Wow, a Shaykh ul-Islam who attracts populace with his thunderous socio-political oratory and a religious doctrine! Wow, a revolution through a mass public movement supported by a Cricketer Tsunami Khan! But wait …… and let us think this through in the context of Pakistan’s checkered political history and ambiguities over the decades, its ongoing internal terror and divided house, Af-Pak situation still unsettled and MENA (Middle East-North Africa) in turmoil despite the Arab spring.
The question that kept reverberating in some Pakistani circles in the last two years was whether Pakistan can or will ever experience something akin to the MENA Spring or something better and sooner yet given the ongoing and repeated struggles for democracy over the decades in Pakistan?
The fact about Pakistan is one of few Muslim nations that have experienced these kinds of cyclic springs on numerous occasions. Most of the times springs in Pakistan have led to the ouster of military dictators and, strangely on one occasion protests had actually ended up preparing the ground and an opening for a military coup and subsequent dictatorship.
It is rather surprising to notice the negligible number of Pakistanis’ recollections of the previous generations’ notable efforts to make Pakistan a unique country (like Turkey with which it has had similarities), where a number of democratic movements constantly challenged military dictatorships, making sure that, unlike a majority of MENA countries, Pakistan has never had a one-party dictatorship that ruled for so many decades.
It is important to keep all this in mind before one attempts to launch into understanding new phenomena where men like cricketer-turned-politician (not very successful in politics yet), Imran Khan, and more recently Shaykh ul-Islam, Dr. Tahirul Qadri (having failed in Pakistani politics before his hijra to Canada in 2005), are both being imagined as the ultimate saviors who would lead a newer Pakistani Spring of sorts or a sort of peoples’ revolution to change the entire corrupt system. Can two fiery orators, Shaykh Qadri and Tsunami Khan, really save Pakistan?
Pakistan’s restless youth will be once again brought into the streets in the coming weeks and months demanding change, but they must not become pawns of any fake Messiahs without verification (trust but verify). The fist-shaking, rostrum-pounding impressive orations of Shaykh ul-Islam Qadri and Cricketer Khan could be just empty thunders; and they may accomplish very little in the long run. Of course, the long March and Islamabad sit-in had rightly protested Pakistan’s sham-democracy and its incompetent and corrupt civilian leadership.
It could be the military’s renewed attempt again to landscape Pakistani politics — and that is perhaps what really rocketed the Shaykh into his last year’s long march and his presently remote reappearance while staying in Canada after only 6 months of transition to PML-N mandate. In that case, it could be disastrous and would follow the familiar path of the army’s past interventions that have always been terribly disruptive and have slowed down the democratization process over the decades in Pakistan. At a time when Pakistan is still seriously threatened by ignorance, poverty, disunity and terrorism, the military would do well to perform its real and utmost duty that is that of protection and safety of Pakistan’s people. If the Skaykh is genuine, at this time, he needs urgently to blunt his accusations of being ‘artificial construct of the deep state military-establishment’.
The Shaykh and the Cricketer excessively preach about the corruption of the present and past rulers without touching on Pakistan’s real issues. Strangely enough, they keep criticizing the corruption of civilians without a word about the others.
For decades now, Pakistan has unfortunately been stuck in two contradictory narratives — one of oppression and one of justice. The former narrative is regressive/coercive and opposes population planning on a religious basis, allows involvement of military in politics, enforces death for blasphemy and/or apostasy, and accepts corrupt and autocratic government that rejects the democratic ideal and separation of mosque and state. It relegates minorities and women to second-class citizenship status and likewise, at times, seeks to establish a so-called “Islamic State” to unite Muslims with regressive interpretation in their distorted/oppressive causes that are contradictory to true Islamic values, principles and human rights.
The later narrative is a progressive one and one of justice, emphasizing service to civil society and humanity, presenting Islam’s true essence and spirit. It presents no shortage of scholarly literature to reject regressive, coercive and oppressive interpretations of Islam. Likewise, this narrative inspires Muslims of the twenty first century to remain at the cutting edge of science and technology, economic and human development, and service to humanity through the social and civic sphere organizations, like Hizmet (a non-political faith-based social movement of Turkish origin), since 1966 and by now a global activist social movement consisting of millions of volunteers.
The Madani Society in the city-state of Medina was founded and built by Prophet Muhammad S.A.W himself in 622 AD as a prophet. It was based on the concept of tamaddun (civil society), justice and rule of law. During the medieval era, it was named al-madinah al-fadhilah (virtuous city) by one of the greatest philosophers in Islamic history, Al- Farabi Abu Nasr (870-950). In the fourteenth century, the famous Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun Abd al-Rahman (1332-1406) created a new discipline of ‘ilm al-’umran, the science of culture/social development called asabiyya – a concept of solidarity, civility and cohesion of the Muslim civil society and nation. Not unlike all great thinkers, Ibn Khaldun’s thought contained both specific and universal elements of solidarity/civility that can readily be conveyed to modern era with no more than the usual difficulties of translation and interpretation from one cultural and historical period to another.
In our modern times, a new civil society (like Madani society of the Prophet S.A.W) was rebuilt
In Turkey through the profound teachings and contributions of Bedi-uz Zaman Nursi (1887-1960) and Fethullah Gulen (born 1941-) over the decades. Two of these enlightened public Muslim intellectuals/scholars accomplished this without involving their social and civic movements directly into the politics. To genuinely succeed in the democratization and governance processes, the political parties in Muslim nations are to best serve the civil societies.
For the reconstruction and development of a civil Madani society in Turkey, Gulen had realized very early that it was necessary that all its components; family, political system, religion and economic system be harmonized leading to moral and ethical governance. He also created a golden generation of volunteers and followers who were inspired by him and they started revolutionary works through Hizmet in the fields of teaching faith, social works, communication, health, industry, education and many other areas. In the higher educational institutions established and based on Gulen philosophy, including Fatih University, research works go on in the subjects of physics and other sciences and disciplines that can be compared with any other European/Western universities. The foundation of hospitals established based on his thought could compete with best hospitals of Europe and of the USA. On media, in the newspapers, magazines, books and television channels, one can feel the glimpses of his ideology. Such people who are greatly inspired by his thought and practice continuously do these works.
Since the 1980s,there have been discussions and advocacy debates on civil society and democracy in Egypt and the Middle East with annual reports & numerous books on Civil Society and Democratic Transformation in the Arab World (Al-Mujtamaal-Madani wa al-Tahawwul al-Dimuqrati fi al-Watan al-Arabi) and Minorities in the Arab World (AI-Millal wa al-Nahal wa al-A’raq) published since 1993, with Sa’d al-Din Ibrahim heading and contributing to the project through the Ibn Khaldun Center in Cairo.
Despite all the efforts and particularities of the 21 member Arab League nations, the MENA is still slowly treading along the trends and processes that have worked fairly well in many other, newly democratizing, societies. The paradigm provides a common framework for the individual countries but those who engaged in the defense of human rights had brought much tension with the local Governments in the Middle East as was the case with Professor Saad Ed-Dine Ibrahim, the director of the Ibn Khaldoon Center for Development Studies who was prosecuted and jailed by the Egyptian Authorities in 2000 and present turmoil with the Arab spring since early 2011. With societal and democratic development projects in MENA, the most prominent problems that confront the development of both State and Civil Society to this day unfortunately are: The personalization of the regimes as the Pharaonic political traditions in most of these countries, militarization of politics, bureaucratic constraints, political Islamic movement constraints, and economic constraints. There are better prospects in Central Asia since there are positive civil society/democratization trends and responses to Gulen Civic Muslim thought in central Asia than the Wahhabi/Salafi radical Islamism in MENA except perhaps Tunisia.
The stream of awareness about the rebirth of Madani society in Southeast Asia has had major implications on the Muslim intellectuals who have had understanding of the contemporary issues and politics in the Muslim world. This phenomenon about the formation of Madani society and nation building has been seen clearly impacting Indonesia and Malaysia since the mid 1990s – to early 2000s. It had triggered the new environment in the activities and practice of Islam in both countries. The new generation of Muslim intellectuals and clusters such as Nurcholish Madjid (former student of Fazlur Rahman in Chicago), Abdurrahman Wahid, Amien Rais, Arief Budiman, Azyumadi Azra, A.S. Hikam, Dawam Rahardjo, Mansour Fakih and Ryaas Rasyid. Most of these scholars were graduated from American universities. The ideas and discussions about the reformation of Civil Society in Malaysia/Indonesia have thus been going on for a while. The term ‘Madani’ was first brought to the region and popularized by Anwar Ibrahim, a Malaysian prominent politician, at a Scientific Forum, Istiqlal Festival in November 1995 in Jakarta. The term ‘civil society’ is an indirect translation from Madani society. The Idea of “al-mujtama’ al-madani” with two components of civilized society and city society was introduced by Malaysian scholar Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas (Rosyada et al. 2005).
In actual practice, two of the Indonesia’s largest non-political civil society organizations (with membership totaling to 70 millions), the Muhamadiyyah (founded in 1912) and the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU founded in 1926) have commonalities with each other and to the Hizmet social movement in Turkey.
All three of these movements operate numerous charitable, public welfare tasks and projects. They have established and fostered thousands of schools/colleges/universities in their respective countries, from the level of earlier education for children to the highest learning institutes, hundreds of hospitals and clinics, numerous orphanages, houses for the elderly, youth organizations, women’s movements, and other humanitarian institutions and services. Indeed, there have been hundreds upon hundreds of Muslim scholars, intellectuals, politicians, social workers, and civil servants who attended, if not graduated, from such schools and educational institutions. This is the way through which these movements have given a substantial meaning to their respective nations and beyond.
Organizationally, these faith-based movements have adopted a strategy of keeping out of practical politics, thus enabling their members to actively and creatively concentrate their works towards educating the masses, helping the weak, and offering spiritual values to safeguard and shape the course of modern civil societies and cultures globally. This has enthroned the Muhammadiyah and NU in Indonesia both as the leading socio-religious movements in the world with a potential eventually to become global social movements like the hizmet movement. I would say that in terms of their gigantic socio-religio-educational networks/institutions, that with the exception perhaps of Hizmet movement there are no other social and educational movements in the world comparable to these two. There is an urgent and desperate need for all of these enlightened Islamic movements to network for reuniting ummah Islamiya and the entire human family (ummah Insaniya) in today’s times.
Civil society movements like these inspire everyone including women to pursue better and higher education and become leaders in science and scholarship, in addition to parenting and socio-political realms. This demonstrates that the justice-based narrative is not just theological exegesis of Qur’anic interpretation and theory, but it is also based in hard-core practical realities of human life today.
The oppressive narrative to this day remains influential and operative in Pakistan and many other countries in the Muslim world. In a recent Pew survey 75% of Pakistanis replied that Islam needs blasphemy laws and that the government must punish blasphemers. Before their ignoble and respective departure from this world, Pakistan’s leaders Zulfiqar A. Bhutto and the military Dictator General Zia-ul-Haq had built and enforced these blasphemy laws with dreams of becoming the greatest leaders. Since then, this regressive and coercive narrative has spread to some parts as Far East as Indonesia/Malaysia and many other Muslim nations around the world.
Pakistan, today desperately needs a justice based civil society narrative as a back-bone to ridding itself of the multiple problems of ignorance, poverty, terrorism and decades old corrupt socio-political system through a civil society recreation like the Madani society of the prophet himself (PBUH) and like the one recreated in our own modern times in Turkey by the enlightened public scholars and intellectuals, Bedi-uz-zaman Nursi and Fetullah Gulen. With Nursi and Gulen contributions, it took Turkey about half a century to create a Madani like civil society in Turkey.
Shaykh-ul-Islam Qadri is a globally recognized scholar and intellectual of Pakistani origin presently living in Canada who seriously needs to look at the examples of Nursi /Gulen and their Nurcu/Hizmet altruistic Madani like civil society apolitical movements. Dr. Qadri has had the best of background as a public intellectual and scholar combined with the resources of MQI (Minhaj-ul-Quran International founded by him in 1981, and by now as a global social organization with its presence in 90 countries of the world) to undertake the most important role as a fountain head of the desperately needed House of Wisdom (a tremendous think-tank) in Pakistan. This could become comparable to Nursi and Gulen and their recreated Madani like Turkish civil society. Shaykh-ul-Islam Qadri is best suited to recreate Pakistani Madani society needed in Pakistan today. However, his Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) is a serious contradiction in my opinion for him since he founded it in 1989 as a political party when he (as a scholarly genius in Islam) is to become a fountainhead of a civil society think tank rather than directly participating in day-to-day Politics. He will have to become an inspiration for youth, civil society and all political parties and their leadership to transform them being himself politically neutral.
The worldwide headquarters of Minhaj-ul-Quran International were inaugurated in 1987 and since have presence in about 90 countries worldwide. The stated objective of Minhaj-ul-Quran International in Europe and the West in general has been to create harmony in societies, between different cultural, ethnic and religious communities through social interaction, interfaith dialogue and spreading the messages of toleration, love and respect for others and the benefits of cultural integration. It is one of the faith-based organizations that have initiated East-West constructive interaction and dialogue.
Having moved to and now living in Canada since 2005, Dr. Qadri travels and lectures worldwide. Having heard enough in the West on terrorism, he made a tremendous contribution and wrote a 600-page fatwa in 2010, against terrorism, extremism and suicide bombings falsely having been linked to Islam since 9/11. He did an excellent job with this urgently needed fatwa on behalf of the Muslim world. The fatwa is a major reference work for a better understanding of Islam and its abhorrence to any terror done in the name of Islam anywhere in the world.
Dr. Qadri most importantly, at this point, needs to revisit his controversial views on apostasy and blasphemy laws in Pakistan since he now better understands interfaith and intra-faith issues pertaining to those controversial laws. These laws also have terribly incriminated, brutalized and exiled the Pakistani Muslim Ahmadiyya social and apolitical movement. This needs an urgent reconciliation, peace and harmony with our Ahmadi brethren and abolishment of those terrorizing laws against them and other minorities in Pakistan.
The details of Dr. Qadri’s political career in Pakistan prior to his immigration to Canada between 1978 and 1989 until 2004 are somewhat unclear and may be subject to some inaccuracies. In 1989, as stated above, he also had formed his own political party, the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT). He described it as a party that would strive to bring a ‘spiritual revolution’ (Roohani Inquilaab) in Pakistan, the evidence of which, I do not quite see in Pakistan in general yet but political parties are never ever meant for spiritual revolutions. However, there is a spiritual aspect to democracy that has been talked about by Allama Iqbal and Hoca-effendi Gulen.
Some of his critics described Dr. Qadri as a political charlatan who in the 1980s was close to PML-N chief, Nawaz Sharif, the man whose family in those days was a staunch supporter of military dictator, General Ziaul Haq. Dr. Qadri reportedly had a falling out with the Sharif brothers, the details of which are not available to me at this time. Possibly, he has had some closeness to General Ziaul Haq and had falling out with him also.
Dr. Qadri had then reportedly allied his political party with the left-leaning PPP during the 1990 election, but after facing difficulties with the political system in Pakistan, he almost vanished from the political scene. This is when he perhaps more seriously started to focus his efforts on MQI to expand into a global faith-based organization, creating civic institutions, welfare and charitable works.
Dr. Qadri reappeared on the political scene once again as a supporter of Pakistan’s last military dictator, General Pervez Musharraf, who had toppled the second PML-N government in 1999. Musharraf called himself an ‘enlightened moderate’, and wanted to bank on Dr. Qadri’s MQI/PAT to find a middle ground for his dictatorial autocracy between Zia’s radical Islam (Islamism) and his Turkophile Kemalist secularism. Dr. Qadri, reportedly had a falling out with Musharraf in 2004 when Musharraf chose PML-Q political party that was anti-PPP and anti-PML-N politicians over Dr. Qadri’s PAT to become his regime’s civilian expression.
Mixing religion (that is heavenly) and politics (that is earthly) as such and as radical political Islam is rapidly becoming a serious contradiction in Muslim countries in today’s age and as already clearly seen in the Muslim world historically. But if Dr. Qadri’s goal for Pakistan at this point is civic societal transformation through MQI to create a Madani like strong society without himself or his family involving into politics directly as that seems most likely to me an objective of his (except for his pre-occupations with the PAT), and as an urgent need for Pakistan at this point.
The PAT could and should be substituted by the PTI or must merge with it or any other political party in Pakistan to make political realm and civil society as totally independent/separate entities. Political parties must then be consistently inspired by MQI and Dr. Qadri (as a house of wisdom or think tank in modern terminology located in the public sphere) to help cleans the corrupt political system as a whole and the chronic deep state in Pakistan. This will also eliminate a conflict of interest that exists between heavenly MQI and earthly PAT.
Imran Khan, the charismatic former captain of the Pakistan cricket team and since 1996, the head of his center-right political party (the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf), has been lately a proponent of revolution of masses wanting to wipe out Pakistan’s ‘corrupt politics and system’ through a Tsunami.
Since 2010 he has been able to get a pretty decent number of urban middle-class youth on his side, and he has struggled to blunt accusations that had claimed him also (like the Shaykh) to be an ‘artificial construct of the military-establishment’ and being too soft on radical Islamists that have been haunting Pakistan for years now. Imran Khan has categorically refuted these allegations, but he has certainly reoriented his revolutionary rhetoric and now overtly states himself to be a democrat who still believes that real change in Pakistan could only come through the ballot box even if he has been further disappointed by the election commission’s failure to cleans the electoral process in Pakistan in recent elections.
In Pakistan, young followers of men like Imran Khan and Dr. Tahirul Qadri are more often than even last year are talking about emulating the peaceful and non-violent uprisings and help bring durable change. However, since 2008 Pakistan has been under an elected ruling coalition of center-left parties and an active parliament and a transition recently to PML-N mandate since the last May elections.
There is a hope with the Cricketer only if he will show more maturity and that is certainly to come from the strong civil societal backing and think tank /house of wisdom needed in Pakistan. It is understandable that some of his utterances have been so naive and silly that one could simply laugh at them. At times he is like the unguided one even if he is a guided missile generally. This also indicates the needed and urgent role of a Madani like society and a House of Wisdom as a backbone in the successful democratization and cleansing up of corruption in Pakistan. Many years ago when he had first joined politics, I had very briefly met him here in Detroit, Michigan and was not very impressed by him, despite him being an excellent cricketer. I had sensed a slight arrogance and more of naivety. Unfortunately, to this day, it is perhaps still the same. But I appreciate his tenacity, hard work, honesty and focus that he brings with enthusiasm for the better future of Pakistan.
But with the present crop of politicians, despite the Sharif brothers, Imran Khan perhaps stands taller for the future. I wish and hope he would get full support and backing of Dr. Qadri and, if possible, even Javed Ahmad Ghamidi’s as intellectuals and as needed transformers of Pakistani civil society as whole and the ones who would back up Imran khan as a practical politician to help do away with the corrupt system, including the deep state and the cancerous blasphemy/apostasy laws in Pakistan.
Since most political parties were created by the deep state in Pakistan, and politicians who have grown up in the present corrupt system and under tutelages of deep state establishment remain corrupt to the spinal cord. My biggest concern remains Pakistani ‘deep state’ bureaucracy and the failed system and as to how Pakistan’s shaky democracy even under (Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf in the future) PTI party will ever come to terms with the recent phenomenon of Dr. Qadri and the ever present bureaucratic set-up in Pakistan? How Shaykh ul-Islam with all his wisdom, scholarship, worldview and MQI will be of help being an inspiration and a house of wisdom for PTI or any well meaning political party in the future. Intellectuals and public scholars in the likes of Ghamidi /Qadri could be of tremendous and continuous help in transforming Pakistani society to Madani like that is bound to take time.
It took Turkey decades to overcome the “deep state” /Laicism and it has been only during the last decade that AKP (political party in power today) inspired by hizmet and allied with the strong Turkish civil society was eventually able to depoliticize the ‘deep State’ (the Turkish army) and change the radical secular political system. Turkey has had multiple military coups, as did Pakistan but whenever Turkish military coup overthrew the civilian government, it allowed continuation of electoral process for a new civilian government rather than military governing the country directly. The military establishment has had always remote control over the civilian government (a sham democracy but democratic process continuing never-the-less) until a decade ago.
In Pakistan, whenever a military coup came, the military ruled directly. Out of 67 years of Pakistan’s existence the military has directly ruled for over 30 years and to this day military has the remote control of politics, being the strongest and the richest institution in Pakistan. Military has been like the strongest political party in Pakistan and remains so even if civilian and corrupt mafia apparently has been controlling Pakistan through sham democracy. The remote control still remains in the hands of the military. Pakistan could remain a sham democracy for a long time unless a permanent change comes about to serve Pakistani masses without corrupt politicians and or military tutelage. This is bound to take time and sincere and combined effort by public intellectuals and genuine politicians. There are precedents for all this in Turkey and Indonesia for Pakistan to look at for learning purposes without cutting and pasting in Pakistan.
The Muslim Madani (civil) society ideals have been ignored over the centuries in the Muslim world. Such civil society ideals and practices were unheard of amongst the Greeks, Phoenicians and the other people of Mesopotamia and the region in the pre-Muslim era.
In the modern times, through Fetullah Gulen’s thought and practice, there has been a rebirth of new and strong Madani like society during our own age in Turkey. This has already demonstrated a civil society’s direct and positive relationship to today’s genuine democratic evolution. This approach to societal problem solving and the conceptions of ‘the public civic sphere’ are thus an extremely objective ways to understanding the contributions of the Hizmet type civil society Movement over the decades and the outcomes of human and societal transformational works in terms of modernization / democratization of Turkey presently, also being pursued by two large Indonesian vibrant movements and to be followed by other Muslim nations around the globe in the near future Insha-Allah.
This new Turkish civil society has multiple civic institutions, creating public awareness, superior education (cradle to grave), a golden generation spanning the global social arena not only serving the masses in Turkey but also all of humanity around the world). The volunteers of Hizmet movement are estimated presently to be over 10 millions and they have initiated a new renaissance not only in Turkey but also in the Muslim and rest of the world changing the radical secularism & Islamism to a softer secularization and enlightened moderate Islam compatible with universal values and pluralism.
The insightful and influential writings of Alexis de Tocqueville, Robert Putnam and Jürgen Habermas have been compatible with Fetullah Gulen’s thought and practice on the subject of strong civil society and its direct relationship to the genuine democracy in the modern times.
Shaykh ul Islam, in Pakistan, should not serve religion utilizing politics or vice versa as he must understand that the faith-based scholarship must reject top-down political approaches and focus on the individual and societal transformation with a vision of developing both the human and social/spiritual capital in the public sphere from the grassroots bottom-up approach (and that is what the Turkish public intellectuals did accomplish exactly without themselves involving in politics).
Pakistan still has serious ‘deep state ‘ establishment worries, as did Turkey until not too long ago. When Erdogan (of AKP new political party) came to power in 2002, he had worried initially about the deep state guardians claiming sole ownership of the Turkish Republic since its birth. He had feared that they (military and secular Kemalists) would never allow him to govern fairly and justly in the interest of the masses of Turkey. But, to his own and many others’ pleasant surprise, he has had, with civil society as a back-bone, pulled Turkey ever closer to actual democracy, opening up the economy and becoming a crucial and honest broker between the West and the East. In the eyes of many American and European leaders, Erdoğan fashioned Turkey into an indispensable and genuine democracy in a Muslim country, offering a potential example for Pakistan, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Saudi Arabia and many other nations. Erdoğan had even dared to surprise his countrymen by reassessing some of the painful chapters in Turkish history.
The politicians of a newer generation in Pakistan in the likes of Imran Khan and his PTI (Tehreek-e-Insaf) must have, in the future, a companion civil- social transformative bottom-up and grass-roots movement (guided and supported by enlightened Muslim scholars in the likes of Said Nursi/ Gulen and most likely Pakistani scholars and intellectuals like Javed Ahmad Ghamidi and Dr. Tahir-ul-Qadri) to really achieve successful outcomes in the coming decades and initiating the civil societal transformative process in the present time. Beyond Imran Khan as a politician with his PTI and Dr. Tahir-ul-Qadri and Javed Ahmad Ghamidi as civil society activists, public intellectuals, scholars with integrity and moral guidance, there are virtually no national politicians or intellectuals of substance and public reliability in Pakistan today. The sad thing is that we can’t create a new civilian political leadership overnight in the country, with 342 seats in the National Assembly, and 100 in the Senate, and the same in the provincial parliaments, we can’t find leadership in political and public arena, besides Imran Khan as a politician, and Javed Ahmad Ghamidi / Dr. Qadri, as a civil society transformers. And who could a prime minister or a president trustworthy enough is elected and is acceptable to the Public at this juncture? It is very unfortunate for Pakistan at this juncture indeed.
It is generally much easier for business leadership to (transition from needs and greed to conscious and distributive economics) learn and grow making a real difference in business——exercising self correcting mechanisms, higher purpose and equal consideration for all human beings for common good of masses. However, autocratic politicians comparing with conscious business leaders have worse ego motivation not unlike military dictators (who have held the masses back for so long in Pakistan). The political leaders must understand as to who elects them, who do they work for and they must learn to lead themselves to improve constantly and maintain their moral integrity in keeping with fairness and justice in their actions. All new generation political leadership everywhere in the world in the 21st century will have to undergo special training courses for them to qualify as new generation members of the new leadership paradigm from ‘I’’ to “ We “ and with moral integrity and higher level of consciousness than average. I hope all “deep state” structures and corrupt systems will be dissolved one day in the world including Pakistan.
A worse scenario for U. S. policy makers contemplating departure from Afghanistan in 2014—when over the past decades U.S. wrongly and heavily invested in Pakistan’s “deep State”. They had feared political Islamic revolution in Pakistan the chances of which have always been very slim when Islam and politics did not actually mix practically or successfully and historically in the Muslim world except for a rocky exception in Iran in recent history that has been slowly but surely undergoing reformation also.
A tide of anti-American public sentiments that has been accumulating over the years in the Muslim nations, including Pakistan can be reversed only through U. S. constructive commitment in the future to Pakistan’s public and State through U. S. administration’s changes in its own policy and righting its own wrongs in Pakistan, Af-Pak, region and around the globe.
The restoration of a constructive / genuine democratic process in Pakistan has to be the one that is self-owned by people, guarantees internal safety and stability, and has a friendly attitude towards, its neighbors, the Muslim world, the United States and all others. A viable multiparty pluralistic political system without nepotism, truly dedicated political leadership could defuse the power of the radical extremists and impose some checks /balances on a military that goes on controlling every aspect of policy and life in Pakistan. And it would leave the United States less dependent upon the whims of the generals answerable only to the clique at general headquarters.
Restoration of political freedoms is absolutely essential to Pakistan. Let the people of Pakistan be educated in their own rights and be organized, let them hold political rallies; let there be trade unions, student unions, even if the politicians may not like these unions. When we have mobilized and transformed the civil society genuinely as being suggested in this writing, we will have a true Pakistan, in the near future God-willing. The people of Pakistan will only then matter the most as the entrusted sovereignty truly belongs to them under the one and only Creator. If I were to suggest anything to president Obama today, anything about Pakistan, I would make my best recommendation for his support for the Pakistani army and political leadership contingent upon their being an integral part of the Public sphere and a singular state of Pakistan. The state with its strong civil society has to have total supremacy over the politicians and the military.
