Adil Najam
I must confess that after our recent posts on the vigilantism by folks at Jamia Hafsa and the Lal Masjid I had hoped not to write about this issue yet again so soon.
This is not because I shun controversy or duck issues. It is merely because discussions on this issue tend to be prone to slogan-mongering from those holding extreme positions on all sides, they tend to drown out the more serious and more thoughtful deliberations that are so needed, and they quickly turn into mud-slinging matches which take up too much of our time in cleaning up the mess made by those who routinely ignore or are incapable of understanding and following our comment policy. Having said all that, let me also say that it is intellectually dishonest to simply ignore events and trends that are tearing apart the fabric of society.
With that rather long preamble, what has really prompted this post are two things I saw in today’s Dawn. The first is a set of two ads on behalf of ‘The Citizens of Karachi’ (clicking on the images will take you to larger and more readable versions). The first starts off with:
“Are You Ready? Do you want danda bardar and klashnikov shariat?
IF NOT THEN… come to attend the rally in lage number and show your solidarity against the danda bardar and klashnikov shariat.”
I found these ads to be yet more evidence of a polarized society. More than that, I wonder who put these ads? Any clues, readers? I also wonder how many – and who – will show up on the 15th at this rally (starting 2:00PM near the Mausoleum of Quaid-i-Azam)?
The second item appears on the back page of Dawn (and most other papers) and is much more disturbing. Here is the story in full:
Militants Beat up Dancers
LAKKI MARWAT, April 12: Clashes between militants and villagers in the Dhoda-Shah Hasankhel area on Thursday morning left two people injured. About a dozen people were taken hostage by the militants.
Sources said a group of Taliban militants had beaten up some transvestite dancers, shaved their heads and broken their musical instruments near Abdulkhel as they were going to the Dhoda village to perform at a wedding on Wednesday night.
Villagers decided to take revenge by raising a Lashkar against the Taliban, the sources said. Light and heavy weapons were used and the Taliban also fired rockets during the clash which lasted for several hours. The Taliban took 12 villagers hostage. Five of them were later freed while the others were in the custody of the Taliban till late evening, according to the administrator of a seminary, Hafiz Amanullah Khan.
A heavy contingent of police and Frontier Constabulary personnel reached the area. A ceasefire was brokered by some local ulema who held talks with village elders and the Taliban. The sources said the situation was tense and additional contingents of the FC had been summoned.
What is common between both stories is that the battle lines in a divided society are being drawn. The only possible good that could come out of this is for the mainstream of the country to recognize the difference between being ‘religious’ and ‘religious extremism.’ Maybe it will take such actions to remind people that we can be religious without being religious extremists; that faith should help flourish a culture of caring, not of violence.
i really don’t mind being called a mullah – mullah nasaruddin, mullah rumi are some mullahs that i really respect – but my ‘beef’ (halah beef) is with the mullahstanis and those that want a mullahraj in pakistan.
You know Auntie Shantie – I don’t really care whether she did something or didn’t – but there are proper procedures in a ‘civilised’ nation – you don’t kidnap and threaten a group of women under the guise of Islam.
Also Adnan bhai – what really hurts me is when people who profess to be Islamic do not condemn and demonstrate against this barbarian philosophy of mullahism – the same mullahism that made a 12 yearold pakistani boy kill another man – in the name of Islam.
I don’t want my brothers/sisters or sons and daughters to learn about how to kill fellow muslims or fellow human beings in the name ofour great religion.
It is because of this I an demonstrating:
PAKISTAN ZINDABAD – MULLAHRAJ MURDABAD
Please read a wonderful article of Dr. Israr Ahmed from today’s Jang
http://www.jang.com.pk/jang/apr2007-daily/23-04-20 07/col8.htm
Kindly also read the latest article ‘Haqeeqat kuch aur hai…”
on Daily Ummat on contents of above mentioned two adds. Very interesting in reading
http://kashifhafeez.com/
Every day now the newspapers are reporting cases of these Taliban miullahs threatening and intimidating shopkeepers and people everywhere. If we ignore this trend now the long term effect will be turning Pakistan into Mullahland with Taliban running it. All last week I was in Peshawar, and they are everywhere with their dandas, its becoming part of their dress code.
Pakistanis do not want their corrupt and violent version of Islam. Let us all take our country and our religion back from them.
Very good editorial in News Today:
——
Time to get tough on Lal Masjid issue
The latest statement by the Lal Masjid clerics seem to contradict recent reports of a resolution to the stand-off between their students and the government. However, given the past conduct of the clerics and the government’s spineless behaviour during the whole sordid affair, this was perhaps only to be expected. Remarks by the khateeb that no understanding will be reached unless the razed structures (initially built on encroached land) were reconstructed on their original sites and unless Shariat was declared in the country mean that the situation is back to square one. Now, one hopes that the government handles the situation in a more dignified and courageous manner.
Previous reports had suggested that PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain had come to an ‘understanding’ with the clerics of Lal Masjid, which revolved, quite unacceptably, around the government backing away from its earlier policy of demolishing structures built by madressahs on encroached government land. Furthermore, the government, through the PML-Q chief’s intervention, severely diluted its own previous stand on the issue since at the very outset he made public statements that the government did not plan to use force against the Jamia Hafsa and Lal Masjid vigilantes. Anyone who has studied even basic conflict resolution would have told Chaudhry sahib that this is precisely not the thing to say when one wishes to enter — as the government, one thinks, would — into negotiations from a position of strength. In such a situation, the government should have let it be known to the other side from the very beginning that it was willing to use the option of force if the clerics did not back down from making illegal demands. No such thing happened. In fact the government capitulated, with reports suggesting that land for building two mosques had already been made available to the clerics.
As these ‘negotiations’ went on, the demands of the clerics and the antics of their ‘students’ increased day by day. According to various eyewitness accounts and anecdotal evidence provided by residents of Islamabad, incidents of madressah students going about telling women to dress modestly or threatening music and video shops began to increase sharply. On the outskirts of the capital, some such shops were even attacked and thankfully the police made a few arrests. However, what became of those detained vigilantes is not clear, but what happened afterwards was a further chapter of shame as far as the government is concerned. As if it were a conditioned response, the Lal Masjid clerics said that those behind this attack had nothing to do with their madressah and, lo and behold, without any semblance of investigation or independent inquiry, the PML-Q chief chipped in saying that he took the Lal Masjid clerics at their word. In this particular regard, one is constrained to wonder why the PML chief would do this unless of course the whole idea was to play out a game, as they say, of ‘noora kushti’ (i.e., giving the impression that something real and meaningful is taking place when in fact everything is staged).
The PML-Q chief’s willingness to take the clerics at their word is puzzling for good reason. Since the beginning of this sordid episode, which has now culminated in the federal capital being held hostage by extremists and on the verge of Talibanisation, the Lal Masjid clerics have said a lot of things and then conveniently denied them. Their demands, in return for vacating the children’s library and withdrawing the threat of using the Jamia Hafsa students as a moral enforcement brigade, have only increased with the government’s dilly-dallying. For instance, the demand initially was to rebuild the structures that had been demolished, which has now become a demand that the government “enforce Shariah” in the country.
A bit of what the Lal Masjid khateeb has been saying on this can be gauged from what he said on FM radio on April 12: “I warn you that no place will be safe in the country if any operation was carried out against Lal Masjid. There will be suicide blasts in the nook and cranny of the country and the rulers will never be able to control the situation…. Don’t underestimate our strength. We have weapons, grenades and we are expert in manufacturing bombs. We are not weak. We are not afraid of death…. We are being maligned by [the] media and the NGOs for waging jihad against obscenity. Nobody realises that we are the true custodians of Islam…. Oh my brothers. I request you to throw out satanic things from your house. TV is the biggest evil that the west has created to spoil our religion. I am requesting the God-fearing Muslims to torch their TV sets. In a few weeks time, our boys and girls will be visiting your houses and preach you to burn your TV sets…. They [the president and prime minister] will have to fire the immoral Nilofar Bakhtiar who has brought shame to the Muslims. They should hand over Nilofar Bakhtiar to us. She will have to offer toba (repentance) and spend three months with the female students of Jamia Hafsa. I am sure she will return as a devout Muslim after receiving our training…. The government should abolish co-education. Quaid-e-Azam University has become a brothel. Its female professors and students roam in objectionable dresses. I think I will have to send my daughters of Jamia Hafsa to these immoral women. They will have to hide themselves in hijab otherwise they will be punished according to Islam…. Sportswomen are spreading nudity. I warn the sportswomen of Islamabad to stop participating in sports or my daughters of Jamia Hafsa will punish them in public. Our female students have not issued the threat of throwing acid on the uncovered faces of women. However, such a threat could be used for creating the fear of Islam among sinful women. There is no harm in it. There are far more horrible punishments in the hereafter for such women.”
What can one say in response to this, except that this is hardly the time and the place for the government to be showing leniency in this regard, lest people think that this really is all stage-managed for the benefit of some people.
Dear Afshan,
[quote post=”655″]And speaking of false accusations without proof. Do you have personal experience or proof of the supposed activities of this ‘Aunty Shamim’ that you keep repeating accusations about her by name? Or is it OK to make a tamasaha of someone’s izzat just because she is a woman?[/quote]
On Oct’9′ 1998, Aunty Shamin was captured red handed along with two women from same house by Abpara Police. If u have resources then kindly check.
[quote post=”655″]Or is it OK to make a tamasaha of someone’s izzat just because she is a woman?[/quote]
Its totally the wrong approach, can we say u r against Lal masjid admin just because they are men?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/specials/2228_pkpics_wk1 6_zs/