One Family Divided

Ins

ide the sunny flat where Attiya Dawood lives with her family in Karachi's trendy Zamzama district, the TV is on full blast. Her two young daughters are engrossed in a children's show on an Indian channel, giggling and bouncing to the thumping beat of Who Let the Dogs Out. The walls are filled with miniature art by Attiya's husband, colorful paintings that comment on the role of women in Pakistani society. Attiya, 43, is busy cooking lunch in the kitchen. Shelves are cluttered with family photos, art books, novels. It is a joyful home, bustling and alive.

Aslam Larik, 54, Attiya's elder brother, lives about half-an-hour's drive—and an entire world—away. At his apartment in the Karachi Engineering University's staff colony, a simple, sober message printed in Arabic and English greets visitors at the front door: ALLAH IS THE BEST PROVIDER OF ALL. Inside, the drab walls are devoid of decoration, bare but for a calendar. There is no television on the TV stand, but in its place sits a Koran wrapped lovingly in an embroidered shawl. The women are sequestered, and a peaceful silence prevails.

Brother and sister come from the same tiny village in Pakistan's rural Sind province and were raised by the same parents. But they have chosen two radically different paths. Attiya is a poet and women's rights activist. Unlike many Pakistani women, she married the man she loved, the painter Khuda Bux Abro, and is so unconcerned with the trappings of religion that acquaintances sometimes ask if she is even a Muslim. Attiya's thoroughly modern girls, aged 7 and 11, wear T shirts, jeans and short, sleeveless dresses and read Enid Blyton novels and the Guinness Book of World Records. But when they get a rare visit from Aslam and his family, things become tense. Aslam is a zealous member of Pakistan's Tableeghi Jamaat, a massive, well-organized Islamic proselytizing movement. His forehead bears a permanent mark from touching the ground in prayer. His wife, like most Pakistani women, does not work, and keeps her head and face covered by a veil. At Attiya's home, she complains that there is nowhere to pray, because Islam forbids prayer in the presence of human images like those shown in Abro's paintings. Attiya loves her brother, but, she says, "I don't want to meet him again and again." For Aslam, it is equally awkward. On the few occasions when Attiya visits, he always demands that she don a veil before entering his home, and she always refuses.

And so it goes, as it has for decades. Attiya and Aslam are the two faces of Pakistan, a country struggling to reconcile its dueling natures—a majority that is moderate in matters of religion and politics, and a vocal, well-organized minority that can be heavy-handed and obscurantist. Attiya and Aslam represent the two sides of the divide. With university degrees, they are better educated than most of their countrymen—the national literacy rate is less than 40%—but the choices they have made and the paths they have taken in life mirror the choices that a polarized Pakistan must also make. Should the nation move forward and be part of the modern world? Or will it seek answers from the past and retreat into a rigid interpretation of Islam? Can it do both? The sometimes violent clash between progressive moderates and dogmatic hard-liners is increasingly defining Pakistan—when it should be the resolution of that conflict that defines it instead.

Orphaned a year after its birth 54 years ago—when its founder and main visionary, the secular-minded lawyer Muhammad Ali Jinnah, died—the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has always suffered from an identity crisis. Born out of bloodshed, chaos, pride and insecurity, Pakistan was created as a homeland for India's Muslims—its very name means "land of the spiritually pure"—but Jinnah, who favored a pluralistic democracy, never envisioned a theocratic state. His successors had other ideas, and 30 years after Jinnah was gone, the military dictator General Zia ul-Haq shackled the country's fortunes to religion with a decade-long Islamization drive from which Pakistan has never recovered.

After the terrorist attacks on America, Pakistan finds itself at a crossroads. In a country where Islamic radicals have become increasingly bold and influential, President Pervez Musharraf had to choose between appeasing them (by siding with Afghanistan's Taliban regime) or cooperating with the U.S. in its all-out war on terrorism. Either way, the repercussions for Pakistan would be enormous, but Musharraf, who criticized extremists for "holding the country hostage," sided with the U.S. "I know the majority of the people favor our decision," he said in a national address.

Even so, Musharraf had to couch his decision in religious terms, calling Pakistan a "fortress of Islam" and drawing inspiration from the Prophet Muhammad's example. Musharraf and his advisers are well aware of piety's place in Pakistan. There is a groundswell of people turning, or returning, to Islam for answers. Some do so as a rejection of America and Western values; others are seeking hope and a sense of purpose in an ever more dismal and disillusioning national scene. "This is a generation of hopelessness," says former National Assembly member Daniyal Aziz, "and people need hope to get by." Pakistan's institutions are weak, its political leaders are discredited and its economy is a shambles. An explosion of religious seminaries has filled the vacuum caused by a deficient government education system; a million children are enrolled in medressas and emerge qualified only for religious work. Housewives and grandmothers who used to spend their mornings gossiping and getting manicures are diligently attending Koran study groups.

In a country awash in illegal weapons, violence is inevitably part of the picture. And it isn't restricted to the illiterate and the destitute, those most susceptible to the pull of extremism. Even the sons of some wealthy businessmen are growing beards and joining the jihad against India over the disputed territory of Kashmir, often to the dismay of their secular-leaning families. Others sign up for local wars: more than 100 Pakistanis have been killed in sectarian attacks since the beginning of this year. In recent months, minority Shia professionals, especially doctors, have been targeted for assassination. Doctors are among the best educated and most successful Shia professionals in Pakistan, and their murders are particularly intimidating. In July, the chairman of Pakistan State Oil, a respected Shia executive, was gunned down in broad daylight in Karachi on his way to his office. Musharraf's government has promised tough new laws to prevent such attacks—but it has been unable to tackle the root causes of intolerance, including hate-filled propaganda purveyed by many medressas and mosques.