Word: nawaz
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Will a stronger dose of religion cure Pakistan's ills? Many of Nawaz Sharif's countrymen think it could send Pakistan into terminal decline. According to the well-respected Karachi newspaper Dawn, people "just want a little improvement in their lives from the tyranny and callousness of Pakistani officialdom." Political opponents, including, of course, ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, say the new Islamic bill is likely to increase that tyranny. One interpretation holds that this amendment will anoint Nawaz Sharif as a religious dictator, a supreme arbiter of what is considered good and evil under Islam. Nawaz Sharif, though, contends...
...moment though, Nawaz Sharif is hoping for a more earthly kind of intervention: he is in New York City this week at the United Nations, where he will appeal to Bill Clinton to lift economic sanctions--imposed after the nuclear tests--and push the International Monetary Fund into mounting a rescue. As part of the trade-off, Clinton wants him to sign the nuclear test-ban treaty. This may help him get the money he urgently needs, but would anger fundamentalists at home who would see this as capitulation and surrender...
...Nawaz Sharif succeeds in driving his Islamic bill through both the National Assembly and the Senate in the coming weeks, Pakistan, long a reliable U.S. ally in South Asia, will become one of the world's most severe Islamic states. Among Muslim nations, only Saudi Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan observe the undiluted Islamic law. This code of justice punishes a thief with amputation, an adulterer with a public flogging and a blasphemer with execution; a man can rid himself of a wife merely by saying "I divorce thee" three times. The more moderate Islamic states apply Shari'a to family...
...Nawaz Sharif may hold moderate views, but human rights activists fear the imposition of Shari'a may unleash an army of zealots. Minorities are worried too. Nearly 15% of Pakistan's Muslims are Shi'ite, and in several cities their mosques and schools have been attacked by Sunni extremists. Last week, after the murder in Islamabad of a Sunni extremist leader and three companions, his followers retaliated by burning down a mosque and several homes belonging to Shi'ites...
...imperative that Pakistan shed its tradition of corrupt government, but few are convinced that Nawaz Sharif is the man to do this. His family is one of the richest in Pakistan, yet its members fork out only a pittance in taxes. The armed forces, which have a habit of intervening in Pakistani politics, are displeased with the Prime Minister, and some analysts fear that Nawaz Sharif's actions may increase friction between the pro-Western secularists and religious extremists within the ranks. Warns Maleeha Lodi, a newspaper editor and former ambassador to Washington: "Nawaz Sharif is trying to wrap himself...