Pakistan doesn’t have enough liberals (or vocal liberals) to suffer from liberal extremism.
LONDON: Liberal extremism isn’t a physically destructive force — that would negate its impact. It’s an ideology. I don’t advocate religious extremism, but surely anyone with an iota of common sense can see that any ideology practised to the extreme of its letter is counter-productive.
Pakistan doesn’t have enough liberals (or vocal liberals) to suffer from liberal extremism. As a force without mass support, it’s muted. What the country suffers from is violent and crippling religious fanaticism and a government which cowers in its wake. What Pakistan views as modernity and liberalism is defined as basic freedom of choice and thought. It’s basic, not liberal.
There is courage in Pakistan, real courage. But for every light of courage, there’s ten equivalent fanatics waiting to extinguish it.
Farah Qayum
Published in The Express Tribune, January 16th, 2011.
