Re: For people the respect Mustafa Kamal Attaturk
What would Pakistan be without Islam? How would its people behave? What would be the goals of its citizenry? What would have been the point of partition? Pakistani without Islam is nothing. It would be a dreadful society.
I am not sure whether Pakistan will have a dreadful society without Islam or not. But you are making a “dreadful” mistake by confusing the idea of creation of Pakistan and the role of religion in a modern nation state. Basically we are all humans and our needs, desires, aspirations, woes and sufferings are the same. But it is also a fact that more than 200 nation states exist today in the world. This implies that people are different from each other in some respects. These differences can broadly be classified into ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious. There is no agreed upon definition of a nation except that people who identify themselves as a nation are a nation and those who distinguish themselves from others are a separate nation. The reasons for this differentiation could be ethnic, linguistic, cultural or religious. It is a matter of identities that how you would like to identify yourself.
Aside from Islamic freedom struggles like Kashmir, Palestine and Chechnya there are also some other freedom struggles going on in the world like Tamils, Irish, Basques. Do they want to establish theocratic states if they gained independence? The answer is no. They simply want independence because they think that they are different from Sri Lankans, British and French respectively. As I said it is a matter of identities and certain real or perceived social, political and economic injustices as a group or a class.
Now when people demand independence on the basis of different ethnicity, language and culture their demands are perceived positively and acknowledged internationally. But when a freedom struggle is associated with religion and especially Islam the international community thinks that these freedom fighters probably want to establish a theocratic state where they will enforce strict Islamic laws and persecute their minorities. This general perception is a big set back to the freedom struggles associated with Islam. If East Timor can gain independence from Indonesia in 1999 because they are Christians while Indonesia is predominantly Muslim then why can’t Kashmiris, Palestinians and Chechans have their right of self-determination?
As to your questions “What would Pakistan be without Islam? How would its people behave? What would be the goals of its citizenry?” Secularism is a political concept. The essence of secularism lies in the fact that citizens of a state should have equal rights and opportunities irrespective of their caste, creed and religion. And also that all religious denominations are free to profess and practice their religion. And also that they are free to propagate and persuade others but they cannot force others to adopt the religion of the majority. And they cannot impose a strict moral and religious code on its population which derives its authority from dogma and not from reason.
As I said that secularism is a political concept but no society in the entire world is truly secular where there is a complete separation of religion and state and where all religions are completely equal. Society is an assemblage of individuals and individuals have religions thus every society believes in something and derives its inspiration from somewhere. It’s a circular process where individuals contribute towards the general trends of the society and the society in turn shapes the ideas of individuals.
The “behavior” and “goals” of the citizenry of Pakistan should be a mix of traditionalism and modernism. Traditionalism is not all bad and modernism is not all good. Religion is a “reformed tradition”. We should retain what is best in Islam and at the same time embrace the spirit of modernism. Islam teaches us to respect our elders, be affectionate to children, help the poor, protect the weaker and avoid indulging into promiscuity and licentiousness. Modernism teaches us to be forward looking, refrain from blind obedience, use our reasoning faculties and understand the nature of life, society and the Universe.