October 28, 2009
The Saudi-isation of Pakistan
A stern, unyielding version of Islam is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis in Pakistan.
Pervez Hoodbhoy in Newsline:
Political leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan have no words of solace for those who have suffered at the hands of Islamic extremists. Their tears are reserved exclusively for the victims of Predator drones, even if they are those who committed grave crimes against their own people. Terrorism, by definition, is an act only the Americans can commit.
What explains Pakistan’s collective masochism? To understand this, one needs to study the drastic social and cultural transformations that have rendered this country so completely different from what it was in earlier times.
For three decades, deep tectonic forces have been silently tearing Pakistan away from the Indian subcontinent and driving it towards the Arabian peninsula. This continental drift is not physical but cultural, driven by a belief that Pakistan must exchange its South Asian identity for an Arab-Muslim one. Grain by grain, the desert sands of Saudi Arabia are replacing the rich soil that had nurtured a magnificent Muslim culture in India for a thousand years. This culture produced Mughul architecture, the Taj Mahal, the poetry of Asadullah Khan Ghalib, and much more. Now a stern, unyielding version of Islam (Wahhabism) is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis and saints who had walked on this land for hundreds of years.
More here. [Thanks to Mehreen Jabbar.]
Posted by Abbas Raza at 05:56 AM | Permalink
Comments
I, like most readers, read all I can with the notion that if I read well enough and do enough due diligence in homework and research I will be able to "get my mind around" whatever I'm studying, at least well enough to move on to whatever interests me next.
In this case, however, I have read the link twice through, some parts three times, and am left with the unfamiliar feeling that I not only don't understand, but like no creature with lungs will understand water in the same way that a fish understands water, I might read forever and never grasp what the writer is saying. Perhaps by moving to Pakistan and living there for an extended period of time (I'm thinking of how James Fallows literally moved to Southern China before writing his excellent commentaries in The Atlantic) I might get some gross understanding. But like an ordinary adult who learns a foreign language, I will always have such a strong accent that someone fluent in the language would instantly know that when I speak it is not my mother tongue.
That's a lot of words by way of saying I wish I could get what was being said, but I still don't get it. No matter how I look at it, I come away with the notion that there is something not only alien but morally reprehensible about any dedicated Muslim embracing the idea of a multi-cultural, but completely secular democratic society and political system.
I'm trying hard to toss off the post-colonial stains of any white man's burden, but something in me resists. As a Southerner who has rejected the bullshit racism spoonfed from infancy I'm prepared for whatever new paradigm may be next. But what comes across as a defense of "Islam as an instrument of state policy" throws me for a loop.
What am I missing? I need help.
Posted by: John Ballard | Oct 28, 2009 9:20:00 AM
John Ballard,
I don't think you are alone in not understanding this. Most people outside the subcontinent don't. Pakistan was founded on the basis of an explicitly religious ideology-as the "homeland" of the muslims of the region in contrast to the rest (i.e India) of the region, which never accepted the religious argument. A lot of its history has included a continuous effort to differentiate itself and purify its islamic character. An early version of the arabization phenomenon formed the impetus for the formation of Bangladesh. As, probably, several people in the region would tell you, the problems faced by Pakistan today have been long in their preparation, and have their origins much earlier in Pakistani history.
Posted by: kris | Oct 28, 2009 9:57:37 AM
Its an imperative, John, when a whole nation, a country, its boundaries and of course its people are to be destroyed that the world treat them like they are beyond understanding--that they and their beliefs are so morally reprehensible,incomprehensible, such a mortal danger to the rest of us that they must be destroyed. So that when that destruction happens--and is watched by all of us on CNN in 24 hour newscycles our sympathy is at zero and our attention for it is the same.
Posted by: maniza | Oct 28, 2009 10:26:05 AM
John, I am not sure what is confusing you. Pervez is just lamenting the introduction (through various complex avenues) of a harsh and intolerant brand of Islam into Pakistani society. This was done with a new zeal starting in General Zia-ul-Haq's regime (in my opinion, the worst government Pakistan has seen yet, by far), and we are now faced with a brainwashed and jihadist-sympathizing populace. No lies you make up about the evils of America or Israel are beyong the credulity of most Pakistanis, while scarcely anyone has been willing (at least until recently) to stand up to the murderous, illiterate jihadis who wish to set up a medieval caliphate and keep women as chattel. Even though they have been announcing openly that this is their intention for years, it took the video of a teenage girl being held down and flogged in Swat (where the rich had been used to vacationing) by lecherous bearded men to remind the press what the Islamists really stand for. People like Pervez who have for decades been heroically warning of exactly what has come to pass have been vilified and sidelined as extremists, negativists, marxists, or worst. The focus is always on American drones or some "foreign hand" so that one never needs to face any responsibility for the disastrous failure of governance and the unforgivable lack of concern for the average citizen on the part of the state. Everything can always be blamed on some foreign conspiracy or other, the people behind the killings and bombings of innocents, the throwing of acid into women's unvelied faces, the burning of cinemas and video shops, the barbaric beheadings, and countless other criminal acts of terrorism are meanwhile lauded as heroes who are fighting for Islam against the infidels.
And in a display of apathy that would make Nero proud, the well-educated elites who should know better continue to hold their fashion-shows and attend their alcohol-drenched parties, and celebrate the high-culture of their film festivals as if the country is not exploding around them. Every year, as things get worse, they keep pretending everything is fine, and they can't understand why Pakistan gets such negative press in the West, and no one ever bothers to cover the art-galleries, and rock concerts of Karachi! Much of Pakistan's territory is currently a de facto Taliban ruled state, and they still don't get it! The willful blinders are truly stunning. If things keep going the way they are, the day is not far when these elites will be hanging from the lamp posts in Karachi and Lahore with their genitals stuffed into their mouths. (One of the charming ways the Taliban like to communicate their seriousness.)
Posted by: Abbas Raza | Oct 28, 2009 12:22:40 PM
Thanks for the feedback, both of you. As I read Pakistan was founded on the basis of an explicitly religious ideology - as the "homeland" of the muslims of the region in contrast to the rest...of the region, which never accepted the religious argument I immediately thought how ironic it is that "Israel" and "Jews" could be substituted for "Pakistan" and "muslims" and the message would be the same. Israel officially predates Pakistan so the formation of a country based upon a religious ideal is not without precedent.
Also, I had forgotten about the creation of Bangladesh and didn't connect that development with "arabization" as much as old-fashioned bigotry. In retrospect your point is well-taken, but my impressions were formed by a personal experience I had nearly forty years ago.
In 1970 a horrible disaster, bigger than the one that just occurred, struck what was then East Pakistan, taking out half a million people. At that time I was in college where I knew several foreign students, including one from Pakistan. Like everyone else I was appalled by the scope of the tragedy. As with this disaster, the news went from bad to worse as reports came back. Phrases like "worst of the century" and "biblical proportions" were used, and the word went out for help.
I started a conversation with a man from Pakistan, with "That is a terrible thing that is going on over there. I can't imagine what it must be like." His answer about knocked me down.
"Ah, those Bengalis, they breed like flies. They will be back to normal in no time."
"What?" I said. "What do you mean?" I couldn't believe I had heard right.
"It's the fish. They eat a lot of fish, so they have a lot of kids. That's how they are. Stuff like this happens all the time. They are almost like animals..."
I didn't think about it before, but I realized then that he was from West Pakistan, not East Pakistan. I knew they were separated and had some cultural differences, but I was not prepared for such a cold-blooded reaction from anyone about what was happening to "his own people."
I was a history major and had taken both history and politics of South Asia. I let the conversation drop. I knew from experience what I was dealing with, and I knew that nothing I said was going to change a reality bigger than I was able to get my mind around. Later, of course, what had been East Pakistan became Bangladesh.
A mixture of confessional confusion, geopolitical historical constructs, and fourth generation warfare is forming a Rubik's cube of puzzles all over the world, but what's erupting in that part of Asia seems the most dangerous. The challenge is to find a way to deliver a live baby (or multiple birth?) without killing the mother.
China has advanced the notion of involving other Asian countries (in addition to the US, presumably) resolving this multi-faceted conflict. It may not be a politically feasible idea, but strikes me as a constructive suggestion. As to the matter of understanding, my ignorance is of no importance, but a way must be found to simplify issues at least well enough to hasten the learning curves of decision-makers. Many innocent lives are at stake.
Posted by: John Ballard | Oct 28, 2009 12:56:34 PM
John,
I myself do not agree with the simplistic analysis offered by "kris" above, but do not have the time to lay out the complex history of how we went from the completely secular state envisioned and formed by Pakistan's founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, to the state we find ourselves in now. To be sure, we were buffeted by the winds of the cold war, but the disaster in East Pakistan was largely of our own making. (It had nothing to do with what kris talks about above, by the way.) One should always be careful not to make generalizations from personal experience of an indivual (who sounds particularly repulsive and almost sociopathic), but it is true that there was anti-Bengali prejudice in West Pakistan. Still, I myself can remember being 6 years old and collecting money and clothes in school for the victims of the floods that you mention. People gave generously, and there was great concern for the people affected among most common West Pakistanis.
America has taken a step in the right direction with the Kerry-Lugar bill (which has been signed into law now) which earmarks half of American aid to Pakistan for civilian projects. If America is seen as helping the common man (because it actually does so), not just the Pakistani military, it might go a long way in reducing sympathy for the dangerous jihadists who are bent upon detroying our culture, heritage, and everything that I and Pervez, as secular Pakistanis, hold dear.
As Pervez says, let us see how things go.
Posted by: Abbas Raza | Oct 28, 2009 1:15:17 PM
And thank you, Abbas, for your response as well. You were putting yours together as I was writing at the same time.
My "lack of understanding" is by no means indifferent to the upsurge of savagery you describe. There is deep anguish in both yours and Pervez's writing. It makes me want to cry or scream as I read.
I guess I'm frustrated by how best to come against an obvious corruption of both faith and everyday human decency. Please don't interpret any lack of understanding with a lack of empathy or sympathy. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Posted by: John Ballard | Oct 28, 2009 1:37:35 PM
Not religion, not faith, not nothing. Just drugs. The drug mafia. Please read the news of today.
As for the Kerry Lugar bill-the rather meager amount going for civilian purposes will be presided over by the 21 year old son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen-Ronan Farrow. Whose other claim to fame is that he accompanied his mom to Darfur and was part of the Save the Darfur campaign. Am I correct?
That's how things will go.
Posted by: maniza | Oct 28, 2009 1:57:54 PM
Here are few things I would like to consider:
1)CIA's involvement in the drug mafia.
2)CIA's and the drug mafia's involvement with Taliban.
3)Is CIA part of that mafia?
4) CIA's involvement in the operation of drones--remotely operated to kill from the US--(see New Yorker Article this week--could car bombs etc be drone attacks?
5)the Saudisation of Washington DC and the extent of it.
6)The sources and uses of Saudisation.
7)The Pakistani elite and their involvement with Saudisation, CIA and the drug mafia.
Here is an article about the first--in the NYTimes today:
October 28, 2009
Brother of Afghan Leader Is Said to Be on C.I.A. Payroll
By DEXTER FILKINS, MARK MAZZETTI and JAMES RISEN
KABUL, Afghanistan — Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.
The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.
The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency and Mr. Karzai raise significant questions about America’s war strategy, which is currently under review at the White House.
The ties to Mr. Karzai have created deep divisions within the Obama administration. The critics say the ties complicate America’s increasingly tense relationship with President Hamid Karzai, who has struggled to build sustained popularity among Afghans and has long been portrayed by the Taliban as an American puppet. The C.I.A.’s practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban.
More broadly, some American officials argue that the reliance on Ahmed Wali Karzai, the most powerful figure in a large area of southern Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgency is strongest, undermines the American push to develop an effective central government that can maintain law and order and eventually allow the United States to withdraw.
“If we are going to conduct a population-centric strategy in Afghanistan, and we are perceived as backing thugs, then we are just undermining ourselves,” said Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the senior American military intelligence official in Afghanistan.
Ahmed Wali Karzai said in an interview that he cooperated with American civilian and military officials, but did not engage in the drug trade and did not receive payments from the C.I.A.
The relationship between Mr. Karzai and the C.I.A. is wide ranging, several American officials said. He helps the C.I.A. operate a paramilitary group, the Kandahar Strike Force, that is used for raids against suspected insurgents and terrorists. On at least one occasion, the strike force has been accused of mounting an unauthorized operation against an official of the Afghan government, the officials said.
Mr. Karzai is also paid for allowing the C.I.A. and American Special Operations troops to rent a large compound outside the city — the former home of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban’s founder. The same compound is also the base of the Kandahar Strike Force. “He’s our landlord,” a senior American official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Mr. Karzai also helps the C.I.A. communicate with and sometimes meet with Afghans loyal to the Taliban. Mr. Karzai’s role as a go-between between the Americans and the Taliban is now regarded as valuable by those who support working with Mr. Karzai, as the Obama administration is placing a greater focus on encouraging Taliban leaders to change sides.
A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment for this article.
“No intelligence organization worth the name would ever entertain these kind of allegations,” said Paul Gimigliano, the spokesman.
Some American officials said that the allegations of Mr. Karzai’s role in the drug trade were not conclusive.
“There’s no proof of Ahmed Wali Karzai’s involvement in drug trafficking, certainly nothing that would stand up in court,” said one American official familiar with the intelligence. “And you can’t ignore what the Afghan government has done for American counterterrorism efforts.”
At the start of the Afghan war, just after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, American officials paid warlords with questionable backgrounds to help topple the Taliban and maintain order with relatively few American troops committed to fight in the country. But as the Taliban has become resurgent and the war has intensified, Americans have increasingly viewed a strong and credible central government as crucial to turning back the Taliban’s advances.
Now, with more American lives on the line, the relationship with Mr. Karzai is setting off anger and frustration among American military officers and other officials in the Obama administration. They say that Mr. Karzai’s suspected role in the drug trade, as well as what they describe as the mafialike way that he lords over southern Afghanistan, makes him a malevolent force.
These military and political officials say the evidence, though largely circumstantial, suggests strongly that Mr. Karzai has enriched himself by helping the illegal trade in poppy and opium to flourish. The assessment of these military and senior officials in the Obama administration dovetails with that of senior officials in the Bush administration.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars in drug money are flowing through the southern region, and nothing happens in southern Afghanistan without the regional leadership knowing about it,” a senior American military officer in Kabul said. Like most of the officials in this article, he spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the information.
“If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” the American officer said of Mr. Karzai. “Our assumption is that he’s benefiting from the drug trade.”
American officials say that Afghanistan’s opium trade, the largest in the world, directly threatens the stability of the Afghan state, by providing a large percentage of the money the Taliban needs for its operations, and also by corrupting Afghan public officials to help the trade flourish.
The Obama administration has repeatedly vowed to crack down on the drug lords who are believed to permeate the highest levels of President Karzai’s administration. They have pressed him to move his brother out of southern Afghanistan, but he has so far refused to do so.
Other Western officials pointed to evidence that Ahmed Wali Karzai orchestrated the manufacture of hundreds of thousands of phony ballots for his brother’s re-election effort in August. He is also believed to have been responsible for setting up dozens of so-called ghost polling stations — existing only on paper — that were used to manufacture tens of thousands of phony ballots.
“The only way to clean up Chicago is to get rid of Capone,” General Flynn said.
In the interview in which he denied a role in the drug trade or taking money from the C.I.A., Ahmed Wali Karzai said he received regular payments from his brother, the president, for “expenses,” but said he did not know where the money came from. He has, among other things, introduced Americans to insurgents considering changing sides. And he has given the Americans intelligence, he said. But he said he was not compensated for that assistance.
“I don’t know anyone under the name of the C.I.A.,” Mr. Karzai said. “I have never received any money from any organization. I help, definitely. I help other Americans wherever I can. This is my duty as an Afghan.”
Mr. Karzai acknowledged that the C.I.A. and Special Operations troops stayed at Mullah Omar’s old compound. And he acknowledged that the Kandahar Strike Force was based there. But he said he had no involvement with them.
A former C.I.A. officer with experience in Afghanistan said the agency relied heavily on Ahmed Wali Karzai, and often based covert operatives at compounds he owned. Any connections Mr. Karzai might have had to the drug trade mattered little to C.I.A. officers focused on counterterrorism missions, the officer said.
“Virtually every significant Afghan figure has had brushes with the drug trade,” he said. “If you are looking for Mother Teresa, she doesn’t live in Afghanistan.”
The debate over Ahmed Wali Karzai, which began when President Obama took office in January, intensified in June, when the C.I.A.’s local paramilitary group, the Kandahar Strike Force, shot and killed Kandahar’s provincial police chief, Matiullah Qati, in a still-unexplained shootout at the office of a local prosecutor.
The circumstances surrounding Mr. Qati’s death remain shrouded in mystery. It is unclear, for instance, if any agency operatives were present — but officials say the firefight broke out when Mr. Qati tried to block the strike force from freeing the brother of a task force member who was being held in custody.
“Matiullah was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Mr. Karzai said in the interview.
Counternarcotics officials have repeatedly expressed frustration over the unwillingness of senior policy makers in Washington to take action against Mr. Karzai — or even begin a serious investigation of the allegations against him. In fact, they say that while other Afghans accused of drug involvement are investigated and singled out for raids or even rendition to the United States, Mr. Karzai has seemed immune from similar scrutiny.
For years, first the Bush administration and then the Obama administration have said that the Taliban benefits from the drug trade, and the United States military has recently expanded its target list to include drug traffickers with ties to the insurgency. The military has generated a list of 50 top drug traffickers tied to the Taliban who can now be killed or captured.
Senior Afghan investigators say they know plenty about Mr. Karzai’s involvement in the drug business. In an interview in Kabul this year, a top former Afghan Interior Ministry official familiar with Afghan counternarcotics operations said that a major source of Mr. Karzai’s influence over the drug trade was his control over key bridges crossing the Helmand River on the route between the opium growing regions of Helmand Province and Kandahar.
The former Interior Ministry official said that Mr. Karzai was able to charge huge fees to drug traffickers to allow their drug-laden trucks to cross the bridges.
But the former officials said it was impossible for Afghan counternarcotics officials to investigate Mr. Karzai. “This government has become a factory for the production of Talibs because of corruption and injustice,” the former official said.
Some American counternarcotics officials have said they believe that Mr. Karzai has expanded his influence over the drug trade, thanks in part to American efforts to single out other drug lords.
In debriefing notes from Drug Enforcement Administration interviews in 2006 of Afghan informants obtained by The New York Times, one key informant said that Ahmed Wali Karzai had benefited from the American operation that lured Hajji Bashir Noorzai, a major Afghan drug lord during the time that the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, to New York in 2005. Mr. Noorzai was convicted on drug and conspiracy charges in New York in 2008, and was sentenced to life in prison this year.
Habibullah Jan, a local military commander and later a member of Parliament from Kandahar, told the D.E.A. in 2006 that Mr. Karzai had teamed with Haji Juma Khan to take over a portion of the Noorzai drug business after Mr. Noorzai’s arrest.
Dexter Filkins reported from Kabul, and Mark Mazzetti and James Risen from Washington. Helene Cooper contributed reporting from Washington.
Posted by: maniza | Oct 28, 2009 2:25:12 PM
Very sorry. I was misled by two lines:
"Twenty-five years ago, the Pakistani state used Islam as an instrument of state policy."
and
"In the long term, we will have to see how the larger political battle works out between those Pakistanis who want an Islamic theocratic state and those who want a modern Islamic republic."
Both lead me to think the writer holds dear the idea of a faith-based politic.
I don't have a problem with the idea, by the way, but in the context of any confessional politic the problems described much be addressed on two levels. The faithful have their work cut out for them. And for outsiders, I and others with good intentions, whatever we say or do must be carefully calibrated not to be counterproductive or misunderstood.
It has been clear to me since 9/11 that Islamic extremism, no matter what the stripe, will ultimately be overcome by Muslims, not by those outside the faith. Even then the evils will never disappear completely. The evils of the KKK and its kin must always be monitored and defeated by a greater social and religious center of gravity. So, too, must the evils of the Taliban, whether Afghan, Pakistani, or other. (I read the model is getting planted elsewhere.)
Posted by: John Ballard | Oct 28, 2009 2:59:25 PM
this has been, on the whole a civil, if hot discussion. one of the rubs, digging deep and down ten comments, is whether there is enough light between pervez' alternatives, between an 'islamic theocratic state' and 'a modern islamic republic.'
from a point of view well away from the subcontinent, i think people might reasonably take the view that there is not enough difference between the alternatives, and that there is always danger that one may slide into the other on account of the absence of a multicultural, multiethnic and multifaith argument at the center of the state.
Posted by: aditya dev sood | Oct 29, 2009 2:56:13 AM
Interesting!
"In Pakistan’s lower-middle and middle classes lurks a grim and humourless Saudi-inspired revivalist movement that frowns on any and every expression of joy and pleasure"
I have the impression that this attitude forms the basis for much of the problems with ideological extremism. If you are not having fun, you don't want any others to have any fun as well. And then you feel the need to control them.
Posted by: Klausi | Oct 29, 2009 3:55:14 AM
Sufis believed in jihad, sufis believed that the world was filled with ignorant, inferior kaffirs who should be converted to Islam. All of the 'soft' Islam of the sufis was simply a methodology to make Islam attractive to those they wished to convert. At its heart, sufism is still 'Islam uber alles'
Posted by: Tehsin | Oct 29, 2009 2:16:55 PM
Aditya makes an interesting point. It is often said that Jinnah was led to demand Pakistan out of a genuine concern for the Muslim community. He feared that it might get drowned among the Hindu majority of an undivided India. Fear then, and not ideals, was the major impetus for the birth of Pakistan. Though he was secular himself, and had no doubt hoped for a secular state, he deserves few points for political smarts. Imagine the oxymoronish idea of "a secular country for Muslims," solemnly named "the land of the pure". Hellooo!
Jinnah did have one great chance to demonstrate his secular commitments, right at the birth of Pakistan, when the partition riots and ethnic cleansing of Hindus/Sikhs took place in West Punjab (and of Muslims on the Eastern side). Sadly, Jinnah didn't lift a finger and watched the carnage unfold from Karachi, in very sharp contrast to the exemplary courage of his Indian counterparts, Nehru and Gandhi (who nevertheless, along with the British, aren't free of blame for the partition).
Pakistan began with a sickly idea and then came the politics of the Cold War to break its back.
Posted by: Namit | Oct 30, 2009 4:03:02 AM
Jinnah didn't lift a finger...watched the carnage unfold ...in very sharp contrast to the exemplary courage of his Indian counterparts, Nehru and Gandhi.
Keep it up Namit. You do a good job with your revisionist history for making the case for Pakistan for any Pakistani who may harbor any doubts about the partition.
Posted by: maniza | Oct 30, 2009 5:44:42 AM
One correction. Jinnah did visit Lahore/Punjab during the partition riots but, as the leader of his people, he didn't do or say much. Here is a quote I located from Guha's India After Gandhi.
Thanks, Maniza. What is a revisionist account to some is a knock on hagiography to others.
Posted by: Namit | Oct 30, 2009 1:19:43 PM
I would be interested in hearing what Abbas thinks led to the democide in East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh.
I don't see how one escapes from Islam if one insists on having an Islamic republic. There aren't any examples of Islamic polities who have equal rights for non-Muslims or unsactioned Muslims like the Ahmadiyyas (or in extreme cases, Shia). It was the same for Christian polities historically, like the United Kingdom, and they only became really just when they ditched their religious basis.
It seems to me that a secular, democratic, liberal government in Pakistan is the real goal. Of course, there is a real difference between Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, but I don't see why Pakistan has to be an Islamic republic, especially since it is a recent innovation that was not endorsed by the founders of the state.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Oct 30, 2009 5:21:17 PM
Pakistan's self inflicted suffering??? Pahdon? Say what?
Mr. Hoodbuoy exaggerates the self inflicted suffering--and does not blame the elite--which happens to be the military business interests of Pakistan;US; and the UK. These are the backbone of the elite of Pakistan. There is no assigning of responsiblity or blame to them.
Why not the Bradfordization of Pakistan? Why not the Evangelicalization of Pakistan?
Saudisation, UK-ization and US-ization of Pakitan are all one and the same thing in Pakistan's context.
It is hard to disagree with the article for what it describes.
Its is hard to accept that this is self inflicted by Pakistanis. This article lacks honesty.
I would say instead that: Yes for three decades, deep tectonic forces have been silently tearing Pakistan away from the Indian subcontinent and driving it towards the Arabian peninsula; to the inner cities of United Kingdom and other parts of Europe to their fossilized communiites who were unable to integrate due to the racist policies in those countries which have discouraged integration; and the conservative fundamentalist mindset of the vaste regions of evangelist America.
I would edit Hoodbuoy and say instead that: Grain by grain, the desert sands of Saudi Arabia; the culturally barren inner cities of Europe and the United States where fundamentist ideologies reign supreme, are replacing the rich soil that had nurtured a magnificent Muslim culture in India for a thousand years. This culture produced Mughul architecture, the Taj Mahal, the poetry of Asadullah Khan Ghalib, of Khushal Khan Khattak, Rahman Baba, Shah Latif Bhitai, Guru Nanak; Baba Farid, Bulleh Sahah, and much more. Now a stern, unyielding version of religious conservatism of evangelism is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis and saints who had walked on this land for hundreds of years.
It is hard to agree with just blaming Pakistan. Its hard to agree that the solution is only Pakistani. It is not acceptable that what is happening in Pakistan is self inflicted and Hoodbuoy should know better.
Pakistanis in the majority have been forced in the last 30 years into a social, political and economic framework not of their choosing. The the majority of Pakistanis did not have the option to leave Pakistan and therefore chose to survive by opting to live with the system that was forced upon them in the last 30 years. Who was responsible for forcing that system? That needs to be focused on. Were these internal forces only? --Or were they external forces with their foriegn policy agendas of cold war and containment and oil, drugs and weapons? Were the four coup d'etats especially the first and second and third the making of Pakistans majority which is poor? Was the Afghanistan war the making of this Pakistani population? Was it self inflicted?
Does anyone remember the acid attacks on female students at universities and colleges during the Zia years.
Which student parties did this and who supported them. Ask the CIA.
What happened to the Mosques in Pakistan? Ask the CIA
Who introduced the language of jihad and mujaheedeen into Pakistan. Ask the CIA.
Whose war is being fought in Waziristan: Ask the CIA
Who is backing the drug Mafias: Ask the CIA
Since the problem has been identified as "Saudisation" of Pakistan--then Saudi Arabia and its ideology are the problem--correct?
In which case is the International coalition which is pounding away--bombs and bullets into Afghanistan and Pakistan--being advised to instead do this to Saudi Arabia?
I don't see this being recommended by Mr. Hoodbuoy.
I also don't see this being discussed as a NATO strategy.
How much of the so called aid to Pakistan went to Pakistanis?--I don't mean the well off but to the Pakistanis who needed education, health, infrastructure, jobs--and a sytem which was not feudal or tribal. How much of aid went towards making a system of services that made every Pakistani equal in the eyes of the law--and provided access to basic---services--- And how much of that Aid was predicated on Pakistan fighting a US/UK, Saudi--jihad?
Self inflicted?
She was asking for it. Right? Poor Pakistan.
Posted by: maniza | Nov 8, 2009 4:19:24 PM
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