Hoodbhoy's goal of some kind of secular nationalism is in itself not a terrible idea, but his approach towards it was destined to fail and, instead of building a broader coalition in support, has only served to vitiate the atmosphere and give additional ammunition to the much larger opposition against liberalism and secular nationalism.
Marium Chughtai, in her recent debate with Hoodbhoy, correctly pointed out to him that his approach and ideology (separation of State and religion) necessitated a constitutional level approach rather than this nitpicking over policy and criticism of everything under the sun in Pakistan.
Hoodbhoy isn't the only one with this problem - I have pleaded multiple times with Pakistani liberals, in person and in debates on various platforms, to halt their current trajectory which pits them against Pakistan's constitution, the conservative nature of Pakistani society AND the military. They need to build partnerships with the power centers and build support for the changes they want. Take an incremental approach to change - focus on equality and justice, understand the need to leverage Islamic principles of equality, justice and freedom of religion to enact change, both legislative and societal, because whether we remain the 'Islamic Republic of Pakistan' or just the 'Republic of Pakistan' is irrelevant.
Just look at what is occurring in India, despite it's 'secular' label.
This rampage against Islam, the country's ideology and its power centers has done little more than sharpen the divide and harden positions on both sides and isolate the Pakistani left. The little leverage and voice they have right now is because of their common cause (against the PTI and Army) with two highly loathed political parties in Pakistan, the PPP and PMLN, and every disaster in Sindh under the rule of the PPP just discredits them and their positions even further.
Pakistan's liberal/leftist elite is tiny. They need to learn to function with ALL power centers rather than banking on one or two parties where the leadership makes the right noises once in a while whilst carrying an enormous amount of baggage which will prevent them from even enacting meaningful change.
The changes being pursued need broad based support from all sections of Pakistan. Supporting the PPP while making an enemy of the military, the PTI (currently the largest and most popular political party in Pakistan), conservative sections of Pakistani society and nationalists is no way to build a broad based coalition.
That is good advice indeed. It is high time for everyone to recognize conservative nature of the constitution, society and the military, and the consequences thereof. Change, if it ever comes, as you rightly point out, must come slowly in order to be accepted by society.
Gentlemen let me add few cents (not two cents
)
First of all on the day of Hujja tul Wida as per revelation chapter 5 verse 4, "today deen is completed" deen was completed anything further is just interpretation nothing more and as such not compulsory to be followed.
Either one is Muslim or one is not, there is no liberal Muslim or fundamentalist Muslim, Islam remains the same. Conduct of Muslims can have tendency of extremism or balanced, period.
So Islam by virtue of all its teachings is a deen of balance, harmony and nature, i find it amusing that people find variations in Islam.
Now religious fraternity with the exception of Moulana Shabeer Ahmed Usmani was all against Pakistan movement. People having extremist tendencies or whose interpretation of Islam varies from one sect to the other, strangely they were all united against Pakistan movement.
Pakistanis or people in this part of the world have always been easy going, Muslims but not devout followers of any extremist movement (in general).
It is very strange for me to gather how a fraternity which was against the creation of Pakistan somehow blackmailed Liaquat Ali to expel Ch Zafarullah from the cabinet and then ensure a certain Para was added to the first Constitution.
People who in every discussion curse Quaid e Azam, Dr Allama Iqbal, who have openly admitted that they were not part of the "sin" for creation of Pakistan now tell us why Pakistan was created seems a bit strange to me.
Pakistanis in general have never supported these elements, trusted them and the proof is that despite significant increase in population their entire vote bank is either the same or deteriorated.
Unfortunately what Zia did in his shortsightedness to give free reign to them along unaccounted funding from our "brotherly countries" like parasites they have dug deep, people like Akhtar Abdul Rehman and CIA taught them well how to exploit religious vulnerabilities of the masses.
Musharraf went way overboard on the other extreme, followed by Ghaddari when foreign funded other POV organizations were given free reign to force change/challenge everything thing the first group had been inculcating among Pakistanis.
In my opinion both groups are two sides of the same coin, both want chaos, unrest, civil war so that they could be installed as saviors by their puppet masters.
Like I said Pakistanis or people in this part of the world have always been easy going, Muslims but not devout followers of any extremist movement (in general) that is one of the reasons ideology of both extremes have not taken roots among majority Pakistanis and I have my doubt they will ever take any root.
Sentiments can be exploited for the time being like declaring a minority a minority and then adding them to the legislative assemblies, setting up of prayer site for one minority or the other but not in the long run.
Agreed that a traitorous/extremist religious fraternity is not required in Pakistan along its ideology but the other side opposed it in such a stupid manner that our natural defenses of resistance to change kicked in, to add to it these elements became devout preacher against everything that we Pakistanis hold dear and the result is idiots like this guy and the Geo/Jew network both are failing and whining enterprises in different ways.
