The Pakistan I Know

I am outraged by, and mourn, the brutal murder of Danny Pearl as much as anyone who did not know him personally. His death was unprovoked and senseless, and cannot but prove exceptionally counterproductive to the perverse aims of his abductors. Yet I mourn also for my country, Pakistan. This nation of 140 million, as much as Pearl himself, is being held hostage by fringe elements from within who, with their acts of barbarity, present an image of Pakistan quite at odds with the country I know and love.

It is a little publicized fact that when Pakistan was carved out from India, its creation was opposed not just by Nehru and Gandhi, but also by the Islamic leaders of the time. Jinnah—Pakistan’s founder—envisioned the new country as a progressive Muslim, not Islamic, state. Indeed, his independence address declared to his people, “You are free to go to your temples, [to your] places of worship...that has nothing to do with the business of the State...You will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.” It is the progressive vision of this speech, which—though obscured in these darker times—constitutes the core of Pakistan.

Jinnah’s vision remains the basis for the state I glimpse and desire. It is of a nation aspiring to modern Muslim statehood, yet held back by illiteracy, poverty and mismanagement. In election after election, Pakistanis reject religion as a function of government; indeed, in the four most recent general elections, the combined religious parties have never exceeded 5 percent of the votes cast. In contrast, over this time a woman has twice been elected to lead this country of 140 million. The first time this occurred was also the first time in history that a woman had led a Muslim nation.

Among Pakistan’s urban majority, headscarves—let alone the suffocating burqas—remain the exception. It is a society where, despite all the constraints endemic to poor, conservative cultures, women pilot 747s, run major corporations and become lawyers, judges and politicians. It is an overwhelmingly Muslim land (98 percent) where minorities still become cabinet ministers, supreme court justices and Nobel Prize winners. All this does not take away from the vast discrimination and injustice that exists, but the picture is far more complex than CNN reports would have you believe. The important reality is that for every militant or militant sympathizer, there are 20 Pakistanis who welcome foreigners, who embrace Americans and who, in many cases, aspire to someday live the American dream. They watch “Baywatch” and are bemused by “Seinfeld,” they cheer the Chicago Bulls and are bewildered by cricket’s stepchild, baseball. Indeed, it is sad but true that impoverished villages are more likely to have communal satellite TVs with the best, and worst, of Americana than running water or functioning schools.

Pakistan may be Egypt with Himalayan Pyramids, yet it neither receives billions of dollars in American aid nor is its government (even the current military led one) as repressive and intolerant of dissent as the government of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. It could someday be like Turkey, yet it aspires to be so much more, a country where religion is neither stifled nor imposed, and where ultimately the army has no role at all in governmental affairs. Pakistan is, and always has been, the most dependable U.S. ally in all of South and Central Asia. When President Nixon sought to engage China, it was Pakistan that helped. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, it was Pakistan which stepped up to arm and train the mujahedeen. In the ’50s and ’60s, Pakistani bases were used by American U-2s spying on the Soviet Union. Today, those very bases have become staging grounds for the war on terror. Yet America’s ally has fallen on hard times. Pakistan is a country held hostage by its own “special interests”—the Afghan jihad, Saudi funding and government mismanagement. The more important reality, however, is that Pakistan’s current government has declared war on these thugs and the things for which they stand. And Pakistanis have responded to the call with approval.

To have this crucial fact obscured by headline-grabbing tragedies like Pearl’s is a tragedy in its own right. I can but urge that every time a bearded militant’s image is flashed across a news screen, the millions of Pakistanis who aspire towards American-inspired ideals of liberty and justice also be remembered. It is one way to ensure that Pearl’s murderers never achieve their ultimate goals.

As we mourn for Pearl, think also of Pakistan. For it is the victim that can still be saved. It is a country whose heart is willing, yet whose limbs fail. It is an old friend turning to America in its darkest hour. A strong helping hand, and a whole lot of understanding, is all it seeks.

Ali Ahsan ’99, a former Crimson editor, is a third-year student at Yale Law School.