Pakistan must reverse its policy of sitting idle as Islamists blur the line between legitimate civil society and militancy

Mustafa Qadri,
guardian.co.uk,  Friday 2 July 2010 16.04 BST

After last night’s bombings in Lahore, an ancient sanctuary, which for centuries was a place for prayer and meditation, has been rudely introduced to Pakistan’s very modern conflict. Nothing short of a shift in national culture will rescue the soul of Pakistan’s Islamic traditions.

In these troubled times of bombings, heatwaves and chronic power shortages, millions have flocked to the shrines of the mystic saints, trying to cajole good fortune out of arguably the most unfortunate period in our country’s history. No saint is more venerated than Dhata Ganj Baksh, the great mystical Muslim saint of the 11th century, who is buried in Lahore. When twin blasts exploded in his mausoleum they destroyed more than just the lives of 43 people and their families.

A Muslim believes his or her fate is already written. Many will now be wondering what they have done to deserve this punishment. Others,including the Taliban, have immediately blamed foreign powers.

Many blame the US for bringing conflict to their region. This is not entirely misplaced – terrorism has increased, not abated, ever since the Obama administration escalated the “AfPak” conflict against al-Qaida and the Taliban by ramping up troop numbers and drone strikes.

But, even so, this latest massacre will make even more Pakistanis abdicate responsibility for reforming our society.

Dhata’s shrine has not changed much since I first visited it as a child three decades ago, only now the pacific ambience has been somewhat ruined by the security guards and metal detectors, which did disturbingly little to prevent the attacks.

Like the Haj pilgrimage, a visit to Dhata’s shrine is a humbling experience. Rich and poor, men and women, all mingle amid the crowded mass. Sadly, this also made it the perfect target for a suicide bombing.

It cannot be a coincidence that the attacks came just over a month after the slaughter of about 90 people in two mosques belonging to the Ahmadi minority sect. Although there has been far greater coverage and condemnation this time around than back in May, the fact that both a minority sect and mainstream Sufi Muslims have been targeted proves that our shared Islamic heritage is a threat to those behind the violence.

Hitherto reluctant to expand the military conflict to Punjab, Pakistan’s army will feel the pressure of local and international demands to do precisely that. But any response dominated by military means would be a disaster, creating even greater instability and, as more civilians are killed by the army’s rough anvil, undoubtedly create more insurgents and leading to more bombings. This is a matter for civil authorities – the provincial and federal government, the police and the courts – to take the lead.

Now more than ever, Pakistan must institute a clear and effective system for the regulation of its religious seminaries, mosques and Islamic welfare organisations. A recent government proposal to restrict coverageof the violence and criticism of the state is a backward step.

True, Punjab has become saturated with welfare fronts for jihadist groups involved in violence here and in neighbouring India. But part of the problem is that Islamic welfare organisations with links to jihadists have stepped in where the state has been absent, providing meals, education and medical services to poor citizens who would otherwise go without.

This does not mean that we are a population of jihadists; rather, that the state has either sat idle or aided Islamists as they deliberately blurred the line between legitimate civil society and militancy. The state must proactively begin the long, slow and difficult process of rolling this back.

As I’ve argued before, one of the key reasons the public has rallied against the militants is a sense that those behind the attacks are not Islamists or even Pakistanis, but foreigners. This mindset creates a dangerous conspiracy theory culture, but it does have one clear advantage. It is difficult for most to be critical of something that is sacred to them, such as their faith. But in blaming outsiders for the violence, people demonstrate their rejection of violence, which they consider antithetical to Islam. Of course, that rejection is at times somewhat hypocritical. Consider, for instance, those who blamed India for the anti-Ahmadi attack in May while giant religious banners openly called the Ahmadi apostates worthy of death.

Lahore has been filled with protests from religious parties, shopkeepers and others throughout today. As it is Friday, the mosques have been crowded with worshippers listening to their local imams railing against the violence with varying degrees of hyperbole and prescience.

Then there is the voice of Dhata Ganj Baksh, a preacher born in Persia, who went on an astonishing lifelong journey through the Middle East and central Asia before ending his days in Lahore. Dhata’s lyrical poetry, laced heavily with notions of love, the ephemeral beauty and power of God, and the necessity of humility in worldly affairs, transformed him into a legend for well over 10 centuries. We would do well to honour the spirit behind the verse.

[Published on The Guardian's Comment Is Free Website here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jul/02/lahore-shrine-bombings-pakistan]

]]> http://mustafaqadri.net/wp/articles/after-the-lahore-shrine-bombings-nothing-seems-sacred/feed/ 0 http://mustafaqadri.net/wp/articles/pakistans-mixed-blessings/ http://mustafaqadri.net/wp/articles/pakistans-mixed-blessings/#comments Mon, 07 Jun 2010 09:52:19 +0000 mustafa http://mustafaqadri.net/wp/?p=610 Violence and uncertainty in Pakistan are driving increasing numbers of people to seek solace in superstition and prayer

Mustafa Qadri,
guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 June 2010 07.59 BST

More and more Pakistanis are looking to prayer for protection in these troubled times. In the absence of credible, secular options, the fatalism this generates is a mixed blessing.

For most of this year my wife has been seriously ill. When successive health professionals failed to determine what was causing the malaise, relatives consulted an imam in Lahore. When told of her symptoms, he advised that she may very well be suffering the dreaded “evil eye” – a curse caused by black magic, an ancient source of trouble typically practised by envious or resentful others.

To ward off the curse, the imam instructed my wife to avoid eating beef and eggs, and told her father and me to swirl a bowl of dal and five eggs counter-clockwise above her head while reciting a verse from the Qur’an. Once this was completed, we were told to throw the eggs and dal into nearby bushes and walk away, careful not to gaze at where the contents of the bowl lay.

A born sceptic, I was certain that this ritual would not heal my wife. To be sure, her discomfort has only been eased, albeit incrementally, by a more modern form of ritual – the neuro-ontologist’s prescription of rest and a healthy diet avoiding caffeine and dairy products.

Yet for my family, the imam’s curse-busting commands have visibly helped. My wife’s father has been left with a sense of control, a feeling that, at the very least, something is being done to help his daughter recover.

Uncertainty is an inherent part of the human experience, but in Pakistan much of what a reader in Britain might take for granted is far from certain. How long will the electricity last today? Where will the next bomb go off? And, for most who do not inhabit my privileged world, will I be able to afford the right medication if I fall ill? The profound loss of control felt by long-term illness sufferers and their loved ones has become a countrywide phenomenon in Pakistan.

The situation has exacerbated our cultural tendency to avow causation in favour of fate and the rewards of prayer. Whether looking for a job, waiting anxiously for exam results or willing the national cricket team to victory, prayer has become a kneejerk source of solace and comfort in difficult times. Holy men, or pirs, and local soothsayers have for generations made a career out of selling their prayers to those in need.

And why not? Doing the right thing, like expecting to get a plum job without working family contacts, rarely seems to lead to results in our country. During my travels I have met several academically bright students from middle-class backgrounds who complain they cannot get into top university courses because wealthier classmates have paid to gain entrance. The experience for the millions below the middle class, who could never dream of a university education, is even more dire.

So dire, in fact, that although the resort to prayer to ward of curses is more associated with Pakistan’s Sufi Muslim traditions, they are widely practised even among those more influenced by rigid Deobandi or Gulf Arab Salafist interpretations, albeit more quietly these days.

In fact, the resort to prayer and fear of curses is a subcontinent-wide tendency, as demonstrated by the fact that Pakistan’s minority non-Muslim communities practise similar rituals of their own. Even the Taliban have spread rumours of their mystical support to persuade villagers in the country’s north-west to support them. According to one rumour, a colleague from the tribal areas told me last year, a woman gave birth to a demon that lived long enough only to warn the population not to support the army’s battle against the Taliban.

This mix of uncertainty and superstition puts a fatalistic streak into our national consciousness reflected in what I would call the inshallahcomplex. “Inshallah” (the Arabic term for “God willing”) is liberally used by Muslims the world over to describe a broad sweep of aspirations including hope and despair. If the handyman wants to avoid promising to fix your broken generator promptly he is bound to say inshallah. Whenever relatives call to ask if my wife’s health has improved, I always say … inshallah.

As useful as the inshallah complex is, however, it does risk lulling us into a false sense of invisibility. That is why we have become blind to the apartheid-like persecution of our minorities or the epidemic proportions of violence against women. As much as people were shocked by the recent massacre of more than 90 Ahmadiyya Muslims at their mosque, for example, many nevertheless believe they are apostates bound for hell. With violence becoming increasingly endemic in our society, it is becoming harder to understand it in rational terms.

How do we break this blindness when our society is already so shattered? As one popular blogger noted, for decades Pakistan’s liberal-minded community has tried and largely failed to break it. Be that as it may, it is nevertheless better to have limited success than the oblivion of endless, vacuous sermons by imams extolling the virtues of fatalism and jihad.

Perhaps our harsh reality is too brutal without a filter. But so long as that filter is prayer and superstition, little will separate blessing from curse.

[Published on The Guardian’s Comment Is Free website here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jun/07/pakistan-violence-superstition-prayer]