Arshad Khan is an educated man with a B.Sc. in botany and zoology. But out to feed his young family in Rawalpindi he now drives a taxi. On a long journey down into the Northwest Frontier he points out geographical, cultural and historical landmarks. He also explains his support for an Islamic fundamentalist party and defends the Taliban’s rigid Islamic regime.

He tells he that his wife will never step over the threshold unless she is covered from head to foot. “Our culture does not oppress women, it treats them with respect,” insists Arshad. "In the West, women are nothing more than sex objects. He argues that Christianity is in decline in the West because it has become a watered down religion. Islam, in contrast, is growing stronger because it has refused to compromise.

In Pakistan, the strength of Islam is indisputable. This is not just a state with an overwhelmingly Muslim majority; this is a theocratic state, founded on Islamic principles. In a run down working class district of Lahore, the socialist Labour Party Pakistan is opening a new local office. I am invited to perform the opening ceremony, which involves cutting the tape. But then, before the speeches begin, there is a recitation from the Koran. Farooq Tariq the Marxist general secretary of the LPP explains that in Pakistan, that is the tradition. To ignore this tradition would cause unnecessary offence, he says. In any case, explains Farooq, anyone who speaks out against the prophet Mohammed is liable to the death penalty in Pakistan, under the blasphemy laws.

Farooq stresses that socialism is not anti-Islam. “But we stand for the separation of religion from politics and for a secular state where people are free to follow their own religious beliefs without interference from the state.”

So what exactly is Islamic fundamentalism? Some devout Muslims I have spoken to in Pakistan believe that the term is insulting to their religion. But for Farooq another socialists and progressives in Pakistan, the term Islamic fundamentalism is not religious but political. It describes the political philosophy of the leaders of the right wing political parties who want to create a pure Islamic state, similar to Iran under the Ayatollah, Afghanistan under the Talban or Saudi Arabia today. “There are many Muslims who are devoted to their faith, but they are not fundamentalists. There are also many Muslims who support the general idea of an Islamic revolution, but neither would I describe them as fundamentalists.”Even most members and supporters of Islamic parties like Jamait-e-Islam are not really hard core fundamentalists.“Farooq’s owns father gives money indirectly to the Islamic parties.”Every Eid (the Islamic festival that marks the end of Ramadan) the fundamentalist parties will collect the skin of a goat or a cow or a camel Each skin will fetch about 400 500 rupees (about £5 or £6). My father will donate the skin of a sacrificial goat. In total Jamait-e-Islam will collect millions and make 10 million rupees.“Farooq says his father like most Muslims will support the general ideal of an Islamic revolution.”In Pakistan, when you say ’we need to change the system’ everyone will say yes. Everyone will agree that capitalism is bad. “But then you ask ’so what should we replace capitalism with?’ The answer of most people will be Islamic revolution’.” Farooq believes that class-consciousness has become mixed up with Islamic fundamentalism. “This was not the case n the 1970s or even the 1980s but it is the case now.”

Until the 1990s the Islamic parties never achieved more than 2 per cent of the vote. Farooq believes that they could get over 20 per cent in next years elections. So why has Islam began to emerge as such a powerful political force? “It is partly a product of 13 years of government by the two main big business parties, the Peoples’ Party and the Muslim League. They were seen as corrupt and incapable of standing up to the West.”

Farooq acknowledges that is also rooted in poverty and the failure of capitalism in Pakistan. “The Islamic groups are able to provide a far better education for children from poor families.”

In Pakistan, there is no compulsory education. There are state schools, which provide primary education is provided for a nominal fee.

But according to teachers I spoke to the standard of education in the state sector is extremely low. There are few resources, teachers are paid around £15 a month and most children only attend school for five years in total. “Working class families will either send their children out to work or to the ’madras’s’ - the religious schools,” one teacher told me. The madrases provide not just education but free board and lodgings. These institutions began to flourish as, ’schools for Jihad’ in the 1980s during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. “In the West people think ’Jihad’ means ’holy war’. But it has wider meaning. It really means ’holy cause’ though it can be for used for war also. It is an interchangeable term and this can cause misunderstanding,” explains Farooq.

He describes how America poured $40 bn into the coffers of the jihad groups in Pakistan during thee 1980s. Much of that money was used to set up madrases in Pakistan’s NorthWest Frontier Province and Baluchistan. Many of these were run by Pakistan’s right wing religious parties and became in effect, religious and political training grounds for the Mujaheedin.

It was from some of these religious schools s in Pakistan that the Talban emerged. In his best selling book, Talban, Ahmed Rashid describes the young boys who emerged to form the Talban as “the orphans of war, the rootless and the restless, the jobless ad the economically deprived...they were what Karl Marx would have called Afghanistan’s lumpen proletariat.” So what approach should socialists in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the West adept to the war. Should they take sides? “In the West the main emphasis should be on opposing the war. The governments of America and Britain are not waging this war to benefit the people of Afghanistan.”It is a war of revenge of prestige, of ego. It is about displaying the military power of America and the West.“Bu he explains that is vital that the Pakistan and Afghan left fight to broaden the anti-war movement out to include women and those section’s of the working class, the intellectuals and the youth who see Islamic fundamentalism as a threat to freedom.”We also have to make it clear that the Talban and al Quaida are reactionary movements which will annihilate socialist parties of the left, trade unions and any progressive social forces.“”In Iran, some left parties, including the Iranian Communist Party supported the Ayatollah Khomeini, describing him as an ’anti-imperialist’. “But then he hanged the general secretary of the Communist Party and wiped out all its activists. Now the Iranian Communist Party no longer exists.”

Despite their political opposition to the Islamic fundamentalist parties, Farooq and other Pakistani and Afghan socialists are ferocious in their denunciation of the role of America and the West, which first helped raise the Taliban to power and is now “replacing one fundamentalist monster with another fundamentalist monster.” “We stand for the right of the Afghan people to self-determination, for the right to decide their own future.”The Talban will lose power that is certain. But US military action won’t destroy Islamic fundamentalism, it won’t defeat terrorism and it won’t stop future suicide attacks. “Our alternative to the imperialists, the warlords and the fundamentalists is to support those forces fighting for a secular, democratic socialist state in Afghanistan.”