Them and Us
By Shireen M. Mazari
These are intense
times. We are besieged from within our own and from
our external detractors. So it was not surprising
to find 14th August an exceptionally emotive occasion
and amid the forebodings and bleakness of the macro
environment, it was the little events that provided
the joy and gave hope that our nation will move
on and ride out the storms it seems destined to
face. But first to the major developments that threaten
us and astonishingly seem to elicit no appropriate
and determined response from us.
The threat of the extremists as they move increasingly
towards violence and terrorism continues to become
ever more exacerbated and central to the lives of
all citizens. Worse still, we are again seeing the
rising tide of violent sectarianism -- and that
too in public institutions. Punjab University seems
to always take a lead in such affairs and so we
find a bizarre issue now being created over Shia
students not being allowed by officialdom, to pray
as they wish on the campus. Even more tragic is
the fact that we have allowed sectarianism legitimacy
within the educational system by acknowledging the
sectarian-based Wafaqul Madaris to formulate exams
and so on. This is a first for the public education
sector. So, from a time in the sixties when your
sect was never an issue for conflict or even identity,
we are now creating yet another divisive identity-definer.
Given the heterogeneous nature of our Muslim population,
it was Jinnah's wisdom that led him to decree that
religion was to be a matter of personal faith and
not a "business of the state". Certainly
Pakistan was created for the Muslims of India and
no law repugnant to Islam was to be formulated in
this new state -- and this was the defining parameter
of this new state. Beyond this, Jinnah and his supporters,
who fought for and created Pakistan were very clear
that after August 14, 1947 all Pakistanis would
be equal regardless of cast, creed or sect -- so
no separate electorates and certainly no sectarian
creeds within the state structures.
Yet, in these dark times of sectarian divides, religious
bigotry and extremist violence, there are those
attempting to reassert the predominance of the national
green and white and the spirit of Jinnah's Pakistan.
When the younger generation makes an effort, it
is all the more heartening because it gives hope
for a rejuvenated nation. For instance, this 14th
August I was privileged to be part of a young group's
celebration, which centered on deghs for the poor
(especially the Christian population living in the
slums amid the privileged sectors of Islamabad)
and a distribution of food/sweet packages to the
local police on duty. The initiative and exuberance,
as well as the savings used were all theirs, and
it moved one beyond the mere superficiality of "celebrating"
Independence Day.
But the feelings had been building up much earlier,
especially with the viewing of the remarkable film,
Khuda Key Liye. The hypocrisy and cruelty of the
zealots on both sides has been brought out with
a clarity and realism that one has not seen post-9/11
-- certainly not from Hollywood or Bollywood. If
the religious extremist's evil is there, we are
also made to see the evil of the US state post-9/11
and how it can destroy an innocent Muslim. For those
who have found all manner of excuses for the way
Muslims have been targeted in the US, this film
is a must-see.
Which brings me to our main external detractor --
that supposed ally of ours, the US. Some of us have
been seeing and highlighting the negative approach
of the US towards Pakistan for some time now and
also warning that at the end of the day their strategic
target is the nuclear capability of Pakistan since
their end goal is to see a weakened and submissive
client state here. That is why when Ms Bhutto, in
an effort to please the US media, declares to the
Wall Street Journal that Pakistan needs to cooperate
more with the US military and NATO in the war on
terror, one begins to wonder whether our ruling
elites will ever rid themselves of the American
yoke.
For all our troubles post-9/11, when we became a
frontline state for a US-led war for the second
time in this region, what have we gained? Certainly
some economic sops at the tactical level but look
at the costs within our own domestic polity. But
dealing only with the US approach to Pakistan as
a result of our cooperation, what do we have now?
First: A law that makes all aid to Pakistan conditional
on US presidential certification on a number of
issues mentioned in detail in previous columns.
Second: US presidential candidates suggesting that
the US military attack Pakistan (that will certainly
awaken even the most loyal American supporters in
this country to the deeply-embedded US hostility
towards a nuclear Pakistan).
Third: US think-tanks and the media creating deliberately
conjectured scare stories about Pakistan's nuclear
assets falling into the hands of extremists in case
an anti-US dispensation comes to power in the country.
Fourth: America letting it be known that it knows
where our nuclear assets are placed and therefore
the logic that follows is they can access these
assets and, if they so desire, can destroy them.
That is meant to scare us into appropriate submission.
Of course, given the disastrous US intelligence
over Iraq -- although the general assumption is
that that was a deliberate lie -- our fear is of
a similar disaster the US may commit here too. After
all, rationality and respect for non-US, non-European
lives is not a priority within the prevailing American
mindset.
In between these developments, we have had the US
administration deliberately undermine the Pakistani
leadership by trying to show that it was their interventions
rather than any logic or rationality on the part
of the Pakistani leaders that prevented the imposition
of the emergency and led the president to participate
in the joint jirga. Certainly such public positioning
does little to bolster the credibility of the state
within the country -- and it seems that is the US
endgame. Perhaps it is time to show some backbone
and limit the access of Mr Boucher when he arrives
here yet again. After all, the American government
has just given India a carte blanche for the development
of its nuclear arsenal and nuclear testing in the
final form of the India-US nuclear deal and where
are we for all the support we have been giving?
Of course we have to fight terrorism for our own
interest, but we must fight it within our own ground
realities, not in the blundering fashion of the
US.
Finally, to further add to the negativity of the
external detractors, our domestic polity is being
agitated also by the growing hysteria against Islam.
We have seen a Dutch MP calling for a ban on the
Holy Qur’an and a US legislator demanding
that the US attack Islam's holy cities of Makkah
and Madina. Imagine the outcry in Europe and the
US if any Muslim politician had demanded that the
Bible be banned in his country? Yet hardly anyone
has raised his voice against the latest Dutch Islamophobia
-- barring a small statement rejecting this call
from the Dutch government.
These are the deepening fault lines between Them
and Us externally; and they play into the domestic
fault lines between Them and Us within our own polity.
Intense passions are invoked all around. The challenge
for us is whether we can chanellise them positively.
(The writer is director general of the Institute
of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Courtesy The News)
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