Ali Eteraz: Islamists Vs Muslim Left.

Ali Eteraz (other articles), American raised muslim attorney, brilliantly gives a call to muslim to shun the Islamists and create a movement of muslim left.

He writes in Guardian that he went to a government school in the American south where he had constant interaction with religious supremacists. Such people believe that their moral mandate must be given preference, if not outright dominance. In the south, these people were Christian.Their imperative was to acquire converts who would eventually help make their political programme the law of the land.

After a couple of years, a number of Muslim students enrolled at the school. They were also upset with the endless Christian proselytising. Since many of them were family friends, they took me aside and urged me to help them set up an Islamic society. Its primary purpose would be to hold Quran study circles, correct anti-Muslim propaganda in textbooks, and - "just like the Christians do" - invite students to learn about their religion.

The Muslim right is an ideological movement. Why not? When rationalism is rampant and clerics can't bind Muslims together, ideology is the best thing to obtain mass obedience.

The Muslim right is international. It played off the Cold War and in a Machiavellian stroke made the US its benefactor. It ended up creating a decentralised international network. Jamat-e-Islami in Pakistan consulted with Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt; the Brotherhood then, with "tacit support" from their self-professed enemies, created Hamas. Then the Sunni Islamists went and assisted Khomeini, pragmatically putting aside their doctrinal disagreement with the Shia for the sake of shared ideology.


He further adds, "So the dilemma for 21st century Islam is that there is a group of Muslims who with "activists" instead of "clerics" have reined in Muslim individualism, organised it into a system, injected it with illiberal values, and then invoked non-violence and freedom of speech as a shield to hide behind. If I had not seen Karl Rove do it with American Christianity I could have never realised how the Muslim right does it with Islam.

He gives a call for the formation of "Muslim Left" to challenge the "Islamist" and give an alternative to moderate muslim. full article

Peoples' Right to Self Rule by Peoples' Mobilization alone

Dawn - Oct 6 : I. A . Rehman, of HRCP, sum it up so beautifully, "Quite a few people believe that on the fourth of October, in the year 2007, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s party was stabbed in the back by none other than his daughter and that the injury may prove fatal. Did the 40-year-old party that had begun by holding up the promise of people’s empowerment deserve to spend its adult years as the bonded maid of a praetorian consul?"

He further writes, PPP had three concerns on the top of its agenda: the people’s right to democracy, the party’s prospects in the coming general election, and the possibility of its chairperson’s rehabilitation in active politics — in that order.

The chairperson seems to have chosen to read the priorities upside down. As she bargained for reprieve for herself, she rendered the party more vulnerable than before and the prospect for democratic revival bleaker.

He warns rightly, "Benazir Bhutto was right when she identified quasi-religious militancy as the most serious threat to Pakistan and argued that the country could be saved only by the people, backed by civilian democratic government. But the regime with which she has pawned her soul is capable neither of preventing Pakistan’s Talibanisation nor of establishing a popular democracy. The threat to the state has increased."

He writes that the lawyers’ courage out in the open helped them win people’s support and by July 20 the regime seemed to have been routed. But then the streets were emptied of the democrats and the gendarmes moved in. They had a dry run on September 10 when Nawaz Sharif was cheated out of his birthright, contrary to everything contained in the Constitution, laws and rules of decency, and the people watched passively while their half-baked leaders sulked under detention.

He concludes beautifully, "All this constitutional and legal quibble apart, the essential fact is that the battle for the people’s right to self-rule will be won neither in courts nor in assemblies of doubtful origins; this battle will be won by people’s mobilisation alone." full article

BBC archive of pictures of lawyers' movement click here

Musharraf and Benazir - Self serving liberals

Rafia Zakaria, an attorney living in the United States and ANAA Board member, writes in daily times that this current competition between Ms Bhutto and General Musharraf to appease and seduce the United States is a lurid illustration of the new depths of servility to which Pakistani leaders are willing to descend to rule Pakistan.

She further adds that the Musharraf Administration has capitalised on the market for terrorists and created a one-stop shop for the United States — and it helps tremendously that the shop has a single manager/proprietor.

This time, as Rafia points out, Benazir has even offered up AQ Khan in a bid to wrest the status of “most favoured ruler” from President General Pervez Musharraf.

23rd Feb 2004, Benazir Bhutto was alleging General Musharraf behind the nuclear cover up (click here) .

She further writes that Caught in this vortex of competing self-serving liberalisms are the people of Pakistan. And they are likely to pay a heavy price. Rafia hits the nail right that the result of their political game is that liberalism is treated not as an ideology that promotes respect for human rights and the rule of law, but merely as an aspect of a power game for rulers that have all but liberal intentions.

In other words, the association of liberalism as an ideology with either General Musharraf who has overtly and blatantly violated the rule of law or Ms Bhutto who stands accused of corruption charges makes the true principles of liberalism little less than a farce in the eyes of the Pakistani public.

She writes that carefully strategising on the pandering of political leaders like General Musharraf and Ms Bhutto, the inflammatory and hate-filled rhetoric of the extremists becomes the only ideological alternative for all those who do not like American interference in Pakistan’s affairs.

If liberalism is to take hold in Pakistan, it must be an anti-imperialist liberalism that gives immediate priority to Pakistan’s national sovereignty and refuses to allow foreign powers to merely use Pakistan as a convenient tool for their own agendas. full article

Economy for the Elites

Dr. Manzur Ejaz writes on "elite consensus" to control economy of Pakistan. Benazir or Nawaz, neither has any program to address poverty, education and dismal health condition in Pakistan.

He further writes, "Pakistan is an extreme example of the elitist ruling phenomenon where, besides the economic domination of a small ruling class, respect for common law is also largely absent. The justice system has been transformed into a market commodity that can be bought and sold by the powerful."

Comparing Ayub era of Pakistan with South Korea he writes that Ayub had no long term plans to address the basic necessities of people. He writes about South Korea and other countries that besides the land reforms, they provided subsidised housing, health and educational services to common citizens.

He suggests in the end that to change this status quo a completely new political entity will be needed. (Full article)