Two Things

Two things of import happened in Islamabad last week. First, the Hudood laws, which required a woman to present four male witnesses to a rape and then charged a woman with adultary should she fail to prove rape, were repealed. It's the first time in decades the government has gone against the Mullahs. There've been a lot of protests, and I suspect this law will be implemented only spottily in certain regions, but it's a big step.

Second, McDonald's opened in Islamabad this weekend. Easy access to Big Macs aside (I'm a vegetarian), the opening of a McDonald's in a foreign country generally heralds two things: a) anti-Americanism is within managable levels; and b) local infrastructure has reached a point where McDonald's can ensure consistency of food production. Again, all good things.

However, these positive indicators aside, the radical fundamentalists still have way too much power, which they're exercising outside of democratic processes. If they don't like the way they think a vote will go, they boycott parliament and organize strikes. There's no concept of, "we lost this one, so we'll work through the process to try to win next time." They just reject what they don't like. Democracy still is something which people don't really "get" here, and I don't think that will change any time soon. Which leads to the bigger issue of whether people really need democracy, or if dictatorships are "okay" for some folks. I'm not a cultural relativist, but it took the west some 800 years or so to figure out democracy and I don't expect the east to do much better, despite our example.