What the eye did not see

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What the eye did not see

   By Ardeshir Cowasjee

   Sunday, 13 Jun, 2010

On May 28 of this year, how many members of the minority Ahmadi community were massacred in cold blood by the ‘student’ fraternity upholding their version of the religion of the majority? The official reaction: silence. Unforgivable! — Photo by Reuters.

“Wherein adequate provisions shall be made for the minorities freely to profess and practise their religions and develop their cultures” reads the fifth clause of the Objectives Resolution as adopted by the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, having been moved by Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, on March 7, 1949.

“Wherein adequate provisions shall be made for the minorities to profess and practise their religions and develop their cultures” reads the same clause in the same resolution when inserted into the constitution of 1973 by the Eighth Amendment and made the annex, and thus a substantive part of the constitution, by President Gen Zia ul Haq and his Majlis-i-Shura in 1985.

“CJ lauds parliament for correcting historic wrong” read the lead headline in this newspaper on June 9. The historic wrong was the omission of the word ‘freely’ from the constitution. It has now been reinserted by the 18th Amendment to the constitution as brought in by this PPP-Z government (accompanied by considerable fulsome fanfare).

Hearing petitions in the Supreme Court against various clauses in that contentious amendment, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry is quoted as having remarked not only how wrong it was that the word ‘freely’ was removed from the original clause in the Objectives Resolution but it was also strange that at the time the amendment was passed not one Majlis member had noticed the omission.

He might have added that it was equally strange that since 1985 none of our constitutional experts who have tinkered with the constitution, nor any member of succeeding governments until now, had been at all bothered about the removal of the word, which removal was obviously done with a purpose.

An editorial in our press on June 10 noted that “nobody noticed it till now” and “it is shocking that not only was this omission never highlighted but even the reinsertion was ignored by many until the Supreme Court’s remarks on this issue….”

On April 2, 1993, in my column printed in this space, I wrote about the grand opening on March 21 that year of the newly built Supreme Court and of the passing of its keys by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to Chief Justice of Pakistan Afzal Zullah. I also wrote of the Objectives Resolution, the text of which, embossed on brass plaques, was affixed to a wall in the entrance hall of the court, and quoted the entire original text.

Then: “What now adorns the wall of our Supreme Court is a modified version of the resolution which has destroyed its sanctity. Let us zero in on the original clause … The powers that be have deemed it fit and right to purposefully omit the word ‘freely’ from what has been inscribed. The people thus stand deceived. Does there live a man amongst us who will stand up and say ‘mea culpa’? Who will right the wrong? It is the true text, in toto, of the resolution as passed that must be embossed in the building wherein sit men against whose judgments an appeal lies only before God Almighty.”

On to Dec 3, 2000, when once more in my column printed in this space writing on the omission of the word ‘freely’ from the Annex to the constitution I commented: “Now we move to the Supreme Court, the Islamic Republic’s citadel of justice which in 1997 was so shamelessly stormed by Nawaz Sharif, his aiders and abettors, for which Nawaz remains unpunished. When the present building in which the Supreme Court sits was inaugurated plaques were affixed to the walls of the entrance hall on which were engraved in English and in Urdu the text of the Objectives Resolution. In the English version the word ‘freely’ was mischievously (repeat mischievously) omitted although it was contained in the Urdu version.

“In 1993 I made a vain attempt to get through to Chief Justice Afzal Zullah and impress upon him that the English version should be corrected. Then came Chief Justice Dr Nasim Hasan Shah, who said he would do his best to set things right. Nothing happened. He was followed by Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah who settled the issue by having both plaques, English and Urdu, removed from the hall. No successive chief justice has seen to it that the plaques with the corrected English version be re-affixed.

“Now I appeal to Gen Pervez Musharraf to do what he can to amend the annex to the constitution and to have the plaques refitted….”

So, somewhere within the storage vaults of Chief Justice Chaudhry’s court lie two plaques, unmourned, over the passage of over a decade. As matters in the Islamic Republic have evolved it is perhaps better that they remain where they are, for grave doubts have surfaced as to the wisdom of the passing of the Objectives Resolution. And, the resolution being the preamble to the 1973 constitution, what was Ziaul Haq’s true purpose in adding it for a second time, and amending it, as the annex?

We have seen over the past three decades how impossible it is for the minorities to truly ‘freely’ practise their religion. How many minority citizens of Pakistan have been killed or persecuted, through bigotry, intolerance and Zia’s iniquitous blasphemy laws. And on May 28 of this year, how many members of the minority Ahmadi community were massacred in cold blood by the ‘student’ fraternity upholding their version of the religion of the majority? The official reaction: silence. Unforgivable!

arfc@cyber.net .pk

©2010 DAWN Media Group. All rights reserved

URL: www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-conte...-did-not-see-360-hh-10

Culture of bigotry

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Culture of bigotry

   By Huma Yusuf

   Sunday, 13 Jun, 2010

The day someone like Sharif is awaiting an ulema board’s verdict on whether or not he committed blasphemy is the day that the government should brainstorm and implement non-military means to curb bigotry. The calls for a thorough reform of the education system and curriculum and the repeal of Article 2 are endless, but they continue to fall on deaf ears. — File Photo.

What kind of sick democracy do we live in, where the declaration of equality of all citizens of the state can be deemed unconstitutional? This twisted logic was deployed by the JUI-F in its criticism of Nawaz Sharif’s comments describing Ahmadis as ‘brothers and sisters’ who are an ‘asset to the country’.

Among several other absurd reactions to Sharif’s statement, the JUI-F’s reasoning should serve as yet another wake-up call to the government that urgent social, political and legal measures must be put in place to fight the culture of bigotry and discrimination that is flourishing in Pakistan.

The JUI-F argued that Sharif was violating the constitution, which identifies Ahmadis as a minority community (never mind the fact that in a democracy, minorities enjoy an equal citizenship status and can be equal assets to the state).

This, however, was not the worst critique Sharif had to endure: the Wafaqul Madaris al Arabia accused Nawaz Sharif of defying religion and siding with ‘traitors’; ulema gathered at a seminar accused Nawaz Sharif of kowtowing to the US with his conciliatory remarks about Ahmadis; the ulema board of the Jamia Naeemia Madressah was convened to deliberate whether or not Sharif committed blasphemy by referring to non-Muslims as our ‘brethren’; and across the Pakistani blogosphere, which is supposedly populated by the nation’s educated elite and middle-class progressives, the question of whether Sharif is a kafir continues to be debated.

The irony of the backlash against Sharif cannot be lost on anyone. Since the Taliban launched an onslaught against the Pakistani state, the PML-N has refrained from condemning terrorism and extremist ideology in a forthright manner. Rather than explicitly blame the Taliban for the suicide bombings that have rocked the country, PML-N stalwarts have consistently pinned responsibility on a ‘foreign hand’.

Infamously, in February, the PML-N’s Rana Sanaullah consorted with leaders of the banned Sipah-i-Sahaba during the Jhang by-elections. And in March, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif caused a firestorm by suggesting that the Taliban ought to have spared Punjab on the premise that the provincial government and the militants enjoyed an ideological affinity.

In other words, the PML-N has made every effort not to enter into a confrontation with the forces of extremism. In fact, in the wake of the May 28 attacks on the Ahmadis in Lahore, Shahbaz Sharif’s adviser, Zaeem Qadri, conceded that the provincial government had not made an effort to clamp down on bigoted and anti-Ahmadi posturing for fear of an ‘adverse reaction’.

Qadri’s defensive position is a throwback to Mian Muhammad Khan Daultana, the chief minister of the Punjab in 1953 who refused to take on the religious parties as they waged an anti-Ahmadi campaign, fearing a ‘head-on clash’. Daultana’s inaction became the subject of the now iconic judicial inquiry headed by Justices Muhammad Munir and M.R. Kiyani.

As Sharif makes every effort to clarify and retract his statements, he should probably re-read the Munir Report, the most eloquent defence of secularism which cautioned against trying to define what a Muslim is — thereby bringing a religious matter into the realm of the state — over 50 years ago.

After asking a gathering of ulema to offer their definitions of a Muslim, and finding that consensus was impossible, the justices wrote, “If we attempt our own definition as each learned divine has done and that definition differs from that given by all others, we unanimously go out of the fold of Islam. And if we adopt the definition given by any one of the ulema, we remain Muslims according to the view of that alim but kafirs according to the definition of everyone else.”

This is exactly the lesson that Sharif learned in the past few days. Despite all his party’s attempts to curry favour with rightwing and extremist forces, he ‘went out of the fold’ by making even the most insipid remarks in support of the Ahmadi community. By refusing to learn from history, the PML-N has repeated it. The tigers of Punjab are now cowering in a corner, licking their wounds, while talk of a military operation in their home province circulates on the international stage. It seems the monster of militancy and bigotry has grown so wild that it has come to threaten its benefactors.

But those who have been critical of the PML-N’s apathy towards extremism should not feel smug. The backlash against Sharif — a powerful politician with Saudi backing and rightwing credentials — underscores just how cheaply accusations of blasphemy (and, by extension, incitements to violence) can be come by in Pakistan.

In our newly established culture of 24/7 news reporting, people accuse and abuse with impunity — a fact that is increasingly exploited by the religious right. And any society in which an accusation that is not backed by evidence can carry so much weight if dressed in the trimmings of religious purity is doomed to endless cycles of violence, hate and regression.

The day someone like Sharif is awaiting an ulema board’s verdict on whether or not he committed blasphemy is the day that the government should brainstorm and implement non-military means to curb bigotry. The calls for a thorough reform of the education system and curriculum and the repeal of Article 2 are endless, but they continue to fall on deaf ears.

Perhaps, then, as a stop-gap measure, the government should try a different tack, one that is less daunting than education and constitutional reform.

Last year, after dismissing the human rights implications of the legislation, the government passed the Anti-Terrorism Amendment Ordinance (2009), which significantly shifted the burden of proof onto those accused of being involved in terrorist activities. In a similar vein, the government should consider legislation that shifts the burden of proof of blasphemy onto the accuser, and doles out strict penalties against those who make false accusations.

huma.yusuf@gmail. com

©2010 DAWN Media Group. All rights reserved

URL: www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-...lture-of-bigotry-360-hh-11

Smokers’ Corner: Whiplash

Columnist

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Smokers’ Corner: Whiplash

   By Nadeem F. Paracha

   Sunday, 13 Jun, 2010

Jinnah’s death in 1948 reduced his Muslim League (from being a dynamic organisation of visionary action) to a rag-tag group of self-serving politicians. It became a pale reflection of its pre-independence past. Gone too was the party’s ability to bring into policy Jinnah’s modernist Muslim vision.

A consensus across various academic and intellectual circles now states that violent entities such as the Pakistani Taliban and assorted sectarian organisations are the pitfalls of policies pursued by the state through its intelligence agencies to safeguard Pakistan’s ‘strategic’ and ideological interests.

The supposed ideology was constructed by the ruling establishment many years after the painful birth of this country. It has since been used by the state apparatus, political parties and media men to justify the patronisation and formation of brutal reactive outfits and groups. But whose ideology is it anyway? Pakistan seemed to have had a simple answer till about 1956. This answer, it seems, did not suit the political and economic interests of the early Pakistani ruling elite.

Till about the late 1960s it was normal to suggest that Pakistan was carved as a country for Muslims of the subcontinent who were largely seen (by Jinnah and his comrades in the Muslim League), as a distinct cultural set of Indians whose political, economic and cultural distinctiveness might have been compromised in a post-colonial ‘Hindu-dominated’ setup. As Jinnah went about explaining his vision of Pakistan, there was no doubt whatsoever in the historical validity of the notion that he imagined the new country as a cultural haven for Muslims of the subcontinent where the state and politics would remain separate.

The state was to be driven by modern democracy that incorporated the egalitarian concepts of Islam such as charity, equality and interfaith tolerance. According to Professor Aysha Jalal, Jinnah’s view of Islamic activism in the subcontinent was akin to his understanding it as a phenomenon that ‘derided the false and dangerous religious frenzy which had confused Indian politics and the zealots who were harming the national cause.’

However, Jinnah’s death in 1948 reduced his Muslim League (from being a dynamic organisation of visionary action) to a rag-tag group of self-serving politicians. It became a pale reflection of its pre-independence past. Gone too was the party’s ability to bring into policy Jinnah’s modernist Muslim vision. The idea got increasingly muddled and shouted down by the once anti-Pakistan Islamic forces, who now started flexing their muscles in the face of a disintegrating Muslim League, and the erosion of the ideal that its leader stood for.

The Jamat-i-Islami (JI) went on a rampage in 1953 in Lahore, hungrily overseeing the country’s first major anti-Ahmadi riots. Of course, by now the famous speech by Jinnah in which he underlined the idea of religious freedom in the new country was conveniently forgotten as the ruling elite grappled confusingly with the crises of its own creation. Eventually, it capitulated to the demands of the handful of vocal Islamist leaders by officially declaring the country an ‘Islamic Republic’. It was classic ostrich behaviour; the sort a number of Pakistani leaders continue to demonstrate whenever faced with the question of Pakistan and its relationship to political Islam.

Misunderstanding Islamist activism as mere emotionalism, the ruling elite gave the Islamists a bone to play with, without bothering to explain to the rest of the people exactly what an Islamic republic really meant in the Pakistani context — a country buzzing with a number of ethnicities, minority religions and distinct Muslim sects. A democratic order should have been a natural answer to the state’s crisis. But for Islamists, democracy meant the emergence of ethnic and religious plurality that would encourage secular politics and further undermine the notion of the new-found Islam-centric Pakistani nationhood.

Many years and follies later, and in the midst of unprecedented violence being perpetrated in the name of Islam, Pakistanis today stand more confused and flabbergasted than ever before. The seeds of ideological schizophrenia that the 1956 constitution sowed followed by the disastrous doings of the Gen Ziaul Haq dictatorship in the 1980s. These have now grown into a wicked tree that only bears delusions and denials as fruit.

As Islamic parties and reactionary journalists continue to use the flimsy historical narrative of Pakistan’s Islamic republicism, consciously burying the harrowing truth behind the chaos the so-called’ Islamic ideology of Pakistan’ has managed to create, whole new generations grow up lapping up this synthetic narrative. While it has continued to alienate not only the religious minorities — Muslim and non-Muslim — it has also stoked intolerance among the very vocal and assertive, puritan Muslims.

A recent example is the way many puritan Islamic groups have reacted to the conservative Nawaz Sharif’s statement sympathising with the plight of the Ahmadis. Also, one of Pakistan’s outstanding, moderate Islamic scholars, Javed Ahmed Ghamdi, has had to fly out of the country into a self-imposed exile. According to an executive producer at a popular Urdu-language TV channel, Ghamdi was facing a number of threats from certain puritan and violent Islamic groups.

His sin? He stood out as a mainstream Sunni Muslim scholar who banked on reason and an interpretive take on the Quran, eschewing the myopic literalism of the puritan groups that espouse a violent, political view of Islam.

©2010 DAWN Media Group. All rights reserved

URL: www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content...-whiplash-360-hh-05