KEY POINTS:
Benazir Bhutto was assassinated before she could achieve her dream of leading her country again. But she left a legacy - a book ironically titled Reconciliation. In this exclusive extract, the former Pakistani Prime Minister argues how the West and the Muslim world can attack the economic, social, and political roots of extremism.
There are two historic clashes unfolding in the world today that appear inexorably intertwined. The resolution of one could determine the immediacy of the other.
The internal clash within the Muslim world is not merely over theology. The real fight is not over the succession to the Holy Prophet that divides the Shiite and Sunni communities. It is certainly not about the language of the Holy Quran. It is not really about the interpretations of Sharia. The extremism and militancy of Muslim-on-Muslim violence is a long battle for the heart and soul of the future, not only of a religion but also of the one billion people who practice it. Fundamentally, it is also about whether the Muslim people can survive and prosper in the modern era, or whether linkages with traditional interpretations of the 16th century will freeze them in the past.
If Muslims can adjust to changes in the political, social, and economic environment we will not only survive but flourish.
If modernity is dogmatically resisted, the existence of Muslims as a viable community will become vulnerable. In the extreme, Muslims will attempt to impose themselves in a messianic union of Muslim states that could provoke the external clash between Islam and the West that the world is focusing on today.
It is an ambitious undertaking, but it can be done.
Muslim scholars and leaders have bemoaned the community's loss of power - political, intellectual, scientific, and economic - since the colonial era. Although Westerners are not fully aware of its dimensions, an important debate has raged among Muslims over how to deal with modernity.
Just as some have called for rejecting modern ideas, and in the most extreme cases have advocated an endless war with the West as the source of modernity, others have proposed strategies for reconciling the Islamic world with modern scientific ideas and with the modern political, economic, and social environment.
At the beginning of the 20th century, reformist ideas appealed to the Muslim intelligentsia. Even unlettered farmers paid attention to speeches and poems by Islamic reformers stressing the need for improving the fortunes and influence of Muslims through mass education, democracy, and economic progress.
But then, tragically, most of the Muslim world fell under the sway of dictatorial regimes. Irrespective of whether the dictators espoused secular or religious ideas, the stifling of debate undermined the pluralist environment necessary for an Islamic reformation. Dictatorship choked the oxygen of innovation.
In making the case that much of the Muslim world's future depends on whether democracy can replace authoritarianism and dictatorship, my premise is that democracy weakens the forces of extremism and militancy. And if extremism and militancy are defeated, our planet can avoid the cataclysmic battle that pessimists predict is inevitable.
Thus much of what I think needs doing to defeat Islamic extremism centres around what I think must be done to strengthen democracy among Islamic states.
Democracy cannot be sustained around the world in the absence of a stable and growing middle-class. Huge economic disparities between social classes in a society strain national unity, creating a gap between the rich and the poor. Educated and rich elites dominating illiterate masses are not a successful prescription for building a democratic society.
BUILDING A MIDDLE-CLASS
The first key is to build an educational system that allows children to rise to a higher social and economic status than their parents, in other words an educational system that delivers hope and real opportunity is a prerequisite for democracy. Good public educational opportunity is the key to the economic and political progress of nations, and it can be so in the Islamic world as well.
Building a strong, compulsory educational system requires two key elements. First, compulsory public education for all citizens, all classes, and both sexes must be a priority. But one needs more than the will to make it a priority. One also must have the means. It is essential that budgets for Muslim countries be prioritised by social need, not outdated political or military history.
In Pakistan, for example, $4.5 billion is spent on the military each year. This is an astounding 1400 per cent more than is spent on education. Military versus social sector foreign assistance is even more disproportionate.
Pakistan has a strong military with plenty of tanks and missiles, but it lacks a dynamic and technologically educated workforce. The key to investing in the future is to invest in people's educational opportunities. As Prime Minister, I attempted to put as much funding into the social sector and education as I could. Overburdened with the debts run up by dictatorship, my Government still built almost 50,000 elementary and secondary schools around the country, and especially in the rural areas. I wish our debts had been rescheduled so we could have done more.
The fundamental constraint upon my Governments in prioritising our budget was the enormous percentage of our GNP that was diverted to debt repayment and defence.
To complicate matters, the military came under the President and not the Prime Minister. It was difficult to ask for more transparent accounting of the huge funds made available to the military without constitutional authority. Moreover, as in many developing countries, the military was an institution that had been insulated from civilian control and direction for decades under one military dictatorship or another.
From the tenuous fortnight between my party's victory in November 1988 and the time I formed a Government, I was under pressure from the public, the military, and key international players, all of whom expected a chunk of the federal budget, which was already burdened with debt.
All this occurred while international financial institutions, including the International Monetary Fund, were pressing me to cut national expenditure to reduce the budget deficit. This undermined my ability to govern effectively.
If education is to succeed in a nation like Pakistan, or the Islamic world and developing world, new democratic leaders need the international and political support to withstand militaries destabilising them with ambitious generals keen to rule once again.
Armies should protect borders, not rig elections or blackmail elected leaders. And a military that is subservient to civilian rule would strengthen the ability of democratic institutions to take hold. Democratic governance can take place when Governments are safe from the sword of Damocles of military takeover constantly swinging over Parliament's head.
Often, when the military does leave Government, it leaves behind a constitution in which power is divided between the president and the Parliament. The Parliament is the voice of the people. The President becomes the voice of the military. In the clash, the people are the casualties.
MILITANT MADRASAS
Another important way in which education can build democratic infrastructure in the Islamic world concerns the real threat from militant madrasas. Many of the madrasas across Pakistan and other parts of the Islamic world make a significant contribution to education for the nation that is not dissimilar to that of parochial educational institutions in the West.
These political and military training camps invest little time and resources in primary education. Rather they manipulate religion to brainwash children into becoming soldiers of an irregular army. They conduct hours upon hours of paramilitary training.
They teach hatred and violence. They breed terrorists, not scientists. Militant madrasas undermine the very concept of national identity and rule of law.
These militant madrasas did not flourish because Pakistani citizens suddenly became more religiously orthodox than ever before in our history. They took advantage of parents from low-income social classes who wanted a better life for their children. If parents are so poor that they cannot house, clothe, feed, and provide healthcare for their children, and the state fails to provide such basic human needs through public services, they will seek an alternative.
Militant madrasas are dangerous to all societies. They should be stopped, not just in Pakistan but all over the world where they produce the child soldier. If a viable state educational alternative existed that would provide both education and social services to the children of the poor, the militant madrasas, breeding grounds of violence, would shrivel and dry up.
THE PLACE OF WOMEN
The next fundamental change needed within Islamic states to equalise society and opportunity deals with women's rights.
In any society, gender equality is a prerequisite for democracy to thrive. This is especially true in Islamic societies, where gender inequality has been used to promote political subordination and domination for centuries. It stifles social growth and opportunity. Societies with gender equality have without exception been pluralistic, tolerant, economically viable, and democratically stable.
As a person growing up in an environment of gender equality, in which daughters and sons were treated equally, I have found it difficult to tolerate gender inequality in any form. I find it offensive both as a woman and as a Muslim.
In 1997 the Taleban shut down girls' schools in Afghanistan and kept women off the streets. In Pakistani territory now ceded by the Musharraf Administration to the Taleban and al Qaeda, girls' schools are being shut down, sometimes even burned, and women stripped of their constitutional rights.
Democracy cannot work if women are subjugated, uneducated, and unable to be independent.
I worked hard as Prime Minister to eradicate illiteracy among grown women in Pakistani society. It is known that literate mothers raise literate children.
One of the most efficient ways to dent illiteracy in society is to educate mothers.
Islamic societies that fail to educate women condemn their children to a vicious cycle of ignorance and poverty. From illiteracy and poverty stem hopelessness. And from hopelessness come desperation and extremism.
An important way in which women's rights, economic development, and the building of a middle class come together is the economic empowerment of women. My father encouraged his daughters to be as well educated as our brothers and also to be economically independent.
A true measure of liberation from traditional roles and traditional subordination by men is the extent to which women are economically self-sufficient.
If the Prophet's wife could work outside the home, all Muslim women should be free to work. Economic independence brings political independence, and political independence within the family encourages pluralism and democratic expression and organisation outside the family.
A CIVIL SOCIETY
Political and social reforms are often interrelated. Women's rights groups have been at the vanguard of the fight for human rights and building a viable civil society.
The development of a strong civil society is a basic building block of democracy. Non-governmental organisations that deal with women's rights, human rights, and the rule of law are key to democracy. There can be no democracy without a stable and protected civil society. The fact that General Musharraf, in the first moments of his second declaration of martial law in November 2007, arrested thousands of activists, lawyers, and judges, demonstrated that he knew full well that a thriving civil society is incompatible with dictatorship.
Civil society is a concept intrinsically linked to strong democratic traditions, giving real meaning to the concept of pluralism in society.
Non-governmental groups, community organisations, women's organisations, student unions, trade unions, environmental organisations, professional associations and religious groups each represent the interests of particular constituents. Collectively, they form the foundation of democracy in theory and practice. The groups making up civil society are often at the vanguard of political reform and demands for governmental transparency. They are the internal election monitors.
They stand up against violations of human rights. They work with international groups that promote democracy to guarantee a fair political process but not a guaranteed political outcome. Such civil society groups can be both powerful and credible.
Although civil society cannot replace political parties in the democratic process, it complements political parties by ensuring a level playing field in politics. Civil society is invaluable to building democratic systems that isolate extremists.
Extremism, militancy, terrorism, and dictatorship feed off one another, thriving in an environment of poverty, hopelessness, and economic disparity among social classes. This symbiotic relationship of extremism, militancy, terrorism, dictatorship, and poverty is a direct threat to international and national stability and a clear danger to world peace.
Targeted economic development can help reduce poverty and violence in Muslim-majority states. Alleviating poverty is a fundamental responsibility of all Muslims, wherever they live, as part of the basic principles of Islam. It would be far more Islamic in its true sense to declare a jihad on poverty, illiteracy, hunger, and poor governance. That is exactly what I am proposing.
Islam's first generations produced knowledge and wealth that empowered Muslim empires to rule much of the world.
But now almost half the world's Muslims are illiterate.
The combined GDP of the member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is about the same as that of France, a single European country. More books are translated annually from other languages into Spanish than have been translated into Arabic over the past 100 years. The 15 million citizens of tiny Greece buy more books annually than do all Arabs put together.
The World Bank comparison of average incomes demonstrates a disquieting pattern. In the United States, the average per capita income is almost $38,000; in Israel it is almost $20,000. Pakistan, on the other hand, has an annual per capita income that barely crosses the $2000 mark.
No Muslim nation that is a non-oil producer has an annual per capita income near or above the world average. I find this pattern, these statistics, unacceptable.
The chain must be broken. One direct way to do that would be for the Gulf states to jump-start economic and intellectual development in the rest of the Islamic world.
This is what my father tried to do for Pakistan in the 1970s, and this is what I tried to do as Prime Minister in my two terms in office. Norway and Kazakhstan, as examples, provide models of committing oil revenues to internal economic development and foreign investment that can be refined to address the economic, social, and political realities of the non-Gulf Islamic world.
In other words, oil can break the chain of poverty, hopelessness, dictatorship, and extremism that often ruptures into international terrorism.
21ST CENTURY MARSHALL PLAN
The lessons of history help us plan for the future. The conditions, threats, and opportunities that confronted Europe at the end of World War II can give us guidance on how to intelligently and effectively address the current situation we find ourselves in with respect to Islam and the West. For this, I turn to the words of US Secretary of State General George Marshall, delivered at my alma mater, Harvard University, on June 5, 1947.
From that commencement speech at Harvard emerged a $20 billion commitment by the United States to rebuild Europe and, in doing so, to preserve its own security. The Marshall Plan was both moral and self-serving, which is the key to defining national interest.
That same formula could be applied to the Muslim world by North America, Europe, Australia, China, and Japan. This would comprise a new commitment pledging to eliminate terrorism within Muslim nations by systematically attacking the economic, social, and political roots of extremism.
I propose a new programme by the developed world similar to the Marshall Plan, specifically using tangible and identifiable means to improve the lives of people in deprived areas of the Muslim nations. I am looking for programmes whose success can be measured and evaluated.
When ordinary people in a country identify assistance improving their lives and the lives of their children, they bond with the source of that aid.
The Marshall Plan's $20 billion commitment in 1947 would now be equivalent to $185 billion. It is a formidable sum of money. However, if the plan were to be shared by North America, the European Union, Japan, and China, the funding would become less prohibitive.
Moreover, it is estimated that the United States has already spent $500 billion on the Iraq War without improving the image of the United States or the West abroad, especially in the Muslim community. The total costs of the war, including care for injured soldiers for the rest of their lives and a continued US presence in Iraq for the foreseeable future, could total $2 trillion when all is said and done. A Marshall Plan level of commitment of $185 billion in 2007 dollars pales by comparison.
I am not proposing a programme of writing cheques to Governments. I am proposing specific and tangible people-to-people projects that will directly improve the quality of life of ordinary people, in the form of humanitarian aid from the West.
I recall that as Prime Minister I was able to accomplish much good by the personalisation of the anti-polio campaign that I introduced in my country. I was absolutely shocked to learn that Pakistan and Afghanistan together accounted for three-quarters of new polio cases in the world in 1993.
I determined to do something about it. I administered the anti-polio drops to my daughter, Aseefa. I invited Pakistani mothers with children born at the same time as Aseefa to join me at the Prime Minister's house to administer their children's drops.
The programme spread across the country with great fanfare, into every town and village. I am very proud that the programme helped eradicate polio in Pakistan. There were no new cases of polio in my country last year, and this success is the result of a specific, tangible programme that I initiated.
This is the model I propose for a 21st-century Marshall Plan to assist the Islamic world to leap into modernity.
* Copyright: The Estate of Benazir Bhutto, 2008.
Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West by Benazir Bhutto, Simon & Schuster, $37.99.
