NEWS & LETTERS, December 2009
Editorial
Pakistan needs a revolution
As President Obama weighs sending yet more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, the situation in neighboring Pakistan continues to deteriorate. The Pakistani government has been waging campaigns against local Taliban in the country's western regions, creating a massive flow of refugees from these areas: an estimated three million in Swat, and two million in South Waziristan. Hundreds of people have been killed, including many civilians.
ALL PARTIES MURDER CIVILIANS
At the same time U.S. drone attacks in these areas increased in recent months. Of the hundreds killed, an estimated 98% were civilians. As one woman asked visiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, "How do you define terrorism? Is it the killing of people in drone attacks?" The Taliban in Pakistan have also stepped up their suicide bombings, including a recent attack on a market in Peshawar that killed 112 people, most of them women and children. This horror indicates that they have drawn closer to Al Qaeda, which specializes in such mass slaughter.
The civilian population in much of Pakistan today is under attack by all parties to this conflict: the Talban, the Pakistani government and the U.S.
Tragically, too much opinion in the U.S. today echoes the lies of previous Pakistani governments. Far from being dominated by fundamentalism, as it is often portrayed, Islam in Pakistan has historically been much more tolerant and influenced by Sufism, a religion of mystics, poets and syncretists seen in large religious festivals or shrines. The "maulvis"--a pejorative term for religious fundamentalists--have never received majority support in fair elections.
Furthermore, there is a strong tradition of Leftist politics among many Pakistanis, and a vital women's movement has existed there. What has in part led to the present crisis is the support fundamentalists received from such anti-popular, U.S.-friendly dictators as General Zia ul-Haq who, from 1977 to 1988, seized power and used religious laws to prop it up. This is also the period when the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) formed ties with Afghan fundamentalists, including the precursors to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
FUNDAMENTALISM SERVES POLITICS
Zia's promotion of fundamentalism was to crush his political opposition, especially that of women and the Left. As one Pakistani activist said recently, "It was meant to wipe out political life in Pakistan." The changed religious laws were accompanied by outright killing of Leftists and the criminalization of dissent.
The recent ousting of General Pervez Mousharraf's government was an opening. But it will take a true social revolution to overcome the state of powerlessness forced upon the people of Pakistan. The current government tries to satisfy U.S. demands for attacks on the Taliban, and at the same time distinguish between "good" and "bad" Taliban in order to make deals. It seeks to repair the image of the Pakistani military in the eyes of those who are genuinely threatened by the Taliban.
Only a small but entrenched elite in Pakistan can imagine that they can profit from this untenable situation. Because some have been maneuvering in this way since the days of the British occupation, they imagine it can go on forever. But in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, it is clear that a revolutionary perspective is also the only really practical one available for the majority of people.
The arming of yet more tribal factions, under the advisement of the U.S., is not the answer. What is needed is a demobilization of all the armed factions including both the army and the various fundamentalist groups. The U.S. must also cease assaults and threats. Deserving greater support are movements like the peasants of Hari who occupied the Karachi Press Club this year protesting land seizures. They represent a true mass movement for freedom and justice rooted in Pakistan's real history, as do the peasant women who confronted and blocked police attacks. In places like Hashtnagar in North-West Frontier Province, these movements are attacked by both government and Taliban forces.
Only when the truth about these genuine freedom movements becomes known, when their voices are heard and understood as part of the needed world revolution, can we say that revolutionary internationalism is being reborn. It requires the perspective of the philosophy of revolution, which is our ultimate responsibility to history.
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