Communicating Arts - Main Web SiteAmerican culture loves of the "underdog"--the little guy fighting the Big Corporate Meanies, Big Government, or the Awesome Power of The State.
We love the "anti-hero" too: the angsty teen, the besotted poet, the spendthrift who meant well, the obsessive who drowns in the object of his affections or interests.
We're also the first to stand up for "innocent until proven guilty."
And when it comes to Presidents, here too often the lesser of competing evils, we're forgiving and optimistic enough to say of one or the other, "Give him a chance."
No wonder some Islamic organizations draw on the vaunted nobility of the "Red Man"--the Native American--for identification of their cause, and may no organization name be complete without "Democracy" in the title.
All wish to be part of the Coalition of Little Guys, the People, the Nation of Sympathetic Causes.
As regards Pakistani politics, however, it's my impression that those who call loudest for democracy most intend to install authoritarian Sharia and leadership by theocratic cabal as the law and organization of the land while the military dictatorship--never a good term, that one--intends to keep open the gates for a free press (I've heard Pakistan's media rank among the most open and free in the region), international trade and tourism, contemporary capitalist consumerism, and an open society in general.
However things got so upside-down, I cannot fathom.
Earlier today or overnight (it depends some on your time zone), Muslim League leader in exile, Nawaz Sharif, the Prime Minister deposed by the military coup that interrupted President Musharraf's embarking on his life in business--the general was flying outbound at the time--returned to Islamabad to run in upcoming national elections.
Sharif's stay at the airport: four hours; return destination: Jedda.
Prior to Sharif's landing in Islamabad, Musharraf's forces had initiated a security sweep against organizations preparing his welcome. Arrested: Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, Liaqat Baloch, Javed Hashmi, Raja Zafarul Haq [6].
Of the last, Haq, at least one resentful web site quotes the gentlemen as having said while Federal Minister of Religious Affairs and Minorities within Prime Minister Sharif's government, "Qadianis (Ahmadis) are enemies of both Pakistan and Islam; they are worse than Jews."
The Quadianis: possibly an apostate or heretical community identifying with Islam but not finding complete acceptance in it. [7, 8]
The American ear, this one in any case, skips the noun, practically, for lack of familiarity but catches the venom in the statement, its "us or them" rigidity, and, of course, its traditional antisemitism. In fact, dismissing the tone and for purposes of political interpretation, the American mind would relegate the matter to the specific church involved, filtering it as a sectarian religious issue rather than one of concern to the state.
Such seems not the case in Pakistan.
Essentially, what has been culturally institutionalized in the United States and elsewhere among the open societies has neither been adequately broached, much less resolved in Pakistan where forces for democracy on the religious right would rather bind church and state, essentially sabotaging the democratic enterprise in favor of some kind of participatory theocracy, albeit one prejudiced at the start as regards both Qadiani and Jews.
America may be a "Christian country" with a few holidays marked on the Federal calendar (Christmas, Easter) to remind us of it, but we would be sorely mired in violence were there cause to call any Federal, state, or local government exclusively "Christian" (or Black, Hispanic, Jewish, or Mormon).
I've listed the Wiki pages for each of the personalities held in abeyance by Musharraf's forces. Would I could write with a sharp pen rather than a dull crayon as regards them, but with this system, as old and familiar as it rapidly becomes, one may sift but a few pages of introduction to a political culture at a time, and that is certainly the case here.
Prejudices aside--and that's not a small thing to set aside: it took a while to do that in Lousiana too, and down there it goes back and forth with the weather--one wants a peace with which all may live as regards the machinations of their government, and that's a tough thing for hammering out in Pakistan.
2. "Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal". Wikipedia, as experienced September 10, 2007, 9:40 a.m. EDT.
3. "Liaqat Baloch". Wikipedia, as experienced September 10, 2007, 9:40 a.m. EDT.
4. "Javed Hashmi". Wikipedia, as experienced September 10, 2007, 9:50 a.m. EDT.
5. "Life Sketch of Raja Zafarul Haq." The Persecution.Org, n.d., read September 10, 2007, 9:51 a.m. EDT.
6. "Nawaz flight may be sent to another Pak city." Pakistanuncut.com, September 9, 2007.
7. "Jihad: Paradoxes and Defining Moments." Chowk, October 12, 2001, posted by "urstruly".
8. "The Ahmadi Religion." Understanding-Islam.com, n.d.
Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim
Comments