Source & Credit: Daily dawn | Pakistan
By Kunwar Idris | July 11, 2010
MUFTIS and maulanas as well as political leaders while condemning targeted or mass murders, usually add that the gunmen or suicide bombers “cannot be Muslims” though they know well that they are.
The religious belief of a killer or of his victim is not relevant. It is one human being killing another. The enormity of the crime and loss of life therefore must be weighed on the scales of humanity.
Mufti Munibur Rehman, head of a federation of madressahs, referred to Surah Maida, Verse 32 in his comment on the suicide bombing at Lahore’s Data Darbar. (“We decreed for the children of Israel that whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind.”)
But why did leading religious scholars not consider it appropriate to condemn the massacre of twice as many Ahmadis in the same terms only a month earlier in a gun-and-grenade attack lasting four hours? The victims in their opinion may not have been Muslims but they were surely human beings. And why could the prime minister and the Punjab chief minister not muster enough sympathy or spare enough time to visit a larger number injured in hospital?
In answer to these questions lies the explanation for all the deprivations and sufferings of the country and its uncertain future. Pakistan’s human triumphs and tragedies, good and wicked deeds, are all viewed in the light of politics and then tend to take on a provincial, ethnic or sectarian colour. More damaging and spreading faster are religious divisions. Schisms have given birth to numerous schools of thought — each with its own doctrine and political identity.
The achievements of Abdus Salam in the field of science found only grudging public recognition. Abdus Salam got no support from Ziaul Haq for his research programmes in the country. The services of Zafrulla Khan for the cause of Kashmir, Palestine, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, etc. are gratefully remembered in those countries but not in his own. Abdus Salam’s house in Jhang, given gratis to be preserved as a national heritage, is in decay. The explanation for this neglect too lies in his being an Ahmadi.
Gen Ziaul Haq decreed (unofficially) that no Ahmadi would rise beyond the rank of brigadier though before that some of the finest generals including Akhtar Malik, Iftikhar Janjua, Abdul Ali Malik, Zafar Chaudhry (air force chief) and his own personal surgeon-general Mahmudul Hassan were Ahmadis.
Schisms dividing Indian Muslims had initially obstructed the creation of Pakistan. Since independence the very Islamic groups who had then opposed the secular Mr Jinnah have been subverting the country’s political institutions.
However, it was not the religious leaders but a general who had the last word on politics. Ziaul Haq reduced parliament to a consultative council, made the polity intolerant by expanding the range of offences relating to religion and declared jihad a pillar of state policy. The origin of extremism that has nurtured terrorism can be traced to his hate laws and his adventurism in the name of Islam. His real aim was to prolong his personal rule.
Currently, as the politicians, ex-generals and intellectuals discuss how to pull the country out of the morass of hate and violence, it keeps sinking deeper into it. The prime minister’s idea of a roundtable of politicians, clerics, divines, etc to consider sterner laws, improved intelligence, reinforced security, patronising some Islamists and outlawing others, appears stillborn.
Already the Jamaat-i-Islami has rejected it as a diversionary tactic and Mufti Munibur Rehman has said that Punjab Governor Salman Taseer and Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif are the real patrons of the extremists.
It is hard to imagine how the Punjab administration, howsoever vigilant and strengthened, would fare better if gunmen or bombers were again to strike at a shrine or a mosque. At Data Darbar it was all over in a few minutes. The gunmen at Garhi Shahu’s Ahmadi Baitulhamd situated in the heart of Lahore were on a killing spree for four hours. All along the men injured or dying in the mayhem were in contact with their dear ones through cellphones but the authorities did nothing to save them. The solution lies not in defeating the terrorists (which even our half-a-million-strong army backed by the air force and US drones has not been able to do in the borderlands over the last eight years) but in creating a national environment of moderation and trust.
I have often wondered how the Muslims of Bangladesh have been able to shed their religious prejudices since 1971 while over the same period here prejudices have bloomed into terror. The answer may be found in Prof Yunus’s Grameen Bank and Sir Fazle Hasan Abed’s BRAC. Their micro finance and development programmes involving rural women and idle youth, besides making the community economically self-reliant, are changing social attitudes and promoting education in villages and urban slums. The Aga Khan’s programme led by Shoaib Sultan Khan made a similar impact in the mountainous north in less than a generation.
I have no doubt that if the billions sunk every year in Pakistan Steel, PIA, railways and other state ventures, the money doled out to lawyers and donated to Hafiz Saeed’s madressahs and the salaries paid to thousands of non-existent school teachers were diverted to rural micro finance and development, Pakistan’s next generation might not adopt secularism as a pillar of state policy, as Bangladesh has done, but would certainly reject extremism.
kunwaridris@hotmail.com
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