A Whole Lot Of Fretting Over Pakistan

Our Man in IslamabadThe Washington Post today carries an article entitled (at least on its homepage) "Pakistani Immigrants Fret Over Fate of Homeland". Not to be outdone, the New York Times has its own article about Pakistan entitled "Al Qaeda Threatens; U.S. Frets". Both articles exhibit the fear and ignorance that has led the United States, over the last half century, to be the prime benefactor of Islamist extremism in the world.

The Washington Post takes a man-on-the-street approach by reporting the views of Pakistani immigrants in the Washington DC area. In a paragraph overflowing with ignorance, the Post captures the essential failure of American foreign policy vis-à-vis Islamist extremism. The Post writes about Pakistani immigrants and of Pakistan:

Although almost all are observant Muslims and many attend mosques, local Pakistanis tend to be moderate and well-integrated into American culture. Now, many say they fear that their once-tolerant native land — founded in 1947 as a Muslim democracy — could become the next victim of the violent militancy that is causing mayhem in many Islamic countries.

The Post seems to imply that somehow it is exceptional to both be moderate and attend mosques at the same time – a prejudice that obscures a more enlightened understanding of the struggles in the Muslim world. Then the Post reveals its ignorance further in the very next sentence. To state that Pakistan was a "once-tolerant native land — founded in 1947 as a Muslim democracy" it to ignore a half century of history. The name of the country, "Pakistan", means "Land of the Pure" – there is nothing tolerant in that formulation. To be "pure" means to be a "Muslim", that is, to be a "Muslim" untainted by cultural or other local "impurities". This is not a theoretical matter. In 1971 the Pakistan military slaughtered, with support from the Nixon administration, up to 3 million Bangladeshis – a spasm of insanity and genocide that was made possible because Bangladeshis were viewed as "impure" and tainted by Hindu and Bengali culture.

The New York Times, meanwhile, explains how Washington is "captivated" by the current Pakistani strongman:

Washington is captivated by General Musharraf because he is a secular moderate, which is not to be confused with a civil libertarian. John D. Negroponte, the deputy secretary of state who until late last year tracked the gathering Qaeda threat as the director of national intelligence, ended a trip to Pakistan a month ago convinced that General Musharraf’s government had, at long last, gotten the message about the tribal areas in the northwest officially known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. [Emphasis added by me.]

Washington is so captivated by the General that they fund him and his military to the tune of $2 billion a year, even though this money has resulted in failure after failure. Banking on Musharraf being a "secular moderate" is naive.

The New York Times continues:

Yet, when asked how the United States would respond if Al Qaeda were to plot a successful attack on the United States from the tribal areas, the answer from one intelligence officials was direct: “We’d go in and flatten it.” [Emphasis added by me.]

I hate to point out the obvious, but Al Qaeda did plot a successful attack on the United States from Pakistan on September 11, 2001. I am quite confident no "flatten"ing has occurred in Pakistan – in spite of the bravado.

Pakistan has been a breeding ground for Islamist extremists since its founding. The Pakistani Constitution itself institutionalizes religious persecution. The primary benefactor of Islamists in Pakistan has been the Pakistan military. The Pakistan military, through the Directorate of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), has consistently stifled democratic opposition in the country while at the same time used Islamist extremists to carry out its domestic and foreign policy goals – the organization and funding of genocidal Islamist extremists in Bangladesh, the funding of Islamists extremists in Kashmir, and the creation and backing of the Taliban are only a few of the extreme examples. Throughout, from the Pakistani dictator Ayub Khan to Islamist General Zia-ul-Haq to Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistan military and the Islamist extremists have co-existed in a symbiotic relationship. The Islamists have acted as a support pillar for the military while the military has generously funded the Islamists and the growth of Islamist thought in Pakistan and beyond. Both groups share a common antipathy toward secular democracies. In this relationship, the Pakistani military is the dominant partner. An Islamist takeover of Pakistan is at best remote and certainly not necessary from the Islamist’s point of view. Islamists do not have to rule Pakistan to wield enormous power – many of their policy objectives are helped along by the Pakistan military, an institution that controls much of Pakistani society and is in no danger of collapsing. In this atmosphere, the occasional flexing of muscle by the military against extremists that go off the reservation is window dressing.

Pakistan was the birthplace of modern Islamist thought. The primary Islamist party in Pakistan, the Jamaat-e-Islami, has been, since its founding, at the forefront of political Islam, or Islamism. It is an ideology that is inconsistent with secular democracy and distinct from Islam, the religion that is practiced by me and more than a billion other adherents. It is also an ideology that cannot win the day in the Muslim world. However, it finds a home within military dictatorships as in Pakistan. The consequences of this coddling of Islamists by the military for Pakistan, South Asia, and now the world have been severe.

Yet, the United States has consistently supported military dictatorships in Pakistan at the expense of political freedom. It has done so while engaged in games of geo-political chicken, sacrificing wisdom for expediency. It has propped up Pakistan’s military dictatorship, and in doing so it has given aid to the very extremists it now hopes to combat. Dealing with Islamist extremism without first addressing its big brother in Pakistan is simply folly. Propping up the Pakistani military regime by sowing fear that Islamists will takeover otherwise is naive at best and disingenuous at worst.

Fretting however is not the answer.

 

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5 Responses to A Whole Lot Of Fretting Over Pakistan

  1. AsifY says:

    Excellent, excellent post! Too often the rest of the world, even we, forget our own suffering when talking about current Pakistani politics. Sajid on Addafication and I had a small discussion about this the other day, how all “Pakistani history” seems to start from post-71.

    Two small quibbles though: 1) my personal opinion is that the birthplace of today’s “Islamism/political Islam” is Egypt, under Hasan al-Banna in 1928. 2) I’m no fan of Ayub Khan as anyone can see on my blog, but cooperation with Jamaat is not something I attribute to him. Yahya Khan would have been a better example I felt.

    I’ll be only too glad to be corrected on both counts.

    Ps. You’re word-verification is seriously messed up!:) It takes at least 3 tries to get through it.

  2. Mash says:

    AsifY, thanks. I think its important to draw the line between Islamism and Islam. Too often the two are conflated in the West – and the neocons are all too happy to blur the lines.

    As to the two points you raised, I dont think you are wrong and so I wont correct you 🙂

    As for al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood, I have always viewed the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood by al-Banna as a spiritual rivivalist movement in Islam in reaction to what al-Banna saw as Western corruption of Islamic cultures. It did however morph into a political force and indeed an insurgent force – but the roots I believe remained spiritual. As for Maududi and the Jamaat-e-Islami, from the beginning it was formed as a political movement aiming to create an Islamic state in opposition to secular democracies. And soon with the creation of Pakistan, Jamaat found its calling. Certainly in Pakistan political Islam has found fertile ground. (As an aside, I separate Iran and the Islamic Revolution – as much as the neocons want to put Iran into the same picture, it is a uniquely different system.)

    Perhaps the above is a distinction without a difference, because in Pakistan and Afghanistan, with the birth of Al Qaeda, the two branches have quite literally merged (courtesy the CIA and the ISI).

    You are right about Ayub Khan. I mentioned him in the list not specifically because of support of Jamaat (in fact, I believe he had initially banned them), but because of two reasons. First, Ayub began in earnest the militarization of Pakistan. Second, Ayub was the one, after 1965, that gave the ISI the power to become a state within a state. These two aspects of Ayub Khan’s rule, it seems to me, set the scene for what was to follow. Ayub Khan’s regime, it seems to me, ultimately gave the Islamists the playing field on which they could thrive. Also, apart from Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistani dictators have not really been Islamists; but, nonetheless, they have used the Islamists (or been used by them!) to further their own political agendas.

    Sorry for the spam check – many have complained. I tried to remove it once, and was bombarded with over a thousand pieces of spam in a day. Go ahead and register using the link on the right sidebar. If you are logged in, you dont have to go through the spam check.

  3. Anthony says:

    Mash,

    I agree with the gist of the post. Some thoughts, following from Asif’s comments.

    Jamaat’s roots are in pre-partition India. It too started off as a spiritual movement. It morphed into an Islamist (or Islam-pasand) political movement, with the stated aim of creating a state based on its ideology, in the early 1950s, after partition. But Muslim Brotherhood under Sayid Qutb was defininitely as political a movement as Jamaat. In fact, the Brotherhood was more political in the 1950s – it was a serious contender for power in Egypt in the early years of the republic. Jamaat vied for (west) Pakistan only in the 1980s, and even then it was Zia who really called the shots. So I’d say it was MB, not JI, that should get the first ‘credit’ for pioneering political Islam.

    Ayub deserves the ‘credit’ for introducing the doctrine of necessity, honestocracy and branded democracy to our countries. But I thought the increased power to ISI started during the Bhutto era.

    I vaguely recall reading somewhere (in 2000-2001 when the Hamoodur Rahman Commission report was leaked in the Indian media) that one key lesson Pak army drew from their failure in Dhaka was that they needed a stronger intelligence agency. A number of books (from all participants’ as well as foreign perspective) note that the Pak army was surprised by the rebellion of the Bengali officers (Zia, Khaled Musharraf, Shafiullah etc). Tikka Khan told Bhutto that this rebellion could have been dealt with had there been an Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Bhutto also figured ISI could help him keep the army at bay. We know how that went.

  4. Mash says:

    Anthony, the ISI actually was transformed by Ayub. Ayub Khan turned ISI’s attention to domestic spying and greatly expanded its powers – a decision that is at the root of the ISI’s expansion into becoming a state within a state. After the 1965 war with India, ISI was further strengthened.

    Leading upto 1971 ISI, under Yahya Khan, was very involved in then East Pakistan – but, as in 1965, they failed massively. Bhutto and ISI had a very rocky relationship because Bhutto blamed the ISI’s intelligence failure in then East Pakistan for its collapse.

    I always felt that Jamaat began as a political organization from its founding, though it was initially against the partition of India. Even though Jamaat did not contest the elections until 1970 (and failed massively), it was actively involved in politics in the early 1950s and led the campaign to persecute the Ahmediyyas. Jamaat, as AsifY pointed out, also collaborated strongly with Yahya Khan in the late 1960s onwards.

    These timelines are not strict as they are fairly close in development and have no hard markers to set as milestones – but in how I have viewed it Jamaat (Maududi) had formulated their theories of political Islam in the 1940s and started to mold it around the Islamic State of Pakistan after partition in 1947. But you are right about MB coming into its own in the 1950s. For its power and its scope in the 1950s it probably does deserve the “prize” for being the first potent political force. I wonder what the “prize” ought to be. :d

    By strict numbers though, Jamaat takes the cake for genocidal success. Jamaat has also succeeded wildly in Pakistan in gaining support of the regime.

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