Washington’s
Varying Standards of Democracy
By Siddique Malik
US
While visiting Pakistan during mid
March 2005, Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice
called Pakistan a great role model for Muslim
countries. Two weeks later, religious fanatics
led by a member of parliament attacked female
participants of a marathon in Gujranwala. According
to these fanatics, the women athletes had endangered
Islam by venturing outside the home and competing
with men!
True, law and order issues can arise
in any country and should not have a bearing upon
a country’s relationship with the outside
world, but this was hardly such a situation. The
fanatics’ leader issued a statement urging
his disciples to use force against participants
of mixed gender marathons. Instead of arresting
him for inciting violence, Pakistani government
declared that such marathons would be curbed.
This ‘religioholic’
politician, Mr. Fazal Rehman is a high-profile
member of Pakistan’s parliament. After Pakistani
elections of 2002, he was the opposition’s
candidate for Prime Minister. On April 11, 2005,
while speaking on the floor of the National Assembly
as the official leader of the opposition, he once
again declared that his workers would use force
to ensure that the marathons in question were
not held anywhere in the country. The government
still failed to act against him.
On the one hand Pakistani government
is in the habit of registering false cases against
its critics and opponents and disrupting their
gatherings, while on the other hand it is afraid
of taking even proper legal action against a hooligan,
a politico-religious fanatic, because of his self-established
apotheosis. Not the traits of a role model.
Can any one imagine a US senator
making a contumacious statement on the Senate
floor and getting away with it? By whose standards
did Ms. Rice judge Pakistan to be a role model?
By Saudi Arabian standards? If so, then, there
was no need to launch a monumental Iraq operation
in which many thousand individuals have lost their
lives. Surely, we could have convinced Saddam
Hussein to develop such a low quality dispensation.
In fact he loved such farcical modus operandi;
let us not forget he was elected president by
‘100% percent’ of votes. It is now
common knowledge that the issue of weapons of
mass destruction was artificial, despite the American
government’s continued cant claims to the
contrary. If there was even an iota of evidence
that Saddam possessed such weapons, we wouldn’t
have invaded Iraq and understandably so. Why do
you think we haven’t attacked North Korea?
Just days before Pakistan’s
‘marathon’ episode, Mr. Rehman and
his fellow fanatics forced the government to restore
the mention of religion in the country’s
passport. This aspect of Pakistani passport was
jettisoned a few months earlier, making passport
the only area in which Pakistan’s non-Muslim
citizens experienced a semblance of equality with
their Muslim compatriots, in an otherwise increasingly
hostile environment. Pakistan has laws that forbid
non-Muslim Pakistanis to seek nations’ top
jobs such as prime minister, president, etc. During
Ms. Rice’s stay in Pakistan, her host, Pakistan’s
foreign minister, Mr. Kasuri, stood next to her
and claimed that Pakistan’s minorities enjoyed
equal rights. Ms. Rice did not bring up these
discriminatory laws. She was either contemplating
the role model status for Pakistani government
or was under the effect of a grueling jet lag.
Either way, she disappointed Pakistan’s
minorities.
The reality is that Islam does not
require its followers to have their religion mentioned
in their passports. Even if such a requirement
existed, being a role model would have necessitated
keeping religion out of the matters of state so
as to circumvent the tyranny of the majority.
Pakistan’s statutory bigotry
includes other draconian laws, too. A law called
the blasphemy law can bring a quick death sentence
to any one (Muslim or non-Muslim) the self-declared
custodians of piousness accused of having conducted
blasphemy against Islam. Basically, any comment
or action the fanatics don’t like is liable
to be declared blasphemous by them. Judges presiding
over these cases are so scared of the mullah’s
threats that they almost always pass death sentence
against the accused, even in the absence of sound
evidence.
Pakistani women are constantly under
a sword of Damocles that exists
in the form of a law called Hudood (Urdu for limits)
Ordinance. Any woman perceived to be crossing
the limits of decency is subject to the most horrible
punishment. If a rape victim cannot prove that
rape actually took place, she can be charged with
fornication with the man whom she accuses of raping
her and sentenced to death while the rapist gets
a slap on the wrist.
These draconian laws were created
by Pakistan’s previous military ruler, Ziaul
Haq. He was the founding father of the Taliban
movement and was a great darling of America, because
he, too, was perceived as a ‘partner’
in a war, the war against the Soviet Union’s
occupation of Afghanistan. Ever since the dark
days on which these laws were enacted, Pakistan’s
progressive elements have been trying to get these
laws quashed but the clergy has prevailed. In
this area, America’s current war-partner
(it is ironic that America’s Pakistani partners
are always power-hungry army generals) General
Musharraf has disappointed forces representing
human dignity and equality. If he, as a president
with unfettered powers, cannot stand up to a bunch
of fanatics, how can he claim to be active in
a war against terrorists who embody an advanced
stage of fanaticism? Has America bet on a wrong
horse?
Fanatics are always on the prowl
in Pakistan. They have burnt down shops that sell
and rent movie videos and music tapes. They have
painted over female faces on advertisement billboards
in clear violation of the billboard owners' constitutional
right to own property. They have stopped vehicles
and set them on fire because the vehicles let
out sound of music. In Pakistani universities,
morality squads affiliated with the country’s
politico-religious elements (the kind to which
Mr. Rehman belongs) are on hand to ensure that
no social communication takes place between students
belonging to the opposite sexes. Pakistan’s
medical colleges are especially afflicted with
this cancer that is under not so subtle control
of Saudi Arabia’s Wahabism. And, guess,
where some of Pakistan’s medical graduates
end up? Right here, in America that under their
perverted imagination is a land of ‘infidels’.
When these medical apprentices finally get the
green light from the US immigration department
to settle in America, as most of them do, one
wonders about their loyalty to American values.
The Secretary’s remark would
only bolster Pakistan’s fanatics and encourage
its government to continue to pretend that fanaticism
doesn’t exist in the country. These fanatics
would not rest until Pakistan is completely Talibanized.
Are we then going to invade Pakistan in the name
of freedom? Ms. Rice’s remark mirrors American
nonchalance of the past whereby suppressive regimes
could get away with anything as long as they toed
our line. Moreover, this remark flies right in
the face of the administration’s claims
that it has embarked upon a new journey to spread
freedom worldwide and the Secretary’s own
eloquent ‘freedom-deficit’ speech
that she delivered in Paris at the start of year
2005.
The big question is: has the
American government rectified its approach towards
the Muslim world by embracing the masses rather
than their oppressors? We cannot and must not
endanger the lives of our sons and daughters every
few years because our governments find it expedient
not to nip the evil in bud. Pre-emptive acts don’t
have to be only in the form of a military invasion.
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