Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Cosmetic changes?

By Amy Waldman

While the anti-mannequin campaign and other such moves in NWFP might suggest that Talibanisation of Pakistan is under way, many say these really amount to window-dressing.

JOBS HERE remain few, health care is a mess, education a shambles, and the Government is in debt. But the people of the North-West Frontier Province can rest easy: store mannequins are now outlawed as obscene.

Just before the New Year in Peshawar, the provincial capital, storekeepers were putting away mannequins and large advertising posters displaying women's faces, complying with a January 1 deadline. It was the latest initiative of the provincial government, which is controlled by a hard-line Islamist coalition, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal. While it might suggest that the Talibanisation of Pakistan is under way, many say it really amounts to window-dressing.

It has been a year since the coalition took power, riding a wave of anger among Pashtuns opposed to the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf's support for the American campaign against terrorism and disenchanted with the secular parties. The coalition declared that it would impose strict Islamic law. But it has moved more slowly than expected — and often has had to back-pedal. It has also found governing to be difficult, its officials concede.

"It is very difficult to be at the helm of affairs," said Inayatullah, the provincial Health Minister and a member of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a decades-old Islamic political movement and coalition member. A World Bank official offered another assessment: Despite the province's image as a backwater, it was the site of a battle between the Islamists and modernisers. ``We are optimistic that the modernising part of society — with some help over time from the international community — can get the upper hand," the official said.

On the surface, those wanting to turn back the clock have had their way. The Government quickly banned alcohol and playing music in public transport, and in June, the Provincial Assembly passed legislation requiring provincial laws to follow Islamic law, or the Shariah.

Alcohol, however, was already forbidden, as was the music, although enforcement has become stricter. And Pakistan's Constitution already recognises the supremacy of Islamic law. But committees to bring education, the judiciary and the economy in line with the Shariah have made little progress.

The Government has had to retreat on a plan to put an ombudsman in every district to settle disputes and regulate public morality. A ban on Western trousers in schools has been little enforced, mostly because of resistance from schools. And although the Government closed the town's two bars, which had served foreigners, alcohol and hypocrisy continue to flow in great quantity.

Store-owners seem unfazed by the anti-mannequin campaign. ``We don't worship those mannequins; they're lifeless things,'' said Karam Elahi, who owns a dress shop. Most shopkeepers complied because they feared, not the police but, the vigilantes loyal to the coalition. For the past few years, stick-wielding vigilantes have roamed the city, ensuring no parties took place.

Earlier this year, the vigilantes rampaged through town, tearing down and defacing billboards with women on them while the police stood by. Now the police have taken on the dirty work themselves rather than have their authority usurped. The transformation of this province into an Islamic welfare state, which would provide economic and social justice, has proved more difficult. The province's economy is in dire straits, with little industry and hardscrabble agriculture. The Chief Minister and other Government officials made so many promises to various constituencies last year that the annual development plan ended the year at three times its annual budget. It is now having to "rationalise" — meaning back out of — many of those promises.

The World Bank has yet to agree to the second of three $90 million credits, although it says the governing of the province is improving. An official said the Government's priorities were sensible, its public stance supportive of women's rights. The Asian Development Bank has at least 15 operations here, worth a total of $400 million, assistance the provincial government is eager to retain.

That does not mean the Islamists have not put down long-term roots. Both of the main coalition parties, in a major reshuffling when they took power, have used the bureaucracy to reward supporters. They are also building women's educational and medical institutions to address what they say are cultural concerns among conservative Pashtuns. But some worry that the long-term goal is segregation of women from men.

Jamaat, a party of professionals — doctors, teachers, the military and engineers — structured much like the communist party, is especially smart, by many accounts. Many members already were in government jobs, and it has skilfully moved in more. That has caused some to worry, given the party's long-term vision of institutionalising theocracy.

The other main coalition partner, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, led by Maulana Fazlur Rehman, a prominent cleric, in contrast, has come mostly out of the Islamic schools, or madrasas, and most members are new to government.

A senior Pakistani official in Islamabad said that Gen. Musharraf and his allies, who were surprised by the coalition's electoral success, felt that the best way to undermine the Islamists was to "let them misgovern for another four years." — New York Times News Service

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