I am not a South Asia expert; I have never set foot in Pakistan.
William Dalrymple, the Scottish writer of "From the Holy Mountain," and a slew of books on South Asia, is such an expert, and writes perceptively today in The Observer (London) via the Guardian's "Comment is Free" op-ed feature. His article is an antidote to the tendency in the West to beatify Benazir Bhutto:
Today, Benazir is being hailed as a martyr for freedom and democracy, but far from being a natural democrat, in many ways, Benazir was the person who brought Pakistan's strange variety of democracy, really a form of 'elective feudalism', into disrepute and who helped fuel the current, apparently unstoppable, growth of the Islamists. For Bhutto was no Aung San Suu Kyi. During her first 20-month premiership, astonishingly, she failed to pass a single piece of major legislation. Amnesty International accused her government of having one of the world's worst records of custodial deaths, killings and torture
Though I don't know Pakistan personally, I have lived in other countries where "democracy" and "secularism" mean something different to the West's usual interpretation of the terms.
In Algeria, post-independence governments have largely hailed from the military "nomenklatura," the use of the Soviet term appropriate given the trend in the sixties and seventies to jettison all that was French, capitalist, and agricultural for a socialist, heavy-industrial Soviet style, turning Algeria into a Third World beacon of liberation movements. When that self-image fell flat in the late eighties and early nineties, Islamists channeled popular frustration at rule by a nomenklatura of some 400 families and won a series of local and national elections. When the military canceled the elections in early 1992, it unleashed a decade and a half of violence, and made Algeria synonymous with Islamist terrorism. But the nomenklatura is still there, bolstered by record world prices for Algeria's precious natural gas exports.
In Egypt, a similar military-rooted clique has been in power since the overthrow of King Farouk in the 1950s. Nasser to Sadat, Sadat to Mubarak, Mubarak to... Mubarak? Yes, the Egyptian ruling elite is secular, but it too has had serious competition from Islamists, and over the years has alternated between accommodation (including ex-Muslim Brotherhood candidates in the ruling party) and repression. Go watch the excellent "Yacoubian Building" for a two hour introduction to the contradictions in Egyptian society.
Back to Pakistan and William Dalrymple
Behind Pakistan's endless swings between military government and democracy lies a surprising continuity of elitist interests: to some extent, Pakistan's industrial, military and landowning classes are all interrelated and they look after each other. They do not, however, do much to look after the poor. The government education system barely functions in Pakistan and for the poor, justice is almost impossible to come by. According to political scientist Ayesha Siddiqa: 'Both the military and the political parties have all failed to create an environment where the poor can get what they need from the state. So the poor have begun to look to alternatives for justice. In the long term, flaws in the system will create more room for the fundamentalists.'
In the West, many right-wing commentators on the Islamic world tend to see the march of political Islam as the triumph of an anti-liberal and irrational 'Islamo-fascism'. Yet much of the success of the Islamists in countries such as Pakistan comes from the Islamists' ability to portray themselves as champions of social justice, fighting people such as Benazir Bhutto from the Islamic elite that rules most of the Muslim world from Karachi to Beirut, Ramallah and Cairo.
When we witness repeated electoral victories by Islamists in countries as varied as Algeria, Lebanon, Iraq, and - lest we forget - the Palestinian Authority, either we accept that the Islamists are recognized by electors as worthy of their vote, or we reject the very premise of elections and democracy.
The US is still encouraging Pakistan to go forth with elections on January 8
After signing a condolence book for Bhutto at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, Rice said the United States is in contact with "all" of the parties in Pakistan and stressed that the Jan. 8 elections should not be postponed. "Obviously, it's just very important that the democratic process go forward," she told reporters.
But Pakistanis themselves are questioning the wisdom of such a course, given Bhutto's assassination and the attempted assassination on the same day of Nawaz Sharif. If elections happen - remember Dalrymple's term "elective feudalism" - will the US accept the outcome if it leads to a strengthening of the Islamists?