By Zainab Cheema
A charismatic politician charming crowds throughout Pakistan. A rising crescendo of political speeches and rallies setting the nation afire, an impalpable sense of excitement building in the populace, casting the halo of destiny itself on the celebrity politician. A sense of promise, a social contract written anew; Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1973? No, rather it is Imran Khan in 2012, launching a flamboyant path to become the next prime minister of Pakistan.Imran Khan’s turn in political fortunes has been the subject of fervid domestic debate in Pakistan. The numerous political talk shows hosted on television stations like Dunya, Geo TV, and ARY are turning their attention toward the legendary Pakistani cricketer turned head of the Tehrik-e-Insaaf political party, as he continues to hold rallies attended by hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis drawn to his message for change. His first rally, was held in Lahore in 1998, during the early years of his political career when the halo of his sports celebrity was as great an impediment to his being taken seriously as his playboy reputation and his marriage to Jemima Goldsmith.
Khan’s gritty perseverance in turning around his lackluster image was punctuated first by a Tehrik-e Insaaf rally in Lahore in October that pulled in an estimated 250,000 people followed by a December 25 rally in Karachi, which attracted a crowd that numbered from 100,000 to 150,000. Many political watchers — from local politicians in Pakistan to international political observers to worldwide media outfits — watched the rallies with interest, noting the way they had transformed Imran Khan’s status as a rising superstar in Pakistani politics. Khan pledged to end the massive corruption of the Zardari regime, electricity and energy shortages that have spread discontent across the Pakistani population, and Pakistan’s dependence on the US. Political observers noted that he avoided references to religious-based political mobilization, and instead addressed himself in secular nationalist terms.
The spectacular success of the rallies, especially the one in Karachi caused it to be splashed across international as well as domestic newspapers, and triggered a noticeable tsunami of politicians who are jumping ship from their cushy perches with older political parties to join the bandwagon of Pakistan’s newest political star. In particular, the defection of Javed Hashmi, one of the key figures of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (the party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif) to Tehrik-e-Insaaf in January 2011, highlighted Khan’s power to bleed the old juggernauts of Pakistani political theatre into his group.
Hashmi’s defection evoked satirical comments from Pakistani talk show hosts about the timing of his “realization” that PML-N was on the wrong track and that Khan represented a better alternative for Pakistan, as Hashmi declared in a Multan speech. At any rate, it signaled to Hashmi’s colleagues on all rungs of the political ladder that jumping ship for Tehrik-e-Insaaf is a savvy move for lining the nest for one’s political future — a skill honed through the decades of flip-flopping between political parties such as People’s Party of Pakistan (headed by Benazir Bhutto through the 1990s) and Nawaz Sharif’s various political organizations. As is usually the case in reversals of fortune, where Imran Khan was once derided as “I’m the Dim,” he is now glorified (assisted in part by his own slogans) as “the next savior of Pakistan.” Even the most hard-nosed political critics cannot help but pay tribute to the mood of hope that has moved through the masses of the beleaguered country. A recent article in The New York Times dubbed his effect in reviving the national scene as “The Pakistani Spring.” A Pew Center poll in June 2011 found that Khan was the most popular politician in Pakistan.
While the 2011 rallies in Lahore and Karachi may be eye-catching and peculiarly persuasive, the turn in Khan’s fortune really began with the 2010 floods that blanketed wide swaths of the country, spreading misery, death, and dislocation. Khan’s charitable credentials were well-established with his establishment of the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital, Pakistan’s first cancer hospital. During the flood disaster, he became the only reliable distributor of aid and supplies to the victims. (Other handlers associated with charities were well-known for swiping medicine and other supplies in order to make a profit on the black market). Khan went a step further and personally raised millions of dollars abroad for his disaster relief projects. Khan’s public service during the tragedy cemented his legitimacy with the public and laid the foundation to his future political successes.
The nay-sayers and critics wagged their heads in doubt — for entirely legitimate reasons. Khan has no coherent ideology or platform, differing from Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whose socialist influenced positions, while complicated by his affiliations with Pakistan’s feudal aristocracy, gave his policies a coherent direction. Most of Khan’s positions seem to be taken against existing problems, rather than outlining solutions or new visions. For instance, Khan has loudly declaimed against local corruption, suggesting that laws of transparency will change the system and influence Pakistan’s politicians to be much more responsible with the national wealth that they have happily plundered over their careers.
Khan’s other position is against the post-9/11 US-Pakistan security pact, which has green-lighted drone attacks, rendition killings, and kidnappings of Pakistani civilians. In fact, Khan’s popularity with the masses is in part, based on his willingness to verbally challenge the US-Pakistani special relationship, which has transformed from a species of shady cooperation into aggressive sabotage. But there are no ideas, as of yet, on the kind of (painful) economic and political restructuring that Pakistan must undertake in order to transition out of its “failed state” status. That is, the “insaaf” (justice) that Khan envisions is the negative kind geared toward the absence of social ills rather than a constructive, productive solution.
Imran Khan’s defenders — a number of which belong to the demographic of articulate Pakistani youth — dismiss such objections. In a blog for the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, Shyema Sajjad writes: “His policies may be all over the place… or not even in place yet but Imran Khan has managed to do something none of the other leaders have so far — wake people up. Forget the rural voters who are promised a plate of biryani for their vote. I am talking about people such as your siblings, your neighbours and co-workers. He has managed to wake them up, register themselves and get excited to vote for the very first time. How far Imran Khan manages to go, who knows, but making even quarter of this nation optimistic about the future is a very big achievement already.”
Imran Khan believes that he is touched with destiny, that he is providentially intended to lead Pakistan in a new direction. His natural charisma, strident ability to take tough positions, and his public service have changed the political map of Pakistan. The intelligentsia, workers, students and other demographics look to him as a way of breaking through the stagnation of national politics where army rule fluctuates with a hamstrung, ineffective civilian rule run by beefy politicians with family connections. But there are evident problems in the tactics he has taken up in steamrolling toward national power. Wafting in the margins for over a decade, he has made the decision to accommodate power groups in order to gain power and induce reform from the inside.The compromises he is making with the politicians, army and other contingents of Pakistan power politics as a means of gaining power ensures that he will have allies from inside the system, as well as electoral votes on the outside. But as numerous political commentators are inquiring, how much compromise is too much? As Javed Saleem of the humorous Pakistani political show Hasb-e-Haal noted, at first Imran Khan’s words were direct and held no vestige of compromise. Now, as he begins to accept more and more contingents of the Pakistani political establishment, he has come to use disclaimers that interrupt his image as the intransigent voice of truth. As Muhammad Waseem, a political science professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, noted: “He’s now accepting people in his party who have been very much part of the status quo and the corrupt system. [Because] they are powerful and electable.”
So far, Khan is dodging the vital questions being posed to him: how will he realign Pakistan’s notoriously corrupt politicians to a platform of justice? If Khan is entirely serious about rupturing the US-Pakistani political contract, what will be the response of those politicians, who own significant properties in Europe and the US, and whose children are by and large settled there? How will Khan balance between the expectations of the masses whose imagination he has aroused, and the desires of the politicians, who largely view public treasuries as a get-rich-quick depot? And what will Khan do about the 800-lb elephant known as the Pakistani Army, which is fully entrenched in preserving its influence through Pakistan’s unfortunate political entanglements? If Imran Khan is deferring these issues till after the campaigning honeymoon is over, then his political marriage with the country as its prime minister will be quite difficult indeed. 
Occupy Wall Street, the national protests that were sparked in New York City’s Zuccotti Park on September 17, 2001, headlined the anger of the 99% whose futures have been derailed by the financial elites of the country and their political executors. While uneasily tolerating the mushrooming protests for a month, all the while investing in elaborate security systems to protect their wealth and holdings from mass anger, Wall Street called in the national authority to pull the plug. Mayors and university regents across the US cracked down on the protests, evacuating encampments and arresting protesters. 
As human rights campaigners around the world commemorated the 10th anniversary of the opening of the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, marking a decade of human rights abuses known as the “war on terror”, one would have expected that Western governments would be contemplating scaling back their aggressive rhetoric and draconian laws which have become a feature of the 21st century. After all, numerous al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama Bin Laden, have been killed, troops are steadily withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan and popular revolutions throughout the Muslim world are toppling brutal tyrants who were allies of the West. One would expect that the governments of the West would attempt to employ a different strategy or use more refined tactics in their efforts to battle Islam. 
Other books Faraz was selling which are now also effectively banned include those of Abdullah ‘Azzam, a Palestinian scholar who became one of the leaders of the jihad in Afghanistan against Soviet occupation. ‘Azzam’s Defence of Muslim Lands and Join the Caravan were essentially Islamic edicts that received the highest validation at the time and were heavily promoted in the Western and Muslim world to encourage Muslims to join the Western-backed jihad against the Soviet Union. Both books were readily available for purchase from mainstream booksellers Amazon and Waterstones until very recently, neither of whom it seems will be similarly prosecuted.
The Saudi regime has adopted a three-pronged strategy to deal with the storm that has erupted since the Islamic Awakening swept the Muslim East more than a year ago. Soon after two dictators — General Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia and General Hosni Mubarak of Egypt — were driven from power in quick succession, Saudi King Abdullah announced billions of dollars in handouts to buy people’s loyalty. This was accompanied by a vicious sectarian campaign to divert people’s attention from the regime’s own illegitimacy. Proof of this came in the manner in which Saudi troops were rushed to shore up the minority Khalifa family in Bahrain but then in a complete reversal of policy, the Saudi regime launched a campaign to undermine the Bashar al-Asad minority regime in Syria. In both instances, sectarian rhetoric and crude divisive tactics were used. But even these were not considered adequate to deal with the danger of an uprising inside the kingdom. To clamp down on any manifestations of demands for reform and opening up the system, the regime has used brutal tactics to suppress them.
Represented by the respected human rights activist Sadek al-Ramadan, the Center’s aim is to monitor and document human rights cases and to educate citizens and immigrant expatriates on their legal rights. The ministry, however, rejected the application on the grounds that the objectives of the Center did not go along with the “rules of procedures of Associations Law.” The Center’s representatives said they would appeal the rejection. While the Saudi regime was clamping down hard on calls for reform or refusing to allow human rights centers to be opened, not to mention prohibiting women from driving cars, their human rights record came in for scrutiny in the British House of Lords. This must be deeply worrying for the secretive Saudis who want to keep everything under the lid. On 12-12-2011, Lord Nazir Ahmed of Rotherham, a British peer of Pakistani origin, rose up in the House of Lords and drew attention to the plight of women in the kingdom. He said: “Women are not allowed to drive or vote, women remain subject to discrimination both in law and practice, women are not allowed to travel, engage in paid work or higher education or marry without the permission of a male guardian.” 
The crisis in Syria has entered a stalemate with neither side able to deliver a decisive knockout blow. This may serve the regime better than its opponents although it is not for lack of trying by the opposition, especially aided by their foreign sponsors and backers. The major hurdle facing the regime’s opponents — and there are divergent groups — is that they are disunited. The only point on which they somewhat agree is their opposition to Bashar al-Asad and their demand that he must resign. This is eagerly amplified by their foreign sponsors — the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, among others — that refuse to countenance a negotiated settlement.
The Arab League foreign ministers’ meeting demanded al-Asad’s resignation and handing over power to his deputy within two months. The Syrian government dismissed the call outright and said the Arab League had no mandate to make such a demand. Reflecting their weakness — and irrelevance — the Arab League also threatened to take the matter to the UN Security Council. The “no-fly zone” over Libya was their idea; it led to the Security Council’s approval of a resolution that was then used as justification for a full scale war on Libya and its infrastructure. Later, the Arab League members complained that this is not what they had meant! Slaves, however, have no authority over their masters. 
The opposition is badly fractured. This is even acknowledged by their foreign backers. A number of groups with divergent outlooks and ambitions comprise the opposition. The best known is the Syrian National Council (SNC) led by Burhan Ghalioun, a university professor from Paris who currently resides in Turkey. The SNC has modeled itself on Libya’s Transitional National Council (TNC), whose example and path it wants to emulate with hopes of achieving similar results. The Syrian branch of al-Ikhwan al-Muslimoon (Muslim Brotherhood) operates under the SNC umbrella but has its own agenda. Most of its leaders, like Sadruddin 