Measuring the Jamaat's descent

Last week, Siraj-ul-Haq, the former senior minister for the MMA government in NWFP and the current head of the NWFP wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami, asked the government to cease operations in Bajaur, criticized the government for pursuing the Taliban, for asking Pakistanis to vacate their homes and repeated the allegation that the war on terror was America's war. Surprised? Of course not. The only thing surprising about Mr Haq's statement is that he is widely perceived to be among the more reasonable, honest and upstanding leaders in the post-modern Jamaat. Otherwise, Pakistanis have come to expect nothing less from the Jamaat-e-Islami -- predictable, boring, jingoistic, and anchored neither in religion, nor in science.

Since September 11, 2001, the Jamaat has wasted the longest sustained era of political opportunity it has ever had in South Asia. It could have reversed almost thirty years of political missteps, public relations disasters and repeated stresses on the micro-politics, while forgetting the macro-Islam. In short it could have made amends for the unmistakably myopic and unsuccessful leadership it has had for at least a generation now. The Jamaat could have done what no other political party is capable of doing. It could have recaptured the public imagination, especially of the emerging middle class, it could have fought terror more effectively than any other party and it could have provided the kind of transparent leadership that Pakistanis are desperate for.

The Jamaat's troubles are a microcosm of Pakistan's desperately hopeless political system. But if every other thing about Pakistani politics is broken, the Jamaat represents perhaps the only unsalvageable wreck within it. Let's set aside the naïve notion that any party representing Islam should leave Muslims feeling proud of their identity. With the Jamaat, even expecting basic political competence is asking for far too much.

First, consider the Jamaat's failures in an era of global Muslim political resurgence. While the Muslim right enjoys its greatest expansion since it began to take shape in colonial India and Egypt, the Pakistani right, led by the Jamaat, has been tarred and feathered by otherwise hopeless public relations operatives. In Morocco, the young Justice and Development Party (PJD) is the largest opposition party in parliament, consistently winning a greater share of seats in two elections since 2001. In Turkey the even younger Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has won not only both elections since 2001, it has also stared the colossal Turkish military and judicial elite in the face, without blinking, and has won. In Egypt, after almost eighty years of consistently failing to break beyond the limited constituency of radicals and the disaffected youth, the Muslim Brotherhood has finally hit a nerve, distancing itself from previous dalliances with violence and becoming the undisputedly single largest opposition group in parliament. In Indonesia since 1999 the National Awakening Party has gone from strength to strength, becoming the third largest party in the country in the 2004 elections and positioning itself as the clean, modern and overtly right-of-centre party of Indonesia's future.

Meanwhile, the Jamaat has completely wasted the post-9/11 political capital it was gifted, very much the way George W Bush did. First, it allied itself with the non-literate Islamists of the country through the MMA. Then it embraced the widely discredited 2002 election result, knowing its seats were largely a gift not of its own doing. Then, it formed a compromise government with an MMA in which it was never comfortable. Finally, instead of making the most of its opportunity, it further diluted its brand by playing the exact same politics that everyone else does in NWFP: lots of talk, nothing delivered and incessant complaining. All the while it promised to leave the NWFP government about three times a week, only finally submitting its resignations when everybody had stopped listening.

Second, consider how far the Jamaat apple has fallen from its intellectual tree. Remember where political Islam actually comes from? Hassan Al-Banna and Abul Aala Maudoodi. Muslim-right parties the world over are inspired by the original gold standard in the 20th century Islamic scholarship of Maudoodi. The English-speaking, and Harrods-loving babus of Pakistan can hold their noses all they like, but westernized-elite contempt for Maudoodi does not alter the enormous impact of his body of work on the post-colonial Muslim world. His interpretation and teachings are among the primary informants for the entire range of orthodox Islamic thought across the Muslim world. One need not like Maudoodi's take on the world, but his impact is unquestionable. It is not just that the party of Maudoodi is severely irrelevant in Pakistan that should provide a moment of pause for the Jamaat. It is the Jamaat's inherent inability to contribute anything of substance to the political or religious discourse, locally or globally, that reflects the true measure of its problems. While the rest of the Muslim world is awash in a tidal wave of resurgent Muslim political discourse, the Jamaat is drowning in a pool of political irrelevance, and it is doing so without so much as a whimper. Siraj-ul-Haq, despite his reputation as a voice of reason and calm in the Jamaat has merely provided further proof of how deeply out of touch with reality the party is.

Third, consider that the Jamaat's political savvy is outrageously overstated. In fact, the current generation of Pakistanis has never known a particularly 'political' Jamaat. Today, while the Jamaat leadership slumbers, Pakistan is undergoing a technology revolution (IT and telecoms), a sexual revolution (cross dressers as celebrities in the Islamic republic), an economic transformation (minnow status in the face of India and China's centrality to the global discourse) and a national meltdown (the de-legitimization of mainstream politics and the destruction of national institutions, from the judiciary to Pakistan's role as an advocate and guardian of South Asian Muslims, including Kashmiris, Afghans and stranded Bihari-Pakistanis in Bangladesh). This slumber has been punctuated by some of the most dramatic and embarrassing political miscalculations in Pakistan's history. From the decay of the Islami Jamiat-e-Talba which (however unpalatable) was, for decades, among the sharpest political instruments in the country to the consistency with which strategic election-time blunders have been made. Jamaatis may cringe over the boycott of the 2008 elections, or the discomfort that urbane Jamaatis had to endure in their alliance with their more street-wise colleagues in the MMA coalition. Neutral observers, however, remember the greatest peach of all, the 1993 elections, as the epitome of the Jamaat's political disabilities. That year, Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto managed to get the Jamaat to believe in the hype she helped create around a solo-flight Jamaat under the Pakistan Islamic Front (PIF) banner. By pumping jiyalas into PIF rallies across the country, Shaheed BB made the Jamaat think it had something going, putting a wide-enough chasm between the PML-led coalition and the suddenly excited and falsely self-confident urban right-wing vote. The PIF won only three seats, where it expected closer to 30, the PML had its vote bank slashed into by the nationwide fielding of PIF candidates and the PPP of course won the election that year. Classic BB? Perhaps, but classic Jamaat, for sure.

Why should anyone care about the state of the Jamaat-e-Islami? Simple. It used to be the rightwing with brains and books. It used to represent one side of the table in the debates that sharpened the knives and minds of Pakistan's current intellectual elite. Without the Jamaat, none of the 'anti-mullah' doyens that shape present public opinion would exist. Today, there is no challenge to aspiring intellectuals, leaving a new generation of so-called 'progressives' without much gravitas. Those knives themselves have dulled dramatically over the years. Perhaps most importantly, the Jamaat's failures have created a vacuum on the right. Without a credible and rigorous conservative voice that articulates the aspirations of committed Muslims in Pakistan, the only option on the right is the violent extremists.



The writer is an independent political economist. Email: mosharraf@gmail.com