Pakistan is arguably the most important country on the face of the planet. If you are a:
National security expert, you have deep concerns about the viability of Gen. Musharraf’s regime and its nuclear safeguards;
Counterterrorism expert, you are acutely aware that Pakistan was the source of the Taliban; that the London bombings in July were perpetrated by terrorists trained in Pakistan; and that along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, al Qaeda and the Taliban continue to hide;
Relief and development expert, you know that 40% of the people living along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border subsist on less than one dollar/day, and that the earthquake relief effort has not been coordinated or funded well;
Human rights expert, you understand that while women’s rights and religious freedom possess legal guarantees, these rights, in practice, are not consistently protected; and, if you are a
Christian, you know that Pakistan is in the center of the “10-40” window, a place where there are very few followers of Christ.
At the geographic heart of all these issues is Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP), located northwest of Islamabad. In October 2002, the NWFP’s 20 million Pushtuns (the predominant ethnic group) elected a fundamentalist Muslim party that ran on two issues: anti-Americanism and implementing Shari’a law. This party selected Akram Durrani to lead the NWFP’s Provincial Assembly as Chief Minister (CM). CM Durrani has been quoted as saying that 9/11 was a CIA plot.
Two years ago, however, a Pakistani Christian approached IGE and suggested that CM Durrani was much more than a stereotype, and that he was a leader with whom we could work. After twenty months of researching, mutual vetting and painstaking communication, CM Durrani arrived in the U.S. as our guest on July 9, 2005. It was his first visit outside of the Muslim world.
Our goal for this visit was twofold: 1) establish a relationship with this influential leader from the geopolitical and theological heartland of radical Islam; and 2) win an invitation to Pakistan under his honor, thereby providing a level of access and safety not possible for most Westerners.
We spent ten days with Durrani, engaging him on Islam, Christianity, governing, and U.S.-Pakistan relations. We introduced him to friends at the National Security Council, State Department, Department of Defense, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Capitol Hill; we arranged for him to give a major policy address at the Brookings Institution; and we took him to New York City, where he could see Ground Zero for himself.
A warm and funny man beneath a bearded and often somber face, we found Akram Durrani to be a man of faith, integrity and honor. When asked why he was in politics, he told us that the Quran teaches that he must help the poor and that God would hold him accountable for what he did or didn’t do on judgment day.
Through our time together, we moved past stereotypes, discovering his passion for social justice. We were amazed to learn that his policies and programs have focused on reducing poverty, increasing education rights for women, establishing a university for business and technology and hosting the first-ever investors conference for the NWFP (March 2005). To the CM’s great credit, there has been no religious violence in the NWFP since he assumed the role of Chief Minister.
Our engagement did not go unnoticed. A leading conservative writer attacked IGE for hosting “blood-thirsty bigots,” while the New York Times called us a “right wing Christian organization.” This combination of critiques from the left and right confirmed that we were right where we wanted to be: the “radical middle.” Accordingly, we accepted the CM’s invitation to visit him in the NWFP, which we did last month.
During our visit we were able to verify all that the CM had told us. We also witnessed Ramadan, local elections and the tragic earthquake. (We had just returned from the northern most part of the NWFP the day before the earthquake, and we were scheduled to go back north the following day. If the earthquake had struck the day before or the day after, we would have been right in the middle of the destruction zone.)
We were also introduced to a different, hidden kind of persecution. There are 75,000 Christians in the NWFP, 85% of whom live below the poverty line. Most do menial work without any opportunity for socio-economic advancement. For this marginalized minority, engaging the culture is difficult. While they have legal protection and they feel that CM Durrani is sincere, they know that the situation can change quickly in a place like Pakistan.
As Peshawar's Bishop of the Church of Pakistan told us: “We are forced into a Franciscan engagement strategy.” St. Francis — whose life of service echoed his teaching to “preach the gospel always, using words if necessary” — is an appropriate model of engagement in a complex place like Pakistan. In other words, direct evangelization in the NWFP would be a disaster. Yet, because of our truly unique relationship, IGE is positioned to be salt and light.
Given our common commitment to religious freedom, social justice and God, we agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding with the Chief Minister. (Imagine a Muslim NGO from Iran signing an agreement with the governor of Texas and you'll begin to get a sense of how unique this is.) We signed the MoU on October 9, 2005, exactly three months after meeting Durrani for the first time. Only God could write such a script!
With this agreement, not to mention the broad press coverage in Pakistan, both parties are publicly and transparently committed to: 1) promoting religious freedom; 2) striving for the socio-economic enhancement of minorities; 3) exploring educational partnerships between the U.S. and Pakistan; and 4) engaging in ongoing, reciprocal visits of academic, religious, political and business leaders in order to promote mutual understanding between our respective countries and faiths.
In the years ahead, it is our hope and prayer to be a gateway partner for the NWFP, acting as a mechanism through which educational institutions, health and development organizations, businesses and NGOs might partner with the NWFP to protect a person’s right to choose and practice faith freely, and to raise the socioeconomic status of all God's children living there.
source:www.globalengage.org
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