Countering our very own Frankenstein

By Beena Sarwar

The death of Abdul Rashid Ghazi on July 10 evening in the attack on Islamabad's Lal Masjid is not likely to be the end of the rising confrontation between the Pakistani state and the Islamic militants it has harboured and encouraged for over two decades.

The Lal Masjid story has been consistently in the forefront in Pakistan (and on the inside pages of newspapers in America) for the past week, but it actually began in 1979 when America enlisted Pakistan, led by the all-too willing Gen Ziaul Haq, as a front-line state against the Communists who had invaded Afghanistan. Soon the Pakistani madressahs were flush with money coming from America and Saudi Arabia and more madressahs were cropping up, along with training camps for the 'mujahideen' or holy warriors. Afghanistan's fight for national independence was transformed into a 'jehad' or holy war.

It is ironic that Gen Zia's son, Ijazul Haq who is currently Minister for Religious Affairs, was among the negotiators trying to work out a solution with Ghazi until talks failed in the early hours of Tuesday. The failure of the talks, according to one web-based news site was due to pressure from Washington. The report quoted anonymous sources as saying that Musharraf had told his aides that he was "heavily under duress from his allies".

Abdul Rashid Ghazi's 'radicalisation' from a moderate youth who initially rejected his father's religious training and did a masters in International Relations from the well-regarded Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad itself reflects the rise of 'militant Islam'. He was transferred from the Ministry of Education to Unesco in Islamabad where he worked for several years, he was married into a moderate family, and attended mixed gatherings.

Hailing from a poor family of Baloch Mazaris in Southern Punjab, Ghazi's father Maulana Abdullah was the first khateeb of Lal Masjid when it was built by the government's Auqaf department in 1965. He retained this post for over thirty years, until his death. In the 1980s, he was known to be close to various government officials and to Gen Zia. His story too reflects the geo-political realities of our times. The Lal Masjid, like so many others, developed during the Afghan war years into the multi-storied, fortified, sprawling mosque-madressah complex that has been centre-stage of the ongoing drama for the past week. When a gunman, thought to be from a rival Islamic group, murdered Abdullah in the mosque courtyard in 1998, this too was part of a now-familiar pattern.

After the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1988-89, the world turned its attention from the war-ravaged country. The purpose had been served: Communism had been defeated. The mujahideen who for the last decade had been steeped in the mind-set of 'jihad' and violence, began fighting each other. Many returned to a Pakistan bereft of their chief patron Gen Ziaul Haq, killed in a mid-air explosion in August 1988. It is not a coincidence that the farce of Pakistan's 'return to democracy' was marked not just by governments being regularly dissolved and caretaker setups overseeing fresh general elections, but by a rise in sectarian violence that has claimed hundreds of lives since then -- over 1,668 according to figures compiled from newspaper reports between 1989 and 2004. The violence and the killings were at their peak in the mid- to late-1990s. Maulana Abdullah appears to be but one of the casualties of a fire that he himself was involved in stoking.

His murder served to bring his younger son, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, back to the fold. He was guided in this by his elder brother, Abdul Aziz, who inherited the title of mosque khateeb. Ghazi continued his job with the ministry of education but became overtly more religious, growing a beard and taking more interest in the affairs of the mosque and its attached madrasseh. The turning point for him was "9/11" and the US invasion of Afghanistan. In 2004, he was at the centre of a controversial fatwa according to which Pakistan army soldiers killed in operation in South Waziristan were to be considered infidels not worthy of a Muslim burial.

Lal Masjid's links with Al Qaeda were also revealed that year. Ghazi was accused of plotting to attack government installations, but was soon mysteriously cleared of those charges and some Uzbeks were instead found guilty. Lal Masjid again came in the limelight after the London transit bombings of July 2005, when it was reported that some of the perpetrators had visited it. However, the Pakistan government took no action, and made no attempt to arrest the brothers even after declaring them as wanted criminals.

The links between Pakistan's intelligence agencies and the 'militant Islamists' or 'terrorists' as the mujahideen are now called, are all too apparent. Those involved in the Lal Masjid saga are no exception. According to a web-based news site, Abdul Aziz told them that he often visited intelligence agency officers disguised in a burqa. He was "deceived" as this is what he was attempting to do, at the request of a senior such officer, the day he was captured. These links are behind the Musharraf government's ineffectual dealing of the crisis (in contrast to the heavy-handedness with which liberal or secular protests are handled).

Perhaps the Lal Masjid saga would have been allowed to continue, as it has been since January this year, had the government's inaction not emboldened the Lal Masjid affiliates to start taking vigilante actions reminiscent of the Taliban's Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice department and Saudi Arabia's Morality Police. The government could have acted in many ways to deflate this growing Frankenstein. Lal Masjid had encroached on government land to build the Jamia Hafsa women's madressah. Electricity and water to this illegal building could have been cut off a long time ago, before serving a notice for the impending demolition of the building -- a notice that gave the Jamia Hafsa students the impetus to protest by taking over a children's library in Islamabad. This was well before the eruption of the 'judicial crisis' which has now been conveniently relegated to the background by the drama surrounding the Lal Masjid.

"Though radical Islamist forces constitute a minority, they constitute a significant one. And while the vast majority of Pakistanis do not support jihadists, they do not necessarily support Musharraf's agenda either. Overall, Pakistan lacks a national consensus regarding Islam's role in public affairs, something extremist and radical forces are exploiting," notes The US-based think-tank, Statfor, in its Morning Intelligence Brief of July 9, 2007.

The Statfor report predicts that the Red Mosque operation "is likely the beginning of a long confrontation between the state and radical/militant Islamist forces. Such a clash will involve military operations in areas such as the North-West Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, as well as nationwide social unrest."

According to media reports, pro-Taliban elements like the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi have already clashed with the military. The TNSM has reportedly seized all highways in the area, including the Silk Road leading to China. The story is far from over.



The writer is a freelance journalist currently based in the Boston area.

Email: beena.sarwar@gmail.com

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=64034

Beyond the Lal

Masjid fiasco

By Kamila Hyat

The writer is a former newspaper editor and joint director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan

After a stand-off that lasted over a week, the Lal Masjid crisis has reached its violent end. For days, perhaps weeks or months, questions will continue to be asked: Was the drama staged? Were the deaths that occurred during the operation avoidable? What were the links between the Lal Masjid clerics and the Pakistani establishment? Why did the final attempts to reach a deal flounder? Why were the madressah's administrators able to enrol so many minor pupils at their institution with no apparent system of regulation?

But there is a need to look beyond the immediate – and turn the gaze to both the past, and the future, which is intrinsically linked to it. In the first place, the government must explain to the people of Pakistan why any outfit was able to amass so large and dangerous an arsenal of arms within a building located in the heart of Islamabad. This could obviously not have happened without official connivance and support over many years and most probably decades.

It also seems too much to believe that the failures of the vast intelligence apparatus that Pakistan maintains and which tax-payers support was so humungous that they were unaware several wanted militants, accused of involvement in various terrorist acts, were based within the mosque until the very last hours of the conflict. Surely the presence of these persons must have been known in advance. The fact that they were able to reside in the federal capital, the most securely guarded city in the country, can once against suggest only that they have dangerous links in key centres of power -- or else the intelligence services are even more incompetent than is generally suspected.

But now that the Lal Masjid drama, which kept millions glued to their TV screens for days, is finally over, there is a need to look beyond the minarets of this particular mosque. The fact that, in media interviews, so many clerics, citizens and at least some members of government backed the Lal Masjid's 'drive against immorality', but opposed the methods used, is educative. It shows the direction in which opinion is drifting, and the essential hypocrisy of a society that refuses to acknowledge the immorality of a society within which exploitation of the most vulnerable, the abuse of children and women and large scale corruption are all apparently acceptable. 'Immorality' it seems is defined then only in the most narrow, blinkered terms and actions taken on the basis of allegations, side-stepping law and the mechanisms that exist to tackle such issues, quite widely supported.

The fact that no move was made against Lal Masjid militants who for years and months harassed women walking along Islamabad's pristine greenbelts, noted down the number plates of women driving on their own and, later, emboldened by the lack of check on their activities, invaded buildings, abducted citizens and burnt the property of music or video shops, proves official support for their actions. Without this approval, the militias of fanatics bred within Lal Masjid could never have dared to carry out such 'missions'.

The fact though remains that even if the Lal Masjid-run seminaries are currently empty; if the compounds where rows of bamboo sticks once stood and the cupboards filled with Kalashnikovs have been seized, other institutions that are perhaps no less dangerous carry on. In the town of Muridke, 30 kilometres from Lahore, the Jamaatud Daawa (previously the Lashkar-e-Taiba -- Pakistan's biggest 'jihadi' group) owns and manages a 'Markaz' or centre spread over several hectares of land. The small 'city within a city' houses residential areas, markets, schools, training centres and medical facilities. Local people in Muridke say young men are regularly seen training over military-style assault courses and at least some media reports suggest a sizeable arsenal of arms exists at the Markaz and at other buildings used by the JUD.

As was the case at the Lal Masjid run seminaries, a particularly hardline brand of Islam is preached at institutions run by the group. There are other centres and groups that also deserve attention. Several intelligence reports are known to exist on madressahs based in Gujranwala, and other small towns in the Punjab. Capitalizing on deprivation, poverty and the frustrations of many people beset by joblessness and socio-economic hardship, it has been reported that these institutions build feelings of hatred, weaving it in with religious philosophy. The killing of the late Punjab minister Zille Huma, by a fanatic, is evidence of the extent to which people can be brainwashed and thinking distorted by such preaching.

The recent spate of threats and attacks on female theatre and film artistes in Lahore is further proof of the growing menace in society. And there are fears that in the aftermath of the Lal Masjid operation, such attacks as well as other acts of terror may increase, with feelings of anger and a desire for vengeance apparently running high even in non-religious educational institutions in Lahore, and elsewhere.

Whereas the vast Tableeghi Jamaat and its Raiwind-based network, which has been able to convert many members of the Pakistan cricket team to its cause, has always stated it focuses only on preaching, there have been accusations that it acts as a stepping stone from which people enter the more shadowy world of militant outfits. Certainly, the group has played a powerful role in perpetuating greater orthodoxy in society, and propounding rigid views regarding music, art or other aspects of culture.

In other parts of the country, militants have in fact taken over life, through the use of firearms and force. In vast tracts of Malakand, shops selling CDs have been destroyed, girls' schools bombed, men made to grow beards and voluminous 'burqas' draped even over small girls. Similar trends have been reported in Bannu, Tank, Darra Adam Khel and other areas that lie within a stone's throw from Peshawar.

For years, these realities were ignored, and the rule of ignorance and fanaticism allowed to creep across the country. The suffering of ordinary people, who were the victims of militants, was turned a blind eye to. But now, its effects have been seen in Islamabad itself. The ruling elite has heard the booms of heavy arms and the chilling rattle of automatic weapons that continued for days; they have had to face the embarrassment of stick-wielding, black-cloaked women running amuck through the capital city to conduct their activities of abduction; at least one ultra-suave spa has suspended services after objections -- depriving scores of stressed men of their luxury massages -- and pungent whiffs of tear gas have wafted over even some of the most plush residential quarters.

These events appear, at least for the moment, to have brought the reality of extremism home to decision-makers. What action they will take to avert more Lal Masjid-style crises is still to be seen, with predictions already being made of further turmoil in the months ahead.



Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=64032

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

A deafening silence

Ikram Sehgal

Situated almost in the centre of Islamabad, the Lal Masjid complex has most federal government offices (including the Presidency, the two Houses of Parliament, Prime Minister's Office, the Supreme Court, Federal Ministries and the Intelligence Bureau) a mile or so to its north-east. The diplomatic enclave (including the US Embassy) and the ISI headquarters are the same distance east and west, respectively. One would suppose (and reasonably expect) that the intelligence agencies and other law-enforcement agencies, particularly those in the vicinity, would have informed the government about the activities of the religious extremists running its administration and taken steps to prevent a potential catastrophe. Automatic weapons in the hands of the students of the seminary should have been some cause for consternation, if not absolute alarm, given the proliferation of unlicensed weapons on blatant public display in Pakistan.

Unchecked by the law-enforcement agencies the seminary students eventually had to go berserk. This was evidenced not only by high-handedness with their neighbours but in expanding the sphere of Jamia Hafsa-style vigilante-type justice, enforced mainly through squads of burqa-clad women bearing staves. What this must have done for Pakistan's already battered imaged in the world is unimaginable! How come everyone in the corridors of governance was blind and deaf to this gathering storm? Will the heads of all the institutions involved with national security have the character to accept responsibility for the bloody catastrophe and resign? Or conversely, will the president hold them accountable and sack them? Or will we go on with life as usual, and sweep under the carpet the blood spilt unnecessarily? With priority given for anything and everything but national security, what can one expect from the agencies and law-enforcement agencies concerned?

The blood of our soldiers sent a strong message to the world as to our commitment in the "war against terrorism." In very bloody and graphic detail the media exposure opened the eyes of the people of Pakistan to the sort of militant activity that goes on under the guise of education in some of the madressahs. Most madressahs (almost 80-90 per cent) are God-sent hostels for the children of the poor and poverty-stricken. Money for their children's education being a dream, the destitute cannot afford to even feed them. We cannot condemn all madrassas. However, several hundred (out of the 12,000 or so known ones) are guilty of imparting military training to their wards and indoctrinating them with their narrow religious beliefs, mostly militant. While one would not like to (or is unqualified to) comment on their beliefs, Islam does happen to be a religion of peace and not one of confrontation. There is no concept of militancy in Islam. The teaching of these seminaries is only self-fulfilling in preaching hatred and violence. Some of them are actually preaching class warfare based on economic inequality under the guise of religion, an attempt to ignite the social fabric in Pakistan and create bloody social upheaval in the streets. The tragedy is that this tragedy has evoked some reaction.

The talks that had gone on for more then 10 hours broke down at about 3.30 am on Tuesday, July 10. The final phase of "Operation Silence" started soon after, at about 4.20 am. Ostensibly the final draft of an agreement had been approved by both sides, and the talks broke down when some changes were made. Abdul Rashid Ghazi raised the subject of "safe passage" for "foreign militants," the first candid admission that they were present on the compound. The government decided not to wait any longer and gave the executive order to the army to act.

The militants inside the compound were well armed and well trained. More importantly they were led by experienced and battle-hardened militants with good knowledge of the tactics of fighting in built-up areas. As any combat soldier will tell you, the most difficult operation is fighting in built-up areas, "close-quarter battle," or CQB in army parlance. The shahadat of Lt. Col. Haroonul Islam commanding officer of Zarrar Battalion, SSG's Anti-Terrorist Unit, with three officers wounded, Maj. Tariq critically, in a platoon-sized operation a few nights earlier, would suggest that the terrorists had night-vision devices, certainly some militants were seen with gas masks. The defenders had light infantry weapons, with light machineguns, rocket launchers, AK-47s, sub-machineguns, hand grenades and hand-made petrol bombs (Molotov cocktails). Plastic explosives and mines were used in great numbers to rig booby traps.

Spread over 5,000-6,000 square yards the complex has about 75 rooms in four floors at one end (the southern part), with a virtual labyrinth of basements further interconnected by recently made tunnels. The presence of these tunnels confirmed that the inhabitants expected violence, and for some time. After all, they were not digging them out with their fingers but had used sophisticated equipment. The attacking forces had great difficulty flushing the terrorists out, particularly when they had to exercise strict control so as not to harm the women and children being held as captives. Why only stun grenades were used, and not nerve gas, even as a last resort, is not known.

Superbly led from the front by their officers and with the Kalima on their lips, Zarrar Battalion attacked from three or four directions, quickly gaining access to the roof and fanning out, taking control of most of the complex in two or three hours of intense fighting. Forty to fifty militants were killed in the initial thrust and another 50 or so captured, which freed over 24 children initially; later a group of another 27 women and three children were freed. Among those killed on the first day were three officers and about five troopers. The final death toll is yet to be known. Throughout our history our young officers have shown outstanding leadership under fire. Regretfully, those who send such men to their deaths, themselves keeping out of harm's way, have never heard a shot being fired in anger, and if they claim otherwise they are blatant liars. By mid-morning the remaining militants had retreated, in accordance with a well-thought out plan, into the basement (and the tunnels linking them) as a last redoubt, using women and children as human shield. The fortifications were known to be formidable and well-sited, the interlinking tunnels turned out to be far more sophisticated than expected. The mopping-up has taken time.

For six nights, the residents of Islamabad stayed awake because of the gunfire and bomb blasts. It is abundantly clear the foreign militants present prevented Abdul Rashid Ghazi from surrendering. As quiet descended on the shattered buildings, smouldering fires still burned, the effect of battle leaving virtual devastation in an enclave where God's name was invoked for confrontation rather than for peace. Because of the proliferation of booby troops and mines, army engineers have made teams to defuse them. This defusing is a slow, painstaking process. What about the lessons learnt from this tragedy? What about criminal neglect that led to this bloody trauma that the people of Pakistan, particularly those of Islamabad, had to go through?

"Operation Silence" opened with a deafening bang. Why is the silence still deafening?



The writer is a defence and political analyst. Email: isehgal@pathfinder9.com

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=64029

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

The sound of silence



Remediation

By Huma Yusuf

Thursday,July 12,2007

Throughout the Lal Masjid showdown, the local media has been quick to make quips about the situation. Jabs at 'Aunty Aziz' gave way to ironic comments about how Operation Silence was being drowned out by the noise of sporadic gunfire and punctuated explosions. However, since the army entered the mosque's premises on Tuesday night in a bid to flush out the remaining militants, the local media seems to have lost its sense of humor. At the time of this writing, 66 people are reported dead, with a comprehensive body count yet to be undertaken. In sum, the death toll of the Lal Masjid encounter is expected to creep into triple digits. There is no doubt that in addition to precious lives, much has been lost during the past week, including the integrity of our capital city, any lingering ability to trust in an authority figure, and the delusion that any safe havens remain in Pakistan. Now that the Lal Masjid tragedy has run its course, its time to question whether anything could have been gained.

Before Operation Silence was launched, the Pakistani public was confronted with a face-off between army jawans and a mosque full of believers with varying convictions and different interpretations of their mission. This juxtaposition provided a rare opportunity to engage in a productive and nuanced debate on the different forces that are shaping our society, the intersection between religion and politics, and the complex incarnation of Islam in contemporary Pakistan.

Unfortunately, discourse remained thwarted as usual. Despite the lively involvement of the local media in events as they unfolded, the situation was boiled down to a schism. Depending on which side of the fence one was positioned, the Lal Masjid saga was configured as a showdown between the military and the mullahs, American puppets and the defenders of Islam, the authorities and fringe extremists. The thousands inside the mosque were either described as militants or martyrs while army personnel were perceived variously as the forces of oppression or the forces of moderation. As students – both male and female, and of all ages – began pouring out of Lal Masjid, they too were split into two distinct camps: hard-core militants and innocent hostages. From the outset, the Lal Masjid scenario was a case of either/or and never anything in between.

The trend to reduce the situation into simple binaries was most apparent online. A quick search for 'Lal Masjid' across the blogosphere yields many links to websites taking extreme stances on both sides of the issue. For example, blogger Mark Alexander who believes that the west is in danger of being taken back to a "less enlightened" era owing to the rapid spread of Islam has been carefully following the Lal Masjid showdown on his blog titled 'A New Dark Age Is Dawning'. Like others who share his anti-Islam agenda, Alexander is using recent events in Islamabad to highlight the threat posed by religious extremism. Meanwhile, more liberal blogs such as Instapundit.com that frequently debate American foreign policy issues championed the Pakistani government's decision to tackle militancy and take on "those people". For the most part, though, online discussions avoided the meaty issues and chose instead to grapple over the nitty-gritty: the timing of the operation, the amount of weaponry present inside the mosque, the question of whether a nerve gas was used by the army.

Local blogs such as 'Metroblogging: Islamabad' were not much better. While the website itself provided ongoing, reliable updates on each new twist in the tale and its impact on the residents of surrounding areas, commentary on the origins and implications of the stand-off were limited to the comments section. There, readers and bloggers trying to make sense of the situation also gravitated towards opposing ends of the spectrum. Some decried army action as state terrorism while others argued against "terrorist mullahs" and called for the assassination of the mosque's clerics.

The few threads of genuine debate that did flare up over the past week are now as silent as the corpse-littered compound of the mosque. Members and office bearers of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal and Wafaqul Madaris who were willing to critique the obstinacy of Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi and challenge his mandate and method of imposing shariah are singing a different tune now that negotiations are over, the army has made its move, and the flurry of interviews with private cable channels has subsided. The MMA has declared a three-day mourning period for those killed during Operation Silence while various ulema have blamed General Musharraf for failing to negotiate with Maulana Abdul Rashid and the students remaining in the mosque. Concerned and vocal citizens writing on 'Metroblogging: Pakistan' who dared to point out that religious discourse is a necessity when Muslims begin killing each other and claiming shahadat on both sides are now reconciled to lamenting the loss of life.

This, however, is the worst time to put an end to the conversation and let binaries be. We should be questioning why Maulana Abdul Aziz chose to escape from Lal Masjid rather than reducing his capture to a comedy of cross-dressing. We should be asking what it says about the evolution -- or is it devolution? -- of Islam in Pakistan if Jamia Faridia once received funding from a prominent Karachi-based business family. We should be wondering what to make of the women who fled Lal Masjid and are currently configured as innocents who were exploited as human shields, but who left the mosque calling for jihad and vowing vengeance. We should be investigating why Maulana Abdul Rashid --formerly moderate and forever media savvy -- chose not to negotiate with the government.

Above all, we should prevent the Lal Masjid fiasco from being politicized through and through. No doubt, questions about the timing, nature, and outcome of Operation Silence should be raised. But we should also use the tragedy as an opportunity to discuss the crisis that inheres when diverse interpretations of the same religion fail to coexist within an Islamic Republic.

Interestingly, while Lal Masjid went up in smoke in Islamabad, the first Muslim Film Festival was underway in Karachi. Conceived as an opportunity to showcase the diverse, inspiring, creative, and thoughtful side of the world's Muslim population and aimed at promoting peace and dialogue, the festival sadly attracted few viewers. And instead of provoking thoughtful debate about the teachings of the religion -- especially in the context of the Lal Masjid tragedy -- the festival was also hijacked by political drama when the authorities objected to the screening of Sharmeen Obaid and Claudio Von Planta's documentary "Pakistan's Double Game". Amidst the noise generated by the political circus, conversations about religion are easily tuned out. Since we are unable to talk from opposing sides of a stand-off, our social fabric has been ripped to shreds and may never be sewn back together again. In this context, the silence is deafening.



The writer is a media analyst currently pursuing a master's degree at MIT's Comparative Media Studies programme. She was previously features editor at an English monthly. Email: huma.yusuf @gmail.com

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=64031

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

So how many actually died?

Before July 4, critics of the government's handling of the Lal Masjid crisis had been complaining about the authorities' frustrating reluctance to deal with the problem. And now, after the belated government action is over, there is a great deal of disquiet over the authorities' unwillingness to give the exact casualty figures. Why these secret burials? And why, if the government really has nothing to hide, was the media kept away from the scene for so long after the operation ended? On Thursday, the media was allowed into the complex but only on a supervised tour and reportedly not to all sections of the complex. A foreign correspondent who saw the area spoke of a burnt down room and quoted army officials as saying that several charred bodies, burnt beyond recognition, were found inside. This, they said, could have been the work of a suicide bomber while the charred bodies could have been those of hostages.

That brings one to the thorny and still unresolved issue of the hundreds of women and children whom the authorities were saying were still inside the mosque complex (after around 1,300 had given themselves up) and were being held hostage against their will. In fact, all along the military had insisted that no women or children had died in the final assault -- a near impossibility given the ferocity and length of the final phase of Operation Silence -- but on Thursday it indicated that the charred remains of some people could have been those of women and children. Also, of the 69 bodies buried in unmarked graves in a cemetery in Islamabad, two were of children, according to the caretaker, though there was no official confirmation of this. Furthermore, what happened to the foreigners and the hardened Jaish-e-Mohammad militants who were supposed to have been holed up inside the mosque complex? Was their presence merely figments of the over-creative imagination of some intelligence officers -- to give the impression to the outside world that the threat from the complex was grave -- or were these elements indeed inside Lal Masjid?

So, how many people died in "Operation Silence"? On July 11, the ISPR chief put the figure at 73. This figure was raised by some 20 or so by the next day. Meanwhile, there are reports that the government had requested the Edhi Foundation to supply hundreds of shrouds for burial. All this, particularly the delay of almost 48 hours before the complex was opened up to the media, is bound to raise doubts in the minds of even well-wishers of the government and supporters of the operation. The fact that the media has still not been allowed to enter the hospitals where the injured have been taken, is only adding to the doubts and suspicions. Is the death toll being covered up, people are beginning to ask.

These are only some of the innumerable questions raised in people's minds since the end of the main operation on Tuesday. It is the government's inability or refusal to answer them which is causing even those who supported the government to doubt the advisability, or even validity, of that action. Pakistan's clerical groups were rapidly losing any residual support and sympathy as the operation unfolded on people's television screens. They have now started to exploit the popular doubts, suspicions and cynicism to try to win back that support in the time remaining before the general elections. The protest called today by the religious elements against the Lal Masjid operation is only the first of their actions aimed at embarrassing the government. The most advisable and best option for the government in the days ahead is to hide nothing and let the truth speak for itself.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=64228

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

What a victory!

Dissenting note

By Dr Masooda Bano

Cheers! The so-called liberals have won. Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa was ruthlessly attacked and Ghazi, his mother, and hundreds of his students killed. The state has had the bloodiest bloodbath right in the heart of the capital and the irony is that the very same liberals who talk of peace and protest against invasion of Iraq and war in general have supported it and are even now congratulating the government. But, at least people who write about these things should refrain from making absolute claims of the majority being happy with it (a claim that one newspaper has made). I for one as a researcher who had come to know Ghazi and the people inside the madressah during this period and as an individual who believes in tolerance and respect for human life want to make a statement that I view the whole military action as a crime and I know so many others who do too. So lets us not speak on each other's behalf. Clearly, Pakistan is a divided house right now.

Who gives the state the right to massacre its own people just for crimes like kidnapping or challenging the state authority? They had not killed or physically harmed anyone so how can their punishment be so severe. It is clear that the whole bloodshed could have been easily avoided only if General Musharraf did not have a vested interest in proving his loyalties to the west at a time when he is at his weakest and is in desperate need of western backing. For otherwise there are so many things that could have been done to resolve the problem without bloodshed. Cutting off electricity, water and gas would have forced at least the girls to come out sooner or later. Similarly, giving a couple of days more for negotiations could not have risked Pakistani's existence.

It is at the same time interesting to see the parallels between the vocabulary and the logic used by those who defend this operation and that of Bush administration. The first step to the battle is that suddenly the other side becomes 'militants' and 'terrorists'. Any resistance met by US soldiers within Iraq and Afghanistan is quickly labeled as militancy and the attackers are labeled as 'militants' and 'terrorists'. What is completely forgotten in this equation is that it is actually the Americans who are invading and the locals are simply resisting an aggression imposed on them. Secondly, the Bush administration has from the beginning used force as a means to crush local resistance. The results are hardly impressive to win critics over. Iraq today is an irresolvable mess and the so-called writ of the US supported Karzai state in Afghanistan does not extent much beyond the presidential palace.

Interestingly, exactly the same logic and method has been used in case of Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa. They were labeled militants quickly and force has been thought apt to settle the issue. However, just like the US use of force in Iraq and Afghanistan has increased rather than decreased militancy in these countries, the impact of this operation is going to be no different. We already have the gift of suicide bombing as a reaction to military operations in the tribal areas. To think that the Lal Masjid massacre won't lead to long-term repercussions is naïve. Pakistan is heading for major civil unrest. These military operations are fuelling jihadi sentiment; not lowering them.

And before closing off the chapter on Lal Masjid let us not forget what motivated Ghazi, a master's degree holder, and his students (many of whom were from the middle classes who had come after doing matric or FA) to take up this resistance. The discussion around them in the media remained focused on their public morality drive. But, the fact is that they were mobilized into action on basis of very basic human rights demands. They argued for end to military operations in the tribal areas which were killing civilians, they argued for end to handing over people to US without trial in country, and those of us who bothered to go inside the madressah and talked to him and his students, know that he argued for rule of law. The route he chose to score his points was clearly not the right one. But, it is important to remember what mobilized him and his followers because it is eventually the moral convincing power of these ideas that mobilizes people to give up their life. No one, not even the absolute poor, want to die just for the heck of it.



The author is undertaking post-doctoral research at Oxford University. Email: mb294@hotmail.com

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=64232

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

Reality check
By Shafqat Mahmood

Friday,July 13,2007

The writer is a former member of parliament and a freelance columnist based in Lahore

It was a tragedy waiting to happen. No state can ignore an open challenge to its authority. Was there a better way of going about it? Yes, there was if the Musharraf regime had not allowed this issue to linger on for so long. What some officials are touting as restraint was seen as weakness and made the brothers bold. They continued to up the ante with their provocative actions and never really thought they would be held to account.

It also allowed hardened fighters to filter into the Lal Masjid and there is some evidence that these people had taken over decision making in the final days. In their hands, Abdul Rashid Ghazi became a tragic figure who was forced into an untenable situation and paid with his life. Had the state acted when the children's library was taken over, it may have cost some lives, but it would not have been the bloodbath it became in the end.

The soldiers who fought so bravely did not determine the strategic decision making. They followed orders when the orders came. Theirs was not to reason why but to carry out their duty selflessly. More then ten made the ultimate sacrifice. The nation salutes their courage, their discipline and their devotion to duty. Theirs is the only story of hope in these dark and traumatic days for the nation.

It is our tragedy that a number of faultlines have emerged and hardened during the eight years of Musharraf rule. Baluchistan is an open wound, rural Sindh is smouldering, and the tribal areas are on fire. Karachi saw a bloodbath on May 12, and it was only the sagacious leadership by Asfandyar Wali, of the ANP, that averted an ethnic backlash and further tragedy.

More than ever, the cultural fault line between the westernized elite and the conservative largely religious segment of our society has hardened during the last eight years. It has also spawned a radical fringe, which is not just a blow back of the Afghan and Kashmir Jihads. Yes, state patronage of Jihadi elements during the eighties and nineties created a large and trained force of fighters. And, it is true that the rollback of the Kashmir jihad has created a terrible bitterness, but this is confined to the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammad. These groups have seldom taken an interest in domestic issues although there is some evidence that the Jaish people have been involved in sectarian clashes.

What we are seeing in settled areas of the frontier or saw in Islamabad and some other cities of the Punjab is of a different ilk. These are cultural vigilantes who have taken umbrage to signs of westernization. They attack video shops and TV sets. They target westernised dress and dens of what they consider to be immorality. Above all, they direct their ire at women, all women, who step out of their homes.

Instead of understanding the nature of this faultline and seeking ways to bridge it, the Musharraf regime has sent a mixed almost confusing message. Its rhetoric against the so-called extremism has been fierce and yet its actions have been tame if not cowardly. Instead of educating the people and moving purposely forward, it has backed down whenever confronted. It backed down on important legislation such as the procedural changes in blasphemy law and in the Hudood ordinance. It refuses to take strict action against vigilantism on video shops or harassment of women. And yet, its rhetoric promises nothing less than a complete revolution.

The Lal Masjid action will not only harden this faultline further but also lead without a doubt to forms of terrorism. The seminaries which are spread throughout the country are likely to become, even more than before, hotbeds of radicalism. The immediate reaction to the Lal Masjid events will be contained but it is the long term consequences that are worrying. There is a deep gash in the body politic of the nation. Who will heal this wound?

It is obvious that Musharraf is hardly the person to do it. He is a divider not a conciliator. During his rule, the faultlines, not just cultural but ethnic, regional, political and social have become sharper. Since March 9, we also see the civil society led by the lawyers community up in arms and not ready to put up with dictatorial actions. There is hardly any social group other than perhaps the supporters of the MQM ready to put up with Musharraf.

Benazir Bhutto and her party the PPP were once considered the thread that would bind this nation together. But by trying to cut some sort of a deal with the General and dividing the movement for the restoration of democracy, as she has done by opting out of the All Parties Democratic Movement APDM, she has lost legitimacy and credibility with the pro-democracy forces.

She is now distrusted by the liberal intelligentsia, by the regional forces gathered under the umbrella of PONAM, and by all the religious parties whether in or out of the MMA. The PML-N under Nawaz Sharif has been careful not to criticise her but it is obvious that the party is deeply disappointed in her. She has dealt herself and sadly, the PPP out of the principal political faultline between the democratic forces and those opposed to it.

Who then has the potential to heal the wounds of this nation? Who has the capacity to cut across the faultlines that divide us and bring all the people together? There are no easy answers but being a witness to the recent proceedings of the All Parties Conference in London, the one figure who stands out above every one else is Mian Nawaz Sharif.

Government functionaries and their henchmen may say what they like, it was a historic gathering of all the political forces in the country. It was heart-warming to see PPP and PML-N leaders, and Imran Khan and Pakhtun, Baloch and Sindhi nationalists and religious leaders of the MMA plus lawyers and civil society representatives sitting together and debating the serious questions that challenge this nation. And the person who brought them all together was Nawaz Sharif.

While there were many divisions within the conference, he was the healer. He could speak to and was listened to with respect by Asfandyar Wali, Dr Abdul Hayee, Qadir Magsi and Mahmud Khan Achakzai. He could parley with Qazi Hussain and Maulana Fazalur Rehman, and he had the confidence of Imran Khan and a host of other leaders representing major or minor parties. It was obvious to those of watching from the sidelines that if there is one political leader today who has the capacity to transcend the faultlines that divide us today, it is Nawaz Sharif.

This has been a long political journey for him with its various ups and downs. He has been hated and loved, applauded and reviled, considered a product of dictatorship or a stout proponent of civilian supremacy and yet in this defining moment for the nation, there is no one else who gives hope. He now has the potential to begin a new journey of healing the wounds of this nation.



Email: shafqatmd@gmail.com

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=64234

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

Lal Masjid: what next?

By Najmuddin A. Shaikh

AND so it has come to pass. The Lal Masjid complex, or as much of it that survived the military onslaught, is now in the hands of the government. The death count is said to be 102, of whom 11 are soldiers and other members of the security forces. Were these deaths avoidable? Could the government have achieved the ‘liberation’ of the mosque complex through a longer siege and through a continuation of the use of stun grenades and other non-lethal devices designed to intimidate and harass the inmates? Could they have been starved out?

Pending a fuller investigation, it would seem that the government was right in believing that all those who were in the mosque at the time of the assault were either being held hostage or were intent on martyrdom. They had, according to Maulana Ghazi, enough food and other supplies to continue fighting for a month. No figures have been released on how much food was found in the complex, but the formidable array of weapons put on display suggests that Ghazi was not exaggerating when he claimed that the militants could have fought on for thirty days.

Every life lost is a tragedy. But was there ever any doubt that some loss of life would occur either when there was a direct assault or when a prolonged siege caused starving and half-deranged hostages to turn on their captors in a bid to win their freedom? Most recent incidents of this nature suggest that a considerable loss of life is to be expected.

In 1993, the American FBI and other federal agencies lay siege to the centre established by the Branch Dravidian sect under the leadership of David Koresh near Waco in Texas. The siege ended 51 days later when the FBI fired CS (tear gas) shells into the building and then claimed that the residents had set fire to the compound, causing 79 people, including 21 children, to perish in the blaze. (There have since been stories that the fire was set not by the residents but by the pyrotechnic devices employed by the FBI.)Similarly, the 126-day siege of the Japanese embassy in Lima, Peru, from December 1996 to April 1997 ended with a raid in which all the hostage-takers were killed along with one hostage and two commandos. The denouement in 2002 at the Moscow theatre where Chechens had held the audience hostage was even more horrendous.

Perhaps some more lives would have been saved if those trapped inside the Lal Masjid complex had been given additional time to find ways to escape their captors. Perhaps the will of the militants could have been further undermined by a prolongation of the siege. However, it has to be remembered that the mosque siege entailed putting the hundreds of thousands of people living in the G-6 sector of Islamabad through acute privation.

Whether this was owed to the peculiar location of the masjid or the inefficiency of the local administration is not clear. But the fact remains that a long siege was an untenable proposition if it meant paralysing a large part of the country’s capital.

Two other things need to be noted in this context. First, the media virtually set aside coverage of the floods that had hit Balochistan and parts of Sindh and the NWFP. According to official figures, which may be an underestimate, more than 340 people had been killed by July 13 while another 186 were missing. Fourteen hundred villages in Sindh and 5,000 in Balochistan had been affected.

There is no doubt that the media’s handling by the authorities near the mosque complex left a great deal to be desired. Much of the media’s coverage reflected its frustration with what it believed were unnecessarily harsh limitations on live coverage of events around the mosque. But was it correct to devote hours to interviews with G-6 sector residents suffering the effects of the curfew and the suspension of utilities, and give virtually no time to the flood-stricken people of Balochistan and Sindh?

Second, in the question-and-answer session with President Musharraf at the National Defence University, many stalwarts of the electronic media demanded action against the Lal Masjid while turning down his plea that the media should not provide live coverage of the bloodshed that was bound to occur in the event of such action. The creation of a “state within a state” could not be tolerated; the “writ of the state” must be established; the “infection” of the Lal Masjid must not be allowed to spread; why had the matter been allowed to fester for so long? These were among the arguments so eloquently made by the media representatives.

In the coverage of the incident and during the subsequent post-mortem, a very different mood prevailed. Suddenly, those who had been asking for action were saying that the Ghazi brothers were right in demanding the reconstruction of at least the mosque that predated the creation of Islamabad. Suddenly, they were claiming that giving the Ghazis a pardon would have been no different from allowing Nawaz Sharif to go into exile.

Is this change of heart owed to what one analyst calls the anti-Musharraf, anti-army mindset of the middle-class journalists who are prepared, on this score, to defy the wishes of their more compliant channel owners? Or is it something more? Traditionally the press, and particularly the visual media, are supposed to reflect the views of the masses. Is this what is happening now? Perhaps.

There is no doubt that the credibility of the government is at a low point. There is no doubt that the anti-government sentiment reflected in the large crowds that gather around the chief justice will look for and find every opportunity to express itself. The Lal Masjid tragedy has provided another convenient stick with which the government can be beaten. But this does not mean that there is a turn towards greater militancy. The important point is that this is anti-government, not pro-militant, sentiment.

A backlash was to be expected and it has occurred. The suicide bombings in Swat, Dera Ismail Khan and outside Miramshah have been gory in the extreme. Perhaps as many as 100 lives have been lost and many more have been injured. There is no doubt that in the next few days there will be more of such incidents. But it seems that these are not, and will not become, countrywide occurrences.

The mushroom growth of well-financed madressahs and equally prosperous religious parties has not yet made fanatics or even fundamentalists out of the average Pakistani. Nor has the growth of anti-American sentiment — fuelled by what are seen as the US-driven sectarian, ethnic and other killings in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Lebanon — so far made as much of a difference as some observers would have us believe. The paltry number of people who participated in the demonstrations on Friday in response to the MMA’s call must have been disappointing for the organisers.

The problems in the tribal areas and in some of the settled districts are of our own creation. As part of the ‘jihad’ against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and subsequently our support for the Taliban in Afghanistan, we created the mindset that has now seemingly taken firm root in the areas bordering on Afghanistan. Handing over virtual control of the Afghan refugee camps to extremist Afghans and their Pakistani supporters was part of the same scheme.

We sowed the wind and are now reaping the whirlwind. The Frankenstein has grown way beyond our ability to control or manipulate.

Are the tribal-area Taliban indigenously controlled in their entirety? It seems clear that the employment of suicide bombers — which started in Palestine, moved on to Iraq, then to Afghanistan and is now a feature of the scarred tribal landscape — is something Al Qaeda has helped bring about.

The Americans are convinced that Al Qaeda has secured safe haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border and is now stronger than it has ever been since 9/11. The head of the CIA’s analysis directorate, testifying before Congress, stated that “They [Al-Qaeda] seem to be fairly well settled into the safe haven and the ungoverned spaces of Pakistan … We see more training. We see more money. We see more communications. We see that activity rising.”

Ayman al-Zawahiri’s call for the Pakistani people to rise against Musharraf and to avenge the Lal Masjid operation could be dismissed as part of the skilful propaganda battle that Al Qaeda has successfully waged in recent years. But it could also reflect his belief that it will strike a responsive chord in some parts of Pakistan.

Such efforts at maintaining the ‘Islamic’ fervour in the tribal areas and promoting its spread to the settled districts is only to be expected. International developments are not going to be helpful as we seek to combat this propaganda onslaught. The sectarian and ethnic carnage in Iraq will continue, and will probably increase, as the Americans withdraw the bulk of their troops as they are almost surely bound to do in the next six to nine months. In Afghanistan, peace is not even a distant prospect. Developments in Palestine and Lebanon will continue to generate bloody headlines.

We have to contain the problem to the tribal areas and then work for its resolution. A military solution to the problem of the tribal areas is not possible. The military can only provide the backing for a full-fledged political effort to change the mindset we ourselves helped to create. How can this be done?

It is difficult to disagree with the view that only a genuine political government can work effectively in this direction, and that even a political government can be effective only if it has the full backing of the armed forces and the intelligence agencies. This is not going to be easy. It will require a dedicated team of civil administrators. It will require the commitment of considerable resources and, above all, it will require patience.

Alongside such political work in the tribal areas — or indeed as an essential supplement — we must persuade the Karzai government to hold jirgas in which the two presidents can address the notables of the tribes that straddle the border and persuade them, through the promise of developmental projects and other blandishments, to deny the use of their lands to the Taliban. Such local jirgas, rather than the presently planned national jirga, can potentially revitalise the influence of the tribal elders and possibly undercut the Taliban who have rendered the elders impotent for the most part and made the area a safe haven for Al Qaeda.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.


http://www.dawn.com/2007/07/18/op.htm#1

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

Using religion as a tool of power

By Zubeida Mustafa

Wednesday, July 18

ONE positive result of the Lal Masjid operation is that it has brought into the open the ambiguities and contradictions in our social values and political attitudes. Hopefully, the tragic events of last week will shock people into confronting the truth.

The crisis began in January when the radicals of the Lal Masjid took matters into their own hands by getting the female students of Jamia Hafsa to occupy a government-owned children’s library. The action was in retaliation to the demolition of the illegally built mosques on encroached land in the capital city.

At that time, public opinion was, by and large, against the extremists and in favour of firm action by the authorities to get the library vacated. But the government in its wisdom dillydallied, pretending that it was negotiating with the Ghazi brothers. The intermediaries, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Ejazul Haq, however, lacked the credentials of playing the role of honest brokers. Nevertheless, they were allowed to drag on the negotiations giving the militants the opportunity to fortify their stronghold, entrench themselves in the mosque while escalating their demands.

Initially, they had demanded the restoration of the demolished mosques. At the time of the showdown, they wanted Sharia to be imposed in Pakistan. To demonstrate their strength, the clerics got their students to kidnap people and attack video shops.

Obviously, the abduction of the Chinese proved to be the last straw, as was confirmed by President Musharraf in his speech last Thursday. It was then that the government decided to act. When it did, it bungled and those very people who were demanding action have now become the harshest critics of the government.

What does all this prove? Many things. Notwithstanding its loudly proclaimed commitment to wage the war on terror, the Musharraf government failed to set a clear-cut anti-terrorist agenda for itself. If that had been so there is no reason why the Lal Masjid issue should have been allowed to hang fire for six months with all its political implications.

The president’s resolve expressed so firmly not to allow the militants to challenge his writ rings hollow because it does not explain why action was not taken earlier to nip the problem in the bud.

When the end came, it was bloody. The casualty figures released by the government are 103, but unofficial estimates run into the hundreds. Who is to be believed? The government which should know best is at a disadvantage. Its credibility is low and its strategy is now suspected of being a ruse.

The role of the political parties in the country has not been above board either. They appeared to be condemning the clerics in the days of the stand-off. Even the All Parties Conference held in London on July 7 and 8 took no stand on the Lal Masjid in its declaration, although the operation against the militants was in full swing at the time. Once it was over the opposition parties changed tack and held the government responsible for the killings.

The MMA was the most vocal in its criticism and declared three days of mourning for the so-called ‘shaheed’ of Lal Masjid. The PPP leader, Benazir Bhutto, was the only politician from the opposition who categorically supported Musharraf’s move on the Lal Masjid operation although she held him responsible for fuelling extremism rather than containing it.

The question that is being evaded is: once matters reached a head what was to be done? The blame game that has begun takes us nowhere. One may endlessly debate the strategy employed by the president which was ruthless once negotiations broke down, resulting in the large number of casualties, especially of women and children. But how long will our leaders continue to dwell on the original sin? Is it not time to move on?

In this noise over the Lal Masjid operation, one could not fail to be struck by the muted reaction of the public to events in Islamabad. In the TV programmes that provided for viewers to call in with their comments most of them were heavily weighted against the Islamic militants who were invariably held responsible for holding women and children hostage to use them as human shields.

At this stage, we also need to ask ourselves a few pertinent questions. Why is it that religion has emerged as the yardstick against which every issue is measured? Those who are in a position to raise their voices and who claim to be the leaders of opinion (that includes the government) drum on Islamic Sharia to drive home their point of view and mobilise support for themselves. Every shade of opinion is doing that.

There are those who are religious by temperament. They cite Islam — of course, their own version — to prove themselves to be correct. There are others who challenge their doctrine. There are still some others who really do not care for either of these but seek refuge behind the plea that they have to be sensitive to the religiosity and sensitivity of the public. But generally, it is not customary to seek the advancement of a cause simply because it is good and appeals to our innate humanism and sense of fair play.

The Lal Masjid crisis has exploded the myth that religion is the only prism through which an ordinary Pakistani perceives politics. Most people prefer to be left alone to practise their faith in the time-honoured tradition of ‘live and let live’. In practical life, they are quite secular (though not in the sense of being godless) in their approach. Had that not been the case, the public reaction to the events in Islamabad would have been quite different. There would have been an outcry of ‘Islam is in danger’.

On the contrary, public concern has centred on the sanctity of human life — especially in the case of children. The parents who gathered at the scene of action to take their sons and daughters away displayed a characteristically human response — parental love. If there has been any reaction it has come from the political leaders and the militants in the tribal areas.

It is time that those who rule Pakistan, be they soldiers, politicians, bureaucrats or whatever, stop using Islam as a crutch to perpetuate themselves in office.

If they have got away with this, it is not because the people believe what they say about religion and the state. It is because the people of Pakistan are powerless. They have been kept in a state of ignorance to deprive them of their potential to organise and wield control over their own life. Hence, by default, the leaders can obfuscate issues and flaunt religion as a tool of their own power to silence the people.

http://www.dawn.com/2007/07/18/op.htm#2

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

Lal Mosque: a watershed

By Amir ZiaThe Lal Mosque operation is a watershed in Pakistan's battle against religious fanaticism and extremism. The direct conflict between extremists and security forces -- which so far remained confined to the rugged and isolated tribal areas since the country joined the US-led war on terrorism in late 2001 -- for the first time struck with such ferocity in settled areas -- and that too in Islamabad, the federal capital.

Never before, religious militants confronted the state head-on in such a brazen and organized manner in the heart of Pakistan. Never before Islamabad -- or for that matter any major Pakistani city -- witnessed such a fierce standoff between security forces and non-state players.

The suicidal single-mindedness shown by Lal Mosque militants in the face of a far superior adversary and their refusal to surrender, overshadows all the past suicide assaults and bombings carried out by the local pro-Al Qaeda and pro-Taliban operators in the major cities. These militants have managed to up the stakes in this protracted conflict in an attempt to undermine and frustrate Pakistan's efforts in the global war on terror.

Yes, for well over six months, the Lal Mosque brigade had been trying to dent the state authority by its continued seizure of children library, a wave of abductions and kidnappings that included women, children, and policemen. The masked men and veiled women of Lal Mosque and its adjoining Jamia Hafsa were let loose to terrorise and threaten the law-abiding citizens. The sticks in their hands became one of the most powerful images of 2007. The abduction of Chinese nationals, and the following spate of violence on July 3 in which gun-wielding militants went on rampage, destroying and setting ablaze public and private property and murdering security personnel and innocent citizens, had stunned the entire nation. And during all this period and even before that, the fanatic clerics were violating the sanctity of their mosque by piling-up weapons and ammunition in it, and at the adjacent women seminary.

Only a banana republic would have allowed this gang and its bosses to go scot-free -- ignoring their crimes. The government had no alternative, but to act in the best of public interest.

The restraint and patience shown by the government resulted in saving lives of hundreds of students, who fled from the mosque and Jamia Hafsa following the security forces cordoned them off. The responsibility of those killed, including 10 security personnel, rests squarely on the shoulders of militants, who refused to surrender. Had the government struck a deal with them and bowed to their demands after all that happened -- it would have compromised Pakistan's credibility internationally and cast doubts about its commitment in fighting terrorism. Any concessions to these militants would have also encouraged other such fanatics to defy the state writ in a similar manner.

One can only shudder at the very prospect of gun-wielding and stick-swinging clerics enforcing their own myopic versions of Islam in every neighbourhood, town, and city. That would have been the beginning of the end of the state called Pakistan, as we know it today. No government, no sane-mind could support this possible scenario that would only lead to civil strife anarchy. By refusing to strike a deal with militants, the government has sent a strong and clear message to extremists that the security forces not just have the potential, but also the commitment to take-on the non-state players. The Lal Mosque operation should also put to rest all the conspiracy theories and doubts about the sincerity and resolve of the government and the armed forces in fighting the menace of terrorism and extremism.

However, the country now faces a far greater challenge in its overall fight against extremism following the crackdown on Lal Mosque militants, who managed to further polarize Pakistani politics and brutalize the society. The operation has not just incensed the pro-Al Qaeda and pro-Afghan Taliban local militants, but many followers of the orthodox religious parties and seminaries -- who initially distanced themselves from Lal Mosque clerics -- are also irked.

Al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman Al Zawahiri, in a message soon after the operation, has called for retaliation and revenge. The local and foreign extremist groups are trying to exploit the sentiment of orthodox Pakistani Muslims. This means that in the near- to mid-term, there remains a strong possibility of a surge in terrorism not just in the northern tribal areas, but also in our major cities. The extremists have already started to hit back by a spate of attacks in parts of the North West Frontier Province that included the deadly July 14 suicide bombing in North Waziristan in which 24 paramilitary soldiers were killed. On July 15, suicide bombers struck again in Dera Ismail Khan and Swat killing nearly 50 people, mostly security personnel. Such reverberations of the Lal Mosque and anti-terror operations are likely to continue, making the conflict deadlier.

All this does not bode well for the very fabric of Pakistani society, in which many of the fundamentalist forces are hardening their positions. This benefits the extremists, who want to stoke-up violence and create anarchy to create space for their operations. The mainstream religious parties as well as the government will have to act in a prudent manner to isolate these extremists. The religious parties and seminaries will have to act responsibly and categorically declare that raising weapons against the state and the civil society is no jihad or holy war. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, instead of fanning emotions over the issue, should demonstrate maturity and come out with a firm stand against terrorism and the incorrect interpretation of Islam by extremists.

On its part, the government needs to take mainstream opposition political parties and moderate Islamic groups on board to create a broad-based ideological front against extremist forces, which bank on lies, half truths, and conspiracy theories to exploit the emotions of innocent people. All the political forces, including religious-political parties, have to build a consensus to define rules of the game in Pakistani politics where no force be condoned for raising weapons under whatsoever so-called holy or sacred cause.

While the government needs to tackle the day-to-day challenges of terrorism through firm administrative actions, for long term the focus should be on regulating and monitoring seminaries from where extremists usually get a steady supply of recruits. The long-pending seminary-reforms should be on the front burner now.

At the same time, the government needs to invest heavily to reform and expand the mainstream education system as an alternative to seminaries, which mainly attracts children belonging to the lower-income group. The state-run schools should aim to provide free-education, books and meals to these children along with vocational training to make them useful citizen of the society.

Pakistani civil society and security forces have to jointly pursue the anti-extremist agenda to prevent the country from sliding into chaos. At this stage, any wavering would be fatal. Pakistan must stay on course in its fight against terrorism. The Lal Mosque was one front. It should act as a catalyst for the elimination of other terrorist sanctuaries.



The writer is a Karachi-based freelance journalist. Email: amir.zia@gmail.com

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=64823

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.