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GUEST CO-HOST: Hamid Khan, Executive Director of the South Asian Network

A suicide bomber blew himself up today outside a Lahore High Court in Pakistan, killing at least 22 people and wounding more than 70. The incident is the latest in a wave of violence to hit the country ahead of Parliamentary elections on February 18th. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Benazir’s heir to the leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party, warned this week that his country may fall apart if the upcoming Parliamentary elections were rigged. The 19 year old has conceded defacto leadership of the party to his father, Asif Zardari. Pakistan’s political future indeed appears extremely uncertain, with incumbent dictator, Pervez Musharraf being pressured by Washington as well as domestic religious fundamentalist forces. His government has rounded up thousands of people, particularly from the pro-Bhutto Sindh region, accusing them of arson, looting, and murder in the days following Bhutto’s December 27th assassination.

Pakistan has long been the US’s main Asian ally in the “war on terror.” Washington was fervently backing an alliance between Bhutto and Musharraf to lead the country. Earlier in the week, the New York Times reported that “a little-known, enigmatic Pakistani general” named Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has emerged as a viable future leader. Kayani, a “pro-Western moderate,” is Musharraf’s protégé and now commands the army after Musharraf resigned the post late last year. Sunday’s edition of the New York Times reported that advisors to President Bush are debating whether to increase CIA and military aggressive covert operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

GUESTS: Professor Tayyab Mahmud, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development and Professor of Law Seattle University School of Law,

and Farhat Haq, teaches at Monmouth College and has written on issues of political Islam, women and Islam and contemporary Pakistani Politics

Rough Transcript:

Sonali Kolhatkar: Today, we spend the hour focusing on Pakistan with three special guests. I’m pleased to introduce my guest co-host for the hour, well-known local activist and Executive Director of the South Asian Network, Hamid Khan. Welcome, Hamid.

Hamid Khan: Thank you, Sonali, and it’s an honor and a pleasure to be sharing this space with you. Sonali, as you mentioned, that Pakistan’s place in U.S. foreign policy and as a frontline state on the war on terror, this is such a timely issue that we should be discussing it. But, in order for us to better understand, I think it may be helpful for the listeners to get a little bit of taste of history as to the relationships between the United States and Pakistan – why it continues to be a frontline state. If folks remember their history, back in 1962, a spy plane, the U-2 with Gary Powers, the pilot that was exchanged in East Germany, was shot down over the Soviet Union, which led to this firestorm and this whole battle between Kruschev and Kennedy. Well, that U-2 airplane took off from an air base near Peshawar, which is at the hub, right now, of the Northwest Frontier province and all the conflicts that are going on. Now, fast forward that to the eighties where Ronald Reagan brought in the Mujahadeens from Afghanistan at that time in 1985 to the White House and introduced them as the moral equivalents of our founding fathers. And then, the saga continues. So, I think with Benazir’s assassination and in light of the recent events, it’s extremely critical that we should be discussing this thing. You have three major news outlets – Newsweek, Time Magazine and The Economist – as recent as January 5th, declaring Pakistan on their cover as the most dangerous place in the world. And, it is so reminiscent of what we remember back before Desert Storm where Saddam Hussein was declared by all three magazines as the most dangerous man in the world as well. So, should we be expecting a carpet-bombing raid on Pakistan? Should we be expecting more and more sabotage of the policies? So I think it’s really critical that we should be discussing that. So, we have today three guests from around the country to give us a flavor of their thoughts and what they feel is going on. The first guest is Professor Tayyab Mahmud. He is the Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development and Professor of Law at the Seattle University School of Law. Tayyab teaches Civil and Economic Rights. He has been published extensively in the areas of Comparative Constitutional Law and his current research is focused on Extra-Constitutional Usurption and Exercise of Power in Post-Colonial States.

S.K.: And, also on the line with us is Sajjad Burki. He is the President of PACT, which stands for the Pakistan American Council of Texas. He also represents the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf, which has been actively involved in the politics of Pakistan. He is also currently a member of The Houston Mayor’s Advisory Committee on International Affairs.

H.K: And then we have Professor Farhat Haq. She’s a Pakistani-American who has been teaching at Monmouth College in Illinois for the past 19 years and has written on issues of political Islam, women and Islam in Contemporary Pakistani Politics. And for the past five years Professor Haq has been teaching as a visiting professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. So welcome to our guests.

S.K: Thank you all three of you for joining us today. I’d like to address the first question broadly to all three of you starting with Professor Tayyab Mahmud, which is the obvious one today, which is how does Benazir Bhutto’s assassination affect Pakistan’s relationship to the U.S., in your opinion, Professor Mahmud?

Prof. Tayyab Mahmud: Well, in a variety of ways. Let me first also say that it’s this very tragic event. The added tragic element is that it takes an event like that for the world to focus on problems, which have been festering for far too long. The way it impacts is first and foremost because it impacts the polity of Pakistan itself which is undergoing an unstable environment anyway and this assassination has seriously put in question the stability of the current regime, the prospect of having a smooth and fair election, the prospect of getting a handle on the increasing violence around. As you indicated at the beginning of the program there was a bombing in Lahore only a few hours ago at a place right outside the high court building, which is something absolutely unheard of. Secondly, it brings into focus what is happening in the region. As you know, on the western border of Pakistan, the war in Afghanistan is continuing and then Pakistan is in the neighborhood where Iran, Iraq, the Persian Gulf and all that exist. And you’re talking about a country of 160 million people so anything that happens there, given both the size, the geopolitical location and the tenor of politics internally, this kind of tragic event only but naturally brings it into focus.

S.K.: Farhat and Sajjad, would either of you like to add to what Professor Mahmud just said?

Sajjad Burki.: Yeah, I’d like to see it in a little different context. I think from the point of view from the U.S., I see Benazir Bhutto’s death as a wake-up call to the Bush administration. The lessons that Benazir brought when she went back to Pakistan was that – she was a political institution. She was there to enhance the political parties of Pakistan and if we believe what I believe, that without the help of the political parties and without the help of the public in Pakistan, we cannot fight terrorism. And, unless we are able, the U.S. is able to negotiate some kind of political solution to that country, terrorism will keep going in that area.

S.K.: And, Professor Haq?

Farhat Haq: Yeah, I see this a little bit differently in that, of course, Benazir’s death was a tremendous tragedy and it has created further uncertainty in current Pakistani circumstances but, for me, her assassination was not really the key event of 2007 and I don’t mean to be callous about it. Really, the key event of 2007 was the so-called lawyer’s movement and the fact that, you know, Pakistani, at least middle class, stood up very strongly for the integrity of the judiciary, etc. And, to me, the interesting thing is that that did not get covered as extensively in the Western media or American press as Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. Of course, part of it is that it was an event that media could really get a lot of mileage from. So, in terms of the impact of her assassination, it would create some instability but, really, the more long-term question is: what happens to the constitution in Pakistan? Because that is very much related to whether or not the upcoming elections will be seen as clean and fair.

H.K.: Well, just as a follow-up to that Professor Haq, and given your work that you’ve done, particularly around gender and political Islam and the rise of the Taliban, there is this constant sort of backfire or the information that has been disseminated, and the U.S., within two hours of the assassination, had put a motion in the United Nations to condemn Al-qaeda for this act without even any investigation. So, in light of that, under Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan backed the Taliban’s dominance of Afghanistan, which, in turn, continues to haunt Pakistan. So, should she be held responsible for encouraging fundamental forces in the region? And, if so, then who all are the different players given the military intelligence as one of the key players in Pakistan’s politics?

F.H.: I would not necessarily hold her responsible, somewhat complicit, though remember when the rise of Taliban was going on at that time, you know, one had not necessarily understood that the Taliban would morph into the force that they did in the late 90s and in 2000. What she was sort of going along with and what Pakistani military was very much responsible for was this idea of the so-called strategic depth in which they wanted to make sure that they could control or have a client government in Afghanistan and so Taliban was sort of part of that strategic game that Pakistan wanted to play and, unfortunately, that had very much come back to haunt us in terms of, you know, this sort of monster that you create that you can’t necessarily control. And so, in that she simply went along with it, but given the extremely restrictive circumstances under which she had to come to power – the fact that she had to make lots and lots and lots of compromises with the military because they didn’t trust her and, you know, twice her government got dismissed in the 1990s – she had very few cards to play with. And so, given that, I won’t put too much blame on her. But now, I think she was going back with the determination to stand up to the extremist forces and that had made her a target, but still, given so much uncertainty around the whole investigation and the bizarre press conference that the Pakistani government held the very next day of her assassination and put forward these strange theories about how she might have died – this has really muddied the water and at this point, rightly so, lots of people are suspicious of exactly who is responsible for her assassination.

Prof. Mahmud: If I may pick up from where Dr. Haq is and I agree with her that she, at best, was complicit, not responsible – but this puts into context something that earlier Mr. Burki had said that the reason that what is going on has to be seen in light of the war on terror. And I believe that is the foundational problem here, namely that, yes, there are a lot of other factors which have contributed to the maladies of Pakistan, however, a very dominant factor has been that there has been a history, at least three distinct phases, of Pakistan being seen and used by the U.S. simply as an instrument of American policy. First, we have from the 1950s to the 1960s, when Pakistan was used as a pawn in the Cold War and made part of the military alliances, which, in part, necessitated bringing the military into power. Then, we had the phase of the 80s when Pakistan was used as “the front line state” against the Soviets in Afghanistan, which again necessitated supporting and consolidating a military regime. Now, we are seeing the sixth or seventh year of seeing Pakistan as a front line against the War on Terror, which again necessitates to consolidate and cajole and strengthen a — power. So, I think this is a very timely problem, that countries around the world, people around the world can’t be seen in their own right, in their own light. 160 million people are not simply a front line of somebody else. They are 160 million people who have their own political, social, cultural and spiritual life and one has to see what in the long run and the short run is beneficial for them, not for some other power, strategic interest sitting 10,000 miles away.

S.K.: And, in fact, to follow up to that Prof. Mahmud, if you read the Indian press commenting on this particular incident and its surrounding context, even the mainstream press is calling into question the very origin of Pakistan, as you were saying, and the Indian press is actually even using terms – this is a state without a cultural basis or a historical basis. How do you respond to that?

Prof. Mahmud: You see, that is a debate that precedes this event and that is a debate which, I personally believe, has become futile over the course of time in the sense that many states today in the world have questionable origins. But, the fact is that it happened, the partition happened, the country’s there. The point of the matter is that once it has been there, the fragility of the polity and cultural cohesion and all that could all only have been cemented, as far as I’m concerned, through a democratic process. The absence of democracy, the denial of federalism, the denial of rights, which started way back, from starting in early 50s, and only facilitated by what I had mentioned earlier, I think that has precluded any chance of consolidation of that polity as a cohesive, stable, viable proposition. So, I wouldn’t waste time as to what happened 60 years ago whether that was right or wrong or whether it was or was not. It’s already done. What I think we need to focus on is what are the forces that have precluded establishment of a viable, stable, prosperous polity in a very, very strategically turbulent area of the world which impacts not only Pakistan, but the whole region if not the whole world?

F.H.: Could I pick up on that? I think that the relationship of India and Pakistan is obviously an extremely important factor in all of that and, you know, the Indian press may have talked about some of this in the way that Sonali, just put forward. But I think, at least my sense is that, the relationship between India and Pakistan is moving forward and it’s one of the sort of more positive features of this particular situation in that now I don’t think India is necessarily interested in the destruction of Pakistan. That would be a very, very difficult problem for India. And, a stable Pakistan is in the national interest of India. And what that does is that takes away from one of the major issues that has been used by Pakistani establishment to sort of justify their hold on Pakistan – the idea that you know, Pakistan is in this serious danger because India has never accepted our existence, etc. And so I think that that sort of relationship between India and Pakistan can really help in terms of, hopefully, in the near term, moving out of this sort of military complex that has taken such hold of Pakistani power. But at the same time…

Sajjad Burki: If I may, I got cut off for a few minutes. I’m just getting back into the discussion. I think we’d be doing a disservice to us today bringing in the Indian angle now because that’s not important right now. What’s important is Pakistan’s situation at the moment. And I think the involvement of Pakistan in the Afghan war – and I’m talking about not just now – I’m talking about the Afghan war when the Russians walked in there, when the Americans used the Pakistani forces and the jihadists and trained them and showed them how to fight a war. This is what’s important. We have to somehow overcome this whole population that was trained and all they know is to fight the enemy. When the Russians walked in they were told that the Russians were the enemy – please go fight them. And today, unfortunately, those same people are looking at the U.S. forces there as the enemy and that’s who they’re fighting now.

Hamid Khan: Sajjad, if I may just cut in there for a second, because that kind of leads to another key factor that has become a subject of discussion globally and, particularly in the West, that at the heart of the conflict and concerns is the nuclear capability of Pakistan and, given the nuclear arsenal, the issues or the propaganda that gets raised is that if it gets into the hands of the Taliban and i.e. the terrorists, well then all hell is going to break loose. Well, recent reports also state that Senator Joe Lieberman met with Musharaf and said he feels reassured that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are in safe hands. Well, how safe is the nuclear capability in your opinion and could that safety be compromised at any time?

S.B.: I believe they are very safe. I hear this all the time. This kind of smacks of propaganda more than anything else. Pakistan, when they developed their nuclear arsenal, were a very developed scientific force and they have taken care of what they’ve been doing. Also, Pakistan has been sending (unintelligible) officers of the Strategic Plans Division, which takes care of the nuclear weapon, to the United States for training in safety measures for years and years and have been, you know, in touch with the United States. Also, what we find out again and again that the stockpiles are stored in multiple locations. They’re guarded by over 10,000 elite troops and the nuclear cores are kept separate from the detonators that are needed to set them off. One more thing that I may add – that the nuclear capability has always, always been in control of the army and not the politicians. So, any argument that suddenly one day the extremists or the jihadists will walk into Islamabad and they’ll just take control of the nuclear arsenal, I think, is a little farfetched.

Prof. Mahmud: I would like to comment on that. One, nuclear arms, I’m concerned, in any hands, is a dangerous proposition. But when you pick on some particular country, then that smacks of hypocrisy, particularly when it is clothed in language of a Muslim bomb. Nobody calls India’s bomb a Hindu bomb; nobody calls Israel’s bomb a Jewish bomb; nobody calls Chinese bomb a Confucius bomb. And so there is that. And so I think, yeah, we should be very concerned about nuclear weapons in all hands. No hands are safe to have nuclear weapons.

Sonali Kolhatkar: And that’s a really good point. I just want to remind our listeners that you’re listening to an hour-long special focus on Pakistan here on Uprising. My guests are: Professor Tayyab Mahmud, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development and Professor of Law at the Seattle University School of Law; and also Farhat Haq teaches at Monmouth College. She’s written on issues of political Islam, women and Islam and contemporary Pakistani politics. And, Sajjad Burki, President of the Pakistan American Council of Texas. He’s also a representative of the U.S. chapter of Pakistan’s Tehrik-e-Insaf, which means Movement of Justice. And, we’ll be taking your listener calls in just a few minutes.

Prof. Mahmud: May I finish the part on the bomb thing? The other part that Burki mentioned that it’s a great idea perhaps if they are in control of the army and I don’t think so. I think this is a military which the bombs are safer when they are in the hands of political control. But the point I want to make is that it keeps saying and it comes back to the U.S. particularly and many others investing in the survival and consolidation of Musharraf which I call sort of the indispensability peace. It’s as if the guy sleeps with the bombs under his bed and if he’s gone then they’ll be endangered. I think that’s the indispensability mess that the U.S. learned the very hard way in Iran. It learned it the very hard way in Indonesia; it learned it the very hard way in Philippines. And I think it’s about time that we learned about it here. And I disagree here with Dr. Haq and Burki for that matter, that Benazir had gone there to cultivate a political process. Benazir had been sent there to basically rescue the General who was in a thick soup following the movement that Dr. Haq was talking about. And her charge was on behalf of Washington and others to rescue this General and create and get into a coalition situation so that the military’s control over the War on Terror and the military’s control on the nuclear weapons would continue. Of course, the political situation at home was beyond that scenario right now and then we ended up where we have ended up.

Hamid Khan: Well, with that, maybe a follow-up with that line of thinking then, then what would be in the best interests of the United States then? Given the hypocrisy that you all have talked about, would that be a democratic process with the blessings of the average Pakistani? Or a dictatorial regime headed by a single person? I mean, it seems when we talk about democratic forces and Democracy, if you were to poll people in Pakistan, and there have been numerous polling that has taken place, 80% of the people are anti-U.S., particularly anti-U.S. So, from U.S.’s point of view, what do you all have to say about that? Maybe I’ll just point that to Professor Haq.

Farhat Haq: Well, it seems to me that it is really in U.S.’s national interest to have a democratic Pakistan, very simply put. Because the last several years of fighting War Against Terror has shown us one thing very clearly, well, a couple of things very clearly. First, that the vast majority of Muslims are not sympathetic to any kind of extremist agenda. Secondly, that declaring war again Islam has really not helped United States in its War Against Terror. And third, backing dictators has really not been a solid or a good policy for the United States to pursue. And this is especially true now in the Pakistani context. Pakistan is a very complex society and, again, I bring up that loyalist movement because what that does is sort of show very much a different face of a Muslim country, a Muslim country where you have these loyalists fighting for integrity of the constitution. How much more democratic and enlightened can one be than that? And that is where United States’ long-term national interests and a democratic Pakistan very much come together. By continuing to back Musharraf what we are simply doing is creating more instability in Pakistan and that is really a haven for extremists because they don’t have to be very large in numbers. A few thousand of them can create tremendous havoc and continue to create this very dangerous area in Pakistan. I feel so strongly about this that this is one of those times in which a democratic Pakistan is absolutely in the interest of the United States.

Sonali Kolhatkar: I want to direct the next question to Sajjad Burki, if you could follow up on what Prof. Haq was saying and also I’d like you to comment on the way in which the Pakistani community here in the United States has been affected by all of what’s happening. As Hamid mentioned at the beginning of the program, you have Pakistan being painted as one of the most dangerous countries in the world by three major media institutions. How has the community responded, Sajjad?

Sajjad Burki: Thank you. Firstly, just let me touch briefly on what we were talking earlier about the democratization of the dictatorial rule in Pakistan. I strongly believe that the White House, and I don’t say the Americans, I say the White House has tunnel vision when it comes to Pakistan. They see a dictator, an army General, Musharraf, and the so-called “no-alternative-to-Musharraf” policy that has been dominant in the last few years and they have to now see that it has failed. You know, the Musharraf regime has failed to secure the nation. It has failed to secure the borders. The militants have encroached from the borders into the tourist areas, into the nation’s cities, like we heard this morning – a huge bomb in Lahore. So, that absolutely is not the answer. We have to have a political solution in that country. We have to let the political forces, no matter how corrupt they are, we have to give them an opportunity to bring the people together.

Sonali Kolhatkar.: And your comment on the Pakistani community? And then I’ll let Prof. Mahmud also respond.

Sajjad Burki: Yes, as far as the Pakistani community here is concerned – we are in a dilemma, really. You know, we live in a country that strongly supports President Musharraf. At the same time, I think the majority of the Pakistanis living here are in complete opposition of the present government, of the set-up over there. Another thing that happened, to quickly point out, the media outlets that the Pakistanis watch, in case of news from Pakistan – two or three different outlets that come here – they were shut down. There was no news directly coming from Pakistan that Pakistanis could hear and it made them extremely, extremely afraid of what could happen in Pakistan and that’s how I see them even today. They are sitting there not knowing what’s the next step.

Sonali Kolhatkar: Professor Mahmud, your response?

Prof. Mahmud: Yes. Let me pick on Dr. Haq’s where he described something but I want to clarify because Hamid had mentioned the 80% poll against the U.S.. I think you have to be careful in reading and disseminating those kinds of figures. My reading of those kinds of polls in Pakistan, and some other places also, are that anger or opposition is directed at American foreign policy, at American specific geospedic policy, not about American culture, not about the ideals of liberalism and democracy and human rights that America stands for in many, many places. Kids are dying to get visas to get here to
work. So, I think that’s one. Number two, what we need to do, it’s not just the political part because we keep focusing on that and rightly so, that what is in the interest of the U.S. is to promote a democracy in Pakistan but not only democracy but also economic development, that the U.S. and Pakistan are not two entities which operate in a vacuum. There’s an international economic system out there of which the U.S. of course is a very strong part and the rules of that game are set against countries like Pakistan. If only the U.S. would remove the cotton import quotas from Pakistan, that would do wonders for the social development and economic development of that area.

Sonali Kolhatkar: Which, in turn, do you think would that also lessen the recruits to Al-Qaeda?

Prof. Mahmud: Absolutely! 5 billion dollars has been sent to the Pakistani military in the last five years. Any economic development is pittance in comparison. So then we are surprised as to what kind of forces are strengthened and what kind of forces are weakened. And lastly, about the Pakistani community in the U.S. – I think the Pakistani community in the U.S. right now is very vulnerable and feels threatened. Already, in the post -9/11 environment when there was a context of, you know, as one of my colleagues wrote a paper entitled, Walking While Muslim, there are the issues of profiling, the issues of being suspected just because of your name or your face or your religion or your nationality. So, there is an apprehension that if the tenor of things continue in this way, who else will be profiled? And what would be the extent of retaliations and things in a context where we see what has been going on in the so-called Patriot Act and its aftermath? So, I think for people in the U.S. who are concerned about not only democracy out there, but about democracy and human rights right here, need to be very concerned, very involved about understanding completely and not relying on only the mainstream press but taking the responsibility of really finding out what is going on and truly intervening in terms of what kind of policies the U.S. government may adopt in targeting folks which may boomerang on the public at large.

Hamid Khan: Well, this is such a critical topic of discussion we can continue on for days and days and days but I think I’m really glad that we’re able to kind of set the tone for future discussions as well. And we’re kind of reaching that time where now we’re going to take some listener calls. But before we do that, I want to direct a final question to Professor Haq – How did we sort of go from an ally to a target? Or we were always an ally and a target? What are your thoughts about that? Then, we’ll go to a break and then take some listener calls.

Prof. Haq: Well, it seems to me that we have been allies. (We, as a Pakistani-American.) The American government has been allied with the Pakistani government for quite some time, but in that process they have really become, they have targeted Pakistani public, if you want to put it this way, because I think now the Pakistani government and Pakistani public are really far apart and in that the Bush White House has decided to really stand firmly behind Pakistani government and that has created really serious problems for Pakistani public that is under very, very difficult circumstances trying to look forward towards some sort of stability, basic law and order. I mean, what is more important than basic security as you go out doing your daily sort of making a living, etc. And along with that, as Prof. Tayyab Mahmud was mentioning earlier, the economic situation is increasingly becoming dire in Pakistan. The very basic staple, flour, is not only very expensive, people can’t find it. And so you see in major cities in Pakistan long lines where people are sort of waiting, spending their whole day trying to get this very basic staple of life. And so it seems to me that when United States becomes an ally of Pakistan, it generally helps the establishment, it helps the military, it does not help the Pakistani public.

Sonali Kolhatkar: I want to remind our listeners that we are speaking with three experts on Pakistan: Professor Farhat Haq, whom we just heard; Professor Tayyab Mahmud and Sajjad Burki. And we’re going to take a short break right now to hear this week’s peace vigil announcements and when we come back we want to hear from you, your questions to our guests.

Special Thanks to Julie Svendsen for transcribing this interview