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| April 16, 2007 | Monday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 27, 1428 |
Lal Masjid episode worries teachers
ISLAMABAD, April 15: Students look up to teachers to explain things which confuse them. But what if the teachers themselves are confused?
Government’s inaction and the unrelenting militancy of the Lal Masjid brigades in the capital is confusing to all sides and defies an explanation.
That has made many in the teachers community to suspect that the government was stage-managing the whole sordid drama.
Almost everyone this scribe talked to on the city campuses was worried about the atmosphere of fear the self-appointed custodians of public morality entrenched in the Lal Masjid have created. The people demand that whoever may be responsible for this bad experience, the government should immediately resolve it.
The female students of Jamia Hafsa kidnapped three women of a family on the charge of running a brothel. A parallel judicial system has been set up in the Lal Masjid which has already started issuing fatwas.
There was mixed response to the question whether the government should use force or hold talks to vacate the public library which the Jamia Hafsa students have been occupying since January 21.
Some were of the view that the day when burqa-clad baton- wielding students took over the library adjacent to their seminary, the government should have employed force to remove them. Others called for peaceful means because it involved girl students. But there was no difference of opinion among them that with every passing day, the situation was getting tougher for the government.
The occupation of a government building right in the heart of the capital city by the female students became an instant top story not only in the national but international media. However, it brought uncalled far miseries for the local public who have already been suffering from the security syndrome since the military coupe of General Musharraf.
The most vulnerable section has been students and teachers who have to catch up their classes early in the morning. Every second day there is a protest call, either in favour of the self-proclaimed custodians of morality administering Lal Masjid or against them, and police have to erect barricades which create problems for the commuters.
A senior social sciences professor of the Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) said initially everybody at the varsity was really disturbed over the development because the madressah students had directly challenged the writ of the government that too right in the capital city.
However, in the following days of the library’s occupation, “we were pretty sure that an operation was inevitable because the government would not accept a challenge to its authority,” the professor said. However, the way the government has been reacting to what he termed blackmailing by the administrators of the Lal Masjid, one is compelled to buy the idea that the government was deliberately prolonging the issue, he said.
In response to a question, he said there were a number of theories: The government wanted to divert public attention from the judicial crisis or just wanted to create another issue to further malign religious community before the general elections.
“However, there is no doubt in my mind that it is totally an engineered event and if the government wants to save its face, the issue should be resolved sooner than later because at least we the faculty at the QAU are increasingly becoming sceptical of government’s argument that due to the involvement of female students, the standoff has prolonged.”
Dr Khan of the Islamic International University (IIU) said, “I don’t think it is even worthwhile to discuss the issue because now it has become crystal clear that the government itself is not interested in settling the issue.” In a counter question, Dr Khan asked was it possible in the present-day world that the government could not vacate a state-owned building and was compelled to negotiate with the occupiers. “No sane person would believe this,” Dr Khan argued.
Ms Aysha, a lecturer at a local government college and a mother of two school-going sons, said the incident was as harmful as a double-edged sword: on the one hand it is creating doubts in people’ mind about writ of the government and setting a bad precedent for other such groups, and on the other spoiling the image of women.
“I tell you, the city is fast becoming insecure and I have stopped going outside at night, fearing that anything could happen anywhere,” she said. Unfortunately, the country is witnessing extremism of both natures: religious extremism is all around the country in various forms and in reaction the so-called liberals are hell-bent on testing their limits, while people who believe in moderation are on the defensive.
Ms Irfan of the Overseas Pakistanis Foundation Girls College was of the view that though it was everybody’s right to protest against any action of the government or for their rights, but Jamia Hafsa students had opted the wrong way.
Being supportive of the government’s initiative to resolve the issue peacefully through negotiations, she said, “after all they are the citizens of the country and have to live here, hence I don’t think the government should use force to settle the issue”.
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