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Conflating liberal and conservatism in a largely Islamic nation with American politics is a bit of a stretch, RG.
The price of being liberal in much of the world is either jail or death.
... and conservatives in this country wonder why liberals might be a bit worried about conservative vitriol.
This "Godless liberal" was killed by someone who has been elevated to the status of a hero in many parts of the country.
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Staring into the abyss
Salman Taseer’s murder deals a huge blow to liberal Pakistan
THERE is a small space in which a liberal vision of Pakistan hangs on. It shrank a lot further with the murder on January 4th of a notable progressive politician and critic of religious extremism, Salman Taseer. Even before the assassination, the leading liberal-minded political party, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which heads the government in Islamabad and counted Mr Taseer as an activist since the 1970s, was in deep trouble. On January 2nd the PPP lost its majority in parliament when the second-biggest party in the government coalition, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), walked out.
The PPP has been rocked by Mr Taseer’s murder, which brings back memories of the ghastly assassination by extremists of the party’s leader, Benazir Bhutto, in 2007. Pakistan’s problems, including an economy in a tailspin and a raging Islamist insurgency, are unlikely to get the attention they need while the government struggles for survival.
Mr Taseer was the governor of Punjab, a largely ceremonial position in Pakistan’s most populous province, but a high-profile one for all that. He had run a lonely but fearless campaign against Pakistan’s pernicious blasphemy law and was gunned down in broad daylight in Islamabad by one of his own police guards. The smirking killer later said he acted because Mr Taseer’s call for the blasphemy law to be repealed made Mr Taseer himself a “blasphemer”. Mr Taseer had taken up the case of a poor Christian woman, Asia Bibi, whom a court last year condemned to death for blasphemy. Mr Taseer himself was always sure that extremists did not represent the majority opinion in Pakistan, but that their recourse to violence means that they control public discourse.
“Pakistan lives under great intimidation, so it doesn’t matter whether extremism is a majority opinion or minority,” says Khaled Ahmed, an analyst. “Moderates will never get up and speak when we’re treated like this.” In 2009 a leading religious cleric who condemned suicide bombings was himself murdered by a suicide attacker. The same year the minister for religious affairs, also a moderate, was wounded in an assassination attempt. Other temperate voices have fled the country. The PPP dared not back Mr Taseer’s call for the blasphemy law to be overturned, nor even to back the law’s reform.
The law, first introduced in colonial times but in the 1980s made punishable by death by the late dictator General Zia ul Haq, is wide open to abuse, with hearsay used to convict dozens of people each year. Accusers routinely fabricate stories of blasphemy to punish enemies for other grievances. The law is vague and applies only to insults to Islam. Minorities and Muslims alike are caught up in its tentacles. The alleged blasphemy may neither be stated in the charges nor repeated in court, since that would in itself be an act of blasphemy.
Mr Taseer’s killer, Mumtaz Qadri, may have acted alone—an investigation may get to the root of it. Yet his cause has support in Pakistan. Lawyers outside the court showered him with rose petals. The murder follows a campaign of vilification by the clergy and sections of the press. A broad alliance of the clergy rushed out a statement lionising the assassin. “No Muslim should attend the funeral or even try to pray for Salman Taseer,” said Jamaate Ahle Sunnat Pakistan, which represents the large and moderate Barelvi sect of Islam.
Religious parties do not attract much support at election time—they polled less than 5% of votes in the last ballot, in 2008. However, Ijaz Gilani, head of Gallup Pakistan, argues that it would be a “very serious miscalculation” to judge society’s religiosity by the showing of Islamist parties at election time. Pakistan has a first-past-the-post system, so people vote for one of the mainstream parties that have the best chance of coming to power. It means that both the PPP and, especially, the other main party, the Pakistan Muslim League (N), led by Nawaz Sharif, have a bank of religious-minded voters whom they must be careful not to offend.
Pakistan’s public culture is riddled with hardline views, from the school curriculum to the nightly political talk shows. Meanwhile, as Mr Taseer himself never failed to point out, the state gives succour to violent, extremist organisations. No serious attempt is made to rein in the interpretation of Islam promoted by the military establishment since the 1980s, which puts jihad at the core. Repeated calls for the Punjab governor to be killed were made from mosque pulpits across Pakistan, yet such hate speech goes unpunished.
Now the PPP is desperately seeking an alternative coalition partner. In part, the MQM walked out in opposition to a planned hike in the oil price. Reforms promised under an IMF programme are now jeopardised.
The risk is that the divided opposition will get together to oust the government and force fresh elections. The opposition leader, Mr Sharif, holds the cards: any no-confidence motion in parliament would need his backing to succeed. Mr Sharif himself seems unsure whether to go for power. He fears this would play into the hands of the army, which historically has worked to undermine both politicians and democracy itself. So the government could limp on for months, with two years of its five-year term still to go.
As for the army, it appears unwilling to seize power itself, as it has repeatedly done in the past. With Pakistan’s myriad economic and political problems, and the urgent need to focus military resources on the Islamist insurgency, the prospect of power looks unappealing. The present situation suits the military. It controls security and foreign policy, its budget is protected and American military aid is flowing, whereas the government is blamed for all the country’s ills. It would be foolish to rule out a coup, but just now the generals seem hesitant to take responsibility for a place that has embraced Mr Taseer’s assassination with such relish.
http://www.economist.com/node/17851553
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Pakistan is, in my opinion, on a path towards an Islamic Republic ala Iran. I doubt anything will deter that from happening.
We will then be faced with the prospect of a paranoid islamist extremist state armed with nuclear weapons, even without Iran acquiring them. Pakistan is run by conspiracy theory at the local and state level, with a heavy dose of religious fundamentalism fueled by a lack of public, secular education.
As soon as we start wrapping things up in Afghanistan, we will have to figure out how much we really want to support Pakistan, especially given India's economic growth.
Their rivalry will push us into a lot of either/or decisions that will not end up in Pakistan's favor.
Their government and military have walked a line between being conciliatory and being overtly hostile to the US.
Conflating liberal and conservatism in a largely Islamic nation with American politics is a bit of a stretch, RG.
Reload mother er!
The 'liberal' in this case was fighting against the restriction of speech (blasphemy). I assume RG is making an argument against 'angry speech' that was allegedly behind the shooting of the congresswoman (despite evidence to the contrary). Do you support the restriction of such 'vitriolic' speech RG? Wouldn't you be more in line with the Islamic conservatives in this case, favoring the restriction of certain types of speech they dislike?
I don't think the two countries are anywhere near analogous, let's be clear. The US is not Pakistan.
But looking around at what happens to countries when overly-religious people get the hackles up or, worse, the reins of government, it makes me really leery of such people in the US.
I suppose that is no different than conservatives looking at Hugo Chavez and being leery of lefties in the US.
The problem with goign to far in any direction is that once you make that the "norm" you are ed. I hope we never get that way.
No kidding.
Maybe he just read "The American Taliban".
RG is really off his game today.
I am not making a case against "angry speech" that was allegedly behind the shooting of the congresswoman. Dude was a nutjob with serious issues. No more, no less.
The fact that his representative was a Democrat appears to be almost entirely incidental, but I will readily confess to suspecting otherwise immediately afterwards.
My point is that I am really kind of concerned that a sizable portion of our population get their opinions from the Beck/Hannity/Limbaugh/Palin bunch, without much questioning.
Whithin any given large population, there are bound to be *some* nutbags, and the outright demogoguery on the part of the aforementioned group concerns me.
No more, no less. I really wish we could/would elevate the discussion in our country a bit.
The Spanish Inquisition thanks you for just now noticing this.
Skimmed the book some time back, but never fully read it.
I think the guy made a fair case regarding our own overly-religious nutbags.
Do you think Katrina was God's judgment for NO having a gay pride parade?
It was dumb of people like Krugman to conjecture about political motives in the Tuscon shooting only hours after it happened. It's even dumber to continue this discussion days later, when it is quite clear that the shooter is a crazed loner who doesn't have any coherent political ideology.
/thread
We live in a country where at least 80% of the voting population only needs to see a "D" or an "R" after someone's name, a majority of the remainder will vote for the guy they think they'd have more fun hanging out with or some other superficial metric, and you're only worried about the Beck/Hannity/Limbaugh/Palin fans not doing much questioning?
Last edited by coyotes_geek; 01-13-2011 at 03:51 PM.
I might say the same about those who listen to NPR/MSNBC/Olberman/Maddow/Obama, that people follow them 'without much questioning' without having any supporting evidence for that other than my opinion. In any case, what do you propose to 'fix' the problem you perceive?
Strangely enough, the Tuscon shooter, Jared Loughner, is an atheist -- just like Bill Maher.
It may indeed be dumb of Krugman to say that.
It is also irrelevant to a discussion of islamic extremism in Pakistan.
You did read the entire OP, right?
I expect Bill to shoot a senator any day now. I'll probably follow.
You spend post after post after post accusing people of playing politics with this shooting and attempting to lump the nutbag in with groups you are sympathic with, instead making the case he is a simple nutbag.
Then go off and lump him in with a group you don't like, to make some point.
Are you trying to win some bag of the Month award?
It was just a coincidence that you started caring about Pakistani liberals this week?
And boutons already won the coveted bag of the Month award.
Dude! I am soooo getting that award! It's mine!
It was a coincidence that the guy was shot a few days earlier.
I have cared about Pakistani liberals for a long time. They are the sadly small thing helping to keep Pakistan from being swallowed by islamic extremism, and they are losing it seems.
You should be rooting for them. or do you hope those liberals lose elections too?
Are you sure about that?
/Parker
darrin desperately wants you to agree it isn't political. lol
Hmm. There is something a guy named Darrin told me about this topic...
Why don't you and him have a long talk, and get back with me when you figure out what is relevant, since you brought up atheism, as if it is relevent somehow.
edit--
Seems like the second Darrin thinks the first Darrin is a "stupid ".
I'm not sure I would put up with that.
Go get him, Darrin.
See man, that other Darrin (I'll call him Darrin #2 for clarity)also said this, and that seems to disagree with your implication about Mr. Loughner's atheism:
Let me know when you get around to responding to Darrin #2, I think he made a good point.
I could go on, and pick out a few more quotes from Darrin #2 for Darrin #1 to address.
I found at least one other, but think I will stop there.
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