Pakistan_ A Hard Country - Anatol Lieven [176]
The vast majority of Broomfield’s students of course have far too much to lose ever to join an extremist group; but sentiments among poor people on the street were just as extreme – and they have far less to lose. As in the rest of Punjab, in January 2009 in Multan I found some sympathy for the Pakistani Taleban among most of those people I asked who declared themselves to be Sunni (I made a point of asking my interviewees’ sectarian affiliation, though many refused to answer, in some cases giving adherence to a saint as the reason). Concerning the idea of military action against the Taleban (Pakistani or Afghan) a majority of Sunni and even some Shia were opposed. This may have changed since then, but I doubt it has changed completely.
However, the Shia (together with smaller minority Muslim groups like the Bohra, who also fear persecution by Sunni radicals) were the only section of the population with many members willing to support military action. Shia and Bohra were also the only former PPP voters on the streets in Multan, many of whom still said that they would vote for Zardari and the PPP at the next election. As of that date at least, the local Sunni seemed to have deserted the party en masse.
Then again, one should not make too much of this. Several of the Shia and Bohra also said that they were sick of the PPP and Zardari and would vote PML(N) at the next election, and a good many Sunni, if not a majority, denounced the Pakistani Taleban and said it was right to fight against them. All my interviewees, Sunni, Shia and Bohra alike, denounced the US and its presence in Afghanistan, but then that is true even in the most anti-militant circles in Pakistan. Furthermore, this was among the lower-middle-class shopkeepers in the bazaars of Multan city, where one would expect Sunni militant feeling to be stronger, and where people (including the Shia middle classes, for economic reasons) are more likely to vote PML(N). After the 2008 elections, of Multan district’s six national assembly seats, three were held by the PPP, two by the PML(N) and one by the PML(Q). Two of the PPP’s Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) and the PML(Q) MNA were from pir families. The PLM(N) MNAs were a small landowner and a local businessman.
In the countryside of Punjab south of Multan, pirs and their shrines are still very widely revered, and kinship groups and their hereditary landowning chieftains remain politically dominant. This, the Seraiki language, and the presence of large numbers of Baloch tribes bind southern Punjab closely to Sindh, the subject of the next chapter – more closely in many respects than to northern Punjab. Rural Sindh contains very little support for Islamist militancy of either the jihadi or the sectarian variety; but like southern Punjab and Balochistan – and unlike northern and central Punjab – most of Sindh also contains few signs of economic and social change and dynamism.
8
Sindh
We all knew it would start up again – the shootings on a massive scale, the unnatural silence in the evenings, the siege mentality – but for the moment, for today, Karachi was getting back on its feet, as it had always been able to do, and that didn’t just mean getting back to work, but getting back to play: friendship, chai, cricket on the street, conversation ... In the midst of everything that was happening, Karachi had decided to turn round and wink at me. And in that wink was serious intent: yes, the city said, I am a breeding ground for monsters, but don’t think that is the full measure of what I am.
(Kamila Shamsie)1
On the late afternoon of 29 April 2009 in Karachi I visited the local headquarters of the Jamaat Islami party and spent a couple of hours talking with the head of their social welfare organization; then went on to Zeinab Market in the old downtown area to buy some presents, and spent another hour or so haggling over tablecloths and shawls; then to another shop to buy a new suitcase,