‘The liberal forces have not failed. The realistic statement of the situation in Pakistan will be that they have been exterminated as a result of consistent and concerted efforts by the state to crush them,’ says I.A. Rehman
THERE has been a serious concern in certain conscientious sections of society about the role that the liberal and democratic forces of the country have played over global and national issues in recent times. The religious parties have gained ground in the last elections, they have stolen the limelight in terms of giving voice to public opinion both inside and outside parliament, and have apparently pushed back all others to positions of insignificance, if not irrelevance altogether. Have the liberals — both of the political and social variety — chosen to take a back seat and be mere bystanders as the right wing continues to steal the thunder?
This and other related questions were put to I.A. Rehman, a known figure in liberal circles who has been championing the cause of human rights and an egalitarian society. The following are excerpts:
Q: How would you explain the failure of the liberal forces in Pakistan at this crucial juncture. Are they in synch with government policies, or are found lacking in commitment?
IAR: The realistic statement of the situation in Pakistan will be that liberal forces have been exterminated as a result of consistent and concerted effort by the state to crush them. It was possible in the early years of Pakistan to organize mass demonstrations for the Palestinian cause or against the attack on Suez Canal. The liberals were able to play a meaningful role because there was freedom of political activities. Politics was not a dirty work. Political parties were not denounced and abused day in and day out. But over the last few decades, particularly since Ayub Khan’s martial law, the state has decimated civil society, and liberal organizations have been victimized.
Liberal forces in a country are political parties, trade unions, academicians and youth. Political parties have been consistently pushed away from the national political scene. Trade unions are under attack, their movement was restricted by the state and this attack of state on workers’ rights continues. Student unions have been banned from many years now and the state continues to pursue a course to depoliticize and deunionize society. Conditions in the education sector have so deteriorated as one can buy a degree from the market.
This shows that democratic, liberal and secular forces have been treated in Pakistan as the worst enemy of the state and the process of suppressing them continues to this date. Even so, much before religious elements started demonstrating against the invasion of Iraq, non-religious organizations of women in Karachi and the Joint Action Committee in Lahore and human rights activists in many parts of the country had been in the field. The only difference is that Chaudhry Shujaat Husain has openly said that his government has facilitated the MMA rally in Lahore.
And, yes, there was a problem in Pakistan when some elements of the civil society sided with the military regime. But they were minor elements and failed to lend any credibility to the military regime.
Q: You talked of government support to the MMA rally. Is there any bad blood between the government and the liberal forces?
IAR: Yes, there is. When you have authoritarian regimes in Pakistan, they cannot have anything in common with the liberal and democratic forces. So the suppression of these forces is the common objective of these regimes and those who thrive on bigotry.
Q: But there was nothing specific that actually stopped the liberals from getting their voice heard. Don’t you think this vacuum will work in favour of the rightwingers?
IAR: As political activities remained banned since 1958, a space was created for religious elements to increase their influence under the cover of state protection. This still continues, and religious militants thrive on it. Only they could hold mass congregations and take out processions in Islamabad. This has been going on for some time. How would you explain the fact that while there are no student unions, student organizations of religious parties do function in the country?
The recent rise of the clergy in Pakistan is the direct consequence of Gen Ziaul Haq’s policies. He stopped the creation of new universities and invested heavily in creating seminaries where hundreds of thousands of people are trained in militancy, intolerance, bigotry and obscurantism. So this is a state-sponsored phenomenon. We are paying for our misadventures in Afghanistan. We are also paying for having pushed the state more and more towards theocracy in which some civilians have also contributed.
As for the liberals, they have tried to utilize whatever avenues that are available to them. How many from the clergy have written articles in newspapers? The liberals have contributed the major share. But what about the demonstrative affect? We recall October 1999, how many people had demonstrated against the attack on Afghanistan? Not very many. Almost nil. Only the liberals had raised their voice.
Q: But even when the liberals have come out on the streets, their voice has been feeble at best. Do you agree?
IAR: Because you are not a liberal society; you are being nose-led into the past; you are not being allowed to live in the twenty-first century. You are living in the thirteenth or the fourteenth century; the state is moving towards theocracy; the state is imposing all the anti-liberal ideas and policies. I must give credit to some thousand Israelis who demonstrated in Israel against the rape of Palestine or against the invasion of Iraq. This is far more important than a turnout of a half-a-million people in a free city. So I think that the demonstration organized by the liberals of Pakistan, no matter how small they were, are far more important than those held by the clergy. Because these liberals don’t have seminaries and captive audiences. At the same time what impact the religious elements’ campaign carries when they don’t understand what is the real problem of Iraq. So I think the limited agitation the liberal elements have organized has a far deeper impact because they understand the real problem.
Q: The way the last elections went, it is clear that the religious parties have made significant political inroads. Do you think the religious outfits will continue to hold this ground?
IAR: It is true that they polled more votes in the last elections than they had ever done before. It is also true that they have benefited from the failure of the mainstream non-communal political forces. But it is also true that the strength of their rise was set by official patronage. While bogus certificates from seminaries were accepted for allowing religious candidates to contest and a huge number of nominations of candidates belonging to non-religious parties was rejected. The rise of the religious parties, as such, is largely because of state patronage, and because of an unholy collusion between the clergy and the military.
The military establishment and the clergy have shared objectives of thwarting democracy, liberal tendencies and egalitarian values. I don’t accept the suggestion that there is no saner voice left in Pakistan. It has been said that the recent elections were the most rigged elections in Pakistan. But Kotwal’s beloved is the only suhagan in Pakistan, because this is the order of the day, not the day but decades.
As for the second part of the question, I am certain that the religious parties will not be able to hold this ground for long. True, the religious elements have the support of the military, and the rest of the society has been gagged and dumbfounded, but how long will they be able to hang on to these crutches when they don’t have anything to offer.
The problem of Pakistan is not that girls are sitting with boys in schools; the problem is also not that one man is earning his bread by playing some musical instrument in Peshawar; it is also not the problem whether to stop this movie or that. Do they have any socio-economic programme or any basic concept of the problem? When they would have nothing to offer, their survival as a political force cannot be imagined beyond a certain limit.
Pakistani society has been victimized, the federal system has been vulgarized, and the autonomy question has been mishandled. The basic problem facing the state is how to give people their rights; establish a genuine federation; solve the question of autonomy; accept the rights of the women to be treated as equal with men and give them the right to work. You will then see a change, a genuine change.
Q: What do liberal forces think of the Iraq crisis anyway?
IAR: The liberal forces of Pakistan are opposed to this war. Their opposition is not because the overwhelming majority of the people of Iraq happen to be Muslims, or that it is a religious question. They oppose the war because it has been imposed on a weaker country by a highly developed and extremely powerful so-called superpower. It does not necessarily mean that they support Saddam Husain. The liberals support the people of Iraq who have problems with Saddam Husain; and it is only the people of Iraq who can solve their problems.
This problem cannot be solved by killing the people of Iraq, starving their sick children and occupying their natural resources. The liberal and democratic forces of Pakistan are with the liberal and democratic opinion of the rest of the world. The US-led attack is simply not acceptable. Period.
Q: In the global perspective, how do you the rise of Islamic militancy? Is it in any way linked to the absence of a second ideology, or is it aimed at reviving the glory of the Islamic faith?
IAR: One positive development of the current situation is that the kind of monolithic system that was prevailing in the world has broken. The breakaway from the American war game of some European countries is a hopeful beginning of the end of the so-called superpower supremacy. If this contradiction develops, and I hope this will develop, there will be forces around the world to challenge and check such mad adventures.
As for the question of Islamic ideology, the Muslim states are incapable of giving or fighting for an alternative ideology because the strength of any ideology comes from the state structure. Most of the Muslim countries around the world are either in the grip of despotic rulers, discredited monarchs or mafias that can only fight against their own people, and are incapable of posing any challenge to the hegemonistic powers.
‘The liberal forces have not failed. The realistic statement of the situation in Pakistan will be that they have been exterminated as a result of consistent and concerted efforts by the state to crush them,’ says I.A. Rehman 
