Pakistan and Islam

The Islamic republic of Pakistan, to paraphrase Baron Clausewitz, is fogging the war on terror. Like a
geopolitical Jekyll and Hyde, a great game seems to be on. The brave US soldier, in the shadow of the great Himalayan mountain passes, guns drawn, sees in Pakistan at once friend and foe. The international community is like that nervous soldier with a finger perpetually on the trigger.

Inside Pakistan, too, the same scene repeats itself. There is no let-up in suicide terror bombings even after an elected government took power. The support for Sharia law and an Islamic state has far greater acceptance in Islamabad then is generally believed. In this respect, Pakistan has more in common with Algeria than Turkey.

All this would matter for little to the outside world, but for one inconvenient fact. Pakistan is the only Islamic state with nuclear weapons. Armageddon is near should those weapons fall in the wrong hands. And a lot of wrong hands hide in those caves on the Afghan border. Thus, even though an economic basket case, humiliatingly dependent on Saudi handouts and American largesse, Pakistan is a problem.

The trouble in Pakistan is neither structural nor political. It has a far deeper root. It is a dilemma inherent in the nature of Pakistan's state. The country was premised as a homeland for the believers. Islam is in its DNA. The founder of this republic, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, was of the opinion that only an Islamic republic can ensure Muslim rights and their way of life. He rejected the secular idea that formed the founding notion of India.

At its founding, the state had to negate both the older civilisation of India and her democratic polity, and only the Islamic way would do. The struggle underway now is between those who demand the Islamic way and those who try to uphold the idea of Pakistan but cannot offer a non-Islamic alternative statehood.

Thus, an Islamic republic that came into being through a surrogate political process is demanding real parents. In the process it has opened the old dilemma of Islam and democracy. In theory, this problem is of course stark and obvious. Unlike republics such as India, where sovereignty is enshrined in the individual, the Islamic way derives it from Allah. The one person, one vote idea has no resonance. The will of Allah should override universal franchise and personal choice.

This premise of a nation of Islam survived for a large part through American support. The US chose to bypass democratic institutions in favour of the Pakistan army. Most generals that ruled the country have studied at American military schools. The current low-profile chief of the Pakistan army, General Parvez Ashraf Kiyani, has done three courses in the US. This includes the elite course at the staff command at Fort Leavenworth.

This American support and Pakistan's role in the Afghan jihad is well documented. It fostered through the dictator, General Zia ul-Haq, in the 1980s, a near realisation of Pakistan's Islamic founding ethic. Those chickens are now truly coming home to roost.

The secular Turkish model that was sought to be replicated in Islamabad has failed completely. The secular impulse in Pakistan is nowhere near Turkey, where literally hundreds of thousands pour onto the streets in defence of secularism enshrined in the Turkish constitution.

The world faces a challenge. A radical fringe in Pakistan with a great deal of mass support is demanding its own tryst with destiny - an Islamic republic with a social and judicial system based on the Sharia. Pakistan's rulers have flirted with Islamic forces in the past. But now that these forces threaten to spin out of control and engulf Pakistan, the country's rulers are at their wit's ends.

There lies the problem. How Pakistan deals with its dilemma will be of great importance not only to them but also to the rest of the world.