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Creating Frankenstein: The Impact of Saudi Export of Ultra-Conservatism in South Asia

Fri, March 17, 5:15 to 7:15pm, Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, Floor: 2nd Floor, Mackenzie

Abstract

This paper looks at the interactions between the Pakistani state, local religious and political forces and Saudi Arabia. Massive funding of Pakistani educational and cultural institutions by Saudi Arabia and funds raised by Pakistani clerics and businessmen in Mecca, as well as cooperation between branches of the Pakistani state and local militant Islamist groups, have woven sectarianism and misogyny into the fabric of Pakistani society and key institutions of the state. The paper looks at geopolitics and mechanics of Saudi Arabia’s four decade-old soft power campaign abetted by governments of majority Muslim states that has made ultra-conservatism a key influence in Muslim communities across the globe. Nowhere has the campaign had a more devastating effect than in Pakistan. It has empowered violent militant Islamists’ grip on significant chunks of the Pakistani education system and given them a significant voice within Pakistani politics and state institutions. The result is the infusion of ultra conservative values into public and family life, a pushback against popular and traditional culture and a spike in honor killings and attacks on artists, writers and journalists. The debilitating effect of millions of Pakistanis being educated in ultra-conservative and militant Islamist religious institutions, coupled with an Urdu-language press that often propagates ultra-conservative and Saudi religious and social values in a country where development is stymied, is that generations are raised with no hope of being able to compete in a market-driven economy.

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