Our society is now harvesting the bitter fruits of espousing a wrapped ideology, teaching distorted history, implementing an unbalanced educational curriculum, supporting right wing propaganda and enforcing blatantly discriminatory laws. Add to this our attitude and policies towards the medieval practices being bandied about in the garb of a sort of a “born again Islam” in shape of Taliban, and the cup of misery really spills over.
Step by step we have unnecessarily dragged religion into legislative process, with dire consequences for our society. Starting from mixing religion with parliamentary legislation, moving on to the parliament declaring a sect non Muslim and then later on codifying laws which converted a very practical statute to one used almost exclusively as a means of vengeance!
The objectives resolution opened the door for orthodox theocracy to be impose their views on the will of the people. This was exploited to set up oversight bodies which have now become a sort of “shariah compliant” barometers, with wide ranging powers to declare any law as being against shariah. The will of the people is now, technically, subservient to that of theocracy…
Z A Bhutto, by sponsoring legislation declaring Ahmedi’s as non Muslims, involved the state in matters of purely religious nature, giving religious authorities an uncalled for role in parliamentary proceedings. And all of this while ignoring the fact that the same religious authorities would have equally happily declared most of the sects, bar their own, as non Muslims, and also conveniently ignoring the fact that several Muslim sects hold views which were considerably more controversial than the ones professed or admitted to by the Ahmedi’s. This includes , in case of a significant sect, a different Kalima, the very basis of our proclamation of faith!
But the Zia era was the one which inflicted the most damage. The hudood ordinance which unfairly targeted women, the introduction / tightening of discriminatory laws severely restricting the rights of the minorities to profess and preach their faith, and then the widening of the scope of the blasphemy laws. Initially implemented to cater to his supporters among the core religious hard liners, these laws have created untold misery and contributed significantly to the brutalization of society.
Just to give an example of the havoc created by the widening of the blasphemy laws: from the late 1920’s , when the first penal code section 295a , dealing with hurting religious sentiments of any class, was legislated to mid 1980’s , less than 10 cases were registered under this section. Then sections 295b and 295c were added under Zia. From that time to present more than 4,000 cases have been registered, a vast majority of them with clearly mala fide intentions!!!
The even more tragic, and largely untold aspect of these laws is the violence which has been perpetuated against the accused, and on the members of judiciary who have acquitted them. This has included murders, both in judicial lockups and after acquittals, of the accused, and of a judge in his chambers. Continuous harassment has forced others to go into hiding or flee the country.
The distortions to history are also fuelling misplaced zeal .. take the very case of Ghazi Ilam Din Shaheed which lead later on to the introduction of section 295a of the then Indian Penal Code, adopted as Pakistan penal code , later on ..
The facts of the case are that Rajpal, who was murdered, was the publisher of the inflammatory pamphlet , not the author. Though he was undoubtedly guilty by association, he was prosecuted by the then Punjab government but was let off after a number of trials , reluctantly as noted by the Sikh judge of the Lahore high court, as there was no relevant section to punish him, at that time. Jinnah did not represent Ilm Din at the initial trial, where a not guilty plea was entered, but only joined the defense team later, at the appeal stage to the Lahore high court. Then on the failure of the appeal case a mercy petition was filed to the King …
The defense Jinnah put up at the appeal stage was centered around questioning the reliability of the witnesses and appealing for a lenient sentence based on young age of Ilm Din – quite a different chain of events then the ones being circulated now!
Another such aspect is the veneration of historical figures who took a hard line stance about religion. While we are told about the piety of Aurangzeb, the disastrous impact of his religious policies on the well being of the future of Mughal empire is seldom mentioned. Equally tragically, Akbar’s policy of religious tolerance is almost always painted in a negative shade – the fact that this was essential in order to consolidate Mughal rule is blatantly overlooked …
The Zia years also took a very heavy toll on our official educational curriculum … our history was re written with the emphasis being on proving that the only source of culture we ever had was that of puritan Islam .. the impact of the rich intermingling with other religions and cultures was omitted … while the battles were glorified, the role of Muslim Sufi’s in propagating Islam was minimized … as was their philosophy of universal love and respect for fellow human beings …
Jinnah was converted into an individual whose zeal for implementing Islamic Shariah would have put most of our present day maulana’s to shame! Only those parts of Iqbal’s poetry were retained which had religious overtones. The ones dealing with social equality and his contempt for traditional religious thought quietly discarded. Jamat e Islami’s, and a host of other religious parties’ opposition to creation of Pakistan was not be mentioned in polite conversations. Jamiat, the student wing of Jamat, ruled educational institutions – one result being a weeding out of non conformist teachers.
An even more grim change happened in the traditional madrassah’s. A much more virulent form of violence was indoctrinated in order to train holy warriors for the Afghan war – fuelled by money pouring in from abroad young children were taught the merits of dealing in final solutions for enemies of Islam. That war being over , moderates have now become the target of a number of these zealots who see anyone questioning their version of Islam as heretics …
Mostly belonging to extreme Sunni sects, these madrassah’s have also created hatred against other Muslim sects, particularly the Shia’s. It’s no coincidence that the targeted killing of Shia’s, and anti Shia pogroms started taking place during Zia’s regime. A large number of professionals, mostly doctors, were the victims of such targeted killings. On the other hand state orchestrated religious cleansings were rampant in the northern areas.
Unfortunately, our shortsighted Afghan policy is now the single biggest cause of religious fanaticism and intolerance in our country. While rejoicing in the pains of the US in Afghanistan, again mostly self inflicted by the Yankees, we overlook the rather frightening alternative – we as a nation tend to forget events pretty quickly, and much more so when its serves the self interest of our rulers, whether in high offices or in uniforms …
We seemed to have forgotten the “enlightened” version of Islam practiced by the erstwhile Taliban. The plight of women and the treatment of minorities seems to have escaped our collective memory. The denial of women of any sort of freedom of choice and the wide spread slaughter of Shia minority, specially Hazara’s was a policy of state in the emirate , as it was deemed to be then. The cultural agenda restricted to destroying world heritage. And then there were the throat slitting, and the other examples of “quick justice” during their hold over Swat and other parts of our north western frontier!
We are already suffering the effects of the teaser campaign being run by these extremists , in shape of executions of teachers and blowing off of schools. The Pakistan army has to realize very quickly that there are no good or bad, or ours and theirs Taliban. It’s an extremist creed which is not compatible with any form of a civilized , moderate and just society. Their way of life is not ours. Being largely responsible for having created this Frankenstein, we need to figure out a solution pretty soon. The only good Taliban is the one across the Durand line …
As the assassination of Salman Taseer has shown, again, extremism has infiltrated our security forces. This is not the first case of such nature. Police personnel colluded with Riaz Basra, one of the most ruthless extremist, in his escape from custody. Somehow the mechanism to weed out such individuals will have to be implemented … and quickly. Recruiting based on merit , and assessing suitability of the candidates profile, would be the first right steps. Police need to learn from the Army here …
Our media seems to be taken over by a right wing agenda of discrediting the whole system of democratic values. Not that our present set of rulers are not providing them enough fodder for propaganda – but to hear them harkening for the golden period of the real deal, a strong, just and , unfortunately, imaginary leader! The talk shows are full of individuals sprouting forth on various uplifting incidents of our golden Islamic history. Curiously most of these events seem to have happened only upto the period of the first two rightly guided caliphs!
One of the particularly amusing, or depressing, example is the ad on Geo by our ultimate warrior compere Hamid Meer, where he is asked by a particularly agitated villager that “when I am going to be an owner of my own piece of land?” Mr. Meer responds by just standing there in silent sympathy, apparently musing over another failure of the state. The right answer, unless the guy comes up with a load of money, is never! It’s not on the agenda of any religious party , never was and never will be …
All of the above have built up to a level of dangerously high frustration among the masses. Add to that the incessant propaganda that Pakistan is a rich country being milked off by rich , and obviously very corrupt, politicians and we have a massive powder keg on our hand!
The only truth in the above statement is that our mostly rich, and mostly very corrupt politicians are making our already bankrupt country even more bankrupt!!! There is a lot of economic pain ahead, and the masses better be informed quickly of our state or “mis-state” of affairs …
We as a nation have to act quick before a chain of events is unleashed which will only lead to a failed , vicious state. The mostly liberal secular parties like PPP, ANP and MQM , have to forget the past, bury the hatchet and stand united for upholding democratic, moderate and decent values. Their failure to do so will only ensure that the right leaning parties come to power, with the resultant , even more concession to the extremist regressive agenda.
Someone also needs to stand up and remind the people about the true message of Islam and the way the Prophet (PBUH) conducted his affairs. Even when in power he gracefully dealt with all people, including those who refused to accept him as a prophet , mainly the Jews. We need to keep such examples in mind before we go on a self proclaimed mission to guard his honor, which has been guaranteed by the Almighty in the holy Quran.
And to those who are celebrating a murder, of a man, both a father and a husband, whose politics I mostly never agreed to, but who did dare do the decent thing by reaching out to a helpless woman and citizen, I can only part quote John Donne’s , “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee” ..
Looking at the events of the near past, I pray. But I also fear.
I fear that the bell has already tolled for us, for we stood silently by …
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