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?”
Ali Ahmad Kurd said it the best prior to the operation, “Both generals and mullas are criminals.”
The mullas took law into their own hands and the generals orchestrated a dance of death for their audience in the west.
I think most people are missing the big picture. There are a lot of amart and savvy people here, certainly more than I am. But your insight and experience is no match or substitute for a person like Irshad Ahmad Haqqani.
Haqqani sahib, one of the most repected journalists in Pakistan, writes an uncharacteristally blistering article in Jang on July 11, 2007. The last 10 lines are especially worth reading:
Adnan, some of the most ‘profound’ words come from those we consider uneducated – but highly experienced – Edhi called your Maulvi thug a ‘ziddi’most of us would call him much worse – yet a simple straight forward ‘truthful’ word coming out of someone who most of us consider beyond politics irritates you?
I think we need not drag more innocents into this mess that was started by the Lal Masjid Mullahs! Oh and someone was mentioning Mullah-E-Azam or Mufti-E-Azam – I used to use that as a joke – but do we havve one of these?
What we have here is a problem of secular fundamentalist and religious extremist.
Both are fanatics and to a greater extend responsible for Pakistan’s failure. Until the reconciliation between these two extreme forces to a Middle Path of Islam takes place, the problems of Pakistan will remain pressing.
The Establishment may have succeeded in diverting the attention from more pressing needs by this divide-and-rule strategy. Either we oscillating between these two opposing positions or are divided along ethnic lines. In all cases, we end up in futile discussions and arguments that in my humble opinion is a cul-de-sac and meant to keep us divided.
Obviously there is more than one interpretation of the events of Lal Masjid. But one does not need a PhD to see through the brutal end-game of the Establishment’s Realpolitik.
If we continue on this hostile path and remain divided into different warring and hostile camps, than we can’t have this mass-mobilization needed to change the status quo and deal with the real problem and real issues facing the common men and women of Pakistan.
It time we stop wasting a substantial part of our energies in fighting the so-called enemy within. The masses of Pakistan have never left Islam. It is the so-called enlightened or not-so-enlightened elites who use tools such as religion for their vested interests. It is high we return to the Middle Path of Islam and practice it – for therein lies our and our beloved country’s salvation.
May Allah Bless Pakistan!
Edhi is a very well respected figure but he is no communication expert nor a top negotiator.
He asked Ghazi to surrender but he refused, hence he is branded ‘ziddi’. Lets keep Edhi the best social worker of our times and not try to turn him into a sage.
Isnt he the same man who said that Pakistan and India should form a confederation and letter said that he is sorry becuz he didn’t know what confederation meant.
In one of his latest interviews, he mentioned that his son who was overseas wanted to marry a croatian girl. When the son called Edhi about this, he asked if the girl was with him and wanted to marry him. On getting an answer in affirmative, he said that as both bride and groom want this marriage and as edhi and his wife who was sitting close to phone are witnesses to this, hence they are now married !!! Mnay of us would be uncomfortabloe with this mechanism of getting married, to say the least.
Of course none of these things take an iota away from his uncomparable social service. But lets keep him a social worker instead of making him an authority on every topic of the world.