Reforming the Muslim World

The Indian Express, August 3, 2005

The Bush administration is finally taking the task of communicating with the Muslim world seriously. The US President has appointed his trusted counsel and fellow Texan, Karen Hughes, as the under-secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. Although Hughes has little exposure to the Muslim world, or for that matter to the world beyond the United States, she has good political instincts and the ear of President Bush. These qualities make her more qualified to explore a fresh approach in building bridges than seasoned diplomats with fixed ideas.
Karen Hughes will look at the problem America faces in explaining its policies and actions to the international community, especially its 1.4 billion Muslims and the remedies she suggests will immediately get attention from America’s all powerful President. That is more than the US has been able to achieve in the field of public diplomacy over the last several decades.

Hughes began her stint as public diplomacy czar with a ‘‘listening tour” of several Muslim countries. She met with ‘‘opinion leaders”, held a town hall meeting with women in Saudi Arabia, and impressed almost everyone she met with her desire to listen and learn.

The conservative US publication, The Weekly Standard, described her as ‘‘Karen of Arabia” for her ability to present herself as an ordinary American mother engaged in people to people relations and not as a high-ranking official on a serious mission.

According to The Weekly Standard, ‘‘Her unshakable discipline in sticking to the script has a mind-numbing effect when you watch her through several events a day”.

‘‘I go as an official of the US government, but I’m also a mom, a working mom,” she reportedly told reporters on the flight from Washington to Cairo. She repeated that theme throughout her tour. At one point she said, ‘‘I still have to pinch myself a little when I am sitting in a meeting with the king [of Saudi Arabia] and realize that I’m there representing our country”.

Such humility is unusual in high-ranking officials of any country, let alone the world’s sole superpower. Even if it was scripted, it probably endeared Hughes to her audiences.

But winning hearts and minds for America requires a process, not just the event of Hughes’ listening tour. As she initiates that process, Hughes should be careful not to let the ruling elites of the Muslim world control her understanding of their people and their views of the United States.

Over the years, just as the average Muslim man or woman has been persuaded to turn against America, a class of rulers, diplomats, global bankers and media specialists has been produced that lives off its role as the intermediaries between the United States and the ‘‘backward and complicated” Muslim people.

These intermediaries between America and the Muslim world live good lives, often at Uncle Sam’s expense. They also come up with reasons why US foreign policy, and not the failures of Muslim rulers, is somehow to blame for global Muslim decline.

Thus, lack of American support of the Palestinians or the Kashmiris, Moros, and Chechens has been the centerpiece of Muslim public discourse over the past several decades rather than the low human development indicators resulting from lack of investment in education and healthcare.

No one doubts widespread anti-Americanism in Muslim countries but it may not be as deep-rooted a sentiment as is sometimes believed. It is often nurtured by the very elites that the US cultivates.

These elites rent out their support to US policies in return for economic and military aid and anti-Americanism among the people is sometimes an instrument of policy for seeking higher rent for the rulers services on behalf of America.

The Musharrafs and Mubaraks of this world appear more appealing as allies to American policy makers when these rulers are seen as controlling difficult populations that passionately hate the US.

Ordinary Muslims are not totally unresponsive to America’s positive actions or policies as is sometimes suggested. Significant US military sales to the Suharto regime in Indonesia, for example, did not win America much support but, according to polling data released by Ken Ballen of Terror Free Tomorrow, humanitarian assistance after the tsunami dented anti-Americanism among grateful Indonesian Muslims.

Successive US administrations have ignored the Muslim Street, being content instead to depend upon friendly potentates and dictators. But such dependence also makes the US vulnerable to manipulation by its allies. The deployment of anti-Americanism among the people, to seek higher rent for cooperation with the US, is part of that manipulative process.

The new US public diplomacy should not allow itself to be derailed by the over-simplification that America would be liked much more if only the world knew its good intentions. Nor should it remain a prisoner of the deviousness of America’s authoritarian allies.

The most important thing is to identify cultural intermediaries and interlocutors who are as serious about fighting anti-Americanism in the Muslim world as Hughes herself.

Surely, the beneficiaries of the gulf between the US and the world’s Muslims — those who profit from US aid to stabilise ‘unstable’ countries — would not want the status quo to change.

The Indian Express , May 19, 2005

An isolated terrorist attack in Egypt, a violent uprising in Uzbekistan and riots in Pakistan and Afghanistan against the alleged desecration of the Koran all point towards the potential for instability in the region American policy makers now describe as the greater West Asia. The regimes in each of these countries are closely allied to the US. With the exception of President Hamid Karzai, who won an open and contested election in Afghanistan, none of them is ruled by an elected leader. Perhaps it is for that reason that Karzai alone had the confidence to describe the protests over the now discredited Newsweek report about the desecration of the Koran at the American prison in Guantanamo as ‘‘manifestations of a fledgling democracy.” The other American allies simply ducked for cover while figuring out ways to repress the sentiment of their own people.

The Egyptian authorities remain reluctant to publicly discuss the recent revival of terrorist attacks against tourists and maintain their tight lid on dissent. For a quarter of a century, the US has under-written Air Force General Hosni Mubarak’s iron-fisted governance in the name of maintaining stability in Egypt and saving that country from Islamist extremists. But the jailing of thousands of Islamists and a virtual ban on open political activity has clearly not eliminated the threat that has been used to justify personalised and repressive rule. Surely there is a lesson here if anyone is willing to learn it. Authoritarian regimes initially secure external backing on the basis of legitimate threats to stability but after some time, if they do not become more inclusive and open, they simply serve as the lid on a tinder box.

Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov is a Stalinist dictator who signed on as a US ally immediately after 9/11, offering bases to the US military for the war in Afghanistan. He also rails against Islamist extremists and, judging by the number of people he has jailed or executed, should by now have eliminated that threat to Uzbekistan’s stability. But recently protests have broken out in the Ferghana valley that have been violently put down. Karimov hopes to get away with butchering his people by accusing the protesters of being Islamist extremists.

Afghanistan is currently a work in progress. Karzai has the benefit of American military presence, which serves as the ultimate guarantee of stability for his government. But he also had the courage to contest an open election and compete for power with formidable political rivals.Karzai won the first round by securing election as president. He still faces the challenge of parliamentary elections and the potential of either an unmanageably divided legislature or one dominated by his opponents.But Karzai’s approach remains inclusive and political. When allegations of desecration of the Quran by American interrogators in Guantanamo brought people out in the streets of Afghanistan and the protests turned violent, Karzai was not easily rattled. Karzai knew the potential for Taliban and other Islamist opponents of his regime to exploit such a sensitive religious issue. His government asked the Americans, especially officers of the U.S. central Command that operate from Afghanistan, to clarify the matter. The violence during the riots was unfortunate but Afghan authorities acted wisely. They did not follow it up with a crack down on Islamic activists resembling Mubarak’s methods in Egypt or Karimov’s pattern in Uzbekistan.

Pakistan under America’s post 9/11 ally General Pervez Musharraf is not as politically repressive as Mubarak’s Egypt or Karimov’s Uzbekistan. But its stability is far from secure. Within the same week that Islamists hit Pakistan’s streets to protest the alleged desecration of the Quran, Pakistani authorities manhandled human rights activists involved in a road run aimed at making the point that men and women have the right to participate in sports events together. Musharraf’s security apparatus was dealing with Islamist protesters one day and the secular ones the next. His claim of enlightened moderation notwithstanding, it is significant to note that it was the secular protesters that got beaten up and hauled away by the police.

The sensible choice for Musharraf (and those who wish him well) would be to encourage him to become inclusive voluntarily and to reach out to Ms Bhutto, not to dictate terms but with genuine respect for her popular support. If he does not do so, I for one would not criticize her for risking instability after so much caution. After all, why should we expect her to become irrelevant like the secular opposition in Egypt and Uzbekistan?

Gulf News, May 18, 2005

An isolated terrorist attack in Egypt, a violent uprising in Uz-bekistan and riots in Pakistan and Afghanistan against the alleged desecration of the Quran all these incidents point towards the potential for instability in the region that American policy-makers now describe as the greater Middle East.

The regimes in these countries are closely allied to the United States.

With the exception of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who won an open and contested election, none of these countries is ruled by an elected leader.

Perhaps it is for that reason that Karzai alone had the confidence to describe the protests over the now discredited Newsweek report about the desecration of the Quran at the American prison in Guantanamo as “manifestations of a fledgling democracy”.

The other American allies simply ducked for cover while figuring out ways to repress the sentiment of their own people.
Egyptian authorities remain reluctant to publicly discuss the recent revival of terrorist attacks against tourists, and maintain their tight lid on dissent.

For a quarter of a century, the United States has underwritten President Hosni Mubarak’s iron-fisted governance in the name of maintaining stability in Egypt and saving that country from Islamist militants.

But the jailing of thousands of Islamists and a virtual ban on open political activity have clearly not eliminated the threat that has been used to justify personalised and repressive rule.

Surely there is a lesson here if anyone is willing to learn it. Authoritarian regimes initially secure external backing on the basis of legitimate threats to stability, but after some time, if they do not become more inclusive and open, they simply serve as the lid of a tinderbox.

Pakistan, under America’s post-9/11 ally General Pervez Musharraf, is not as politically repressive as Mubarak’s Egypt or Karimov’s Uzbekistan.

But its stability is far from secure. Within the same week that Islamists hit Pakistan’s streets to protest about the Quran issue, Pakistani authorities manhandled human rights activists involved in a road run aimed at supporting the rights of men and women to participate in sports events together.

Musharraf’s security apparatus was dealing with Islamist protesters one day and secular ones the next. His claim of enlightened moderation notwithstanding, it is significant to note that it was the secular protesters that got beaten up and hauled away by the police.

Unlike Uzbekistan and Egypt, Pakistan’s secular opposition is not dead.

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), led by Benazir Bhutto, managed to get more popular votes than any other party in the restricted election of 2002, even though its leader was in exile and the target of persistent hostility by Pakistan’s permanent establishment.

Gerrymandering

The Nawaz Sharif faction of the Pakistan Muslim League secured more popular votes than the MMA, though the gerrymandering by the Musharraf regime left it with far fewer seats in the National and provincial assemblies.

Add to that the votes of the left wing ethnic parties and we have more than half the electorate. In fact, the Islamist alliance MMA managed its much talked about electoral success with only 11 per cent of the popular vote.

The current superficial stability in Pakistan is the result not of Musharraf’s policies but the realisation on the part of the secular political leaders (notably Benazir Bhutto) that Pakistan faces two parallel battles.

The first is the struggle for civilian supremacy in which the Islamist parties and the secular democrats have a common cause.
The other is the conflict between obscurantist forces and those seeking Pakistan’s adherence to contemporary values.

Benazir appears to have decided not to align with the Islamists to press Musharraf on relinquishing power. By doing so, she hopes to avoid a rerun of Pakistan’s past political campaigns against entrenched dictators.

Cooperation between secular political forces and the Islamists in the past empowered the Islamists even as it helped create political space for secular democrats.

Musharraf and the Pakistani establishment have refused to reciprocate the goodwill of the secular political forces. The Americans continue to ignore Benazir and other secular leaders with popular support, putting all their eggs in General Musharraf’s basket.

But what would happen if Benazir throws caution to the wind, accepts the demand of her party’s base and joins a grand alliance for the restoration of constitutional rule? The facade of stability in Pakistan would begin to erode.

The sensible choice for Musharraf (and those who wish him well) would be to encourage him to become inclusive voluntarily and to reach out to Benazir, not to dictate terms but with genuine respect for her popular support.

If he does not do so, she should not be criticised for risking instability after so much caution. After all, why should we expect her to become irrelevant like the secular opposition in Egypt and Uzbekistan?

Gulf News, March 9 , 2005

Several recent developments indicate that President George W. Bush’s vision of democracy for the Muslim world may not be as far-fetched as it appears to the US president’s critics. Multi-candidate presidential elections have been held in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories. Iraq has elected a transitional National Assembly, which will draw up the country’s constitution.

Mass demonstrations in Lebanon have forced the resignation of the country’s pro-Syrian government. Syria now appears willing to phase out its military presence in Lebanon. Stirrings of democracy have also been visible in several bastions of authoritarian rule where authoritarianism has hitherto been backed by Washington.

Saudi Arabia has held local government elections though franchise was restricted to men and political parties were not allowed. Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak has announced his willingness to hold a multi-candidate presidential election after wielding power for 24 years.

Kuwaiti women have held a demonstration to demand the right to vote. Are authoritarian dominos about to fall and is a wave of democracy sweeping the greater Middle East, the region from Morocco to Pakistan? Maybe. But there are still many obstacles to be overcome.

The desire of the people in Muslim countries for democracy is overwhelming. But in most cases Muslim elites the economic beneficiaries of authoritarian rule have argued against democracy. The United States was viewed as being on the side of Muslim dictators in the past. President Bush’s calls for democracy, backed by military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as political intervention in the Palestinian territories, have encouraged dormant democratic movements in the region to resurface.

Momentous change

The momentum for democratisation might be lost, however, if the United States push for change is selective. If Washington accepts “baby steps” from its friendly dictators while demanding complete transformation elsewhere, the greater Middle East would be denied the momentous change of the sort experienced in Eastern Europe after the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.

Take Saudi Arabia’s local elections and Mubarak’s promise of a contested presidential election. Several Middle Eastern (and Pakistani) regimes have used local elections in the past to create the illusion of a phased transition to democracy. But, while local elections have been projected as the first step towards democracy they have often not been followed by other steps.

It has taken Mubarak 24 years to agree to a multi-candidate presidential election, but there is no sign that he would provide his critics a level playing field in challenging his rule. Even as Mubarak announced his plans for amending the constitution through a rubber stamp parliament, which might water down his promise, opposition leader Ayman Nour of the newly formed Al Ghad (Tomorrow) Party remained imprisoned.

The quest for freedom, rule of law and the right to choose leaders at constitutionally mandated intervals is a global phenomenon. If the Muslim world has not been able to build democracies, it is not because the people of Muslim countries did not want it.

The dynamic of international relations, the Cold War interplay of superpowers with each supporting its own preferred dictators which has continued until now is partly to blame for the Muslim world’s inability to join the global trend towards democratic governance.

Even now in the case of certain countries, such as Egypt and Pakistan, the weight of the United States is behind dictatorship and not with democratic forces.

Soon after Mubarak’s promise of a contested election, former US ambassador to Egypt Frank Wisner wrote in The Washington Post that Egypt’s transition to democracy should be gradual so that stability is maintained. There was no acknowledgement of the fact that Mubarak has been in power for 24 years and if he had genuinely been committed to gradualism, Egyptian democracy would have moved somewhat forward.

In the case of Pakistan, there is a tendency among US officials to compare its governance with Middle Eastern dictatorships than with South Asian democracies. US ambassador to Islamabad, Ryan C. Crocker, a former ambassador to Syria, would probably consider Pakistan a free country in comparison with Baathist totalitarianism.

Musharraf’s military regime has, by all accounts, several positive accomplishments to its credit. But Pakistan under Musharraf is not a democracy and the general must be nudged by the United States towards a clearly worked out plan for moving Pakistan to the same level of democracy as is practised across its eastern border in India.

That said, it is also important to note that the momentum for democracy depends only partly on external factors. The United States cannot support democracy in countries where at least some citizens do not take the risk of demanding freedom.

In Egypt and some other Arab countries, repression is so strong that democratic movements have simply been unable to overcome tyranny. In Pakistan, democratic political parties have allowed the military and the intelligence services to define them instead of defying the military regime and mobilising their people.

Indian Express , February 7, 2005

Just as terrorist insurgents failed to stop Iraq’s elections, the election is unlikely to stop the insurgency. But the massive turnout for the polls establishes decisively that the insurgents do not speak for the overwhelming majority of Iraq’s Muslims. Now, if the United States acts sensibly, the terrorist minority can be isolated from the broad mass of people.
Once before, in Vietnam in 1967, the US and its local allies squandered an opportunity to build upon the holding of successful elections. Then, the Viet Cong failed to prevent a high turnout in presidential polls in South Vietnam. But unlike Iraq where the transitional national assembly will comprise of popular clerics, trial chiefs and local politicians, South Vietnam’s elected president and vice-president/ premier were American-backed Generals. Nguyen Van Thieu and General Nguyen Cao Ky did not address the issues of concern to their people. The corrupt Vietnamese security apparatus became addicted to US aid and President Lyndon Johnson’s desire for decisive victory sucked America deeper into Vietnam’s quagmire.

Hopefully, wiser from the lessons of its earlier interventions elsewhere in the world, the US would not make similar mistakes in Iraq. Instead of imposing a strongman of its choice, the US should allow the elected Iraqi assembly to throw up leaders on its own. The normal give and take of politics, negotiated by Iraqis, should determine Iraq’s future leadership. The US should work out an exit strategy for its troops after training Iraq’s security forces. The hardcore terrorists would have to be defeated militarily but US military withdrawal might deprive extremists from new recruits to their cause.

Despite the success of Iraq’s elections, there is much that can go wrong there. The new (and old) breed of Iraqi politicians could pursue ethnic, sectarian and communal interests at the expense of consensus and accommodation.This could lead to a deadlock in Constitution-making. The demands for security could be used by Americans or Iraqis to curtail Iraq’s relatively new freedoms. What must be avoided is the temptation to prefer Generals and technocrats over popular politicians — a phenomenon that has resulted in the poor record of democracy in the region from Morocco to Pakistan.

The Iraqi people’s enthusiasm for elections should put to rest the myth perpetuated for years by monarchs and ruling Generals that Muslim nations are not ready for democracy. The Iraqi polls come on the heels of similarly successful elections in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories. The US encouraged each of these elections and must be given due credit for doing so. But must exercises in democracy in Muslim lands come only on the heels of American military intervention?

US military action against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq destroyed the security apparatus of authoritarianism and created a security vacuum filled by foreign forces. The Palestinians have had no significant security apparatus of their own. Elected politicians, and technocrats willing to work alongside politicians, have emerged as the leaders of Afghanistan, Iraq and the Palestinians. But in countries where an army built up during colonial time still exists, the security apparatus, rather than elected or electable politicians, continues to be seen as the guarantee of stability.

For democracy to take root, elected officials would have to be given a chance to complete their terms and the electorate would have to be given the opportunity to vote incompetent and corrupt leaders out of office. Despite the goodwill currently being expressed about Afghanistan, Iraq and the Palestinian territories there is no doubt that their elected leaderships will make some mistakes. Voters will occasionally vote for demagogues. Religious leaders will try to mix religion with politics. Politicians will sometimes be corrupt. There will be heated arguments, with legislative debates degenerating into fisticuffs. The powerful will try to intimidate the media and the judiciary. And every now and then there will be an election, the results of which are not fully accepted by the losers. Every democracy in the world has gone through such ups and downs.

In several Muslim countries, however, Westernised elite comprising military officers, corporate executives, civil servants and international bankers has used the normal rough patches of evolving democracy as justification for semi-authoritarianism. In Iran, the oil policies of the elected Mossadegh government were labelled as creeping Communism and led to the 1953 CIA-backed coup that gave absolute power to the Shah until Iran’s 1979 revolution. In Algeria, the first round victory of Islamists in the 1991 parliamentary polls was used to argue that the country would be better off under brutal military rule than fall to theocracy. Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak refuses to allow democracy on strategic grounds. Pakistan’s Generals have periodically intervened ostensibly to save their nation from the corruption and ineptitude of elected politicians. Pakistani technocrats, often influential because of their ties to the international financial institutions, provide justification for military intervention by exaggerating the corruption and alleged mismanagement of civilian politicians.

President Bush would have to find a way to match his promises of democratising the Muslim world with facts. He might begin by refusing to allow America’s Muslim allies to redefine freedom and democracy with cosmetic changes. It is widely understood that exigencies of international relations occasionally require temporary alliances with autocrats. But a friendly dictator should be called just that, a friendly dictator, and not described as the builder of a future democracy. The Bush administration invites charges of hypocrisy when it describes actions such as the creation of rubber-stamp Parliaments and fixed elections as first steps towards democracy. Mubarak’s regime in Egypt, for example, claims that it has been engaged in a gradual transition to democracy for over two decades.

Another practical step could be active American engagement with Opposition leaders and parties. Since the days of Iran’s Shah, authoritarian Muslim rulers have demanded that the US shun their opposition as part of the price of their alliance and the US has obliged them. Changing this policy would entail the occasional exchange of hot words between the regimes and American diplomats. But it is unlikely that regimes such as those of Mubarak and Musharraf would withhold cooperation with the US (and forego the benefits in economic and military aid) because of increased US engagement with their Opposition. By embracing alternative leaders, the US would deprive authoritarian regimes of the ‘‘there is no alternative’’ argument that has forced the US to befriend unsavory regimes in the first place.

Gulf News , February 2, 2005

Just as insurgents failed to stop Iraq’s elections, the polls are unlikely to stop the insurgency. But the massive turnout for the elections establishes decisively that the insurgents do not speak for the overwhelming majority of Iraq’s Muslims. In the absence of elections and democratic processes a brutal but dedicated minority manages to amplify its message.
Now, if the United States acts sensibly, the terrorist minority can be isolated from the broad mass of people. The vote in Iraq on Sunday was a vote for Iraqi democracy, not for US military occupation. President George W. Bush now has the opportunity to prove to his critics that the US commitment to democracy and not the need for occupying Iraq is the determining factor in Washington’s policy.

Once before, in Vietnam in 1967, the United States and its local allies squandered an opportunity to build upon the holding of successful elections.

Then, the Vietcong failed to prevent a high turnout in presidential polls in South Vietnam. But unlike Iraq where the transitional national assembly will comprise of popular clerics, trial chiefs and local politicians, South Vietnam’s elected president and vice-president/premier were American-backed generals. Nguyen Van Thieu and General Nguyen Cao Ky did not address the issues of concern to their people. The corrupt Vietnamese security apparatus became addicted to US aid and President Lyndon Johnson’s desire for decisive victory sucked America deeper into Vietnam’s quagmire.

Hopefully, wiser from the lessons of its earlier interventions elsewhere in the world, the United States would not make similar mistakes in Iraq. Instead of imposing a strongman of its choice, Washington should allow the elected Iraqi assembly to throw up leaders on its own and work out an exit strategy for its troops after training Iraq’s security forces.

Political process

Despite the success of Iraq’s elections, there is much that can go wrong there. The United States could try and micromanage Iraq’s political process, thereby creating a wedge between itself and the newly elected leaders. The new (and old) breed of Iraqi politicians could pursue ethnic, sectarian and communal interests at the expense of consensus and accommodation.

This could lead to a deadlock in constitution-making. The demands for security could be used by Americans or Iraqis to curtail Iraq’s relatively new freedoms. If Iraq is to become a beacon for freedom and democracy in the greater Middle East, these potential pitfalls must definitely be avoided. What must also be avoided is the temptation to prefer generals and technocrats over popular politicians a phenomenon that has resulted in the poor record of democracy in the region from Morocco to Pakistan.

The Iraqi people’s enthusiasm for elections should put to rest the myth perpetuated for years by monarchs and ruling generals that Muslim nations are not ready for democracy. The Iraqi polls come on the heels of similarly successful elections in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories. The United States encouraged each of these elections and must be given due credit for doing so.

Elected politicians, and technocrats willing to work alongside politicians, have emerged as the leaders of Afghanistan, Iraq and the Palestinians. But in countries where an army built up during colonial times still exists, the security apparatus rather than elected or electable politicians continues to be seen by the Americans as the guarantee of stability.

Every democracy in the world has gone through and continues to go through such ups and downs. In several Muslim countries, however, the normal rough patches of evolving democracy have been used as justification for overthrowing democracy. In Iran, the oil policies of the elected Mossadegh government were labelled as creeping communism and led to the 1953 CIA-backed coup that gave absolute power to the Shah until Iran’s 1979 revolution.

In Algeria, the first round victory of Islamists in the 1991 parliamentary polls was used to argue that the country would be better off under brutal military rule than fall to theocracy. The United States has often accepted these myriad arguments and backed authoritarian Muslim leaders. Efficient government has often been preferred over representative government.

If America’s project of a democratic Iraq is to succeed, the United States would have to set aside its tradition of denigrating flawed democrats and backing efficient dictators.

Ideally democratic governments must also be made efficient and corruption-free. But until that ideal is attained, democracy must be allowed to run its course in Iraq as elsewhere in the Muslim world.

Gulf News , January 15, 2005

The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) does not have sovereignty but as of January 9, it has something none of the other Arab states have: a democratically elected President chosen in a contested election.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas now has legitimacy in the eyes of the world and a mandate to represent his people in the peace process. Israel has welcomed his election. United States President George W. Bush has invited him for talks in Washington.

If a way can be found to assure terrorism-weary Israelis of their security and to guarantee dignity for Palestinians, we may soon see significant steps in the direction of resolving one of the most difficult conflicts in recent history.

The hopes generated by the presidential election in Palestine, however, could be dashed if Abbas reverts to appeasing Palestinian hardliners instead of controlling and marginalising them.

There would be no viable peace process also if Israeli leaders lapse into complacency, inspired by the belief that Israel does not need to make any concessions in view of its military superiority.

Israelis and Palestinians lead parallel lives. After several decades, it is clear that Israel cannot hope to “get rid” of the Palestinians. It must learn to live them.

The Palestinians, too, appear to be realising the futility of the rhetoric of eliminating Israel. But Israelis and Palestinians have shown pragmatism before only to revert to ideologically driven positions. One can only hope this time things are different.

I was a witness to the PNA’s historic presidential election as a member of the election observer mission organised by the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) and the Carter Centre.

The delegation was led by former US President Jimmy Carter, former Prime Minister of Sweden Carl Bildt and former Republican Governor of New Jersey and Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman.

It included current and former legislators, former ambassadors, elections and human rights experts, civic leaders and regional specialists from 15 countries in Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, North Africa and North America.

The delegation visited the Occupied Territories from January 4-10 and deployed 80 observers to the West Bank, Gaza and eastern part of Occupied Jerusalem.

Major accomplishment

According to the preliminary statement by the delegation, “The January 9 Palestinian presidential election was a major accomplishment.

The election was contested vigorously and administered fairly. Election day was orderly and generally peaceful … The successful organisation of this election demonstrates the potential for the start of a new era in Palestinian politics and the development of representative and accountable governance”.

International observers monitoring the election noted six positive developments during the election process: a generally peaceful process, even though there were serious concerns beforehand that violence could disrupt the election; a mostly orderly election administration conducted by dedicated and professional officials; large numbers of Palestinians who came out to cast their votes; the significant presence of political party and candidate agents, as well as non-partisan domestic election observers, adding transparency to the process; the large role played by women in the election process as electoral officials, party and candidate agents, non-partisan observers and voters; and the easing of travel through check points by Israeli authorities to facilitate freedom of movement and election day processes.

The problems with the electoral process that caught the observers’ attention included the large percentage of registered voters whose names did not appear on the appropriate voter list at post offices designated for voting in Occupied Jerusalem; certain last-minute changes by the Central Election Commission (CEC) to conditions and hours for voting were implemented in ways that caused confusion; reliance on two separate voter lists, with separate voting places based on them, caused confusion and opened potential for abuse; and scattered incidents of intimidation and harassment by some Fatah activists.

As some commentators (and rulers in the Muslim world) do not tire of pointing out, democracy is not just about having an election. A free, fair and contested election reflects the will of the people for democracy.

As the NDI and Carter Centre observers pointed out in their post-election statement, “Having successfully conducted this presidential election, there are now opportunities to advance positive developments in a broader context necessary for peace and prosperity … They must quickly move to prepare for the next round of municipal and legislative elections, which are scheduled within the next six months.

Palestinians also should enhance efforts to ensure public order and to curtail violence. It is important that the Palestinian President and his designated Prime Minister establish an effective working relationship.”

The Palestinian election provides a window of opportunity for building an Arab democracy. In the words of international observers, “Palestinians will require continued support from the international community and will need to build upon the Palestinian-Israeli cooperation in election planning that took place in this election period”.

nternational Herald Tribune, October 16, 2004

When Pakistan’s military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, warned against the descent of an “iron curtain” between the West and the Islamic world, he appeared to put the onus of avoiding confrontation only on the West.

The Palestinian issue and the pre-emptive war in Iraq have undoubtedly accentuated anti-Western sentiment among Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia. But the conduct and rhetoric of Muslim leaders and their failure to address the stagnation of their societies has also fueled the tensions between Islam and the West.

Relations between Muslims and the West will continue to deteriorate unless the internal crisis of the Muslim world is also addressed.

After 9/11, General Musharraf switched support from Afghanistan’s Taliban to the U.S.-led war against terrorism. He has since received a hefty package of U.S. military and economic assistance and spoken of the need for “enlightened moderation.”

According to an opinion poll conducted by the Washington-based Pew Research Center as part of its Global Attitudes Survey, 86 percent of Pakistanis have a favorable view of General Musharraf while 65 percent also support Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden is viewed favorably by large percentages in other Muslim countries with “moderate” rulers.

Quite clearly, some Muslims find it possible to like Musharraf, who is regarded by the U.S. as the key figure in the hunt for bin Laden, while admiring his quarry at the same time. The contradiction speaks volumes about the general state of confusion in parts of the Muslim world, including Pakistan.

Instead of hard analysis, which thrives only in a free society, Muslims are generally brought up on propaganda, which is often state-sponsored. This propaganda usually focuses on Muslim humiliation at the hands of others instead of acknowledging the flaws of Muslim leaders and societies.

The focus on external enemies causes Muslims to admire power rather than ideas. Warriors, and not scholars or inventors, are generally the heroes of common people. In this simplistic “us vs. them” worldview, both Musharraf and bin Laden are warriors against external enemies.

Ringing alarm bells about an iron curtain between the West and the Islamic world without acknowledging the internal flaws of Muslim rulers and societies helps maintain the polarization as well as the flow of Western aid for the flawed rulers.

Ironically, a cult of the warrior has defined the Muslim worldview throughout the period of Muslim decline. Muslims have had few victories in the last two centuries, but their admiration for the proverbial sword and spear has only increased.

Textbooks in Muslim countries speak of the victories of Muslim fighters from an earlier era. Orators still call for latter-day mujahedeen to rise and regain Islam’s lost glory. More streets in the Arab world are named after Muslim generals than men of learning. Even civilian dictators in the Muslim world like being photographed in military uniforms, Saddam Hussein being a case in point.

In the post-colonial period, military leaders in the Muslim world have consistently taken advantage of the popular fascination with military power. The Muslim cult of the warrior explains also the relatively muted response in the Muslim world to atrocities committed by fellow Muslims.

While the Muslim world’s obsession with military power encourages violent attempts to “restore” Muslim honor, the real reasons for Muslim humiliation and backwardness continue to multiply. In the year 2000, according to the World Bank, the average income in the advanced countries (at purchasing price parity) was $27,450, with the U.S. income averaging $34,260 and Israel’s income averaging $19, 320.

The average income in the Muslim world, however, stood at $3,700. Pakistan’s per capita income in 2003 was a meager $2,060. Excluding the oil-exporting countries, none of the Muslim countries of the world had per capita incomes above the world average of $7,350.

National pride in the Muslim world is derived not from economic productivity, technological innovation or intellectual output but from the rhetoric of “destroying the enemy” and “making the nation invulnerable.” Such rhetoric sets the stage for the clash of civilizations as much as specific Western policies.

Ironically, Western governments have consistently tried to deal with one manifestation of the cult of the warrior – terrorism – by building up Muslim strongmen who are just another manifestation of the same phenomenon.

International Herald Tribune, May 25, 2004

The fall from grace of Ahmad Chalabi, known until recently as America’s best friend in Iraq, is being described as an error of judgment belatedly corrected. But this is not an isolated incident of the United States making a mistake in its choice of overseas friend, nor of deserting him.

The United States has embraced numerous characters of dubious integrity, from President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines to the shah of Iran, only to be accused by these erstwhile allies of abandoning them when the going gets rough. While they are friends, the United States claims they are “good guys.” When it dumps them, it feels compelled to blame them for some evil action.

Pakistan’s late dictator, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, suggested that the United States was unable to give assistance to people in developing countries “on the basis of mutual respect”; Americans, he said, did not know how to be “friends, not masters.” Perhaps the Chalabi affair will prompt some thinking in Washington about how not to choose a “bad” friend in the first place, and how to avoid giving the impression that its allies have duped the United States. Washington also needs to figure out a way of cutting ties with undesirable allies without deepening the impression that America does not stand by its friends.

The shah of Iran, restored to the throne in 1953 as absolute monarch in a CIA-backed coup, complained in his last days that he was overthrown through American machinations. Marcos, backed for long years by the United States despite his corrupt and authoritarian regime, felt the same way when his regime collapsed in 1986. Panama’s dictator, Manuel Noriega, went from being a paid U.S. intelligence asset to an outlaw – he is currently serving a prison term in Florida for drug trafficking. The Bush administration supported and defended Ahmad Chalabi, no questions asked, right up to the recent decision to cut off his funding, followed by accusations of secret links with Iran.

In an imperfect world, America has to support some leaders who do not meet its criteria for honest, democratic leadership. Chalabi, however, was not the unsavory ruler of a strategically important country. He was an exile adopted as a friend by a U.S. faction because he provided it with arguments that advanced their strategic vision. But even if the intention behind the neoconservative vision for war in Iraq – the creation of an Arab democracy – was noble, its Iraqi architect, Chalabi, was far from an above-board ally. A nation like the United States, which claims a moral purpose in the world, cannot afford to let ends justify the means.

When allegations about Chalabi’s integrity first surfaced, his backers should have at least qualified their support for him. While insisting on seeing a world of gray in terms of black and white, they chose to whitewash Chalabi’s record. His lack of support among Iraqis was glossed over. The inability to verify his intelligence was ignored. And no one in the U.S. government or the U.S. media adequately questioned Chalabi’s past financial dealings.

This unqualified support for Chalabi until the recent break with him reflects a major problem in American relations with the world. The United States does not have sufficient nuance in its friendships, nor does it seem to know how to distance itself from friends it no longer needs.

Ideally, America’s friends abroad should share America’s proclaimed values. But when the United States is forced to join hands with unsavory characters for strategic reasons, it should not become their unquestioning advocate. In international relations, there are many categories between friend and rogue.

The Daily Star, April 21 , 2004

From Morocco to Indonesia to Muslim emigrant communities in Europe and America, madrassas, in this case schools for religious teaching, are a major source of radical influence on the thinking of the world’s 1 billion Muslims.

Most madrassas teach a relatively benign brand of fundamentalist Islam. However, a significant minority acts as recruiting centers for violent radicals who not only reject the West but also seek to attack it by whatever means possible. The US has included madrassa reform in its agenda for change in the Muslim world. It assumes that taking out religious hatred and violent opposition to modernity from the curricula of religious schools would dampen the fervor of militancy that seems to be sweeping many Muslim countries.

As a young boy, I attended a madrassa in my hometown of Karachi. On one of the walls, someone had hand-written a hadith, or tradition of the Prophet’s sayings and actions: “Seek knowledge even if it takes you as far as China.” Across the road from one of the radical madrassas spawned by the Afghan war was scrawled another hadith: “Paradise lies under the shade of swords.”

The remarkable global spread of madrassas during the 1980s and 1990s owed much to geopolitics and sectarian struggles. Madrassas in Pakistan, in particular, were used as places to enroll mujahideen trained by the American and Pakistani intelligence services to fight the Soviet Army then occupying Afghanistan.

The influence and staying power of madrassas worldwide derive from deep-rooted socioeconomic conditions that have so far proved resistant to change. In some ways, the madrassas are at the center of a civil war of ideas in the Islamic world. Westernized, usually affluent Muslims often lack an interest in religious matters while the ulama, or religious scholars, marginalized by modernization, seek to assert their relevance by insisting on orthodoxy. A regular school education costs money and is often inaccessible to the poor, but madrassas are generally free. The poor students attending madrassas find it easy to believe that the West, allied to their own uncaring rulers, is responsible for their misery and that Islam, as practiced by its earliest exponents, can deliver them.

Madrassas have been around since the 11th century, when the Seljuk Vizier Nizam-ul-Mulk Hasan bin Ali Tusi founded a seminary in Baghdad to train experts in Islamic law. Islam had become the religion of a large community, stretching from North Africa to Central Asia. But, apart from the Koran, there were no definitive theological texts. The dominant Muslim sect, the Sunnis, did not have a clerical class, leaving groups of believers to follow whomever inspired them in religious matters. Sunni Muslim rulers legitimated their rule through religion, depending primarily on an injunction in the Koran binding believers to obey the righteous ruler. Over time, it became important to seek religious conformity and to define dogma to ensure the obedience of subjects, as well as to protect rulers from rebellion. Nizam-ul-Mulk’s madrassa was intended to create a class of ulama, qadis (judges) and muftis (jurists) that would administer the Muslim empire, legitimize its rulers as righteous and define an unalterable version of Islam.

The dogma adopted for this new madrassa, and the tens of thousands that would follow, was defined by the 9th century theologian Abu al-Hassan al-Ashaari in several polemical texts, including The Detailed Explanation in Refutation of the People of Perdition and The Sparks: Refutation of Heretics and Innovators. It rejected any significant role for reason in religious matters and declared that religion be considered the focus of a Muslim’s existence. The madrassas adopted a core curriculum that divided knowledge between “revealed sciences” and “rational sciences.” The revealed sciences included study of the Koran, the Hadith, Koranic commentary and Islamic jurisprudence. The “rational sciences” included Arabic language and grammar to help understand the Koran, logic, rhetoric and philosophy.

Largely unchanged and unchallenged, this approach to education dominated the Islamic world for centuries, until the advent of colonial rule when Western education penetrated countries previously ruled by Muslims. Throughout the Middle East, as well as in British India and Dutch-ruled Indonesia, modernization marginalized the madrassas. Their graduates were no longer employable as judges or administrators as the Islamic legal system gave way to Western jurisprudence. Muslim societies became polarized between economically prosperous Western-educated individuals attending modern schools and colleges and madrassa-educated mullahs. But the poor remained faithful. The failings of the post-colonial elite in almost all Muslim countries paved the way for Islamic political movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab world, the Islamic Party (Jamaat-e-Islami) in South Asia, and the Nahdatul Ulema (the Movement for religious scholars) in Indonesia. These movements questioned the legitimacy of the Westernized elite, created reminders of Islam’s past glory and played on hopes for an Islamic utopia.

In most cases the founder of Islamic political movements were religiously inclined politicians with a modern education. But the rank and file was sometimes provided by the madrassas. Madrassas proliferated through the provision of zakat, or tithes, and financial assistance from the Gulf states. More often than not today, madrassas are tied to Islamist political movements.

Most Muslim countries allocate insignificant portions of their budgets to education, leaving large segments of their growing populations without schooling. The madrassas fill that gap, especially for the poor. The poorest countries, such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Somalia, Yemen and Indonesia, have the largest madrassa enrollment.

An estimated 6 million Muslims study in madrassas around the world, and twice that number attend maktabs or kuttab (small Koranic schools attached to village mosques). An overwhelming majority of these madrassas follow the quietist tradition, teaching rejection of Western ways without calling on believers to fight the unbelievers. But the few that teach violence drill in such beliefs firmly. The militant madrassa is a relatively new phenomenon, the product of mistakes committed in fighting Communism in Afghanistan. But even the quietist madrassa teaches a rejection of modernity while emphasizing conformity and a medieval mindset.

The Muslim world is divided between the rich and the powerful, often aligned with the West, and impoverished masses that turn to religion in the absence of adequate means of livelihood. This social reality makes it difficult for the madrassas to remain unaffected by radical ideas, even if the militancy introduced during the last two decades is taken away. Cutting off outside funding might help, but because of their modest expenses, madrassas can survive without assistance from oil-producing states.

Western involvement in the rekindling of Jihadist ideology during the war in Afghanistan led to the growth of radical movements throughout the Muslim world. Any attempt by the US to “reform” the madrassas could, similarly, have unforeseen consequences. The Muslim world needs to be encouraged to embrace modern education and undertake ijtihad (mental exertion to find solutions to problems) on its own. Proposals such as adding the learning of science and mathematics to the theology of conformity taught at traditional madrassas are hardly solutions to the Muslim world’s knowledge deficit.