3. The people of Pakistan

The future seems bleak, but only if we fail to look within.

Apart from the Greatest Power in Heaven, there is only one power on earth which can save us from what destruction may be in store for us. That power is the eighty percent illiterate or semi-literate people of Pakistan – most of whom live in villages. We, the educated ones, need to reach them and direct their energy and emotion to channels of peace and human rights as respected by the world. This seems to be a time when the educated middle class of Pakistan must become a bridge between the unschooled masses of Pakistan and the international community.

We still do not know it, but it seems that the common folk of Pakistan have already declared an alternate War on Terror – Pakistan’s War on Terror – which is fundamentally different from the other one.

This war was declared on February 18, 2008, when the people of Pakistan showed us the alternate approach through the polling stations. The election results, which represent the true will and vision of the people of Pakistan, clearly point to:

• Ballot, instead of bullet and nukes
• Consensus, instead of emotional blackmail
• Dignity, instead of a cry baby approach
• Vision of tomorrow, instead of the pain of yesterday

This may be a sign of that reality which we, the educated, have failed to see all along because we were too busy looking elsewhere. What we have failed to notice is that ever since the birth of Pakistan – in fact since a little before it – the unschooled masses have been consistently fighting their war of ballots against extremism and bigotry.

There have been two types of rulers in Pakistan. Those who were elected by the people of Pakistan (including the unschooled) were Jinnah, Liaquat Ali Khan, the two Bhuttos, Nawaz Sharif and now Iftikhar Gilani.

The other type of rulers were those who never got a clear mandate from the people but stayed in power mainly through support from abroad, i.e. America. They were Ghulam Muhammad, Iskander Mirza, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, General Yahya, General Zia and General Pervez Musharraf. For describing these rulers we may adopt the term “American Viceroys”, since they seem to have been indirectly nominated by the American government.

The phrase may seem harsh but we can see whether or not we are justified in using it. Under these rulers, Pakistan never had an independent foreign policy so that the degree of independence which Pakistan had under these rulers was not more than what had been granted even by the British in the India Act of 1935 when the country was a mere colony. Through these rulers, colonialism continued, although the overt colonialism of one Western power may have been replaced by a subtle subservience to another.

The American Viceroys, just like the British Viceroys before them, may have done many good things while our chosen leaders may also have committed mistakes just like others. Yet we must be very, very, clear about the fact that none of the actions of the Viceroys can be taken to reflect the will, sentiment or character of the people of Pakistan. Those rulers were the gifts of someone else.

At the same time we must also be very, very, clear that the responsibility for this second round of slavery, this alternate colonialism, does not fall on any foreign power because it wasn’t established at gunpoint. The responsibility falls entirely on us, the educated middle class of Pakistan. In the creation of this sophisticated colonialism we, the educated Pakistanis, were co-workers with any foreign power whom we may be accusing today. In fact, we may be guilty of seducing a foreign power into creating this new yarn. The new colonialism was imposed upon the people of our country because we, the educated Pakistanis, had stopped feeling confident about ourselves, and had developed an attitude of snobbery and racism against our own masses. Instead of explaining our case to the world we kept explaining the case of others against us, to our masses. When the masses rejected our sentimentalism we called them irrational and lacking in objectivity. We, the educated ones in Pakistan, have been speaking the language of the ARI against our own people all along.

Our primary responsibility, perhaps our only moral duty, was to speak up for our unschooled masses before the world community. We failed this duty and that was the primary reason why this alternate colonialism was imposed upon us.

Just as the people of Pakistan are entitled to taking pride for the achievements made in the eras of their chosen leaders, they may also take full responsibility for the wrongs that happened in those periods. It is appropriate that we should hold ourselves responsible for the Army action in Balochistan by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the extrajudicial killing of Murtaza Bhutto in 1996, the killing of an innocent civilian on the Mausoleum of Jinnah on the Golden Jubilee of Independence (!) in 1997, and so on. But the people of Pakistan are not responsible for the acts of Viceroys who were not of their choosing and were imposed upon them by the backing of a people who were stronger. The people of Pakistan are not responsible for the dissolution of the first Constituent Assembly, the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and so on. If the military, bureaucracy or judiciary was involved in such injustices then all those institutions are also run by the educated ones and consist mainly of them.

The difference between rulers chosen by the people of Pakistan and the rulers imposed upon them by foreign whim is very clear. Rulers elected by the people of Pakistan invariably had a forward-looking agenda: Jinnah, Liaquat, the two Bhuttos, Sharif and Gilani. That is, was and will be the choice of the people of Pakistan, the choice of the unschooled majority.

Not even by the wildest stretch of imagination can the unschooled of Pakistan be blamed for supporting bigotry and narrow-mindedness. Islam, as understood by the mainstream Pakistanis was substantially explained by Iqbal, Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan with the consensus of the people. All leaders elected by the people openly and explicitly supported, and subscribed, to this version of Islam. The other version, the extremist version, was supported by General Zia, who was an American Viceroy.

The people of Pakistan, therefore, have been supporting the cause of sanity and moderation all along. Now, interestingly, an adequate definition of their stance can be formed by the very word AAFIA, whose letters can be used as an acronym for Affirmative Action for Freedom and Independence of All. “Affirmative action”, we must remember, implies absolutely no violence and not even negative feelings about anyone. It implies a completely positive and pacifist mindset, and that has been the mindset of the people of Pakistan. In Arabic and related languages, Aafia means comprehensive safety, the kind which can only be received through God – the Ultimate Reality or the Whole Truth – and which vanishes if the Whole Truth is replaced by any number of half-truths.

Next: what we can do