International
Musharraf speech captivates the West
By Kesava Menon
MANAMA JAN. 15. With his land-mark speech of January 12, Pakistan's President, Pervez Musharraf, has probably positioned himself as the kind of leader in the Muslim world that the West has been desperately looking for.
Others whom the West had counted upon in the past had not completely delivered in the struggle against political Islam and in his pronouncements at least the Pakistan leader has gone further than any of his contemporaries in the Muslim world.
Given the international circumstances Gen. Musharraf has probably contrived a value-addition for himself and his country that will have to be taken note of.
Other leaders of the Arab and Muslim world of West Asia and North Africa already implement some of the policies that Gen. Musharraf spelt out in his speech of last Saturday.
The running of mosques and other institutions like the madrassas and charities are regulated and the contents of Friday sermons closely scrutinized.
Those who preach a fiery political line are given short shrift especially when such speeches challenge the regime's authority or the conduct of its international relations. These governments have all been effective in preventing cross-border terrorism by extremists of either religious or nationalist varieties with the Palestinian Authority being the sole exception. What then adds to Gen. Musharraf's allure.
The pure fact that he has chosen to verbally take on political Islam and has sought to fixate how Islam and its institutions should fit in with the requirements of a modern society.
Most of the other leaders of West Asia and North Africa have dealt with political Islam administratively and through their security agencies and have in almost all cases done so very effectively.
But almost none of the current leaders in the Muslim world have articulated a political challenge to political Islam-to question the slogan ``Islam is the solution''-in such comprehensive and open fashion.
Malaysia's Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohammed, while addressing the OIC summit in Casablanca in 1994, did articulate views very similar to those Gen. Musharraf expressed on Saturday. But this was in a closed door session at which he was talking mainly to other leaders who think like him.
It was probably the fault of the press that Dr. Mohammed's speech did not get the publicity it deserved. Nevertheless the Malaysian leader too had not put out in the open an intellectual
challenge to the proponents of political Islam. What Gen. Musharraf has done is to ask the proponents of political Islam what they have done for their religion or the Muslim people through their sloganeering and their extremist tactics.
Turkey's armed forces have been the most effective in ensuring that political Islam does not go beyond a threshold in its growth.
Since Turkey is also a secular republic its establishment probably feels that they will be needlessly legitimizing political Islam if they talk to its proponents in language they can understand. But most of the other leaders of the Arab and Muslim world-whether President's Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria,
Zinel Abedine Ben Ali of Tunisia-have incorporated bits of Islamic symbolism into their political architecture while dealing ruthlessly on the administrative front. But they have not intellectually or politically addressed the Islamist view that since religion covers all aspects of life the theologian should have the final say in social and political life.
The government of India and the majority of people in the country have reason to be skeptical about the Pakistan President's pronouncements. So far the West has gone along with the view that the Pakistan President must deliver on his promises and the position he has taken before they will issue a clear certificate.
But they are also desperate for a Muslim leader whom they can uphold as the model before the rest of his co-religionists.
In their desperation to get Pakistan's assistance against the Taleban the West very swiftly forgot that they had to make Pakistan face a tough choice before it delivered. A similar memory lapse ought not be ruled out this time either.
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
International
|
