Reassessing our identity

Abid Ullah Jan

One lesson I have learnt from the history of Muslims. At critical moments in their history, it is Islam that has saved the Muslims and not vice-a-versa.
Allama Iqbal

As we approach the start of a new century, how best to sum up the state of the world where the US tries to micro-manage things in various parts and its administration is specifically engaged in an intensive effort to check Islamic movements all over the world on the grounds that they are part of an 'international terror network' controlled by Osama bin Laden. All the Muslim states feel ashamed of asserting their identity and forging a meaningful alliance. They are helpless before the US that now dominates the world as no country has done before. If we couldn't pull ourselves out of our identity crises, with apologetic attitudes of our leaders on the one hand and the American militarism and the "might makes right" mindset on the other, would make the Muslims live in far disgracing conditions into the 21st century than the slaves from Africa in the previous one.

The international witch-hunt for Muslim activists is, of course, just one facet of a concerted Western strategy for fighting the Islamic movements. Other facets include the legislation being introduced or recently enacted in the US, Britain, France and other western countries to control the political activities of resident or citizen Muslims. In the US, Muslims are campaigning against the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, under which people can be arrested and punished on 'secret evidence', without any opportunity to defend themselves. In Britain, the first case under new legislation outlawing 'conspiring to commit terrorist acts abroad' - which is loose enough to cover any unwelcome political activity - is presently being heard. France has long had stringent legislation that it has used against Algerians suspected of supporting the Islamic movement in Algeria.

In the last decade of this century, the West has built a carefully cultivated image of liberal principles and the 'rule of law'. Even in warfare, it claims to follow 'the rules of war' agreed by the UN and other international bodies and conventions. But we have repeatedly seen that the US is perfectly willing to break those rules whenever it suits them: in Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, for example. What Muslims must realise is that there is no rule of law for individuals either, if those individuals are identified as enemies of the West. These measures have become necessary because territorial conquests have become politically non-viable, too costly and disastrous in media terms. And to maintain supremacy, the US and its allies have to buy governments and allow them to sustain as long as they follow directions from Washington.

The new strength of nations is built on the assertion of their identity along brains, know-how, research and the capacity for innovation, etc -- no longer on the production of raw materials. There is an increasing air of generalised chaos afflicting more and more Muslim states with economic stagnation or endemic violence. Even in some non-Muslim states it has got to the point where (in the Comoros and Puerto Rico, for instance) we are seeing people turning their backs on the struggle for independence and calling for a return of the old colonial power or absorption into the metropolitan country... The third world has ceased to exist as a political entity. Apart from the very recent summit in Beijing and subsequent statements for the return of a multi-polar world, it seems nothing except the West versus Islam has left to make it to the end.

There, however, is an identity crisis in the Islamic world at a time when the second industrial revolution, the globalization of the economy and major technological change are transforming the world as we know it. The Western anti-religion propaganda has gone to the extent that not too many of us are willing to openly proclaim that they are true believers of Islam and want Islamic shari'a to govern their lives. General Musharraf in the first ever interviews declared that we are all Muslims and there is no need to exploit Islam. He is gradually distancing Pakistan from Taliban. Benazir's vociferation from the abyss consists of nothing but claims of being a liberal and even quests for changing the ideology of Pakistan (Frontier Post, December 6, 1999).

At the end of the century, we are still partly confused and partly in search of out identity. If we look at our 52 years history, we will find that in search of ways to supplement military capability in the initial stages, the Pakistani elite looked toward the only major source of assistance available in the beginning -- the US. All our exhortations to the Muslim world that we are a state created exclusively in the name of Islam were mere lip service and far less than a definite commitment to the evolution of a purely Islamic state. Given the feeling that the first requirement was "security above all else," in the perception of the elite the Muslim world looked weak and incapable in the 1950s of supplying wherewithal required for Pakistani defence. Thus, Suhrawardy's comment as prime minister in 1956 that Pakistani cultivation of ties with Islamic countries was difficult because "zero plus zero still equals zero" has to be taken in the perspective of overall defence.

The development of the Western connection did not simply occur by default. Deliberate options were pursued by the Pakistani elite, which was primarily Western in its orientation. Years of exposure to the West were a direct consequence of the British Raj, and the resultant Western socialization of the elite led it to look to the West. Throughout the formative years, Pakistan's political, military and bureaucratic elite, who constituted the policy-making group, moved the nation in directions that were contrary to the fundamental Islamic ideology that was the basis for creation of Pakistan and also officially espoused by the state. A two tier system evolved: a mass culture which was steeped in ethnic and religious traditions; and an elite culture which mimicked the West -- and the same two tier system is the root cause of our identity crisis.

Given their pro-Western proclivities, Pakistani leaders shared prevailing antipathy toward communism. During these years, Islam was routinely used by the elite to justify a foreign policy chosen for other reasons. After the US shipment of arms to India in 1962, the elite class was deeply stung by the extent of American support for India and admitted the raison d'etre of the alliance relationship. Foreign Minister Bogra said: "...Friends that let us down will no longer be considered friends."

Good relations with Islamic countries and a truly Islamic system were desired but distant goals. Contrary to the expectations of secularists, the loss of East Pakistan didn't result in Pakistan openly embracing a secular philosophy. Rather a process of closer and ever more deliberate identification with Islam began to take place. This development was in part a consequence of internal Pakistani dynamics. Waheed uz Zaman wrote in 1974: "The mind of the Pakistani intellectual has often been agitated by a consideration of the question of our national identity...But since the traumatic events of 1971 this self-questioning has assumed the proportions of a compelling necessity...What are the links that bind the people of Pakistan? What is the soul and personality of Pakistan? What is our national identity and our peculiar oneness which makes us a nation apart from other nations?" (The Quest for Identity, University of Islamabad Press).

These are the questions that we have to ask ourselves as Pakistanis and a member of the Muslim Ummah at the turn of the century. The rediscovery of Islamic roots has often offered the Pakistani elite a chance of moving nearer a public that had always remained closer to Islam than had the leadership. The development of a new and vigorous Islamic consciousness after 1973 took place in all counties with substantial Muslim populations, albeit to varying degrees. For Pakistan, Islam offered new opportunities as much as it satisfied old desires. Islam reinforced the national interest. If the first and most fundamental Pakistani concern remained survival as a nation state, the renewed interest in Islam worldwide made the national commitment toward Islamic values sound insurance.

Henceforth, any attack on Pakistan became not simply a clash of rival state, but rather an attack threatening the destruction of the Islamic State, thus drawing in other Islamic powers. Secondly, Islam bestowed an instant ideology on Pakistan. It helped rationalise years of vacillating foreign policy orientations by finding a suitable niche for Pakistan in the world competing ideologies. Thirdly, Pakistani foreign policy capitalised on the economic assets of the oil-rich Muslim states by linking these countries to the rest of the Third World. The US and its allies have now systematically eradicated all these factors in the post-Cold War era. Muslim countries have been isolated and individually victimised in different ways. Sudan, Libya, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan have been targeted through embargoes and "Pariah states" propaganda. Turkey, Egypt and other monarchies have been bought over. Work on project-Pakistan is successfully underway.

The time has gone when Pakistani diplomats worked to reduce India's prestige in the Third World movements. With the confusion about our identity our diplomats can no longer embark on an active campaign to focus attention on its connections with the Islamic world. Islam's declared principles of concerns for the less fortunate, absence of cast system, condemnation of racial bias, and its outward looking philosophy to engage in a struggle for a more equitable world order used to be cited (Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto: Third World: New Directions), but are a matter of fundamentalist disgrace if any Muslim diplomat cite them any more. Z. A. Bhutto and other diplomats constantly tried to project Pakistan a "champion of Islamic and Third World causes" and saw its "political and economic destiny linked to this bloc." But no one from the Islamic world can utter a single world in favour of Islam. It seems as if we are all ashamed of our identity.

Throughout the 1970s Pakistan achieved considerable success in these endeavours, whereby it used the Islamic links to help gain access to the Third World movement, and the latter to further cement Pakistan's ties to the Islamic world. These ties, along with the Third World connections, were extremely beneficial to Pakistan. For example, they enabled Islamabad successfully to resist Washington's pressure on limited Pakistan's nuclear programme. It also made it enormously more difficult for the French to renege on their contractual agreement to supply a nuclear reprocessing plant. The French came under heavy US pressure to cancel the deal, but given France's very considerable dependence on Middle Eastern oil and its lucrative commercial interests in the Arab world, the existence of the Pakistani connection with these nations checkmated US pressure for a number of years.

Similarly, to counter the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan aligned itself closely with the Islamic Conference and once again identified the Pakistani predicament with the fate of Muslims everywhere. This way it could raise the stakes for Moscow. This line of reasoning proved successful. It is not the US that defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. It was due to Mujahideen from all over the Islamic countries and the Saudi funds, which helped them procure arms for their struggle.

Now that all the Muslim countries have been isolated, no one can assist the other and everyone is fruitlessly trying to save its own skin. No one cares what is happening to the Algerians. Doesn't matter if the Iraqis are suffering. Freeze the Taliban's accounts; they are of no help any way. Let them deal with Palestinians; we are not a party to it. We are entering the new century with this kind of mindset and with no role for the Muslim states in global perspective.

To enter and live with dignity and honour in the 21^st century, all Muslim states have to rediscover their identity, keep their fences with each other carefully mended, and do not be ashamed of forging alliance in the name of Islam. Islam can neither be exploited as Nawaz Sharif wished to, nor can it be moderated and liberalised, as Benazir still wants it to be. We cannot even get rid of it by claiming like General Musharraf that we are Muslims and that is good enough -- we need not to talk about it any more. We must counter the Western propaganda that the country would collapse if we tried to develop political, economic and social institutions which reflect the shari'a. A genuine shift in these directions would help resolve the internal difficulties of Muslim states by strengthening their systems from within and ensuring closeness with the rest of the Islamic world. We would survive only if we stick to Islam.

Abid Ullah Jan is a regular weekly columnist for the Frontier Post, an English daily from Peshawar, Pakistan.