An interesting Editorial in todays Dawn. English Press has always been more objective. Regretablly, mass circulation is of Urdu Press which is full of rightest thinking reporters and writers.
Give terrorists no quarter
A WEEK after the crackdown on the Lal Masjid and three days after Ayman al-Zawahiri asked his followers to hit Pakistan, his suicide bombers have struck. Even though the blasts occurred in Fata and the NWFP, everyone in the country has been shaken to the core. With over 100 dead in the Lal Masjid shootout, the death toll from two days of suicide attacks is too high to bear for this traumatised nation. Deeply troubled, people are appalled that some fiends should resort to barbarism in the name of Islam. Taking exception to the governments handling of the Lal Masjid stand-off is one thing, massacring innocent people quite another. The way the security forces had a go at the well-armed militants holed up in the sacred precincts of a mosque has been widely criticised in the country. This paper has been strongly critical of the governments policies on many vital issues. But it has never believed that killing innocent men, women and children can make the rulers change their policies.
The fanatic criminals who have murdered a minimum of 74 innocent persons and injured over 100 over the weekend consider this government to be their enemy because of its decision to join the US-led war on terror. Again, the opposition to the governments foreign policy comes from many quarters, and even societys liberal sections feel strongly about the way the generals have been extending cooperation to the US-led forces in Afghanistan and often behaving in a way that presents a tainted image of the country. But the best way to make the government realise its follies is to criticise it in and outside parliament and defeat it at the polls. However, to kill people innocent people going about their days work or people who, in fact, may be sympathetic to the oppositions point of view is to behave like monsters. One must now ask Al-Zawahiri in what way he has furthered the cause of Islam by instigating these massacres. Besides, why does not he go back to his country and do whatever he likes there? Those who actually blow themselves up may perhaps be less guilty than the blood-sucking Draculas who convert innocent minds to their monstrous ways. The extent of the brainwashing to which the Al Qaeda and Taliban ideologues subject their acolytes was to be seen in the statement by a Hafsa girl over TV that she considered all those security men involved in the crackdown as kafirs.
Occasionally, Maulana Fazlur Rahman gives the impression that he is quite capable of rational thinking. Speaking at a joint meeting of the MMA and madressah leaders in Islamabad on Sunday, the deputy leader of the opposition disapproved of these massacres and said that Pakistan was not the place for suicide bombings. The JUI (F) chief also had the courage to call a spade a spade and said that Rashid Ghazi had not shown flexibility during the negotiations. Unfortunately, the majority of politicised ulema do not share the MMA leaders view on suicide bombings. The madressahs were, by and large, opposed to the Aziz-Ghazi brothers criminal activities in the Lal Masjid, but after the stand-off was over, most of them criticised the governments handling of it. But, on the whole, the ulema had on no occasion expressed their sympathy for the two brothers gangsterism. However, apart from ritualistic condemnations of suicide bombings, the politicians among the ulema have not denounced these attacks and have, in fact, behaved in a way that shows sympathy for the Al-Zawahiri-inspired suicide bombings. This is astonishing, and throws into doubt their sense of proportion which prevents them from condemning foreign-inspired terrorism that aims at destabilising Pakistan.
Regrettably, civil society and the opposition parties do not appear to be performing their duty on this question. This is no time for politicking, for what is at stake is not the fate of the Musharraf government but the fate and future of Pakistan. Will Pakistan be ruled by values given by Iqbal and Jinnah, the dreamer and the founder, or will it be ruled by the clergy with the thinking and outlook of medieval monks and Jesuits good at burning heretics at the stake? Irrespective of the acute political differences that exist between the government and the opposition, the nation must unite in its resolve to defeat religious militancy. The government must not waver in its resolve to rid the country of this monster. Those who are threatening to enforce Sharia at gunpoint are a small minority. They may kill without mercy and give the impression as if they can carry the nation along. But in reality the nation does not approve of such killings. No doubt, they are quite capable of perpetuating terror in isolated pockets, but even in Fata and the NWFP the vast majority of the people are sick of them. This should enable the government to draw up policies that combine force with an approach that seeks to enlist the peoples cooperation in isolating and defeating the murderous fanatics.
Rooting out terrorism is a national task. For that reason, the military-led government must try to develop a national consensus on its anti-terror policy. The best way to do this is to ensure transparency in the election due later this year. The nation and its well-wishers abroad want to see a democratic dispensation in Pakistan. The continuation of the status quo in which the elected civilian leadership has been subordinated to the military stands in the way of a successful prosecution of the war on terror.
http://www.dawn.com/2007/07/17/ed.htm
