Pakistan – The Threat From Within

{``According to the Pew Global Survey (2006), the percentage of Pakistanis who expressed confidence in Osama bin Laden as a world leader grew from 45% in 2003 to 51% in 2005. This 6 point increase must be compared against responses to an identical questionnaire in Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon, where bin Laden’s popularity has sharply dropped by as much as 20 points10. ``}

Pervez Sahib,
Nice long article with some good information and an encouraging conclusion. However, can`t you Pakistani ``liberals`` understand that most Pakistanis, especially in Punjab, have all come together to combat a much bigger evil - the Urdu-speakers of Karachi & Hyderabad? This is our national priority and both religious and secular, conservative and liberal, right-wing and left-wing, rural and urban, Qadiani and Sunni, from Pindi to Lahore and from Jhelum to Multan, have all come together to fight this menace. There are numerous threats from Punjabi nationalists to send Naseer Lulla BuRbuR to Karachi and to prevent the return of Pakistani citizens ``stranded`` in Bangladesh. Who cares about video discs and haircuts when we have much bigger fish to fry?

Jihadist groups have long operated with the state’s knowledge and support. Many such groups, trained and armed by the Pakistan Army for over two decades, had been formally banned under pressure from the US. But only hours after the killer October 2005 earthquake, members of extremist groups in Kashmir – which had officially ceased to exist after the General’s famous speech of 12 January, 2002


Roses are red
violets are blue
the jihadis you created
are now killing you..


This is fun for Indians really..just watching the paki factions duking it out knowing that whoever comes out on top, it`s good for India...if the paki army raids the ninja chix, the jihadis will go after the paki army...if they paki army backs down, the ninja chix will talibanize pakiland even more...

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The leaping-Lemmings of Pakistan: Liberaloons.
When a Liberaloon has a death wish
he heads towards Maader-ation starts cooking Raushan-Khayali-Pilafs.

At the Edge of Revolution: Does Pakistan Have a Khomeini?

Iason Athanasiadis | Bio | 30 May 2007


LAHORE, Pakistan -- ``The only time I wore a burka was at a fancy-dress ball,`` says Unver, a Pakistani painter hailing from an upper class Pakistani family. Speaking to a group of friends, he recounts sending his driver to the market to buy him the cheap, all-enveloping veil sealed with a face grill that many of Pakistan`s most conservative women wear on sorties outside the house.

``After forty minutes of wearing that thing, I was drenched in sweat. Next time I saw my driver, I asked him how his wife can wear that thing all the time. He just looked at me with an expression that said, `You don`t understand.```


Unver`s post-party exchange with his driver hints at the massive cultural gap between the elites inhabiting the villas vacated by the British colonial masters and the vast majority of Pakistan`s 190 million poverty-stricken masses. In Iran, a resource-rich country twice the size of Pakistan and with a third its population, this social disparity bubbled over in 1979 into a Revolution that led to the foundation of the first Islamic Republic in the Middle East. Could this be the path that Pakistan will follow?



Unver is the only one of his siblings to have returned to Pakistan from the West. One of Pakistan`s foremost painters, he sells his striking figurative and abstract works for several times what the average Pakistani makes in a year. His world is peopled by a British-accented Pakistani elite inhabiting exclusive districts of Lahore or Karachi and punctuated with shooting and fishing getaways conducted against a background of private guards, cooks and drivers. In Iran, almost thirty years ago, people such as Unver were shocked when the classes to which their servants belonged rose up to overthrow them and confiscate their properties. Could it be Pakistan`s turn next?



``A civil war in slow motion has started already,`` said a Lahore-based Pakistani journalist who refused to be named for fear of jeopardizing his position. ``Musharraf has a double standard: he`s killing Baloch nationalists in the name of security and patronizing mullahs inside the capital.``



Pakistan`s military President came to power in a 1999 coup and assumed the position of Washington`s main partner in its post-9/11 War on Terror. To safeguard American aid, Musharraf conjured the specter of Islamic radicalism as the only alternative to himself in a bid to convince the Americans that he is an indispensable partner. At the same time, he gave religious radicals more leeway to conduct their activities than at any other time since the Islamist Pakistani President Zia Ul Haqq.



In a notorious, ongoing case, hundreds of madrasseh students have taken over Islamabad`s Red Mosque, a radical seminary, and are running an independent religious court that bypasses Pakistani law to implement Islamic law directly. The mosque`s male and female students have also launched anti-vice patrols that target music and video shops. Meanwhile, in the northern Pakistani city Charsadda, two-dozen music shops have been blown up in the past month. In Iran, all Western music and films were banned after the Revolution and morality militias called Bassijis manned checkpoints and raided homes in which unrelated men and women were suspected of mingling.



In Balochistan, a restive and underdeveloped province adjoining Iran, Pakistan has constructed the fourth deepest port in the world with Chinese help. When ready, it will give Beijing a valuable strategic foot-hold close to the energy-rich Persian Gulf, long an American zone of influence. Washington is less than delighted about the budding Sino-Pakistani friendship, which has led to Musharraf stepping up his repression of armed Baloch factions who are demanding greater profit-sharing with the state and increased autonomy. Across the border with Iran, a series of explosions and kidnappings by a mysterious group called Jundullah (Soldier of God) has targeted the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, giving rise to Iranian accusations that the United States is involved in funneling arms, money and terrorist know-how to the anti-Tehran group as part of its strategy to pressure the Islamic Republic.




Elsewhere in Pakistan, social inequality is on the rise. Rather than addressing the simmering resentment and widespread poverty of the people, the incestuously intertwined political and business establishment is giving its blessing to the construction of Dubai-style exclusive gated compounds with names such as Canyon Views and Crescent Bay where the rich can isolate themselves from the anger of the poor. The remains of such compounds still exist in today`s North Tehran, although they are now inhabited by the new ``revolutionary`` aristocracy. During the Shah`s time, they were the exclusive domain of foreign, often American, advisers subcontracted out to the Shah`s modernization drive. Like Pakistan, Iran had also signed an intrusive Status of Forces Agreement (SoFA) with Washington that exempted U.S. personnel from prosecution under local courts in the event they committed a crime while in the host country.



Pakistan`s elites inhabit exclusive, British-designed ghettos with 24-hour access to water and electricity and names such as Cantonment, Defence and GOR (Government Officials Residences). Their villas are set back from wide, tree-lined boulevards embedded with speed-bumps to minimize rowdy driving and terrorist attacks. Lush, plentifully-watered gardens poke over high walls, within which small detachments of servants bustle about preparing Sahib`s car or Madame`s social excursion. Educated in British-style public schools and American universities, Pakistan`s upper classes speak mostly English among themselves, switching to Urdu to address the servants. Avoiding the slum-infested popular parts of town, they feed themselves at Western fast-food franchises and turn a blind eye to the assorted scrums of beggars clamoring to clean their windscreens or sell them jasmine-bracelets at traffic lights. In the summers, they migrate from Lahore or Karachi to London, taking a break from a busy social calendar that peaks in December with glittering weddings and parties catered by small armies and splashed across the glossy pages of socialite magazines.



Having been based in Iran for the past three years and having studied the social conditions that led to that revolution, I was assaulted by an ominous sense of déjà vu as I witnessed Pakistan`s moneyed professionals discuss the emboldened religious conservatives in horrified tones at nightly salons. The way in which they mystifiedly asked each other who the niqab-clad women occupying the Lal Masjed (the takeover of the Red Mosque by radical Talibs is the latest manifestation of Islamist fervor in the Pakistani capital) reminded me of the befuddlement with which Iran`s upper classes confronted the great unwashed after they took over Tehran`s streets, ousted the Shah, voted overwhelmingly for an Islamic Republic and moved into the lavishly-appointed ministries of a defunct Imperial Iran.



Today, those formerly scruffy revolutionaries have aged gracefully in power, educated their children at foreign universities and chanelled their profits into international companies with interests in Dubai, London and New York. In the summer of 2005, it was their turn to look appalled as another wave of the great unwashed, led by current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stepped up to the seat of power.

So when can we expect the Revolution? Well, possibly not anytime soon.

``Pakistan`s very social fabric has been broken, ever since Zia ul Haqq,`` said Javed Muazzam, the chairman of the Pakistan People`s Party - Shahid Bhutto and Pakistan`s longest-serving political prisoner during the reign of former Islamist premier Zia ul Haqq. ``We`ve become a country of crises but even now people are not ready to come to the streets. They`ve been divided in religion, language and faith basis and lost their faith in the political parties that betrayed him.``

Pakistan may be an overwhelmingly Muslim state, but it is split between a Sunni majority and Shiite minority and lacks a Khomeini-style religious leader behind which its fragmented religious groups can unite. None of the country`s clerics possess the charisma of the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, while the corrupt antics of the leaders of Pakistan`s mainstream political parties have robbed them of their popular legitimacy. Musharraf has taken advantage of this by building a strategic domestic alliance with the MQM, a thuggish political party that was largely responsible for violence two weeks ago that killed around 40 people in Karachi.

``He has parceled up the country and sold it off to people whose support his needs,`` said Benazir Bhutto, a two-time former prime minister with corruption charges pending against her. ``He has given Karachi to the MQM like he has given the (North Western) Frontier to the religious extremists.``

But not one of the religious parties is led by a personality of inspirational and unblemished religious credentials. The head cleric of the Red Mosque, Maulana Abdel Aziz, has been widely quoted in the headlines recently for threatening an anti-government jihad.

``We will not retreat. We will sacrifice our lives,`` said Abdul Rashid Ghazi, a spokesman at the Lal Masjid mosque.

However, neither he nor Abdel Aziz can match Khomeini in stature or the magnetic hold exercised over ordinary people. Ironically, perhaps Pakistan`s most popular Muslim preacher is an Indian: Zahir Naik. Unknown to the West, he employs his fluent, sarcastic English to fashion biting retorts to perceived Western encroachments upon Islam that endear him to the millions of the subcontinent`s middle class Muslims who feel directionless in these troubled times.

Ultimately, Pakistan is perhaps too young and insecure a nation to sustain a genuinely popular anti-establishment movement rising from the streets.

``Iranian society is intact and deep-rooted but we`re not,`` said Munib. ``Iranians have 3,000 years of nationhood and an accompanying arrogance. We don`t.``

Perhaps the reason for the almost servile respect that is directed towards foreigners lies in Pakistan`s short nationhood -- just sixty years have elapsed since the state was created in 1947. It is an attitude diametrically opposed to the Iranian mistrust -- official and popular -- of Westerners and the single largest factor contributing to the two countries` foreign policy: Iran is an international pariah and member of the so-called Axis of Evil, while Pakistan is the most trusted Muslim partner in the War on Terror.

Perhaps the Pakistani Khomeini is even now preaching in a mosque in the conservative city of Multan or studying in a madrasseh in the North Western Frontier Province. But his ability to reach out to the masses will be hampered by Pakistan`s Sunni-Shiite divide and the country`s fragmented Muslim identity.

``In our subconscious we`re shaped by Hindu mythology,`` said Rumman Ihsan, a journalist for Pakistan`s Dawn television. ``We worship idols, not democratic principles, and live in a fool`s paradise, feeling that we`re still the Muslim Moghul princes who ruled the Continent.``

Iason Athanasiadis is an analyst and writer who recently left Iran after three years living in Tehran.

Hoodbhoy writes:

``Support for the Sharia is also rising. A survey by the World Public Opinion.Org (April 24, 2007) found that 54% of Pakistanis wanted strict application of Sharia while 25% wanted it in some more dilute form. Totaling 79%, this was the largest percentage in the four countries surveyed (Morocco, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia)11.

So help me understand here, are you suggesting that even though 80% of a nation wants to be ruled by a certain ideology, it must be prevented from doing so by violent means such as a brutal fascist military rule or a threat of foreign aggression as you are tacitly suggesting. Actually you are only tacitly supporting a military dictatorship as long as it crushes the ideology that you don`t like by violent means whereas you are begging for a foreign intervention and aggression.

In all honesty you know it and I know it that Pakistan is headed towrads an inevitable civil war where sides will be chosen and attrocities will be committed. Ultimately, there will be public executions through firing squads and guilotines. That, you and I both know, is written on the wall. There exists an alternative, which is to resolve the current constitutional crises through political means, send military home, and have free and fair elections. Let the Pakistani nation resolve its issues, ideological or otherwise, through political and democratic means. This is the last chance and option of a Magna Carta for the corrupt, westernized, oppressive elite. From here everything is downhill.

#5 Urstruly {``are you suggesting that even though 80% of a nation wants to be ruled by a certain ideology, it must be prevented from doing so ``}

Urstruly,
Are you suggesting that if an 80% majority wishes to eliminate the other 20% from the face of the earth, they should be allowed to do so? If 80% want ``free love, no work, all fun, plenty of drugs, alcohol, and gambling,`` then they should be allowed to pursue ``life, liberty, and `appiness.`` Maybe it`s time to pass free samples to average Pakis who have never tasted the good life. :)

Pakistan is the land of extremes, whereas most Islamist parties in other countries are moderating i.e. hamas hasn’t banned alcohol, cinemas, they main concern seems to be liberation and social justice. In morocco paradoxically the islamist party is led by a woman.

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I have read this article before and I felt that Dr. sahib tends to exaggerate a little.
Couple of things I want to mention here. Dr Sahib referred to two surveys or polls. “Pew Global Survey (2006), the percentage of Pakistanis who expressed confidence in Osama bin Laden as a world leader grew from 45% in 2003 to 51% in 2005.”

Another survey he referred to was by worldpubicopinion.org. That survey reported that only 11% Pakistani have positive feelings about Bin Laden.

Please see the survey here and I would recommend people to go over this report to see how the learned Dr. is relying on wrong stats. One more thing remarkable about the survey is that almost 50% people refused to answer questions.
“Dates of Survey: January 15 – February 15, 2007 Sample Size: 1243

National poll included 611 Urban and 632 rural respondents “
Out of 1243 almost 50% refused to answer many questions.

79% Pakistanis agreed that the terrorism is a very big problem.
See below but for more details go to the link.

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/apr07/START_Apr07_quaire.pdf


Q36. Overall, would you say your feelings toward Osama bin Laden are?
Egypt Indonesia Morocco Pakistan Urban Rural All
Very positive..........................................21% 5% 7% 12% 9% 11%
Somewhat positive..................................19 16 20 15 13 14
Mixed......................................................34 32 26 24 19 21
Somewhat negative...................................9 10 10 8 6 7
Very negative..........................................11 9 11 7 4 6
Refused/Don’t Know................................6 26 25 35 48 41


d. Terrorism
Egypt Indonesia Morocco Pakistan
Urban Rural All
Very big problem...................................62% 67% 1% 83% 75% 79%
Moderate problem.....................................8 21 12 10 8 9
Small problem.........................................13 7 78 3 5 4
Not a problem.........................................16 1 6 1 1 1
Refused/Don’t Know................................1 4 4 2 12 7

I have my reservations about how these pollsters qualify urban and rural and then how they contact people.

Now the question: what is there to substantiate the doomsday scenario by Dr. PH?

More on this later…

Can someone please just shoot echoboom and put him out his misery..jeez louise!!

I wouldn;t wish radical islamization on my worst enemy. It is sad and hope it doesn`t get worse.

Pakistan author accuses military

A respected Pakistani author has accused the government of blocking the launch of her book about the military`s grip on the economy.
Ayesha Siddiqa says her reservation at a government-managed club was cancelled at the last minute, forcing her to find an alternative venue for the launch.

The book deals with the sensitive issue of the military`s huge business empire.

The state-run Associated Press of Pakistan labelled the book ``a plethora of misleading and concocted stories``.

It said that the aim was to give a ``bad name to one of the country`s most prestigious and honourable organisations``.

No government official was available to comment.

`No transparency`

The BBC`s Barbara Plett in Islamabad says it is the first time the army`s penetration of Pakistan`s economy has been documented with such detail.

Ayesha Siddiqa says it owns hundreds of businesses and millions of acres of land.

The military`s empire is worth billions of dollars, she writes, but it is run with virtually no transparency or accountability.

The book was scheduled to be launched at a government-managed club on Thursday but the reservation was cancelled at the last minute, and the author said she could not find another suitable venue.

She claimed the Interior Ministry told hotels in Islamabad not to give her a room, although government officials deny this.

The launch finally went ahead at a small private office. Ms Siddiqa said it is clear the army does not want a debate about its corporate interests.

``It is part of their political power,`` she said. ``It`s the most intransparent part of the economy.

``It`s about the interest of senior generals, they don`t want any discussion on the subject.``

The book`s publication comes at a sensitive time for the military-led government.

A campaign to restore full democracy and civilian rule has been gathering pace since President Musharraf, who is also the army chief, suspended the chief justice over allegations of misconduct.

...issue of the military`s huge business empire. (Arjun)

Pakistan`s military has the unique distinction of selling houses and running kebab eateries!!
(Ref: Kamran, the ex-armyman-turned-columnist of Daily Times fame)

If Taiwan has the distinction of her major political party running busness empire, Pakistan is in similar situation. That`s how Pak army is raising resources for it`s huge belly/appetitie for arms and ammunition apart from utilising the tax-money from the same public.

Every other army in the wolrd would be jealous of Pak Army!!!

Dr. Sahib is correct in pointing out that 25 years of incessant Islamic propaganda through various mediums has taken its toll. I would also like to point out that moderates in Pakistan have fought hard during that time too.

From 1988 to 1998, almost four elections were held in Pakistan but none of those elections resulted in majority for the fundamentalists’ parties. Nawaz league is more to the right than the PPP. The Nawaz league relied on alliances with various groups to win elections but the election successes was not due to fundamentalist parties.

The fundamentalists won in 2002 and only in Pukhtoon Majority areas.

Just look at the current election scenarios. Is there any possibility of fundamentalists winning elections in Sindh, Punjab or in Balochistan? True, the MMA shares govt. in Balochistan but the Provincial government can be run without their participation.

I don’t know why people keep insisting that the Hafsa issue should have been dealt with the state power. I have commented on this before and I would again say that using force against the Hafsa nonsense would have been a grave mistake. In countries like Pakistan, state oppression or state’s show of force actually establishes the credentials of political groups. If the State had gone full press ahead with the Hafsa group, they would have become legitimate. Now, instead, we see they barely have any support anywhere in Pakistan.

The whole Hafsa drama was created for the state to react. Dr. Sahib understands that. Now watch how the same group has brought Imam Kaaba to provide some boost to dwindling support for the Islamic parties.


I had mentioned in my posts in March that Musharaf handled the CJ situation badly. I am glad that the Pak govt is finally coming around to accepting this and have accepted the mistake. Clearly it is too late. Things are moving way beyond just accepting the mistakes. The show of force by the Sindh government through its political supporters in Karachi on May 12th has turned the whole situation upside down.

Doctor Sahib, the thing that should always be kept in mind is that Pakistan after so many years of military rule now has many fires to extinguish. From Balochistan to Wana and from Karachi to Islamabad, the society is going through turmoil. This turmoil may turn out well or can go very badly depending how it is going to be handled by Pakistani intellectuals, political parties and the moderates.

With articles like this you don’t help the moderate or the liberal cause. You have a recognized voice in Pakistani political circles and you should use it. You need to show maturity as a political commentator and in fact analyze the situation for possibly better solutions.

HP,

When u r not kidding u write in MB Naqvi`s style i.e no non-sense analyses.

U can even try ur hand at writing articles. OR was it that u are - like a food taster - a good commentator???

#12 by Folio on May 31, 2007 12:52pm PT

for losing 4 wars, the paki army rewards itself with the keys to the state treasury...no wonder pakiland doesn`t produce any corporate powerhouses..the mediocre military businesses edge them out...

they lost in kargil and rewarded themselves by taking over pakiland...reinforcing failure, as ayaz amir calls it..

Arjun,

Yeah....u r right.

This reminds me of `camel and the tent` story. The camel (Army) edged out the real occupant (elected politicians).

With such deep hands in economic interests, it`s nigh-impossible to put Army in its place i.e making them apolitical and treating them employees.