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.
If it is really organized by MQM then it’s really laughable. Don’t people remember Altaf Hussain’s speeches in Karachi where he asked people to sell their TVs and VCRs and buy Klashinkovs? MQM surely knows the power of Klashinkovs as its “success” was truely built on terrorism and intimidation. Instead of organizing rallies couldn’t they have made the government take action against the dandabardars? After all, they are a part of this government.
MQM is a regional mafia but they are no worse than the religious mafia, the military mafia, the landlord mafia or the tribal mafia which runs the rest of the country and does much worse things. If we shun every protest because it is organized by an interest group, then we might as well all stay quite and sit home. I for one support the effort and would have attented if I were in the city.
MQM organizing a rally against the Kalashnikov Shariat is for the record laughable. The biggest terrorist organization, responsible for the murder and torture of thousands of innocent citizens, wants people to join it in a rally against extremism. Altaf Hussain a terrorist who lives a life of luxury in London, should perhaps stop the killing of his own party workers who step out of line. The West protects a mass murderer and labels freedom fighters of Kashmir as terrorists. Please folks wake up and see the lies and deceptions.
I was just wondering that how unfortunate nation we are whose ideologies are set by military dictators. Zia implemented islamization and Musharraf is trying for secularization.
It was only Bhutto who mobilized the public with Roti Kara aur Makaan but his daughter converted that party from public limited to private limited.
There is no civilian or military leader who truly brought up the idea that What Public Demands?
The rotation of military regimes have corrupted the spirit of democracy from our society. Unfortunately the people now believe that the democratic system will not work in the country.
We have glaring example of legal fraternity which emerged as a strong section of our mobilized society. The major factor for their unity and mobilization is the continuation of bar associations elections every year. Despite of Military rule the lawyers continued their elections process in their respective bars.
Its an important indicator to believe that the bad eggs will be filtered by the public with the continuity of democratic process.
The struggle for democracy will automatically expell these military interventions, lal masjid sydrome and Deal or Dheel phenomenon.
I hope a rally against AK47 Shariat will be a great success as that of legal fraternity.
First of all this rally is organized by MQM who want to exploit the issue to maintain there vvote bank. MQM is since long time in government and the performance isnt good like electricity problem, surging street crime and alliance with army which has been severely criticized in the past and poor performance on federal ministries hold by MQM.
No one can deny the folly done by fraction of mullahs already rejected by genuine religious leaders. But there is no moral ground to participate in a ruling party’s rally who has been quite on CJ issue as well as other much more important issues than this one.