Pakistan_ A Hard Country - Anatol Lieven [90]
In contrast to Khomeini’s movement in Iran, however (but recognizing Pakistani realities), Maududi’s and the Jamaat’s approach to Islamist revolution in Pakistan has been gradualist, not revolutionary. They have stood in most elections, and condemned the administration of President Zia (which in other respects they supported) for its lack of democracy. This is despite the fact that Maududi imbued the Jamaat with certain aspects of modern European totalitarianism. He was also quite open about the fact that his idea of the Jamaat’s revolutionary role owed much to the Russian Communist idea of the Bolshevik party as a revolutionary ‘vanguard’, leading apathetic masses to revolution. The Jamaat, and more especially its semi-detached student wing, Islami Jamiat Talaba, have frequently engaged in violent clashes with rivals.
The Jamaat’s relationship with democracy is complex. It pursues quasi-totalitarian ends by largely democratic means, and internally is the only party in Pakistan to hold elections to its senior offices – all the other parties being run by autocratic individuals or dynasties. The Jamaat and the Mohajir-based MQM are the only parties to possess really effective party organizations, and the only ones with successful women’s wings. Indeed, I have heard it said that Munawar Hasan’s wife (leader of the Jamaat women’s organization) is ‘the real leader of the party’.
In this, the Jamaat is also close to the Iranian revolution. Its leaders like to emphasize that they believe strongly in women’s education, employment and full rights and opportunities, ‘but in harmony with their own particular rights and duties’. At least in speaking with me, Jamaat leaders strongly condemned aspects of the Afghan Taleban’s treatment of women and the Pakistani Taleban’s destruction of girls’ schools. I got the feeling that this also reflected the disdain of educated people from an ancient urban – and urbane – Islamic tradition for the savage and illiterate Pathan hillmen.
However, while intermittently condemning Taleban terrorism against Pakistani Muslims (though also frequently in private blaming it on the security forces), the Jamaat have consistently opposed any military action against the Taleban. Statements by the party’s amir (leader, or, strictly translated, ‘commander’) on the Jamaat website in December 2009 summed up the party stance very well: ‘Munawar and Liaqat Baloch strongly condemned the suicide bomb attack on the Peshawar press club and termed it an attack on press freedom’; but at the same time, ‘Operation in Waziristan to have horrible consequences, and the nation will have no escape’, and ‘All Islamic and Pakistan-loving forces must unite against America.’18
Without taking up arms themselves, the Jamaat have also shown considerable sympathy for militancy. A large proportion of Al Qaeda members arrested by the Pakistani authorities have been picked up while staying with Jamaat members, though the party leadership strongly denies that this reflects party policy. The Hizbul Mujahidin, a Kashmiri militant group which has carried out terrorism against India, is in effect a branch of the Jamaat. In the course of the 1990s, however, its role in Kashmir was eclipsed by the more radical and militarily effective Lashkar-e-Taiba, and it has never carried out attacks in Pakistan.
The greater radicalism of the Jamaat was displayed during the Red Mosque crisis of 2007. The JUI condemned the actions of the Red Mosque militants and called for them to reach a peaceful compromise with the authorities. The Jamaat by contrast gave them strong backing – while continuing to insist that it stood for peaceful revolution in Pakistan. Moreover, a considerable proportion of the leadership of the Swat wing of the Pakistani Taleban (the former