Daily Times

The history of England under King Henry VIII’s reign from 1509 to 1547 had a fundamental and lasting impact on the history of the world. By all accounts, it was not an easy time for England, especially since King Henry upon his death left England in terrible financial straits, economic crises, horrendous corruption, religious extremism and conflict. Sound familiar?

I do not wish to delve into the merits of the great King Henry VIII’s reign over England, beyond saying that like all great men in history, he too had feet of clay, and most of the monumental changes that were given effect during his reign did not arise out of any personal conviction or concern for the people of his realm but personal and dynastic considerations. Such is the way of the world. Yet the changes were so monumental that they shaped the western world and civilisation in the modern age. The dissolution between the Catholic Church and the Church of England came about because the Pope failed to endorse Henry’s plans to divorce his first queen. For the remainder of his reign, King Henry continued to play Protestant reformists and the Papist sympathisers against each other. The Law Lords at Westminster presided over the trial and execution of Sir Thomas Moore, a martyr to Catholics for asserting the right of dissent and religious freedom, as well as that of Thomas Cromwell, the fanatical reformer who was out to purge England of all Papal heresy. The Protestant-Catholic conflict or as it went by its various names, the conflict between radical reformers of Christianity and guardians of the old order, continued within the Church of England till the passage of the Act of Uniformity under Queen Elizabeth some decades later.

The kind of terrible violence that England went through in those days is not unknown to a common Pakistani in 2013. It is not for nothing that Jinnah had referred to the Protestant-Catholic conflict of this era in his landmark 11th August speech while emphasising religious toleration and neutrality of the state (I daresay secularism). Unfortunately, Pakistan has become quite what England was under King Henry. Just like Henry used religion to either achieve personal or political ends, our callous elite, resembling the latter day King Henry in the age of senility, too makes an unabashed use of religion. The PPP and PML-N — said to be the two main parties of this our modern day realm — each have a set of sectarian allies. Barelvis are played against Deobandis and Ahle-Hadith, what to say of sectarian and religious minorities. Blood continues to spill as our would be reformers — inspired by Abdul Wahab just as English reformers were by Luther — are baying for each other’s marrow. The tragic fact is that in 2013, Pakistan’s religious clerics and thinkers are still settling the same questions England settled by hook or by crook in the 16th century. Just as reformers and traditionalists argued over whether the images and intercession of Jesu (Jesus) Mary and the saints was allowed, Pakistani religious debaters argue over whether going to shrines is alright or not.

Is Pakistan going to be the Islamic world’s England then? Is this our reformation to be followed by a renaissance? Who knows, but I suppose there is no harm in taking such flights of fancy. After all there are people who with a straight face will tell you that Hafiz Saeed’s seminary in Muridke has the makings of Oxford and Cambridge. No sane or reasonable person can agree, but it goes without saying that on a long enough timeline even the most solid of stones withers away. Be that as it may we have to live in the here and now. That Pakistan is going through a defining phase is undisputed. It is only if we put our faith in our democracy and allow elections to take place and enough cycles of democracy pass, will we actually begin to define Pakistan in a way that would redeem us in history.

The coming elections will be decisive in the sense that they would determine whether Pakistanis are willing to allow democracy to work or not. In the opinion of this writer, it is very important for democracy, Pakistan and Pakistan People’s Party itself that the PPP loses the next election — which it seems poised to do — so that people get to vote out an unpopular government and the PPP goes back to the drawing board to reinvent itself as a true people’s party. Such a defeat will be a reminder to whoever is in the saddle next that there is no mightier sword than the sword of public opinion that the people have forged in this country primarily through their own effort and their faith in democracy.

So here we are: bankrupt and corrupt intellectually, morally and financially, isolated and victims of religious extremism, just as King Henry left England when he died of obesity. The question is whether our fledgling democrats have achieved what Henry did, albeit for personal aggrandizement, in laying the foundation for a prosperous future? In my opinion, this inept government of PPP and company will be remembered best for the 18th Amendment, the inadvertent ascension of the judiciary and the fact that it gave us an independent and empowered election commission. Those are meaningful and long lasting changes. So yes, despite everything, one continues to be optimistic.

The writer is a lawyer based in Lahore and the author of the book Jinnah: Myth and Reality. He can be contacted via twitter @therealylh and through his email addressyasser.hamdani@gmail.com