THE worst news of the week by far was that sectarianism, extremism, terrorism — and whatever else fits the violent context — has yet again reared its ugly head in the Republic of Pakistan.

On Friday morning, Bari Imam in the capital city of Islamabad, where security is supposedly at its peak, was the victim of a confirmed suicide bombing. The Bari Imam was packed with devotees; the bomber achieved his purpose.

Was it coincidental that President General Pervez Musharraf happened to be out of the capital city that day, that perhaps the usual ultra-tight security arrangements were not up to the standard? Though admittedly, with hundreds of worshippers flocking to the shrine it is unlikely that the bomber could have been detected.

What is it that propels such people to believe that they are fulfilling the will of God by killing their fellow Muslims? Muslim suicide bombers are killing Muslims on a daily basis in Iraq, and they have done so in this country on many an occasion. The innocents who are slain die merely because they happen to be in the right place at the right time. It is senseless and it is evil.

Where do these suicide bombers come from? The most obvious breeding ground for our homegrown bombers are the madressahs, which still flourish despite General Musharraf’s battle call for enlightened moderation. The madressahs impart education, but far too many of them the wrong sort of education — they are masters of manipulation. These human bombs are not ignorant or crazed. They are not simple-minded. They have been carefully taught and brainwashed into believing that to take the final journey, to opt for paradise, by taking with them those who do not share their blinkered belief, is the ultimate form of martyrdom. They are schooled and groomed in their art. Suicide terrorist attacks are no random acts taken on the spur of the moment. They are part of an organized campaign and are one of the most efficient forms of terrorism.

One major back-track by General Musharraf and his government was on the matter of madressah reforms. The mullahs and maulvis of the MMA won out on that one. A great pity, for if moderation, coupled with enlightenment, is to ever spread throughout this country, the militant madressahs will have to be controlled and their syllabi amended, hand in hand with a start at the long gruelling process of bringing literacy to the growing millions of illiterate children.

The other not so good news was that we seem to be losing our Ataturk, our Papapak. The obscurantist minority which Musharraf earlier claimed was holding this country hostage has this month, transformed itself into the majority, the views of which must be respected. In a press interview, he was answering a question on whether ‘mixed marathons’ should be organized or not. The majority say no, says he, so that is that.

However, all may not be lost. There remains a faint (very faint) glimmer of hope. At a function organized by the Council of Islamic Ideology on May 26, the day prior to the slaughter at Bari Imam, Musharraf spoke on Islamic jurisprudence and on the enforcement of laws imposed as interpreted by “fossilized” and obscurantist forces, “self-proclaimed custodians of the faith.” He rightly said that these people wrongly claim a monopoly on dictating the laws that must prevail. He referred particularly to the Hudood laws, which have been declared by certain of our Islamic scholars and members of our judiciary to be unIslamic.

His suggestion, which will get us nowhere, is that they be re-examined yet again — they have been thoroughly examined by various bodies set up over the past decade by the governments that have come and gone, including his own government. They were brought in by an ordinance, they can be done away with by an ordinance — it would take but one stroke of his pen. What is the point of continuing and examining them, leaving them in place to wreak untold suffering on so many of the women of this country? This surely cannot be interpreted as either moderate or enlightened.

The general spoke of how the Muslim world found itself left behind, through its own fault, of how the forces of obscurantism were still with us, working away, eroding the evolution of society, and at odds with the demands of reality as it exists in today’s world. These are fine words, spoken the day before the suicide bomber killed over a score of blameless Shias doing their own thing at a shrine in the nation’s capital city.

How will the president combat organized terrorism perpetrated by one section of Muslim citizens of Pakistan against another who may differ from them? How does he intend to stamp out this intolerance which breeds so much violence and destruction? He cannot do it by words alone, nor can he do it by allowing himself to be influenced by the very forces he proclaims he wishes to defeat.

The president has ‘condemned’ this act of homegrown terrorism — what else can he do, the deed is done. He has appealed to the nation to unite and fight.

The combat will be against the national mindset, the minority versus the majority. The helpless prime minister, who, if he was listening, surely heard the bomb go off down the road from his lush ornamental state-funded villa, has ‘expressed his shock and grief’ (as the press puts it).

While news of the carnage was being broadcast around the world, our gentlemen of the cloth, the religious leaders, the self-proclaimed guardians of the bastion of Islam as practised in this country, were marching in the streets of our cities protesting against sacrilegious acts committed against the Holy Book in a far-off land. Should they not also be raising their voices in protest against the murder of Muslims by Muslims in their own homeland?

President and prime minister are trying to reason with bigotry, which knows no reasoning. What they and we need are laws that are not entrenched in obscurantism, and the strict enforcement of order. Both gentlemen, who never fail to raise the name of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, founder of this country, should ponder on what he told the future members of his Constituent Assembly three days before his country was born — that the first duty of a government, of any government, is to maintain law and order “so that the life, property and religious beliefs of its subjects are fully protected by the state.”

Neither life, nor property, nor religious beliefs were protected on the morning of Friday, May 27, and they have been rendered no protection for well over half of the life of the country.

General, you must cross the first hurdle. You have no choice.

E-mail: arfc@cyber.net.pk