Age of madness

[RabzonKhan]

Smokers’ Corner: Leaky logic

Dawn
Nadeem F. Paracha
December 05 2010

Now how bad can it be for a president to be criticised by a monarch who is alleged to have asked the Americans to bomb Iran and whose countrymen are still thought to be one of the leading donors to terror organisations like Al-Qaeda? Well, that’s what the recent US intelligence documents uploaded on WikiLeaks suggest.

To a lot of Pakistanis, the leaks were a big fat disappointment. For example, a colleague of mine was wagging a finger at me saying, ‘NFP, these new leaks will expose your president in the worst way possible.’ He was ‘my president’ and not my colleague’s because the guy’s into … ahem …the concept of modern-day caliphs as heads of state. Well, come the day of the leaks and I saw him all glum and gloomy. Sure the president was taken to task by the Saudi monarch according to the leaked documents. Nevertheless what the monarch said about Mr Zardari would have been music to the ears of all the Saudi-philes out there but only if the leaked documents had stopped at that.

What gave my pro-caliphate colleague a sudden bout of embarrassment, inducing depression, was how the same documents then go on to quote many Arab leaders (including the said monarch), asking the US to conduct aerial raids against Iran. Now, I am no fan of the current Iranian leadership; in fact, I find Ahmadinejad suffering from verbal diarrhoea against the West and all things western. However, it is actually this trait of his that has turned him into a hero of sorts among Muslims everywhere.

What a shock then it was for my colleague to read that Arab monarchs had actually instigated their American friends to bomb a fellow Muslim country. But, really, why the surprise? I mean, hasn’t it been clear all along that Arab leadership has always been repulsed by Iran, especially after the 1979 revolution? The truth is, and this goes for a lot of groups with sympathies for Iran in Pakistan too, no matter how loudly they exhibit their spite against Israel, they remain suspect in the eyes of a majority of Arab leaders, or worse, targets of various extremist groups.

I don’t think my pan-Islamic colleague’s shock was due to his surprise over the revelations, because everyone knows about the historical fissures that divide Arabs and Persians. Instead, he was stunned by the realisation that lofty caliph-oriented daydreams that men like him hold so dear would sound ridiculous now that the world knows that one set of Muslim leaders want the ‘infidels to bomb another Muslim country.

He was itching to let loose the tirade that people like him usually unleash once they do not agree with something: It’s a trick. A conspiracy and propaganda against Muslims, blah. But how could he? Not this time. Because had he termed these documents a ploy by Zionists to ridicule Arab leaders, it would also mean that the Saudi monarch’s criticism of Mr Zardari too was not true. Anyway, even if we forget what the Arabs blurted out against Iran, there is an inherent irony in the statement that sees a monarch being unhappy about a president in a democratic country.

The Pakistani president, no matter how unpopular he may have become, remains an elected leader. So what right does a monarch have to show concern about an elected leader of another Muslim country? The Saudi king is supposed to have said that Pakistan cannot progress as long as Zardari holds office. Now, I do wonder, what is the concept of progress to a monarch of a puritanical Muslim state?

Is his disappointment based in the fact that unlike the Ziaul Haq dictatorship, the Zardari regime is not constructing enough mosques or madressas? Is it due to the fact that unlike Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N, Zardari’s PPP has been traditionally more associated with certain populist and indigenous folk versions of Islam in Pakistan that the Saudis scorn at? I am really interested in determining exactly what constitutes ‘progress’ to oil-rich Muslim monarchies, one of which, according to the leaked documents, is hovering at the top as the world’s leading donor nation to terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda.

Yes, sir, no matter how much carnage and madness countries like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan face from the monsters they themselves have created, they just refuse to learn from their follies. In their obsessive-compulsive paranoia that sees many of their citizens stuck in an old Cold War thinking mode as far as countries like Israel, India and US are concerned, they keep feeding merciless ogres whom they believe will fight their egotistical battles against their sectarian, religious and ideological enemies.

The mindset continues despite the fact that in the last one decade, terrorist foot soldiers have spilled more Muslim blood than that of ‘infidels.’ Wikileaks or not, we are suffering from a freaky deluge of a delusion.

 

[RabzonKhan]

More police `encounters`

Dawn
December 9, 2010

“THE men were arrested outside the house and then taken inside where they were murdered in a fake encounter. It`s a big tragedy.” These words do not belong to an emotional relative of a victim. They were not written by a journalist keen to impose his version of a just order on society. This was an observation made by a judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Justice Tariq Pervez, during a hearing of a police-encounter case in November. The court had taken suo motu notice of a couple of such encounters in Punjab, raising hopes that the intervention would help purge a police force that is in a hurry to administer justice as it sees fit. The case is pending and in the meanwhile new incidents of suspected stage-managed encounters continue to be reported.

In Faisalabad, the hometown of Punjab`s law minister, Rana Sanaullah, the police have killed four men, said to be close friends, in encounters between Nov 4 and Dec 6. Two of them were killed by police on Nov 4, followed by another on Nov 8. When another of the `friends` died in an encounter on Dec 6, the local people took to the streets. They implicated Mr Sanaullah in the killing, which in itself should be sufficient ground for an earnest investigation.

Even without the involvement of the controversial minister, there have been far too many encounter deaths to leave any room for leniency on the part of state institutions that must oversee the working of the police. The killing of the four is a sequel to the brutal death of two brothers in Sialkot on Aug 15 in the presence of policemen. In the post-incident analyses, the role the regional police chief had played towards the brutalisation of the force under his command was condemned. He has since been removed from the job, with Mr Sanaullah citing the Sialkot instance as a reason behind it. The minister and his government must be brought round to applying to the Faisalabad incident the same standards which led to the ouster of the police chief in Sialkot.

 

[Developereo]

Smokers’ Corner: Leaky logic

Nadeem Paracha writing against Islam and Muslims.

Oh my God, what is this world coming to?

 

[RabzonKhan]

Smokers’ Corner: Normal madness

Dawn
Nadeem F. Paracha
Dec 12 2010

One of the most common conditions associated with anyone suffering from paranoia-schizophrenia is that the person claims whatever is being said in public, on TV or radio, has something to do with him/her or someone closely related. The sufferer of this devastating disorder believes that, say, a newscaster was suggesting ways (in coded language) to the public on how to harm him or his surroundings.

Though such a person is to be taken care of and treated, what happens when one hears about supposedly ‘normal’ folk behaving out of sheer paranoia? What happens when certain delusional pearls spouted by such men and women are granted space in newspapers and at times even provided primetime slots on TV? It is only logical to conclude that in any society where this is happening on a regular basis, there is something inherently and seriously wrong.

The whole idea of mad men/women being given a chance to be heard, vent out and even preach their psycho-babblings goes beyond being just a figurative take on an issue; it becomes a make-believe world. A scenario like this reminds one of the 1976 film, Network, in which Peter Finch plays a clinically depressed news anchor on a TV channel, who has a mental breakdown live in front of the camera. His incoherent rants about politics and society become a hit with viewers frustrated by the breakdown of law and order and the economy in the United States during mid-1970s.

As his mental condition worsens, the ratings of his show rise and his employers continue to encourage his madness — until he finally suffers a blackout in front of the camera. Soon his show begins to lose ratings and he is gradually shipped out. Though still as clinically depressed and manic as ever, he finds himself without the adulation-grabbing platform to air his frenzied rants, and ends up committing suicide.

By now we are well aware of the usual spectre of many ‘analysts’ and preachers blasting out their twisted jabbering from our TV screens. Of course this can be dismissed as a contemptuous act by the channels to score high ratings by allowing certain personified hyperboles to give vent to a thoroughly depressed society that they see fragmenting under the stress of terrorism and economic downturns. However, such a cynical dismissal in this regard should turn into a grave concern when some of these highly animated characters go on to encourage actual acts of hate.

Apart from constantly delivering warped lectures pitched against civilian rule, some preachers and so-called analysts have also been known to have used a highly myopic understanding of the faith and an almost-xenophobic, nationalist narrative to trigger hate crimes. The question arises, when Pakistanis see such crackpots given coverage in the mainstream media, wouldn’t they, instead of suspecting these characters’ clearly questionable sanity, take such madness to be something normal?

No wonder one continues to hear about the many atrocities that are so casually committed in the name of religion and patriotism. But the funny thing is, though it is clear that most of these people seem to be suffering from mental disturbance, they present themselves (and are treated), as perfectly normal folk. For instance, so often we hear about men filing cases against TV commercials, claiming that these commercials had mocked religion. Such cases should be thrown out by the court and the petitioner declared mentally suspect, but that does not happen.

Imagine a man sitting in front of a TV set watching perfectly harmless TV commercials. He then somehow manages to ‘see’ the hidden and coded ways a commercial uses to mock the guy’s beliefs. Being obviously unsound of mind, such an unfortunate man in this country is more likely to march to a court or get his concern heard in the mainstream media than be strapped and marched to a psychiatric institution.

Why should he ever suspect his own irrational reasoning when society, and its courts and media, are treating him like a ‘true Muslim’ or a passionate patriot? There is no doubt about the clinical madness that makes some people murder hoards of men, women and children in the name of faith, but there are many levels of this kind of psychosis. The most intense levels either land one in a mental ward, all chained, or turn one into a murderer of innocent people, believing he or she is being ordained to do so by God.

The scary bit is that one feels this same nature of madness drives a lot of very normal looking Pakistanis as well. The only difference is that the levels of this madness are comparatively lower. But is that a respite? Not really. Because when, say, a community in Pindi actually gets the body of a nine-year-old Hindu girl exhumed from a Muslim graveyard claiming it was making the yard ‘impure,’ is this not an act of chronic neurosis?

So why aren’t we labelling it as such? Reading about it in the newspaper, I thought, those who got the girl’s body exhumed might have deluded themselves into believing that they had purified their dead with this act; but if the dead could speak, I’m sure, in this case, they’d most likely be weeping.

 

[RabzonKhan]

EDITORIAL: An idea whose time has come

Daily Times
December 14, 2010


If it were not so tragic, the case of a blasphemy-accused doctor would have made for comic reading. Reportedly, Dr Naushad Valiyani threw the business card of a medical representative “which had his full name, Muhammad Faizan”, in a dustbin. Mr Faizan then launched a blasphemy complaint against the doctor. The absurdity of the charges against Dr Valiyani exposes the nature of the draconian Blasphemy Law, which can be misused for any purpose under the sun. General Ziaul Haq left this country with a minefield in the shape of this law, which lends itself to abuse. The case of Dr Valiyani is just one of the many cases where the complainant is crossing all lines of common sense. ‘Muhammad’ is a popular name over the Muslim world. To say that the doctor committed blasphemy just because he threw a business card that had ‘Muhammad’ written on it is ridiculous. The issue was resolved between the parties when the doctor apologised, although not before Faizan and his friends had reportedly roughed up the doctor. However, the intervention of some clerics resulted in a blasphemy charge against the accused, who was then arrested.

Since we are so fond of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), why not invoke PPC 153 A in cases where false accusations are made? According to PPC 153 A (a), whoever “by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representations or otherwise, promotes or incites, or attempts to promote or incite, on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community or any other ground whatsoever, disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities” shall be fined and punished with imprisonment for a term that may extend to five years. Thus, Muhammad Faizan should be charged with incitement against the innocent doctor.

In another incident, three alleged blasphemers in Karachi — Syed Raheel Masood Wasti, Samreen Masood and Zafar Iqbal — denied desecrating the Holy Quran. As per their statement, they were not in the house when their illiterate maid accidentally threw out some pages of the Quran after cleaning the house. They have expressed fear for their lives and that they can be falsely persecuted under the Blasphemy Law. This is yet another example of the way the mullahs use this law. In almost all the cases under the Blasphemy Law, the accusations are mala fide. The accusations are based on personal vendetta, blackmail, settling scores, property disputes, etc. It is therefore beyond comprehension why the mullah brigade is threatening to launch a movement, Tehreek Namoos-e-Risalat (TNR), in case any amendments are made to the Blasphemy Law, except that it serves their political agenda of keeping the country hostage to their fulminations. This flawed law should be repealed in the first instance, and if that is not possible because our politicians have yet to find the courage to defy the blackmail of the religious groups, at least the amendment bill by Ms Sherry Rehman should be considered seriously. Islam is a religion of peace but the fundamentalists have hijacked our religion and given new interpretations to serve their vested interests. The religious right is committing the greatest blasphemy by distorting the name of Islam. When the British introduced the Blasphemy Law, it was done to maintain harmony between all religious communities in the Indian subcontinent. Ziaul Haq’s Blasphemy Law has done the exact opposite. It has made the religious minorities more insecure in this ‘land of the not-so-pure’. When a state legalises persecution of minorities, it is time to change the laws.

Pakistan can never progress if it chooses to espouse the values of the Dark Ages. Let us not be afraid to challenge the religious extremists just because they threaten us with ‘dire consequences’. We have been held hostage to their absurdities for decades. It is high time we rolled back Zia’s legacy and moved forward towards a progressive, secular and democratic Pakistan.

 

[RabzonKhan]

EDITORIAL: Do we need a moral police?

Daily Times
December 24, 2010

Women’s rights groups as well as the National Commission on the Status of Women have come out strongly against the verdict of the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) that seeks to restore the primacy of Hudood laws in cases relating to the offence of zina (adultery) and qazaf (false accusation of adultery), which have a long history of abuse and injustice. The Women’s Protection Act 2006 omitted two sections of the Hudood Ordinances which, to some extent, reduced the likelihood of abuse of these laws against women accused of adultery. Their cases could now be tried under the Pakistan Penal Code, instead of exclusively under the Hudood Ordinance. However, not only did the FSC declare Sections 11, 25, 28 and 29 of the Women’s Protection Act 2006 un-Islamic and unconstitutional on the premise that the overriding effect of the Hudood Ordinances over other laws could not be taken away, it also asserted that the jurisdiction to hear appeals under any law relating to ten offences covered by the term ‘hudood’ for the purpose of Article 203 DD of the constitution lies with the FSC and not the high courts. The FSC thus gave parliament time till June 22, 2011 to make amendments to the Women’s Protection Act to restore these clauses, otherwise the court’s verdict would stand and these clauses would be considered restored. The court also directed the government to amend the Control of Narcotic Substances Act of 1997 and Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 to lay down a procedure for filing of appeals to the FSC instead of a high court for such offences. Certain sections in these laws, according to the FSC, constitute a violation of Article 203 DD, which empowers the FSC to examine any case relating to the enforcement of hudood heard by a lower court. All this is nothing short of an attempt at legislation by the FSC.

The FSC was created by General Ziaul Haq in 1980 in the name of Islamising the justice system. This is yet another instance that indicates how vestiges of that era continue to undermine the spirit of justice. In asserting its exclusive jurisdiction, the FSC did not take into consideration numerous cases where innocent women were implicated on false charges or survivors of rape charged with adultery while the perpetrators were allowed to go scot-free. In its order it said, “No legislative instrument can control, regulate or amend its exclusive jurisdiction which was mandated in the constitution.” Is the court not acting as a moral police over and above parliament, the judicial system and society itself? The FSC has provided parliamentarians, media and civil society an opportunity to debate the place of a religious court in a democratic, constitutionally run state. In the process of creating a parallel judicial system, a military dictatorship handed to the FSC enormous clout in the name of religion to pronounce on anything and everything under the sun. Despite the blatantly undemocratic and theocratic nature of these measures, the issue of their repeal was not taken up in the 18th and 19th Amendments to the constitution.

All the laws created to ‘Islamise’ the system deserve to be repealed on merit; these are bad laws. The whole edifice constructed on that foundation also needs to be abolished. The retrogressive and reactionary nature of, and setting itself above parliament’s will by the FSC, is the corollary of that misplaced emphasis on religion in matters of governance. This is by no means compatible with the concept of a modern democracy, which Pakistan aspires to become. It is time that the government and other democratic forces stopped soft-pedalling around the legacy of Ziaul Haq and went ahead with its repeal in toto.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Smokers’ Corner: Let’s let go


Dawn
Nadeem F. Paracha
Dec 26 2010


Two of the most common comments I receive through emails are: ‘If only Pakistan imposes true Islamic system, we’ll be able to get rid of the hypocrisies committed in its name.’ Of course, most of such suggestions are purposed by my fellow Pakistanis. The other comment in this regard is usually from Dawn readers living in India or the West. It’s a simple question: ‘Why are Pakistanis always so engrossed about religion?’

I am no scholar (religious or otherwise), but rather a student of history with a keen interest in understanding it through the lens of cultural anthropology. You see, most of us living in Pakistan have always been advised to look at cultural studies with suspicion. It has been embedded in us that this sort of an enquiry leads one to question the very foundations of the country’s ideology.

But, the problem is, the less equipped or inclined we are to questioning what we’ve been told, the more one-dimensional remains our understanding of the diverse range of people that reside in Pakistan; and also, that we become more vulnerable to the continuous volley of half-truths and glorified delusions that have been coming our way from dictators, textbooks and certain media crackpots.

The whole notion of being a country buzzing with ethnic, sectarian and religious diversity becomes something to be afraid of. To many this is something to be repressed with the help of an ideology that has, over the decades, been imposed upon this diversity by a curious nexus of so-called modernist Muslims and their more myopic and puritanical counterparts. At the centre of this all is an ever-weakening state, which, from 1947 till 1977, shunned recognising the dynamics of Pakistan’s diversity by imposing a nationalistic Muslim identity.

It didn’t work. In the absence of the kind of democracy that a diverse nation requires, this all-encompassing Muslim nationalism only ended up alienating the centuries-old cultural moorings of the numerous ethnicities in Pakistan. So, as the Baloch, Sindhis and Pashtuns rose up in anger; Bengalis of the former East Pakistan did the same, who eventually decided to rip themselves away from Pakistan’s ideological equation.

Though the anti-diversity dynamics of Muslim nationalism were, by and large, successful in keeping this ideology’s more radical advocates at bay, the 1971 East Pakistan debacle left this ideology vulnerable to the influence of what was once dismissed as being the Islamist fringe. Gradually, especially with the arrival of the dictatorship of General Ziaul Haq, the ideology’s early modernist dictum of modernising Islam was turned on its head when the new ideologues decided to Islamise the modern. Sir Syed gave way to Abul Ala Mawdudi.

The kind of theological, political and cultural damage this long-winded attitude has inflicted in the past three decades has made the state and governments of Pakistan willing hostages to the abrasive and reactionary ways of the puritanical ideologues. What’s more, today, even some of the most educated young Pakistanis have lost the capacity to question what is dished out to them as Islamic/Pakistani history and ideology. We are still not prepared to face an obvious truth that may put the very essence and foundation of our so-called ideology into question.

Has not this ideology — first of modernist ‘One Unit’ Islam, and then the exhibitionistic and militaristic version of it — completely failed to achieve what it wanted to? That is, to turn a diverse Pakistan into a united, ideological whole based on religion? It was always an over-ambitious and Utopian task. We were never ‘one people’ in the organic sense of the word. The majority of us were Muslims (and still are), but our understanding of the faith is intricately linked to and informed by the cultural moorings of our own distinct ethnicities and sects.

Laws and policies cannot be made to succeed based upon the simple idea that all Muslims believe in the same God and the same book. What passes as Islamic law in certain Arab countries would be an anachronism in Pakistan. In the same way, what may be a success (as an Islamic law) in certain areas of the Deobandi dominated Khyber Pakhtunkhwa could be offensive to the Barelvi or Shia dominated areas of the Punjab and Sindh. There has never been a consensus among the sects and ethnicities of Pakistan about the ideology of Pakistan. How can there be?

Shouldn’t the consensus be more about recognising the ethnic and sectarian diversity of this country, giving all the democratic participants of this diversity as much autonomy as possible (through a fair democratic process) to take responsibility of just how much religion, or what sort of religion (if at all), would every ethnicity and sect want to use in their respective communities’ politics and society? The state’s role should be to make sure that such a national consensus holds and that none of the state’s institutions is allowed to identify with any one ethnic or sectarian group or its ideology.

We have to finally recognise (on an official level) that we live in a land of manifold ethnicities and multiple interpretations of Islam. This phenomenon has to be harnessed and celebrated, not repressed or be afraid of. This kind of repression has produced nothing but an ideological neurosis that we suffer from today.

 

[muse]

Mr. Paracha and I and to be sure, a good many of our forum readers share an interest in Anthropology -- and Mr. Paracha has chosen an interesting subject, but regrettably while the subject deserves more emphasis on details, Mr. Paracha ignores them, consider:

It didn’t work.

We all agree with this, after all, it's reality -- but why didn't it work? Consider Mr. Paracha's explanation:

the ideology’s early modernist dictum of modernising Islam was turned on its head when the new ideologues decided to Islamise the modern. Sir Syed gave way to Abul Ala Mawdudi.

Sure, but how was the problem and solution articulated by Mawdudi and WHY?

Mr. Paracha is spot on when he suggests that the emphasis on a single "truth" is to blame for the malady of Pakistan, the rejection of what he calls "diversity" but which I would suggest is an inappropriate word and it is "Pluralism" which was and is being rejected -- The Quaid e Azam's promise to the Muslims of Hindustan was that they and their property would be safe in Pakistan, that Pakistan was the home of ALL -- and yes, Mawdudi and company started early on to turn this paradigm of the Quaid on it's head and yes, the state has been a continual failure in Pakistan --

But perhaps we should look at the values we as Pakistanis have bought in to and reject -- look into the kind of Islam we have bought in to (an Islam of outward appearances, devoid of morality, of ethics and most importantly of FAITH in God) and rejected the Islam of Faith in God buttressed by pluralism and tolerance.

Yes, that awful question of values and what does it mean to be a MUSLIM and of course what it cannot be allowed to mean. While some may react to this conversation with hand wringing and apprehension, may I suggest that this question and the ferment behind it is, something to be welcomed, we stand at the cusp of liberty and within it, the restoration of the idea of FAITH, Emaan, not Aqidah - Faith, not dogma -- if only we remain resolute, not to defeat the ideology which has multiple names (Wahabi, Salafi, Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaati, Ahle this or that, deobandi, etc) but rather affirm by the way we live (values) and the attitudes, public and private
we express.

Readers will no doubt be reminded of Vali Nasr's "Islamic Leviathan" in the discussion of how Jamaati ideology brought about a failure of Islam-ism in Pakistan whereas Islam-ism actually succeeded in it's mission to strengthen the state by enabling it to positively effect the lives of ordinary people, bringing them education, opportunity to prosper and in doing so. be a net positive in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious polity.

 

[Solomon2]

we stand at the cusp of liberty and within it, the restoration of the idea of FAITH, Emaan, not Aqidah - Faith, not dogma -- if only we remain resolute, not to defeat the ideology which has multiple names (Wahabi, Salafi, Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaati, Ahle this or that, deobandi, etc) but rather affirm by the way we live (values) and the attitudes, public and private we express.

You would remain silent as terror is first pronounced from the airwaves and mosque, only then to consume your own home as nothing exists to stop it?

 

[muse]

Digging our way out of the cave

Tuesday, December 28, 2010


Mosharraf Zaidi
]The outcome of a debate often depends on how the question is framed and who is asking it. In a perfect world, we would get to choose how to frame the question, and who poses the question. The real world is not perfect.

The issue of blasphemy in Pakistan is an interesting case of a public debate. Let’s call one side supporters of the status quo, and the other side, opponents of the status quo. Supporters of the status quo do not want any changes made to the sections of the Pakistan Penal Code that address blasphemy, while opponents of the status quo want changes to parts of the Pakistan Penal Code that deal with blasphemy. It is important to note that while the range of opposition to the status quo is diverse (amendment, repeal etc), the range of support is single file (nobody touches the “blasphemy law”).

What makes the debate fascinating is that it is effectively not a debate at all. It is a case of two separate arguments, each pretending to be engaged with the other. Both sides of the argument whip themselves into a frenzy and both arguments claim moral superiority. The only problem is that one side keeps winning, and the other side keeps losing.

This isn’t like losing a debate on the pros and cons of regressive taxation like the RGST. Opponents of the status quo themselves rightly argue that losing the debate on how the law treats blasphemy costs lives. The sections of the Pakistan Penal Code (Act XLV of 1860) that pertain to blasphemy egregiously and unnecessarily inflate the incentive to register false cases of blasphemy, and then egregiously and unnecessarily cause unchecked threats to the lives of people accused (almost always falsely) of blasphemy. Losing the debate on the issue of how blasphemy should be treated by the law in Pakistan has real consequences. It sustains the status quo. Since the status quo involves the incentivisation of false legal suits, and since those legal suits then create demonstrable threats to the lives of Pakistani citizens, the status quo has to be unacceptable to reasonable people.

Of course, supporters of the status quo don’t frame their argument by expressing a desire to increase the quantum of false cases, or the victimisation of minorities. Supporters and defenders of the status quo are winning the debate not on the basis of a good argument, or normative superiority, or even street power. They are winning the debate because they have framed the question on blasphemy in the public domain in Pakistan. That question is quite simple, and it is very, very potent. No matter what their lips are saying, the question they are asking Pakistanis is this: “Do you want to live in a Pakistan where offensive speech against religious personalities and symbols is a legally protected right?”

Of course, opponents of the status quo are not advocating offensive speech or blasphemy. But that doesn’t matter because the question has already been framed. It’s a trick question. It is meant to locate opponents of the status quo outside the field of play. Simply put, if your answer to that question is yes, and you are in Pakistan, supporters of the status quo will successfully argue that you are in the wrong place. Supporters and defenders of the status quo do not advertise themselves as advocates of the status quo, they advertise themselves as defenders of the faith, and the honour of the faithful. No matter what argument is employed, opponents of the status quo cannot win this specific debate.

The fight to alter the status quo is a fight to protect innocent Pakistanis from being victimised by a social structure, a set of laws, and a state machinery that are to varying degrees, basically broken. Changing the status quo is about the safety, security of all Pakistanis, particularly disadvantaged Pakistanis such as religious minorities. The PPC’s blasphemy provisions represent a law that allows influential locals to demonstrate their muscularity and achieve fame, by egregiously and unnecessarily registering false cases of blasphemy, and then egregiously and unnecessarily threatening (and taking) the lives of those accused. To want to change the current situation is an absolutely reasonable, non-ideological and non-partisan public policy proposition.

To win this critical fight, opponents of the status quo need to step away from instruments that have failed them, and the cause of a safe, secure and reasonable Pakistan. These instruments include moral outrage, ideological rabble rousing, the use of the word “liberal” and a complete lack of engagement with the Pakistani Main Street, the Pakistani gulley, and the Pakistani mosque. Passion and moral outrage have little place in the fight for change and for a safe, secure and reasonable Pakistan.

In the range of efforts to affect change to how the state deals with blasphemy, there are problems not just at the strategic level, but also the tactical level. Let’s take the issue of timing. Immediately after a blasphemy conviction represents the worst possible time to begin or step up a debate about the PPC blasphemy provisions. Arguing against these provisions right after a fresh conviction, or even registration of a case, can easily be painted by mischievous partisans as being an attempt to de-Islamise Pakistan’s 170-plus Muslims. Meanwhile, standing up for the honour of the symbols of Islam, at a time when opponents of the status quo seem to be “in concert” with “blasphemers” is a brilliant opportunity to press home the advantage for defenders of the status quo. It is a great time to be a beneficiary of the Pakistani state’s dysfunction.

How bad is this dysfunction? Instead of instructing government to block offensive cartoons, the Lahore High Court bans Facebook altogether. Instead of appointing progressive scholars to the Council of Islamic Ideology, the government appointed the JUI (F)’s Maulana Sherani, for political expediency. Instead of dismissing a frivolous and malicious case against Sherry Rehman, and holding the petitioner in contempt of court, a judge accepts a petition against her. Clearly, the Pakistani state lacks not only the will and capacity to solve problems creatively; it lacks the spine and the muscle to stand up to the intimidation of hoodlums in the garb of religious gatekeepers.

This is the time and space continuum in which the fight for changes to the status quo is taking place. Opponents of the status quo must contextualise the struggle here, start framing the debate in a proactive, rather than reactive manner, and prepare for an intergenerational conversation, overwhelmingly in Urdu. We cannot reasonably expect that problems that took decades to build up can be solved in a matter of weeks, months, or even years. But the work must begin and be sustained now, with a tenth of the 21st century already over. It’s time to start digging our way out of the cave.
/FONT]
The writer advises governments, donors and NGOs on public policy. Mosharraf Zaidi

 

[Solomon2]

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear, muse: You cannot rely on your quiet personal example to protect you, neither from physical terror nor from the verbal or written calumnies that precede it. You have to actively engage with your neighbors. That is a hard lesson, one learned by generations of Jews. And people who are not Jews are not immune.

 

[muse]

You have to actively engage with your neighbors. That is a hard lesson, one learned by generations of Jews. And people who are not Jews are not immune

Indeed, don't have a problem with that suggestion, however; I would point out that this is a internal problem, outside powers and interests will only muddy the waters -- And I am very, very optimistic with regard to Pakistan overcoming these problems and coming out of this a much much stronger society and state, of Muslims more determined to explore publicly the content of meaning of BEING Muslims, really more is being written, more is being debated, more is being created than ever before as far as arguments and positions Muslims are exposed to, it's a lovely time - yes, it's a awful time, but that's not the totality of the experience.

In the above piece by Mr. Zaidi, you will or may find his position closely matching yours, that is to say to be proactive, not reactive.

 

[Solomon2]

I am very, very optimistic with regard to Pakistan overcoming these problems and coming out of this a much much stronger society and state...In the above piece by Mr. Zaidi, you will or may find his position closely matching yours, that is to say to be proactive, not reactive.

I would feel optimistic if yourself and Mr. Zaidi wrote about what you yourselves were doing, rather than what other Pakistanis should do. Did you know that the 18th century Prussian dictator, Frederick the Great, permitted total press and even religious freedom? There is even a story, collaborated by witnesses, that when he once saw a poster denouncing him he moved it to a location where it could be more easily seen.

That's because he knew all the talk was empty bluster and that no one would actually do anything. Thousands of people died in Frederick's needless wars, and his successor, lacking his "enlightenment" but encouraged by the spinelessness of his subjects, reinstated press controls with hardly a peep in response.

 

[muse]

The very fact that they write, I would have thought, would have been cause for optimism, the quality of the ideas they project, cause for optimism -- Sol, sometimes and it's a strongly Pakistani quality, Pakistanis are very hard on themselves - All of Pakistan is not a cesspool devoid of Faith in God, humanity and decency -- but of course I do understand that it's difficult to be optimistic given the daily ravages of terrorism, faithlessness, apathetic governance, rapacious elites and equally rapacious civil servants -- but that's not all the story, there are persons who live dignified lives, even in poverty, their faith in God is a love that continues to grow.

 

[Solomon2]

The very fact that they write, I would have thought, would have been cause for optimism, the quality of the ideas they project, cause for optimism -- Sol, sometimes and it's a strongly Pakistani quality, Pakistanis are very hard on themselves - All of Pakistan is not a cesspool devoid of Faith in God, humanity and decency -

I do know this, muse. I want to caution you about false optimism. If you don't help steer your nation's direction, you must accept that others will steer it for you. You may celebrate that you have broken a barrier of silence, but there is still distance to travel between the cell door and prison gate to finally reach freedom. I think you'll have to take that trip if you want to preserve the very faith, humanity, and decency you so highly prize. The act itself will affirm all of these.