The version of radical Islam that has taken hold in wider society will take over the military too,
No, it won't. THe high water mark for radical Islam was I believe 2010. Now it is a gradual slope down to normalcy although it going to take decades.
Zia was a symptom not a cause imit was Bhutto who axtually started appeasing Mullahs to strengthen
Not quite. The road to perdition began in 1947. That was when religion was
first openly used as tool to get a political goal - Pakistan. However this Pandora's box could then have been closed shut and nailed forever after achieving the political goal of Pakistan. Extenuating circumstances might sometimes require extreme methods. Making a country is one off thing so we can forgive the use of religon in 1947.
However the ML elite post 1947 mostly from India who migrated to what became Pakistan soon found themselves ruling ruling a Punjab, Frontier, Sindh and Baluchistan which had never been their support bases. So when it was time to nail the Pandora's box they retained the 'Muslim' card as a device to gain traction with the Punjabi, Pashtun, Sindhi majority country. Islam had animated these very people in birth of Pakistan. Now again it was mobilized so that ML could gain traction with these peoples. That is why no elections were held. The
second uses of religion was when the ML elite introduced the Objective Resolution in 1949. Having no mandate they began to toy with Islam to gain legitimacy. Objective Resolution formally included the vocabulary of religion into the bloodstream of the state. To my eyes this is where the clock
starts ticking.
On the face of it Pakistan continued being a secular country. However that was more to do with history then Pakistan. From 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s most officials were products of British rule. As decades moved forward that generation slowly retired and British rule became confined to history books the 'desi' or native products of Pakistan began to assert themselves.
So although Objective Resolution introduced Islam as state religion but Pakistan continued to be ran by pre-independance British recruited officials. However the seed had been planted in 1949 Objectives Resolution. To make matters worse the ML elite also allowed entry into Pakistan
from India large body of religious groups who had actually been against the idea of Pakistan. Examples of this are Maududi who -
He arrived in Pakistan from India as a migrant and scholar with the ambition to turn what to him was a nationalistic abomination into becoming a 'true Islamic state' based on the laws of the shariah.
http://www.dawn.com/news/1154419
The ML elite used the Jamaat Islami and other religious groups most of them migrants from India as way to gain traction within Pakistan and secondly counter the leftists socialists in the country. This found common ground with US with what then was the Cold War era. This is the
third use of religion. Soon Ayub Khan took over Pakistan in military coup. Again the secular tradition from British era continued but Jamaat Islami under Maududi and other Mullahs slowly worked hard on the ground spreading their tentacles across Pakistan although they found most suppport base with migrants from India like in Karachi. The anti Ahmadiya riots of 1953 were warning of what was to come. However the administration was still 6 years distant from British rule showed exemplary efficiency and the riots were controled with ring leaders arrested including Maududi.
However these groups were slowly spreading their toxin in the general Pakistani population. By 1969 the religious groups were strong enough to cause Ayub Khan to resign. By the time Bhutto took over it would have required a Stalin or a Kemal Ataturk to push the monster back into the Pandoras box. For all intents and purposes it was all over.
Bhutto of course tried to placate this monster but it did not save him. Gen. Zia merely rode this wave to extend his rule. 1980s can be best described as the consummation of a project that had began in 1947.The
fourth use of religion. Afghan jihad gave opportunity for the religious groups to come out of the shadows and take public positions. The remarkable fact is the community that primarily had been responsible for using religion in aid of politcs - the migrants (mohajirs) from India abandoned the religious parties in 1980s and chose the ethnic based MQM to represent them.
It is going to take another 3 decades I think before this process can be tamed. I still think we saw the high water mark at 2010 and now are slowly going to go downhill.
AFAIK Quaid-e-Azam and Allama Iqbal were not arrogant liberals who spat on the traditions
Proper 'desi' boy our Jinnah was. He neve spat on any traditions did he? Married his first cousin who was a devout Muslim. His child a devout Muslim lives in India. [secret: His wife was Parsee. His daughter lives in India and is a Parsee. He loved wearing expensive Western clothes]
Hey man I love his brogues. Typical Pakistani style.
Below is video with a clip of Dina Wadia the Parsee daughter of Jinnah who lives in India at 3:40