But no amount of protestations on our part is going to convince those on both sides who want a clash now that there is a moderate and decent element in Islam. So yes we need a jihad for self-defense. The question that we need to face is “how should such a war be conducted?”
For an answer to this question, let us review why so many Muslim women and children have been killed in the last 10 years without the world even shedding a minor tear? The two- part answer is obvious and staring us in the face.
- First, every Muslim, no matter how moderate and progressive or how fundamentalist and religious, agrees on this answer: “Because the media is so biased against Muslims and Muslim countries.” But this begs the question “why is the media so biased?” It seems to me, the answer lies in academia--universities and think tanks—where opinions are formed and biases can be well hidden in academic garb. Opinions are formed through academic networking of conferences and publications. Communities of the Muslims who have limited or no representation cannot participate in this opinion forming debate.
- Second, Muslims have no technology and are sitting ducks to be attacked with impunity. Muslims, who contributed to the invention of science, have lost it.
Fundamentalists as well as the enemies of Islam have something in common. They want us to continue to think that extremists lead Islam with the concept of Jihad being the placement of young committed Muslim men and boys, armed only with stones, in from of Israeli tanks and American F16s.
We should reject this notion of jihad and revive the spirit of Iqbal and Sir Syed. Osama bin Laden and the Saudis have spent billions of dollars in conducting an unintelligent jihad to blow up the World trade center and create a generation of ignorant fundamentalists who do not know the true meaning of Islam nor are they capable of engaging in a meaningful media discussion. The biased media loves them for they perpetuate the caricature.
Build Universities and Media in Islamic countries
What a pity that not a single Muslim country despite trillions of dollars or oil money has even attempted to create one modern university to rival Harvard and Tel-Aviv in the Muslim world! Can all the money in the world not create an alternative to CNN or BBC, which will present an unbiased view of the world? Tom Friedman ably represents Israel in an unbiased garb. Can we create an Islamic counterpart?
Like Lennon, imagine a world where there are great universities in say Libya, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Indonesia. These universities are conducting not only basic research but debating the concepts of modern society and refining for us the true meaning of Islam. Not only would Islam have technology to defend itself, it would also have competent people to negotiate with the west as equals. Imagine American kids applying to these universities and coming to study there as our kids today go there. We would have a greater understanding and respect for each other.
Imagine also, that there was a Muslin Rupert Murdoch capable of establishing a media presence. Would the BBC and CNN then be able to relegate the plight of the Afghan refugees or Iraqi sanctions, or the shabby treatment of Jack Straw at the hands of Sharon, to a footnote? Would we then so easily forget Sabra and Shatila?
Unfortunately, the world is full of shattered dreams and dreamers like Lennon are gone. Those with money in the Muslim world, lack even the wherewithal to read articles like this. The West too will not allow such institutional development on the part of the Islamic world. They are prepared to risk increased terrorism but counterpart development appears to be not desirable. For example note that BCCI was closed down for far lesser crimes than those that have been committed by respectable Swiss banks through history. I do think that Abedi and his clique through their mismanagement, nepotism and personal aggrandizement and would have probably driven BCCI into bankruptcy. But the point is that BCCI was not given the opportunity to survive like Barings and LTCM to name a few financially mismanaged organizations that were not closed down by regulators. Now an emerging Muslim television station, Al Jazeera is being targeted merely for presenting an alternative point of view! And I believe in the American ideal of free speech and free enterprise!
As a moderate Muslim who would like to see a peaceful, democratic and free world, I urge the Americans to give us the space as well as the technical resources to allow the Muslim countries to develop a free and independent Media as well as learning and financial institutions and to let these institutions too have global reach. Al-jazeera and BCCI should be allowed to exist and flourish! Let them die of a bankruptcy if they are poorly managed but certainly not through administrative fiat!
I hope that our Arab brethren with the money too will awaken to this need to develop key institutions like modern universities instead of investing only in European real estate. Only then will we allow educated and moderate Muslims define a better jihad directed towards building Muslim societies. We will then be able to move the conflict to academic networking and media conferences and the negotiating table. We can then move towards eliminating the conflict rather than the current strategy of eliminating women and children!
The Real Jihad continued: Defining Islamic liberty!
If educated Muslims do not define Jihad in a reasonably modern and moderate way, the conservative elements will hijack it again. I was therefore glad that President Musharaf talked about the Real Jihad, a subject about which I had been writing recently, in an interview in the US.
If President Musharaf is serious about building a strong Pakistan, he has to truly make it a free Pakistan. The strength of our country should lie in the maximum freedom that it gives its citizens. That freedom will also show the strength of our faith in Islam when given a free choice we rationally and truly build Islam in our hearts. The current ignorant Mullah led Islam which builds a coercive non-thinking society is truly a disrespect to our great religion and its glorious history.
We keep hearing of a constitutional change but then we get the same old ideas coming back in a new package. At best we will get a crude version of local government where we get a Nazim supplementing the British colonial structures. We have tried the union councils, basic democracies that were similar to the Nazim system and got nothing. Now we get that every candidate must be a BA. Then there is talk of Junejoisation where the army midwifes democracy with a handful of so-called “technocrats” i.e., people who some decades ago obtained an education and gave up reading since then since they have been in search of power.
None of this will work!
If we want a better solution, let us be bold and innovative. Let us also learn from the rest of the world. But then who reads when they are in power? Where are the researchers? The cheap method of holding a seminar with the usual faces at the NDC has only produced martial laws, incoherent reform agendas, and little debate or fresh thinking.
Many of us write but who reads? They also accuse those of us who read of being too intellectual! Not practical!
Unfortunately, reading major thinkers provides the answers. I wish some of our leaders would find time to read and think.
Liberty
The first question that we Pakistanis must face is “what measure of liberty are we going to give our citizens?” The philosopher of freedom, Frederich Hayek who won the Nobel Prize for economics argued that the first issue that any civilized society must confront is that of liberty. He noted, “Freedom can be preserved only if it is treated as a supreme principle which must not be sacrificed for particular advantages.”
Hayek was very clear that liberty was not to be given by any government but ingrained in human being. Liberty should not have to seek permission. Instead we should all have freedom to do with our lives as we please. Thus Hayek wrote his famous Constitution of Liberty that argues that the constitution must define the limits of the government very clearly. This means that government should not claim the monopoly on the licensing of economic and social activity and require any person to take permission to say start a magazine or a TV station or any other business for that matter.
Liberty is something that all Pakistanis deserve. Our ancestors fought for it. Liberty is what will being out our excellence and safeguard us. It is very sad that none of our constitutional discussions begin with a well-defined concept of “liberty.”
We must give full recognition that every Pakistani citizen deserves at least as much liberty as any European or American takes for granted. This means that we must be free to conduct our business of living in any way we choose to define it free of government or clerical interference. Should we take this principle to be acceptable, the so-called Islamic legislation that Zia put in place should be repealed because it restricts my choice by limiting me to thinking of the Mullahs without any Ijtehad that will allow the educated Muslims to participate.
To me, Islam is a religion of liberty since it gives me more freedom than most religions by enjoining me with the simplest of principles. It also hands us democracy (ijtehad) for legislation.
To truly put enshrine liberty in Pakistan there are 4 initiatives that the government must adopt.
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Remove conservative Islam from policy and accept modernization and progress as the truly spiritual Islam. I know there are those who will caution a slow and hesitant approach to placate the lobbies of conservative Islam. But now that Sep 11 and the subsequent disgraceful rout of the Jihadis has brought so much shame on us, we can and should face them and not accept their sad and distorted version of Islam. This would mean allowing questioning and debate, shedding form only and removing all legislation and coercion on individual freedom, women and minorities. Currently, the state has allowed the mullah to dominate all public for a. let us take the mike and public for a away from the mullah and allow learned people in and we will develop a new foundation for Islam based on Iqbal and Sir Syed.
- Perhaps, we can even adopt a bill of rights!
- Can we separate religion from politics i.e., allow no party to come in on an Islamic platform or even with an Islamic name?
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Remove the heavy state domination of our economy. Pakistan's economy has been hampered by heavy state involvement ever since the country gained its independence from Great Britain in 1947.According to the U.S. Trade Representative, "The Pakistan is generally characterized by complexity, broad bureaucratic discretionary powers, and very limited transparency.” Do away with bureaucracy and allow people room to breath.
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Develop governance systems that build institutions that strengthen individual rights in classic liberal traditions. According to the U.S. Department of State, "The suspended Constitution provided for an independent judiciary; however, the judiciary was subject to executive branch and other outside influences, and suffers from inadequate resources, inefficiency and corruption." Each individual Pakistani must be a productive and capable individual if we are to be a strong state. That will only happen if the constitution has adequate checks and balances and governance and bureaucracy enough transparency to give us the freedom to do our thing. We must not again allow uneducated mullahs, stupid ISI officials, and poor quality foreign office personnel to secretly hijack our state into poverty and ignominy.
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Build education everywhere out of reach of the mullahs and the education department. If there is one recommendation that scholar would give Musharaf, it is this. The biggest barrier to education is the education department. Like soldiers and not bureaucrats can only fight wars, academics and not bureaucrats too can only build education.
- Can we separate education and Islam? Fundamentalist sponsored student groups should not be allowed to take over campuses!
I know in our country, people rush off to do things randomly without accepting conceptual principles. But I hope some one is there to counsel the general that adoption of such guiding principles is going to be important to change the Pakistani state.
