Feroz R Khan April 1, 2005

Tags: secularism , religion , politics , Pakistan

The wrong debate over the wrong issues.

rel="tag" href="/tag/religion">religion as a verdict of political legitmacy to govern the nation. Political power in Pakistan is attained through illegal means and politicans use religion to create a political constituency for themselves. What passes for Islam in Pakistan is not a religious belief, but a political philosophy for upsurping power illegally and maintaining a hold on that power through extra-constitutional measures, which primarily includes the denial of institutional politics and the norms of public representation in government.

Democracy, in its real sense is hard to realize in Pakistan. Democracy, whether in the Greek sense of the word or in its more contempory Western-Westminister sense, is alien to Pakistan’s nature of power politics. In Pakistan, the basic rubric of political power lies in its denial to others and not in sharing political power with other groups in the nation. Political power in Pakistan is a monopoly and as long as it will be considered as such, nothing will happen to lend credence to the idea of a process of political devolution of power in Pakistan.

Again, the problem stems from the preamble of the Pakistani constitution. The preamble states that all power rests with Allah and the politicans are the representives charged with its implementation. This creates a pharaoh syndrome, where religious and political power is combined into the persona of an individual or a group. It is for this reason that secularism will never find a fertile soil to grow in Pakistan, because it will get no nourishment from a soil, which is laced with a political-religious brine, which kills all attempts to seperate religion from politics.

Pakistan is not only an Orwellian nightmare, but it is also an Orwellian hypocrisy, which has the banalities of a psuedo-religious mask of orthodoxy attached to it to quell all political opposition to the powers of the state. The repression of political power in Pakistan stems from its offical sanction of religion and consequently, those in political power blame religion for their own misdeeds.

Pakistani politicans and the Pakistani military benefit from religion, as a means to excerise total unbridled power and they in a proverbial sense, will never bite the hand, which gives them political power. As long as Pakistani leaders, elected or not, are unable to separate religion from politics, politics will always use religion to further its own ends. In this sense, as a quid pro quo, religion will use politics to demand more and more leverage for instituting an oppressive-regressive version of a theocratic philosophy.

Musharraf may talk about moderate Islam and enlightenment, but the fact remains; Musharraf is not prepared to give up his power for the sake of Pakistan and likewise, those who surround him and work with him and against him, are not interested in giving up their powers for the sake of Pakistan either. The only manner in which enlightened moderation will work in Pakistan is if the political power masters, whether in uniform or in civilian clothes, are willing to give up the idea of demanding political legitimacy through the power of religion. If the political masters of Pakistan are willing to go to the people of Pakistan and ask them for political acceptance, then there will be a enlightened moderation in Pakistan.

The power of the theocracy in Pakistan comes from the abdication of political legitimacy, which results from the politics of egocentricism and cult politics in Pakistan and in the vacuum, which is created, the clergy uses the space to gain political power through blessing the political upsurpations of power under a religious demand for more political power. The only way to stop this rot in Pakistan is not to wage an ironic jihad against Islam in the name of moderation, but to stop enlisting the sanction of religion to maintain political power.

It is a given fact of Pakistani political history that all rulers, military and civilian, have foresaken their oft-repeated principles and appeased the power of the clergy in order to scoop up the still few remaining crumbs of political power. As long as the political masters of this unfortunate land are willing to use religion as a crutch for maintaining political power, the mullah will get what he wants because he would have the political rulers of Pakistan over the barrel of his choice.

Therefore, the issue of secularism and democracy and enlightened moderation in Pakistan resides in the confidence levels of the political demi-gods of Pakistan themselves. Hence, the critical question is not whether Pakistanis are moderate or favor an enlightened version of Islam, but the question is: are the demi-gods of Pakistan capable of believing in what they preach or are they so feeble that they need the rod of religion to stand on the platform political power in Pakistan?

Nearly two thousand years ago, when Hannibal was knocking on the gates of Rome, there was a cry heard all over Rome, which proclaimed "Hannibal ad portas". In the modern lexion, this cry came to symbolize the statement "barbarians at the gate". In Pakistan, no is yelling out this cry, because the barbarians have overrun the ramparts in Pakistan and there is no voice of reason left to cry out the warning.