An Iranian friend though that the list might appreciate this article.
The Daily Star Friday, July 30, 2004 Iran more democratic, liberal than Pakistan? Not by a long shotEven Tehran's reformists are unabashedly Islamist
By Yasser Latif Hamdani
This is reference to the article by Richard Bulliet "Worry about Pakistan, not Iran." Having lived in and loved both Pakistan and Iran, I can safely say that some of the writers assertions were based on blatant untruths, concocted deliberately to defame Pakistan. It seems to me that the only political pawn for people like Bulliet here is Pakistan, not Iran. Bulliet claims that Iran is a "modern country" with a "liberal population" and is closer to a "functioning democracy" while "Pakistan teeters on the edge of becoming a failed state." This claim is laughable and shows that Bulliet has never set foot in either country. Let us consider the issue of functioning democracy first. If a robust Parliament and a democratically elected executive are the requirements of a functioning democracy Pakistan is much more so than Iran, because Pakistan has both elected legislatures at local, provincial and national legislatures as well as an elected prime minister. It is true that the head of the state is a general, but then by the same analogy who elected the "Supreme Guide" and "Rahbar" of Iran? The people? If freedom of expression and press are the indicators of a functioning democracy then Pakistan beats Iran hands down. Pakistan has an outspoken press that is highly critical of its government. The very publication of Bulliet's article in a leading Pakistani daily should be evidence enough. Pakistan has a resilient civil society that is more progressive and liberal than any in the Islamic world. Today there are countless private channels that debate day in and day out the issues that are otherwise considered taboo and will never find any voice in most Muslim countries, including the modern and democratic Iran of Bulliet's dreams. I am not sure how Bulliet defines the word "liberal," but an average Pakistani on a Pakistani street is more liberal than an average Iranian, both in dress and thought. Perhaps the reason for that is that no government in Pakistan has enforced a dress code as the democratic, modern and liberal Iran has. Pakistani women are free from any legal restriction to wear anything. As a result, you find all sorts of women - from those dressed in Western clothes to those wearing a burqah. It is quite normal to find a young Pakistani woman wearing a tube top and jeans in major cities of Pakistan, but impossible to find it in the democratic and liberal Iran where anything less than the roohsari and chador is considered nudity and is against the law. In Pakistan you don't find policemen telling women to wear their chador in the prescribed way. This only happens in modern and democratic Iran. Pakistan's fashion industry, which has been the focus of much international attention, would be considered blasphemy in Iran. If women's role in society and politics is considered to be a benchmark for liberalism, then Pakistan again comes out on top. Not only has Pakistan elected a woman as prime minister twice, but today, with the exception of Sweden, Pakistan has the largest number of women parliamentarians in the world. This is unthinkable in modern, democratic and liberal Iran. Unlike the unidentified "surveys" by "Iranian sociologists" which point to a "pro-American population" these facts are much more conclusive when determining which country is progressive. As for terrorist outrages in Pakistan, it is expected for a front-line state in the "war on terror" to be targeted. Besides, Pakistan has a much larger population than Iran, and with significantly less resources. There are many reasons why the US today engages General Pervez Musharraf. Unlike other dictators the US is known to have supported, General Musharraf is, in the words of Bill Clinton, "intelligent, sophisticated and strong." General Musharraf understands that the Islamist wave on the upsurge in Pakistan is the fallout of the Cold War, and if it not stopped, can destroy Pakistan. Meanwhile, even the reformist leaders of Iran are unabashedly Islamist in their thinking. It must be remembered that unlike modern and democratic Iran, the Islamists in Pakistan have never won popular support. The most popular leaders of Pakistan have always been Western educated lawyers and liberal democrats like M. A. Jinnah, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto. Time and again the people of Pakistan have rejected the mullahs at the polls. It was the US that funded and founded those "hundreds of Islamic madrassas" that Bulliet talks about in his article. It was an "Islamist curriculum" prepared at the University of Nebraska that was introduced in Pakistan at the behest of the CIA. The idea was to create a generation of Islamist warriors as a bulwark against communism and socialism, both in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Today the chickens have come home to roost, and people like Bulliet fail to give credit where it's due. I would expect this article from someone like Christopher Hitchens or Bernard Henry Levy, who are deliberately inaccurate, but it was unexpected of a tenured professor of history at Columbia University to so shamelessly distort the truth in an election year. Thankfully there are fairer people in the US who have very different conclusions about the Muslim world. The key to the democratic transition in the Muslim world lies in a country like Pakistan, which has the potential of becoming a modern and pluralistic democracy. Perhaps Bulliet should read something by people who actually know something about Pakistan like William Milam, Stephen Cohen, Dennis Kux, Robert Oakley, John L. Esposito and Stanley Wolpert, than regurgitating half-truths of people like Hitchens and Bernard Henry Levy.
Yasser Latif Hamdani Lahore, Pakistan
Copyright (c) 2004 The Daily Star
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Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
