Qazi Husain Ahmad of the Jamaat i Islami recently lambasted the Musharraf regime for opening a dialogue with Israel because “it is against the ideology of Pakistan”. Ideology of Pakistan? One might have drummed up tactical or strategic political reasons for not dialoguing with Israel at this time, but talking of the “ideology of Pakistan” in this context is nonsense. If a dialogue with Israel is taboo because Israel is in occupation of Palestinian lands (Muslim and Christian), then why isn’t the JI demanding that we break diplomatic ties with India which is in occupation of Muslim lands in Kashmir, with Russia which is in occupation of Muslim lands in Chechnya, with the US which is in occupation of Muslim lands in the Middle East, with Europe and Britain which allowed the Serbs to carry out genocide of Muslims in Bosnia, and so on?
Indeed, the logic of his statement would lead to the complete rupture of Pakistan’s relations with all non-Muslim states and even with some non-ideological Muslim states. In short, this formulation would mock the very concept of the nation-state in a comity of nation-states that characterizes the global order. Even at the height of the Cold War – the battle between the ideologies of communism and capitalism – the ideological protagonists never succumbed to such absurd notions of state-craft.
But Liaqat Baloch of the JI has gone one better than his boss. On September 6, Defence of Pakistan Day, he stood up in the national assembly, bemoaned military rule and shed tears for the long lost pristine constitution of 1973. He is a fine one to talk of such matters. The 1973 constitution was overthrown by General Zia ul Haq on the basis of an anti-government movement led by the JI in 1977. The JI then went on to join and strengthen Gen Zia’s regime. Similarly, the JI was a pillar of support to General Pervez Musharraf until 9/11. Indeed, the latest military mangling of the wretched 1973 constitution following the 2002 elections was solely due to the MMA’s “deal” with General Musharraf in 2003 whereby it legitimized him as president of Pakistan with extra-constitutional powers in exchange for two provincial governments and the slot of the leader of the opposition.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the JUI-F and Maulana Sami ul Haq of the JUI-S have both been declared persona non grata in Europe. Why are we surprised and why are they indignant? Not a moment goes by when they’re not breathing fire and venom at the “Westernised infidels” and their “unholy values” and exhorting the faithful to rise and strike at the “Satanic powers”. These hypocrites want to exploit democratic freedoms to destroy the very democracies in which they breathe and live. Why should they be allowed to do this? If Maulana Sami ul Haq is still in love with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, if he is still sheltering and supporting them, why should the Taliban-OBL hating West cosy up to him? If Maulana Fazlur Rahman still wants to be leader of the opposition in parliament, why does he refuse to sit in the National Security Council legitimized by an MMA-sponsored constitutional amendment in parliament?
There was a time in the 1950s when the mullahs did not launch a single public demonstration or strike against “American imperialism” not because America was fighting the “Godless communism” of the USSR, but because America was also propping up Saudi Arabia, and both America and Saudi Arabia were funding the military and mullahs respectively in Pakistan. Much the same sort of thing happened in the 1980s when America and Saudi Arabia jointly funded the mullahs and military in Pakistan to organize the Mujahedin resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. But when America lost interest in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the funding and jet fighters ran dry after the Cold War ended in 1989, the mullahs began to march on American consulates in Pakistan. Let us not forget that Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa on Salman Rushdie in 1990 followed a JI-inspired outcry against the author in Pakistan, followed by a violent mullah march on the US embassy in Islamabad in which several people were killed.
The recent local elections have revealed the truth about the strengths and weaknesses of the mullahs. Without the Pakistani military backing them and without the Saudis and Libyans funding them – because the world has dramatically and radically changed after 9/11 and 7/7 the mullahs are a spent force. They have been wiped out by the secular MQM in Karachi and they have lost ground to the PML-Q, PPP, ANP and BNP in the NWFP and Balochistan. Even where they have managed to win seats, many of these have been scraped together on the basis of rather “unholy”, but pragmatic, political alliances – the JI with the PPP and the ANP with the JUI – rather than on the basis of religious or Pakistan ideology.
If General Musharraf is sincere about modernizing Pakistan and improving the country’s image as a respectable and respectful member of the comity of sovereign nation-states in the world, he should irrevocably disengage the military from the mullahs and “de-ideologise” Pakistan.