'Enlightened
Moderation' Drummed by Musharraf Sounds Hilarious
Senator
Farhatullah Babar
ISLAMABAD:
General Pervez Musharraf has made an impassioned plea to the Muslims
and fellow Pakistanis for ‘Enlightened Moderation’.
No one would disagree with General Musharraf and his call. But
unfortunately there are not many takers in the country.
People know too well that there is a serious disconnect between
what the General says and what is, to borrow his own words in
a different context, ‘the ground reality’.
within
three days of his call for moderation the General, in reply to
a question asked by a private TV channel whether he was ready
to shake hands with Ms Bhutto, ruefully retorted that he would
rather kick her.
Clearly
this is a double-faced policy: One, shown to the West as pleading
for moderation; the other of a ruler who carefully calibrates
calls for denouncing extremism in between practising it, to keep
himself in power. Consider the following:
The
General promised before an international gathering in Islamabad
in October 2000 that he would change those repressive laws made
during the dictatorship of General Zia to please the religious
and jihadi extremists which he admitted militated against the
minorities and women.
He
announced procedural modifications in the blasphemy law to make
it difficult for anyone to wrongly implicate minorities for political
or other reason. As soon as the seminar ended the clergy warned
him against any changes in the law. The General needing them for
his political survival promptly reneged on his promise.
Just
as General Musharraf called for enlightened moderation, a Christian
youth Samuel Masih, 27, facing trial for blasphemy, was murdered
by a police official using a brick cutter.
The General has also been calling for changes in the country’s
Hudood laws that call for stoning to death a woman who fails to
produce ‘four pious Muslims’ as witnesses to prove
that she was actually raped. The Parliamentary opposition promptly
moved a bill in the Parliament seeking to amend the laws but the
General’s hand picked advisor on women affairs opposed it.
Yet the General is wooing these very religious parties and groups.
Election laws were carefully changed to squeeze the democratic
opposition parties and pave the way for clerical parties to capture
the political space in October 2002 elections which were denounced
by the Commonwealth as ‘seriously flawed’.
At
the start of this year the General found it convenient to negotiate
with these parties a deal which allows him to wear two hats, of
the army chief and the President at the same time. The deal also
endorsed Musharraf’s new Constitution written by the military
commanders in the GHQ rather than in the Parliament.
Many
believe that as quid pro quo the General may keep paying lip service
to moderation but do nothing to contain extremism. It is difficult
to take his pleas and promises at face value.
Two years ago he promised changes in syllabi of the seminaries,
some of which are accused of teaching hate material. The promise
was never kept.
About
a month ago he appointed as Religious Affairs Minister the son
of military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq, who in the decade of
80’s had supported and funded these seminaries and patronized
them to produce indoctrinated Islamic fighters to fight the so
called jihad in Afghanistan.
Last
week this Religious Affairs Minister announced that he was happy
to assign to the dustbin the report of an international organization
on the religious seminaries in Pakistan. And he stumped everyone
when he declared publicly, that he too was prepared to act as
a human bomb to avenge the injustices to Muslims.
The
minister may be a demagogue who may have said this to curry favor
with some extremists but he is also a minister in the cabinet
and has been chosen by General Pervez Musharraf for the job. It
is inescapable to suspect that he reflects the thinking of Pakistan’s
military ruler.
The people in Pakistan know fully well that prior to 9/11 General
Pervez Musharraf publicly supported the so-called ‘jihad’.
On February 5, 2000 General Musharraf addressed a public meeting
in Muzaffarabad. Raising clenched fists at India he declared that
Afghan jihad had shifted to Kashmir and would be fought there.
He
claims to have changed after 9/11 when he apparently sounded a
warning to jihadi outfits on January 12, 2002 against exporting
militancy to the Indian part of Kashmir. Many in Pakistan however,
are not sure which face of General Musharraf to accept as real,
that of pre 9/11 or post.
Enlightened moderation and the call to the people to fashion their
lives in accordance with it sounds hilarious. But the people also
need to know: How the government plans to address the glaring
contradiction between promises and ‘ground realities’?
The
writer is a senator elected from Islamabad on the PPP ticket in
2002 elections.
