Pakistan Needs A Coalition Government

                                 By Vivian Salama

The Current Discussion: With President Zardari forced to reverse his bans on political opponents, is Pakistan on the brink or is this a positive sign? What, if anything, can the West do to help maintain stability and democracy?

In less than one month, Pakistan’s government has conceded not once, but three times, to challengers both political and militant in nature. Those concessions have raised concerns about Pakistan’s vulnerability and its inability to suppress its growing militant problem or prevent violent disputes with the opposition.

The first concession came last month when, after more than a year-long offensive in the embattled Swat Valley, the military signed a cease fire with the Taliban, folding to the longtime demands of Islamic militants to implement Shari’a law in the region. Some of the region’s residents remain hopeful that the region will return to a Shari’a that was at one time a moderate, locally-based alternative to the country’s drawn-out federal legal proceedings. But the concession blatantly exposes the Pakistani military’s inability to prevent extremism from seeping into the heart of the country. Located a mere 160 kilometers from Islamabad, Taliban militants now stand at Pakistan’s front door. It is only a matter of time before they move in.

The second concession was on March 3rd, when at least 12 heavily armed militants staged a commando-style attack on a convoy carrying the Sri Lankan national cricket team, coaches and referees to the Gadaffi Stadium in Lahore. I will not explore the various conspiracy theories now floating around Pakistan about who is to blame for these atrocious attacks, which claimed the lives of six police officers and a driver. But I will point out that at the time this post was published, all the assailants remained at large. The scene of the crime, Liberty Square, is a heavily congested roundabout in the heart of Pakistan’s cultural capital. The attacks happened not in the evening like the Mumbai attacks, but during the morning rush hour. There is surveillance video shot by camera crews at television studios based in Liberty Square. The gunmen are reported to have been carrying large bags. British cricket referee Chris Broad has lashed out at the Pakistani government, saying that there was no sign of security at the time of the attacks. The fact that the gunmen got away and have thus far managed to avoid arrest is alarming.

 In an interview with opposition leader Nawaz Sharif days after the attacks, Sharif claimed that the government’s failure to ensure the security of the cricketers is the direct result of its preoccupation with politics and stifling the opposition.

 Finally, after the February 25th decision by Pakistan’s Supreme Court to ban Nawaz Sharif and his brother from elected office, President Asif Zardari’s decision to reinstate Iftikhar Chaudhry, the country’s Chief Justice, came as a surprise to many.

 The past fortnight has been particularly turbulent in Lahore, the capital of Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province and the PML-N stronghold. The highly anticipated cross country “long march” never made it to Islamabad as protesters had initially planned, but it found victory in Lahore. Many pundits pointing to “Punjab Power” as the source of the shake-up.

 President Zardari has never been popular. He was not popular even as the husband of Benazir Bhutto, when she was Prime Minister. As the leader of a civilian government, he is far more vulnerable to the will of the people than his military predecessor, the equally unpopular General Pervez Musharraf, who had the backing of the army.

 His decision to reinstate Iftikhar Chaudhry was indeed a positive step, but it is not the solution to Pakistan’s problems. A coalition government, similar to that agreed upon between Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif just before Bhutto’s assassination, is now needed if Pakistan is to take a serious step against its increasingly dangerous militant problem. Pakistan’s current leadership must show that it is above petty politics by genuinely reaching out to the opposition, rather than making occasional concessions that ultimately expose its inner weaknesses.

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Lambasting Islam is no solution

Toleration is the key 

by Balbhadra Rana

Novelist McEvan has said that he hates militant Islam. He has also defended his friend Martin Amis who has also expressed his dislike for Islam. McEvan says anyone who says something against militant Islam is branded a racist. This is true. Governments the world over have become extra-sensitive in dealing with their Muslim populace. They want to avoid anything that hurts their sentiments. This is because Osama bin Laden’s brand of Islam has many takers.

Let us discuss what McEvan and Amis say about Islam. We deal with Amis first. He says the militants have won the war of dominance and the moderates amongst Muslims have lost. Though there are many takers for the militant brand of Islam, it would be too early to say that the moderates have lost. Though ‘Ladenism’ has appealed to many, most Muslims the world over subscribe to moderate Islam. It is only that the hardliners grab more headlines.

Amis said Muslims would suffer till they bring their house into order. This is true. Muslims the world over are looked upon with suspicion. The relations of Muslims with their neighbours of other religions have been gradually spoiled. But when Amis says things like, ’strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan’, it is going too far. This will only swell the ranks of Laden’s followers.

McEvan says he detests Islam because of the way women are not given freedom and its non-acceptance of homosexuality. McEvan should look at Turkey and Jordan. Both have Muslim populations but the status of women there is good. Iraqi women too enjoyed a free life till Saddam Hussain was deposed. As far as homosexuality is concerned, it is only recently gay marriages were legalized in ultra liberal California. Homosexuality remains taboo even today in most countries of the world.

Though McEvan has full rights to say he hates militant Islam, he offers no solutions. His friend Amis provides extreme measures that will prove counter-productive. It must be kept in mind that Ladenism is a freak strand of Islam, subscribed to by a minuscule minority of Muslims. Muslims are citizens of the world too and followers of other religions should show understanding. Just criticizing the weaknesses of Islam as followed by some will only alienate the entire community. Gandhi’s teachings are very relevant today. His principles of tolerance hold the key to today’s incipient clash between religions.

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Role of ‘Religion’ in violence

A Historic review of its Genesis

Dr. Syed Ehtisham

Organized religion is like organized crime, it preys on people’s weaknesses, generates huge profits for its operators and is almost impossible to eradicate (Mike Hermann).

One does not have to agree with the above to see that religion is used more frequently to cause mayhem, than any other attribute of human kind.

     Examples of violence by the strong on the weak are many and come from the very earliest times of known history. Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Persian, Arab, British, French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, and Russian empires come easily to mind. World wars were fought for the resources of colonies. Post WWII, with weakening of the Colonial powers, the USA took up the role and intervened directly by naked aggression and through surrogates.

In Western countries, violence is attributed variously to fanaticism, clash of cultures, poverty, lack of education etc. Muslim residents of Western countries, by and large, condemn acts of violence against innocent people, but would want the people in the West to understand the reasons why a person would deliberately sacrifice his life.

 Jews were persecuted by followers of practically all religions. Romans persecuted Christians, and Muslims, after their fall from power, were subjugated by all comers including people of their own faith. But violence in the name of religion was first definitively documented in the late fifteenth century Papal Bull which authorized the king of Portugal “to attack, conquer and subdue Saracens, pagans and other non-believers who were inimical to Christ; to capture their goods and territories; to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to transfer their lands and properties to the king of Portugal and his successors”. 

The common thread that runs through all aggression is greed or fear that the new creed would supplant the old one and control the means of production. When resources were no longer at stake, diverse beliefs were tolerated as during the period of Muslim rule in India. The British did send preachers to “spread the word of God” and when natives killed an odd missionary, gunboats followed.

     Resistance to aggression against heavy odds is equally common.

            All animals practice aggression against their own kind, and against other kinds, to a greater or lesser degree. The complexity of the practice appears to be directly related to intelligence. Lower orders generally kill members of other species for food. Others may injure/wound rivals for the affections of a female or to control several comely ones, but generally do not kill them.

            Violence for greed is the exclusive domain of Homo sapiens.

All religions reacted to the prevailing milieu, and confronted the established order. They appealed mainly to the dis-empowered, the destitute and the poor. The rich, the powerful, and the learned had all the privileges already. They initially ignored the emergent creed, did not see any good reason for change, which would, in any case, affect their interests adversely. When the belief system gathered enough strength to challenge the established order, they tried to suppress the new forces with naked force, bribes and temptation, whatever would work. The prophet of Islam was offered riches, women, and positions of authority, if he would only give up his “pointless” preaching. They failed in every instance with all the prophets.

Religions initially attempted to eradicate social evils, and economic inequities. The ruling classes took measures to preserve their authority. They controlled the “administration, the legislature, and the judiciary”[i]. They treated the poor abominably. The ruled had no recourse. All the levers of power were in the hands of the ruling class. If they ran away and were caught, the punishment would be worse than death. If not caught, starvation would be the fate of most.

            It must be clearly understood that religion did not hit at the root of privilege. It only aimed at amelioration of the living conditions of the powerless. Private property remained sacrosanct. Slavery was not abolished; the owners were exhorted to treat them humanely. Women remained the underclass, though they were lulled with meaningless honors like the paradise is at the feet of mothers or that their word was law as in ancient India[ii].

            Having overcome the establishment, all religions organized their own hegemony. The adherents then proceeded to use the faith to advance their own cause. Hegemony inevitably develops a class structure. Jewish priests objected vehemently and violently to Jesus Christ bucking the trend; challenging their right to privileges and a life of luxury. Voodoo practitioners keep their hold on popular mind by subjecting the deviants to exorcism. Christian priests accumulated great wealth, land, and authority rivaling that of Kings, the Popes actually had their own country; vestiges can be seen even now in the Papal state in Rome. The clergy firmly aligned themselves with the landed gentry, supported the established order, exhorting the poor to obey the ruler, suffer deprivation cheerfully, palming them off with the lure that the Kingdom of heaven will be theirs, as long as they do as they are told in this life. It was symbiotic existence; feudal class supported the clergy and was legitimized by the latter.

Islam ordains that one should obey the ruler, as long the ruler does not interfere with the private practice of the faith.

 Among the divinely inspired religions, only Islam founded a political state in its early infancy. The late advent of a political control though did not prevent the followers of other belief systems from going forth, marauding and plundering in the name of the faith. Conspicuous in this behavior were the Christians. But first in the field of colonization in the name of their faith were the Muslims. Jihad, and proselytisation were among the core articles of the faith.

            Energized by the conviction that everlasting salvation lay in the true path, they managed to conquer most of the known world in a matter of a few decades.  They did not object if in the process riches, land, and women fell into their lap.

                     The vanquished did not surrender with out a fight. Resistance was in fact fierce. There is credible evidence that after the main battles, people fought on in guerrilla fashion [iii]. History is being repeated in Iraq, Afghanistan and many other countries. Not able to confront the aggressor directly they have developed a culture of suicide bombing and other such similar measures.           

With decline of Muslim power, Christian cast their covetous eyes on the riches of the East. Advent of the Industrial revolution in the same time frame made them invincibly potent. They went forth as traders for spices [iv] and paid in gold, as India did not need any handicraft they could produce.

___________________________

[i] These offices did not exist in their current form, but members of the ruling class did administer, make rules and sit on judgment.

[ii]  An ancient Indian lore has it that four brothers went hunting and found a stray but comely girl. They brought her back to serve their mother and told her that they had a gift for her. The mother said that she was too old for gifts and they were to share it among themselves. Gods blessed the polyandrous alliance with a unique concession. She would regain virginity after each cohabitation. Firaq Gorakhpuri’s rather irreverent verse;

“Hazar bar zamana edher say guzra hai

Nai nai si hai teri rah guzar phir bhi”

[iii] Nasim Hijazi was a prolific novelist of Urdu. He wrote numerous nostalgic tomes in which nubile girls in Spain invariably fell in love with Muslim warriors, converted to Islam and lived happily ever afterwards in which heroines chaffed at being forced to accept Islam and were forever on the look out to reconvert to the true faith. I have come across Christian equivalents as well of Nasim Hejazi novels.

[iv] Their fixation with spices can be easily understood. It was critical. Their own land was cold, relatively infertile and productive only during short summer months; they had to keep food for long periods of time. There was no refrigeration, natural ice and snow not being consistently reliable, food, especially fish, often went bad. Its odor had to be suppressed, hence the value of pungent spices.

Source:

An Empty Tribal Belt? Pakistan Is Betraying Its Proud Tribesmen

 

by AHMED QURAISHI

 

An empty buffer zone is slowly emerging, separating Afghanistan and Pakistan’s populated areas. A half-million Pakistanis are in tents, homeless and no one is bothered. Is it an American conspiracy and a Pakistani complacency? The Pakistani media and politicians are criminally ignorant and busy in their own power games while a major strategic change is taking place inside and around their country.

This picture above saddened me no end. The proud tribesmen of Pakistan, those who beat the English and the Russians and fought their way to liberate half of the Indian occupied Kashmir are now facing an American conspiracy and a Pakistani complacency.

America’s Afghan blunders have resulted in expelling the proud Pakistani tribesmen from their homes and turned almost half a million of them into refugees in their own country.

If this wasn’t enough, here comes Pakistan to treat them as animals in the ‘tent cities’ built for them near Peshawar. And then come the Americans and the Indians to spread literature encouraging the Pashtun to demand a separate homeland called Pashtunistan.

For a year and a half, I have been explaining at AhmedQuraishi.com to Pakistanis, with original reporting and informed analysis, how Pakistan’s tribal belt was peaceful until 2005, and how ‘non-state actors’ in Washington DC have used the Afghan soil to create, arm and sustain insurgencies inside Pakistan that run from the Chinese-built Gwadar port in the south to the Chinese border in the north. The suicide bombings, the attacks and the destabilization is punishment for Pakistan for supporting the Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan and for insisting to stick to Kashmir against the wishes of India, Washington’s new regional slave-soldier.

The anti-Pakistan insurgencies hide behind the covered faces of the so-called Pakistani Taliban who receive money and weapons from Afghanistan.

Now the Americans want to expand the process of more and more Pakistani tribesmen leaving their homes and escaping deeper inside Pakistan. The suspicion is that Washington wants to create a buffer zone between the U.S.-occupied Afghanistan and Pakistan, a zone inhabited by no one. All Pakistani tribes pushed out. The strategy is working. The number of these Pakistanis who have become refugees inside their own country is nearing half a million.

Pakistani media and journalists are playing an unfortunate role in helping the Americans by focusing on failed Pakistani politicians and their power games that are diverting the attention of the Pakistani public opinion from the important issue of the plight of these brave Pakistani tribesmen and how our government is silently abetting the Americans in humiliating them.

 I wrote recently in The News that Pakistan needs a Putin, a Pakistani nationalist who loves his homeland and his people and who is ruthless enough to do what’s right for all of us and for the homeland and liberate it from the clutches of the stooges of the Americans and the Brits. I hope he comes before it’s too late.

Originally posted at Ahmed Quraishi’s The Lounge. 

Source

The battle over Indian History

by Wendy Doniger

For years, some Hindus have argued that the 16th century mosque called the Babri Masjid (after the Mughal emperor Babur) was built over a temple commemorating the birthplace of Rama (an avatar of the god Vishnu) in Ayodhya (the city where, according to the ancient poem called the Ramayana, Rama was born), though there is no evidence whatsoever that there has been ever a temple on that spot or that Rama was born there.

On December 6, 1992, as the police stood by and watched, leaders of the right-wing Hindu party called the BJP whipped a crowd of 200,000 into frenzy. Shouting “Death to the Muslims!” the mob attacked Babur’s mosque with sledgehammers. In the riots that followed, over a thousand people lost their lives, and many more died in reactive riots that broke out elsewhere in India. On the site today, nothing but vandalized ruins remains, and, in a dark corner of the large, empty space, a small shrine with a couple of oleograph pictures of Rama, where a Hindu priest performs a perfunctory ritual. Whether or not there ever was a Hindu temple there before, there is a temple, however makeshift, there now.

People are being killed in India today because of misreadings of the history of the Hindus. In all religions, myths that pass for history–not just casual misinformation, the stock in trade of the internet, but politically-driven, aggressive distortions of the past–can be deadly, and in India they incite violence not only against Muslims but against women, Christians, and the lower castes.

Myth has been called “the smoke of history,” and there is a desperate need for a history of the Hindus that distinguishes between the fire, the documented evidence, and the smoke; for mythic narratives become fires when they drive historical events rather than respond to them. Ideas are facts too; the belief, whether true or false, that the British were greasing cartridges with animal fat, sparked a revolution in India in 1857. We are what we imagine, as much as what we do.

Hindus in America, too, care how their history is taught to their children in American schools, and the voices of Hindu action groups ring out on the internet. Some of these groups, justifiably incensed by the disproportionate emphasis on the horrors of the caste system in American textbooks, and by the grotesque misrepresentation of Hindu deities in American commercialism, ricochet to the other extreme and demand that all references to the caste system be expunged from all American textbooks.

And so I tried to tell a more balanced story, in “The Hindus: An Alternative History,” to set the narrative of religion within the narrative of history, as a statue of a Hindu god is set in its base, to show how Hindu images, stories, and philosophies were inspired or configured by the events of the times, and how they changed as the times changed. There is no one Hindu view of karma, or of women, or of Muslims; there are so many different opinions (one reason why it’s a rather big book) that anyone who begins a sentence with the phrase, “The Hindus believe. . . ,” is talking nonsense.

My narrative is alternative both to the histories promulgated by some contemporary Hindus on the political right in India and to those presented in most surveys in English–imperialist histories, all about the kings, ignoring ordinary people. But the texts tell us not just who was the ruler but who got enough to eat and who did not. And so my narrative is alternative in its inclusion of alternative people. How does one include the marginal as well as the mainstream Hindus in the story? The ancient texts, usually dismissed as the work of Brahmin males, in fact reveal a great deal about the lower castes, often very sympathetic to them and sometimes coded as narratives about dogs, standing for the people now generally called Dalits, formerly called Untouchables. The argument, for instance, that Dalits should be allowed to enter temples, an argument still violently disputed in parts of India today, can already be found, masked, in ancient stories about faithful dogs who should be allowed to enter heaven. So too, though Feminists often argue that Hindu women were entirely silenced, women’s voices–their ideas and attitudes and, above all, their stories–were often heard and recorded by the men who wrote down the texts.

Foreigners, too, made contributions to Hinduism from the very beginning. Once upon a time–about 50 million years ago –a triangular plate of land, moving fast (for a continent), broke off from Madagascar (a large island lying off the southeastern coast of Africa), and sailed across the Indian Ocean and smashed into the belly of Central Asia with such force that it squeezed the earth five miles up into the skies to form the Himalayan range and fused with Central Asia to become the Indian subcontinent. Or so the people who study plate tectonics nowadays tell us, and who am I to challenge them? Not just land but people came to India from Africa, much later; the winds that bring the monsoon rains to India each year also brought the first humans to peninsular India by sea from East Africa in around 50,000 BCE. And so from the very start India was a place made up of land and people from somewhere else. India itself is an import, or if you prefer, Africa outsourced India (and just about everyone else).

The magnificent civilization of the Indus Valley (in present-day Pakistan) traded with Sumer, Crete, and Mesopotamian, before it came to a mysterious end in about 2000 BCE. At just about the same time, in the nearby Punjab, a very different culture entered India from the Northwest and created the great corpus of texts called the Vedas, the oldest texts of Hinduism. Other invaders– Greeks, Turks, Arabs, and British–made valuable contributions to the complex fabric of Hinduism.

We can trace certain important ideas throughout the centuries of this unbroken tradition. For example: A profound psychological understanding of addiction to material objects is evident throughout the history of Hinduism. Addiction was the concern not merely of kings or scholars but of ordinary people, like the proto-hippy and the gambler who are depicted in the Vedas (see excerpt). One reaction to this perceived danger was to control addiction through asceticism or renunciation. And so began an ongoing battle between a great tradition that always celebrated sensuality (think: elephants encrusted with rubies, temples that make rococo look like Danish modern, the Kama-sutra) and another that feared the excesses of the flesh and practiced meditation (think: Gandhi).

Some of the British, especially in the early colonial period, admired and celebrated the sensuality of Hinduism. Others, particularly but not only the later Protestant missionaries, despised what they regarded as Hindu excesses. Unfortunately, many educated Hindus took their cues from the second sort of Brit and became ashamed of the sensuous aspects of their own religion, aping the Victorians (who were, after all, very Victorian), becoming more Protestant than thou. It is not fair to blame the British for the Puritanical strain in Hinduism; it began much earlier. But they certainly made it a lot worse. And cultural influences of this sort, as much as the grand ideas, are part of what makes the history of the Hindus so fascinating.

http://www.vichaar.com/

Islamistische Gewalt (Der Spiegel Article)

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Nayyar Hashmey

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The Mumbai attacks of 26/11 will continue to haunt the whole world for a long time to come. As the reports emerge from different sources including the government circles in Islamabad, the mastermind of these attacks were of Pakistan origin, which India has been maintaining all the time. There have however been many contradictory reports too about the original perpetrators of this crime against humanity, particularly if you have read a series of posts by Professor Michel Chossudovsky, Ahmad Quraishi, Anand Patwardhan and lastly by Arundhati Roy. These were put up on the pages of WOP in Dec. 2008 to March 2009 issues of our e-magazine.

Aihaz Zaka Syed is a Senior Editor and columnist of the English daily Khaleej Times, published from Dubai. An award-winning journalist and widely published and read commentator, Aijaz comes from Hyderabad, India and has been with KT for more than seven years now. He writes a weekly column called View from Dubai; the column, looks at and comments on world affairs from a Middle Eastern and Arab-Muslim perspective.

Aijaz received the prestigious European Union’s Lorenzo Natali Journalism Prize in 2007 for his writings on the Darfur conflict.

After the attacks took place, Aijaz took up his pen and composed his thoughts quite spontaneously on the massacre. Since this article was written just after the tragic incident on 26 November last year, naturally it carried a lot of anger and frustration.

Even then I wrote to Aijaz that we should be patient enough to wait for the results. In today’s world, the spying techniques have become so complicated and advanced that sometimes it becomes almost impossible for common people to sift the real from the synthesized facts. This, however, by no means should be taken as a certificate of any validity to the perpetrators of heinous acts against humanity. Murders, terrorists, extremists whosoever they maybe, which so ever country they may belong to, and to which so ever religion they may claim to adhere, their hot selling brand only is the “terror” in the name of religion, sect or a country. The ramifications of this scourge are so multifaceted and of international import that it’s almost impossible for a single country to combat terrorism. The international community, therefore needs to sit together to evolve a global strategy to fight out this menace. The human conscience cannot be left to the mercy of some lunatics, individuals, groups or organizations to topple the peaceful environment of the whole world.

This article is being put up on WOP pages for our German readers. Those who wish to read its English version may visit the blog site of author http://aijazsyed.wordpress.com/ where its original version in English is available too.

ISLAMISTISCHE GEWALT

“Die Muslime müssen gegen den Terror aufstehen”

Aijaz Zaka Syed

Kaum eine Woche vergeht, ohne dass islamistische Terroristen irgendwo auf der Welt zuschlagen. Wirkungsvoll gegen die Gewalt vorgehen können nur die Muslime selbst, glaubt der Journalist Aijaz Zaka Syed. Auf SPIEGEL ONLINE fordert er von seinen Glaubensgenossen mehr Engagement gegen den Terror.

In den drei Tagen, in denen wir am Fernseher dabei zuschauten, wie Mumbai vom Terror-Alptraum heimgesucht wurde, fragten mich meine Kinder immer wieder: “Wer sind diese Terroristen und warum tun sie das?” Jedes Mal wünschte ich mir, ich könnte ihnen eine überzeugende Antwort geben.

Was hätte ich ihnen sagen sollen? Zum einen war ich selbst ratlos, warum diese Leute Indiens finanzielles und kulturelles Zentrum erobert hatten und Menschen angriffen, die nichts mit ihnen zu tun und ihnen nichts getan hatten. Zum anderen war ich zu beschämt, ihnen zu sagen, dass diese Leute augenscheinlich Muslime waren und aus einem Land kamen, das im Namen des Islam gegründet wurde.

Eine verzweifelte Freundin, die ihr Leben dem Engagement für Araber und Muslime gewidmet hat, schrieb mir vor einigen Tagen: “Ich habe genug von den Arabern und Muslimen und der islamischen Militanz. Vergib mir, aber ich gebe auf.”

Ich konnte ihr nicht antworten – aber verstand ihren Schmerz. Sie ist in Mumbai aufgewachsen und ist verständlicherweise aufgebracht.

Meine Freundin schrieb weiter: “Die Muslime und der Islam haben ein Problem, das nur sie selbst lösen können. Sollten sie es nicht tun, wird sich die ganze Welt gegen sie wenden.”

Wenn sich schon unsere loyalsten Freunde so fühlen, dann stelle man sich erst mal die Empfindungen und Reaktionen des Rests der Welt vor. Kann man die Welt tadeln, falls sie sich gegen die Muslime stellt? Was ist zu erwarten, wenn kein einziger Tag mehr vergehen sollte, ohne dass der Name unserer Religion von Glaubensgenossen rund um die Welt in den Dreck gezogen wird?

Wie viele Unschuldige müssen im Namen des Islams sterben, bevor muslimische Führer und Staaten wirksame Schritte einleiten, um gegen die Verrückten vorzugehen, die uns mit ihrem nihilistischen Kult zerstören wollen?

Ich weiß, dass muslimische Führer – darunter jene in den höchsten Machträngen – in jüngster Zeit begonnen haben, sich gegen Extremisten auszusprechen. Das Dar ul-Ulum Deoband in Indien, eines der ältesten Bildungszentren der muslimischen Welt, hat im Juni bei einer großen Versammlung islamischer Gelehrter und Führer eine Fatwa (ein islamisches Rechtsgutachten, Anm. d. Red.) gegen Terrorismus veröffentlicht. Vergangenen Monat stellten sich rund 5000 Gelehrte bei einer Zusammenkunft im indischen Hyderabad hinter dieses Gutachten.

Die Organisation der Islamischen Konferenz sowie Saudi-Arabien haben zuletzt ähnlich vehement Angriffe gegen Unschuldige verurteilt. Muslimische Intellektuelle und Journalisten wie Tarik Ramadan – ein Enkel des Gründers der Muslimbruderschaft -, der Inder MJ Akbar und viele andere haben wiederholt gegen diese Verzerrung von islamischer Lehre und Geist protestiert.

Doch diese Rufe zur Besinnung im Interesse des Islams haben sich als einsame Stimmen herausgestellt. Wir müssen eindeutig mehr tun, um von der Welt gehört zu werden und diese beschämenden Attacken auf unschuldige Menschen im Namen der Religion zu stoppen.

Die große Ironie der Attacken von Mumbai liegt im Tod des Anti-Terror-Chefs Hemant Karkare und seiner Kollegen. Karkare war ein tapferer Offizier. Er hatte die Malegaon-Anschläge (dabei starben im September 2006 in Nordindien über 30 Menschen, überwiegend Muslime, Anm. d. Red.) und andere Terrorattacken der jüngeren Vergangenheit untersucht, die er Hindu-Extremisten zuschrieb – nicht muslimischen Gruppen wie Simi (Studenten der islamischen Bewegung Indiens). Karkare wurde von den Terroristen unweit des Cama-Krankenhauses in Mumbai umgebracht. Zweifellos wussten sie nicht, wer ihre wirklichen Freunde und Feinde sind.

Und bitteschön: Warum wird immer öfter Indien für diesen Irrsinn ausgewählt? Denken die Terroristen, dieser Staat sei ein reines Hindu-Land oder eine Anti-Muslim-Nation?

Wissen die Ignoranten, die in den sogenannten Dschihad geschickt werden, dass dieses großartige Land die weltweit größte muslimische Bevölkerungsgruppe beherbergt – fast doppelt so groß wie die Islamische Republik Pakistan? Indiens größter Superstar ist ein gebürtiger Muslim (der Bollywood-Schauspieler Shahrukh Khan, Anm. d. Red.), nicht zu vergessen zahllose erfolgreiche indische Muslime in anderen Branchen. Warum sind diese Menschen versessen darauf, die ganze Welt und sich selbst zu zerstören? Ist es das, was der Islam und der edle Prophet lehren?

Zu sagen, dass der Islam nichts mit Extremismus und Terrorismus zu tun habe, ist ja schön und gut. Wir können uns weiter mit dem Argument benebeln, dass diese Psychopathen uns nicht repräsentieren. Nur: Die Welt kann diese Argumentation schwer nachvollziehen, weil sie sieht, wie sich Extremisten immer stärker durchsetzen und in den Mittelpunkt drängen – während der Mainstream-Islam stumm bleibt.

Diese großartige Religion, die universelle Brüderlichkeit, Gleichheit, Frieden und Gerechtigkeit für alle predigt, ist von einer verrückten, winzigen Minderheit als Geisel genommen worden. Wie schon meine Bekannte sagt: Nur Muslime können dieses Problem lösen. Nur Muslime können diesen Anarchisten in ihrer Mitte entgegentreten. Nur sie können ihren Glauben den Klauen des Extremismus entreißen. Es ist jetzt nicht die Zeit, sich zu verstecken. Es ist an der Zeit, aufzustehen und Stellung zu beziehen. Denn die Terroristen werden weiter in unserem Namen agieren – solange, bis wir selbst für uns sprechen.

Dies ist keine Zeit zum Schweigen. Genug ist genug!

__________

Übersetzung: Florian Gathmann

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ‘Wonders of Pakistan’. The contents of this article too are the sole responsibility of the author(s). WoP will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this post.

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Bulleh Shah: The Mystic Voice of Punjab

Me no believer—no believe in mosque

And me no pagan, no ritual no task

Me is no pure amongst the impure,

Me no believer—no believe in mosque

And me no pagan, no ritual no task

Me is no pure amongst the impure,

And me no Moses, no Pharaoh endure,

But Me no knoweth.

Who isseth Thee!

O’ Bulleya,

Me no knoweth,

Who issethMe!

by Umair Ghani

Farida Breuillac, a practicing Sufi from France, now living in Turkey, is sitting beside me on a stool in Lahore’s Regale Inn, discussing Sufism over a cup of desi tea. Dazzled as she is by the beauty and stark truth of Bulleh Shah’s verse, I recite to her the poetry of the great saint of Qasur, verse by verse as she whirls around in a trance.

A week later I was standing outside the Darbar or the shrine of Bulleh Shah in the heart of Qasur city. Dhol beats echoed loud in the air with chants of ‘Ya Ali’ and ‘Dam Mast Qalandar’ as a multitude throngs to the shrine of, one of the greatest Sufi souls of Punjab.

Bulleh Shah’s real name was Abdullah Shah, that later transformed into Bulleh Shah out of sheer reverence and affection of the common citizenry of Punjab who ardently adhered to his rebellious message of love, hope and wisdom.

Its widely believed he was born around 1680 at Uch Gilaniyan in Bahawalpur; later migrated to Malakwal and finally settled in Pandoke Bhatian, about 14 miles southeast of Qasur. It was here that Bulleh Shah got his formal education from Maulvi Ghulam Murtaza, who was the Imam of the main mosque in Qasur.

Later, after completion of his formal education Bulleh Shah started teaching at the same mosque, but spiritually he chose to follow the path of his mentor, Inayat Shah Qadri, who was a famous saint of the Qadirya chain of Sufis in Lahore. Bulleh’s rebellious yet highly rhythmic and appealing utterances attracted intense criticism from his family as well as friends; for his blindly following the Sufi order much different and opposite to that of the Syeds, [the Muslims who claim their lineage from the Holy Prophet Muhammad, PBUH] However, this criticism added even more spur to his rebellious mind. He revolted against those so called hierarchs of spirituality. Bulleh Shah remained steadfast to his master’s philosophy till his death in 1729.

Bulleh Shah’s attachment to his mentor’s philosophy was so strong that under the sheer spell of his devotion, he addressed his master as god, guide, lord, spouse, husband, beloved and friend. His teacher’s guidance made him experience the spiritual ecstasies and a vision that helped him explore the unfathomable realms of inner self. In this process of self realisation, he began his journey into a metaphysical learning process which was unique to have enabled him grasp the reality of things on one hand, and yet felt blessed and obsessed by revelations from within. The journey to the path laid down by his master continued to be so intense, so self sacrificing that rapture of being away from his spiritual master, the qualms, the torment his soul faced, never ceased till the end. So intense was this Ishq (a process to find God through an intense longing, fonding and attachment with one’s mentor) that he expressed the fire in him through these words.

He listeneth to my tale and lisseneth to my woe

Shah lnayat my guide my teacher is so,

He leads me to places high and low

Shah Inayat my Master honoureth me,

Gives riddance of wrangles and of me,

My master, my Shah is with me,

Then who can dare put strife to me,

Who dare anyone harm to me,

Shah Inayat graces me,

Gives riddance of wrangles and of me,

My master, my Shah is with Me.

Thus found Bulleh Shah’s spiritual quest in the finest expression of his poetry, the Kafis. His tone is satiric, razor sharp that acts like the precision of a surgeon’s lancet, his verses bleeding with pain, the anguish, the qualm of separation and unprecedented genius of his thought process, mercilessly cutting into the social norms, the taboos and established dogmas in the name of religion. He sets out his own aesthetics of the divine love, guidance, faith, virtuosity, love and forgiveness. Like all other Sufis, he preaches negation of the “self” while seeking unity with the divine. His poetry sets liberal standards with strong intonations of religious tolerance and communal harmony. Realizations of truth transformed Bulleh Shah into a true mystic. He purified his heart with the fountain of truth gushing deep inside his soul. Overwhelmed with an obsession of spiritual knowledge, like wine intoxicates the body and mind and thus becomes the principal driving force, Bulleh Shah heroically voiced his wisdom in his following verse.

Put fire to thy prayer rug

and break even thy water mug,

then quit even thy rosary

And let thy staff to the tug

Me tired of reading the Veda book,

Me tired of reading the Quran

And Me no kneeling, me no prostrating,

Nor me forehead down
For God liveth in holy Mecca

Nor he in Mathura resides
For only those who find Him

Who see the light with self besides.

With this verse Bulleh Shah stands tall in the Sufis’ lineage, a stalwart of the Sufis’ school of thought led by Mansoor who was penalized by clerics of the day, declaring his chantings of “Ana-al Haque” (I am the Truth, I am the God) as ‘Kufr’ (negation of God) oblivious of the ecstasies that torment and thus cleanse the soul of a Sufi or saint is a unique phenomenon hardly perceptible or understood by clerics and dogmatists; who go by mere words and not the meanings and context of a scripture. This happened with Mansoor Hallaj and this too happened with Bulleh Shah who met a similar torment to his soul, his inner self.

Bulleh Shah spent rest of his life in total self denial; he did not care at all of the concern and hostility that orthodox mullahs unleashed at him for his rebellious poetry. He danced ecstatically, fearlessly, perpetually and thus treaded the path of spiritual realization and atonement. He preached love and humanism with a firm rejection of any formal religious authority on the affairs of the people. So it was no surprise that on his death in 1758, he was denied a burial in Muslim cemetery and was thus laid to rest in isolation outside the main city of Qasur. But his massage of love, his fight against religious bigots, the traditional hierarchs of different theological schools in the subcontinent, made him a people’s wali or saint. That isolated grave is now a darbar where all including the clergy, the rich and the poor all throng to pay homage to that great soul of Punjab who treaded the path of Sufism, the non traditional mystic way of finding God and a solace for one’s soul.

Me the first, me is the last,

Me don’t know, no one else,

Me the wisest, no one else,

But Bulleya,

Me no knoweth

Who isseth Thee!

O’ Blleya,

Me no knoweth

who isseth Me!

Me know no secret, to me no religion,

Not one to me not known

From Adam and Eve, me not me was born

Me don’t know even the name me own

Me don’t know the people who bow and pray

Me don’t know the people who go astray

O’ Bulleya!

Me no knoweth who isseth Thee!

Me no knoweth who isseth Me!

Me no Arab, nor Lhori,

Me no Hindu, nor Nagauri,

Me no Turkic, nor Pishauri,

Me don’t live in infinity,

Yet, O’ Blleya!

Me no knoweth

Who isseth Thee!

Me no knoweth

Who isseth Me!

Credits: The  Photography by Umair Ghani, Bullah Shah painting by Saeed Art, Lahore.

BAD MANNERS – The idea of India versus the idea of Pakistan

by Mukul Kesavan

During the Jaipur Literary Festival in 2009, Pakistani writers experienced a special kind of Indian incivility. Both in casual conversation and in formal question-and-answer sessions, they were asked if they thought that Pakistan was a good idea, the implication being that it wasn’t. Mohammed Hanif, the author of a wonderful satirical novel about Zia’s Pakistan, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, responded to a variation on this question by saying, patiently, that debating the virtue of Pakistan’s founding idea was less important than coming to terms with the fact that Pakistan was a real country that had to be reckoned with.

The interesting thing is that this question is often asked by people who can be reasonably described as liberals. They don’t want the reality of Pakistan undone and they would be appalled to be clubbed with sangh parivar rhetoricians who attack Pakistan as a Muslim abomination. And yet, despite themselves, the question rises unbidden to their lips. It isn’t normal in polite society to ask someone to repudiate his national identity as a preliminary to conversation and yet, well-intentioned Indians do precisely that.

Part of the reason for this is that the last few years have seen India’s stock rise in the world at the same time as Pakistan’s reputation as a nation-state has declined. Pakistan’s co-option into the ‘war against terror’, its role in incubating terrorists and the ugly spectacle of the state’s impotence in places like the NWFP and Swat have raised large questions about the nature of Pakistan as a nation. In their role as amateur physicians, liberal, non-chauvinist Indians are happy to attribute Pakistan’s current problems to its founding idea, and their diagnosis makes that idea sound like original sin.

Why do they do this? If I were a Pakistani I might reach for the idea that Indians, sixty years after the event, aren’t reconciled to Partition, that the need to write an alternative (happy) ending for the story of Gandhian nationalism makes them brood unproductively on the wrongness of the world as it exists. And I wouldn’t be wholly wrong: there is an element of historical denial in Indian attitudes towards Pakistan. But the liberal Indian’s need to press his Pakistani counterpart to admit to the wrongness of Pakistan is rooted in other things.

It’s rooted, first and most importantly, in the difference in the way the nation is imagined in India and Pakistan. Instead of basing its nationalism on the idea of a homogeneous People (as every European nationalism did), the Congress built it on its claim to represent different sorts of people.

In contrast, Pakistani nationalism was derived from the classic European template, the principle of sameness, which in Pakistan’s case was a shared religious identity: the Romantic idea of a homeland for a People, the subcontinent’s Muslim People. Had India embraced the RSS’s dream of a Hindu rashtra and become a Hindusthan instead of Hindostan, India would have been Pakistan by a different name. But it didn’t so choose, and that choice had important consequences for the evolution of the two republics.

An Indian liberal’s understanding of democracy and secularism is often subtly, but fundamentally, different from that of the Pakistani liberal. The difference I’m talking about has little to do with language or culture: it is located squarely in politics. Six decades of experience as a pluralist democracy has left Indian liberals with a particular set of political reflexes and instincts that are different from those of the progressive Pakistani.

Take the statement that Pakistani civil society is broadly secular because its electorate, whenever it’s given a chance to vote, votes overwhelmingly for secular political parties like the Pakistan People’s Party or the Pakistan Muslim League and not for fundamentalist or Islamist or ulema-controlled organizations like the Jamaat-e-Islami.

There is a useful and important distinction to be made between parties that support the implementation of sharia law and parties that support a secular code of law. And it’s likely that a majority of Pakistanis would rather not live in the Dar-ul-Islam dreamt of by fundamentalist Muslim parties. But this doesn’t make a country’s politics ‘secular’, not in the Indian construction of that term.

For an Indian like me who thinks of himself as liberal, the Pakistani state and the politics it sanctions, the politics within which its democratic processes are contained, isn’t and can’t be secular because Pakistan announces itself as an Islamic republic. It isn’t secular in the same way that Israel isn’t secular because it was brought into being as a Jewish state and functions as one. In my political lexicon, the term ‘secular’ means, above all, that the state must not be owned by, or act on behalf of, a religious community. This means that political dispensations that call themselves Jewish or Islamic or Buddhist (as Sri Lanka does) are, by definition, incapable of nurturing a secular politics. They are majoritarian, denominational states, inimical to the pluralist democracy that Indians have come to equate with political secularism.

This reflexive scepticism about the secular potential of denominational states is rooted in India’s domestic politics. Historically, the most serious threat to the pluralist and secular idea of India written into the Indian Constitution has been Hindu majoritarianism. The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh would like to reconstitute India as a Hindu state. This would be, like Israel, a constitutional democracy with minorities free to worship and vote and associate, but nonetheless a state defined by the culture, the priorities and the prejudices of its religious majority.

This is not to claim that India’s constitutional pluralism translates into secular institutions or automatically protects minorities from discrimination and prejudice. It is to argue that to have this backwardness, this discrimination, these prejudices institutionalized and given the force of law in a formally majoritarian state is the secular Indian’s worst nightmare.

Majoritarianism is an ideology that creates two classes of citizens — those considered ‘natural’ citizens (Jews in Israel, Muslims in Pakistan, Sinhala Buddhists in Sri Lanka) and those who live under their protection (Arabs in Israel, Hindus in Pakistan, Tamils in Sri Lanka). No matter how earnestly such states enumerate the rights enjoyed by its minorities, they remain second-class citizens. For the secular Indian, the argument against majoritarianism in India is systematically subverted by the embrace of majoritarianism by its neighbours.

To look at the Sri Lankan and Pakistani flags is to see majoritarianism graphically proclaimed. The Sri Lankan flag has most of its surface area taken up by a Sinhala emblem, a rampant lion, while its minorities are represented by two thin stripes, one green (for Muslims), one orange for Tamils. The Pakistan flag is mainly green; the colour represents Islam as does the crescent-and-star device centred in the flag. The smaller white stripe stands for Pakistan’s religious minorities. Why is this important? It is important because states whose insignia and founding constitutions explicitly endorse a denominational affiliation create a dilemma for their ‘liberal’, ‘secular’ or ‘pluralist’ citizens.

The Indian liberal, even when he feels beleaguered by majoritarian mobilization or oppressed by its electoral success, knows that the Constitution is on his side. In his arguments against Hindutva, for example, he can invoke the Constitution because all the best lines in that charter were written for him. It is possible for a democratic pluralist or a liberal in India to be both politically correct and patriotic, to resist the state as it is by invoking the state as the Constitution lays down it should be.

But it’s hard for him to imagine how his Pakistani counterpart can reconcile liberal principles with the foundational idea of Pakistan, the idea of a Muslim homeland. Big ideas set limits on politics: no political party in Pakistan can challenge the illiberal, discriminatory idea of an Islamic republic and remain politically credible. This cuts both ways: it also follows that a Pakistani liberal will find it hard to be nationalist: to affirm the founding myth of Pakistan is to compromise his liberal values.

The case of Israel is a good example of the tension between liberal democratic values and the denominational nation- state. The recent bombing of Gaza and the slaughter of innocents were endorsed by every non-Arab Israeli party and by many who describe themselves as progressive or liberal. These liberals chose to be true to the Zionist ideal that underwrites Israel and to do this they had to park their principles.

Which brings us back to the rudeness of “do you think Pakistan was a good idea?” Indians oughtn’t ask this question because it’s rude and, given Pakistan’s current troubles, suggests a malicious satisfaction derived from its misfortunes. But it is important for Pakistanis to recognize that the motive behind it is a political anxiety, not Schadenfreude. The question springs from a need to be consistent in their view of the world: opposing majoritarianism within India necessarily implies rejecting it in the world. When they put the question, they are clumsily asking for reassurance that the pluralism enshrined in the idea of India has some resonance beyond its borders.

Source: www.wichaar.com/

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ‘Wonders of Pakistan’. The contents of this article too are the sole responsibility of the author(s). WoP will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this post.

YOUR COMMENT IS IMPORTANT

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Spring in Hunza

Hunza, the mytical country mostly attired in white snow, undrapes its white cloakin spring. It is the time when its sensuous hilly contours become bare and like a magnet tempt all, to view the magnificent beauty of a youthful, vibrant and humming vale of Hunza. The indigenous population welcomes the naked beauty of their country-at its best in spring with an ongoing feeling of love, inspiration and fortitude.

Hunza, the land of fairytales, is like an Aphrodite dancing on the floor, a floor located right on the base of glorious Rakaposhi mountain, where the visitors hear the rivers roar in jubilation and excitement to appreciate Hunza’s dancing beauty. In an ecstasy they brush stones to pebbles. It is the time when a soft breeze murmurs to divulge the centuries old secrets, when the old pines embrace the clouds with a passion to swing the droplets on flexible twigs. A terrain of serenity, the eternal beauty that beholds onlookers for a second or two, oblivious of their worldly life.

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HUNZA

Where-time-stops-and-the fairies-tread

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WoP Research Desk

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Hunza, the mythical country mostly attired in a white snow, undrapes its white gown in spring. It is the time when its sensuous hilly contours become bare and like a magnet tempt all, to view the magnificent beauty of a youthful, vibrant and humming vale of Hunza. The indigenous population welcomes the naked beauty of their country-at its best in spring with an ongoing feeling of love, inspiration and fortitude.

Popular Will: Pakistan being reshaped as never before

Scuffle berween a demonstrator and the police on 16th March 2009 in Lahore.

The decision to reinstate the chief justice is a fillip for democracy – and bad news for those waging war in Afghanistan

by Mohsin Hamid

The announcement on 16th of March (a few hours before the long march by the lawyers, the civil society and all major /  minor political parties was to start) the restoration of the chief justice of the Pakistani supreme court, is a victory for those who desire a more representative state in Pakistan. But it is a blow for Barack Obama, who appears intent on escalating American military involvement in Afghanistan.

The reason is simple: the US needs a Pakistani state that is significantly unrepresentative of the Pakistani people, because most Pakistanis are opposed to America’s war in Afghanistan, and the US cannot hope to succeed there without Pakistan’s support.

Pakistan is a vast and complicated country, and it is witnessing many confusing and contradictory developments. Among the most important of these, appears to be a narrative of increasing representativeness: despite itself, the Pakistani state is being shaped by the will of its citizens as never before.

The power of this narrative has been breathtaking, particularly over the past year and a half. In November 2007, General Musharraf, an unpopular president, was pressured into giving up his uniform. Three months later the army stood back and refused to facilitate the rigging of national elections, allowing Musharraf’s party to suffer a crushing defeat.

And in August 2008, Musharraf was removed from the presidency by an unprecedented alliance of the PPP – the Pakistan People’s party – and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), or PML-N. It was the first case in Pakistan’s history of a military strongman relinquishing power to democratically elected civilians without first being killed or plunging the nation into civil war.

And now, a mere half year later, an increasingly autocratic President Zardari has been forced to restore the chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry. The result is likely to be increased independence for the judiciary – an unwelcome development (to say the least) for a man as notoriously corrupt as Zardari – as well as a rolling back of the powers Musharraf had brought in to strengthen the executive at the expense of the legislature.

Sharif’s supporters burning tyres, as they shout pro Nawaz slogans and for restoration of the deposed judges. Tyre burning is a  typical style of showing public anger in Pakistan

Given Pakistan’s unpredictability, this promising narrative of representativeness could of course still be undermined. But for now, four related and powerful developments are propelling it along. The first is a decline in the army’s popularity after the rule of Musharraf, and in its morale after losses in the unpopular campaign against the Pakistani Taliban, which has made the military reluctant to intervene directly against the will of the people.

The second is a rapid expansion of the middle class due to economic growth and urbanisation. For much of this decade, the economy has performed almost as well as India’s, and roughly half the population now live in cities, towns and built-up borders of major roads that cut across the countryside and are home to traders rather than farmers.

The third is the complete transformation of the country’s media and communications industries, with dozens of independent television channels and tens of millions of new mobile phone connections creating, in effect, a giant electronic public forum.

And the fourth is the exhaustion of ideological cover: customary invocations of a threat from India and of the need to defend Islam are failing to explain the state’s willingness to use (and have America use) violence against its own people in large swaths of its own territory.

It was by ignoring this emerging climate in Pakistan that Zardari found himself in the embarrassing – and, for him, politically dangerous – position of needing to reverse course on the issue of the chief justice. Zardari was proceeding from the old-school assumption that he who controls the state controls Pakistan. As president, and with a hand-picked retainer as governor in the most populous province of Punjab, Zardari thought he could with impunity dismiss the provincial government of the PML-N when its insistence on the restoration of Chaudhry became too irritating.

But then something unprecedented happened. Civil society denounced the move. The media cried foul. Zardari’s low poll ratings collapsed. A minister in the national PPP government stepped down. Senior provincial bureaucrats resigned rather than act as directed by the governor to prevent a protest march led by Nawaz Sharif, the PML-N leader and former prime minister. Police officers in Punjab refused to follow orders.

(Left) Writer’s photo taken by Carolin Seeliger in front of the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, Germany

The march went ahead, and it grew in numbers by the thousands, advancing towards Islamabad. The top-down Pakistani state found itself facing a bottom-up revolt. Authority was flowing from something other than the will of a tyrant – a novel concept in Pakistan. Zardari was being told that the country now believed in certain rules, and even he would have to abide by them. Dismissing democratically elected provincial governments and undermining the judiciary was just not on. All of which must have come to Zardari, an inveterate rule-breaker, as quite a surprise.

Where all this will lead is uncertain. For Pakistan, if the will of the people can be harnessed to democratic institutions and to politicians who learn to respect the notion of shared power, there is reason for great hope. If not, today’s agitation could become tomorrow’s revolution. 

I have been inundated with congratulatory messages from Pakistani friends, many of them normally supporters of the Zardari-led PPP. It all feels like a birthday, and more than one person has said that today will be remembered as the day a truly democratic Pakistan was born. After the horror of this month’s terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team, many Pakistanis are celebrating much-needed good news.

For President Zardari, recent events represent a significant defeat. He is favoured by the same foreign governments who favoured President Musharraf, and for the same reason: his willingness to resist popular outrage over the war in Afghanistan and its consequences for Pakistan. But Zardari is also like his predecessor in his propensity for undemocratic excesses. Now he, too, is discovering that in the new Pakistan he is less powerful than he had imagined.

For the rest of the world, and particularly the US, Britain and Nato, the choice is becoming increasingly stark. If a war fought by democracies for control of Afghanistan, a country of 30 million people, requires for its successful prosecution the undermining of democracy in Pakistan, a country of 170 million, is that really a price worth paying?

Courtesy: http://www.guardian.co.uk/