Najam Sethi on a Liberal Pakistan

Sounds too good to be true!

Now, thankfully, positive change is in the air. Nawaz Sharif was handpicked and nurtured by the military three decades ago to do its bidding. He duly became the nemesis of the PPP, in the bargain getting into bed with the religious parties, passing Islamic laws and promoting jihad against India. Now he is all for peace with India, wants to stop all jihad across borders, is waking up to action against sectarian parties and religious terrorists and is embarrassed and hampered by the Islamic laws passed on his watch. The military, no less, sees the primary and immediate national security threat as emanating from internal religious extremism and not externally from archenemy India. Unfortunately, however, Imran Khan’s PTI is still muddying the waters by continuing to resist the development of a new national narrative of state and society based on modern notions of liberal and secular democracy.

Ishtiaq Ahmed: What's inside Muslim minds

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012/03/04/story_4-3-2012_pg3_3

Distinguished Pakistani sociologist Professor Emeritus Riaz Hassan has undertaken one of the most extensive studies of the religious consciousness of Muslims: Inside the Muslim Minds (Melbourne University Press, 2008). It has recently been published under the title Muslim Zehn from Lahore (Mashaal Books, February 2012).It covers seven countries — Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Iran and Turkey — and is based on the evidence of 6,390 Muslim respondents. The research was conducted in cooperation with research institutes in the respective countries. The themes include issues of personal piety, conscience, philanthropy and social justice, veiling, blasphemy, hudood laws, jihad, political order and religious institutions, globalisation and the Islamic ummah, Islam and civil society, mutual suspicions between Muslims and the West. The author has adhered to the highest standards of honest and qualified research. The result is a mine of information and profound insights. He makes it clear at the outset that multiple meanings and interpretations of Islam are possible. The two main interpretative approaches he identifies are those of the apologists who strive to reconcile Islam with modernity and the Islamists who fiercely oppose it. It is the latter’s influence that has been growing currently and the book highlights the problematic aspects of this.

Muslim League Secularism

B.G. Kaushik, in "The House That Jinnah Built", tells us:

The Muslim League leaders positively disapproved of the statement when M. Atay, the leader of the Turkish press mission to India, in a press interview in Lahore on January 28, 1943, stated, "We are Turks first, Muslims afterwards.  Religion is an honourable institution but it is individual and personal and has no place in the politics of our country."

I would love to learn in what terms the Muslim League leaders expressed their disapproval.

Current puzzle

Click in the image to see my current state of confusion.

The secular Pakistan narrative

Pakistani liberals place a great emphasis on the vision that Jinnah presented to the Constituent Assembly of the newly formed state of Pakistan on August 11, 1947.  It seems only natural, until one looks even a little deeper.  I hope in a series of posts to raise questions, and I invite all readers to participate in seeking the answers to these questions.

Pakistan has not implemented Jinnah's idea as expressed in that August 11, 1947 speech during the last sixty years, and general public opinion seems to be in favor of strict Shariat law. How will the use of Jinnah's speech change minds now?