Viewpoints Special Edition The Islamization of Pakistan, 1979-2009 The Middle East Institute Washington, DC Middle East Institute The mission of the Middle East Institute is to promote knowledge of the Middle East in Amer- ica and strengthen understanding of the United States by the people and governments of the region. For more than 60 years, MEI has dealt with the momentous events in the Middle East — from the birth of the state of Israel to the invasion of Iraq. Today, MEI is a foremost authority on contemporary Middle East issues. It pro- vides a vital forum for honest and open debate that attracts politicians, scholars, government officials, and policy experts from the US, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. MEI enjoys wide access to political and business leaders in countries throughout the region. 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To learn more about the Middle East Institute, visit our website at http://www.mei.edu Cover photos, clockwise from the top left hand corner: Government of Pakistan; Flickr user Kash_if; Flickr user Kash_if; Depart- ment of Defense; European Parliament; Flickr user Al Jazeera English; Flickr user groundreporter; Flickr user groundreporter. 2 The Middle East Institute Viewpoints: The Islamization of Pakistan, 1979-2009 • www.mei.edu Viewpoints Special Edition The Islamization of Pakistan, 1979-2009 The Middle East Institute Viewpoints: The Islamization of Pakistan, 1979-2009 • www.mei.edu 3 Viewpoints: 1979 T he year 1979 was among the most tumultuous, and important, in the history of the modern Middle East. The Middle East Institute is marking the 30th anniversary of these events in 2009 by launching a year-long special series of our acclaimed publication, Viewpoints, which offers perspectives on these events and the influence that they continue to exert on the region today. Each special issue of Viewpoints will combine the diverse commentaries of policymakers and scholars from around the world with a robust complement of statistics, maps, and bibliographic information in order to encourage and facilitate further research. Each special issue will be available, free of charge, on our website, www.mei. edu. February March July Viewpoints: The Iranian Revolution Viewpoints: The Egyptian-Israeli Viewpoints: Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s Peace Treaty Fall and Pakistan’s New Direction August November December Viewpoints: Oil Shock Viewpoints: The Seizure of the Viewpoints: The Soviet Invasion of Great Mosque Afghanistan Don’t miss an issue! Be sure to bookmark www.mei.edu today. 4 The Middle East Institute Viewpoints: The Islamization of Pakistan, 1979-2009 • www.mei.edu The Islamization of Pakistan, 1979-2009 A Special Edition of Viewpoints Introduction 7 I. Origins and Consequences of Pakistan’s Multiple Crises Post-1979 Pakistan: What Went Wrong?, by Touqir Hussain 9 Pakistan’s Reverse Revolution, by Imtiaz Gul 12 Pakistan: Reclaiming the Founding Moment, by Suroosh Irfani 15 II. Debating Pakistan’s Muslim Identity Reclaiming Pakistan’s Pacifist Religious Creed, by Ishtiaq Ahmad 19 Moving beyond “Islamic,” by Aasim Sajjad Akhtar 22 The Islamization of Pakistan’s Educational System: 1979-1989 by Nasim Ashraf 25 Jamaat-e Islami, by Farhat Haq 28 The Legacy of Bhutto and Zia’s Contending Visions and Security Policies, by Lawrence Ziring 31 III. Domestic Concerns, Regional Implications Imperialism, Extremism, and the Withering State, by Imran Ali 36 Upheaval in West and South Asia: Public Opinion in Pakistan, by Ijaz Shafi Gilani 39 The Middle East Institute Viewpoints: The Islamization of Pakistan, 1979-2009 • www.mei.edu 5 Pakistan’s Non-Proliferation Policy, by Zulfqar Khan 48 Thirty Years after 1979: Is Pakistan Changing Its Strategic Paradigm? by Jean-Luc Racine 54 IV. Women and Minorities The Pakistani Shi‘a, by Hassan Abbas 58 Sindh’s Ethnic Predicament and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), by Moonis Ahmar 61 Baluchistan: A Hotbed for Insurgency, by Syed Farooq Hasnat 64 Sectarianism in Pakistan: A Profile of Sipah-e Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), 67 by Tahir Kamran Decades of Disaster: Islamization and the Women of Pakistan, by Rubina Saigol 71 Women’s Rights in Pakistan, by Anita M. Weiss 74 Maps 78 Statistics Demographics 88 Economy 92 Education, Gender, and Technology 95 From the Pages of The Middle East Journal’s “Chronology:” Pakistan in 1979 98 Selected Bibliography 108 6 The Middle East Institute Viewpoints: The Islamization of Pakistan, 1979-2009 • www.mei.edu Introduction S ince 2007, Pakistan, though not on the verge of becoming a failed state, nonetheless has been gripped by a series of interrelated crises. As the contributors to this volume demonstrate, Pakistan’s current travails have deep and tangled historical roots. They also demonstrate that Pakistan’s domestic situation historically has been influenced by, and has affected developments in neighboring countries as well as those farther afield. The origins of many of Pakistan’s troubles today lie not just in the circumstances in which the state of Pakistan emerged, but in the manner in which various domestic political forces have defined and sought to advance their competing vi- sions of the state since independence. Over the years, successive national political leaders, the military, and other actors have appropriated the symbols, institutions, tools of statecraft, and even the rhetoric of Pakistan’s founding father, Mu- hammad Ali Jinnah, in order to advance their own narrow agendas. As the contributors emphasize, much of the present turmoil in Pakistan dates from the late 1970s, when the rise to power of General Zia ul Haq and his Islamization program intersected with the momentous events of 1979, most im- portantly, the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The 18 essays comprising this volume examine the tight interplay between these domestic and regional factors, discuss the key domestic and foreign policies adopted during the Zia years, and disclose the heavy cost that Pakistan and its people have borne as a consequence. Taken together, the essays present a grim, tragic account of the past 30 years — of a country’s founding creed violated, much of its resources misspent, and its social fabric rent. And they suggest an uncertain future. At the same time, however, they point hopefully, if not confidently, to what Pakistan’s fragile civilian government must seek to reclaim and can achieve — provided that its leaders prove to be moderate, resourceful, and determined, and that the West (especially the United States) implements policies which support rather than undermine them. In his Eid-ul-Azha Message to the Nation on October 24, 1947, Muhammad Ali Jinnah declared: “My message to you all is of hope, courage and confidence. Let us mobilize all our resources in a systematic and organized way and tackle the grave issues that confront us with grim determination and discipline worthy of a great nation.” More than a half-century has elapsed since Jinnah made this statement, yet the issues facing Pakistan are no less grave. One hopes that the current and next generation of Jinnah’s successors, together with Pakistan’s friends will be able to summon the necessary will and bolster the state’s capacity to deal with these issues effectively. The Middle East Institute Viewpoints: The Islamization of Pakistan, 1979-2009 • www.mei.edu 7 I. Origins and Consequences of Pakistan’s Multiple Crises 8 The Middle East Institute Viewpoints: The Islamization of Pakistan, 1979-2009 • www.mei.edu Post-1979 Pakistan: What Went Wrong? Touqir Hussain N o single year has reflected and effected more significant changes in the Islamic world than 1979. Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran were epicenters as well as tributaries, and confluences of the history-making events of that year. The year began with the Iranian Revolution, which immediately changed the strategic landscape not only of the Persian Gulf but also of the entire Middle East. In April 1979 in Pakistan, an elected Prime Minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was executed by a military dictator, Zia ul-Haq, laying the foundation for an 11-year army rule that, on the one Touqir Hussain is a former hand, unleashed the army’s overweaning political and strategic ambitions and, on the senior diplomat from Paki- other, set in motion the process of the Islamization of the country. The two merged as stan who has served as Am- part of a religiously denominated national security doctrine that turned Pakistan’s re- bassador to Brazil, Spain, gional policy into a jihad. and Japan. He also held se- nior positions in the Pakistani Foreign Office, including that In November 1979, the holy sites in Mecca were occupied by an anti-monarchy group. of Additional Foreign Secre- False rumors that American forces had entered these sites to help Saudis end the siege tary, heading the bureaus of the Middle East and of the led to the burning of the US Embassy in Islamabad and the start of a wave of anti- Americas and Europe. From Americanism in Pakistan that already had been incited by US-Pakistan tensions over 1996 to 1998, he was the the nuclear issue and the Iranian Revolution. The same month saw the beginning of Diplomatic Adviser to the the American hostage crisis in Tehran, unfolding three decades of Iranian-US tensions Prime Minister. Additionally, he was a Senior Fellow at the and feeding anti-Americanism in the entire Islamic world. Pakistani and Iranian anti- US Institute of Peace in 2004- Americanism came to reinforce each other, providing the nucleus of a broader senti- 5, and subsequently has been ment against the US in the Islamic world. Pakistan embarked on a national vision that a Research Fellow at the George Washington Univer- made it vulnerable to political Islam. sity and an Adjunct Profes- sor at Georgetown University The year’s most consequential event occurred in December, when Soviet forces invaded and the University of Vir- Afghanistan. The US-led jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, assisted by Pakistan ginia. under the military rule of Zia ul-Haq, laid the foundation of an extremist religious infrastructure that not only served US strategic interests but also helped other Islamic countries and fueled especially the Saudi-Iranian rivalry. The forces unleashed by these actions had a horrendously adverse impact on the region and on US and global secu- rity. General Zia had begun to give new meaning to the concepts of war, conflict, and jihad. Jihad no longer remained defensive, but became an offensive war. Thus during Zia’s time was born Pakistani-style jihadist Islam, spawning a whole generation of militants. The The Middle East Institute Viewpoints: The Islamization of Pakistan, 1979-2009 • www.mei.edu 9 Hussain... army became its major stakeholder. Indeed, many personal ambitions also came to find focus on it. Understandable security concerns were inflated by the army’s political ambitions and institutional pride, making rivalry and competi- tion with India an end in and of itself. A powerful army began feeding on a weak and insecure state and, of course, on US aid. The Pakistani army began parading new pretensions of being an army of Islam, bringing under its banner a new breed of military adventurers and Islamic revolutionaries, including some of the former heads of Pakistan’s intelligence agen- cy, the ISI. First Afghanistan and then Pakistan became the home of this radicalism, which began searching for new targets within and beyond the [S]ecurity concerns were inflated by the army’s po- region. litical ambitions and in- stitutional pride, making The army, especially the ISI, enhanced its potential to find new targets dur- rivalry and competition ing the jihad against the Soviets in the 1980s. Following their victory over with India an end in and the Soviets, the Americans had left behind a broken Afghanistan, a restive of itself. A powerful army jihad, and an embittered Pakistan — abandoned and sanctioned for its nu- began feeding on a weak clear program in October 1990. and insecure state and, of course, on US aid. Isolated and suffused with anti-Americanism, Pakistan was left to its own devices. The national purpose yielded to illusions, emotions, and a passion for dangerous causes. The army and the jihad found easy targets of oppor- tunity and new causes — Kashmir and then the Taliban. In the process, both Afghanistan and Pakistan played havoc with each other, in the end becoming tributaries and confluences of extremist influences. During the so-called “decade of democracy” in the 1990s, Pakistan’s leading politicians played along by outbidding each other in their commitment to Islam and support for the army’s ambitions. Islam, which always had been important to Pakistan’s national identity, became populist. And populist and political Islam began beating to the rhythm of global Islamic revivalism, whose focus was on anti-Americanism. This national vision, embraced by years of authoritarian rule and deformed democracy, led to a weak institutional ar- chitecture that collided with the crosscurrents of sectarian, ethno-linguistic, and other domestic tensions, opening up Pakistan to instability. As institutions crumbled and became adjuncts to centers of power, the rule of law and social stability were degraded and preyed on by the forces of extremism. The state lacked the political will, moral authority, and effective instruments of law and order. The worst affected were the weak and vulnerable strata of society who, lacking physical and economic security, could do no more than despair and contemplate extreme and illusory avenues to empowerment, including radical Islamism. 10 The Middle East Institute Viewpoints: The Islamization of Pakistan, 1979-2009 • www.mei.edu