The Intelligence of Delusion

It hardly seems possible that intelligent people can be so incredibly un-insightful that they appear to deliberately ignore the forest for the trees. The trees, in the case of Pakistan, represent the large land-owning class, the wealthy and the educated, the professional class, and above all the lawyers, in this litigious and democracy-loving Islamic society. Process is vital. Reality is an illusion.

So the lawyers who had allied themselves haphazardly with Sharif Nawaz - or, really, he with they - in defending their cause to reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry now celebrate their victory. Their loud and insistent demonstrations have resulted in the government of Prime Minister Asif Ali Zardari relenting, and welcoming Justice Chaudhry back into office. Where he will undoubtedly preside in the unravelling of the current government.

Bringing into office - surprise, and oh dear - former prime minister and soon-to-be prime minister-presumptive, Nawaz Sharif, an fundamentalist Islamist. The educated professionals, the wealthy landowners, the brilliant lawyers now look to the full implementation of previously agreed-upon elements of the country's Charter of Democracy. Likely now to be implemented, isn't it?

The 'progress' and enlightened democracy that these elements of the complicated Pakistan society may prove extremely elusive. Nawaz Sharif has, in the past, made common cause with fundamentalists; they;re the forest. And isn't it just coincidental that Benazir Bhutto's husband has given free rein in the Swat Valley in negotiating for 'peace' with the Taliban, for Sharia to reign.

The democracy that was in full display in recent elections where no Islamist party gained seats, has nicely been tumbled, the reality now that the Taliban may continue unmolested by government troops, to destroy more schools, prevent girls from educations, decapitate more dissenters, create additional fearful refugees from their fanatical rule.

While the lawyers celebrate their victory, they appear to have forgotten the financial morass that Pakistan finds itself in with its collapsed economy held together by the billions that the United States grants it to ensure its co-operation in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. It's slipped their minds that Islamist sharia runs counter to democracy and the Taliban in Pakistan will be their undoing.

While Chief Justice Chaudhry will for the moment preside in the capital of Islamabad the judges in the Swat Valley have been dismissed in favour of Sharia court judges; democracy surrendered to theocracy. Committed Islamists in Pakistan have no intention of remaining neatly within the borders of the North-West Frontier. How long before Sharia embraces Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad?

The Pakistani Intelligence Service and the Pakistani Armed Forces have been well infiltrated by those who support the Islamist cause; their enmity toward India is well enough known. Who will control the country's nuclear program? A prime minister who heads the Pakistan Muslim League. A man who was accused of "maladministration, nepotism and corruption".

Who was sentenced at one time to two life sentences for terrorism and high-jacking an aircraft. Who has spent a decade in exile in Saudi Arabia, settled comfortably within their Wahhabist brand of Islam. The same Saudi Arabia that so generously funds the Pakistani Taliban.