The Hindu Business Line : Musharraf doctrine

LIKE the Monroe doctrine, we now have the Musharraf doctrine. And that too, adumbrated in the issue of The Dawn of June 2 in which the President of Pakistan, Gen Pervez Musharraf, has put in a surprise appearance as the author of an article titled "Enlightened Moderation". Obviously written in furtherance of enlightened self-interest, it oozes sweet reasonableness in facing up to the harsh realities confronting Pakistan today.

He minces no words while mentioning the first such "unfortunate" reality, as he calls it, which is the widespread belief engendered by the atrocities perpetrated by Islamic terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda that "Islam is a religion of intolerance, militancy and terrorism."

His lament of Islam getting the blame because of the action of a few misguided elements is couched in these poignant words apparently coming from the heart: "The thesis is rapidly evolving across the globe connecting Islam to fundamentalism, fundamentalism to extremism and extremism to terrorism. We can protest, however vigorously, against this labelling, but the reality is that such arguments are not likely to win this formidable battle of minds against us. To compound our apathy further, we are probably the poorest, most uneducated, most powerless and the most disunited in the world."

All one can say is: Well said! Not stopping with diagnosing the evil, he goes on to delineate a two-pronged strategy to fight it as well. To this he gives the name of `enlightened moderation' to be practised by both his co-religionists and trenchant critics. To the Muslim world, he prescribes the policy of "shunning militancy and extremism, and adopting the path of socio-economic uplift."

The other prong concerns the West, in general, and the US in particular, as they have a duty cast on them also. Bearing in mind that "it is not Islam as a religion which preaches or infuses militancy and extremism but political disputes which lead to antagonism in the Muslim masses", they must "aim at resolutely resolving all political disputes with justice and also assisting in the socio-economic uplift of the deprived Muslim world".

In his reckoning, the "Kashmir freedom struggle" is one such dispute impliedly needing the attention of the West. Intriguingly, Gen Musharraf does not seem to have a role cut out for non-Muslim countries (for example, Russia, China, India, Japan) other than those of the West. Is it that he is happy with what they are doing or that he considers them of no consequence?