President-General Pervez Musharraf generally cannot resist the temptation to blow his own trumpet regarding the “many achievements of his government on the economic and foreign policy front”. In the past few days he has also been speaking about how religious extremism is hurting Pakistan and threatening to erode the hard-won fruits of his reform programme. Every concerned citizen therefore wants to know how he intends to deal with it. We wonder, though, whether he will have the courage, now that he has spoken against it, to call it “religious extremism” rather than simply “extremism” and whether he will not try to “balance” it by referring negatively to the “extremism of the liberals and overly westernized elements” in Pakistan – a red herring, if ever there was one, and a sure sign of pussyfooting on the real issue.
Following 7/7, as news of the inevitable “Pakistan connection” has flooded the media, General Musharraf has ordered the police to “crack down on extremists”, to seize their proscribed “hate literature” and to stop the mullahs from exploiting the public through misplaced sermons on and off the loudspeakers. Dozens of third and fourth grade suspected militants have been detained from amongst sectarian groups. Is this for real?
Not really. How many times have we seen a cynical – “arrest the usual suspects” – approach unfold in response to some passing exigency? We saw it after 9/11 when the American administration outlawed a number of extremist religious organisations based in Pakistan. We saw it when the assassination attempts on President Musharraf took place. We saw it when Pakistan-based extremists on the orders of Maulana Masood Azhar of the Jaish-e Mohammad bombed the Indian parliament in December 2002 and President-General Musharraf made a public commitment in January 2003 that he would not allow the export of terrorism from Pakistan under any circumstances. We saw it when the American journalist Danny Pearl was kidnapped and executed by similarly misguided people. We saw it after the church bombing in Islamabad. We saw it when links were definitely confirmed between Musharraf’s would-be assassins, jihadis, religious parties, sectarian groups, Taliban and foreign Al Qaeda elements hiding in Pakistan’s tribal areas or in her urban jungles. Indeed, if the number of “extremists” arrested in all these swoops is tallied, there should be no “extremists” left in the country. But, of course, they were all released. Was it lack of evidence or was it an inability or unwillingness to stitch the evidence and get convictions? Frankly, it is ridiculous to have the spectacle of the President-General of a country in its 58th year of independence specifically ordering the police to “enforce the law and writ of the state” by cracking down on hate literature and stopping the misuse of mosque loudspeakers by extremists bent on poisoning the minds of citizens when the extremist leaders of the Jaish and Lashkar and dozens of other such groups and madrassahs are regularly denouncing President-General Musharraf in public fora and advocating terrorism.
Can we uproot religious extremism simply by pious “exhortations” from time to time? No, we can’t. What has happened to madrassah reform? Damn all. What is the fate of the textbooks that are littered with jihadi slogans and ideological propaganda by those who opposed the creation of Pakistan? They are alive and kicking. What is the state of the blasphemy and Hudood laws that give Pakistan a bad name because they are patently unfair and unjust? They remain untouched. How does President-General Musharraf react to those who would expose such miscarriage of justice and demand reform? He puts them on the Exit Control List (Mukhtar Mai) and calls them “liberal-terrorists in the pay of foreign masters” (human rights and pro-women NGOs)! What is his relationship with the mainstream political parties who could provide him with the public support and political space to uproot religious extremism from Pakistan? They have been rent asunder and their leaders have been exiled.
Senator Mushahid Hussain says that “Pakistan’s case” was not defended adequately after 7/7 by Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan’s High Commissioner in London. Mr Munir Akram, Pakistan’s UN representative, has accused Britain of being a beehive of terrorism. Both gentlemen are obsessed with the bad image of Pakistan and are looking for scapegoats to obscure the reality they know only too well. Britain, incredibly enough, is asking all the right questions and is trying to find answers in the right spirit of tolerance and multi-cultural accommodation.
Indeed, it is time to start asking serious questions about President Musharraf’s viability as the right man for the urgent task of turning Pakistan round. If this exercise is left unattended for much longer, the ideology and practices of the terrorist borderlands of Pakistan could invade the rest of the country in the name of “religion” and overwhelm the silent majority’s urge for freedom, moderation and democracy. Under the circumstances, the mullah-military alliance must be buried for all times to come if Pakistan is to survive and consolidate itself as a modern nation-state.