Pakistan Has Sunk Deep into The Mire of Economic Crisis Due to Extremism

By New Age Islam Staff Writer 13 July 2024 Poor Quality of Education and Low Literacy Rate Have Resulted in Extremism Main Points: 1. Extremism and vigilantism in Pakistan have scared away investors. 1. 2.Pakistan has incurred loss of $123 billion thanks to extremism and terrorism in the last one decade. 2. Pakistani politicians wrongly believe extremism to be a tool of security and diplomacy. ------- ASP Syeda Shehrbano Naqvi (left) and an image of the design that sparked the incident. — ScreengrabX/@OfficialDPRPP/@TahirAshrafi/File ------ Pakistan is going through the most severe economic crisis of its history. To wriggle itself out of this crisis, it has been seeking a bailout package of one or two billion dollars from the IMF but ironically, Pakistan has incurred a direct or indirect loss of $123.13 bn due to extremism and vigilantism during the last one decade. It speaks volumes about the damage extremism and terrorism has done to Pakistan's economy in the last ten to fifteen years. If Pakistan's successive governments had curbed the menace of religious vigilantism and extremism, the country would have prospered and flourished with $123 billion in its external reserves instead of begging for one or two bn dollars from the IMF that will not help it much because Pakistan needs to borrow more money to repay its debts. Pakistan has exhausted all its resources and has nowhere to turn to for financial help. China and Saudi Arabia, Pakistan's traditional friends have refused to help it further. The economic condition of Pakistan has come to this passé due to ever growing malady of extremism, terrorism and vigilantism. The erroneous interpretation of blasphemy and the flawed blasphemy laws have contributed to the rise of violence in the name of protecting the honour of the prophet, the Quran and Islam. The flawed blasphemy laws of Pakistan provide for death penalty to the convict but does not provide for punishment to those who make false allegations of blasphemy or take law into their own hands. As a result, incidents of mob lynching of blasphemy accused have seen a rise in recent years. In 2021, a Sri Lankan factory manager in Sialkot was lynched for alleged blasphemy. In 2023, Christian houses and churches were burnt and destroyed by mobs in Jaranwala for alleged blasphemy. In 2024, a mob attacked the house and factory of a Christian in Sargodha for allegedly desecrating the Quran. One man of his family was killed while other members of his family were removed to a safer place. Hundreds of Christian families of Sargodha have fled the area. These are some of the incidents of mob violence. Similar incidents of mob violence have occurred in Pakistan in the last two decades. This growing curse of extremism and vigilantism has not only affected non-Muslims but also Muslims who too fall into the definition of blasphemy according to some modern Islamic scholars of Pakistan. Muslims keep accusing the common Muslims or even ulema of the opposite sect of blasphemy and a number of Muslims have been killed extra judicially for blasphemy. Some ulema of Pakistan have propagated the belief that a Muslim should kill an accused of blasphemy. A renowned Islamic scholar of Pakistan, Mufti Tarique Masood recently retracted his fatwa exhorting Muslims to kill those who insult the prophet. In his new fatwa, he said that the case of blasphemy should only be decided in a court of law. But unfortunately, he retracted his fatwa after five years when many Muslim fanatics would have acted on his fatwa. Low literacy and poor quality of education has exacerbated the problem of extremism. People lynch Muslims and non-Muslims alike on mere suspicion of blasphemy due to their illiteracy. Two months ago, a Muslim lady wearing an Arabic calligraphy dress was suspected of blasphemy and was surrounded by an illiterate mob who insisted that the Arabic word printed on her dress was a word from the Quran. She was rescued by a lady police officer. But the man in Warbartan was not so lucky. He was going through a phase of depression and was accused of desecrating the Quran. The mob dragged him out of the police station, beat him to death and finally set him on fire. Another Muslim man named Md Sulaiman was accused of desecrating the Quran in Swat. He too was dragged out of the police station and burnt to death. These incidents of mob justice have scared the investors away from Pakistan causing a huge loss to its economy. Even Muslim investors who want to invest in Pakistan fear for the life and safety of their family, particularly women. They might be lynched in the street for wearing a dress with an Arabic calligraphy or killed for alleged desecration of the Quran. The worse, Pakistan's government or politicians or even religious scholars have not woken up to this crisis. The government does not have the courage to reform blasphemy laws for the fear of backlash from the clergy and religious organisations. They do not allow the government to include punishment for those involved in mob lynching on allegation of blasphemy and for those making false allegations. The country is paying a heavy price for this widespread trend of mob lynching and vigilantism. China has taken advantage of this crisis and has made huge investments in Pakistan as other countries do not want to take risks by investing in Pakistan. It provides security to its own nationals and also puts pressure on Pakistan's government to provide security to its nationals. Recently, Pakistan launched operation Azm-e-Istehkam under threat from China. In short, religious fanaticism and mobocracy in Pakistan has become a big hurdle in the path of Pakistan's progress. It will have to reign in religious extremism and vigilantism to come out of this economic crisis. ----- The Price of Extremism By Husain Haqqani March 14, 2024 After a flurry of praise for the police officer who saved her life, most Pakistanis seem to have forgotten the incident in Lahore involving the woman who was accused of blasphemy for wearing a dress with Arabic calligraphy. That a woman was almost lynched for wearing clothes that an illiterate crowd mistook for religious text highlights Pakistan’s extremism problem. Dismissing events like this incident as outliers or choosing to ignore them will not prevent them from occurring again. In December 2021, the Sri Lankan manager of a factory in Sialkot was beaten to death and set ablaze by a mob over allegations of blasphemy that turned out to be spurious. The woman in Lahore with the dress bearing Arabic language words was lucky that she escaped a similar fate. The dress worn by the woman in question bore the word ‘Halwa’ in Arabic script. The word means beautiful in Arabic, and it is not uncommon in the Muslim world for Arabic calligraphy to be used to adorn dresses, buildings, and much more. But the irrational environment in Pakistan over religious matters, especially allegations of blasphemy, put the woman’s life at risk. The international publicity over the incident ensured that everyone around the world who might be thinking of doing business with Pakistan had to think about facing similar risks. Nations pay a hefty price when the rest of the world sees them as irrational or extreme. Racist violence, for example, acts as a disincentive for business travelers belonging to different races from traveling to countries where race is an issue. In the case of Pakistan, religious extremism and vigilantism have become a factor in the decisions of potential investors and merchants. Two days after the Lahore incident, an Arab businessman remarked to me that he immediately thought of his wife and daughters. “They wear Arabic calligraphy designs as part of their dress,” he said, adding, “I was thinking of expanding my business to Pakistan, but do I want to walk through Lahore or Karachi with my wife or daughters, risking such attacks?” Pakistan already has the world’s toughest blasphemy laws and blasphemy is punishable by death after a trial. But some groups do not wait for the law to take its course and want to act as judge, jury, and executioner. Several people have been lynched before their cases go to trial and those acquitted due to lack of evidence are also attacked as if the allegation of blasphemy requires no proof other than the allegation itself. Judges, too, have to fear the backlash of those who pretend to be all-knowing while hearing such cases. Instead of making Pakistani society more religious or pious, the practice of whipping up a crowd in a religious frenzy has created situations in which mobs lose all fear of God. Even in the recent case of the woman wearing the Arabic calligraphy dress, the crowd had to be pacified with an apology from the woman though she had done nothing wrong. As Maulana Tahir Ashrafi pointed out, the men in the crowd, rather than the woman, should have been the ones to apologize. Government after government in Pakistan has appeased groups that use religious slogans to divide and scare Pakistanis. Some have even seen the extremists as guarantors of Pakistan’s security or as instruments of Pakistani influence across the border in Afghanistan or Kashmir. But the net impact of nurturing a religious outrage industry has only been to undermine Pakistan’s external relations and weaken its economy. Official data suggests that between 2001 and 2018 “the direct and indirect cost incurred by Pakistan due to incidents of terrorism” amounted to $123.13 billion. Add to it the cost of fostering a society driven by anger and unable to figure out its real place in the modern world. Since falling under Western colonial rule, the Muslim world has developed a narrative of grievance and Pakistan is no exception. Like all national and community narratives, it has some true elements. But the current weakness of the Muslim world or of Pakistan is not entirely the fault of Western colonialism or postcolonial machinations. Pakistanis must understand the consequences of low literacy rates, poor quality of higher education, and low female participation in the workforce. Instead, they are fed narratives of conspiracy theories and hate against more powerful nations and a steady diet of religious-sounding rhetoric that is more political than religious. On March 6, 1948, Pakistan’s first opposition leader, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (who later became prime minister for a short time) warned the country’s earliest leaders against building “a state which would be founded upon caucuses and coteries, a state which will be founded on sentiments, namely that of Islam in danger or of Pakistan in danger.” According to Suhrawardy, “a state which will be held together by raising the bogey of attacks and which you keep together by keeping up a constant friction between yourself and your sister Dominion [India], that state will be full of alarms and excursions. You think that you will get away with it but in that state there will be no commerce, no business and no trade.” Cautioning against attacks on non-Muslims in the immediate aftermath of partition, Suhrawardy said that such a course will only erode rule of law. “There will be lawlessness and those lawless elements that may be turned today against non-Muslims will be turned later on, once those fratricidal tendencies have been aroused, against the Muslim gentry and I want you to be warned in time,” he observed. Today, those words seem prescient. Even now, a comprehensive strategy of pushing back extremism is the only way forward for a country that faces a multitude of challenges. ----- Husain Haqqani, former ambassador of Pakistan to the US, is Diplomat-in-Residence at the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi and Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington DC. Source: The Price of Extremism URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-terrorism-jihad/pakistan-mire-economic-crisis-extremism/d/132694 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism