Age of madness

[RabzonKhan]

Jihadi media is booming

Daily Times
By Ali K Chishti
January 12, 2011

The media is viewed by terrorist organisations as one of the fronts of jihad against their enemies. The media platform most favoured by activists and supporters of jihadis is both the print and the electronic media with a large presence on the Internet as well. These jehadis disseminate their message via various websites, magazines and disks in different languages targeting diverse audiences worldwide. While such organisations also utilise the media for military and operative purposes for services of jihadi fighters in the field, their primary use of this medium is for indoctrination and propaganda. Most of these messages available online can be picked up cheaply from almost any newsstand throughout Pakistan despite there being a strict ban and monitoring system in place by various intelligence agencies on such literature. Among the 80-odd publications that suspected militant organisations are putting out are 18 weeklies, 40 fortnightlies and 22 monthlies. The publications are frequently published in Urdu with a heavy dose of Arabic and some English thrown in for good measure to cater to all social circles in Pakistan. “We are selling a copy from Rs 5 to Rs 10,000 for those who want to support our organisations since funding and collection is restricted,” a top Kashmiri jihadi leader proudly announced.

Interestingly, while strict interpretation of Islam does not allow pictures to be posted, this jihadi or extremist magazine makes a point to ignore that specific law and print mutilated pictures of Muslims around the world from Kashmir to Palestine and from Iraq to Afghanistan to make a point as to how Muslims are being treated around the world. “All is fair in love and war,” a jihadi quoted John Lyly’s ‘Euphues.

In another magazine, which was specifically dedicated to Aafia Siddiqui in a piece entitled “Rescuing the Prisoners”, a certain Miss Hamam writes about how Muslims around the world are imprisoned by infidels. Later, Miss Hamam, who is a writer from Pakistan, continues about how thousands of Muslim daughters and sons are ******* in jails and how it is the duty of all Muslims to fight for the causes of Kashmir, Palestine, Uzbekistan, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.

While numerous references have been made to the Aafia Siddiqui case by various jihadi organisations including Jaish-e-Muhammad’s Al-Qalam, the issue of drone attacks and secular liberals working on American and Zionist agenda eats up most of the jihadi literature’s agenda.

The “arrest/torture of our innocent, Muslim sister by the infidel” rhetoric plays on the honour code and anti-western sentiments of young Pakistani men whom militant leaders aim to attract and recruit. Siddiqui was brought up again in a recent joint interview by Hakeemullah Mehsud and Waliur Rehman in October 2009; the video ended with the question “who will rescue our sister Dr Aafia Siddiqui from these Christian barbarians”? Speaking to Daily Times, one such young editor and a student of a major engineering university of Karachi, Adeel, who published what he describes as an Islamic magazine named Bazu-e-Mujahid, confirmed that he had over 7,000 subscribers from Karachi to the New York, who support his organization, which is fighting to enforce Caliphate in Pakistan.

In other such magazine, namely Al-Jehad, Mujhaid printed from Karachi and Jihad Kashmir printed from Rawalpindi, the literature is heavy on the virtues of dying for the cause of Islam. Emotionally wrought letters from the mothers and sisters of jihadi martyrs are meant to inspire. Many of the publications feature coloured pictures of arms and immunisation and present a “no-holds-barred” absolutist view of the world. The 2010 issue of Nawai Afghan Jihad included an article by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Azam Tariq, entitled “The Reality of the Waziristan Operation.”

Azam Tariq mainly talks about the recent military operation in Waziristan and the complicity of Pakistani politicians and special forces in importing and waging America’s war on Pakistani territory.

Like most TTP leaders, Azam underlines that theirs is a “defensive” jihad against the Pakistani regime. The image created is that of a hapless group being provoked into fighting an unwanted jihad. That is, against its own volition, the TTP must fight the Pakistani state and army.

While the cardinal enemy, and “target of all jihadi struggles”, is the US for it sits at the helm of all infidel nations, Pakistan’s “secular rulers” and their shameless submissiveness to the US has left the TTP with no choice but to fight the “domestic” infidels first.

The question that Azam then sarcastically asks is, “Where do the mujahideen find that elusive Aladdin’s lamp that will enable them to ignore the infidel’s (US) puppets in Pakistan and go straight after the beast itself?”

Two jihadi magazine’s and a newsletter named Haq-e-Awaz and Allah Commandos both published from Karachi celebrated the recent killing of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer and wrote in there editorial that “Qadri was the new hero of the ummah” and “anyone who betrays the ideology of Islam and Pakistan should be killed”.

A senior intelligence official of the Intelligence Bureau, who wished not to be named, told Daily Times, “There is a proper mechanism in place to monitor such hate-literature, but at times acting on it due to certain provisions in law that safeguard such hate literature makes them hard to actually be stopped.”

“If we stop one, two by another name crop out from nowhere,” confirmed an intelligence official. Interesting al Sahab productions, al Qaeda’s official media wing, confirm the close relationship between al Qaeda and the TTP, which have long been known. The release of multiple joint AQ-TTP messages from the al Sahab production outlet is nonetheless extremely significant. First of all, these developments indicate that al Qaeda has successfully seized the moment in the wake of the death of Baitullah Mehsud to dramatically increase its influence over the TTP. But this series of videos is perhaps also evidence of a decreasing willingness on al Qaeda’s part to remain in the shadows of its Pakistani partners as they unleash yet another bloody campaign of violence in Pakistan’s cities. For now the jihadi media is booming.

This is the first part of two parts report.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Fighting the rule of fear

The News
Kamila Hyat
January 13, 2011

As though the assassination of Salmaan Taseer were not bad enough, the reaction that followed it was even more terrifying.

Over the Internet, on television screens and at private gatherings of all kinds, people leapt to the defence of murderer Malik Mumtaz Qadri. Many argued that Governor Taseer deserved to die because he had spoken against the blasphemy laws. Death, it seems, is the only solution that comes to mind when differences of opinion arise. Nothing short of this will apparently do.

Even Interior Minister Rehman Malik jumped on the death bandwagon, stating he will personally shoot anyone who considers a repeal of the blasphemy laws. The notion of rule of law and a judicial process that allows those accused of even the worst crime to defend themselves seems to have evaporated. There is fear too of what may yet lie ahead.

A prominent mosque in Karachi has issued a “fatwa” against Sherry Rehman, declaring her a “non-Muslim” and demanding death for her. This will encourage others to search out their own victims. The best the interior ministry can do is to advise Ms Rehman to quit the country.

The result, of course, is fear. Minority representatives say that within their communities there is a greater sense of intimidation than ever before. Many others will think again and again before raising questions about the blasphemy laws. And there is another reason for fear: the possibility that the battle for control of ideas has been won by the extremists suddenly seems very real.

The kind of future that lies ahead is far more uncertain than before. The optimistic notion that the younger generation may be different is not borne out by entries on websites, where highly educated teenagers and others a little older suggest death is an acceptable punishment for those who voice “anti-Islam” sentiments of any kind.

So, is the contest over? Have the extremists won? Has space been closed off permanently for all those who believe that citizens are equal regardless of their beliefs, and that religion should play no part in the working of the state?

There is, however, some reason to examine the crescendo of voices suggesting it was okay for a man who had done little more than express his opinion to be gunned down in the streets. There is some evidence that the opinions of a majority, which prefers to stay silent rather than take on the fanatical armies of clerics and madressah students, are not really coming across. The media is to a very large extent responsible for this.

The crazed quest for audiences between the television channels has created an environment that thrives on sensationalism and high-pitched tabloidism. Much of the content of talk shows that fill a high percentage of air time is determined by a score-sheet of viewer ratings, compiled on the basis of monitors placed in some 500 households, by an independent agency and sent out to the channels. The figures are scrutinised by channel bosses, anchors and producers, and virtually every other member of staff. They have an impact on decisions that include the hiring of programme hosts and the topics taken up by them. The result is that the more lurid of programme, the greater the number of viewers and therefore the tendency to replicate similar material on all channels.

When this principle is applied to events such as Salmaan Taseer’s killing, the results are horrific. In an effort to attract viewers, the most controversial voices are aired. These come from people who advocate death and favour violence of all kinds. The opinions of those who oppose this receive far less space. This lack of media responsibility, the conservatism within it and the desire to attract audiences, rather than to inform people, has resulted in growth of extremism. Every “fatwa” issued receives time, even when it comes from some obscure cleric aiming only for publicity, and images of sweets being distributed in Mansehra after the murder receive attention quite out of proportion to their significance.

It is impossible to say what the true balance of opinion is. Even the surveys conducted on issues that touch on religious belief are arguably flawed – with much depending on what organisation conducted them or how questions were framed. And, of course, people are wary of expressing views that may be interpreted as being “anti-religion” in any way. The question of what this comprises has become increasingly distorted over the years, notably since the Ziaul Haq era with its hypocrisy and the pushing of religion onto the centre-stage of national life.

There is, however, some evidence that extremism is not favoured by the majority. The results of the 2008 election and the handful of assembly seats claimed by religious parties offer some proof of this. But if this majority is not given a voice, there is a danger the seesaw will begin to tilt over the other way, with people opting to join the strongest flow.

Unfortunately, mainstream political parties which oppose hard-line ideas have backed away from providing leadership to the people. Salmaan Taseer was abandoned by his own party.

The PPP backtracked completely on the blasphemy issue and its initial stance on a pardon for Aasia Bibi. No other party has assumed the role of leading a change in this situation, though both the MQM and the ANP have made some brave statements. Without this leadership, it is unrealistic to expect civil society to meaningfully resist well-organised extremist groups capable of reducing happenings such as the first court appearance of Mumtaz Qadri to a farce — during which the murderer was garlanded and showered with rose petals while the judge cowered in the courtroom.

Changing reality and driving away fear will not be easy. It can be achieved only by addressing the real issues of state, rather than those created by fanatics. A commitment to defending the rights of all people, including their right to earn a livelihood, and to security of life can go a long way towards this. These issues are linked to that of extremism. Taking them up is vital to winning over people and using their power to battle fanaticism.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Tactical retreat or total defeat?

Dawn
Cyril Almeida
Jan 14 2011

HOW do you fight a fire? Starve it of oxygen. The stoic silence maintained by the PPP in the face of an onslaught from the liberals and the right appears to be part of a plan.

What plan, the liberals are screaming. They`re killing us, slaughtering those who speak out for justice, threatening and intimidating and bullying their way to a deformed, malign Pakistan. If we don`t fight back now, there`ll be nothing left to save.

They may have a point, but the visceral response isn`t necessarily a strategic, or even sensible, one.

The right — the fundos, the mullahs, the crazies, the ultra-right, call them what you will — is on the march. Dealt another punishing blow at the polls in 2008, they are like a junkie in search of the high of 2002.

(Back then, a surge in anti-American sentiment and a dictator looking to shut out the PML-N and the PPP allowed the MMA to sweep to unprecedented gains.)

Then, courtesy some bigots in a Nankana Sahib village, came the spark: a luckless Christian woman was convicted of blasphemy. Blasphemy. Christian. Woman. Instantly, she became a cause celebre for the progressives at home and the West. Instantly, the right had its agenda.

Cue your noisy, and noisome, rallies and protests, your sound and fury. Over our dead bodies! Pakistan is for Islam! We will never let this happen!

It may sound brutal — and with heartfelt apologies to Aasia Bibi — but a nobody from a nowhere village being accused by other nobodies of doing something ghastly isn`t exactly a recipe for building momentum. After the necessary hand-wringing from the progressives and perfunctory, formulaic denunciations from the right, the matter would have slipped off the national radar.

The right needed something more. Enter the brash governor of Punjab.

In politics, as in life, the unexpected happens sometimes. Salman Taseer`s defence of Aasia was not only outspoken, but, given the platform he had, it was phenomenally visible. The fire got the oxygen it needed. Last week it engulfed Taseer.

And since then, there has been nothing but stony silence from the PPP. (Bilawal Bhutto may make the occasional jiyala`s heart flutter, but the young prince`s words carry no weight, at least for now.)

The silence has been so total, so complete, so consistent that you know it is party policy. Say nothing, do nothing, starve the fire of oxygen and live to fight another day.

It makes sense as a tactic, at least for anyone who is familiar with the cacophonous, occasionally brutal bazaar of politics here and who knows a thing or two about history.

The right, historically organised but electorally marginalised, has always tried to vault to greater relevance by hawking the spectre of a godless, secular, westernised left trying to take the country away from its traditional — Muslim and Islamic — roots.

Memories are often short in Pakistan, but there are also some wonderful, gentle souls who are true servants of history. Some of them will tell you about 1970, long before the PNA rabble besieged Zulfi Bhutto.

The left was in the ascendant back then, and old Lahore became a battleground between the religious conservatives and the lefties. Forty years later, there is some hesitation to spell out the details, but it involved some paraphernalia being burned, the usual spurious allegations and a quasi mob or two.

The meta-narrative, though, was terribly familiar: build up the bugbear of the left (today, the `liberals`), then lead its takedown from the right, leaving the right mobilised, energised and popularised.

Fast forward from those halcyon days to 2011, and the PPP silence can be seen in that context.

Nothing would suit the right-wing parties more than another salvo fired from the other side. Fists pumping, bellies jiggling, beards askance, they would bay at the `enemies of Islam`.

Starve the fire of oxygen, though, and it will soon go out.

Add to this the PPP`s fear of establishment-led plots, and, from the present leadership`s perspective, it may make even more sense to avoid antagonising and riling up the right, from where the establishment has often attacked.

So, in the cut-throat world of Pakistani politics, the PPP response may make tactical sense. But does it serve any greater purpose? Does it, in security-state parlance, make strategic sense?

Assuming the PPP has some genuine interest in seeing a Pakistan different from the one the right wants to perpetuate, what comes after the silence, after the latest furore dies down, when there is time and space to think about ways of pushing back?

Looking at the present lot, you can`t help but feel the answer is: nothing.

They`ve got no ideas, they`ve got no plans, they`ve got no vision. Not about the blasphemy law, not about militancy, not the infrastructure of jihad, not even about the culture of intolerance generally. They`ve got nothing.

Which necessarily leaves you wondering: is the PPP`s absolute silence in the face of right-wing fury simply a function of wanting to hang on to power? Power for power`s sake?

And here we end up at the original, bigger problem. Messy, ugly and intractable as the dilemmas confronting Pakistan are, the threats are less worrying than the lack of commitment and will to fight them.

There is no brain trust, there are no thinkers, there is no thinking.

Knowing you want to go somewhere is only half of the problem; figuring out how to get there is the other half.

But if you don`t know where you want to go nor how to get there, don`t be surprised if the right wing hijacks you and takes you places you never knew existed.

 

[RabzonKhan]

ANALYSIS: Religious freedom and political stability

Daily Times
Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi
January 16, 2011

There is a lot of religious freedom in Pakistan. Anybody can do anything in the name of religion, even kill a person. People can greet and garland a killer in the name of religion. However, this freedom is not equally available to the followers of all religions. Only Islamic hardliners, the orthodox and militants have this freedom. This type of freedom is not rooted in the constitution or law. They enjoy this freedom because the state institutions are unable to restrain them from using Islam to pursue their personal or group agendas.

There are three major types of Islamic entities functioning currently in Pakistan. First, there are Islamic parties like the Jamaat-i-Islami, the Jamiat-e-Ulema-i-Islam-Fazlur Rahman (JUI-F), the JUI-Sami-ul-Haq (JUI-S) and different groups of Jamiat Ahle Hadith (JAH) that differ from each other in their Islamic orientations and contest elections. Although their electoral performance is poor, these parties do somewhat better in the elections if they are part of an electoral alliance or form an alliance of their own.

Second, there are a large number of madrassas and mosques and groups associated with these institutions. There are several Islamic movements initiated by religious scholars that wield influence through teaching and preaching. Some of the madrassas and mosques are associated with Islamic parties. There has been a proliferation of madrassas and the activities of Islamic movements since the mid-1980s.

Third, there are militant Islamic groups, including sectarian groups and their breakaway factions that use violence and intimidation to pursue their Islamic-political and sectarian agendas. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is one major umbrella group based in the tribal areas, but there are a number of small local groups in the tribal areas that have local agendas. Mainland Pakistan, especially Punjab, houses several militant and sectarian groups and their breakaway factions. Some of these groups operate openly under different names and the responsible members of the Punjab government are known for links with or a soft corner for some sectarian groups. In December 2008, when the federal government placed restrictions on the Jamaat-ud-Dawa after the Mumbai incident, the Punjab government took over their schools in Muridke. However, at the operational level, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa people continued to have a strong foothold in these schools.

All these political parties, groups and madrassa-based religious leadership have joined together in support of the blasphemy laws and they have established federations of different groups, each dominated by a particular Islamic orientation. Many street protests were joined by all the federations and madrassas were the main source of their street power, although others also participated who were mobilised by the sermons of prayer leaders and other religious leaders. Their rallies and marches also mobilised a good number of people not directly associated with any religious group. Even the people educated through the state education system were part of this movement because the state education system also inculcated the Islamic-orthodox worldview in them.

The role of Maulana Fazlur Rahman is an interesting case study. His party, JUI-F, was part of the federal coalition. He was less active in the pro-blasphemy laws movement until he decided to quit the ruling coalition in protest against the removal of his party leader from the federal cabinet. The maulana and his loyalists jumped into this movement in order to build pressure on the prime minister.

Islamic parties and other Islamic groups and organisations have found an easy way to bring out their loyalists and others into the streets by projecting the issue in the binary manner of Islam versus secularism and they argued that the demand for any change in the blasphemy laws amounted to tampering with one of the basic principles of Islam.
This agitation is part of the effort of the Islamists and the far-right political groups and leaders to use street power to tilt the political system decisively in their favour. As they have little hope of asserting their role through elections or parliament, Islam is being conveniently used to pursue their political power agenda.

Literalist in interpretation of the religious text, they hardly draw a distinction between the principle and the mode of implementing the principle or the structure. For them, the principle of respect is the same as the structure and procedures to implement this principle. Nor are most activists willing to give any space for the changes to remove the chances of the misuse of the blasphemy laws for personal reasons, financial considerations and material/property gains or to pursue denominational conflicts.

The Islamic hardliners have succeeded in intimidating others because of the lack of moral courage on the part of the political parties and leaders to question their threatening political and religious discourse. The government is so scared that it capitulated to the demand of the hardline clergy that there will be no change in the blasphemy laws. The opposition parties, including the PML-N, are deriving grudging satisfaction from the fact that the PPP-led federal government is in trouble. They would be happy if the federal government collapses on this issue.

The counter-narrative on the blasphemy laws exists in Pakistan and there are people, even among Islamic circles, who feel perturbed by the current drift of events. Their views and opinions are likely to resurface in a couple of months. For the time being, they are afraid of contesting the perspective of the orthodox and militant groups because they know that the federal and provincial governments are unable to perform their basic responsibility of providing security to the citizens.
The current environment is hostile to the counter-perspective because no rational debate can take place in an environment of intimidation and fear that the religious hardliners have created. You only hear the monologue of the orthodox and militant groups. Those who disagree with their perspective are not talking of abolishing the blasphemy laws but want certain changes in the procedures for applying these laws to avoid their misuse. There are suggestions for financial penalty or imprisonment for those making false charges in invoking these laws.
There is a need to find the middle ground through a sober dialogue among different religious and political groups, to study the problems that have arisen after these blasphemy laws were enforced and suggest remedies. This can only happen in a cool-headed discussion in a conference room rather than in public rallies that disrupt civic order and stability.

The writer is a political and defence analyst

 

[RabzonKhan]

WASHINGTON DIARY: Turning villains into heroes

Daily Times
Dr Manzur Ejaz
January 19, 2011

When killer Mumtaz Malik Qadri was shooting at Governor Salmaan Taseer (shaheed) his security colleagues remained mere spectators. After committing this act he was safely handed over to the police. After a few minutes, his confession statement was leaked to the media. Up until then the media was using the word “martyred” for Governor Taseer but after his confession statement was whipped up by everyone, suddenly the words “assassinated” and “killed” replaced martyred, and the killer was declared a “ghazi”. In no time the killer was being compared with Ilm Din who had been praised by Allama Mohammad Iqbal and defended by Mohammad Ali Jinnah in court. In short, the martyred was turned into a villain, and a killer into a ghazi.

You must be thinking how all this happened so quickly, as if the angels themselves were directing the TV channels. Divine inspiration cannot explain the turn of the media. However, this rhetoric can be attributed to organised groups — agencies or operators of political parties and terrorist groups — deputed to take care of the media. Such elements use all kinds of methods like threats and enticements to force the media to use their language. The Salmaan Taseer case shows very well how the planners quickly got hold of Qadri’s confession and put it all over the media.

Salmaan Taseer’s martyrdom reminds me of the early 1970 period of Punjab University (PU). Then the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (IJT) was testing its initial model of Islamisation in PU, which was later implemented in the rest of the country by various religious and political parties. Incidentally, members of the IJT have penetrated many political parties, particularly the PML-N, MQM and some others. The etymology of religious terrorism is very different in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from Punjab where the IJT’s PU model is self-evident. This is one of the reasons why 90 percent of blasphemy cases have been registered in Punjab where the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and IJT are most powerful.

I vividly remember how the IJT used to plan before terrorising a student or a teacher. For example, a night before action they would prepare posters condemning the ‘surkha ghunda gardi’ (terrorism of the Left). They would then assign people to go to the police station to file a report against the Left. It was rumoured in those days that the JI managed to have their chosen police officers employed in the Wahdat Colony police station, which covered the university’s jurisdiction. The next day, within minutes, after breaking the bones of some of its opposing students or insulting a teacher, they would put up these posters on every wall of the university. In no time, a police report would be filed and the police would be moved to arrest the victims. Sometimes press statements about the incidents were sent to the media even before the action. This is how methodically the JI, through the IJT, terrorised the left-liberal students and teachers.

Now review the chronology of events on the day Salmaan Taseer was martyred in this backdrop. You will see that it was all pre-planned. The planners knew how the governor was going to be gunned down, how the killer would be handed over to the police and how his confession statement was to reach the media. It seems that the planners had prepared teams to manipulate the media through threats or enticement. Without planning, media portrayal does not get reversed so quickly.

The JI is the mother of religious terrorism in Pakistan. It is the only party that has ideologues, strategists and operators. The JI knows how to, directly or indirectly, use the religious parties to its advantage. The JI has done most of its experimentation in PU and other educational institutions.

When the JI was convinced that the agenda of Islamisation was getting weaker because of Taliban suicide bombings killing thousands of innocent people, it started the campaign against drone attacks and in favour of Aafia Siddiqui. Aafia was chosen because she was a soft image — a mother of little children who had been maliciously kidnapped. The JI did not undertake a similar campaign for Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad because he would not have been a proper image to provoke Pakistanis. He was a healthy young male for whom winning mass sympathies was not easy.

Now look at the cases of Aafia Siddiqui and Faisal Shahzad. Both were American citizens and prosecuted in the US like all other citizens who commit crimes. Aafia Siddiqui damaged her case through her statements in court, showing that she was a member of al Qaeda. However, her case was presented in Pakistan as if she was a Pakistani citizen who had been kidnapped and brought to the US for prosecution. The people running the ‘Free Aafia Campaign’ were shrewd and knew that there was no way that the US government could pressurise the judiciary to get her out. Only President Obama could have pardoned her but that would have been political suicide for the Democrats.

Our prime minister did not prove to be very sharp-witted when he appealed to the US to free Aafia Siddiqui. He did not know that, by appealing for Ms Siddiqui, he was justifying a future Aafia named Mumtaz Malik Qadri. If Aafia Siddiqui was turned into a heroine, then Qadri could have wished to become a ghazi without much trouble.

The ‘Free Aafia Siddiqui Campaign’ was meant to provide political cover for the Taliban and create an atmosphere in which crimes can be committed in the name of religion without any repercussions. For Mumtaz Malik Qadri, breaking the law was not a serious matter in such an atmosphere.

 

[RabzonKhan]

CARTE BLANCHE: The January 4 movement

Daily Times
Mehmal Sarfraz
January 20, 2011

“So Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame has been chosen for Time magazine man of the Year. Hmm. Guess I’ll have to wait till next year,” wrote (late) Governor Punjab Salmaan Taseer last month on Twitter. Little did he know that he was going to become Pakistan’s ‘man of the year’ in 2011.

On January 4, 2011, Salmaan Taseer was martyred in Islamabad. The details of Mr Taseer’s gruesome assassination have been all over the media. Shot 27 times by one of the police commandos assigned to protect his life while the other policemen stood by silently, Pakistan lost Mr Taseer to religious bigotry. In the aftermath of January 4, we saw myriads of reactions: shock, horror, depression, anger, desperation, frustration, and fear. But these reactions were from people who condemned Shaheed Salmaan Taseer’s murder. On the other side of the spectrum we witnessed another set of reactions: apathy, glee, exhilaration, jubilation, and victory. These were the reactions of all those who not only condoned Mr Taseer’s murder but also glorified his assassin, Mumtaz Qadri, by declaring him a ‘hero’.

Who is responsible for the murder of Mr Taseer is a question that many people have asked since that fateful day. The trigger-happy Qadri may have been a lone murderer but he was only responsible for the actual misdeed. The real perpetrators are still out and about. Every mullah who endorsed the fatwa (edict) against Mr Taseer declaring him a blasphemer has blood on his hands. Every television anchor who gave airtime to hate-mongers in his/her programme or tried to depict Mr Taseer in a negative light after the Aasia Bibi case has blood on his/her hands. Every columnist who wrote that the blasphemy laws cannot be repealed or amended and that Mr Taseer was wrong in visiting the poor Christian woman in jail has blood on his/her hands. Every PPP leader who was either too afraid to support Mr Taseer after November 20, 2010 (the day he visited Aasia Bibi in jail) or who vowed not to amend/repeal the blasphemy laws has blood on his/her hands. Every Pakistani who watched silently while the religious right bayed for Mr Taseer’s blood has blood on his/her hands. Every law enforcement officer who did not take any action against people spewing venom against the late governor has blood on his hands. Every elite force guard who was aware of Qadri’s murderous plan and yet did not report it to the authorities has blood on his hands. Whoever assigned Qadri — who was declared a ‘security risk’ for VVIPs — on Mr Taseer’s security detail has blood on his hands. Every political party whose members attended the Tahaffuz-i-Nabuwat Conference in December 2010 has blood on its hands. And last, but certainly not the least, our military establishment that has nurtured the right-wing forces for decades has blood on its hands.

On December 15, 2010, a Tahaffuz-i-Nabuwat Conference was held in Islamabad where religious and political leaders vowed to defend the blasphemy laws. Leaders of political parties like the PML-N, PML-Q, JUI-F and the Jamaat-e-Islami were present at the conference. Apart from members of other religious organisations, the presence of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed should have sent a warning to the government. Apparently, it did not. The JuD is a front for banned militant outfit Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), which is said to be behind cross-border terrorist attacks in India. Hafiz Saeed is said to be the mastermind behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks. On December 31, 2010, there was a shutter-down strike all over Pakistan. At the rallies held that day, religious leaders condemned Mr Taseer and vowed to protect the honour of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). It is a great tragedy that no one from the PPP-led government defended Mr Taseer and explained to the masses that he had not done anything to dishonour our Prophet (PBUH). The PPP remained silent. So did many others. This silence cost Mr Taseer his life.

On another note, one of Qadri’s lawyers — Ashraf Gujjar — is said to be Hafiz Saeed’s nephew. But is anyone listening? Not likely.

Mr Taseer died for a cause but that cause seems to have died with him. Prime Minister Gilani has reiterated on various occasions after Mr Taseer’s death that the government has no plans to touch the blasphemy laws. As if that was not enough, at the Ulema and Mashaikh Conference 2011 where the prime minister addressed the religious leaders on January 18, Badshahi Mosque’s khateeb Maulana Abdul Khabir Azad was also present. Maulana Khabir Azad is the same man who refused to lead the funeral prayers of Mr Taseer.

At a vigil held for Mr Taseer on January 7 outside the Governor House, Lahore, hundreds of people mourned the death of a man who was brave enough to speak up for those who could not get justice in Jinnah’s Pakistan. “Taseer, tere khoon se inquilab aayega” (Taseer, your blood will bring about a revolution), “Jahaalat ke hain teen nishaan: jihadi, mullah, Taliban” (Three symbols of ignorance: jihadis, mullahs and the Taliban), “Yeh jo mullah-gardi hai, iske peeche wardi hai” (those in uniform are behind the clergy-instigated violence) were some of the slogans raised at the vigil.

Unlike all those who are too afraid to speak up, the few of us who have the courage to stand tall must not dishonour Mr Taseer’s sacrifice. To pay tribute to Mr Taseer, a ‘January 4 movement’ must be started. In the words of Shaheed Salmaan Taseer’s father:

“Meri wafaayain yaad karoge,

Ro’oge, faryaad karoge,

Chorro bhi Taseer ki baatein,

Kab tak usko yaad karoge” — Dr M. D. Taseer.

[You will remember my ardent heart,

You will cry, you will beseech,

Leave Taseer aside,

How long will you keep mourning for him?]

The writer is Op-Ed Editor Daily Times.

 

[RabzonKhan]

VIEW: Questions, questions

Daily Times
Gul Bukhari
January 22, 2011

There is consensus between Aasia Bibi’s statements in the sessions court Nankana Sahib and the investigative report of Mohammad Amin Bokhari (SP Investigation, and witness for prosecution) that the blasphemy spat between the women started when Aasia Bibi’s Muslim accusers refused to drink water she offered to bring them because Aasia Bibi was Christian. One Muslim complainant, and witness in the case, had asked for water. Helpfully, Aasia Bibi brought it for her. But the complainant refused the kindness, instead heaping insult and injury to Aasia Bibi’s feelings by refusing the water solely on the basis of her religion. The Muslim women have not denied this fact and, indeed, this fact is part of the prosecution’s case.

According to Aasia’s testimony, “hot words” were exchanged between the women after Aasia was humiliated thus. Aasia was made to feel dirty, impure and unclean due to the religion she belongs to. So ****** and low that Muslim women did not deem it fit to drink from the utensil she had touched.

Indeed, the sessions judge records the following in paragraph 28 of his judgement: “So, the question arises, what type or nature of the hot words would there be between the Christian and Muslim ladies when the quarrel started from the refusal of drinking water by the Muslim ladies from the hands of a Christian lady. So, the phenomenon was ultimately switched into a religious matter and hot words were none other than the blasphemy.”

Now let us take a look at Section 295-A, the very first article of the blasphemy laws, and begin to ask questions that should have been the very first questions to be asked by anyone connected to the case or opining the matter: “295-A — Deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs: Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of the citizens of Pakistan, by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representations insults the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 10 years, or with fine, or with both.”

Did the Muslim women deliberately and maliciously outrage the religious feelings and beliefs of Aasia Bibi? Did the Muslim women make Aasia Bibi feel untouchable only because she was a Christian? Did the Muslim women insult the religion of Christianity by telling a follower that they refuse water from the hand of a Christian? Did the Muslim women insult Hazrat Isa (PBUH), Allah’s messenger whose message and religion Aasia follows — for the water was refused only because she follows him? Did the Muslim women insult the Holy Book of Christians by deeming a person of the book “paleed”, by dint of the message she follows, not by dint of her personal hygiene? Did the Muslim women commit unprovoked and intentional blasphemy?

Then there is section 153-A of the Pakistan Penal Code, on promoting enmity between different groups, etc: “Whoever (a) by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representations or otherwise, promotes or incites, or attempts to promote or incite, on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community or any other ground whatsoever, disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities; or (b) commits, or incites any other person to commit any act which is prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony between different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities or any group of persons identifiable as such on any ground whatsoever and which disturbs or is likely to disturb public tranquillity; or (c)...shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to five years and with fine.”

Did the Muslim women promote and incite disharmony, hatred and ill will between religions by openly saying and doing what they did? Did the Muslim women incite and provoke Aasia into saying hot words with their actions? The matter is sub judice in the Lahore High Court and it remains to be determined whether, in response to the water incident, Aasia Bibi did or did not indeed make derogatory remarks against the Holy Quran and Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). But let us assume, for argument’s sake, that she did make derogatory remarks about her co-workers’ religion in retaliation. Based on this assumption can her response be deemed to be calculated, and intended to create fitna and disharmony? Can her response be deemed to be the result of her venting her injured feelings of being humiliated and the child of a lesser God? Can her response be deemed to be an attempt to express her enraged feelings and to hurt those who had spurned her kindness and hurt her?

Were questions on these lines on the mind of our late Governor Salmaan Taseer? Was he sympathetic to a poor illiterate woman condemned to death because her Muslim co-workers spurned her kindness, insulted and hurt her and provoked her into some kind of retaliation? Was he killed for his humanity, fair-mindedness and bravery? May God rest him in eternal peace.

Will Pakistan’s legal community and great legal minds ponder these questions? Does the onus of maintaining religious harmony not fall predominantly on the overwhelming majority, i.e. the Muslims? Will legal minds embark on a greater examination of this aspect and help us find the answers?

The writer is a journalist and television anchor.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Smokers’ Corner: Pray tell

Dawn
Nadeem F. Paracha
Jan 23 2011


Oh, my, that label again: ‘Liberal extremist.’ What on earth does it mean? Absolutely nothing. Great wordplay and deliciously idiosyncratic, but that’s about it.

However, since the popular electronic media in Pakistan is usually about a rather nihilistic strain of whatever it considers to be news and analysis, this topsy-turvy label has become the catch-all term of a number of TV anchors, hosts and, ahem, analysts.

So, then, what is a liberal extremist? How many Pakistanis do you know who advocate the abolition of faith, legalisation of cannabis, the creation of nude beaches, support gay marriages or… oh, okay, so this is not what you mean. Then what? If you guys who have suddenly become so fond of this phrase mean by it Pakistanis who emphasise reason over passion (especially in political and theological matters), or who find religion synonymous with humanitarianism, tolerance and compassion, or who like political parties that they support to retain a degree of secularism, or those who cherish the concept of social and religious pluralism and diversity, if these are the dreaded liberal extremists so many Pakistanis have suddenly started moaning about, then I pray for me to become one of the finest liberal extremists in this land of the pure.

So, can one suggest that what passes as being plain old liberal elsewhere becomes liberal extremism in Pakistan? There is another innocent question I would like to ask of all those who have been swinging their fists by suggesting the following brilliant insight: ‘The problem in Pakistan is religious extremism and liberal extremism.’

If so, then pray tell, dear sirs and madams, exactly how can one couple the two phrases in the same sentence? To begin with, one can safely suggest that those you call liberal extremists constitute an embarrassingly minute percentage compared to the glorious blooming and flowering we have seen of what are called religious extremists.

Over and over again we have heard and seen the delightful things faith-based extremists advocate, preach, feel happy about and shower rose petals for, but what have the malicious liberal extremists to gloat and float about? I’ve heard arguments (and that’s about it) from the liberals in the following cases, but no liberal extremist distributed sweetmeat when Dr Aafia was convicted; never saw this extremist chant ‘yea, baby, let’s have more,’ when the news of a drone attack breaks; never seen one claiming that such or such person should be killed just because he or she disagreed with the liberal extremist. Sure he or she may have a sympathetic argument about what their counterparts may consider to be treason, sacrilege, etc., but that’s it.

Kindly stop using this term, liberal extremists, as if it was an indigenous made-in-Pakistan media masterstroke. The term first began being used in the US during the 1970s. It was coined by some ultra-conservative Republican politicians and Christian evangelists against certain mainstream American newspapers, TV channels and filmmaking circles. These guys from that country’s far right in politics and religion thought that the American media and Hollywood were brimming with atheists, agnostics and liberals who were soft on the Soviet Union (mostly because the media was opposing the war in Vietnam).

It was a lunatic fringe whom the then liberal American media suspected of having extreme political and religious views, and this fringe retaliated (in typical knee-jerk fashion), by calling their detractors as liberal extremists. This term was again used during the conservative Reagan years in the 1980s against mainstream media outlets who were opposing his overtly laissez faire economic policies and his arming of the paid mercenaries to topple the revolutionary leftist regime in Nicaragua.

By the end of the Cold War (1990), the liberal extremist tag was hung around social and environmentalist groups that began agitating against large multinational corporations and ‘globalisation.’ The media in this respect was finally let off the hook and the reason was simple. With the arrival of such monsters like FOX-News and SkyNews, things in this respect were turned on their heads when it was the media that began adopting this term for detractors of corporate capitalism and the new millennium’s ‘neo-con’ polices.

In Pakistan it was the military dictatorship of General Musharraf who first used this term. In many of his apologetic speeches he defended his (albeit half-baked) actions against extremist religious organisations by adopting the old 1970s American ultra-conservatives’ mantra of being against both extremes (religious and liberal). However, the irony was that genuine liberalism (that the American conservatives used to call liberal extremism in the US) was almost non-existent in Pakistan.

Right-wing apologists of faith-based extremism now found in abundance in the FOX-News like environment in Pakistan’s electronic media have simply picked up where Musharraf had left: Blame the large-scale presence of both state sponsored and populist, civilian extremism in the country on the handful of vocal liberals by calling them liberal extremists. Of course, intoxicated on the delusion that they have discovered a perfect explanation to defend their sheepish defence of violence-prone extremism, they conveniently forget it is not liberal extremists blowing themselves up in public places or showering rose petals on killers.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Smokers’ Corner: Bananas

Dawn
Nadeem F. Paracha
Jan 30 2011

For long, many Pakistanis have wondered just how do certain Pakistani media men and religious leaders who have turned the obsessive act of badmouthing the US, Jews and liberals into a robust cottage industry, manage to travel so frequently to the US. Well, it seems the days of curiosity in this respect may be coming to an end. According to a front-page story in Dawn last Friday, four US Congressmen have asked Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, to refuse visas to those Pakistanis who are on record praising the killer of former Governor of Punjab, Salmaan Taseer.

There are reports that the US government is now seriously contemplating refusing visas to a number of Pakistani media personnel, lawyers and religious leaders who have been reported to have condoned the ghastly murder. These also include TV and print journalists and religious leaders who travel regularly to the US (and Europe). Most Pakistanis who were shocked by the jubilant reactions of certain people at Taseer’s assassination have squarely hailed the report of a possible US visa ban on these men and women.

This hailing has nothing to do with some Pakistanis’ resentment of not being able to visit Disneyland the way all these so-called anti-West media folks, lawyers, politicians or religious leaders have been doing for many years. Instead, the welcoming gesture by them is more about the rather concrete perception that surrounds the ways of these obsessive anti-US charlatans in which they are seen as spreading political and religious hatred and arousing populist political chaos under the cover of being gung-ho patriots and people of faith who are out to warn the Islamic republic of the nefarious designs of Americans, Jews and Hindus.

But, of course, unknown to most Pakistanis is the startling fact that many such fiery journalists and men/women of faith are regular visitors to the US and European countries. Also, for long, a number of Pakistan’s staunch anti-West defenders of the faith and sovereignty have had close relatives, children and siblings settled in various western countries, while they urge Pakistanis to rise against ‘US slavery’ and to ‘crush America.’

The question always was, for how long could Pakistanis go on loudly supporting the rising and now almost entirely knee-jerk and rhetorical tide of anti-Americanism while at the same time be the first to join the long queues seen outside American and European visa offices? It is a bizarre sight, but come to think of it, the bizarre, especially in matters of faith and ideology, has certainly become the norm in this country.

We are quick to use terms like munafiq (hypocrite) for others, but we conveniently refuse to see that each one of us has become a raving, ranting hypocrite — a double-faced act that we then explain away as a reaction against corruption and ‘US imperialism.’ It’s a vicious cycle that denies us the patience and logic to reflect upon our own doings instead of always being on the look out for ‘bad Muslims’, ‘heretics’, foreign agents and media-made punching bags to blame our economic miseries, political chaos and moral confusion on. Worse are those who do so simply to bag cheap and instant applause from morally and intellectually bankrupt sections of society, or from a populace frustrated by living under the booming hammer of economic downturns, wobbly regimes and terrorist attacks. So much change (in the mindset and not just faces) has to be allowed and worked for if this unfortunate country is ever to finally take that turn towards some sort of salvation. And mind you, like it or not, this turn may also mean us having to embrace certain economic, social and political ideas and policies which, today, we are mindlessly rejecting as being western, Orientalist, secular or liberal.

I just cannot understand why so many Pakistanis clamp up when anyone suggests such ideas as solutions in Pakistan, whereas the same Pakistanis are okay living among these same ideas in western countries. But then, are they, really? For example, forget about nuts like Faisal Shahzad or prying puritans like Farhat Hashmi — their topsy-turvy ways are all too obvious — what about those Pakistanis who keep posting hate comments and speeches on the internet from various US cities? How did they get the US visa?

 

[RabzonKhan]

EDITORIAL: Political bigotry

Daily Times
February 01, 2011

Thousands of followers of the religious and right wing parties gathered in Lahore to warn the government not to amend the blasphemy laws. The religious parties included the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Tehrik-e-Millat-e-Jafariya, banned militant outfit Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) among others, while the PML-N, PML-Q, PML-Z, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) were the centre-right parties present.

Just last month there was a large congregation of the extreme right in Karachi under the same banner, demanding the same thing – no amendment or repeal of the blasphemy laws. The rally in Lahore was almost as ‘successful’, but certain dimensions of this rally make it more significant. The extreme right managed to bring on board the centre-right political forces. Equally important is the fact that a Shia organisation decided to join them despite the fact that Sunni sectarian extremists have been involved in massacring Shias over the decades. The bigotry of the Deobandis came out in full force when Sajid Naqvi, a Shia leader, joined the rally and many in the crowd started shouting: “Kafir, kafir, Shia kafir” (Shias are infidels). JuD chief Hafiz Saeed also addressed the crowd. Hafiz Saeed seems to be on the frontline of this ‘struggle’. JuD is a front of the banned terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT). How is it then that the Punjab authorities allowed the chief of a banned outfit to address a mammoth rally in the provincial capital (yet again)? This will also have an adverse impact on the Indo-Pak foreign secretaries meeting about to take place this month in Thimphu.

JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s ‘advice’ to Punjab Governor Khosa to pay a visit to late Governor Taseer’s assassin Mumtaz Qadri in order to ‘thank’ him for his governorship shows the level of the speeches at the rally. On the other hand, the centre-right parties showed their support for bigotry by their participation. The PPP-led government has backpedalled and completely retreated on its stance on the blasphemy laws and repeatedly bleated that no change to these flawed laws is being contemplated.

The track record of blasphemy cases shows that these have nothing to do with religion or blasphemy. These laws are flawed and open to abuse. Instead of stopping the misuse of these laws, now that the religious right has strengthened itself, the abuse is likely to be perpetuated. The government, even if it is not ready to repeal or amend these laws, should at least put a check on the misuse of these laws that has led to so much injustice.

 

[RabzonKhan]

PART II: Jihadi media booming

Daily Times
By Ali K Chishti
February 04, 2011

“Sometimes jihadi media and especially the online media – web 2.0 gives us more information than our intel assets on ground,” confirmed a western intelligence operative based in Washington DC. And there are examples, like only in December the Somalian version of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Shabaab al-Mujahideen, announced its merger with another group Hizbul Islam based in Somalia and publicly boasted about their power apart from the Shabaab al-Mujahideen issued official communiqué claiming bombing into Uganda.

On November 4 last year, al Qaeda’s official As-Sahab media wing came out with a somewhat remarkable statement by al Qaeda’s number two, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, titled, “Who will support scientist Aafia Siddiqui?” where Dr Zawahiri remarkably ended addressing Pakistanis, “I say to you in few words because the time is work time: you made your government and you made your army leaders into a people without pride, and without sanctity and without dearness and without value.” The al Qaeda number two continues, “So whoever wants to free Aafia Siddiqui and take revenge on those who violated her and all Muslim women should join the Mujahideen because there’s no dearness except by jihad and no pride but by it.”

While the Kashmiri insurgents tend to stay low due to tighter scrutiny and publish magazines in the cover of various religious political parties, al Qaeda to TTP, including the Taliban, had been at the forefront of spreading their manufactured propaganda not just to show “how tech-savvy they are but to glorify what they are doing to gain attention, get praise, recruit and to send out coded messages,” confirms a former intelligence chief to Daily Times.

While organisations like Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Lashkar-e-Muhammad, Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba had to significantly cut back their online presence due to pressure from various intelligence agencies, which constantly monitor the unregulated and uncontrolled TTP and its affiliated organisations. While Ummat Studios, a Pakistani media organisation, which primarily focuses on TTP-led operation against the Pakistan Army in Waziristan, is the biggest Pakistani jihadi organisation which credits itself after coming up with the mantra of “Na-Pak Fauj” –the al Qaeda official media managed by Adam Yehiye Gadahn, runs from an undisclosed location in Pakistan, is the most influential jihadi media organisation in the world.

As-Sahab regularly carry’s out videos of Osama Bin Laden and Dr Zawahiri and of attacks on both Pakistani and US army in the region. In fact Osama Bin Laden sent out an audio message on January 22 to the people of France warning them of consequences if France did not withdraw from Afghanistan. While the Arabs and Pakistanis from the Pakistani Tribal Areas operate their own media, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) runs two media houses, named Jundullah Media and Badr at Taweed Media, through which it propagates violence against US interest in the region.

On a more mainstream level in Pakistan where visual media had seen an unprecedented boom since 2001, the prime time slots and maximum time is devoted to conspiracy and speculative culture which an industry leader confirms candidly, “We give you what majority of us wants to listen – the US has one FOX news and a Bible Belt – Pakistan as a whole is right-wing hence we cater to there needs.”

While another kind of extremism promoted by the security establishment of Pakistan was the well calculated launch of Zaid Hamid, previously an Intelligence Bureau asset, who came out lecturing what the military wants us to hear and made quite an impact only to do what all proxies of establishment end up doing – he went freelance. Some years ago a religious show host Amir Liaqat Hussain on a mainstream television channel gave out an irresponsible statement because of which two members of the Ahmedi community were killed. And more recently, Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer was shot dead just because the country’s mainstream media portrayed the assassinated governor in bad light and deliberately made him controversial. It is not that the media in Pakistan is used only by jihadis but had been used for “de-radicalisation” as well. The “Yeh Hum Nahin” (We are not them) campaign, which was aired some years ago with mega stars coming on television that “we are not terrorists”, was sponsored by British think-tank engaged in Pakistan from Birmingham and Soihull areas in West Midlands.

While all sort of radical ideas and jihadi publications are going viral in Pakistan, the government seems more interested in banning Black Berry services of foreign diplomats instead of shutting down the propaganda of jihadi organisations within the country. As a foreign diplomat noted, “The freedom of expression enjoyed by jihadis and radicals in Pakistan seems more than an average person based in Pakistan or anywhere else – unfortunately, Pakistan is where the production, direction and distribution of jihadi media takes place.”

 

[RabzonKhan]

WASHINGTON DIARY: Religious zealots and political Islam

Daily Times
Dr Manzur Ejaz
February 09, 2011

It seems that the movement for Tahaffuz-e-Namoos-e-Risalat (TNR) has become a source of political power for the mullahs. As expected, wherever there is power, there are contenders for the throne. Thus, the intense competition between the mullahs has begun and it is in fact a stampede under which Pakistan is being brutalised and crushed.

The prime mover of the TNR is the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), the mother of most theocratic and extremist religious trends. Presently, the JI is competing for influence for itself versus Fazlur Rehman but that is its secondary goal; the main goal is political power. For the JI, the TNR is a vehicle to keep religious parties united and to slowly dismantle what is left of the secular institutions of the state. The Taliban and other jihadi groups fit very well in its strategy to undo the system. Therefore, while the Taliban and other jihadis keep the state engaged with guns, the JI provides a political cover to them with rhetoric. The ‘Free Aafia Siddiqui’ and TNR movements are just political covers masterfully orchestrated by the JI.

The JI uses very subtle and sophisticated means to stoke the fires of religious extremism and bigotry. It tries to give the impression that it is temperate and modernistic unlike jihadi groups like the Taliban, but this is far from the truth: the JI uses the Taliban’s crude methodology in educational institutions where they have real influence. To its credit, the JI has slowly implanted the ‘Campus Model’ elsewhere in society. What is happening in Punjab is a macro version of what happened in Punjab University since the 1970s.

The JI, by its very composition, is very different from Jamiat-i-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) because it does not recruit its members from madrassas: most of its middle and lower middle class recruits come from regular national educational institutions. The JI has another advantage, which is usually ignored by everyone: practicable or not, the JI has a complete blueprint of an alternative Islamic society and its main ideologue, Maulana Maududi, articulated an Islamic alternative for every aspect of life. No other religious or even socialist group has such a comprehensive plan for replacing the present system.

In this backdrop it is not very difficult to understand that for the JI, TNR is just an instrument to further its ultimate goal of Islamisation. This is why the JI refuses to follow Imam Abu Hanifa on the blasphemy law (otherwise it follows fiqah Hanfia) and its leaders distort the interpretation of Quranic verses. For JI every distortion is justified because it is done for a higher goal of imposition of a Pakistani theocracy. However, in the process the sanctity of religion itself has been completely compromised because of the ambivalence of the JI.

Fazlur Rehman is not very subtle and has even broken all the boundaries of a civil and democratic society. Addressing a rally in Lahore he suggested to Punjab Governor Latif Khosa that the latter should meet killer Mumtaz Qadri and congratulate him because he is the one who got him the governorship. This is the cruellest and most cynical statement a leader can make on the killing of an innocent citizen. Rehman has not only violated the country’s law with this statement but has shown his prejudicial ruling in favour of the killer before the due process system allows him a hearing.

Fazlur Rehman claiming to be the model Pakistani and Muslim wants us to forget that his party, the JUI, opposed the creation of Pakistan. His father, Maulana Mufti Mahmood, was reported to have said: “Pakistan banaane ke gunah mein hum shaamil nahin thay” (We were not part of those sinners who created Pakistan). And when Fazlur Rehman was asked in India if both countries can reunite, his response was: “Elders should sit down and talk.”

However, the assault by religious zealots has now been undertaken by the Sunni Tehreek, which includes the Barelvi sect of Indian Muslims. The transformation of this otherwise peaceful group of Muslims shows how deep an effect the religious right-wing has had in radicalising all other religious parties and sects. Now, it can be safely said that there is no tolerant Islamic sect among Pakistani Muslims. They have all become ritualistic and followers of mullah shahi (rule of the mullahs).

The Sunnis, particularly the Barelvis, were the least affected by political Islam. Following the Sufi traditions, faith was a purely personal belief for them. However, the temptation of power and fame of political Islam was too hard to resist for the mullahs, even of the Barelvi sect. When they saw the JI and JUI leaders like Liaqat Baloch and Fazlur Rehman regularly appearing on TV talk shows and rubbing shoulders with powerful people, they thought that they were in a majority and yet being ignored. Therefore, they had to venture into political Islam and TNR was a perfect excuse for them.

It is clear in Pakistan that mullahs of all sects are now part of a narrow vision of political Islam. No place is left for Islamic apologists who claim that Islam is a religion of tolerance. Every religion becomes tolerant according to a certain socio-political environment, which is not there in Pakistan anymore. Therefore, a secular state — separation of religion and the state — are inevitable if the country has to exist.

 

[Solomon2]

Whose ideology is it anyway?
by Nadeem F. Paracha on 02 9th, 2011

Photo courtesy: Creative Commons

The following is what Sindhi nationalist leader and scholar, G.M. Syed, said about Pakistan’s future – and mind you, he said this way back in the summer of 1953: “In the years to come, Pakistan will not only become a problem for itself, but it will pose a danger to the world at large.”

Now how prophetic is that? Very. However, he was not the only one in those days casting a pessimistic shadow across the possible future of the newly-founded country. Those who agreed with Syed were were various Bengali and Baloch nationalists along with Pakhtun nationalist icon, Bacha Khan.

So what exactly were they reacting to? The answer to this question is quite simple and it is the answer to this that between 1947 and at least up until the late 1980s, it made an assortment of military dictators, politicians, ideologues and even some intellectuals denounce men like G M. Syed and Bacha Khan as traitors.

Very early on such Sindhi, Pakhtun, Baloch and Bengali nationalists and thinkers had started to raise an alarm about the cosmetic nature of what was beginning to be devised by the state as ‘Pakistan’s ideology.’

Starting with the 1949 Objectives Resolution, which for the first time introduced religion as a binding force for the young nation, men like Syed and other ethnic-nationalist icons correctly saw through the beginnings of a process which they feared the ruling elite would try to bulldoze an awkward reality with an invented illusion.

The awkward reality that was to be suppressed had to do with the fact that Pakistan was not exactly a single nation with a single language. It was a diverse country with multiple ethnicities, religions and sects. Each one of these had their own literature, language, culture and interpretation of faith, society and history.

The invented illusion in this respect was a monolithic, state-sponsored strain of faith that was to be imposed over ethnic and sectarian diversities described as dangerous cleavages by the state.

Logically speaking, constructing state-level unity out of this diversity should have been attained by providing a generous degree of democratic autonomy to the provinces. But instead of taking the logical democratic route in this context, the ruling elite began seeing this diversity as an existentialist and political threat to the country.

___________________________

It is interesting to note that there is little or no evidence to suggest that there was ever a concrete plan to immediately turn Pakistan into an Islamic state.

However, when agitation by Bengali nationalists in former East Pakistan over the issue of making Urdu the national language broke out, this suddenly triggered the government to officially introduce certain theocratic concepts in the 1949 Objectives Resolution.

Even though these were no more than an eye-wash and the Pakistani leadership and society remained largely secular in orientation, but men like GM Syed and Bacha Khan were quick to sight a dangerous trend. To them the ruling elite was now willing to use religion to suppress ethnic aspirations.

The state and the ‘establishment’ of Pakistan painstakingly constructed this supposed ideology, so much so that (ever since the 1980s) it eventually started being used by intelligence agencies, certain politico-religious parties, and media personnel to actually justify the folly of the Pakistan state and military for patronising brutal Islamist organisations.

_________________________

But whose ideology is it, anyway?

Until about the late 1960s it was normal to suggest that Pakistan as an idea was carved out as a country for the Muslims of the subcontinent who were largely seen (by Jinnah), as a distinct cultural set of Indians whose political and cultural distinctiveness might have been compromised in a post-colonial ‘Hindu-dominated’ set-up.

As Jinnah went about explaining his vision of what Pakistan was supposed to mean, there are no doubts about the historical validity of the notion that he imagined the new country as a cultural haven for the Muslims of the subcontinent where the state and religion would remain separate, driven by a form of modern democracy that incorporated the egalitarian concepts of Islam such as charity, equality and interfaith tolerance.

According to Professor Aysha Jalal, Jinnah’s view of Islamic activism in the subcontinent was akin to him fearing that Islamic zealots would harm the national cause.

However, in spite of the fact that a number of speeches by Jinnah can be quoted in which he is heard envisioning Pakistan as a progressive and non-theocratic Muslim state, there are, at the same time, examples of speeches by the same man (especially in the Punjab and the former NWFP), where he actually uses terms like Shariah and Islamic state.

No matter how intense the debate between those who saw him as a secular, liberal Muslim and those who claim that he was okay with the idea of Pakistan being turned into a theocratic state, the truth is, we might never really know exactly what it was that Jinnah actually stood for.

____________________________

Jinnah’s death in 1948 reduced his party the Muslim League from being a dynamic organisation of visionary action, into a rag-tag group of self-serving politicians.

Gone too was the party’s ability to bring into policy the modernist aspects of Jinnah’s otherwise rather woolly vision. The idea of a progressive Muslim country got increasingly muddled and shouted down by the once anti-Pakistan Islamic forces.

The Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) went on a rampage in 1953 in Lahore, hungrily overseeing the country’s first major anti-Ahmadi riots. By now, the famous speech by Jinnah in which he underlined the idea of religious freedom in the new country was conveniently forgotten as the ruling elite grappled confusingly with the crises.

Eventually, it caved in to the demands of the handful of vocal Islamic leaders by officially declaring the country as an ‘Islamic Republic’ in the 1956 Constitution.

It was classic ostrich behaviour; the sort a number of Pakistani leaders have continued to demonstrate whenever faced with the question of Pakistan and its relationship to politicised faith.

In 1956, misunderstanding Islamist activism as mere emotionalism, the ruling elite gave the Islamists a bone to play with, without bothering to explain to the rest of the people exactly what an Islamic Republic really meant in the Pakistani context – a country comprising of a number of ethnicities, ‘minority religions,’ and distinct Islamic sects.

Democracy in this case should have been a natural answer. But for the Islamists, democracy meant the emergence of ethnic and religious plurality that would encourage secular politics and further undermine the new-found notion of the Islam-centric Pakistani nationhood.
_______________________________

But was democracy really the answer to such a dilemma? After all, the second major step towards the widespread Islamisation of politics and society was actually taken during a democratically-elected left-liberal regime in the 1970s.

Stung and confused by the separation of the former East Pakistan and witnessing the collapse of Jinnah’s ‘Two-nation theory,’ the Z.A. Bhutto regime set about putting into practice the idea of socio-political and economic regeneration.

This idea saw the regime trying to synthesise socialist and nationalist populism with political Islam.

In 1973, the government invited a number of nationalist intellectuals and Islamic scholars for a conference in Islamabad, asking them to thrash out a more defined and well-rounded version of Pakistan’s ideology that would help the state and the government in salvaging the country’s lost pride (after the 1971 defeat in East Pakistan) and also help it keep whatever that was left of Pakistan, intact.

By the end of the conference, both secular and Islamic intellectuals concluded that Islam should clearly be defined as the core thought in the constitution and polity of Pakistan. Recommendations were made to promote this core idea through the state-owned media, school text books and government policies.

Pakistan was renamed as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in the 1973 constitution while in 1974 the Bhutto regime (on the insistence of the religious parties), outlawed the Ahmadies as an Islamic sect.

Furthermore, although the government and society (until about 1977) remained largely secular and modernist, the idea of an Islamic state put forward by a government-sponsored conference ironically turned into a rallying cry for religious parties during their 1977 movement against Bhutto.

While Bhutto (like Anwar Sadat of Egypt) was busy taking to task his largely exaggerated communist, far-left and ethnic opponents, religious parties who had been sidelined after the 1970 elections began filling the political and social vacuum created by Bhutto’s strong-arm tactics against leftist student and trade unions and Baloch and Pakhtun nationalists.

Again very much like Sadat, some historians also maintain that Bhutto was allowed the mushrooming of Islamist student groups on campuses to subdue his opponents on the left.

The result? After badly shaken by the Islamist resurgence he himself had (albeit indirectly) set into motion, he was heckled all the way to the gallows by the very forces he had tried to appease.

Ziaul Haq and his reactionary regime that is correctly blamed for finally turning the Pakistani society and politics on its head with his controversial laws and acts in the name of faith, was really just a symptom of what that 1973 conference had suggested as an ideology.

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Many years and follies later, and in the midst of unprecedented violence being perpetrated in the name of Islam, Pakistanis today stand more confused and flabbergasted than ever before.

The seeds of the ideological schizophrenia sowed by the 1956 proclamation followed by the disastrous doings of the Ziaul Haq dictatorship in the 1980s, have now grown into a crooked tree that only bares delusions and denials as fruit.

As Islamic parties and reactionary journalists continue to use the flimsy historical narrative of Pakistan’s Islamic state-ism – and consciously burying the harrowing truth behind the chaos the so-called ‘Islamic ideology of Pakistan’ has managed to create – a whole generation is growing up to this cosmetic ideological narrative.

This narrative has continued to alienate not only religious minorities and various ethnicities (mainly Sindhi, Baloch and now even the ‘mohajirs), it has created intolerance within various Muslim sects as well.

Recent examples in this respect is the way many puritanical Sunni Islamic groups reacted to conservative political leader Mian Nawaz Sharif’s statement sympathising with the plight of the Ahmadis.

In fact, even when the political leaders of all Muslim sects living in Pakistan do get together for a political cause, the state-constructed and all-encompassing Islamic narrative fails to mend the cracks present between the sects.

For example, during the 1977 movement of religious parties against Bhutto, leaders of these parties refused to pray behind one another during a break at a press conference at the Karachi Press Club.

Recently, during a rally against amendments against the Blasphemy Law, though Barelvi, Deobandi, Ahel-e-Hadith and Shia leaders joined hands, there were reports that Shia speakers were heckled by the supporters of radical Sunni groups. In addition, one of Pakistan’s foremost Islamic scholars, Javed Ahmed Ghamdi, has quietly flown out of the country in a self-imposed exile.

Ghamdi was facing a number of threats from certain puritanical Islamic groups.

His sin? He stood out as a mainstream Islamic scholar who was willing to bank on reason and a modern interpretive take on the holy book, eschewing the myopic literalism of the puritanical groups and of political Islam.

In other words, it seems the so-called Islam-centric ideology of Pakistan that began as a modernist and reformist project, has gradually regressed to such an extent that even the idea of having an informed debate on the subject of faith has become a taboo.

Nadeem F. Paracha is a cultural critic and senior columnist for Dawn Newspaper and Dawn.com.

 

[RabzonKhan]

EDITORIAL: Indonesia: going the Pakistan way?

Daily Times
February 10, 2011

Religious intolerance seems to be on the rise in the Muslim world. The recent attacks on the Ahmediyya community and the Christian community in Indonesia should ring alarm bells for all Muslim countries. Just a few days ago, three Ahmedis were killed when a mob attacked the minority sect in Banten province. In 2008, Indonesia’s Religious Affairs Minister, Home Minister and Attorney General signed a decree that ordered the Ahmedis to “stop spreading interpretations and activities which deviate from the principal teachings of Islam” and “spreading of the belief that there is another prophet with his own teachings after Prophet Mohammed (PBUH)”. If an Ahmedi violates this decree, he/she is subject to up to five years of imprisonment. On the other hand, hardliner Islamists attacked a court and torched two churches and vandalised a Catholic school after a court sentenced a Christian man, Antonius Richmond Bawengan, to five years in prison for blasphemy. He was found guilty of handing out books and leaflets that “spread hatred about Islam”. This is the maximum penalty for blasphemy under Indonesia’s Criminal Code’s Article 156(a). Despite this, Muslim extremists are asking for a death sentence for the convicted man or that he be handed over to them (after which it is obvious the ‘death sentence’ would be carried out).

Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world with more than 80 percent Muslims, a large number of Hindus, and a smattering of Christians and other religions. In recent years, under the influence of al Qaeda, some Islamic terror groups have gained strength in Indonesia. The 2002 Bali bombings were carried out by Jemaah Islamiyah, a radical Islamist group. Despite convicting most of the perpetrators of that hideous attack, fundamentalism kept growing in the country.

It is disconcerting to see Indonesia, which used to be a highly tolerant society, going Pakistan’s way. The universal appeal of a caliphate and the so-called ‘Muslim Ummah’ has obliterated national differences and tolerance in many Muslim countries. Saudi Arabia’s Wahabiism can be seen as the root cause of this rising intolerance. Though Wahabis claim to ‘purify’ Islam of all ‘deviations’, in essence they have done great injustice to the message of Islam, i.e. peaceful coexistence of all religions. It is time for the moderate Muslims to intellectually defeat the trend of hardliner Islamists. The Indonesians should learn a lesson from Pakistan where the religious right has grown so strong with the backing of powerful quarters that liberal and progressive voices have been almost muted. If the Indonesians do not learn from our example, a violent future awaits them.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Al Qaeda and Karachi

By Khaled Ahmed
February 12, 2011


We all know that al Qaeda once had its best warriors placed in Karachi. Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, mastermind of 9/11 and killer, by his own confession, of American journalist Daniel Pearl, lived here. So did many others of lower ranks, till Musharraf made it tough for them to live in the open and survive. Some say Osama bin Laden met Mullah Omar here, at the Banuri mosque, under the benign gaze of Mufti Shamzai.

Karachi is said to be the favourite haunt of the Quetta Shura, which means Pakistan uses it to lodge people on the run from foreign surveillance. Karachi is safe because the writ of the state is thin here, given its no-go areas and heavily armed mafias who kill policemen like flies. Benazir was to be safely killed here, but escaped. Many Americans have lost their lives in this city. The French suffered the trauma of losing an entire bunch of their technicians to a suicide-bomber they continue to think was unleashed by the state.

Now, Rohan Gunaratna and Khuram Iqbal have highlighted Karachi as a haven of foreign terrorists in their book Pakistan Terrorism Ground Zero (Reaktion Books, London 2011). It says al Qaeda exerts more influence on the Pakistani Taliban than on the Afghan Taliban. In August 2008, TTP spokesman Maulvi Omar stated that the Taliban had the capability to gain control over Karachi (p.41). Mullah Omar, Abdullah Mehsud, Qari Zafar and many other top leaders of the Taliban movement are graduates of Darul Ulum Islamia Banuria in Jamshed Quarters, Karachi. Although Mullah Omar never studied at Jamia Banuria, he was awarded its honorary degree (p.41).

[According to an Arab biographer of Aiman alZawahiri, Montasser alZayyat, Zawahiri was only a surgeon from Egypt but was given a PhD in surgery in Pakistan. Pakistan doesn’t have a PhD degree in surgery!]

Karachi hosts the largest concentration of Afghans outside Afghanistan, mainly settled illegally in the vicinity of Malir and Gadap towns in various housing schemes and bastis.

The Afghan Pashtuns settled in Sohrab Goth, Qaidabad, Banaras and Kemari, areas traditionally inhabited by Pashtuns. There was no proper settlement plan: Sohrab Goth, the largest settlement, for example, reached at least 100,000 at its peak. Traffic between Karachi and Afghanistan and Pakistan’s frontier, notably Fata, increased. The increase in refugees was matched by the growth in the supply of weapons and narcotics from Afghanistan (p.116).

The high-threat groups in Karachi are al Qaeda (Qari Zafar Group), TTP, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah Sahaba Pakistan. The medium-threat groups are Sipah-e-Muhammad Pakistan, Harkatul Mujahideen alAlami, Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami, Tehrik-e-Islami Lashkar-e-Muhammadi and Jandullah. Low-threat groups are the Harkatul Ansar, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Fiqh-e-Jafaria. The most active local groups are Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and its military wing, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (p.117).

Jamia Banuria is the ideological headquarters of the Deobandi terrorist outfits, although much lowered in profile by its post-Shamzai leadership. The first vehicle-borne suicide bombing in Pakistan took place in Karachi on May 8, 2002, when a suicide bomber from Harkatul Mujahideen alAlami, drove into the side of a bus outside the Sheraton Hotel: 11 of the 14 killed were French naval technicians staying at the hotel (p.120).

Karachi trained terrorists for al Qaeda’s actions in Southeast Asia. Between January, 2002 and August, 2003, Hanbali, a senior Indonesian al Qaeda leader, received a total of $130,000 from Khalid Sheikh Muhammad (p.123). Al Qaeda’s Abu Ammar exported explosives to the US using a Karachi-based textile import and export firm. He was supported by Aafia Siddiqui, an MIT biology graduate and PhD candidate in neuro-cognitive sciences at Brandeis University, who also lived in Karachi (p.125).

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13th, 2011.