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Showing posts from December, 2014

Proposal for a High Level Commission for Understanding Extremism and terrorism

High Level Commission on Understanding the roots of fundamentalism and Terrorism Terrorism has been growing over the last decade or more and has now with the Peshawar incident reached levels where there is a broad consensus that it represents an existential threat to Pakistan. The roots of terrorism largely lie in growing fundamentalism in society.   Over the years, Madrassas have mushroomed, sectarianism has increased, and radical mullahs have appeared on the pulpit as well as the media to shift the national discourse increasingly toward a narrower definition of Pakistan and Islam. Pakistan’s centrality to global and regional conflicts has also fueled fundamentalism, involved the country to the war on terror and weakened the state. Continued aid and oil dependence too has on occasion forced Pakistan to align itself with radial views on Islam.   Meanwhile, political instability, weak governments and long standing fiscal difficulties have weakened state capacity to the poin

The Maulvi is a bureaucrat; Why Treat him Differently?

If a system such as this is developed, it will soon fall in sync with the aspirations of us ordinary Muslims who find no incompatibility between our faith and the modern world. If the government is serious about eradicating fundamentalism, it must give incentive to the maulvi. This is how it works. For the last four or five decades, global and local forces have offered all manner of incentives to the maulvi to develop a radical and fundamentalist version of Islam. Now if we want the maulvi to change, a new system of incentives has to be developed. The government is regulating every market and profession except the mosque and the maulvi. The maulvi continues to operate freely and frequently not in the interest of the public. The possibility of a foreign hand manipulating the maulvi is always under popular consideration. Fundamentalism has been fuelled mainly because this whole mosque-maulvi enterprise is being led by the unenlightened and they are easy to manipulate by forces tha

Understanding the APC

So we had an APC in Peshawar to deal with the terrible tragedy of the school attack. And by the commentary following the APC it was largely successful especially for the incumbent government. Nawaz Sharif who has not looked like a Prime Minister for months now especially after the Dharna looked quite content and Prime Ministerial. “The refrain of Parliament is the forum for dealing with state affairs” used often in the Dharna was forgotten and the APC was used to get Imran Khan into a room and use that occasion to develop the image of a “Prime Minister in charge.” Why not Parliament now? Who was invited and why? Do they have security clearance? How were they chosen?The photograph of the APC shows that these questions were not clearly considered. It was left up to parties and indeed the clever people to wheedle their way in to photo ops to be seated at the table. How was the meeting conducted? What kind of discussion took place? Was their a briefing by the Interio