Islamabad Mosque Crisis

VIEW: Suicidal politics —Dr Ayesha Siddiqa
Daiy Times, February 12, 2007

Any coercive action to establish the writ of the state should not be taken without the government appearing to be completely above board. A selective application of law will not help

Lal Masjid, located at the heart of Islamabad, comes as a complete surprise to the visitor. The armed men with AK-47s protecting the mosque and the madrassa seem to belong to another country.

Earlier, the madrassa’s female students had forcibly occupied a children’s library, demanding that the government withdraw its decision to demolish the illegally constructed mosque and madrassa. The gunmen now stand guard there to show the government that they mean business.

This demonstration of force is absolutely scary, given the recent spate of suicide attacks in the capital city and other nearby towns, like Peshawar. Such incidents and situations signify a sorry state of governance in the country.

Apparently the federal minister for religious affairs, Ijaz-ul-Haq, has given a written assurance to the armed protectors of the mosque that the government will reconstruct the mosque and the madrassa, and that any decision to remove illegal mosques will be take by a committee comprising the mullahs as well. He probably has better lines of communication than anyone else in the government with the religious zealots, dating back to the days of his late father General Zia-ul-Haq.

Earlier, the president had also announced a decision to give alternative land to the illegal mosques. We also hear that the local administration is preparing to take extreme action against the siege of the library and to remove the illegally constructed mosque.

The signals are pretty confusing and it is difficult to guess what is in the mind of the government. The actions of both Minister and President denote a reactive policy. Negotiations or the allocation of alternative land should have come before the decision to demolish the mosque. At this juncture, the mullahs will take this as a weakening by the government.

But then, any coercive action to establish the writ of the state should not be taken without the government appearing to be completely above board. A selective application of law will not help. Such miscreants cannot be sorted out unless the government is willing to reign in all miscreants, even though they wield offices of power and authority.

This is really a catch-22 situation for the authorities. If no action is taken it will look like a victory of extremist forces, and if it is it might result in a lot of bloodshed.

Already, there are reports indicating that some of the military officers, especially the PAF, argued against a decision to use coercive methods against the occupants of the mosque and the madrassa. This was not due to extremism in the armed forces, as some might believe, but out of concern for the repercussions of using force in a populated city.

The current standoff between the armed mullahs and the authorities poses a serious threat to civil society and the country. The years of using militancy as a policy tool and the free flow of small arms and light weapons in the country has resulted in strengthening militant groups. Reports indicate that at this juncture the renegade groups of different militant organisations are in the process of regrouping, which will further threaten the state and society.

The armed men protecting the mosque indicate three problems.

The first is the growing power of non-state actors to challenge the writ of the state. A number of writers had warned the authorities during the 1980s and the 1980s that empowering non-state elements would have severe repercussions for the country, but they were paid no attention. Consequently, it is difficult at this stage to clear the place of illegal weapons and people that are determined to use violence to attain their political objectives. The gun-totting mullahs outside the madrassa denote a complete failure of the de-weaponisation policy that, in any case, did not really take off when it was initiated in 2002.

Second, these seemingly ideologically motivated people have discovered another forceful tool: suicide attacks. It is impossible for any government to completely stop suicide attacks. Increased searches and security measures are problematic because the common man is highly suspicious of what the authorities do. Efforts to increase security, as being done now at the airports, would naturally inconvenience the general public, which, in turn, would further aggravate the situation and make the government highly unpopular.

Third, the determination of these armed mullahs and the proliferation of suicide bombers points to a common factor: ideologically motivated people from the lower segments of society who believe that violence is the only method of fulfilling their objectives.

A close look at the profiles of most suicide bombers shows that, besides being ideologically motivated, these people come from a stratum of society which feels left out in the overall social system. They have adopted violent methods due to their belief that the system of governance does not have any space for the destitute and the downtrodden.

Over the years the ruling elite has captured the state and there has been a horizontal integration between the ruling classes, which includes the military. This situation generates a kind of frustration that, in the eyes of some, can only be solved through a policy of confrontation. Hence there is a deeper identity and economic disparity problem.

Militants who carry out suicide attacks or those that have surrounded the mosque with guns and are threatening the state with dire consequences, are not just motivated by religion but use it as a tool for group cohesion, which is then used to solve the larger problem of social and economic disparity.

For the past so many years the state has not been able to provide opportunities to those from the lower strata of society. These people do not believe in any legal and constitutional framework or in the electoral process. The gun and the bomb give them a greater sense of power and control of their destiny. The country’s education system, in particular, offers them no recourse either.

It is no secret that, besides the encouragement provided by the state, the madrassa became a popular institution because it emerged as the only option for the segment of the population that did not have access to other opportunities. The problem of integration with the larger community is not just the responsibility of individuals and select groups but also of the state. The latter must create an environment where people have a sense of belonging and greater responsibility.

This is true not only of Pakistan but of other places as well. Islam in the European Union by Yunus Samad and Kasturi Sen, published recently, points out that the suicide bombers involved in the July 7th London attacks were from the poorer parts of British cities and lived with their parents in council houses. Given their socio-economic conditions, they found it harder to integrate with the rest of the population in the highly class-oriented society of Britain. At that juncture in their lives, a visit to religious seminaries in Pakistan not only deepened the disconnect with their country of residence but also made them prefer violence as an option.

These cases present suicide bombing and armed violence as a complex issue that needs to be solved through looking again at the socio-economic and political paradigms. Unless the ruling elite is willing to provide almost equal opportunities to the poor and the destitute, they will always remain threatened. Perhaps it is worthwhile for a social anthropologist to study the linkage between elitist socio-economic policies and emerging patterns of violence in the state.

The writer is an Islamabad-based independent defence analyst and author of the forthcoming book, Military Inc, Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy

VIEW: Jamia Hifsa must close down — Farhat Taj
Daıly Tımes February 5 2007

The students of the Jamia wake up every morning at 5:00 am. They are not allowed any games, out-door trips or TV. Watching TV, they said, was banned in Islam. They live in strict gender segregation and believe in the subordination of woman to man. They study Islam in its most extremist form

Recently, Daily Times reported that Islamabad’s Capital Development Authority (CDA) has issued notice to the management of Lal Mosque to demolish the building of Jamia Hifsa, a seminary for female students, or the CDA would take action and demolish it. The seminary (madrassa) is built on the encroached public land.

The international and national media have been reporting the Jamia’s violent jihadi views and suspected links with Al Qaeda. The latest twist is that the British media spotted Misbah Irum, the Scottish born 12-year-old girl who was at the centre of an international child custody battle between her Scottish mother and Pakistani father, in the Jamia. She was projected as a future Islamist militant in the making. Before this, the government of President Pervez Musharraf had accused the Jamia of harbouring Islamic militants wanted on terrorism charges.

The Jamia was raided after the July 7 bombings in London, when the British prime minister asked Pakistan to rein in its religious seminaries. During the raid, the burqa-veiled and stick-wielding students of the madrassa clashed with the police.

I had a firsthand encounter with the seminary’s students and teachers during a research visit to Islamabad. I had intended to interview the imam of the Lal mosque and someone in the mosque directed me to go to the adjacent madrassa, where a female employee would arrange an appointment with the imam. I went there, not knowing the place was Jamia Hifsa.

Within minutes I was surrounded by hundreds of young girls between the ages of five and twenty; soon we were joined by a teacher. She led me to a room which filled up with as many students as it could accommodate, at which point the principal also came in. The principal and the teachers did not offer to facilitate my access to the imam. Instead they and the students showered me with questions? Who I was? What area did I come from? Why did I want to interview the imam? They questioned my personal appearance — my hairdo and my attire, which in their view was ‘too tight’ and therefore un-Islamic. They told me I was committing a ‘sin’ by ‘roaming around all over the world’ unaccompanied by my male-relations and sans burqa.

The students of the Jamia wake up every morning at 5:00 am. They are not allowed any games, out-door trips or TV. Watching TV, they said, was banned in Islam. They live in strict gender segregation and believe in the subordination of woman to man. They study Islam in its most extremist form. The students and teachers told me the madrassa is grooming wives and mothers for jihadis, female suicide bombers and female foot-soldiers who will clash with the law enforcement agencies of Pakistan, if necessary.

They said Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omer were their heroes and they were ready to become suicide bombers to kill the ‘enemies of Islam’ in Pakistan and abroad. When I said that Bin Laden is a terrorist who is fighting for an Arab cause on our soil, someone shouted ‘Osama!’, and the rest yelled ‘zindabad’. This yelling went on for a while.

I have never been so careful in choosing my words as I was in my conversation with the students and teachers of the Jamia. They asked me to promise to kill the editor who had published the Danish cartoons, because I live in Europe. I told them that I could not take the law into my hands. They did not agree though. They asked me to raise the slogan ‘Osama zindabad’. I said that probably Osama himself would not like it, as I would not say it out of conviction for his cause but as a courtesy to them. Luckily they accepted my argument.

They also told that me that the US forces in the neighbouring Afghanistan have been kidnapping and raping the women of Waziristan. One of them, from Waziristan, claimed that she herself had seen US helicopters lifting dozens of women and dropping the clothes of the women within minutes of the helicopters leaving off.

One girl asked her Punjabi and Kashmiri colleagues to back off for a moment because she would like to handle me ‘like a Pushtun’. Then our conversation in Pashto began. I asked her: ”Does it ever occur to you that it is Pushtuns like yourself whose extremist views are threatening the entire Pushtun ethnic group of Pakistan.” She did not agree and said: “We stand for Islam and it is Muslims like yourself — who have strayed away from Islam and are beypardah — who have forgotten the message of God. But we will bring you all into the fold of Islam or will eliminate you from the face of the earth, Inshallah.” She disappointed me when she referred to the verses of the famous mystic Pashto poet Rehman Baba to prove that the poet’s understanding of Islam was the same as her own.

I requested the principal to allow me to talk to some of the students in private. I still believed some of them might express different views when left alone. She refused. Upon this, I left the place.

Tens of students followed me to the madrassa door. They repeatedly asked me to come again. They were confident they would win me over after a few more meetings. I never went back.

Since that day I have wished for the madrassa to be closed down. There are around 3000 students there. Where would they go? I have no answer. It is the right of these students to be in a school, studying the normal curriculum and playing the normal games played by Pakistani children.

Many of the students are in the madrassa because their poor parents cannot afford their schooling elsewhere. This is the failure of the state of Pakistan, which has a constitutional obligation to educate all its children of school-going age. But the principal of the Jamia also told me that many of her students are from well-to-do, even rich families. If so, their parents are answerable to the nation. Why did they put their daughters in a jihadi madrassa when they could easily afford a private or government school? Who is going to hold the parents answerable? The state? I don’t know.

I am also afraid that the madrassa, if closed down by the CDA, will be reopened elsewhere in Pakistan, probably on encroached public land — again.

Farhat Taj is a PhD research fellow at the Centre for Women and Gender Studies, University of Oslo