Friends:
The attached photo is sadly not surprising yet still disappointing. It
is a meeting between Taimur Rahman and Javed Ahmad Ghamdi.
Taimur Rahman, as many of you know, is one of the if not the most
influential leader of the Left in Pakistan. Up until now, we have always offered criticisms of Taimur’s views in a comradely way.
Many of you know how critical we have been of the behavior of the Pakistani Left since the ouster of former PM Imran Khan in April 2022.
Dominant sections of the Left, in their animosity for Khan, mocked the idea that Washington and Pakistan’s generals were behind this regime change. Though they were forced to acknowledge a mea culpa and the truth of the Washington-backed regime change more than a year after Khan was removed from power, the damage had been done. We have witnessed one of
the worst periods of state terror for nearly three years now. The Left’s scandalous silence contributed to the dangerous fortification of our country’s deep state:
As far as Ghamdi, his checkered – to put it mildly – past and present has been incredibly disturbing and odious. Many of you will remember that he was the primary example I used in my post-9/11 essay, “The Empire’s Desperate Search for the Moderate Muslim.”
Ghamdi was buttressed by former dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf to be the voice for the latter’s ‘Enlightened Moderation’ project meant to ‘civilize’ ‘backward’ Pakistanis. Musharraf’s mission was to enslave Pakistan to Washington’s ‘War on Terror.’ Ghamdi was tasked to manufacture consent for imperial violence against Afghans and Pakistanis.
Ghamdi’s message was simple: We are chosen, you are frozen, and we will defrost you with our bombs.
Ghamdi’s (and Musharraf’s) virtually sole strategy to “combat extremism” was a racist militarized approach towards Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Sadly, leftists like Taimur also ended up supporting state violence against ‘extremists’ – anyone the state dislikes – in the country.
Ghamdi’s claim that he is in exile in the US because of persecution of his religious views is not exactly true. Ghamdi’s ‘political theology’ is what Pakistanis despised. It is the state-supported political messaging of condemning and delegitimizing all forms of resistance in the Muslim world that he tried to shove down the throats of Pakistanis – that was abhorred. Ghamdi has blamed Kashmiris and Palestinians for their own oppression. Ghamdi condemns Hamas and Hezbullah as terrorist organizations.
Also, it’s more accurate to say that Ghamdi has been supported and financed by multiple states: Pakistan, the US, and the UK.
This is why Ghamdi’s Empire-friendly neoliberal Islam has been correctly rejected by working class Pakistanis who compose the overwhelming majority of the country.
Taimur Rahman’s joining forces with Ghamdi in “combating extremism” (the purpose of the meeting in the attached photo) speaks volumes and brings to full circle the Islamophobia of both the Left and Ghamdi. The only ‘extremism’ that exists for the two is the seemingly genetically violence-prone and neanderthal Pakistani population, and not the imperial and state violence inflicted on our lands.
We take no pleasure in making this harsh criticism of a prominent
Pakistani leftist. But morally bankrupt politics rooted in native
Orientalism/Islamophobia that legitimizes oppression and discredits resistance – must always be taken to task.
Very best,
Junaid on behalf of the Pakistan Academics’ Collective
https://wp.nyu.edu/pakistan_academics_collective/
28 October 2024
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Junaid S. Ahmad
Professor of Law, Religion, and Global Politics
Director, Center for the Study of Islam and Decolonization (CSID)
Islamabad, Pakistan