Uneasy rider

28Oct09

While driving to my office the other day, I almost crashed head-on into a motorcycle. The burly man riding the bike was coming in from the wrong way on a one-way street. After braking, I gestured to him as to what on earth was he up to.

The motorcyclist gestured back and then shouted: ‘Are you blind?’
With half a smile and a full frown I told him he was the one coming from the wrong side.

‘So?’ he asked. 
‘So, my friend, you are the one who has broken the law,’ I explained.
‘Whose law?’ he said. ‘It’s not God’s law, is it?’

Shaking my head, I said: ‘God doesn’t make traffic laws. He leaves that to the intellectual discretion of human beings. Surely, he has given us the wisdom to make a few laws of our own.’

After hearing this, the gentleman dismounted from his bike and started walking purposefully towards my car.
‘Listen,’ he said, shaking a finger. ‘I can ride my bike any which way I want to. Why should I care about traffic laws made by corrupt people?’

Politely nudging his finger away from my face, I asked him how did he know the traffic laws were made by corrupt people.

He started laughing: ‘What are all these tullahs (traffic cops)? Aren’t they all corrupt?’
‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘But their corruption is as wrong as anyone breaking the law.’
‘Accha? So now you think I am corrupt?’ He said, still laughing.

‘Don’t know,’ I said. ‘But you most certainly were wrong by coming from the wrong side on a one-way street.’
‘I don’t care about man-made rules!’ He announced, and started strolling back towards his motorbike.

‘Bhai saheb,’ I said, taking my head out of the car’s window. ‘Had you hit me, you would have ended up in jail, not me. So try using your brains while riding your bike.’

That stopped him in his retreating tracks: ‘Only God decides who lives or dies, or who goes to jail or not. Who are you?’

‘Someone who is willing to use the mind God gave him,’ I replied.
‘Yeh dil ki baat hoti hai (Religion is a matter of the heart),’ he said. ‘Otherwise, even kafirs have a mind!’

Now it was me who started laughing. Taken aback, he began plodding a few meaningful steps towards the car: ‘What’s so funny?’ He asked.

‘Bhai,’ I said, smiling. ‘If it was only a matter of the heart, most of the Muslim population would have died of a heart attack by now.’
He wasn’t impressed by my quip: ‘You people think that by reading a few books you are an authority on religion?’ He asked, sarcastically.

‘No,’ I said. ‘But how many books have you read to be an authority?’
‘I just know, because my heart says so,’ he announced.

‘And did your heart tell you to break the traffic rules and laws as well?’ I asked.
‘I only follow God’s laws!’ he said, proudly.

‘How can you follow God’s laws when you can’t even follow simple man-made laws?’ I asked.
‘Man-made laws don’t mean anything,’ he replied, while walking back to his bike.

‘That’s a very well maintained bike you have,’ I half shouted, taking my head out of the car’s window again.
He didn’t answer and kick-started his shining bike.

‘Man-made laws may not mean much to you,’ I said. ‘But man-made machines sure do!’

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The great caving in

28Oct09

Only a few days ago, while channel surfing on a slow-moving evening, I came across a show where an ‘alim’ and his ‘scholar’ guest were discussing the Islamic edicts on the issue of wife-beating.
As the ‘scholar’ insisted that the husband could use whatever degree of violence on a ‘disrespectful wife,’ the host, who usually applauds the most reactionary notions about religion, was, this time, left gulping; perhaps conscious that his own wife might be watching this circus. He tried to soften the scholar’s blow by suggesting that ‘there’s a whole procedure to this,’ but the guest just kept at it.
It was a classic example of modern-day religious programming which claims to use scholarly insights to close the gap between religion and modernity, but usually ends up opening various Pandora’s boxes whose awkward and medieval contents make religion seem anything but compatible with contemporary society.
The question is, why discuss such topics? We know that many a divine revelation has passages that modernist Islamic scholars have been grappling with for years, arguing that these need to be understood allegorically and in the historical context in which they appeared instead of discussing them as if the dynamics of society were still ruled by medieval impulses.
These TV shows claim to be making faith and its edicts ‘easy to live by in the modern world,’ but the fact is they only manage to add another suffocating layer of social cumbersomeness that is found in societies (like Pakistan) that always seem busy shakily trying to balance religious literalism with modern materialism.
The results of such a balancing act are not exactly an enlightening synthesis, but rather, an intellectual exhaustion that leaves society collapsing inwards. Its habitants then emerge sounding either suspicious (giving vent to conspiracy theories about imagined attacks on their beliefs), or somewhat deluded (they start flaunting grandiose, even xenophobic, ideas about the perceived superiority of their faith.
Maybe the most obvious reason behind such an existentialist collapse is that in societies where religion is dragged in as an ever-present social, political and personal facet, the weight of such an act (especially in a modern setting) is that people simply cave in. In their lethargy, they are thus left thinking more about afterlife, rather than energetically engaging with what they have as life here and now.

 

Mine is an objective enquiry that gets even more urgent when I see TV programming also trying to insist that whatever major scientific discoveries took place in the 20th century were already present in the holy book. My friend Fasi Zaka is right to wish that people would stop saying this because, for example, no one has been able to find a cure for malaria or chickenpox so far even though, as an article of faith, many Muslims may believe that it is there.
As well-known Islamic scholars like Professor Ziauddin Sardar, Muhammad Arkoun and scientists such as Professor Pervez Hoodboy suggest, it requires considerable mental gymnastics and distortions to find ‘scientific facts’ in religious text.
Yet such tendencies have become a lucrative fad. Bookshops overflow with such literature; television preachers talk endlessly about how many different scientific theories can be found in the holy book, only after they have been touted by scientists! Numerous websites are devoted to explaining the phenomenon. Prof Sardar laments: ‘The underlying message of these theories is that all the science you need is in the holy text — no need to get your hands dirty in a lab or work within mainstream theories.’
The emergence of such fads and theories, too, is maybe a fallout of the existentialist caving in of Muslim societies. In their introversion, they have also become intellectually lazy, on the one hand, refusing to contextualise medieval laws based on 8th and 9th century man-made traditions, and on the other, using convoluted pseudo-sciences (based on imaginative whims rather than hard scientific facts) to match the West’s claim to modern scientific dominance.
What most cranks in this respect never tell their gullible audiences however is that long before Muslims started claiming ‘scientific truths in the holy book’, Hindus and Christians had already covered this tricky territory. For example, Hindu fundamentalists claimed that what progress science had achieved was already reflected in Hindu sacred texts. They were quoting examples like ‘Pushpakavimana’ mentioned in Ramayana, when Harun Yayah was most probably in his shorts.

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A fast draw

28Oct09

‘Why do all the restaurants close down in Ramazan?’ I asked a young journalist at the Karachi Press Club.

‘Silly question,’ She said.
‘What’s so silly about it?’
‘It’s Ramazan, for heaven’s sake. People fast.’

‘But isn’t fasting supposed to be about exhibiting endurance and tolerance?’
‘Yes, but it’s also about respecting the sanctity of the month.’

‘If so, then how come all these yummy food brands are allowed to run their commercials on TV before iftar?’ I inquired.

‘Well, I really don’t see anything wrong with that?’

‘Really?’ I replied. ‘So, a person who is not fasting is not allowed to eat in public before iftar, but TV channels are allowed to show people having ice-cream, cola, chips and chicken shashlik… before Iftar?’

‘Listen,’ she said, ‘those commercials help generate money for the channels which it then uses to pay its employees their salaries! It’s a fair case.’

‘That means, hypothetically speaking, if a man is sponsored by an ice-cream brand to enjoy a sumptuous cup of ice cream in public, even that’s okay?’

‘No comment,’ She signed.
‘Oh, no, please do comment,’ I said. ‘Maybe my deference requires to be rectified by the more righteous.’
‘What everyone needs to do is fast,’ she said, mockingly.

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘So that everyone can then sympathise with this obvious dichotomy between real life and that on TV?’

‘What dichotomy?’ She asked.’ What’s so wrong in restaurants closing down to show respect to those who fast?’
‘Oh, no, dear lady,’ I interrupted. ‘Most eating places close down because the government tells them to close down! Ever since the 1980s, restaurants haven’t closed down in Ramazan on their own accord. The state has forced them to!’

‘So, what?’ She said. ‘We are an Islamic country, aren’t we?’
‘We were an Islamic country before the 1980s as well,’ I shot back.

‘Well, then maybe we were wrong in not enforcing the sanctity of Ramazan.’

‘Ah, we just love enforcing things, don’t we? Enforce this edict, enforce that edict! And yet, after years of enforcement, we remain a sorry society riddled with crime, violence, corruption, hypocrisy…’

‘Are you suggesting that people should be allowed to open an eating place before iftar?’ She asked.

‘If one does not fast, well, that’s a matter between oneself and God. Just like praying, giving alms and performing Haj. You can’t force all to the mosques, or to give alms or perform Haj even if they have the resources. Who is the state, a government, a mullah or a pious middle class urbanite like you to tell what is sacrosanct?’

‘Those who fast are better Muslims!’ she retorted.
‘That should be akin to being a good human being also?’ I asked.

‘How can you be a good human being when you do not respect someone’s religious beliefs by eating in public during Ramazan?’ She said.

 ‘I am not telling anyone not to fast, for heaven’s sake!’
‘Why don’t you?’ She said, sarcastically. ‘That should also be allowed.’

‘I find restricting people from eating during Ramazan through a law is an irrational act that only encourages intolerance and self-righteousness!’

 ‘And how is that?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘every year, during Ramazan, Urdu papers are full of stories as to how someone who was caught eating in public was brutally beaten by a mob!’

‘Then you too will be beaten with slippers if you do not respect the sanctity of Ramazan,’ she said, mockingly. 
‘Then you’re okay with that?’ I asked.

‘Listen, I’m fasting, and too exhausted to go on. You can go out and eat in public for all I care.’
‘Ah,’ I half-shouted again. ‘That’s the spirit.’

‘What?’

‘You said ‘you can go out and eat in public for all I care’. That’s what I was looking for. Tolerance. Every year many tolerate self-righteousness from our very faithful brethren. Now, if they can show a little tolerance for the not-as-faithful, I think you can strike a peaceful, rational and workable balance.’
‘I see,’ She groaned.

‘But don’t worry,’ I added. ‘If ever Pakistan becomes a secular country, rest assured, I will not beat people with slippers for fasting or eating in Ramazan. Fair case?’

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Bogey nation

25Oct09

Recently the monthly Herald published the results of an elaborate survey that it undertook to determine the extent of anti-Americanism in Pakistan. The findings suggest nothing that we do not already know. The percentages in this case hold only an academic interest.

Though anti-Americanism during the Cold War (1949-89) was mostly the ideological vocation of pro-Soviet leftists, today (some twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union), one can safely suggest that America is experiencing its most detested hour. It hasn’t been hated across the board so much and so instantly as it is today, thanks mainly to the many arrogant misdeeds of the Bush administration and its utter deficiency in the art and skill of empathetic and prudent diplomacy.

However, the anti-Americanism virus — at least in most Muslim countries — today is such that the critique that comes with it is largely rhetorical, and, at times, rather obsessive-compulsive. The recent ‘debate’ that took place in Pakistan’s electronic media on the Kerry-Lugar Bill is a vivid example of this trend, in which, it was quite clear that certain politicians, TV talk show hosts and their audiences among the country’s ever growing chattering classes, who were quick to attack the Bill, hadn’t even read the document! Their single cue in this respect was the Pakistan Army’s concerns about certain conditions mentioned in the aid bill, and off they went on a rampage.

More interesting however will be to trace the history and evolution of anti-Americanism in Pakistan. According to a research paper written by Dr Talukder Muniruzaman in 1971 on the politics of young Pakistanis, a majority of Pakistanis viewed America positively and admiringly in the 1950s. The paper also suggests that right up till Pakistan’s 1965 war with India, most Pakistanis saw America as a friend, especially in the context of the Soviet Union’s close ties with India.

According to a lengthy paper (published by Chicago University in 1983) on the ideological orientation of Pakistan’s university students (by Kiren Aziz and Peter McDonough), anti-Americanism among most Pakistanis remained somewhat low even during the celebrated movement (in 1967-68) against the Ayub Khan dictatorship; in spite of the fact that the movement was largely led by leftist students and politicians.

The paper further suggests that anti-Americanism in the 1970s that was ripe among many Arab countries due to the United States’ single-minded support for Israel, started to finally make its way into Pakistani society during the Z. A. Bhutto regime (1972-77); especially when Bhutto started to expand his ‘Islamic Socialism’ doctrine at the international level by striking firm relations with various radical Muslim states and Arab countries. The build-up to this was the otherwise sympathetic Richard Nixon administration’s failure to militarily help its Asian ally during the 1971 war with India.

In spite of this, America remained Pakistan’s leading aid donor. According to Lubna Rafique’s 1994 paper, ‘Benazir & British Press,’ it was only in the last year of Z. A. Bhutto’s regime (1977), that he started to allude to moving out of the ‘American camp,’ calling the US a ‘white elephant.’ He also went on to accuse the Jimmy Carter administration of financing right-wing parties’ agitation against him in 1977.

Throughout the Ziaul Haq dictatorship in the 1980s, anti-Americanism remained a much polarised affair in Pakistan. Most political-religious parties and their supporters, and the industrial class that supported Zia, were either openly pro-America or ambiguous on the subject. This was due to the fact that Zia was an Islamist military dictator who was backed by the Ronald Regan administration with military hardware and dollars during the West’s war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and against ‘communism in the region’. On the other hand, anti-Americanism became rampant among those opposing Zia.

Though by the late 1980s the intensity of anti-Americanism had grown (compared to the preceding decades), it never became violent. In fact, some would suggest that in the 1990s as America largely divorced itself from the region after the end of the Afghan civil war, anti-Americanism actually receded, and Pakistanis got busy tackling the bitter pitfalls of the war in the shape of bloody ethnic and sectarian strife.

Anti-Americanism returned to the fore like never before after the tragic 9/11 episode in 2001. According to veteran defence analyst, Hassan Askari, this strain of anti-Americanism is an emotional response of most Pakistanis to the confusion that set in after 9/11. In other words, this version of anti-Americanism has very little to do with a more academic or concrete understanding of both international and home-grown terrorism. The post-9/11 confusion and emotionalism in Pakistan is given vent and an ‘intellectual tilt’ by Islamist apologists of all shapes and sizes pointing fingers at ‘outside forces’ for the blood that is being shed by home-grown fanatics, is only too visible.

Whereas there was a prominent streak of individualism and romantic rebellion associated with the anti-Americanism of Pakistani leftists during the Cold War, nothing of the sort can be said about the widespread anti-Americanism found in Pakistan today. The present-day phenomenon has become an obligatory part of populist rhetoric in which American involvement is blamed for everything — from terrorist attacks, to the energy crises, to perhaps even the break of dengue fever.

Ridiculous, really.

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The curious case of Karachi

22Oct09

It would be an obvious thing to proclaim that no place and no one’s safe from the brutality of terrorism in Pakistan. There are no safe havens here where the faith-charged barbarians can’t and won’t strike. However, and ironically, over the last couple of years, what was once one of the most edgy and troubled provinces of Pakistan, Sindh, has remained nervously quiet (if not entirely peaceful).

As suicide bombers and car bombs go off with an audacious frequency right across the NWFP, Punjab, Balochistan and Islamabad, Sindh and its capital, which is also the country’s largest city, Karachi, has largely remained ‘peaceful’ – at least for the last two years.

Of course, this peace has very little confidence in itself and always seems to be on the brink of losing its fragile hold to the wrecking ways of the Taliban, the Al Qaeda, and related clusters of holy madness; but so far the province of Sindh has managed to ward off the bloody spat of reactive violence perpetrated by the Taliban and their sympathisers in the wake of the government and the army’s operation in Swat, and now Waziristan.

One can locate the source of this (albeit fragile) peace in the unwavering strength various strains of non-puritanical Islam (such as Sufism) and the politics and sociology of the shrine culture have demonstrated in much of Sindh.

Conventional politico-religious parties such as the Jamat-i-Islami (JI), Jamiat-Ulema-Islam (JUI), and Jamiat-Ulema-Pakistan (JUP) have never been able to exercise any worthwhile political, social, or electoral power in the interior of Sindh, and neither have the more militant and fanatical off-shoots of these parties such as the Sipah Sahaba Pakistan and the Sunni Thereek (formed in 1990 and considered to be the result of factionalisation in the JUP).

The interior of Sindh has for long been the bastion of political influence and electoral power of the secular Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). Other forces that also exercise some political influence in this area are various Sindhi nationalist groups, and the Mutahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM), that enjoy pockets of support in the area. The only conservative political parties that can boast of some political and electoral influence here are squarely moderate in their religious outlook. These include Pir Pagara’s Pakistan Muslim League (Functional), Ghulam Mustapha Jatoi’s National Peoples Party, and Mian Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz).

The process of ‘Islamisation’ or more so, religious radicalisation undertaken by the Ziual Haq dictatorship in the 1980s through state propaganda and madrassahs to create puritanical jihadi groups for the so-called anti-Soviet Afghan Jihad, had little impact on the minds and hearts of Sindhis.

The shrine culture and its political and social tentacles were just too strong here to break; in fact, this culture was effectively used by Zia’s opponents (especially the PPP and Sindhi nationalists) during the three major anti-Zia movements that took place in Sindh (in 1981, 1983 and 1986).

Karachi, the capital of Sindh, offered a different story. Though the city has always been known as the only truly cosmopolitan city of the country with strong liberal and pluralistic overtones, till 1984 it was the only major city where fundamentalist politico-religious groups such as the JI and the JUP enjoyed their finest electoral hours.

Interestingly though, JI and JUP’s influence in Karachi was solely political – a case of reactive politics on the part of Karachi’s mohajir majority which, unlike the Sindhis, Baloch, Pashtuns, and Punjabis, was not directly linked to the land they lived on and thus had to define its ‘Pakistaniat’ by supporting the country’s non-ethnic ‘Islamic roots’ of creation.

The Political Islam displayed in the rhetoric and manifestos of the JI and the JUP appealed to the mohajirs landless refugee status, whereas as a social, cultural and economic entity, the mohajirs remained largely liberal in outlook. That’s why, though the JI and the JUP continued to enjoy widespread political support in Karachi, this did not affect Karachi’s other status of being Pakistan’s most modern, diverse and liberal centre of activity.

Through the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, Karachi was also the entertainment capital of the country, holding the most number of nightclubs, bars, cinemas, amusement parks, social clubs, and beaches with hundreds of ‘huts’ made to accommodate the thousands of Pakistanis and western tourists who visited these beaches. The city was also the country’s economic hub and bastion of higher education, boasting the largest number of factories, colleges, and universities.

On the other hand, Karachi also had the biggest slums. The largest continues to be located in the Lyari area, mostly populated by working-class ‘Afro-Pakistanis,’ a people whose ancestors were brought from Africa as slaves and soldiers first by the invading Muslims (from the eighth century onwards), and then by the Portuguese in the seventeenth century.

Other major slums of the city are made up of various ‘underclass’ and working-class mohajirs – most of whose families arrived from India after 1947 but, unlike many of their post-Independence refugee contemporaries, could not better their economic conditions – as well as Pathans, most of whom started arriving during the Ayub Khan dictatorship in the 1960s and have since been involved in the city’s economic activity as laborers, factory workers, and transporters. Biharis, who are Muslims from the Indian Bihar, most of whom moved to former East Pakistan after 1947, but started arriving in Karachi after East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971 also inhabited the city’s slums.

The widespread slums also meant that Karachi had the most pronounced crime rate in the country, but it is interesting to note that politico-religious parties had been more popular in the city’s middle- and lower-middle-class areas that voted for them mostly for political reasons (as discussed above); whereas the voting that took place in the city’s working-class and slum areas had more economic and left-leaning motives. For example, left-of-centre parties like the PPP have continued to win in Lyari and Malir’s working-class areas ever since the 1970 general elections, and the leftist National Awami Party (NAP) was strong in the Pashtun-dominated working-class areas, just as the defunct party’s off-shoot, the Awami National Party (ANP) – formed in 1986 – still is.

Karachi’s enthusiastic response to the JI-led Pakistan National Alliance’s protest movement – based on the slogan of Islam and shariah – against the ZA Bhutto regime in 1977 was more political in nature than ideological. Bhutto was a Sindhi (‘son of the soil’) and an autocrat, two things the mohajir majority of Karachi could not connect with keeping in mind its refugees-from-India status and its mistrust of the provincial system that replaced the old ‘one-unit’ system (after 1970) that did not recognise the provinces on ethnic basis.

But ethnicity become an even more prominent issue after Bhutto was toppled and hanged by Ziaul Haq – an event that the Sindhis will would never forgive the Punjabi dictator for.

Affected by the growing ethnic cleavages in the society, some mohajir student activists decided to form their own political group, as if demonstrating that the mohajirs too were a separate ethnic entity. Formed in 1978 at the Karachi University, the All Pakistan Mohajir Students Federation (APMSO) soon gave birth to the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) in 1984. The emergence of this distinct ethnic party happened at a time when Karachi had started to teem with a number of administrative, economic, and social problems, mainly due to overpopulation and the arrival of thousands of Afghan refugees who had started to pour into Pakistan at the start of the anti-Soviet Jihad in Afghanistan in 1980.

Many of these Pashtun Afghans started to populate the Pashtun-dominated slums and working-class areas of the city, plus the vast open areas just outside the city that were turned into permanent refugee camps.

Just like their Pakistani Pashtun brethren in Karachi, many Afghans too became laborers, petty traders, and transporters. However, many of the Afghans also brought with them huge amounts of weapons (pinched from American weapons consignments for the anti-Soviet jihadists), and drugs like heroin that had started to pour in from the outskirts of the anarchic Afghan-Pakistan border areas.

Unchecked entry of the Afghans leading to rapid population growth; the introduction of sophisticated weapons to settle scores and commit crime (the ‘Kalashnikov Culture’); drug mafias – many of whom switched from selling the less harmful and less profitable hashish to selling the highly addictive and lucrative heroin – and the utter lack of road sense and concern by transportation companies run by the richer Afghans in the city, all these gravely upset and altered the social and political landscape of Karachi, putting a tremendous burden on the once thriving economics of the city.

These coupled with the Zia dictatorship’s relentless ‘Islamisation’ moves that also saw radical religionists (mostly militant Saudi-funded Sunni groups) setting up a number of madrassahs and mosques in the city and whose sole aim was to indoctrinate and recruit young Pakistanis for the ‘Afghan jihad,’ turned Karachi into the most violent and crime-riddled city of Pakistan, which now also became a hotbed of sectarian strife.

The emergence and gradual popularity of the MQM meant the fading away of the political support conventional politico-religious parties like the JI and JUP enjoyed in the city. This also meant the beginning of another process, in which the relative social liberalism of the mohajirs began to also invade and colour the community’s otherwise conservative politics.

This process however would be rather slow to evolve, as the ‘rootless’ MQM and the huge mohajir support that it had bagged got into a series of tense conflicts with the province’s Sindhi majority, the Afghan refugees, Karachi’s Pashtun minority, and then with parties like the PPP, the JI, the PMLN, and eventually with the state itself.

Throughout the 1980s Karachi struggled with intense ethnic and sectarian strife, an unprecedented crime rate, a serious heroin problem, and a collapsing economy – a trend that failed to reverse itself across the ‘decade of democracy’ in the 1990s. The city had become a cultural and economic graveyard, and paled in comparison to what it had been before 1980.

In contrast to this, the last 10 years or so have seen Karachi unexpectedly regenerate itself – first at a tentative, unsure and cautious pace (during which it faced a number of suicide bombings, but during which the MQM also began to peel off its overwhelmingly ethnic and militant character). The pace of the social, economic, and cultural regeneration picked up after 2004, and the city started to demonstrate a new confidence and maturity.

Though still one of the most complex, diverse, edgy and populated cosmopolitan entities, Karachi’s relatively peaceful decorum in the face of the havoc being perpetrated by the extremists elsewhere in the country is due to some admiring compromises that the people and politicians of this city have struck in the last few years. Some of the factors fueling Karachi’s regeneration are:

•    The acceptance by the state of Pakistan of MQM’s mainstream status as a political organ with a strong electoral influence that cannot be deterred through any form of Machiavellian maneuvers.
•    A delicate but promising compromise struck between the secular political expressions of Karachi’s mohajir, Punjabi, Pushtun, Baloch, and Sindhi populations, namely the MQM, the ANP, and the PPP.
•    The diverse population’s reflective understanding of the importance of social and political plurality and tolerance as a means to experiencing a strife-free and economically benefiting survival in the metropolis.
•    The withering away of the political support that politico-religious parties such as the JI and the JUP once enjoyed and whose recent politics (especially the JI’s), encourages a myopic and isolationist world view that can be detrimental to the people of a cosmopolitan, diverse and economically vibrant city like Karachi.
•    The relative lack of support (compared to the NWFP and the Punjab), that the city provided to various militant groups. Thanks to Karachi’s staggeringly ethnic and sectarian diversity, it was always tough for puritanical sectarian and Islamist groups to find much sympathy from the bulk of the city’s population.
•    The overriding consensus against the Taliban, reached long before such a consensus was struck by Pakistan as a whole.
•    A popular and prominent city government, supported across the board and among distinct ethnicities.
•    The Sindh and city governments’ firm stands on the issue of Taliban cells in the city.

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Pride & prejudice

18Oct09

There’s a telling photograph accompanying columnist Salman Masood’s article on the Kerry-Lugar Bill in the October 8 issue of New York Times. The piece is on how Pakistanis have been reacting to the supposedly controversial aid bill.

There was nothing new about the reactions that Masood gathered, with most of the respondents dishing out the usual top-of-mind rhetoric about ‘sovereignty’ and all that, but it was the picture that was worth a thousand, nay, a million words. It showed two trendy young men sitting with the plastic replica of Rodney McDonald outside a McDonald’s joint in Islamabad. According to Masood, both men vehemently opposed the bill, saying that it ‘undermines Pakistan’s sovereignty’.

The picture is a classic case of the stinging socio-political contradiction that Pakistan has become. Its people and politicians, its army and holy men can be seen lovingly engaging with the most ubiquitous symbols, gadgets and concepts of what we all instantly ridicule as ‘western materialism/imperialism’, and yet without even blinking for a second, many Pakistanis can be expected to roll out high and mighty examples of thoughtless oratory about political and cultural sovereignty.

My question is: if we aren’t sovereign, then exactly what does a politically and culturally sovereign Pakistan really mean? This question is bound to bag numerous different answers. And that should be expected in the diverse ethnic and sectarian milieu of Pakistan. This diversity is yet to be recognised by the state and its society, that strives rather unsuccessfully to define and defend Pakistan’s identity as a cohesive and singular whole, constantly dragging in religion believing it to be the glue that could hold the centre of this ideological singularity.

But it hasn’t. Because the religion has many sects and sub-sects, and each sect has its own take on the religion’s traditions and rituals. It is vital that to keep tensions between these sects at a minimum, governments and the state, as well as the hyper electronic media, stop dragging religion out of peoples’ homes and into public sphere.

Let’s, for once and for all, resign to the fact that there is one God, but there most certainly is not one faith. The more this reality remains inside the privacy of homes, the better. Otherwise, Pakistanis of various sects and sub-sects will not only continue judging the validity and authenticity of each other’s faith, they will clash with the cohesive version of the religion that the state of Pakistan has been peddling for years now.

Sovereignty, like charity, begins at home. We delude ourselves and glorify our importance by constantly suggesting how powerful nations are so interested in Pakistan; as if Pakistan is all that is discussed by their politicians, army generals, think-tanks and economists. Conspiracy theorists, fringe politicians, mullahs, Islamists and the chattering classes put us at the centre of the universe, around which malicious superpowers constantly hatch conspiracies and schemes to destabilise our wonderful Islamic republic.

The truth is rather simple, really. The above is merely a mirage; a feel-good (and yet paranoid) projection, splashed to obscure the many state level and social failures this unfortunate republic has been suffering in the name of religion, patriotism and, of course, sovereignty. On what basis do we demand sovereignty? What do we have to deserve it?

Many would turn around and instantly remind you that we are a nuclear power. If so, then perhaps we are only slightly better than the isolationist, poverty-stricken and repressive North Korea. Well then the bomb’s all we have, and as an acute case of collective neurosis, we so passionately worship our ‘fathers of the bomb’, a devise that can wipe out whole populations and countries.

Where are the schools, hospitals, a welfare system, political stability, a robust democracy, a healthy economy, and a life free of sectarian and religious strife, bigotry, bloodshed and hatred? We are all prisoners of certain delusions—about ourselves and about the many countries that we believe are constantly scheming against us. We refuse to free ourselves from these paranoid, self-serving apparitions and yet we demand sovereignty from the nefarious designs of our many (largely imagined) enemies. The enemy is us.

Each one of us is to be blamed. Once we manage to openly recognise and confess our own shortcomings, our journey to a sovereign state based on religious tolerance, economic progress and political plurality shall begin. Till then all we can do is to keep hugging our bomb and raise our bony fists in a delusional exhibition of empty triumph and hysterical paranoia.

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Country profile: Pakistan

15Oct09

History

The state of Pakistan occupies an area which was home to some of the earliest Neanderthal settlements, some of whose decedents can still be found hiding in caves in the mountains of North Pakistan. The only difference is, in the Stone Ages, these Neanderthals were armed with clubs and stones, and today they are armed with guns and bombs. Remarkably though, they remain as furry as they were millions of years ago.

The modern state of Pakistan was born out of the partition of the Indian sub-continent in 1947 and has faced many regional confrontations, usually brought on by its continuing habit of poking its nose where it doesn’t belong.

Created to meet the demands of Indian Muslims who wanted to have their own boxing ring, Pakistan was originally in two parts: Part 1 was called Maula Jat and Part 2 was called Jat in Dhaka. The east wing – present-day the Flooded Republic of Bangladesh – is on the Bay of Bengal bordering the Bollywood Republic of India and the Miserable Republic of Burma. The west wing – present-day the Not-Quite-Arab Republic of Pakistan – stretches from the Arabian Sea to the Himalayas and – according to famous patriots and military geniuses like Munawar Hussain and Zaid Hamid – the country actually stretches all the way to New Delhi, Kabul, Tashkent and maybe even Beijing (the last needs to be conquered because Chinese eat frogs and frogs are makru, even if some people say that they taste just like chicken).

The break-up of the two wings came in 1971 when the mainly Bengali-speaking and fish-eating east wing seceded with help from the Elders of Zion.

The disputed northern territory of Kashmir has been the flashpoint for two of the three utterly useless India-Pakistan wars – those of 1948 and 1965. There was a further brief but bitter armed conflict after Islamic militants (ironically led by an enlightened-moderated army man, General P. Mush Bonaparte) infiltrated Indian-administered Kashmir in 1999. After the operation ended in a fiasco, he blamed it on the not-very-enlightened-moderated former prime minister, Mian Naraaz Sharif.

Civilian politics in Pakistan in the last few decades has been tarnished by corruption, inefficiency, confrontations, and bad breath between various institutions and/or whatever institutions that are left in the country. Actually, the word political institution is an oxymoron when discussed in the context of Pakistani politics and state.

Alternating periods of civilian and military rule have not helped to establish stability. In fact, instability is the only stable tradition in Pakistan; a tradition that is being passionately upheld by a series of TV talk shows because political stability would mean lack of viewership and advertising revenues for the channels and a drastic drop in popcorn sales that could turn people into boring book readers which is so passé.

Pakistan came under military rule once again in October 1999 after the ousting of a civilian government that had lost a great deal of public support because the public lost its appetite for rich Mughal dishes such as nihari, paye, and biryani which Prime Minister Naraaz Sharif was a great fan of.

He has since become a vegetarian and is usually taunted as becoming a sissy by Brig. (rtd.) Cookie Monster Billa, the architect of the Afghan Jihad and – according to trendy patriot Madam Maria B – the 1857 Indian Mutiny in which the madam also took part as a gallant needle-worker. Her gallantry was praised by the famous poet Mubashir Lucman on the recommendation of Adolf Hitler. Madam Maria B. still has her famous 1857 needles with which she now pokes voodoo dolls of her competitors in Pakistan’s cut-throat fashion world.

Mr Mush eventually relinquished his army post amidst tears in November 2007, but at parliamentary elections in February 2008, his supporters were defeated, also amidst tears.

The Pakistan Khapay Khapay Khapay Party (KKK) formed a coalition government led by Asif Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Zardari and an impeachment process was launched against Mush, who resigned (amidst more tears) in August 2008.

Pakistan’s place on the world stage shifted after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US. It dropped its support for the Neanderthal regime in Afghanistan and was propelled into the front line in the fight against terrorism, becoming a key ally of the Elders of Zion and assorted secret Freemason societies.

However, Pakistani forces have struggled to maintain control over the restive Neanderthal regions along the Afghan border, where Neanderthal militants are firmly entrenched with sophisticated dish antennas hidden in their turbans and bombs strapped around their tummies which they claim is only a weight reducing exercise. But nobody (except maybe the brilliant Lord Imran Khan), believes them.

In the spring of 2009, the government attempted to reduce disaffection in the troubled north-western Swat district by agreeing to the imposition of the Whipping Women Law.

Far from improving security, this move allowed the Neanderthals to tighten their grip on the region, and the agreement broke down after only a few whips. Since then, the government has waged a rolling military campaign to flush the furry Neanderthals out of the tribal areas – an act that many sensitive Pakistanis such as Professional Hajji Aamir Qayamat and the notorious Male Nurse Shahid Masood have criticized.

Tensions with India over Kashmir have resurfaced regularly ever since the partition of the sub-continent, and the two nuclear-armed (but empty bellied) powers have on numerous occasions been on the brink of renewed conflict that promises to be as exciting as a close Twenty20 cricket match on a bouncy pitch. Or, at least, that’s what most Pakistani and Indians think. Idiots.

Asif Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Zardari won the presidential race of September 6, 2008, by a big majority. His election by Pakistan’s legislators came a few weeks after his predecessor General P. Mush Bonaparte resigned amidst tears under threat of impeachment that, however, has now turned into an imbananament!

At his swearing-in ceremony, Mr Zardari said he was accepting the post of president in the name of his assassinated wife, Benazir Bhutto, who was killed by a leading Neanderthal who himself was killed by an American drone attack. Many Pakistanis do not approve of American drone attacks, even if they usually manage to kill the scum of the earth. However, it is likely Pakistanis would have hailed the drone attacks had they come from the Saudis who are our brothers and we their camels.

Media

General P. Mush Bonaparte’s rule ushered in increased freedom for the print media and a liberalisation of broadcasting policies. Television is the dominant medium, and there are around 50,000 private channels all babbling about the same things.

More than 100 private FM radio stations have been licensed. Fake American accents and low IQ levels are firm prerequisites for success. These FM stations are not allowed to broadcast their own news programmes, and thank God for that!

Scores of unlicensed FM stations are said to operate in the tribal areas of North-West Frontier Province. They are usually operated by Neanderthal RJs, of which DJ Fazalullah In Da Caaaaave is the most popular.

The broadcasting regulator can order a halt to the carriage of foreign TV channels via cable. However, the spouting of utter nonsense and hate speeches on local channels is allowed. Keeps popcorn sales from falling.

Pakistan’s press is among the most outspoken in South Asia, although its influence is limited by a literacy level of around 50 per cent. Out of these, perhaps a mere 5 per cent actually make the effort to read a newspaper and those who do read newspapers they read dailies that spout utter nonsense and scribble hate speeches. Nadeem F. Paracha of the Daily Zion is one such iblees.

There are around 18 million internet users in Pakistan. A growing number of bloggers write about politics, and informative, engrossing and intelligent discussions take place on various internet sites. Here is one example:

Superbilla:
What you think you think you are you kafir anti-Islam Pakistan Afghanistan Israeli Hindu dog!

Pakpunk:
Oh, you shut up you deobandi terrorist what you think you are you and I am I am great Muslim and Pakistan jeeay jeeay yea!!

Munchkins:
Oh why you fight you both you fight you both we all Muslim ummah and Pakistani patriots so we should get together and gather and explode atom bum on India!!!!

Superbilla:
Oh you shut up you hypocrite you not real Pakistani but Ahmadi nonsense, oh you bastaaaaaaaa!!!

Munchkins:
Shut up your face you blasphemy man you destroy unity of Muslim ummah and reader of kafir NFP you too bastaaaaaaaa!!!!

Moderator:
Guys please refrain from using bad language. We are Pakistanis and Muslims and this is a respectable forum where tolerance is practiced.

Munchkins:
Oh why you say this to me to me what about superbilla and pakpunk I am tolerant best Muslim in whole wide world like Pakistan best country in whole wide world.

Moderator:
I said exhibit tolerance and respect, okay? That goes for all.

PartabIndia:
Thank you, sir, for the tolerant words. I am from India and …

Moderator:
Oh, you bastaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

 

Originally posted on:
http://blog.dawn.com:91/dblog/2009/10/15/country-profile-pakistan/

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The great denial

15Oct09

In Pakistan, the audacious has become the norm. The terrorist attack in Lahore today  – along with the many that have taken place in the last many years in this unfortunate country – may seem something out of ordinary anywhere else in the world, but not in Pakistan.
 
Pakistan it seems stopped being part of the ‘normal’ world a long time ago. Nothing’s impossible here when it comes to faith-driven terrorism. Now everyday the terrorists manage to mock and dodge the government and the state, almost at will. Nobody and nothing’s safe.
 
One can go on criticizing the state’s many intelligence agencies and the government for exhibiting utter ignorance and helplessness in anticipating terrorist acts that have been repeated over and over again using almost exactly the same ways and techniques and impacting the same venerable areas and spots, but I’d rather take a more self-critical view of the whole damn nightmare.
 
What is it that makes these terrorists so sure and confident about themselves?
It’s simple. We do!
 
It is the sheer hesitancy that we show towards fully realizing the grave dangers these terrorists hold,  and a weird, inexplicable sense and understanding of reality that most Pakistanis look to be suffering from, that gives these terrorists the psychological edge and opening; providing them as convoluted a justification to commit acts of barbarism in the fine name of God, as is our own habit of ending up actually recognizing their many deeds as being either a sympathetic socio-political outcome, or, of course, a wild conspiracy by our many (largely imagined) enemies lingering on our borders.
 
The TV channels and drawing-rooms will be abuzz for a day or two discussing the mayhem, but very few Pakistanis actually take the time they get during the lull periods to reflect as to what has happened to their country and its people.
 
Instead, these lull periods are spent going right back to flexing our pulpy rhetorical muscles and sharpening of our non-existent teeth against our ‘enemies.’
 
Amazingly, as politicians, TV talk show hosts, clerics, the chattering classes and journalists all get together for a collective show of inspired morning and bemoaning against our ‘corrupt politicians’ and ‘government of beggars,’ we so conveniently forget that at the moment nothing’s as bad or more troublesome an issue in this country as terrorism.
 
But it is not general apathy or distracted energies of the people that the extremists are feeding on; it is a collective case of denial on the part of an increasing number of Pakistanis that is strengthening these extremists.

First of all, it is a fact that violence-prone extremism was ironically the creation of the CIA, with patronage provided by Arab petro-dollars and the local intelligence agencies such as the ISI. There is not an iota of doubt about the history of these agencies using the concept of jihad as a calling card to gather fighters for the so-called ‘Afghan jihad’ in the 1980s. A string of radical Islamic scholars were used along with the state-owned media and madressahs to fervently indoctrinate a huge number of young Muslims. 
 
More dangerous was the way droplets of this aggressive strain started to trickle down to shape the sociology and politics of Pakistanis who are not extremists. That’s why, for example, today, if you mention names like Musharraf, Zardari. Altaf Hussain or Nawaz Sharif, one won’t be surprised to see a number of Pakistanis leap into to action, getting into an animated mode, criticising and lambasting corrupt politicians and power-hungry generals. However, the moment you try to discuss a recent episode of suicide bombing, most Pakistanis can then be seen suddenly going into a shell, trying to avoid the topic.
 
The majority will not condone suicide bombings and terrorism, but they will not condemn it either – or at least the way it should be condemned. No wonder, according to a recent survey, most Pakistanis actually believe terrorism is a secondary problem in their country – rather obnoxious a delusion indeed.
 
And that’s dangerous. Some Pakistanis would avoid discussing the issue altogether, actually believing that maybe criticising the ‘holy warriors’ (no matter how violent they may be), is like criticising Islam, while some would gladly become navel-gazing apologists of such acts, pointing their finger at the every ready list of imagined enemies who want to ‘destabilise Pakistan.’
 
Whom should we blame, seems to be the question on their mind. The thinking is that blaming the extremists is perhaps equal to agreeing with Zardari and the US. It is this narrow, egocentric mentality, coupled with echoes of years and years of indoctrination of a contradictory and xenophobic strain of Islam that has left a bulk of Pakistanis apathetically suffering from and subdued by matters such as extremism and terrorism.
 
What Musharraf represented or what this present government is all about in the form of the establishment comes with a historical and visible baggage. It is thus a target that can be clearly seen, pinpointed and attacked, whereas extremism remains an elusive enemy. Some would even go to the extent of negating its very existence, in spite of the ubiquitous sights of blood, bodies and limbs quivering on blackened streets. So, it is not general apathy or distracted energies of the people that the extremists are feeding on; it is a collective case of denial on the part of an increasing number of Pakistanis that is strengthening the extremists. A denial made worse by the animated apologists found babbling and foaming incoherent and unsubstantiated drivel across the many TV screens and channels of the nation. 
 
Though it is true the terrorists are not overwhelmingly popular with the masses, it is also true that most Pakistanis have yet to perceive the extremists as the kind of enemy that they really are. With ready-made explanations like RAW, CIA and that ‘fellow Muslims are being subjected to state atrocities in the north’ spiel being their best answers to the madness of extremism and terrorism, it is highly unlikely to expect Pakistanis to tackle the issue anytime soon – in spite the fact that maybe it’s already too late.

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Beards: a trim history

04Oct09

In his biography, Mirror to the Blind, Abdul Sattar Edhi complains how he detests being called a ‘maulana’.

‘Mine was never a religious beard,’ he says. ‘It was always a revolutionary beard,’ he explains – perhaps inspired by Karl Marx, whom Edhi identifies as an inspiration during his youth. In the book he is quoted as saying that hardly any man in Pakistan used to have a beard in the 1950s.

A senior journalist, Ghulam Farooq, agrees: ‘In the 1950s and 1960s, no self-respecting Pakistani from any class would have liked to be seen with a long beard, apart from the mullahs. All this stuff about the beard having any religious significance played absolutely no role in the lives of Pakistanis. In fact, the beard was seen as a symbol of exploitation and bigotry.’

Showing me black and white photos of political rallies of the late 1960s, a former progressive student leader, Naushad Hussain, enthusiastically challenged me to point out ten men with beards among the hundreds that stood listening to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Asghar Khan in the photos. I couldn’t.

‘Look closely,’ he smiled. ‘There are only three.’
‘What about the ‘revolutionary beards’?’ I asked.

‘Revolutionary beards became famous in the West after Castro and Che Guevara’s revolution in Cuba,’ Naushad explained. ‘But long hair and revolutionary beards (in Pakistan) really became popular from 1970 onwards.’

A. Kabir, another progressive student leader (at the Karachi University in 1973-74), suggests that very few male students had beards even in the 1970s. ‘Ironically, only the most radical Marxists on campus went around with beards, looking like Che. Even the staunchest members of the right-wing Islami Jamiat Taleba (IJT), were clean-shaven. Being young and having a beard (and long hair) in those days meant that one was a radical leftist.’

Beards, especially heavy stubbles, also became popular as an expression of one having a creative and artistic disposition. Mahboobullah, a former graduate of the famous the NCA, Lahore, remembers that (in the 1970s), coffee houses and college canteens were full of long-haired and bearded young men sipping tea and beer, chain smoking and discussing politics, philosophy and art. ‘A young man with a neglected stubble or a beard, talking reflectively with a cigarette in his hand became a trendy pose in those days,’ Mahboobullah chuckled. ‘Women loved it!’

Karamat Hamid a former student at the Dow Medical College in Karachi in the 1970s, says that by 1976 almost all leading Pakistani TV actors had beards. ‘Talat Hussain, Rahat Kazmi, Shafi Muhammad… the creative big shots had beards. It became a global fashion. Cricketers like Dennis Lillie, Wasim Raja, Ian Chappel, rock musicians, Hollywood actors and directors, painters, college boys and even university professors all over the world had beards,’ remembers Karamat. ‘It was a fashion expressing creativity, intellect and manhood.’
 
So exactly when did beards stopped being a liberal/leftist aesthetic and start becoming a ‘religious symbol’?

‘I believe the trend started in the 1980s,’ says Sharib, a former member of the Islami Jamiat Taleba (who later joined the MQM).

‘I remember a lot of us were very impressed by the looks of the Afghan mujahideen. Then we started to keep beards like them,’ he explained.

In other words, one can say that the ideological symbolism of the beard had started to grow from left to the right. Fatigued by the exhaustive liberalism of the preceding decades and now under the propagandist hammer of a reactionary dictatorship, a lot of Pakistanis started rediscovering God, as it were, in the 1980s.

‘Beards started emerging on the most unlikely of men,’ laughs Talha Naqvi, a middle-aged head of an NGO. ‘It became a symbol of piety. Everyone from mujahids to smugglers to traders grew a beard,’ he said.

But according to Talha the real beard explosion happened in the 1990s: ‘This was the time when we first started hearing about people going around and asking young men to grow beards because it was an Islamic tradition. I used to say, if this was a tradition then so was riding a camel or using a brick for a pillow by early converts, so why not follow those examples as well?’

Talha says that the rising number of Pakistani men having beards for religious reasons became even more ubiquitous after the tragic 9/11 episode. ‘More and more young men today keep a beard as an Islamic edict.’

It seems after all these years of searching for some kind of identity, many young Pakistanis have ended up finding one with the help of a beard (or hijab). It’s become an exhibition of instant piety, and more so, a somewhat long-winded belief system that with their purposeful new looks they belong to a special community of chosen people; a herd-like expression of some divinely cohesive uniformity – at least in looks, which in turn may only have little to do with religion. It’s a statement very much opposed to the notion of diversity.

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To kill a mocking lizard

07Sep09

Like most women, my wife too detests lizards. Whenever she sees one in our house, she wants me to kill it there and then. Finding them mostly harmless — in fact they do us a favour by having mosquitoes and flies for lunch and dinner — I ask my wife to at least give the poor reptile a fair trial.

But no sir, nothing doing. They have to be heartlessly slaughtered by yours truly no matter what. These extra-judicial killings of lizards has, unfortunately, turned me into a reluctant expert at killing them. But it wasn’t always like that.

Years ago I just couldn’t get myself around to killing lizards and had to fetch my chawkidar to do the honours.

Though he did kill them, he always followed up the ritual by saying, ‘Why kill lizards? They bring good luck.’
He is a pious man who prays and recites the Quran regularly. And in spite of the fact that pious men do not bode well with my awkward sceptical disposition, I always found this superstition of his rather endearing. However, recently my sister (who also, of course, hates lizards), told me a related tale about another very pious man.

The gentleman works as a driver for my sister and her husband. She told me how he simply loves slaughtering lizards. Why? Well, according to him, every devout Muslim should kill a lizard the moment he sees one because the killing is ordered by a so-called text! So, on the one hand I have a pious Muslim who thinks lizards bring good luck, and on the other, I have an equally pious man who believes that beating the hell out of a lizard is akin to a jihad.

That reminds me of the famous Justice Munir Report on the 1954 anti-Ahmadi riots in Lahore. In the course of the inquiry, Justice Munir pointedly asked every Muslim scholar who appeared before him if he knew of a definition of Islam which could be acceptable by the other sects as well; which could equally apply to everyone and by the help of which we could define, ‘Yes, this is a Muslim’, and ‘That is not a Muslim’.

In the report Munir submits that no two scholars among all Muslim scholars interrogated, agreed on a single definition of what Islam was.

In the case of one particular scholar, he wanted some more time to think over it, and Justice Kayani, who was a partner of Justice Munir in the enquiry commission, said: ‘I cannot give you more time because you have already taken more than fourteen hundred years to ponder over this question. Is that not enough? If fourteen centuries, plus some years are not enough for you to be able to define the very fundamentals of Islam, how much more time would you require?’

Anyway, though I entirely loath the driver’s reason for killing lizards, I can’t help but say that his pious counterpart, my watchman, is equally irrational in his take on the subject. But what about me, the rational, enlightened, secular lizard killer? What is my take on it? Well, my reasons are aesthetic. My wife finds lizards to be slimy creatures and I tend to agree with her. Maybe that makes us racist.

However, as long as I am rationally conscious of my hypocrisy in this respect and refuse to involve religion in the matter, I think I have hope. As for my two pious friends, well, I hope the watchman retains his pacifist superstitious bearings, but I sincerely hope the driver gets mercilessly bugged by the mosquitoes and the flies that would have been sumptuously gulped down by all the lizards that he disembowelled.

Ah, what a ruthless Darwinist am I.

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