Most people in Pakistan are moderate Muslims, some of them atheists, agnostics or non-religious, and some of them non-Muslim. However, the fact that such people make up the majority of Pakistanis is surprisingly unimportant in the face of religious extremism, and I suspect it’s because the ’silent majority’ are rhetorically paralyzed.
In Political Culture, not Values Rima Berns-McGown argues that the reason for the differences between Canadian and American approaches to health care, immigration and so forth (political culture, that is) can best be explained in terms of differences in their ‘imagined communities’, in their myths and narratives, and not merely their values. Canada’s imagined community is as a diverse, multicultural society where group rights and individual rights are balanced out, and different ethnicities live as a mosaic (as opposed to the American ‘melting pot’). In reality, Canada is probably not significantly (if at all) more multicultural than America, but Canadians need a myth to bind them. Multiculturalism serves as such a myth, and my own experience in Canada has shown me that Canadians’ perception of their own country as multicultural does have importance to their sense of what it means to be Canadian.
Such myths and narratives have a life of their own. I think it is a matter of common sense that conversations matter, that political discourse matters to political events, and political discourse depends much on rhetorical devices including the appeal to myths about what it means to be of one’s nation. Myths of this sort become especially potent when they are used by members of a state created with an explicit, conscious objective, and that has not had a long history. Pakistan is an example of such a state, created ‘for Muslims’, and ‘to protect them’.
When the very existence of a state is explained by a narrative/mythology, I imagine it becomes more potent. India has its own myths and narratives, but India was never ‘founded’. It has always existed, in a sense. The myths, then, do not explain the ‘creation’ of India but only what makes it unique, interesting, superior etc. Pakistan’s myths, however, were a justification for the creation of Pakistan to begin with, and so asserted with a kind of neurosis. As a sidebar, I would imagine that the presence of a cultural enemy (immigrants, Americanization, etc.) is the source of a neurotic assertion of myths as well; which explains the use of mythology in racist propaganda, e.g. by the Front Nationale and the BNP.
Myths and narratives exert their own force. American myths of being the land of opportunity, equality and entrepreneurship have had concrete effects on historical events. An explanation of current affairs in terms of past events alone is not enough, and reveals the inadequacy of a purely materialistic analysis (a la Marxism)*. These myths are part of the explanation for the behaviour of states as well as of the people within them.
An explanation of Pakistan’s current crisis, and the general lack of liberality of Pakistani society even prior to this crisis, will have to include the myths and narratives of Pakistan’s creation and what it means to be a Pakistani. In other words, the fact that Pakistan was supposed to be a country created for Muslims with either a Muslim character or as an Islamic state, is part of the explanation for the inability of Pakistan to function. It is clear as day that the idea of an Islamic state is morally repugnant, but once the state has come into existence, liberals cannot turn back the tide set in motion by the creation of Pakistan easily. The reason is not material, nor is it sufficient to explain this in terms of Zia-al-Haq or Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s giving in to the Islamists. The reason is the rhetorical disadvantage all Pakistanis are put in when the myths of Pakistan have anything whatsoever to do with Islam. Some people explain the problem in terms of Islam itself, which is not a false explanation, just a different frame.
Pakistan is at a rhetorical disadvantage for the following reasons:
1. Its founding myth, as an Islamic state or at least a state with a Muslim character. This has become part of what it means to be Pakistani, and it’s difficult to question or deliberately change founding myths. If one wants to argue that Pakistan should not implement a given law, or that it should root out people like Sufi Muhammad, one will always meet the well-Pakistan-is-an-Islamic-state-so-what’s-the-problem-with-sharia-anyway objection. The best answer to this is that Pakistan should not be an Islamic state to begin with, and sharia is wrong; but one can hardly say that when the very definition of a Pakistani is a Muslim who lives in The Land of the Pure created for the very purpose of people like him and their religion.
2. Since Islam is a religion and not just a really bad philosophy, it can’t be questioned. A culture can secularize, but only subtly and gradually, without any loud declarations (unless those declarations are followed by a complete take-over). Meanwhile, until Pakistan has secularized, liberals in Pakistan can only question Islam up to a point. One can’t question the idea of God, Muhammad being his last prophet and so forth. The most one can do is state that religion is a private affair; the kind of Protestant Muslim argument that is creating some room for agency/deviance from the prevailing discourse**. This might be our best hope as far as discourse goes.
3. The rhetoric of anti-Americanism, like Marxism, is a kind of intellectual disease. Anti-Americanism is one of the worst facts of Pakistani culture and national mood. In fact, it might just be the worst. The intellectual veneer of post-colonial theory and Marxism (though Marxism has lost its credibility in the civilized world, Pakistan and other poor countries tend to lag behind in such realizations) gives intellectual acceptability to the vitriolic prejudice that is anti-Americanism. If you take a liberal position, you are often thought of as a spokesperson for the West, as if that made your position unacceptable. Evidently if Americans believe something it must be wrong, even when it’s right.
I am one of the few Pakistanis who supports the spread of Western culture. The unfortunate fact is that we are entering a post-colonial age where people in post-colonial societies - once enamored with the culture of their overlords - are becoming reactionary and anti-Western. One should not adopt Western culture blindly, for no reason other than that it’s Western; nor should one reject Western culture blindly. The educated elite and the liberals of Pakistan know this already, and many of them have made excellent use of all the literary, artistic, philosophical and scientific gems that exist in both South Asian and Western culture.
However, such liberal synthesizers are a minority. Even artists in Pakistan feel the need to distance themselves from Western culture, claiming that they do not ‘need the West’ to be artists, even when it was not implied that they did***. Why not be open to all cultural influences, regardless of whether they’re ’indigenous’ or not? After all, a culture is never lost through mingling with another: it simply evolves, and always for the better.
* Unlike what many neo-Marxists will tell you people don’t just do things because they want money, because some powers made them do it, due to a military-industrial conspiracy, or because of propaganda. On that point, it is generally true that present social facts cannot be reduced to their material substrata and fully explained by the past material facts that led up to them. For more on what I mean by this, look up emergence.
** A man whose name I don’t know said this on a political talk show on Geo. I believe it was ‘Aaj Kamran Khan Kay Saath’.
*** An artist whose name I don’t know said Pakistanis do not need to look ‘idhar udhar’ by which she meant ‘maghrib ko’ for inspiration or knowledge. This was either on Brunch with Bushra or the Nadia Khan Show, both of which come on Geo. It’s part of a series of morning shows that are hosted by Aunties, and usually watched by such as well 
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