COMMENTARY Pakistan looks to its
image By Ehsan Ahrari
According to a recent report in the
British media, President General Pervez Musharraf
of Pakistan, like his ally in the "war on terror",
President George W Bush, is about to indulge in
public diplomacy. This phrase describes a
progression of activities implemented to create a
positive image abroad.
Pakistan under
Musharraf, like the US under Bush, has a serious
image problem abroad. Pakistan is increasingly
envisaged as the gathering place for global
jihadis, as well as a "factory" where future
jihadis are being nurtured and shaped in the
country's madrassas (seminaries). How can
Pakistan change its image in the global arena? It
certainly cannot achieve that objective by merely
running public relations campaigns or by hiring
slick image-makers. Effective public diplomacy
requires radical changes in major policies that
are the root causes for the bad
images that Pakistan has
acquired under Musharraf and his predecessors.
Even though the entire episode of the way
in which Pakistan acquired a bad image abroad is
too cumbersome to be fully captured in a portrayal
of limited length, one can identify at least three
problems, and suggest some tenable solutions.
First is the absence of democracy. The
history of Pakistan is dominated by military
dictators who captured power, proclaiming that
civilian politicians were too corrupt and inept to
be trusted with the future of the country.
Unfortunately, no military dictator of Pakistan
has emerged as a shining example of
corruption-free or skilled rule. Each of those
dictators had to be eventually thrown out of
office by another dictator. In the case of General
Zia ul-Huq, his rule was brought to an abrupt end
because of an unexplained aircraft accident in
which he died.
Musharraf's rule is not
much different from Zia's in some ways, even
though he cannot be compared with Zia for his
brutality. Still, Musharraf, who came to power in
a coup in 1999, is just as duplicitous about his
commitment to democracy as was Zia. He has created
a compelling impression among his critics as well
as supporters that he will do just about anything
to cling to power. He has made several promises
about bringing democracy to Pakistan, only to
break them cavalierly.
There is no doubt
that he will not take off his uniform, for he
could never be sure that the next chief of the
army would not nurture ambitions of ousting him
once he became a civilian. The history of Pakistan
provides persuasive evidence to Musharraf on this
issue. Besides, he himself captured power by
ousting a civilian prime minister, Nawaz Sharif.
The second reason that creates a powerful
negative image of Pakistan is the growing power of
indigenous Islamists and jihadis. Musharraf knows
that to stay in office he must tread gingerly on
the issue of bringing about religious reforms,
closing or curtailing the madrassas, or
putting all jihadi groups out of business, if not
out of existence.
That is why, to placate
his international critics, he, from time to time,
announces cosmetic changes in his approach toward
eradicating religious extremism, and then refrains
from fully implementing those changes. The most
recent example was his declaration that he would
either close down hardline madrassas or
reform them.
At the same time, in the
aftermath of the London bombings of July 7 - and
in the wake of news that two out of three young
terrorists of Pakistani origin visited Pakistan
before perpetrating their acts - he promised to
expel the currently enrolled foreign students from
Pakistani madrassas. However, under growing
confrontation and resistance from the six-party
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) religious/political
forces against such a measure, he appears inclined
once again to either postpone taking immediate
action or back down altogether.
Besides,
the idea of jihad has always helped Pakistan in
its resolve to destabilize Indian-administered
Kashmir. Inside the Pakistani armed forces, there
still remains a powerful block of supporters of
the jihadi card against India, even though
Pakistan has ostensibly discarded that option.
Musharraf knows the nature of jihadi support
within the army, but cannot afford to harp on it
publicly for pragmatic reasons. His own role in
the Kargil conflict (the 1999 incursion into
India-administered Kashmir) is also evidence that
he himself at one time sanctioned the jihadi card
to resolve the Kashmir conflict.
His best
option now appears to be to quietly strive to
reduce or eliminate entirely the influence of the
pro-jihadi block within the Pakistani army. He can
do that only gradually and systematically.
However, the global limelight on that issue
creates sustained pressures on him to, if not
escalate the pace of his reforms, at least be less
deliberative in carrying them out.
Third,
related to the preceding, is the fact that the
entire issue of jihad has to be debated before
anyone can earnestly talk about discarding it as a
weapon to implement political change. Pakistan is
likely to be the last country where such a debate
will take place, either now or in the future. Even
before Zia's systematic endeavors to Islamize the
country in the 1970s, Pakistan's Muslim community
was well aware of the description of militant
jihad through the writings of Maulana Abul Ala
Maududi, a prolific Islamist scholar whose writing
influenced the thinking of some major jihadis as
far as Egypt, and as far back as the 1950s.
When Zia pushed his country toward his own
version of "purified" Islam, Maududi played a
crucial role in that campaign. One wonders how
much of Musharraf's own thinking was influenced in
that era, even though he has recently promoted
what he calls an "enlightened" approach to Islam.
Still, his drive to stay in power continues to
force him to sabotage his purported commitment to
enlightenment as he continues to cooperate with
the MMA.
In view of the preceding, what
should Musharraf do to create an effective
campaign of public diplomacy?
First, he
must take visible and substantive measures to
bring democracy back to Pakistan. That means he
must once again set a date to retire from the
army, become a civilian and run as a civilian
politician. Most important, he must fulfill his
commitment this time and without any further
hedging. There are, to be sure, numerous personal
risks if he were to take these measures; however,
there is no way Pakistan can become a democracy if
its top leadership sets no example of personal
courage and personal sacrifice.
Second,
Musharraf must initiate a public campaign of
declaring militant jihad and jihadis as enemies of
Islam and Muslims. The Saudi government recently
started such a campaign through the use of
"official" ulemas (religious scholars who
are on the government payroll), but only after
becoming convinced that the jihadis of their
country are also the enemies of the Saudi
dynasty.
There is little doubt that
Pakistani jihadis are not only the enemies of
Musharraf's regime, but loathe him with equal
intensity. Three assassination attempts on him are
the most persuasive evidence of that reality. They
have declared a war against everything he claims
to promote in the name of Islamic enlightenment
and appear resolute to push his country on the
dark and backsliding road of obscurantism. A
tenable strategy on his part has to be to become
equally serious about eradicating them, or at
least their perilous frame of reference.
However, Musharraf's task is doubly
difficult because he has to start a two-front
campaign to achieve his objectives. He has to
confront the jihadis in the Pakistani political
arena. As if that by itself was not a difficult
enough task, he has to worry about the pro-jihadi
elements of the Pakistani army. It is difficult to
figure the actual size of this group, and more to
the point, the intensity of their fervor for
jihad. Either way, challenges to Musharraf's
personal security are likely to become intense if
he were to carry out an earnest campaign to take
on the jihadis of his country.
Third, a
crucial aspect of public diplomacy for Musharraf
is to initiate a public debate on making militant
jihad irrelevant and anachronistic, not just in
Pakistan, but also in the world of Islam.
Notwithstanding the intricacy and the enormity of
this task, he is not exactly without allies or
lacking a powerful precedence in the
socio-religious history of South Asia.
In
pre-partitioned India, there existed the Jadidst
movement. They were the proponents of using Islam
as a modernizing force. Jadidists of South Asia
argued vigorously about eradicating all aspects of
obscurantism from the sub-continent. One such
person was Sayed Ahmed Khan, founder of the Muslim
University in Aligarh, India. Jadidism is also an
integral aspect of the Islamic culture of Central
Asia. Even though the brutality of first the
Czarist and then communist imperial forces, in
their common zeal to colonize Muslim Central Asia,
did not allow the full nurturing of this
tradition, it has remained an important aspect of
the Islamic legacy of Central as well as South
Asia. Allama Mohammad Iqbal, better known as the
founder of the very idea of Pakistan, himself was
much influenced by the Jadidst thinking of another
famous Jadidst, Jamaluddin Afghani.
What
emerges from the preceding is that the public
diplomacy regarding Pakistan requires a number of
challenging policy-oriented tasks and personal
challenges. If he is serious about altering the
current dubious image of his country, Musharraf
has to implement some or all of the preceding. He
must also know the risks involved, including a
possible loss of power. Anything short of the
preceding would amount to nothing but a mindless
public relations campaign, which would only result
in further wasting of Pakistan's precious
resources without gaining anything substantive in
the form of an improved political image of
Pakistan.
Ehsan Ahrari is an
independent strategic analyst based in Alexandria,
VA, US. His columns appear regularly in Asia Times
Online. He is also a regular contributor to the
Global Beat Syndicate. His website:
www.ehsanahrari.com.
(Copyright 2005
Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.)
