by : Nicholas Kristof

For my last column, about Islam, I e-interviewed the mayor of Karachi, Syed Kamal, but his answers came to late to use. Still, since Pakistan’s future is so alarming, I thought his answers might be of interest. Here’s some of what he said.

I asked how much weight reformist Islamic scholars would actually have on the street. He answered:

Well it does carry weight, but the current situation in Pakistan where it looks like a confused society, there is no doubt that the vast majority of Muslims in Pakistani’s are not believers of so called Taliban sharia and their brand of Islam. People are moderate, they have tolerance for each other and they don’t accept the rigidness version of few groups. But it seems that the nation is confused, largely because of the media’s direction, specially the electronic media where there are people and prominent anchors who plead the cases of Taliban’s, religious extremist, militants and terrorist. They always try to justify their act of terrorism in their programs and create phenomena in which all acts of barbarism, terrorism portrayed as a justified act rather than telling them that they are evil, these extremist have been portrayed as heroes. The majority of common citizens of Pakistan are illiterate, the literacy rate is in single digits, therefore “Islam” and “Pakistan” has been the tool to fool the nation for last 62 years in the political history of Pakistan. It visibly strengthen in the era of General Zia Ul Haq and in order to, strengthen his regime and prolong his Presidency, he used this tool of Islam and played it criminally with the emotions of people of Pakistan. It’s all his sowing which we are reaping today.

Then i asked about the flogging of the girl in Swat, the burning of the girls’ schools in the name of Islam, and similar Taliban practices. The mayor answered:

Let me just say it very categorically there is no 2 version of Quran or in the interpretation of Quran, what we see happening in the name of Islam and Quran in the valleys of Pakistan, it’s not Islam and Quran’s version. It is more a tribal traditions and customs combined with the medieval illiterate and brain washed people’s philosophy. Quran rather emphasizes men and women both to get education and knowledge of the world as much as possible.

I strongly agree with the mayor that education is key: When people are uneducated, they are particularly likely to fall prey to fundamentalist mullahs. And the fundamentalists get the importance of education. That’s why they’ve started conservative madrassas all over Pakistan, and sent the brightest students to Saudi Arabia or other countries for further education. The hardliners have truly invested in education, while the West has mostly invested in the Pakistani army, which has used the billions of dollars to buy new toys that it can pile up on its eastern border with India. We would have been far better off investing that money in educating the young people of Pakistan, as Greg Mortenson has done (as described in his great book, “Three Cups of Tea”). We could have made investments through great groups like Developments in Literacy, which is Pakistani-run and educates girls all over the country.

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