Naya Pakistan in an age of tolerance!

The Naya Pakistan that Imran Khan has promised the people has been slow in unfolding itself. It has its stops and starts, distractions and stumbles but in little bits and pieces, some more significant than we realize, the vision of  Imran’s Pakistan has given us a few glimpses and some of them are disturbing to say the least. There is a consensus amongst most historians that General Zia Ul Haq did a great disservice to the modernization of Pakistan with his embrace of the ultra orthodox platform he not only shifted the pendulum of Pakistani society he provided a legitimacy to every one to claim they were the champions of Islam and their interpretation of how society was ordained to be correct. This new Zia doctrine permeated into institutions of the state to the extent that even the armed forces were affected. It reached a point where Zia’s views of military promotions were based not on the merit of the soldiers but on whether he considered you a devout Muslim.

 

Decades later today we are faced with a specter of change, which most of us who support Imran hoped, would be to move Pakistan forward as a tolerant modern state. However, we are faced with the prospect of a massive effort to rewrite our history, school books being examined to purge anything not consistent with a particular view of history, Turkish drama serials being promoted as if they speak of our, a Pakistan, history and then a constant appeasement of a ultra religious segment that refuses to embrace or accept the founder of Pakistan’s vision of a tolerant Pakistan. In fairness Qaid e Azam hosted mixed signals at times indicating that shariah law would be the law of the land and at others promoting a liberal secular Islam. 

There is little denying through recent history successive ruling administrations in Pakistan have been rudderless is defining a social and economic agenda where education and social reforms could shape a modern Pakistan. Since Zulfikar Ali Bhuttos government of the 1970’s failed in its socialist promise of ‘roti,kappra, makkan’ (food, clothing and housing) the disconnect between the political elite and their promises has been evident. Sadly for Pakistan Bhuttos government and then later his daughter, Benazir Bhuttos, first government, were the only moments where the ruling party held enough of a political majority to bring about meaningful change and both failed miserably.

These failures played into the hands of the mullah orthodoxy which was made all the more important during General Zia’s regime. Geopolitical pressures arising from the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion meant that Zia’s government and the army became conduits to American support and funding of radical right wing militant groups to fight the Soviets. It was these very groups or their protege splinter groups that were to then turn on Pakistan and wreck havoc with terrorist attacks. 

Since the 1970’s a massive export of labourers and skilled professionals to the Gulf countries was encouraged with the view to benefit from home remittances from this work force. These very workers over the past five decades imported into Pakistan a mindset of societal change which has prompted an Arabization of Pakistani society. The dupatta was replaced by the abaya, the Urdu farewell of ‘Khuda Hafiz’ was replaced by ‘Allah Hafiz’, and many more social norms imported that had for centuries been alien to Pakistani society. Sadly these social imports did not emulate the elements of tolerance as seen in UAE and Bahrain where people of other faiths are given remarkable freedoms. 

Imran Khan has at times argued that the Muslims in Pakistan have an identity crisis. No they have never had an identity crisis they are being edged into a new identity which is divorced from the history of the land and it’s people. The history of the land encompasses a vast and diverse swath from the Indus Valley Civilization to the Vedic period, the invasion by the Greeks, the Mauyra empire, to the Ghazni and Ghauri period, the Afghan Lodi empire, the Mughal empire and finally the British empire till independence in 1947. This is the continuous history of Pakistan and projecting that Turkish or Arab history is our history plays into a narrative that is not true.

Imran Khan may be partially right about Pakistanis having an identity crisis. Many of our brethren take pains to point out that their family tress is embedded in the land of the Arabs. This is far from the truth as history tells us successive invasions from the north created a melting pot in India yet the original settlers of the land embraced the customs of successive invaders and at times the religion too. Many of our customs still carry the traces of this historical heritage, we simply cannot just redefine ourselves in to a new mould.

Tinkering with the education system will have profound consequences on Pakistani society and it’s place on the world stage. Most certainly Islamic studies should be a part of the syllabus but not at the expense of science and history. Yes there is an elite  educational system, a product of which was Imran also, which in 1950’s was divorced for the people, but in the past five decades it has tried to remain elitist but also imbibed a broader more egalitarian format. Countries have have become competitive on the world stage, Korea, Japan, India and many others have modernised their educational system. We in Pakistan can do the same so long as we understand that a modern educational system does not mean you are westernising society.

A Naya Pakistan should be proud of it’s history not one that tries to rewrite it. Most of all it has to be a tolerant Pakistan where minorities are not only protected but encouraged to be equal partners in the progress of the country. When it announced that a Hindu temple was to be built in the capital I felt this was a positive development only to learn a few weeks later the back stepping started. This I suspect is from the pressure of the ultra conservative segment of society. Why cannot we learn from other countries that have been tolerant to other faiths. If Muslims in USA or UK can build a mosque then why not a temple for Hindus in Pakistan?

The narrative of the PTI government has to change. It has to speak of a modern Pakistan, a tolerant Pakistan and a progressive Pakistan. Yes Islam is our state religion but we do not need it to be forced onto every aspect of our lives. Strangely enough amongst the Islamic groups there is little consensus of which sect is the right way and if Islam in Pakistan is under threat it is from the sectarian schisms of the mullahs themselves. I have lived 40 years in a Muslim country were people are deeply religious and not once have I been asked if I am a Shia or a Sunni. As I have undergone my own personal journey to Islam in the past half decade I have been helped by many here towards a tolerant Islam and it perhaps explains why the country has progressed. 

There is a lot to learn about tolerance and we must acknowledge that we as Pakistani Muslims have forgotten what it means. To see a Hindu journalist once in a mosque meditating while his host, a sheikh prayed at Maghreb time to me was the epitome of tolerance and acceptance. I know in Pakistani the mullahs would say that the mosque is now unclean etc etc. Bricks and cement do not become unclean by well meaning acts of faith, if anything it creates an acceptance that countries like Pakistan could well learn from.

 

 

Key to Peace in Afghanistan: A solution

After 17 years of a dead end military involvement in Afghanistan, the United States of America is learning, like the Russians and British before them, that taming Afghanistan is next to an impossibility. In their drive to defeat the Russians, the US with its Pakistani and Arab allies created the means to arm the seven groups fighting them, being short sighted that after the defeat of the Russians, these seven groups would turn on each other, as indeed they did. A divided war torn country was then introduced to the emergence of the Taliban, initially supported by Pakistan, the US and some of the Arab countries. The introduction of this new military force turned the tide of the seven groups leaving only Ahmed Shah Masood's North Alliance to oppose them.

What then followed in a country still bereft with civil war was a Taliban government with a social and religious agenda that was archaic and brutal in all respects. However, for the average Afghan it was a respite from the civil war and the death and destruction they had faced for over two decades. Events of 9/11, the harboring of Osama bin Laden by the Taliban suddenly changed the situation as the US bombed and then intervened militarily into Afghanistan under the label of the War on Terror. Pakistan, not nimble enough to distance itself from the Taliban were caught between pressure from the US on the one side and their own security fears that Kabul in the hands of anti Pakistan elements would mean unrest in its own northern borders.

Once the retaliation attacks from the Taliban spilled into Pakistan cities and with each bomb blast the consensus emerged that Pakistan had to deal with this terrorism because from an Afghan and US problem there emerged a Pakistan Taliban which was even more militant that their cousins in Afghanistan. However as these militants were targeting both Afghan assets and Pakistani targets, a new dimension came on the scene with the US using drone strikes in both Afghanistan (where they had said they were at war) and Pakistan (where they said they worked with an ally being Pakistan). These drone strikes were limited in their success but more importantly caused collateral civilian casualties; in one case a school being targeted where no militant elements were present.

While the Pakistani government in public condemned the drone strikes, privately they did nothing to ask the US to stop them. One of the major turning points in Imran Khan's political journey was his opposition to these drone strikes with his now famous words, 'we are the first ally in history to be consistently bombed by the US'. His early stance of speaking to the Taliban to arrive at a peace settlement was seen as him being pro militants, and today we forget that both the Afghan government and even the US are speaking directly to the Taliban.

As history has worked out today Imran Khan is the Prime Minister of Pakistan having been elected in a remarkable turn around for his party. While an exhaustive strategy of Afghanistan has not emerged there are enough indications in these first few days to suggest that for one he wants peace in Afghanistan, and secondly he is strong enough now to create the conditions to bring this about.

To achieve any modicum of progress some key stakeholders in this process will need to have a major rethink of their own approach. For one the Afghan assertion that every terrorist attack in their country is guided from Islamabad has to change; after all the Pakistan Taliban are harbored in Afghanistan also. Secondly, the United States will have to realize that Pakistan will be an ally but not one to be dictated too. Thirdly, India's peripheral role in supporting the anti Pakistan rhetoric on the argument of terrorism will need to be toned down and focus shifted to a peace process between India and Pakistan independent of the Afghan policy. Finally, the Taliban must choose whether a strategy of terror will succeed given that now ISIS has become one their enemies within the Afghan landscape.

This last element is interesting as most of the Taliban in Afghanistan are Pushtun's and they see the ISIS as foreign fighters, and thus in a sense is a departure from the thinking of the Taliban in the pre 9/11 era were foreign fighters were seen as brothers in arms. Whether the Taliban and the Kabul government can work out an arrangement of coexistence is up to the Afghans themselves. However, it has to be recognized by the new government in Islamabad that a step towards peace must include the expulsion of all Afghan militant elements from Pakistan and to then work with Afghanistan, and the US for a better policing of the border. The US will have to learn to trust the Pakistan government to deal with terrorist elements within their country rather than taking matters into their own hands with drone strikes.

The US position has been that they had to conduct drone strikes unilaterally because they could not trust the Pakistan intelligence services to do the job! While there may be truth that a decade ago the intelligence service would have had militant sympathetic elements within their ranks, the past three heads of the military have been judicious in cleaning up the image and the rank and file of the intelligence service. With 50,000 Pakistanis having died in this War on Terror there is a sentiment within the military of Pakistan, 'enough is enough', and they would wisely follow the lead of Imran Khan to bring about a peaceful era with Afghanistan.

The biggest problem for the US is that leaving Afghanistan on its own will result in a sudden collapse of the current central government, an creation of conditions of 17 years back and a decade before that when each time Kabul's government collapsed a civil war followed. We also have to consider that with China's investment in CPEC in Pakistan it is natural that they will begin to take a more active interest in peace in Afghanistan. I guess we stand at the unique crossroads where all parties, including the Taliban realize that peace is the only way forward. I do believe that an initiative between Pakistan and Afghanistan under the new government in Islamabad is the best opportunity for the US to exit Afghanistan and do it with grace and leave some framework which both Afghans and Pakistanis would welcome and support in the region.

In terms of specifics the following must be done, not in any particular order;

• A bilateral meeting between Afghanistan and Pakistan followed by a meeting between the two of them and USA. 
• The Taliban be convinced to start bilateral talks with the government in Kabul with a precondition of a ceasefire first. 
• An agreement be reached that none of the parties will arm or support elements in each others country. 
• The creation of a joint intelligence task force which will be mandated to deal with all common threats to the parties. 
• An economic uplift plan in the areas where the war on terror caused the most damage, on both sides of the border. 
• Constant reviews of the peace plan and to take steps early enough to avoid any divergence from the agreed agenda. 

The first step can be taken by Pakistan and it would seem some positive comments have come from the new government. The US and Afghan side should not ignore these initial exploratory forays by Islamabad because they must understand that while Pakistan cannot decide the outcome of events in Afghanistan it can play a key role to achieve peace in the region. Yes it may sound to Kabul that this is the usual rhetoric for peace from any new government in Pakistan, but this is a government that seems to have a better pulse of the nation and taking a step towards them is a good way to put that sincerity to test. For their part Imran Khan and his government should consider a comprehensive strategy towards this peace effort or they will, in terms of their Afghan policy be left on the way side of history.