My crush on Musharraf
With his dogs, drinking, frameless glasses and Armani suits, he's reviled by extremists.
By Asra Q. Nomani
Nov. 10, 2001 | KARACHI, Pakistan -- Uzma Asim, 35, is a modern Muslim woman, a vice president of operations of Anmar Associates, a garment exporter. Her office is replete with glass tables, leather sofas, just ordered-in Kentucky Fried Chicken and a quiet room for women to pray, with rugs folded neatly on the floor. She sweeps before me, a burst of energy in a modest white cotton shalwar kameeze with black block print.
A mane of curly, raven black hair descends upon her shoulders, a thin line of kajal flutters upon her upper eyelid and her eyes sparkle when she talks about her president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Asim is an international globetrotter, touching down in London, Paris, Frankfurt and Dubai in her travels. Fine works by Pakistani artists hang on the walls and a Louis Vuitton bag sits open at her side as she taps at her keyboard. And who stares back at us from her screensaver? Musharraf.
She salutes him, flicking her hand against her forehead. Then she stands and opens a long closet door that conceals locker-like shelving. Musharraf is looking over his left shoulder, wearing a purple tie, white shirt and gray suit that falls well-sculptured on his shoulders. Asim has glued this photo of the general onto the inside of the door.
"Look at him," Asim says, punching her fist in the air. "Confident. Certain. Determined." Her raves continue: "He's a magnetic person."
"I love him," she gushes. Asim doesn't want there to be any confusion. "I'm happily married," she says. But as the rest of the world sees many of the furious turban-wearing fundamentalists burning Musharraf in effigy in the streets (they will likely be out in full force now with Musharraf out of the country, preparing to meet with President Bush and address the United Nations in New York) another part of the population feels quite differently.
There are no Gallup polls measuring public opinion here -- approval is best measured by silence in the streets, which for Pakistan has largely been the case, even since U.S.-led forces began bombing Afghanistan a month ago. And for modern Muslims here who eagerly seek to embrace a global culture, Musharraf incongruously manages to be a military dictator and yet also a symbol of modernity. He breaks taboos with his pet dogs and consumption of alcohol -- not to mention his penchant for Armani suits and golf.
Now, with his measured support of U.S. strikes on the neighboring Taliban -- a government he had supported up until Sept. 11 -- he has made a dramatic pro-West shift in his polices, most notably ditching hard-line elements from the country's powerful intelligence agency. And his most avid followers are modern Muslims.
OK and fine, I'll be honest. I was relieved to find Asim, because I, too, have developed a thing for Musharraf. When we realize our shared interest, we squeeze each other's hands like soul sisters. I knew I couldn't be the only one who watched him on television, playing host as a parade of world leaders took turns across from him while he sank into a nicely upholstered sofa, like a new Homecoming King. He is Muslim and a man of the world. At a time when the world sees images of crazed Muslims who not only want segregation from, but to decree violence on, nonbelievers, Musharraf is reassuring, inclusive and strong.
The photo that Asim has in her closet was shot from an unusual tour he took in July to India and the city of the Taj Mahal, where he and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee politically arm-wrestled over the disputed territory of Kashmir. It was on that tour that Musharraf won a special place in many a heart. He proved to be aggressive politically, personally sentimental and thoroughly hypnotizing. He ditched his usual military uniform to wear a cherwani, the trousers matched with a long coat and high collar that many have associated with the jacket popularized by Jawaharlal Nehru.
At the time, he made a side trip to visit his ancestral haveli ("big house") in the Old Delhi neighborhood of Daryaganj where he was born. Early in his childhood, his family left it behind and called Pakistan their new home after India won independence from the British in 1947 and its north was sliced out to create a nation for Muslims. During the trip, he reached out to the people, Clinton-like, and hugged a very elderly woman servant who said she remembered him as a child. He showed none of the restraint of the most conservative of Muslim men, who try to avoid touching a woman unrelated to them, no matter what the age. "He was so sympathetic to the old lady," remembers Asim fondly.
Next page: The love that dare not bark its name
