this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
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I am an atheist living in Pakistan, and incidents like these send a shiver down my spine. If this woman had not been sheltered by shopkeepers and the police had not acted quickly, she would definitely have been lynched and murdered.
The mob of zealots that had gathered around her was chanting "“Gustakh-e-Rasool ki ek hi saza, sar tan se juda, sar tan se juda”, which roughly translates to "what do blasphemers deserve? decapitation! decapitation!"
This country is fucked.
And then Europeans come and say we need more "democracy", how democracy could work in countries like that? You will always descent to things like Modi in India without educating ppl properly.
I disagree with that assessment. At least with respect to Pakistan, ideological capture by the right-wing was facilitated by anti-democratic forces. There is a very strong "Mullah-military connection". It was during the dictatorship of General Zia in the 1980s that Pakistan officially became an "Islamic Republic". He banned public dance/music performances, established Shariah courts, introduced anti-women rape laws and instituted the blasphemy law which is mentioned in the linked article. More recently, the army has been facilitating the rise of Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan through patronage, a right-wing reactionary party that primarily centers the defence of Islam and going after blasphemers. They also funded and armed several Islamist militant groups as proxies against India (not to mention the Afghan Taliban in the 80s with the help of the US).
Had Pakistan's democracy not been meddled with by the military, had we not gone through Zia's Islamization in the 80s, things would not be as fucked as they are today.
And from my vantage point as a Pakistani, the only reason things in India didn't get similarly bad until the recent rise of BJP is because India was founded as a secular democracy and had a functioning democratic system (at least relative to us). BJP is also a populist anti-democratic force, similar to MAGA in the US, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Duterte in the Philippines, and Georgia Meloni and her alt-right peers in Europe. Religious populism is not unique to us developing nations, it is a rising threat around the world. However, I will agree that we are suffering the worst of it because lack of civil rights and weak civil institutions.
I agree with you entirely, what I was trying to say is something like you said
What I was trying to say in a dumber way, you have to create an "ecosystem" for democracy and just elections are not enough. Idk what is the best path for Pakistan, but countries like that usually need a complex institution overhaul and educate the population to function as a decent democracy, and sometimes just trying to force this European view of democracy can introduce even more chaos, like in Libya
I can't speak to how things are playing out in Libya, but in Pakistan western powers have almost done the opposite. They have no qualms in working directly with the military to further their geopolitical interests, and historically the periods of dictatorship have been when Pakistan has gotten the most economic & material assistance from the US.
Right now, Pakistan is undergoing yet another democratic crisis as the recent elections were clearly rigged by the military. The US has decided to treat it as an "internal matter" and not put any pressure. If they had done something like make getting the next IMF loan contingent on an external audit of the election results, or on stopping digital censorship (Twitter/X has been blocked here for the past 2 weeks to suppress discussion of the rigged election results), it might even the odds a bit and help citizens and political parties challenge the hegemony of the military over the political process.
But yes regime change and just toppling dictators and installing your favorite candidate is not the answer.
This is very similar what we had in Brazil, but the argument was that supporting a "temporary" military junta was "more democratic" than a social Democratic government cause they were communists.
lol. lmao. Well there you go. That is the kind of role Western powers play in our democracies. In Pakistan also, the Reagan administration gave a lot of support to General Zia ul Haq so that he could arm the Taliban to defeat communists in the Afghan civil war. And, surprise surprise, Zia also started a heavy crackdown on all left-wing movements in Pakistan, especially student unions.
This exactly what happened in Brazil, the argument was that a militar junta influenced by the catholic church was more democratic than a social democratic president not aligned with US. And this was actually an argument.
Also re: "educating the population" about how to participate in a democracy - as someone who spent the last 3 years doing housing rights activism in the inner city, I can attest that people who are less economically privileged and ostensibly less "educated" tend to vote at higher rates than the middle and upper class, and participate actively in local politics because even incremental progress in e.g. public welfare programs or improving local infrastructure has a big impact on them. This also holds true for the rural working class.
So I don't think it is a matter of education. I know several highly educated boomers who e.g. were very supportive of the military dictatorship of Pervez Musharraf from 2000 - 2008. Incidentally the US was also highly supportive of his regime because of his role in the war on terror.
Education in this case is not about formal education, but understanding how politics work and what are the alternatives. I know ppl that never pass the fourth grade that are decent political/local leaders and middle class ppl with PHD supporting fascism.
Yeah, but this is equally a problem in European and North American countries, too. So they are in no position to "educate" our populations on how to do democracy. They just need to stop supporting anti-democratic forces and engage with our countries based on their professed democratic principles rather than geopolitical interests.
We didn´t disagree, ppl is being demobilized by the destruction of public debate spaces like unions, this happened, and still happens in some places, with countries in development by force and now is happening in developed countries by propaganda. I feel you think I'm talking about some kind of professoral propaganda like another brick in the wall when I talk about education, but I'm actually talking about Paulo Freire kind of education. I wasn't in any point trying to say that ppl should be teached about democracy and how they should vote but that they should been given the tools to create their own debates and their own way to experience democracy.
I guess my disagreement is that Western countries are in no position to give these tools because they have not undergone that process themselves. The master's tools will not dismantle the master's house, etc
But my first comment was actually criticizing westerns that think they know better how any development country should work.
True but it also suggested that democracy cannot work in these countries at all.
To which I replied that it is not trying to institute democracy that causes this, but rather supporting dictatorships and anti-democratic actors, which is what western powers have been doing.
But good to know there is little we disagree about on this topic besides phrasing and perhaps our degree of optimism about the democratic process, or lack thereof.
You are right, I was trying to say that I think democracy in the western way would not work in the current institutional situation, not that would not work at all. I phrased it badly.