This reckless tendency

NOTHING could have been more imprudent than the ruling Muslim League’s stick-wielding show of strength staged barely 500 yards away from the protesting opposition parties and lawyers in Islamabad on Tuesday – reportedly under orders from President Musharraf. If better sense had not prevailed among the capital police, who stopped the pro-government rally led by Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain from marching on to the Supreme Court building, a confrontation with the anti-government rally in progress there would have been inevitable. Just what were the PML chief and the accompanying ministers aiming at? The ruling party’s plan to stage another pro-government rally on May 2, the day fixed by the Supreme Judicial Council for the next hearing of the presidential reference against the Chief Justice, is another unwise move. Also, reports stating that on May 12 the ruling party plans to gather “two million people” in Islamabad in support of President Musharraf betray the government’s nervousness in view of the on-going protests by lawyers and the opposition parties against the suspension of the Chief Justice. Such knee-jerk reactions and the so-called shows of strength by the government can only be seen as desperate attempts aimed as self-reassurance in the face of mounting public disapproval of its actions and policies.

The ruling party’s mindless quest for a confrontation with the opposition simply defies explanation, especially when what the government needs to do is to pacify the growing number of its opponents. The ill-advised planned march on the opposition, instead, could have serious repercussions for whatever little the country has in terms of a working democratic system. As it is, the government does not have much to show for its democratic credentials. All too often, political workers, including members of parliament belonging to the opposition, are arbitrarily picked up and detained by the police on the eve of a protest rally. The countrywide agitation by lawyers in response to the on-going judicial crisis and supported by the opposition has largely remained a peaceful affair. On earlier occasions when the police clashed with the protesters in Islamabad and Lahore, and a TV channel studios in the capital was ransacked by the police, the government only had itself to blame for it all. The restraint since exercised by the police has shown that subsequent protests have been peaceful expressions of dissent against the government. Matching these by bussing in supporters from all over, in intimidating numbers, to the exact venues of the opposition rallies in the days ahead can only be a recipe for disaster – yet another one of the government’s own making.

Despite its professed adherence to the concept of ‘enlightened moderation’, the government by its action has only shown itself in an opposite light. Its willingness to enter into a dialogue with tribal militants along the Afghan border and the appeasing of a handful of extremist clerics of Lal Masjid (by accommodating the latter’s questionable demands) contrast sharply with the lack any reconciliatory effort made to pacify the mainstream, representative opposition. The arrogance inherent in the manner of dealing with dissent from representative quarters exposes the government’s autocratic attitude. Now the reckless strategy of virtually challenging the opposition to a street battle will only strengthen those who have a vested interest in derailing democracy altogether. Unless sanity prevails, the country risks being plunged into a deeper crisis of governance by this ill-conceived move.

Rendezvous in Ankara

ANYONE with the minimum of strategic understanding of Pakistan’s north-west frontier region and Afghanistan would know that friendly relations between Islamabad and Kabul are important for peace and stability in south-west Asia. That is why continued ill-feelings between the two partners have not really helped the cause of the Nato-led war on terror in Afghanistan. It is a pity that President Hamid Karzai and President Pervez Musharraf have not been able to abandon the long tradition of distrust and suspicion their two countries have harboured against each other. That also explains the constant blame game they have been indulging in since 2001 when the Karzai regime was installed in Kabul after the Taliban were dethroned. Mercifully, the need for some understanding — strategising together, to use President Bush’s words — between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been recognised and in September 2006 Mr Bush invited the Presidents Musharraf and Karzai Washington in an attempt to mediate between them. But the beneficial effect of this diplomatic exercise, was short-lived. As the summer approaches, Nato feels the need for coordinated action against the Taliban.

This time Turkey, a member of Nato, has been chosen to play the peace-making role and President Musharraf and President Karzai will be meeting in Ankara on Monday in the presence of the Turkish prime minister. It is difficult to say how successful the exercise in diplomacy will be this time. If the two sides agree to stop bickering and coordinate their war on terror, it will certainly help. Since there is little the Afghans can do apart from refraining from sniping at Islamabad, the onus of taking effective practical measures will be on Pakistan. This is not going to be easy especially when there is no consensus on what needs to be done. Hence, it would be a major achievement of the Ankara summit if the two sides agree to be more reasonable and stop sparring in public. That would improve the atmosphere for the working of the joint Pakistan-Afghanistan jirga, the second round of which is scheduled for May 3. It is here that a meaningful agreement on how to conduct the war on terror can be worked out.

Need for treatment plants

NATURAL disasters are one thing and wanton destruction quite another. It is estimated that at least 80 per cent of the raw sewage generated by Karachi is dumped untreated into the Arabian Sea. Even the rest is only partially treated, with industrial waste still very much part of the mix. This criminal negligence is inflicting untold damage on a marine ecosystem that is fighting a losing battle on several fronts at the same time. Mangrove forests, the national hatcheries of marine life, are being hacked away in the name of development, while overfishing by deep-sea trawlers is depleting fish stocks at a rapid rate. In the creeks of Sindh, the widespread use of banned fine-mesh nets, which catch juveniles along with mature stock, is playing havoc with the life-cycle of the shrimp population and disrupting the marine food chain as a whole. A harbour once teeming with crabs and other crustaceans has been reduced to a toxic swamp, so much so that even the navy is complaining. According to the commander of the Pakistan Navy, highly polluted water is causing at least Rs60 billion worth of damage annually to ships, tankers and other vessels berthed in the upper harbour and the PN dockyard.

The solution lies in not only installing additional treatment plants as quickly as possible but also in ensuring that they are fully utilised. As things stand, even the three existing plants operated by the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board — incapable even at full capacity to meet the city’s needs — remain under-utilised. However, the KWSB alone cannot tackle the problem given the huge amount of industrial waste that is dumped directly into storm-water drains and the Malir and Lyari rivers. All industrial units are bound by law to install in-house treatment plants but few have done so. The rules must be enforced.

The charge of the Hafsa brigade

ZEALOTS of the Hafsa and Lal Masjid Brigade are a mock at the nation’s face. Petulant General Musharraf is exasperated with the Chief Justice of Pakistan and shows him the door. And now the president of the ruling political party prescribes murder for the critics of the army. Circus events never make headlines, let alone history, but then circus masters have never before cracked the whip at 150 million people.

Hafsa and the Lal Masjid Brigade and Shujaat Hussain both want to harm and kill people who don’t agree with them. Today they parley. Earlier, Federal Minister Ijazul Haq met the administrators of the Jaamia Hafsa and the Lal Masjid. He made a shivering disclosure. The administrators, Abdul Aziz and Abdur Rashid Ghazi, were charged in October 2004 with “harbouring and abetting terrorists” and it was through his intervention that they got off the hook. He further informs us that they “admitted their engagement with terrorist elements” (Dawn April 8, 2007). Ministers are not a substitute for the police or the courts. Such interference points to complicity or, at the very least, to a case of misuse of authority.

Ijazul Haq was also a federal minister in Nawaz Sharif’s government. He remains on the gravy-train. In confessing to helping terrorists, he has now acknowledged his guilt, but who dares proceed against a general’s son. The offence of sabotage, subversion and terrorism is punishable by at least imprisonment for life. The same punishment is stipulated for abetment of such offences. His present party leader Shujaat Hussain advocates murder.

The Hafsa Brigade admittedly kidnapped and incarcerated three women and an infant and thus committed a number of offences, including; wrongful restraint (section 339 Pakistan Penal Code), wrongful confinement to extort confession (section 348), assault with intent to dishonour a person ( section 355), assault with intent to confine (section 357), kidnapping (section 363), kidnapping a person under ten (section 364-A), kidnapping and confinement (section 365) and imputing adultery (zina) to harm a woman’s reputation (section 3 of the Offence of Qazf, Enforcement of Hadd, Ordinance).

Some of these offences are punishable by death or life imprisonment. But no case has been registered against the perpetrators.

In sharp contrast, protesting lawyers are baton charged, tear-gassed and detained, and the state makes a mockery of the constitutional guarantees of movement, assembly and association (Articles 15, 16 and 17 respectively). The media too is prevented from exercising its rights and is bludgeoned to submit.

The right to criticise is an integral part of the fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression (Article 19 of the Constitution). Freedom of speech and expression is also a basic right in Islam and speaking the truth is mandated. “The best form of jihad is to utter a word of truth to a tyrannical ruler” (Sunan II 438, Abu Dawud). No less a person than Hazrat Abu Bakr in his innaugral speech said, “Help me if I am right and correct me when I am wrong” (al-Sirah, Ibn Hisham). Hazrat Umar too, in his inaugural speech, said to the people that they should, “rectify any aberration” that they may see in him (al- Jarimah wal Uqubah fil Fiqh al-Islami, Abu Zahra).

The policy of the government is self-evident. Anyone demanding adherence to the Constitution and laws undermines arbitrariness and chips away at the rulers’ authority and is thus subjected to the third degree method. Yet those indulging in criminal activity and concealing their identities, present the perfect photo-opportunity for the government. Cloaked and heavily armed, such pictures are an asset to drum up sympathy and support for the government in the gullible West, whom the government looks to for support, more so than it does from the people of Pakistan.

The Brigade has also set up its own “shariat court,” which undermines the lower courts, High Courts, Federal Shariat Court and the Supreme Court. Is this also a coincidence? Courts are established either under the Constitution or under the relevant law (Article 175). No person or a group of persons can establish a court. “Obedience to the Constitution and law is the inviolable obligation of every citizen” (Article 5(2)) and “any person who abrogates or attempts or conspires to abrogate, subverts…by use of force or show of force or by other unconstitutional means shall be guilty of high treason” (Article 6).

What business does Shujaat Hussain, the head of the ruling party, and Ijazul Haq, a federal minister, have in meeting people indulging in blatant illegal and unconstitutional activities? Since when have they assumed the functions of the police? Does the Islamabad police simply exist to stop peaceful protests, attack the media and manhandle the Chief Justice of Pakistan?

The Hafsa Brigade and Lal Masjid occupants threaten that they will fire upon anyone trying to evict them and launch suicide attacks, thus demonstrating that they do not abide by the Quranic teachings. “Never should a believer kill a believer” (Al Quran 4:92). “If a man kills a believer intentionally, his recompense is hell, to abide therein and the wrath and curse of Allah are upon him, and a dreadful chastisement is prepared for him” (4:93).

Suicide bombers have no place in Islam. There are no exceptions. “O you who believe … do not kill (or destroy) yourselves” (4:29). “Nor take life, which Allah has made sacred” (17:33). By advocating death and destruction, the Hafsa Brigade violates the teachings of the Holy Quran.

As long as the president heads the army and makes political statements criticism will be made, notwithstanding Shujaat Hussain’s inflammatory statement of wanting to shoot critics. The Constitution mandates that the armed forces take orders from civilians; it is also how all civilised countries operate and how Muslim society in the early days of Islam functioned.

Khalid bin Waleed was one of the greatest generals in Muslim history, and instrumental in the defeat of the Byzantine army on the border of Syria. Instead of commending Khalid on the magnificent victory, Caliph Hazrat Umar ibn al Khattab sent a letter to Syria from Medina removing him from command and relegating him to a junior position. Without a murmur of protest one of the most successful Muslim commanders surrendered his command on the receipt of the letter.

Another outstanding general was Amr ibn al Aasi, the commander-in-chief, who received the surrender of Egypt on November 8, 641, from the Byzantines. He too received a letter from Hazrat Umar removing him from the command. Hazrat Umar clearly wanted to establish the supremacy of civilian rule, to build institutions and to show that no matter how brilliant a commander, none is indispensable.

Lieutenant-General Sir John Baggot Glubb in his book ‘The Great Arab Conquest’ wonders, “What is it which compelled these victorious commanders at the head of their armies,” to hand over command “without a murmur to a single unarmed messenger sent by the bare-footed khalif in his patched cloak?” The question encompasses deep admiration and he tellingly concludes, “When we contrast such a situation with the selfishness, the factious and palace intrigues of Constantinople, the reason for Arab victories is plain to see.”

The kind of groveling and obeisance that one witnesses around the president-cum-army chief is nauseating. The Prophet (PBUH) said, “Throw dirt in the faces of people who praise too much”. The Abbasid Caliph Al-Mansur was pestered by a fly and asked Jafar Sadiq (the sixth Fatimid Imam): “What is the purpose of creating flies?” “Simply to humble the pride of despots” was the prompt reply.

Shujaat Hussain and Ijazul Haq should make amends by promising to read and abide by the Constitution and the laws of Pakistan. This will also give them something to do rather than promising to shoot critics and facilitating criminals.

Law-breakers exist in every society, but what distinguishes ours is that the members of the government behave no better than terrorists. The Lal Masjid Brigade has emerged virtually out of no-where and taken the limelight away from the judicial crisis. Is this a convenient coincidence? Maulana Fazlur Rahman of the MMA has stated that the Jaamia Hafsa-Lal Masjid administrators are government sponsored and acting at the government’s behest. Is not General Musharraf once again being projected to civil society as being bulkhead to the “lunatic mullahs”?

The intellectual Hichem Djait expressed what most Pakistanis are feeling today. “I feel humiliated to belong to a state with no outlook for the future nor ambition, a state that is authoritarian if not despotic, in which there is neither science, nor reason, nor beauty of life, nor real culture. I suffer at being governed by uneducated and ignorant leaders.”