The perils of extremism

WHY is it hard to fight extremism in Pakistan? Because we are all guilty at least by association. Extremism essentially reflects our long but unsuccessful struggle to find a national purpose and identity and an open and stable political process that promotes tolerance and liberal habits of the mind and supports justice for all, not only for the citizenry but also for the minorities and smaller provinces.

This failure has caused an understandable sense of despair especially among the weak and the vulnerable, a mindset most conducive to falling prey to illusions and emotions and to searching for transcendental solutions. No wonder the extremists, specially the religious kind, are having a field day. They have a constituency.

The state has made its own contribution. Successive governments have pandered and provided political space, to the Islamists, both the pacific type seeking an electoral route to power and willing to work within the system and the extremists.

The boundaries of extremism touch the established Islamist parties on one end and militancy on the other. This whole pantheon provides the ideological underpinnings of a security-dominated nationalism and regressive social order in Pakistan where religion, politics, the social order, national security and foreign policy are rolled into one. Extremism has had a constituency not just among the ordinary people.

The country has been further caught up in the crosscurrent of sectarian, ethno-linguistic and other domestic tensions. Such institutions as exist to mediate the differences either lack integrity or autonomy being subservient to the centres of power. No wonder there is an inclination to resort to militancy and extremism as instruments of redressing the imbalances and wrongs. Once force becomes an acceptable way of settling differences it turns on itself and breeds its own imbalances and injustices. Thus, extremism thrives.

Various strands of extremism lend strength to each other. But let us focus on religious extremism. The fact is our domestic order is not the sole contributor; regional dynamics, big power interests, and the ethics of international relations have played no small part.

India has been part of the problem in fomenting our extremist responses; and so has Afghanistan. In fact, both Pakistan and Afghanistan have played havoc with each other becoming in the end tributaries and confluences of extremist influences that have radiated well beyond the region.

Other Muslim countries and the West have exploited our extremist infrastructure to further their own political and strategic agendas. The Saudi-Iranian rivalry has triggered and continues to fuel sectarian tensions in Pakistan. Along with it has come a lot of money. Money also came with the American-led jihad of the 1980s.

Both left in their trail much stronger forces of militancy. Not only that, they bred a whole crop of adventurers, political opportunists and religious fanatics including ISI ‘alumni’ who are trying to harness these forces of extremism in pursuit of their ambitions for power but in the name of Islam. The war on terrorism has given a big boost to their dangerous agenda.

By conducting the campaign against terrorism as a war of ideas between the West and Islam, and by denigrating Muslim societies as failing or failed and needing help from the West, the latter is forcing Muslims to defend their religion and what it stands for. So people are looking up to someone who can pay back the West in its own coin, and naturally they turn to the extremists to fight their cause. Religious extremism has thus found wider sponsorship and causes bigger than India and Kashmir.

As mentioned, the boundaries of extremism overlap on one end with the traditional Islamist parties and on the other with the militants. This broadens their agenda and reach to almost all segments of society. Their influence has become expansive.

Their nationalist and anti-American rhetoric appeals to some even with a secular outlook. And then there are others among the educated and the moderate who yearn for a soft Islamic revolution whose ideas intersect, however thinly, at some point with those of the radicals even without their knowing it.

Many young minds also are opening up to extremist thoughts specially those getting their first dose of religion being administered not by scholars but by those who have mixed their social or political agenda with the message of Islam. This enhances the appeal of their message even though it distorts the religion. Through this kind of religion the young are seeking expression of their anger, fear and hopes. Religion ends up serving as an idiom of protest and idealism.

Muslims believe what they like to believe, and the West for its own reasons refuses to give credence to a moderate and true interpretation of Islam as it would weaken the rationale for the war on terrorism which is much more than a campaign against terrorism. The West has its own political agenda. So Islam gets distorted not only by us but also by the West.

The problem is that our religious extremism is no longer dependent on state patronage for survival; state power, therefore, will not be sufficient to fight it, the present government’s intentions to take up the challenge notwithstanding. Not only do we lack national consensus on the issue, we are confused and disoriented. In some cases we even lack moral clarity.

We think we are not supporting extremism and demonstrate it by holding rallies and making speeches and writing articles. But we are hosting political opinions, moral attitudes and public policies that reflect as well as affect extremism. Let me explain.

We condemn sectarian killings but will not back away from Kashmir, jihad or from defending Muslim honour against Hindu India. People may not like the Taliban but many admire Osama bin Laden. They do not realise that by supporting one they are supporting the other. We are horrified by the encroaching on our liberal values and the subordination and confinement of women that Talibanisation threatens, but we applaud when the same extremists go and burn the US flag.

Even our response to attacks on churches and the beheading of Americans remains muted. Killing of innocent civilians is not sanctioned by our religion and we cannot condone it just because President Bush is doing the same. There is no moral equivalence here. Instead of justifying one act of violence because of another we should condemn both.

The government is also in conflict. It would not like the Talibanisation of Pakistan but would not mind if Afghanistan came under Taliban control. Enlightened moderation is a good thing but we have to realise that moderation is more than cultural liberalisation.

Only political liberalisation will help strengthen liberal and secular forces that can be allies in defeating religious extremism. Otherwise, cultural openness could backfire and give further ammunition to the extremists thus provoking cultural wars that could get entangled with class conflicts. This is what these attacks on video shops in Islamabad are about.

Whether we are part of the government or the people, we cannot fight and support extremism at the same time. To begin the fight let us debate our relations with India and Afghanistan. Why are we so obsessed with being treated by the international community on a par with India? With this complex that our national identity is superior to India’s and that our strength is equivalent because of the nuclear capability we continue to place ideology and honour at the centre of our self-image and national priorities.

This will not help us wean ourselves away from the conservative hard-line attitude which is sustaining extremism. And we also need to do something about the madressahs and the related problem of Saudi Iranian rivalry which has made us a hotbed of their proxy conflict.

Finally, people should shed this obsession with America’s conduct that continues to incite attitudes that make us vulnerable to extremist influences. Bush is not America. He is an aberration whose time is up. He is responding to the events of 9/11 in an extraordinary way. It was a response in anger, in revenge marked by the arrogance of power. But criticism of the US is not going to change American policies.

Big powers do not adapt their policies to suit the interests of small countries. Even if that happens it might take years or even decades. Can Muslims wait till then to set their own house in order? They are weak. Whatever the consequences for the West it is strong enough to absorb the effects of bad policies but can Muslims afford to continue with their self-limiting behaviour?

In advising that we lessen our focus on western policies, I am not condoning them. We should, of course, resist policies that diminish our sovereignty and national interest. The same way we should accept American help where it suits us, especially in our reform effort and the fight against extremism. What one is concerned about is that with this excessive preoccupation with America’s behaviour we are playing into the hands of the extremists. It is also taking our attention away from owning up to our own mistakes as we look for the causes of our failure outside ourselves. One cannot change what one denies.

If the Muslim world wants to challenge the unjust international system it can do so only by acquiring knowledge and effecting social reform and political liberalisation, by embracing, not shirking modernisation and by taking a strong moral position against extremists, however, seductive their nationalistic and populist rhetoric. The Muslim world needs to search for its own strength rather than define itself in opposition to the West.

The writer is adjunct professor at Georgetown University, US

The core of Islam is submission

THE question, “why religion,” has been answered as many times as it has been posed. Actually, what irks some people about religion, per se, is that it circumscribes absolute liberty to pursue their instincts. It defines piety and impiety; right and wrong, vice and virtue, morality and immorality, good and evil.

The school that opposes religion argues why, at all, should religion define the good and bad for us? Why not we? The society could just as well enact laws to protect individuals’ rights to property and regulate gender relations. Yet, laws there will have to be. The only difference in the latter case will be that such laws will be man-made, which means that they would be changeable, depending on views of the majority that rules at a given time. Moreover, in that scenario, the individual would be submitting to the collective authority of his peers.

In contrast, a believer considers it more dignified to bow before a Single Authority, who is eternal and whose laws are invariable than bowing before a bunch of humans like himself. He recognizes that human knowledge can never be perfect: the more one knows, the more there will be to know, which also applies to man-made laws.

Let’s examine it this way. When a human is born, he (or she), unlike animals, has to be told at every step what to do and how, and what to refrain from doing. What parents and nurses do to a baby, religion does to the grown up. Both have the safety of their ward in mind. Parental advice is aimed at protecting the child from physical harm. Religion intends to save his soul from perdition. But as there are wayward children who resent parental control and counsel, so there are people for whom religion, because of its precepts, is anathema.

Says Tobias Jones: “The point about believers is that they are obeying (and disobeying) all sorts of commandments that the state doesn’t see or understand. Because they are able to differentiate sin from crime, they have a moral register more nuanced than most. Believers can deal with social anarchy much better than the state ever can.” (Guardian)

Islam goes farther than any other religion in this respect. It seeks to guide the conduct of its followers with do’s and don’ts in, even, such daily chores as eating and drinking, greeting and salutation, deportment and speech, as well as conjugal relations, marriage, divorce and inheritance, lending and borrowing, trade and commerce, peace and war.

Some of the injunctions are binding, like the laws of marriage, divorce and inheritance. These encompass practically every human activity, such as speaking softly and fairly to people, controlling anger, forgiving injury. Believers are even advised to “repel the evil deed with one that is better (23:96, 41:34). In this way Islam seeks to destroy the animal in man and demolish the idols of pride and prejudice so as to raise him to a level higher than angels.

Yet it is incorrect to say that Islam deprives humans of their freedom of choice. It does not. People remain free to either follow or reject it. And many of them do. Islam only shows the Straight Path (sirat al mustaqueem). No more. It certainly does not seek to coerce the unwilling. La ikraha fiddeen. On the contrary, it even forbids its followers from reviling other people’s gods. (Al An’aam: 108)

Notably, religion fosters the concept of conscience. Islam calls it nafs-il-lawwamah. It reproaches and remonstrates. It reminds one about punishment in the hereafter, which is ineluctable even if one can avoid it in the world and therefore doubly restrains him. This is what Hamlet alludes to in his soliloquy: “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.” But Hamlet was on the wrong foot. Conscience intervenes only in the commission of a foul act.

For a Muslim, however, it is not the “dread of … the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns, that puzzles the will” and restrains him from sin and crime. In his case, on the contrary, it is the certainty that “Judgment must, indeed, come to pass” (Al-dhariat: 6). He knows that he will be shown “even an atom’s worth of good or evil deed he did during his lifetime” (Zilzal: 7-8). In fact, on the Day of Judgment his “hands will speak” and “his feet bear witness” to everything that he did on this earth. (Ya Sin: 65).

A Muslim is hamstrung even in the matter of retaliation and revenge. What torments his animal instinct for revenge must suffer, when he is strictly forbidden from “exceeding” the balance of injury! A tooth for a tooth; an eye for an eye, a life for a life is permitted, -yes, but not an iota more! And this permission is further diluted with the inducement to spare the life of the assassin for recompense!

Therefore, if it were simply the dread of the unknown that ‘makes cowards of us all,’ then Muslims would be the most cowardly people among the humans. But history is witness that Muslims were never cowards. Islam teaches them to master one thing that people most dread – death. For a Muslim, death is the gateway to eternal life. So he looks death in the face and does no blinking.

Of course the core of Islam is submission; total and unreserved obedience, voluntarily offered as a slave to the Divine Will. That in itself is quite daunting. And yet it is not enough. Along with submission there has to be “faith,” (imaan), namely, a firm belief that any act done or abstained from in obedience to divine admonition is also the right one. The difference between lip service to Islam and real imaan has been beautifully explained in Al hujuraat: 14, (“The Desert Arabs say, “We believe.” For not yet has faith entered your hearts…”).

Iman is when neither fear of death, nor lure of worldly happiness could deflect one from the Straight Path.

Judging campaign ads

ONE of US Congress’s goals in passing the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law was to stop the proliferation of sham "issue ads" -- political commercials that coyly avoided urging a vote for or against a particular candidate but that nevertheless unmistakably conveyed that message.

The difficulty with these ads was that they offered an easy way to evade campaign finance rules, including the long-standing ban on using corporate and union funds to influence elections.

Congress's solution was to carve out a time frame -- 30 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election -- during which advertising that mentions a candidate for federal office cannot be paid for directly with corporate or union funds. The organisations may pay for such ads through political action committees, but PAC money is harder to raise.

Congress recognised in passing the restriction, as the Supreme Court did in upholding it, that the provision might squelch some genuine issue ads designed to influence the legislative process. The justices will confront that quandary in a case to be argued today involving an ad run in 2004 by Wisconsin Right to Life, which was seeking to defeat Sen. Russell Feingold. The ad criticised an unnamed "group of senators" for filibustering President Bush's judicial nominees and ended by urging viewers to call Sens. Feingold and Herb Kohl, who was not up for reelection, "and tell them to oppose the filibuster."

On its face, this looks like inoffensive speech on an issue of public importance, not the barely disguised campaign ads -- commercials that are "intended to influence the voters' decisions and have that effect," in the court's words -- that Congress was trying to control. At the same time, Wisconsin Right to Life was targeting Mr. Feingold. "Send Feingold Packing!" was among its "top election priorities"; Mr. Feingold's position on filibusters was a central issue for the group, and it chose to run the filibuster ads in the days leading up to the election, not when the fight was peaking in the Senate.

In deciding this hard case, the court needs to avoid making bad law in any number of ways. It should not require judges to blind themselves to the obvious context in which these ads are run, but neither should it invite open-ended judicial inquiry into the motives of those who want to speak on public issues. If it finds that the ad in this case does not amount to "the functional equivalent of express advocacy" of a candidate's election or defeat, it needs to do so in a way that will not open the floodgates for a new wave of sham ads.

Most important, it's critical that the newly constituted court -- Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was part of the five-justice majority that upheld the provision -- not reverse or undermine its common-sense holding of just three terms ago. Then, the court found that Congress, in its effort to combat "the corrosive and distorting effects" of unregulated corporate money in elections, wasn't powerless to act in the face of campaign ads that simply avoided certain "magic words." Now, the advocates who opposed the provision in the first place are urging the court to revisit that holding. For the court to accept that invitation, either by explicitly overruling itself or through language that would have the same effect, would be an enormous mistake, as damaging to the integrity of the court as it would be to the electoral process.

— The Washington Post