In the eyes of many amateur social analysts, in societies with accelerating technological change and increasing literacy, there is a perception of children being more socially liberal than their parents, less religious, adding fiscal conservatism and increasing religious fervor only in their older years. But if you add one ingredient to this mix – hopelessness – the trends can move strongly in the opposite direction. Indeed, the winds of change themselves can create their own negative vectors, pushing people back to times – and the associated values – when the world was more generous and the socio-economic world simpler to understand.
And then there is the lesson of the impact of major policy changes in educational philosophy imposed on children in their formative years, polices that have given rise to new leaders with new mantras of explanation. When a complex world becomes cruel and inexplicable, people look for simple answers… or answers that provide the promise of stability and goodness even if these words are not really likely to change anything. As you see crowds chanting slogans promulgated by effective but manipulative leaders, as you see popular cultural folk heroes mouth the words, as charismatic religious prelates sear the power of their beliefs into growing impassioned crowds, you watch as masses of people literally outsource their opinions to one movement or the other, to one charismatic spokesperson or another: “I’m for whatever _______ is for!”
Pakistan is an over-populated, highly polarized nation with seemingly insurmountable social and economic issues. It is a hot-bed of Muslim extremists, a place where thousands of ultra-conservative Madrashas (religious schools) foment anti-Western vitriol and militant Islamist messages to very young minds… minds that never forget these violent life-lessons. A younger generation, many educated with advanced degrees and professional credentials, is now increasingly leading their country away from modernity and social consciousness and back into a deeply religious-based ethos of profound intolerance for anyone other than adherents of a most conservative and militant brand of Islam. Nothing illustrates this social phenomenon better than the treatment accorded a recent assassin – an highly-trained guard who turned on the Punjabi governor he wa s sworn to protect… with 26 lethal bullets – by both the popular and legal community.
Cheering crowds have greeted this killer – who executed his charge because the latter opposed strict anti-blasphemy laws – as a hero. A growing segment of young Pakistani lawyers has joined this worshiping chorus, to the dismay of moderates: “Their energetic campaign on behalf of the killer has caught the government flat-footed and dismayed friends and supporters of the slain politician, Salman Taseer, an outspoken proponent of liberalism who had challenged the nation’s strict blasphemy laws. It has also confused many in the broader public and observers abroad, who expected to see a firm state prosecution of the assassin… Instead, befo re his court appearances, the lawyers showered rose petals over the confessed killer, Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, a member of an elite police group who had been assigned to guard the governor, but who instead turned his gun on him. They have now enthusiastically taken up his defense.” New York Times, January 10th. These aren’t reluctant court-appointed barristers arguing a case they may not truly believe in; these are legal practitioners who simply believe their assassin was correct in executing the governor. These men and women are part of what is loosely called, the Zia generation, the product of a change in educational values introduced in their formative years.
General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq [pictured above] seized power in 1977: “After widespread civil disorder, he overthrew ruling Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto [yes, that family!] in a bloodless coup d'état on 5 July 1977 and became the state's third ruler to impose martial law.” Wikipedia. He ruled as Pakistan’s sixth president until he died in a mysterious plane crash in 1988. Most importantly, he embraced a movement away from secularism towards marrying Islam into state politics. The children who were the products of state-imposed Islamic teachings in Pakistani schools have now come of age; today, these forces threaten the very basic pillars of the secular state.
“Indeed, the Pakistan of today, and the brand of Islam much of the nation has embraced, is barely recognizable even to many educated Pakistanis older than the Zia generation. Among them is Athar Minallah, 49, a former cabinet minister and one of the leaders of the lawyers’ protest campaign against [former military dictator] Gen. Pervez Musharraf in 2007 and 2008… Mr. Minallah studied law at Islamic University in Islamabad from 1983 to 1986, and the first lesson any student learned in his day was that the preservation of life was a pillar of Islamic law, he said…
“But under General Zia in the 1980s, the government began supporting Islamic warriors to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the Indian control of Kashmir, and the syllabus was changed to encourage jihad. The mind-set of students and graduates changed along with it, Mr. Minallah said. Government officials, analysts and members of the Pakistan Peoples Party, the secular-leaning party to which Mr. Taseer belonged, blame the religious parties and clerics who delivered speeches and fatwas against Mr. Taseer for inciting the attack. On Monday, Mr. Qadri, who confessed to the killing, provided a court with testimony saying he was inspired by two clerics, Qari Hanif and Ishtiaq Shah… The police say they are now seeking the clerics f or questioning, but with the growing strength of the conservative movement on the streets, religious leaders — even those who incite violence and terrorism — are nearly untouchable to the authorities and are almost never prosecuted.” NY Times.
As we press to contain the militant Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan… many of whom flea seeking safe harbor into the Pakistan’s Western Tribal District… we often use drone-launched missile strikes across that border to eliminate the enemy that once fomented the 9/11 terrorists. We expect that Pakistan will react in support of our anti-terrorist actions, particularly when those same fundamentalists now attack the Pakistani political system at its core, but we are wrong. Popular sentiments, particularly among the younger adults in Pakistan, are going the other way. To them, we are the enemy. But before we cast any stones, how sure are that such sweeping fervor suborning assassination could never happen here? How sure are we… really? And the macro-trends in the entire Muslim world are going anywhere but where American policy-makers want. Riots aimed at toppling Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak (one of our main allies in the Middle East) are escalating, a pro-American government has been toppled in Tunisia, riots plague Yemen and the civil unrest in Lebanon escalates as Hezbollah seems to have wrested political control from a once-moderate pro-U.S. prime minister.
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