‘Enlightened moderation’ becoming dilute

Daily Times, March 27, 2005
‘Enlightened moderation’ becoming dilute
Staff Report

KARACHI: Intellectuals and academics said here on Saturday that the concept of “enlightened moderation” espoused by President General Pervez Musharraf was becoming dilute with the passage of time and the present military government was fast retreating in the wake of mounting pressure from the clergy and reactionary forces.

Pakistan Association for Mental Health President Prof. S. Haroon Ahmed said: “Enlightened moderation is a slogan which every successive government in the past has been raising. Ayub Khan’s Islamic socialism had nothing to do with his policies. Bhutto’s slogans ‘socialism is our politics’ and ‘Islam is our religion’ eventually led to disaster. Today Bhutto is known for his slogans about socialism rather than for his actions. Pervez Musharraf’s ‘enlightened moderation’ has nothing to do with the policies on the ground level politics. So one should not be surprised about announcements made and withdrawn, promises made and flouted. The slogans are meant for international consumption and that the common man should be deluged into believing that something new is going to commence.

“The mention of religion in the passport is an extremely retrogressive step, negating everything that has been said about enlightened moderation.”

Leading political analyst Dr Jaffer Ahmed said: “General Musharraf has raised the slogan of ‘enlightened moderation’ but it has not gone beyond slogan mongering. It cannot be described as a well worked out theory or a doctrine explaining an exclusive worldview.

“General Musharraf seems to demonstrate his being different from religious fundamentalists. This is important from his point of view in order to ensure western support. But his government and parliament do not seem to be united behind this idea. It also appears that even the cabinet is not unanimous in what implies ‘enlightened moderation’ and what imperative it has.”

Elaborating, he said: “The issue of striking out the religious column from the passport and then bringing it back is a case in point. In the first place such columns do not occur in passports in other countries. So it should not be there in Pakistan as well. And then if it was removed from the passport by the government, it should have done its homework first and should have at least mustered support from its own members in parliament and the cabinet should have been united behind the decision.”

He further said: “Now what the decision of bringing the column back would suggest to the world is that the government has retreated from its earlier position under the pressure of the religious organisations. This is not for the first time that the government has retreated from a position taken earlier. For example, after coming to power General Musharraf praised Kamal Attaturk and his modernisation of Turkey but later it was clarified that the general did not support secularism. Then it was indicated that the government would like to bring changes in the blasphemy law but again under pressure the decision was rescinded. More recently, when a Pakistan People’s Party member piloted a bill on ‘karo-kari,’ the government introduced its own bill which was much short of preventing ‘karo-kari’ in the country.