The mystery of change in Pakistan

What Qadri spoke about on December 23 is not about change but metamorphosis in which most people will be blindfolded.

Pakistan is what fairy tales are made of — jinns, witches and other features suddenly appearing from nowhere. And once they do, they create a lot of unrest and mayhem. Loves change, faces get disfigured and new powers come into being until they are vanquished in the end to get the happy ending we all yearn for. That seems to be the case with the powerful and hidden force taking out of its deep pocket one character after the other. Interestingly, as we shall see there is no one force but several.

It was only a year ago that we were all surprised by Imran Khan’s tsunami in Lahore. It went on until the time that the storm seems to have fizzled away to a large extent. Touring around and talking to people in Punjab, for instance, Tsunami Khan didn’t appear anymore to be the kind of threat as his advisers would like him to believe. A year later, other forces like Abdul Qadeer Khan and now Tahirul Qadri seem to have joined him. The ultimate shared goal is to get rid of the “existing corrupt political leadership” without which Pakistan may go under.

There are some angles or hidden mysteries which need to be unpacked.

First, corruption is indeed a huge problem that cannot be taken lightly. We are passing through a phase in most parts of the world where governments are being challenged for not checking corrupt practices because it tends to increase transition costs, especially for the poor. Corruption is not just about someone pocketing money but has to do with poor decisions that policymakers tend to make for personal aggrandisement. Eventually, it is the poor people who pay for such decisions. So, those who believe that political governments should not be destabilised and allowed to complete their term have to become vocal in arguing for greater and better accountability and transparency of government expenditure.

Second, arguing for a corruption-free society ought not to blind people from probing into the background and assessing the credibility of those that present themselves as an alternative force. While Imran Khan can be rated as better than most of the crowd around him, a similar statement cannot be given for others that seek to join him in a journey towards saving or changing Pakistan. For instance, Dr AQ Khan and Maulana Tahirul Qadri are as much of a mystery as those that they are trying to get rid of. The question worth asking is: why is Dr Khan’s alleged corruption less of an issue than that of the current set of politicians? Inquiries were conducted into his operations of Kahuta Research Laboratories and other projects that resulted in his sacking from the nuclear establishment. Are we supposed to forget all of that? Similarly, we would probably all like to follow Tahirul Qadri in his march towards Islamabad if there was proof of him being truthful at least on core ideological issues. Someone who tends to change his position on critical matters like blasphemy depending on his audience cannot be trusted with changing society.

Third, an even more important issue is discovering the real mystery behind such parachuted characters, especially with regard to where they have come from. These new forces are, in fact, a confluence of two different forces coming together to satisfy some of their needs. For instance, the powerful military in Pakistan, which is trying hard these days through various channels to present itself as the most benign force, seems to have lost patience with the old political guard and now want to bring a change without appearing to do so. A process where blame cannot be directly apportioned on GHQ makes for better legitimacy of the otherwise illicit process of change. Its favourite being the Bangladesh model, it probably wants a slightly different version that can ensure that the old set of politicians are gotten rid of and new ones brought forward. So, there are characters like Tahirul Qadri who seems to suggest getting rid of the electoral process until the time that a favoured result is obtained.

But the military or its agencies might not be the only one bankrolling this change project. There are others as well, perhaps, from western capitals who seem to have agreed to a larger plan to bring change in the entire Middle East and South Asia by supporting and encouraging forces that present a pliable right-wing. In doing so, they create personalities as well and give them credentials. For example, the manner in which Tahirul Qadri was constructed abroad and given credibility of being a Sheikh-ul-Islam who is probably not recognised as such by other scholars. The famous western orientalist John Esposito and Dr Joel Hayward of the Royal Air Force Centre for Air Power Studies at King’s College in London have written the foreword to Qadri’s 600-page fatwa in which his father is elevated from an ordinary professional in Jhang to a religious scholar and Qadri himself is somehow linked intellectually to the great Muslim scholar Ibn-Arabi. There are some good points worth discovering in the fatwa on ‘terrorism and suicide bombing.’ However, there is a lot worth questioning, especially the fact that it does not engage with the older scholarly work on war and peace in the history of Islam. Hence, its capacity to tame the wild jihadis is limited. In any case, the manner of its presentation raises question about if it is written for a special audience and not meant to really transform people.

Perhaps, western strategists and policymakers are not even interested in taming the jihadis or have the patience for a genuine discourse to evolve. Instead, they are happy to empower the religious right in most Muslim countries as long as violence doesn’t come to their own nation. Thus, guarded by strict immigration procedures and with a close eye on Muslim communities in their own countries, the religious right will be empowered in Muslim states with the expectation of a partnership in the future. Both the external and internal powers are searching for a Morsi for Pakistan.

Interestingly, all stakeholders forget that a romance with the religious right has deeper repercussions for society. What Tahirul Qadri spoke about on December 23 is not about change but metamorphosis in which most people will be blindfolded and led unthinkingly to strange lands.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 27^th, 2012.