Rightwing Rhetoric Alike?

I always find it fascinating when I see the similarities between the rightwing in different places. I know it shouldn't be surprising, but it is still often curious how such different cultures and contexts will produce the same kind of conservative and extremist forces. I recently saw two news items in the Pakistani press that reminded me of this, because of their usage of rhetoric that is often deployed by the US rightwing (source: Daily Times, November 20).

The first is the response of the mullahs to the passage of the incredibly anemic "Women Protection Bill." Only by the most conservative measures can this bill be seen as an advance for women in Pakistan, although if someone held a gun to my head, I would admit that it is slightly better than the current Hudood laws. But the mullahs are so outraged by even this extremely modest change in the law that they have vowed to take action. Their first act?

Creating a "body for defence of Hudood laws."

If that sounds familiar to those conversant with US politics, that's because it channels the same twisted spirit as the absurd "defense of marriage laws." In both cases, the rightwing portrays itself as somehow under attack or under siege, when in fact, the institutions they are purporting to defend are in absolutely no danger of ever being harmed. The irony in Pakistan is that the new Women Protection Bill has preserved much of the old Hudood law, in civil form. And of course the Hudood laws STILL exist! They haven't been repealed, as they should have been (of course, they should never have been put into place to begin with, but that would take us back to the ghost of dictators-past). Among the things that is upsetting the mullahs is the change in age of consent for women to 16 (not puberty as before). Lovely, aren't they?

The second news item that startled me with its analogous rhetoric was a statement by the banker-turned-Musharraf's-stooge, I mean, prime-minister, Shaukat Aziz. Commenting on the situation in Afghanistan at a joint press conference with Tony "lap dog" Blair, Aziz said:

"Cut and run is no way to resolve the issue."

That, of course, mimics the teasing taunt tossed by Republicans at Democrats in the most recent midterm-election cycle. So, just as the Bush administration refuses to recognize that its presence in Iraq is immoral, so does the Musharraf government refuse to give up its hegemonic designs on Afghanistan. Haven't we Pakistanis done enough already to destroy that country? Haven't we, directly and indirectly, guaranteed that Afghanistan will never prosper? (And by "never," I mean at least a century, which equals never to people who live there now.)

Let me give you a tip, Shauky (pronounced "Shock-key" if you're Punjabi): nothing good can ever come out of Pakistan's military adventure in Afghanistan. Not for Afghans, not for Pakistanis, and not even for the Pakistani military and people like you who continue to enable the military to reign supreme. Yes, "cut and run is no way to resolve the issue" - instead, we should be taking the military's budget, giving Afghanistan reparations out of that (in addition to the much bigger reparations that should come from the US), take what's left over, and give it to the Bangladeshis. (Well, in actuality, Bangladesh has first dibs on those reparations, but you get the idea.) Disband the whole damn military. That might be a start to resolving the issue. "Staying the course" is not.