Masooda Bano: Pakistan too eager to bend over

Too keen to please?

Masooda Bano

The writer is an Islamabad based development analyst currently doing a PhD at Oxford

Email: mb294@hotmail.com

As General Musharraf orders fresh operations in the tribal belt and intense action against madrassas, the United States has announced its decision to accept India as a nuclear state. This means that India will now have access to the same facilities that are enjoyed by the other five nuclear states: US, Russia, China, Britain, and France. Pakistan, however, for all its obedience, gets nothing. This move will further disturb the power balance between Pakistan and India. The US is not blind to that. But it is clear that it has no inhibitions about letting Pakistan down. Pakistani leaders, however, have repeatedly failed to learn the lesson.

Regardless of the opinion of the majority of Pakistanis, General Musharraf has been keen to follow every dictate of the United States since September 11. It got to use Pakistan's air bases when it wanted, has been heavily involved in setting up the new security checks at Pakistan's airport as well as in regulating data on Pakistani nationals through computerised ID cards and passports. It got the Pakistan government to undertake military action in Wana.

But how beneficial has all this been to Pakistan? Even today, Pakistan has an extremely negative image abroad. Further, the US is working to strengthen India as the regional power. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly difficult to travel on a Pakistani passport. The French Embassy in UK issues visas to Indian nationals on the same day. Pakistani passport holders have to appear for two interviews and the whole process takes about four weeks.

The operations in Wana, which have resulted in many deaths, have had no impact in making us more acceptable to the West. Nor has the government's willingness to obey all orders. Clearly, there is something wrong with the diplomatic strategies of the present regime that despite following all the directives, Pakistan has been unable to acquire good repute internationally.

A nation is only respected when it demonstrates internal cohesion and a sense of direction. In the case of Pakistan, General Musharraf has tried to use the negative image of Pakistan to sell himself to the west. Rather than defending the nation, he has all along defended himself. So, rather than arguing that Pakistan is not a fundamentalist state, General Musharraf has sold the opposite image in order to convince the West that it needs a liberal man like him to prevent the nation from becoming another Afghanistan. At no time has the government tried to defend the Pakistani public. It has just accepted the Western analysis.

The regime's current response to British Prime Minister Tony Blair's demands is embedded in the same psyche. The government has been all too willing to undertake massive crackdowns against the madrassas in Pakistan. The police have already rounded up over a hundred madrassa teachers and students. There have been numerous clashes between the police and the madrassa students. What is the logic behind raiding Pakistani madrassas? The fact that three of the London bombers are British-born Pakistanis or that one or two of them spent a few months in a madrassa in Pakistan? This does not prove anything against Pakistani madrassas or Pakistan.

It has to be remembered that these individuals were British nationals not Pakistanis. They were born and bred in Britain. The fact that ethnically they are of Pakistani origin does not mean that Pakistan is responsible for their actions. It is the British government and the society that has to answer why people raised amid them would be so frustrated as to take this path. The British government has to ask itself whether it could be racism in UK, frustrations about UK policies in Palestine, or something else that led them to these attacks. By no logic is Pakistan responsible for their actions.

The fact that one of these bombers spent some time in a madrassa in Pakistan does not prove that the madrassa indoctrinated him into becoming a suicide bomber. For someone to go all the way to Pakistan to study in a madrassa indicates that the individual's interest and inclinations were already quite clear. No one can be indoctrinated in a few months unless they already have the seeds ingrained in them. Also, Pakistani madrassas even today are mainly a social entity. They are there because of public support and not because of some political ends.

It is a wild exaggeration to say that the average madrassa teaches hatred against other sects. Those that preach religious intolerance and jihad are not really madrassas but the invention of the US and General Ziaul Haq; it is they that should be the focus of reform. The indiscriminate invasions of madrassas across Pakistan and rounding up teachers and students is a negative development which will not only makes these groups more reactionary but also further convince the West that all madrassas in Pakistan are a threat to world peace.

The fact is that Pakistan's problem is not religious fundamentalism; it is continued exposure to military rule. General Ziaul Haq left us with politically engineered fundamentalist groups; General Musharraf is moving us towards internal conflict and civil unrest among liberal and conservative groups.

The public's views are never taken into consideration in forming the policies that shape the future of the country. If they were, the country would not have had to pursue such extreme policies from one decade to another. Being too keen to please the West can strengthen the sitting ruler, but it cannot build the nation at large.

Rather than blindly undertaking actions against madrassas in Pakistan, it is critical now to undertake a consultative process in which the public and the political parties are involved in chalking out the future course of action for Pakistan.