“I WANT to become a nuclear engineer. I am greatly impressed by you. You are my ideal personality.” Not in their wildest dreams could a British or American nuclear scientist hope to receive fan mail like this. But for Abdul Qadeer Khan, the so-called father of Pakistan’s nuclear programme, tributes like this from a young college student come thick and fast.
In Pakistan, not only do they revere their nuclear engineers, they also forgive them when they sell nuclear technology on the sly to Libya, North Korea and Iran, as this week Khan reportedly admitted doing. The Pakistani government has been investigating Khan and some of his colleagues since late last year, when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), under pressure from the US, passed on the names of several Pakistani scientists that Iran claims helped it with its nuclear programme.
If reports of Khan’s confession are correct, it will change his standing in the country not one jot. In Pakistan he is a living legend. He cannot step out onto the street without being mobbed for autographs and advice on how to become a nuclear scientist. One senior Pakistani science administrator contrasted his treatment by the government with that enjoyed by India’s President Abdul Kalam, who masterminded India’s nuclear tests. “India made Kalam president,” he said, “while we reward our heroes by calling them traitors.”
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To understand this reaction, it is important to look at Pakistan’s history. In less than 60 years, it has fought three wars with India, lost its eastern province, which became independent Bangladesh in 1971, and suffered four military coups. Its big cities boast some impressive works of public art that pay tribute to the armed forces. Colourful hoardings celebrating the country’s nuclear scientists are common. The symbols are not just a reminder of the history: they are there to reassure people that Pakistan remains a strong, nuclear Islamic state that can take on its enemies and win.
The propaganda seems to work. People held street parties when Pakistan responded to India’s nuclear tests of 1998 with three of its own. Haider Nizamani, who now teaches south Asian politics at the University of British Columbia in Canada, conducted nationwide opinion polls two years after the tests. He found that a large majority felt the tests had made Pakistan more secure and had earned the country international respect. “If we did not have nuclear technology we would have had a war with India,” Atta ur Rahman, minister for higher education and chief scientific adviser to the prime minister, said last year. “The fact that we have had this deterrent is why we have had peace.”
Another reason Khan remains a hero in spite of his transgressions is that most Muslims subscribe to the idea that they belong to a worldwide community, the umma. This is akin to a federalist vision of the European Union – a union with a common currency, no barriers to trade or immigration, and a common defence policy. Khan himself is a champion of umma. He has called for an atomic energy commission of Muslim countries. In the context of umma, most Pakistanis would not regard transferring nuclear technology to Iran as a criminal act – more a religious obligation.
It is a view best summed up by Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the leader of Pakistan’s religious alliance: “Even if Dr Khan has millions of dollars in his accounts, we don’t care. He’s a national hero. We love him.” Nizamani says that if he did share knowledge with other countries “it won’t undermine his persona that he is the father of Pakistan’s bomb. Public perceptions won’t change”.
The speed with which Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, and his administration turned on its scientists has troubled much of the population. Rumours that scientists will be handed over to Washington fill the newspapers. Opposition politicians are up in arms. “If we cannot protect those of our nuclear scientists who played such an important role in our national security, what security is there for other scientists?” said Mushahid Hussain, an opposition member of Pakistan’s upper house of parliament and a former information minister.
Within the scientific establishment, and even within the country’s Atomic Energy Commission, there is great concern. Many senior scientists believe that Musharraf gave in too quickly to the IAEA’s demands and may even be compromising the country’s security. If that is so, it would be too high a price for the support Washington is giving Pakistan for its contribution to the war on terror – support which last month saw Pakistan receive a $400 million loan package.
This is not what the US wants to hear. But before it wags a finger too vigorously at Islamabad, it will do well to consider how proud Pakistanis are of their hard-won nuclear status. Washington may be intent on stemming proliferation. Inflaming public opinion in the world’s only Muslim nuclear power is no way to achieve that.