The political situation in which Pakistan finds itself on its 60th
independence anniversary, unlike that of India, is one of fear, and the
question urgently being asked is if the country has the timber to
withstand assaults of the organized religious extremists.
The fierce opposition of
Taliban-supporting religious extremists against General Pervez
Musharraf's military regime came to a head in the July showdown at the
Red Mosque in Islamabad, the nation's capital.
The extremist vigilantism of the
pro-al-Qaida clerics and students of the Red Mosque in the weeks before
the bloody confrontation revealed the tip of the problem that has
pushed Pakistan to the precipice of a possible new meltdown.
From the outset of Pakistan's creation the
political class -- primarily elites from the military and civil
bureaucracy -- has ridden the tiger of religious extremism for its own
narrow authoritarian interests.
Indeed, the country's birth in August 1947
was a result of religious-sectarian bigotry exploited by Muhammad Ali
Jinnah (Pakistan's founder) and supporters of the Muslim League to
force Britain to partition India.
Sixty years following the partition, the dreadful aftermath in Pakistan
of Britain's policy of appeasing religious bigotry continues without an
end and cries out as a cautionary lesson to those who propose glibly or
mendaciously -- as does the U.S. Senator Joe Biden seeking Democratic
nomination for the 2008 presidential election -- in partitioning Iraq.
HOLLOWED OUT
For 60 years religious extremists like white ants hollowed out the
timber of the Pakistani society, and now there barely exists stable
foundation on which a modern democratic state might be built responsive
to the people's needs while eschewing military confrontations with its
neighbours.
The problems of rampant graft and
corruption in the political system, and religious extremists so
emboldened that they could mount an armed operation out of a mosque at
the heart of the nation's capital, were not merely inherited by General
Musharraf when he came to power by dismissing the civilian government
of Nawaz Sharif in 1999.
General Musharraf is the fifth military
dictator in the country where the armed forces view the state as its
preserve. The military has ruled Pakistan for nearly two-thirds of its
history and presided over the country breaking apart in 1971.
Pakistan's problems are symptoms of an ill-functioning society increasingly exacerbated by military rule.
In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal's editorial board,
Benazir Bhutto observed there are two fault lines in Pakistan.
Bhutto said, "One is dictatorship versus
democracy. And one is moderation versus extremism." She should know as
a former prime minister living in exile, and daughter of a prime
minister hanged by the previous military dictator.
The test of how serious Musharraf is in
eliminating religious extremists will be disclosed by the military's
resolve to clean out the al-Qaida and Taliban infested tribal lands of
Waziristan on Afghanistan's borders.
BIN LADEN
Here, it is alleged, Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al Zawahiri
have found safe haven with the knowledge, if not the connivance, of the
Pakistani military intelligence.
The future of Pakistan remains bleak. But
ironically the failed conditions of a nuclear-weapon state could still
guarantee the West's continued support -- prudent, yet deservingly
disdainful -- for the general and his soldiers in preventing Pakistan's
rapid descent into the Taliban-type hell with a frightful terrorist
headache for the region and beyond.
.gif)
