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Pakistan's Quicksand
FAITH IN ACTION
By Katherine Marshall
The video shows the brutal beating of a young girl, well covered in her burka and red trousers, screaming and struggling as she is held down by a man and a woman. The scene symbolizes the tensions tearing Pakistan apart and it raises a host of questions. Is this what Sharia law is about? What does this primitive justice by bearded Taliban leaders portend for Pakistan? For south Asia? What's caused the Swat Valley, a region celebrated for peace, civility, and beauty, to change so rapidly? And what can be done about it?
Make no mistake, these questions are of vital importance for the people concerned, but also for the United States and the world. Akbar Ahmed, professor at American University, has from day one (September 11, 2001) spoken relentlessly about the need to understand what is happening in the Islamic world and to act on that understanding. A Pakistani who has studied the region deeply, he is passionate and unequivocal when he says that the stakes in Pakistan's struggles could not be higher. Pakistan, a country of 170-175 million people, is the epicenter of a much larger and volatile region. It has nuclear arms and a long established hierarchically controlled military. It influences Muslim populations far beyond its borders. And Pakistan today is in deep trouble, it is sinking in quicksand.
The irony is that Pakistan had such a hopeful start. One of contemporary history's great leaders, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's founder, set out to create a modern Islamic nation. The two central issues for Pakistan today, the rule of law and education, were at the heart of his vision. He was convinced that a state could truly be both Islamic and modern, not uneasily but drawing the best from Pakistan's founding faith and from the world of modernity. That's Pakistan's potential and its ideal.
The turmoil in Pakistan stems in part from the broader struggle within Muslim communities worldwide about the fundamental question of how this ancient faith, which valued ideas and learning from the start, can adapt to the changes sweeping today's world. It is also about manifest failures in implementing Jinnah's ideals. Pakistan's real potential remains an unfulfilled dream.
Pakistan's abysmal performance on education is at the heart of the problem. Parents want decent schools for their children, now. Pakistan lags behind most countries in the most basic educational performance indicators; it ranks 132nd in the Human Development index.
The education system perpetuates and exacerbates deep class cleavages. Impeccable top-grade schools contrast with a lumbering non-performing state system, while a chaotic array of unregulated private schools tumble into the void. And then there is the madrasa system, thousands of schools (no one knows how many) run by a wide range of Muslim institutions and leaders. There's lots of myth around madrasas, and some are abominations. But there are excellent madrasas (the word simply means school) and they respond to real needs. Greg Mortenson (Three Cups of Tea) and former U.S. diplomat Douglas Johnston, coming from very different angles, have shown on the ground in Pakistan that the educators and parents of madrasa schools can and will change given the right framework.
The perversion of Pakistan's police forces and judicial systems, incompetent and weakened administrative structures, and widespread and worsening corruption also explain the current turmoil. People who have lost faith in their government turn to pretty much anyone who promises basic security from murder and theft. In the case of the Swat valley, it's the bearded chiefs and mullahs in the video. But, Pakistanis from many places argue, this is out of desperation, not desire.
These are problems for Pakistanis to address, but the United States is no tepid bystander. The annual U.S. tab for support to Pakistan is about $5 billion a year. The consequences of Pakistan's further disintegration are horrendous. With such high stakes, nowhere is smart power more in demand. And talking truth is vital as a start.
So what's needed? First off, restore law and order. Ironically, the best model appears to be the inherited colonial system of district administrators, who were able to balance interests including police, army, local tribal chiefs, and the mullahs. That system was renowned as tough and fair, able to act and to respond. It represents an ideal of honesty, justice, and action. It's there and it's known. Then, at the same time, move swiftly and effectively to modernize education.
The video of brutal retrograde frontier "order" is not what modern Islam is about. Pakistan has some of the world's finest Muslim ideals and traditions to build on. But the Swat scene should be our wakeup call, demanding our urgent, and sustained attention.
Katherine Marshall is a senior fellow at Georgetown's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, a Visiting Professor, and a senior advisor for the World Bank.
By Katherine Marshall |
April 24, 2009; 9:46 PM ET
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Faith in Action
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Posted by: Farnaz1Mansour1 | April 27, 2009 11:09 PM
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Continued:
In the early part of the war, many Afghan people, refugees, fled to Afghanistan. When they thought it was "safe" to return, they returned. When it became the hell on earth it now is, many fled back into Pakistan.
Along with them came Taliban, which aided and abetted by our Saudi allies, are over-running the country.
Very, very few people want them there. However, since this is a problem for which we have some responsibility, it behoves us to think twice before killing 900 innocent people and then complaining about the country.
Pakistan is a corrupt, impoverished nation. However, many people there demonstrated extraordinary courage, two million people, for the restoration of the judiciary.
Take a look at its neighbor, our good friend, India, with its Dalit, its Banghli, its 95 separate mafias, its Daud Ibrahim, its bride burning, its female feticide, etc., etc. etc.
Pakistan doesn't have India's resources. However, it had a right to national soveignty. If the US/World Bank wants to help, it has to do so honestly. Make sure the army is paid, so that it doesn't fall prey like poor people will, to reactionary forces like the Taliban.
Make sure there are schools for everyone, including the poor, so that parents aren't lured to sending their children to Madrassahs thinking they're sons and daughters are getting an education. Remember the Red Mosq?
Build roads, infrastructure, etc. Take some of the outsourcing business and give it to Pakistan.
The Pakistani lower, middle, and upper middle class, the wealthy, and many among the poor would give a great deal to see the Taliban leave.
The US must take great, great care not to alienate these people. The Taliban and Taliban sympathizers have over-run the country. Killing innocent people will not help the cause.
Allowing Saudi Arabia to continue funding terrorists will not help. And Saudi Bank is not alone in this.
Posted by: Farnaz1Mansour1 | April 27, 2009 11:08 PM
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Farnaz wrote:
"Killing hundreds with drones is not the way to win the hearts and minds of the Pakistani people. Most, middle class, lower middle class would be with us, despite everything.
We need to find a better way, to show sympathy, empathy for the people of SWAT, who don't want what they now have."
Let's not draw the US too far into this yet. You make a direct connection between the US drone killing and the Taliban take-over of Pakistani frontier areas. If pakistan doesn't want the Taliban...then let Pakistan stand-up for itself. Why is is America's fault all of a sudden? I'll tell you why. We're kicking their behinds in Afhanistan and they fiond it now easier to take over Pakistan...so do something about it.
Posted by: PanhandleWilly | April 27, 2009 10:17 PM
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Zia. Who "enthroned" him and kept in in power while knowing he'd allowed the Saudis in to build Madrassahs?
Taliban: Who, along with the Saudis, financed them? Who trained them?
Who turned a blind eye to them, while busy in Iraq where they never should have been, allowing said Taliban to over-run Pakistan?
Musharraf: Who supported him?
Bhutto: Who sent his wife back to Pakistan?
Zardar: Who is this incompetent corrupt wife murderer?
Pakistan has its own problems, always did, and many would hardly call Jinnah a visionary. It's a corrupt, feudal, third-world country, whose middle class desperately wants democracy.
Killing hundreds with drones is not the way to win the hearts and minds of the Pakistani people. Most, middle class, lower middle class would be with us, despite everything.
We need to find a better way, to show sympathy, empathy for the people of SWAT, who don't want what they now have.
Posted by: Farnaz1Mansour1 | April 27, 2009 8:32 PM
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"Ironically, the best model appears to be the inherited colonial system of district administrators, who were able to balance interests including police, army, local tribal chiefs, and the mullahs."
Nothing ironic about it -- Islam is an inherently theocratic institution that merges government and religion to the detriment of both. Some Muslim nations have been successful for a time based on continuation of their colonial institutions (Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iran) or by maintaining a colonial-like relationship of trading raw materials for dollars (Dubai) but no Muslim country has built and maintained a successful culture with an education-based economy.
The reason, quite simply, is that if you take the Quran as the beginning of all knowledge, you run out of it pretty quickly.
Posted by: frankbd | April 27, 2009 6:21 PM
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PanhandleWilly:
"Let's not draw the US too far into this yet. You make a direct connection between the US drone killing and the Taliban take-over of Pakistani frontier areas. If pakistan doesn't want the Taliban...then let Pakistan stand-up for itself. Why is is America's fault all of a sudden? I'll tell you why. We're kicking their behinds in Afhanistan and they fiond it now easier to take over Pakistan...so do something about it."
No. I most certainly did not. The killing of 900 innocents in SWAT, where now live some of the most unfortunate, besieged people on the face of the earth, did not bring the Taliban to Pakistan.
The SWAT incident is days old. The US, along with Saudi Arabia, helped Osama fund the Taliban in an effort to ward off the Soviets in Afghanistan. The US also trained Osama and his men, as we all know.
The Soviets, btw., were all but incited to enter Afghanistan by our stationing ourselves at the border. That was in 1979.The deal was that once the indigenous Afghan Communists and the Soviets were defeated, we (the Infidels), would leave Saudi Arabia.
We did not leave. We broke our word to Osama; he did not like it, as he mentioned, and, demonstrated, on September 11, 2001.
Pre-Zia, Our Man in Pakistan, Pakistan was a secular state. We wanted him, we helped get him in power, and we helped sustain him for as long as it was in our interest to do so. We were very much aware that Zia was a fundamentalist, that he accepted the Saudi invitation to build Madrassahs (Wahabi training schools) all over Pakistan.
We are aware that they are still being funded by the Saudis, primarily, are still being built. We are aware that Saudi Bank, Manhattan, is funding terrorists. This has been reported several times in the New York Times.
The Taliban, or their equivalent have over-run several countries, including Pakistan, since our support of them. For awhile we had them contained in Afghanistan, but we were too busy in Iraq, to which we had openned the door for them, to bother with Afghanistan. (Osama, btw., hated Sadaam, did not consider him Muslim.)