I have read the whole article, thanks for posting, s land balla. I must say, though, that the article's premise appears flawed to me. According to the article (and I don't know if the article does the actual study justice), it seems like Mr. Oldenburg sets out to find anything but religion as a reason, practically declaring it a taboo topic, and desperately looking for any other reason, while ignoring how much any of the other factors is interwoven with religion. I mean - how can you say it is wise to ignore religion as a determining factor while looking at sociocultural explanations when many of the problems the country is facing are directly related to religious intolerance and discrimination? "Oh, it's because the military has been more involved in governing Pakistan than India. Oh, it's because there was more popular support for India than for Pakistan in the 20s and in the 40s." Sounds to me like someone was going into this with ideological goggles on. Yes, all these factors may have also contributed somewhat, but that doesn't mean you should ignore the most obvious one, the one that is interwoven with almost all the other factors. (Again, I am only commenting based on the article, maybe the actual paper by Mr. Oldenburg is not accurately reflected in the article.)
This is nonsense and anyone who has actually studied the partition process would agree. The Pakistani government made several fundamental mistakes and some of the governments used Islam as a tool to cement their dictatorships but this has nothing to do with Islam itself. Yes India is majority hindu and Pakistan is majority Muslim. But neither are the issue here. India is a functioning state because it made several smart moves. Unlike other countries that simply ignore sectarian divides and suppress them, India embraced them and accepted its linguistic and cultural differences. There are few things I admire about Indian government but that is honestly one of them. More importantly, explain to me why Islam has anything to do with this. Anyone who is from the region that has studied the partition of India will generally agree with the article. I'm sorry if it doesn't fit your agenda or worldview of Islam but you're flat out wrong. The article's reasoning is spot-on in my opinion and a deeper study of the region will only confirm that.
Part of a free democracy is freedom of religion. It does obviously not exist in Pakistan. Other religions, even other sects within Islam, are subject to a multitude of forms of repression. "Blasphemy" (or whatever is arbitrarily labeled as such) is punishable by death. Islam has nothing to do with this? Islam is the subject matter of these laws. There are other subjects, like gender equality, which I also consider part of a free, democratic society. It largely does not exist in Pakistan, and this can be traced to religious/ideological views of the world. There are women who are denied an education. This can be traced back to the interpretation of Islam in which the people who made these rules or created these circumstances believe.
India was under a lot of British influence. OTOH, Pakistan was an Islamic country from the get go. Bottom line, democracy or not, either country has a long way to go.
Except the original constitution of Pakistan never made any prohibitions on other religions. That only came with Zia-ul-Haq and his use of Islamic law to cement his dictatorship. Almost all of the current laws in regard to Islam and other religions were a product of subsequent dictatorships and were never part of the original Pakistani constitution. Again the point is that dictatorships used Islam as a tool to cement their rule but nothing about Islam was inherent to the original state.
They were the same country. The article outlines some of the reasons why Pakistan was ruled differently under the British but dont pretend like they were somehow excluded from any British presence (outside of the Frontier territories which were never really controlled by anyone)
So first your argument was that Islam has nothing to do with this, and now your argument is about the timing when Islam came into play? So you agree that Islam has something to do with where Pakistan is now (which the article is about)?
How is this an asset to the world? Maybe good for taking away American service jobs. But it isn't exactly a win-win for the worker bees here.
I have added AroundTheWorld to my ignore list. If he really thinks Pakistan's lack of democracy has to do with Islam he is either an idiot or a troll. Either way, reading his posts is a waste of time...
The language issue is spot on. What's wrong with this guy? He seems wasted :grin: <object width="464" height="384" id="2010042" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" classid="clsid27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" alt="Pakistani Minister Delivers Worst Speech Ever Funny Videos"><param name="movie" value="http://embed.break.com/MjAxMDA0Mg=="></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://embed.break.com/MjAxMDA0Mg==" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowScriptAccess=always width="464" height="384"></embed></object><br><font size=1><a href="http://www.break.com/index/pakistani-minister-delivers-worst-speech-ever-2010042" target="_blank">Pakistani Minister Delivers Worst Speech Ever</a>
Yes, Islam does have a role in Pak's history. But only as a major factor after the 1980s where its extremist form was used as a tool in the Cold War. But, Pak's problems occurred long before that particular due to the structural arguments as mentioned in the article. I studied this topic extensively for one of my courses and wrote a term paper over it, and I think Oldenburg hit all the major points. Had Pak not been so weak structurally and institutionally (because of reasons in the article), Islamism would not have posed as great of a threat to Pak's stability as it does today. These extremists get support from various groups like middle class Pakistanis who embrace Islamism due to long-term unemployment (worthless degrees, feeling like failures without jobs) as well as lower-class refugee Pashtuns discriminated against by Sindhi and Punjabi local governments. The religious extremism fed on social injustices made by the status quo. Islam has a role, but it is only the icing on a cake which had long been created in Pakistan's first 30 years from 1947 till 1977. The dogmatism you see nowadays is a recent development, it did not shape the country initially.
Malaysia is probably the best model and former PM Mahathir often presented Malaysia as an example of a modern Islamic society. Malaysia does still have some problems but compared to many other self-identified Islamic countries is doing much better on economic and social development.
Back to the main topic its a pretty interesting piece. I had heard about Urdu being the official language stifling growth before but hadn't known much about the lack of pre-existing democratic institutions in the area that became Pakistan. Another comparison is Sri Lanka and why it too has lagged behind India in its development even though both countries gained independence from Britain in 1947. From what I have heard from Sri Lankans and others is that the decision to make Sinhalese the official language also handicapped their development by discouraging the education of an English speaking and more worldly workforce. Also the long running conflict with the Tamil rebels hampered development but unlike Pakistan Sri Lankan never became a military dictatorship. It seems like in all four of the post Colonial India countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) that corruption and sectarianism have been big problems.
Sharia law is only in some parts of the country and doesn't apply to non-Muslims. The Malaysian Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and they do enforce that. Also Sharia as practiced in Malaysia isn't like in Saudi Arabia. For example from Wikipedia. [rquoter]Separate from the civil courts are the Syariah Courts, which decide on cases which involve Malaysian Muslims.[95] These courts run parallel to the normal court system, and are undergoing reforms that include the first ever appointment of female judges.[96] Debate exists in Malaysia over whether the country should be secular or islamic.[97] Some state governments controlled by the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, including that of Terengganu, have passed Islamic laws, but these have not gone into effect due to opposition from the federal government.[98] [/rquoter]
