KARACHI: A book of comparative study titled Conflict Management and Vision for a Secular Pakistan by Dr Moonis Ahmar was launched at the Oxford University Press head office on Friday evening.

I. A. Rehman, secretary general of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, delivered the keynote address on the occasion. He said people often asked why secularism was necessary with reference to the affairs of the country; it could not be understood without seeing the other option or what’s going to happen if we follow that path.

Mr Rehman praised the author for, what he called, a path-breaking effort. He said the book had two merits: the first is that it touches upon some neglected areas, and the second was its high quality of comparative study. It’s meant for academics but has a practical approach to the subject too which enables everybody to go through it.

He had discussed the importance of secularism with regard to resolution of conflicts and the violence and intolerance that had grown in society. His research for the book was without biases. It also brought into focus the emergence of secular thought in Europe and movements like Enlightenment and Reformation.

Mr Rehman said Dr Ahmar had raised issues such as why there’s no proper distinction between an Islamic and Muslim state and why Jinnah’s successors failed to deliver. At the same time he also took liberals and the ruling elite to task for ignoring important subjects, such as education.

He examined Muslim models of secularism in Turkey and Indonesia. (Mr Rehman didn’t talk about India because he remarked everybody was an expert on India). The book had opened a debate which needed to be taken further and the roles that capitalism, nation-state and theocracy had played in those models should be properly understood, he said.

He argued that there would be three possible strands of thought. One, let us have a proper Islamic state; two, the liberal thought, that is, there could be a parliament as well as religion; three, we would have neither.

Dr Ahmar said the challenge that we faced today was not about any ism but about the fact that Muslim countries had just not taken off. He said two areas where they lagged behind were human development and democracy. He argued that since 1947 the ruling elite in Pakistan had been exploiting religion and secularism both.

“Where do we go from here; we can’t wait,” he commented and said it’s not that we had not been able to properly comprehend the term secularism; we just hadn’t tried to. We need to decide what we really wanted to achieve, he said and reasoned that there’s an intellectual vacuum in Pakistan.

He said no system would bring about any change unless the policies of those at the helm did not change. He mentioned four things to put the country on the right track: (1) to reform the educational system, (2) process of enlightenment in a progressive manner, (3) improvement of socioeconomic conditions and (4) focus on youth.

Apart from that, he said the rule of law, human development and a ban on expression of all kinds of militant behaviour was equally important. Towards the end of his speech Dr Ahmar shed light on how political leaders, and not just military dictators, allowed religious parties to gain space to remain in power.

Media person Babar Ayaz said Vision for a Secular Pakistan was a timely book and said that was the topic we should be discussing as much as we could. He said the debate regarding what secularism meant had been raging on since Pakistan’s inception, and the ruling classes had exploited religion equating secularism with anti-religion. Dr Ahmar in his book has logically explained that secularism was not anti-religion. Religion was a private matter, he said.

Replying to a question during the question-and-answer session, Mr Rehman said there’s a decline in the quality of Muslim thinking. Sixty years ago, Muslim

nationalist leaders didn’t have any problem co-existing with other people. In the past, intra-religion debate was possible, not today. There’s intolerance of the other’s ideas.

Earlier, OUP managing director Ameena Saiyid welcomed the guests.

Published in Dawn, May 31th, 2014