Mystical diplomacy
By Shobhan Saxena,
19 Apr 2009
What has a bunch of dervishes whirling round a fire got to do with down-and-dirty politics and shady wars among nations? A lot, if you are fighting a lost battle in the area of darkness that stretches from Lahore to Mingora, to Jalalabad and beyond — where religion is used as fuel for the engines of war. As the Pakistani Taliban appears to tighten its noose around the country’s neck, Islamabad is trying to open a new front —faith wars between two strains of Islam. This lies in the hope that the deep-rooted Sufi tradition would help to halt the al-Qaida/Taliban juggernaut — driven by Wahabism.
Last week, even as President Zardari inked the deal that gives the Taliban a free hand in imposing Shariah in Swat, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, who belongs to a family of pirs, was publicly talking about the role Sufism could play in checking extremism.
But not everyone agrees. Ayesha Siddiqa, Islamabad-based analyst, says that “Southern Punjab, once a hub of Sufi Islam, is a region lately making waves in terms of growing militancy. This is not to argue that the influence of pirs has reduced, but that there is a certain vacuum which is now being filled by a more rabid brand of Islam”.
But Siddiqa is one of the very few who advise caution. Invoking Sufism in a time of war at home makes sense to Pakistani politicians. Every Thursday, thousands of Sufi shrines across the country come to life as rich and poor, migrants, settled workers and different ethnicities come together to pray and party. Amid the beats of the dhol and strains of qawali, the shrines look like party zones, with dancing transvestites, ganja-smoking men huddling around fires, and devotees expressing their love for Him.
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