Pakistan: The Challenge of Religious Extremism and the Musharrafian State

Pakistan: The Challenge of Religious Extremism and the Musharrafian State
Apr 11, 2007: Stratfor

Summary

Pakistan's government remained internally divided April 11 over how to handle the standoff with extremist mullahs running a key mosque in Islamabad. Just as civil society groups -- rather than secular political parties -- spearheaded the public unrest stemming from the legal crisis over the sacking of Pakistan's top judge, ultra-conservative social elements -- not Islamist political parties -- are stirring the controversy over vigilante attempts to Islamize the capital. The nature of the controversy and the manner in which it is being handled will prove detrimental to both President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and his opponents.

Analysis

Since February, radical clerics and their followers at a mosque/seminary facility in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad have been challenging the government's authority by trying to impose their version of "Islamic" law in parts of the capital through kidnappings, illegal occupations of buildings and attempts to forcibly prevent "un-Islamic" behavior. Moreover, these armed mullahs have established a self-styled Islamic court and have said that if the Pakistani government does not enforce Islamic law, the mullahs will do it themselves. The extremist clerics have also reportedly threatened suicide attacks in response to a government crackdown.

The standoff between authorities and the hard-line mullahs from the Red Mosque continued April 11. Despite a second meeting with ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) party chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the two top clerics at the mosque/madrassa complex -- Maulana Abdul Aziz and Ghazi Abdul Rasheed -- are in no mood to negotiate an end to the standoff at the mosque and its affiliated madrassa, Jamia Hafsa. Meanwhile, senior Cabinet members are at odds over how to resolve the matter; some advocate an ironhanded policy, while others urge caution.

Meanwhile, in northwestern Pakistan, fighting between Pashtun tribesmen and transnational jihadist elements is continuing in the South Waziristan agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). A PML parliament member appealed to Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to deploy the army to quell raging Sunni-Shiite clashes in FATA's Kurram agency. In Karachi, a new kind of sectarian violence has emerged; a Barelvi religious group (the main school of thought in Pakistan that adheres to Sunni Islam's Sufi leanings) used high-powered assault rifles to attack Wahhabi mosques April 10 in retaliation for a jihadist suicide attack that killed top leaders of the Sunni Tehreek.

The growing security problems and political unrest would explain Musharraf’s comments April 11 in a speech at a political rally in the eastern city of Narowal, during which he said he will not dissolve parliament despite growing pressure to do so. The crisis involving the mullahs has overshadowed the legal crisis over Musharraf's dismissal of Pakistan's chief justice, giving the president a breather, but the mosque/madrassa standoff could create both short-term and long-term problems for the Pakistani state.

Ruling PML party chief Hussain has been pushing for a negotiated settlement with the mullahs, arguing that the government cannot handle the black coats (a euphemism for the legal community) and the black burkas (the female vigilantes who have symbolized the religious extremist campaign in Islamabad) teaming up against it. However, the Red Mosque issue has given Musharraf something with which to scare his secular political opponents into treading carefully, lest they empower the religious right. Conversely, his political opponents -- particularly the Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians (PPP-P), with whom Musharraf is engaged in power-sharing negotiations -- hope to convince the president he needs them to stem the rising tide of religious extremism. His secular opponents hope that a Musharraf weakened by the Red Mosque crisis would be more likely to deal on their terms. Put differently, each side wants to use the situation to extract concessions from the other.

While Musharraf has been focusing on dealing with the political forces -- both secular and Islamist -- the problems he is facing are not coming from political groups. In both the legal crisis and the mosque/madrassa controversy, his opponents are civil society groups. In fact, the mosque controversy is posing problems for the country’s main Islamist group, the Mutahiddah Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), which is worried that the religious vigilantes in Islamabad are actually hurting their cause. Moreover, the crisis has sharpened the differences between the MMA’s two main component parties.

Having contained the MMA and engaged the PPP-P, the government feels that it still has a handle on the overall situation in Pakistan. However, because the political parties have proven ineffective, public discontent of one kind or another has found other channels of expression, including civil society groups. This was the case in the aftermath of the suspension of the country’s top jurist, when the legal community and the media took to the streets to demand rule of law while the pro-democracy groups either did not want to or were not able to take up the cause.

Similarly, the social liberalization that Musharraf has been pushing has triggered another backlash from the conservative elements of society -- people affiliated with mosques and seminaries who have taken it upon themselves to thwart the re-secularization of state and society.

Musharraf must hold and win a presidential election at some point between late September and early October, but his problems seem to be increasing with time. On one hand, the legal crisis is still playing out; on the other hand, he is faced with religious extremists in the heart of the capital creating an even more disturbing crisis of governance.

He has some time to fix the legal crisis because it has now moved to the Supreme Court, and the wheels of the judicial system turn very slowly. But the crisis with the rogue mullahs in Islamabad will have to be dealt with much sooner. Part of the problem is that the president's current civilian allies in the ruling PML are not on the same page as he is on issues related to the role of religion in society and state.

This would explain why Hussain has pushed for a conciliatory approach to the mullahs. Musharraf's lack of social capital, due to his alienation of mainstream political forces, prevents him from taking a firmer stance against religious extremism in the country. Part of the reason he has agreed with the defensive approach is his concern over the backlash that could come should he adopt an ironhanded policy against the mullahs when dealing with such a sensitive issue.

If the crisis deepens, Musharraf could impose some form of emergency rule -- which does not involve dismissing the Cabinet or the parliament. But in the end, Musharraf’s only hope for effectively combating growing religious extremism in the country is a deal with mainstream political parties. For that, he will need to cut a power-sharing deal with his opponents, which is something he wants to avoid for as long as possible.

Whether the standoff with the mullahs ends peacefully (which would involve the government giving concessions to the mullahs) or in police action, it will have long-term repercussions for both the current government -- in terms of its ability to maintain power -- and for its opponents, who will be around long after the Musharrafian period has ended.

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