Imran Khan and the Lahore mystic
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: Imran Khan, it turns out, underwent a religious conversion at the hands of a Lahore mystic.
According to an interview to the Washington Post correspondent John Lancaster, the former cricket star and chief of the Tehreek-e-Insaaf, “credits his decision to enter politics with a spiritual awakening, encouraged by a mystic from the Sufi sect of Islam, that began in the latter stages of his cricket career. ‘I never drank or smoked, but I used to do my share of partying,’ Khan said. ‘In my spiritual evolution there was a block.’ His conversations with the mystic in Lahore ‘changed me in the fundamental philosophy of life,’ he said. ‘I realised I’d been given so much by the Almighty that I had a responsibility to society. I never would have got into politics otherwise.’ ”
The largely adulatory report, complete with picture of an immaculately dressed Imran Khan, describes him as a man who at 52 “still cuts a swashbuckling figure. The Ray-Bans. The shaggy rocker’s mane. The athletic grace of a former star cricket player whose exploits on the London party circuit once made nearly as many headlines as his dazzling plays on the field. But now he is making headlines of a different sort.”
Imran is credited with bringing to wider public attention the Newsweek report about the desecration of the Quran at Guantanamo. The report takes note of his “relentless verbal attacks on Gen Pervez Musharraf, the President, whom he once defended as the country’s savior but now excoriates as a stooge of the US government and enemy of democracy.” The former cricket captain is said to have called Gen Musharraf a “spent bullet” and told a gathering of supporters in Quetta last week, “If a hundred jackals are led by one lion, they can defeat a hundred lions led by one jackal. Musharraf is a jackal trying to lead a brave and courageous nation - but toward disaster.”
The Washington Post correspondent writes, “But it remains to be seen whether Khan’s political formula, blending Islam, leftist economics and an emphasis on clean government and democracy, can translate into significant support at the ballot box or a threat to Musharraf’s rule.Since its founding in 1996, Khan’s Justice Movement, or Tehreek-e-Insaaf, has won just one seat in parliament - his. Political analysts say the party has yet to significantly broaden its base beyond educated middle and upper-middleclass Pakistanis, who constitute a tiny minority in this impoverished nation of 162 million.”
The report also quotes Imran’s critics who fault him for his “naivete and aloofness” and his “blunder” – something Imran admits himself – constituted by his earlier support of Gen Musharraf. However, Imran calls the criticism unfair, arguing that an “opportunist would not have turned down Musharraf’s offer to make him prime minister.”
He also believes that his party is gaining strength in the run-up to local elections later this year and general elections in 2007. He recalls that he was “one of those who was fooled by the glib talk of the general,” who, he adds, “ has got what is called the gift of gab.” He recalls, “He (Musharraf) was so convincing. We were all charmed by him.”
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_5-7-2005_pg1_9
