Whither madrassa regulation?
March 28th, 2011
Just about every terrorist attack in the last decade, it appears, has emerged from Pakistan’s unregulated madrassas. These religious schools, operating without government regulation, have become incubators of hate and tolerance. And, as a report in this paper on March 26 revealed, the current dispensation, much like the one that preceded it, has been unable to make any progress on that front. About six months ago, the interior ministry and the Tanzeem-e-Madaris Pakistan came to a ten-point agreement to enforce a uniform curriculum, ensure that madrassas do not teach hate literature and register all foreign students, among other things. Needless to say, this has not yet been enforced by the government. Indeed, the government has not even set up a committee to deal with madrassa reform yet.
The government’s inability or unwillingness to tackle madrassa reform is reminiscent of previous failed efforts by General Pervez Musharraf. In a speech in June 2002, Musharraf had promised to do much of what the PPP government is now supposed to enforce. Among his proposals, Musharraf called for the modernisation and regulation of madrassas to integrate them with Pakistan’s mainstream educational system. He conspicuously failed to do so despite earmarking more than $100 million for the task. After the Lal Masjid seige of 2007, Musharraf pledged once more to tackle the madrassa problem. Again he did not do so.
If anything, the problem has become worse since then. Unregulated and unregistered madrassas continue to proliferate and are still providing militant groups with fodder for terrorist attacks. Islamabad in particular has seen a mushrooming of madrassas since the Lal Masjid attack, funded by wealthy businessmen at home and expatriates from the Gulf. It is estimated that there are dozens of such madrassas, and students from at least one of them were involved in a militant attack at the Parade Lane in Rawalpindi. Apart from providing a steady stream of foot soldiers to militant groups, they are responsible for the ideological brainwashing of yet another generation of Pakistanis. For the government to be so tardy in pursuing real and meaningful madrassa reform shows just how blind they are to this threat. Fighting militancy will be ineffective unless its ideological root is also tackled.
Dramatic revelations
March 28th, 2011
Our interior minister is given to making some rather startling revelations now and then. He has now stated that all persons suspected of being involved in the 2007 murder of Benazir Bhutto were under arrest and the investigation report into the case revealed who these assassins were and what their real motives were. There has been a hint of a possible attempt to destabilise the region or the country. It is difficult to say at this point what this is all about or what the connotations made by Mr Malik allude to. He has said the PPP’s central executive committee will decide if the report is to be made public or not. Until now, the report has not been produced before the committee, leading to all kinds of questions being raised. We certainly hope the truth, and the whole truth, about one of the most sensational and tragic assassinations in our political history will come out. As citizens, we deserve to know what happened and why. Benazir was, after all, a leader not only of her own party but of people across the country. Many today continue to mourn her death and also the huge political vacuum it has left behind. More than three years after she was assassinated conjecture continues to surround the issue of what happened and why. There are many theories, and over time they have grown. It is time the truth came out.
We must then hope Mr Malik’s words are a step in this direction. The clearing up of the mystery could help ease the sea of conspiracy we have seen swirl for far too long. The doubts and uncertainties have clouded the political atmosphere. We must hope the report, and all the revelations contained within it, will be put before the committee, so that we can know precisely what Mr Malik means and who the people are whom he says have been held in connection with the Benazir killing, thereby ending the sense of uncertainty that has followed it for so many long months.