Adil Najam
The news is developing by the moment. But the bottom-line is clear. The security forces have taken control of the Lal Masjid from militants after a severe gun-battle. But the story is far from over.
It will continue to unfold. There are too many unanswered questions. They will certainly be asked and discussed threadbare; here at ATP and elsewhere. But the real story of tomorrow remains the same as the real story of yesterday. Can a society that is so deeply divided against itself learn the lessons of tolerance? This question will continue to haunt us well into the future, in multiple shapes, in multiple forms, in multiple contexts.
This is a question that we at ATP have confronted from our very beginning and will continue to confront. But now is not the time to ponder on this. Even though what has happened had become inevitable over the last many days, I am too heartbroken to be able to do so.
Right now I can think only of Muzammil Shah (photo, from Associated Press, above). This photo was taken as he waited for his son who was inside the Lal Masjid. I do not know whether his son was there voluntarily, or as hostage. But I do know what the look of Muzammil Shah’s face means. The more important question is whether his son came out alive or not. I pray that he did.
Analysts - me included - will discuss what happened at length. They will try to understand the meaning of all this. What does this mean for Pakistan politics? What does this mean for Gen. Musharraf’s future? What does this mean for Islam? For Democracy? Does the fault lie with Abdul Rashid Ghazi and his militant supporters for creating a situation that could only end this way? Why did he not surrender? Is the blood of everyone who died not on his head for his stubboness and arrogance? Or, maybe, it is the government that is to blame because it did not act earlier? Act differently? Waited just a few days more for a negotiated solution?
Right now all these questions seem really petty and small. This is not the time for scoring cheap political points. This is not the time for spin.
Moreover, there are too many questions to ask. To answer. The head hurts as you think of them. But the heart hurts even more as you look at the face of Muzammil Shah.
Maybe the only really important question is the one that you can read between his wrinkles: “Why? Oh God, why? Why must things happen this way?”
Certainly these Ghazi Maulanas are to be blamed for the whole fiasco. They killed ranger/police officials without provocation even though government was extremely lenient to them up to that point, too lenient. Once the line was crossed government had no choice but to take some action. If government had succumbed to these terrorists just because they are holding some children then its incentive for every terrorist in the world to come over, hold our children hostage, and do whatever under their cover. Government acted within law and shariat. If any innocent died then their blood is squarely on the hands of ghazi brothers duo who put the children in that situation.
Understandably these lal masjid supporters here show no remorse for cold blooded murder of the law enforcement officials by the lal masjid terrorists as their support for al masjid anti-Pakistan terrorism is greater than their support for Pakistan.
I will not speak for ‘Strangers’ but I can say have a daughter and I will be happy if she becomes a teacher to spread teh word of Islam… But CERTAINLY NOT in a den of sin and munafiqs like the Lal Masjid…. I will be very disturbed if she gets brainwashed by a buynch of criminals like Abdul Rashid and other and is used for kidnappings, extortions, etc. I don’t thin we shoudl wish on anyone’s children to become hostages with people like this!!!!
Strangers, so according to you, these 15 and 17 years girls had weapons and killed others?who others? soldiers? or its just you are in mood of trolling?
I believe that ignorance is bliss but too much ignorance is curse. I also recall a misra which I read somewhere:
Huway tum dost jiskay, dushman uska asmaan kion ho .
the prophet(saw) was known to love kids even kids of pagans and He(saw) never showed anger to those kids just because their elders were torturing them. Your sick response just prove my point of view about liberals that they are not lesser evil. If mullahs whom you hate don’t practice Islam then you also proved that liberals are also sign of anti-Islamic force on face of earth. Thanks for proving my point.
Since I have feeling that you don’t have any kid or maybe not married yet. I pray that you become dad of a girl who then become female teacher of some Islamic madrassah and spread word of Islam. The orignal Islam not some “fashionable” and “innovative” islam which is spread by several cults today. For you it might be some “Bad-dua”. My wish is not impossible, When Allah could give us a prophet from pharaoh’s palace then why can’t he give a female religious teacher for some madrassah for Ummah. *grin*
Quote:
It looks like the lal mosque was a turning point for Pakistan. The real enemies of Pakistsan and Islam are beginning to show themselves. The pakistan taleban, the ideology that feeds it is indeed the enemy that needs to be eliminated.
Its foundation is a deobandi/wahabi/salafi hybrid that corrupts week minds and feeds this nihilistic version of religion for what purpose.. so that brainwashed cadres can commit suicide whilst killing hundreds of innocents!!
The majority of peace loving Pakistani’s will eventually wake up to this evil and confront both its terror, and its false ideology!! God Willing!
Musharraf was wrong, not because he ordered the storming of Lal Masjid-Hafsa complex, but because he dragged his feet for too long in confronting the tide of hatred spilling over from some madrassas and mosques. He was late not by few months, but by several years.
Residenst of Islamabad would recall that in early 2004, fired by the sermons of the Ghazi brothers, the students of Jamia Faridia (an affiliate of Hafsa) rampaged through the Melody Market in Islamabad attacking video shops and setting fire to the only cinema house in the capital. They were protesting the murder of Maulana Azam Tariq who had been gunned down earlier, presumably by his sectarian rivals. Since the students had been brainwashed into believing that movies spread obscenity in society, they found the cinema house and the people associated with it a fit target for their rage. When the young chowkidar of the cinema house tried to escape the burning building, the protesters threw brickbats at him blocking his escape. The poor young man died inside the smoke-filled building.
It is then when Musharraf should have acted. Instead, his emissaries, the Q leaguers, continued to appease the Ghazi brothers — pampering and inflating their egos.
‘A stitch in time saves nine’ may be an old and tired cliché but it is true even today. If we fail to mend the tear immediately, when it’s already pretty late, very soon the whole garment, which is Pakistan, will be in tatters.
May be…but I don’t hand weapons in their hand and teach them to go kill others. I suspect this will only get them in trouble.
Stranger, do you have kids in your family or your own?
This is the answer;
“…their clergy will be the worst creation under the sky, divisive movements (Fitna) will rise from them and return to them’”