – the nerve-centre of Pakistan Air Force – and slaughtering of citizens remain in vogue in today’s Pakistan. The Kamra attack was one of countless assaults on security forces and civilians that have consumed nearly 40,000 lives since Pakistan became a reluctant partner in the US-led war on terrorism following the Al-Qaeda strikes on the United States in Sept 2011.
But despite this unprecedented price, the military establishment and the mainstream political parties have ignored the fundamental front on which this battle will either be lost or won – the vision for Pakistan. Without addressing this core question, the country will continue to remain the battleground of rival ideological forces in which many Islamic militants have upped the ante by connecting themselves with global Islamic terror network.
The counter-narrative for Taliban and their likes need not be any foreign import. It can be found in the vision of Pakistan’s founding fathers, who articulated the economic and political rights of the Muslims, which the Hindu-dominated Indian National Congress failed to guarantee in united India. Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah was no myopic, intolerant communal leader, but a man of vision who blended modernity and tradition to achieve the goal of creating the world’s biggest Muslim country of its time. What the so-called secular Congress failed to guarantee in India, the Quaid wanted to ensure for citizens of his nascent state irrespective of their caste, creed, religion or language.
To make his dream a reality, Jinnah had to confront not just the Congress, but also the retrogressive religious forces united against the idea of Pakistan in the form of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, the Jamaat-e-Islami, Majlis-e-Ahrar and others.
But Jinnah was not the lone figure who launched the crusade to unite Muslims of the sub-continent and liberate their minds from religious orthodoxy. It was the socially modern and enlightened Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and his Aligarh movement, which provided genesis for the Pakistani state. He laid the foundation of modern education, rational thinking and enlightenment among Indian Muslims despite bitter opposition by the narrow-minded clerics. Sir Allama Muhammad Iqbal nurtured it by taking on the religious orthodoxy and bigotry both in his prose and poetry.
There is a need to highlight the vision of these national heroes, who blended modernity with the best of tradition of our religion that stands for peace, kindness, forgiveness, justice, human endeavour for a better life and tolerance.
The vision of Jinnah and his team was to create a modern, democratic, welfare state in which rationality and peoples’ will had to be its guiding principles. Their ideas and ideals remain relevant even in today’s Pakistan.
Jinnah’s Pakistan is not meant for fanatic clerics, the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, who feel that they serve Islam by killing innocent people, terrorism and blowing up schools. We have to reclaim the Pakistan of our founding fathers from these forces of darkness, operating under the sacred name of Islam.
To win back the popular narrative and seize initiative from extremists, the mainstream parties and the military establishment must highlight the vision of a modern, democratic and egalitarian country, rooted in its tradition rather than seen banking on foreign implants. Winning the battle of ideas is a matter of life and death in today’s context if we want to prevent Pakistan from sliding into anarchy and chaos.
The News
August 24, 2012
Jinnah’s Pakistan is not meant for fanatic clerics, the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, who feel that they serve Islam by killing innocent people, terrorism and blowing up schools. We have to reclaim the Pakistan of our founding fathers from these forces of darkness, operating under the sacred name of Islam.
In its sixty-sixth year of independence, Pakistan’s ideological vision continues to remain blurred and fragmented. There are those radical and militant religious forces, which want to transform Pakistan into a theocratic state in line with the ideology of their respective Islamic school of thoughts. From ballot to bullet, one finds advocates and practitioners of all sorts of tactics among these legal and outlawed groups as they attempt to restructure the society in accordance to their narrow interpretation of Islam, which remains rigid, intolerant, confrontationist and averse to modernity and rational thinking.
Then there are liberals and fringe leftist groups who want to see Pakistan as a secular, modern and egalitarian state. But they appear to be trying to implant borrowed and imported ideas which find few takers among the majority of Pakistanis, who by-and-large are traditionally religious, but at the same time abhor zealotry and extremism espoused in the name of Islam. Therefore, despite their passion for democracy, the Pakistani liberals and leftist hold little ground when it comes to the rough tough politics of the masses. Nonetheless, they make their presence felt in the battle of ideas through non-government organisations, rights and cultural groups and the English-language press in at least the country’s main urban centres.
Between these two extremes, there are traditional mainstream political parties, which stand non-committal, maintaining a deliberate ambiguity in their stance about the ideology and vision for Pakistan. We find them performing a balancing act between Islamists and liberals, but they overwhelmingly tend to strike compromises with the religious forces on vital issues – from establishing the writ of the state to fighting rampant intolerance and various shades of extremism in our society. Important issues relating to women and minorities’ rights, pro-people legislation, including scrapping laws from General Ziaul Haq’s era that allow murderers to go free in the name of qisas and diyat, or framing a modern education system – all are often sacrificed as the mainstream parties try to appease these retrogressive forces. Their lip-service to the cause of Islam is indeed hypocritical but it prevents the genie of Islamic radicals and extremists launching a direct assault on them. These political parties stand more for self-preservation rather than rising up to the challenge of the extremist Islamic mind-set threatening the country’s social and political fabric.
Although the legal Islamic parties have a history of faring poorly when it comes to the politics of ballot, they wield tremendous influence because of their organised radical rank-and-file, which remain directly or indirectly linked to the banned militant organisations. These forces have been dominating the popular political narrative since the 1980s when they were nurtured, supported and groomed by the military establishment for its adventures in Afghanistan and India.
It is ironic that these forces are now at loggerheads with the institution which helped them set-up the private “jihad industry” to confront the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan at the behest of the United States and its free-world allies and monarchs of the Middle East. But that is in the past and cannot be undone.
However, our current predicaments stem from this self-destructive 1980s policy of using religion and non-state actors to stifle the country’s democratic movement and as a foreign policy tool.
Former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf tried to gradually alter this course by banning militant groups, but failed to change the political landscape, given the penetration of these groups in our society, lack of consensus within the establishment on the alternative course of action and absence of counter ideological narrative to the challenge of radical Islam.
The democratic dispensation that followed ignored confronting the fundamental challenge of extremism on political grounds and through reforms as it got entangled in its battle of survival.
The military largely spearheaded this fight, but operational measures and partial battleground victories without an ideological narrative can only be of limited success.
No wonder attacks on security forces such as the recent one in Kamra – the nerve-centre of Pakistan Air Force – and slaughtering of citizens remain in vogue in today’s Pakistan. The Kamra attack was one of countless assaults on security forces and civilians that have consumed nearly 40,000 lives since Pakistan became a reluctant partner in the US-led war on terrorism following the Al-Qaeda strikes on the United States in Sept 2011.
But despite this unprecedented price, the military establishment and the mainstream political parties have ignored the fundamental front on which this battle will either be lost or won – the vision for Pakistan. Without addressing this core question, the country will continue to remain the battleground of rival ideological forces in which many Islamic militants have upped the ante by connecting themselves with global Islamic terror network.
The counter-narrative for Taliban and their likes need not be any foreign import. It can be found in the vision of Pakistan’s founding fathers, who articulated the economic and political rights of the Muslims, which the Hindu-dominated Indian National Congress failed to guarantee in united India. Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah was no myopic, intolerant communal leader, but a man of vision who blended modernity and tradition to achieve the goal of creating the world’s biggest Muslim country of its time. What the so-called secular Congress failed to guarantee in India, the Quaid wanted to ensure for citizens of his nascent state irrespective of their caste, creed, religion or language.
To make his dream a reality, Jinnah had to confront not just the Congress, but also the retrogressive religious forces united against the idea of Pakistan in the form of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, the Jamaat-e-Islami, Majlis-e-Ahrar and others.
But Jinnah was not the lone figure who launched the crusade to unite Muslims of the sub-continent and liberate their minds from religious orthodoxy. It was the socially modern and enlightened Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and his Aligarh movement, which provided genesis for the Pakistani state. He laid the foundation of modern education, rational thinking and enlightenment among Indian Muslims despite bitter opposition by the narrow-minded clerics. Sir Allama Muhammad Iqbal nurtured it by taking on the religious orthodoxy and bigotry both in his prose and poetry.
There is a need to highlight the vision of these national heroes, who blended modernity with the best of tradition of our religion that stands for peace, kindness, forgiveness, justice, human endeavour for a better life and tolerance.
The vision of Jinnah and his team was to create a modern, democratic, welfare state in which rationality and peoples’ will had to be its guiding principles. Their ideas and ideals remain relevant even in today’s Pakistan.
Jinnah’s Pakistan is not meant for fanatic clerics, the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, who feel that they serve Islam by killing innocent people, terrorism and blowing up schools. We have to reclaim the Pakistan of our founding fathers from these forces of darkness, operating under the sacred name of Islam.
To win back the popular narrative and seize initiative from extremists, the mainstream parties and the military establishment must highlight the vision of a modern, democratic and egalitarian country, rooted in its tradition rather than seen banking on foreign implants. Winning the battle of ideas is a matter of life and death in today’s context if we want to prevent Pakistan from sliding into anarchy and chaos.
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