Democracy rising in Pakistan

The recent election in Pakistan represented a particularly historic event in the annals of recent Pakistani political life: the democratic transition from one elected government to another. Like all the previous elections in the country, this election has led to certain doubts around transparency, and results in some constituencies are expected to be re-evaluated by the Election Commission of Pakistan. Nonetheless, one of the most interesting facets of the election was the overwhelming participation of the Pakistani public in the democratic process of their country, despite the serious threats from a raft of extremist groups who openly declared a war against democracy, while attacking the political parties’ candidates and terrorising local people into to not casting their votes.

According to the International Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), out of around 190 million of population, 86,189,802 people were registered voters. The Election Commission of Pakistan has confirmed that voter turnout has been around 60% - a significant increase on the result in the previous election in 2008, which was only 44.55%. This enthusiastic electoral participation suggests that the majority of the people of Pakistan still believe that democracy is the only solution to the issues they are facing right now, and sharply contradicts the many gloomy reports and surveys suggesting that majority in Pakistan are pessimistic, or lost hope in the democratic system of the country. This is, therefore, a very discouraging message indeed for all the anti-democratic forces working to undermine Pakistan’s current political system.

The most significant lesson to learn from the present election is that the people of Pakistan are, by and large, still pro-democracy. This fact is, in itself, somewhat surprising; the last five years of democratic government have not been a glowing example of democratic success and have disappointed a lot of the ordinary people of Pakistan, who were expecting a lot from the civilian government after a long dictatorial regime. Corruption and bad governance are serious problems for Pakistan at present, and have permeated throughout Pakistani political life to its highest levels. This has, unsurprisingly, disheartened many, and paved way for many anti-democratic forces to convince people that perhaps democracy could never work in Pakistan, or that it is a foreign, unworkable ideal. It was also revealed in a recent survey by the British Council that ‘Pakistan’s burgeoning population of young people is highly conservative, overwhelmingly pessimistic about the future and has a very low opinion of democracy’¹ – hardly an encouraging prospect for the future of Pakistan as a democratic, pluralistic state. Nonetheless, a huge number of young people, from all over the country, not only participated in the electoral process, but are still protesting to ensure the transparency of the electoral process in certain places. Various surveys suggest that around 30% of the voters were under the age of 30, and that vast numbers of young people were casting their first ever vote in this election. This political participation on the part of the young people of Pakistan suggest that they still believe in the democratic norms and values in their society, and also that – even with the flawed democratic governments in the past, young people are still interested in the revival and sustainability of democracy in Pakistan. If anything, the recent post-election protests surrounding recounts and the transparency of the electoral protests suggest that enthusiasm for democracy is still strong – people are clearly willing to take to the streets in order to defend it!

The overwhelming participation of youth in the present election is a particularly positive sign of the strengthening democratic culture in Pakistan. Today, young people across Pakistan are much more politically aware than their parents were, with a number of young people actually standing for elected positions. This is a new phenomenon in Pakistan, and something that suggests that - in spite of the grave economic and security challenges that Pakistan is facing at the moment - the society is actually going in the right direction. The rise of democracy is central to the ongoing process of building the Pakistani nation. Indeed, this focus on the role of young people across the country in forging Pakistani political identity was prefigured decades ago, by none other than the founder of Pakistan (and our blog’s favourite source of quotes!), Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah:

“We need our youth to be politically aware and sensitized towards the Nation building. They are the future and the future needs to be bright for Pakistan.”

Rehman Anwer

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¹ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/02/pakistan-young-voters-democracy-despair

Narratives of Hatred

I visit Pakistan quite often as part of my work, but my last visit to Pakistan was something of a new, shocking experience, when I personally observed just how widespread extremist narratives of inter- and intra-religious hate have become in the country. I was there to organise an interfaith workshop, as part of our Musawaat Project, with the aim of fostering mutual understanding between various faith groups living in Pakistan - but here I was, surrounded by the folks committed to doing exactly opposite to what we are trying to achieve.

I had my first glimpse of this when I went to a local internet café in Lahore, to print out another sheaf of paperwork for the workshop. To my surprise, a gentleman sitting next to me was busy editing some material in Urdu, compiling some sort of lengthy document. He was so involved in his work that he seemed to have no idea about what going on in his surroundings. Truly, a studious man! By accident, though, I happened to glance at a few words on the screen of his monitor and, and then my spirits fell: I realized that he was busy trying to construct a comprehensive proof that the members of another faith community were absolute infidels. He was fully absorbed in his work, bending all his literary skill to make it more convincing for his audience, so that his campaign of hatred could be successful.

It would be easy to dismiss this as a single crank spewing out his beliefs into a digital void, who only represented himself and his own beliefs. In all honesty, though, I could not - the nature of my work involved visiting various places in Punjab and, wherever I went, I saw more spine-chilling evidence of this sort of widespread hate. In Punjab, I came across extensive wall chalking, the graffitist motivating people in the name of religion, to participate in ‘Jihad’. These messages usually include pictures of swords and other violent imagery – it is fairly clear that they do not recommend the Greater Jihad of resisting temptation and fighting social injustice – and even include a phone number and contact details for anyone wishing to sign up.

An auto-rickshaw in Lahore promoting a ‘Jihad’ campaign.

Elsewhere, I saw the same message repeated over and over. Posters carried by a number of auto-rickshaws were also carrying the same message, inciting people to prepare themselves for a very violent ‘Jihad’, and reiterating the sentiments of hatred against some faith groups within Pakistan. Some campaigns looked outward, also focusing on spreading hate sentiments against the neighbouring India.

This emerging trend of extremist discourse is not new to Pakistani society. It is not very long ago that, in 2007/8, a Taliban cleric by the name of Maulana Fazalullah (famously nicknamed ‘Mulla Radio’) persuaded the people of Sawat Valley to take part in similarly violent religious armed conflict under the banner of Jihad, through his programmes aired on several FM transmitters that he installed around the valley in order to spread his message. The impact of his sermons was huge and he prepared a large number of people to stand up against the state of Pakistan. The misuse of mosque loudspeakers to spread hatred has also been observed at various occasions like in 2009, in the Gojra riots, where announcements were made in the local mosques urging people to attack the Christian community members. This sort of aggressive use of religious rhetoric to encourage and legitimise extremist violence is depressingly common.

This tapestry of extremist narratives and shared hatreds is very much widespread, and resonates throughout Pakistani society on an emotional and nationalistic level. Extremists use domestic and international events to justify the promotion of their hatred towards various vulnerable groups in the society, justifying hatred against vulnerable minorities as part of a broader international struggle. Recent campaigns of attacks against the Shia and Christian communities in Pakistan suggest that such rhetoric has an audience; extremists are quite successful in their objectives to widespread violent prejudice and murderous hatred.

One of the most alarming things that I saw in Punjab was the general absence of any counter-narratives, or a serious strategy to deal with the challenges posed by the extremists’ views and ideas. Even if they are marginal – a man in an internet café in Lahore, a poster on an auto-rickshaw, some chalk graffiti on a wall – there are simply no challenges or alternative messages to them, allowing them to spread and draw people into the extremist fold.  What’s necessary is the creation of a positive discourse in Pakistan that emphasises the fact that these hate-based narratives can never bring peace in the country, and are in fact self-destructive and harmful. We need to create harmony between the country’s diverse faith groups, collectively counter the narratives targeting any group based on their religious ideologies, language or ethnicity, and encourage ways of thinking and resolving problems that do not resort to violence.

One such effort was done by Faith Matters, a UK based countering extremism, conflict resolution and interfaith organization, through their Pegham (the Message) project, that involved sending out approximately 50 million SMS messages into the areas of FATA and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK). In the hundred and sixty characters of an SMS text, the message had to challenge the extremists’ actions, making them think about the context of the violence and offering them new perspectives and viewpoints on religion, Pakistani society, and violence. Some of the messages used are given below:

• The Prophet (PBUH) said:"Attainment of knowledge is a must for every Muslim”. Terrorists destroy boys school in SWAT. How is this Islamic?
• “You shall resort to pardon, advocate tolerance, and disregard the ignorant - Al Araf v.199. What will you do to challenge false preaching?”

The Pegham project engaged a number of Pakistanis, trying to counter the hate based ideologies of the extremists by giving them new narratives of conflict, and ways to think about extremist violence. Faith Matters received a considerable number of enthusiastic responses received from the people living in those regions, and the project left a positive impact on the communities.

Pegham was only a single project though, and more such initiatives are needed in Pakistan to stand against the growing tides of extremist thought and ideology.  It’s particularly important for this work to protect Pakistan’s extremely large young population, who are particularly vulnerable today, as they are the prime target of these extremists. They are preyed upon by people seeking to promote their own vicious ideologies, ones cloaked in seemingly religious language but actually driven by their own agendas. We need to offer an alternative.
 

Rehman Anwer