PS: Originally written Wednesday, now it is Friday morning in Pakistan and people seem on edge. I think the various banned organizations have all received their pound of flesh/30 pieces of silver etc and the professional slash and burn specialists will only attack soft targets (if they attack any at all). Lumpen elements aka young people with nothing better to do will smash some windows. Police mobiles and kiosks are always fair game. But its likely that the big boys have told their assets not to touch the embassies or consulates.
Could something go wrong? Sure it could. The best laid plans of mice and men can be upset by a few determined agents provocateur, a well placed bomb, even a well placed gunshot. So fingers crossed in GHQ and everywhere else. But I think odds are that there will be huge demonstrations and some rioting but things will eventually quiet down. Behind the scenes, some deals will be cut. Cash will change hands. Maybe some wanted persons will be let go. Who knows. Mullahs will definitely get more air time and importance and incentives being what they are, they wont want to let this opportunity pass too completely. But the elite knows which side their bread is buttered. They are scared shitless and they are having a terrible time trying to come up with some narrative that can them have their Islamic Jihadi cake and eat NATO supplies too and I personally think they are not going to manage this feat now or in the next few years. Instead they will keep kicking the can down the road and pray to Allah while they take more money out of the country.
So it goes.
Btw, the Tariq Ali piece is at the end of this long post (I say this because I have heard from friends who want that highlighted and I am delighted to oblige).
Note: This was written Wednesday night in the US. Since then a protest in Islamabad has scared a number of people into imagining revolution where yesterday they were telling me I am alarmist.. So I would add “dont panic”. Their will be no jihadi takeover, yet… The only takeover currently likely in Pakistan is an army takeover and the way they turned the protest in Islamabad out like a light, in 20 minutes, shows that they retain enough influence over the “banned organizations” and they are not taking over…. yet…. Relax…. for now. ..
As usual, you cannot make this shit up. The government of Pakistan (yes, the Federal govt) has announced a NATIONAL HOLIDAY on Friday the 21st…This glorious day will be celebrated as “Yaum e Ishq e rasool” (day of love of the prophet). The Prime Minister will hold a convention in the spacious Islamabad convention center and has invited the heads of all political parties to this grand meeting. A resolution condemning the US will no doubt be passed.
The Prime minister is reportedly going to summon the US ambassador to officially protest to him against the movie.
Why not the French Ambassador? Now that Charlie Hebdo has published cartoons that are clearly not complimentary in any shape or form
From friend Ali Arqam: French sociologist Gilles Kepel has observed, governments in Muslim countries ‘gradually created a reactionary climate of “re-Islamization”. They sacrificed lay intellectuals, writers, and other “Westernized elites” to the tender mercies of bigoted clerics, in the hope that the latter, in return, would endorse their own stranglehold on the organs of state.’
My comment: One should keep in mind that a good chunk of the crooked, corrupt, incompetent elite is just plain stupid. They really thought “re-islamization” would just mean that other people would go to madressas and veil their women and stop drinking alcohol while they partied on in private on their farmhouses….
Anyway, here we are now. The PPP government in Pakistan has tried to step ahead of the protesters by out-protesting them. They will not succeed. Just as Bhutto’s ban on alcohol and declaration of a holiday on Friday did not help him one bit with the Islamists. The Islamists (per a direct report from an extremely reliable journalist in Peshawar) are going around in cars announcing “please come to the protest on Friday with your own guns and rocket launchers”. I am not kidding.
So what happens next? I will give my predictions, you can please add your own. Lets see how we do.
- There will be massive protests in Pakistan on Friday. Since the govt itself has announced a holiday the expectations are clear. In any case, the police have already registered a case against one businessman who didn’t want to shut his shop for a strike called in Sindh to protest the film. On what charge? Blasphemy. Yes, his refusal to shut his shop to protest blasphemy is itself evidence of blasphemy. Participation on Friday will be sky high.
- There will be blood. Frantic behind-the-scenes negotiations are almost certainly going on as we speak. Some Islamist party chief is no doubt sitting somewhere demanding millions of rupees to divert the protest towards x or Y instead of burning down the US consulate. Some of the cash changing hands may come from US taxpayers. But it wont be enough to stop all violence. Someone will point out a gas station that belongs to some infidel (Shia, Ahmedi, Ismaili, whatever) and the crowd will set it on fire. Some “lumpen elements” who did not receive special branch money will decide it’s a good time to smash some shit. There WILL be blood.
- After the rioting and the lost production and the international horrified looks, the nation may begin to feel its time to move on. But token actions may still be needed. Youtube may take down the videos (maybe on a court order?) and the US ambassador may be called in again to protest. A blasphemy law clause will no doubt be introduced in the UN. Some BS will be needed. It will likely be provided. But it may not be enough just now. More blood may b needed before the honor of the prophet is satisfied.
Since comrade Tariq Ali does not seem to have spoken yet, I will now channel him for the sake of his fans:
“A pre-revolutionary situation appears to be developing in Pakistan. The proletariat, long suffering under the yolk of neo-colonial exploitation, has begun to stir. Identifying the US as the head of international capital, the working class is ready for a complete overthrow of the oppressive system. In Peshawar, samizdat texts smuggled across the border under the noses of CIA-trained security forces are already circulating in the barrios. Relatively sophisticated elements of the ruling classes, fearful of losing their grip but unable to rely on American tanks and drones in the dense urban landscape of Peshawar, are trying to pre-empt the revolution by installing a Kerensky-like figure in Islamabad. Others prepare for Thermidor, while American “advisers in the fortress-like American embassy still believe that the jackbooted thugs of the puppet Zardari regime will be able to hold off the revolutionary surge.
Meanwhile, the young men (and women, contrary to Western stereotypes women are an important behind-the-scenes component of the Islamist militias now being organized in working class neighborhoods) are putting the simplistic anti-imperialism of the Taliban behind them as a hardcore of Islamic socialists begins to insert class and gender issues into the emerging debate. With the capitalist media increasingly discredited by their association with the White Russian forces in Afghanistan, these new voices may suddenly emerge on Friday to announce to the world a new dawn of hope. Aging revolutionaries across the globe may yet see that light burst forth from a region presented by FOX news and the New York Times as the heart of darkness. But the revolution will need our support as the forces of reaction in London and Washington attempt to land troops on the borders of Islamic soviets under the guise of protecting human rights and bourgeoise democracy. Massive civil disobedience in Western capitals will be the only way these interventions can be thwarted. Let us not be found wanting.”
Thanks to Shahid, we now have Tariq Ali’s actual response: http://www.rferl.org/content/islam-interview-tariq-ali-innocence-of-muslims-film/24713593.html
I think the great man is getting old. We all are. As comrade Munny famously put it “we all have it coming”.