General Pervez Musharraf is now a desperate man.
Dozens were left dead in the horrific carnage on
May 12, initiated by his violent political allies
in Karachi, the MQM, in an attempt to stem the
popular protests against Musharraf’s dismissal of
the chief justice of Pakistan. But this may still
not buy him enough strength. Protests will
continue. His “million man rally” in Islamabad,
held on the same day, blatantly used the state’s
full organizational machinery and was widely
ridiculed. It was seen as a sign of his weakness
rather than strength.
So what is Musharraf likely to do next?
Military generals and fanatical clerics have been
symbiotically linked in Pakistan’s politics for
decades. They have often needed and helped the
other attain their respective goals. And they may
soon need each other again - this time to set
Islamabad ablaze. An engineered bloodbath that
leads to the army’s intervention, and the
declaration of a national emergency, could serve
as excellent reason for postponing the October
2007 elections. Although Musharraf denies that he
wants a postponement, a lengthy martial law may
now be his only chance for a continuation of his
dictatorial rule into its eighth year - and
perhaps beyond.
This perverse strategy sounds almost
unbelievable. A man who President George W. Bush
describes as his “buddy” in the war against
terror, and the celebrated author of an
“enlightened moderate” version of Islam,
Musharraf wears the two close assassination
attempts on his life by religious extremists as a
badge of honour. But his secret reliance upon the
Taliban card - one that he has been accused of
playing for years - increases as his authority
and judgment weaken.
The signs of government engineered chaos are
manifest. For many months now, here in the heart
of Pakistan’s capital, vigilante groups from a
government funded mosque, the Lal Masjid, have
roamed the streets and bazaars as they impose
Islamic morality and terrorize citizens in full
view of the police. Openly sympathetic to the
Taliban and tribal militants fighting the
Pakistan army, the two cleric brothers who head
Lal Masjid, Maulana Abdul Aziz and Maulana Abdur
Rashid Ghazi, have attracted a core of banned
militant organizations around them. These include
the Jaish-e-Muhammad, considered to be the
pioneer of suicide bombings in the region.
The clerics openly defy the state. Since Jan 21,
2007, baton wielding burqa-clad students of the
Jamia Hafsa, the women’s Islamic university
located next to Lal Masjid, have forcibly
occupied a government building, the Children’s
Library. In one of their many forays outside the
seminary, this burqa brigade swooped upon a
house, which they claimed was a brothel, and
kidnapped 3 women and a baby.
The male students of Islamabad’s many madrassas
are even more active. They terrorize video shop
owners, who they accuse of spreading pornography
and vice. Newspapers have carried pictures of
grand bonfires made with seized cassettes and
CDs. Most video stores in Islamabad have now
closed down. Their owners duly repented after a
fresh campaign by militants on May 4 bombed a
dozen music and video stores, barber shops and a
girls school in the North West Frontier Province
(NWFP).
The Pakistani state has shown astonishing
patience. It showed its displeasure in Karachi
with bullets, while other challengers have been
hit with air and artillery power. But the Lal
Masjid clerics operate with impunity. No attempt
has been made to cut off their electricity, gas,
phone, or website - or even to shut down their
illegal FM radio station. The chief negotiator
appointed by Musharraf, Chaudhry Shujaat Husain,
described the burqa brigade kidnappers as "our
daughters", with whom negotiations would continue
and against whom "no operation could be
contemplated".
Soon after they went on the warpath, the clerics
realized that the government wanted to play ball.
Their initial demand - the rebuilding of 8
illegally constructed mosques that had been
knocked down by Islamabad’s civic
administration - transformed into a demand for enforcing the
Shariah in Pakistan. At a meeting held in the
mosque on April 6, over 100 guest religious
leaders from across the country pledged to die
for the cause of Islam and Shariah. On April 12,
(also reported in The News, Islamabad, April 24)
in an FM broadcast from the Lal Masjid’s illegal
FM station, the clerics issued a threat:
"There will be suicide blasts in the nook and
cranny of the country. We have weapons, grenades
and we are expert in manufacturing bombs. We are
not afraid of death".
The Lal Masjid head cleric, a former student of
my university in Islamabad, added the following
chilling message for our women students in the
same broadcast:
"The government should abolish co-education.
Quaid-e-Azam University has become a brothel. Its
female professors and students roam in
objectionable dresses. I think I will have to
send my daughters of Jamia Hafsa to these immoral
women. They will have to hide themselves in hijab
otherwise they will be punished according to
Islam. Our female students have not issued the
threat of throwing acid on the uncovered faces of
women. However, such a threat could be used for
creating the fear of Islam among sinful women.
There is no harm in it. There are far more
horrible punishments in the hereafter for such
women.
If the truth be told, QAU resembles a city of
walking double-holed tents rather than the
brothel of a sick mullah’s imagination. The last
few bare-faced women are finding it more
difficult by the day to resist. But then, that is
precisely the aim of the Islamists. On May 7, a
female teacher in the QAU history department was
physically assaulted in her office by a bearded,
Taliban-looking man who screamed that he had
instructions from Allah. President Musharraf -
who is the chancellor of QAU and often chooses to
be involved in rather petty university
administrative affairs - has made no comment on
the recent developments.
What next? As Islamabad heads the way of
Pakistan’s tribal towns, the next targets will be
girls schools, internet cafes, bookshops and
western clothing stores, followed by shops
selling toilet paper, tampons, underwear,
mannequins, and other un-Islamic goods.
In a sense, the inevitable is coming to pass.
Until a few years ago, Islamabad was a quiet,
orderly, modern city different from all others in
Pakistan. Still earlier it was largely the abode
of Pakistan’s hyper-elite and foreign diplomats.
But the rapid transformation of its demography
brought with it hundreds of mosques with
multi-barrelled audio-cannons mounted on
minarets, as well as scores of madrassas
illegally constructed in what used to be public
parks and green areas. Now, tens of thousands of
their students with little prayer caps dutifully
chant the Quran all day. In the evenings they
roam in packs through the city’s streets and
bazaars, gaping at store windows and lustfully
ogling bare-faced women.
The stage for transforming Islamabad into a
Taliban stronghold is being set. If at all it is
to be prevented, resolute opposition from its
citizens will be needed to prevent more Lal
Masjids from creating their own shariah squads.
The responsibility for the current bout of
religious terrorism in Islamabad falls squarely
on General Musharraf’s government, which has
clearly chosen to secretly sanction it. It is a
desperate stratagem but it will not work.
Musharraf is already a lame duck. His three
principal intelligence agencies are split among
themselves on many issues, as is his political
party. The Americans have finally wearied of his
cleverness in fighting for their dollars while
secretly supporting the Taliban. When he exits -
which may be sooner rather than later - Musharraf
will have left a legacy that will last for
generations. All this for a little more taste of
power.
Pervez Hoodbhoy
Chairman, Department of Physics
Quaid-e-Azam University
Islamabad 45320, Pakistan.