Opinion

Lal Masjid: A Waco and Golden Temple Tragedy in the Making?
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg, CA

According to Aryn Baker of the Time, (April 2, 2007), a new country in the borderlands lying between Pakistan and Afghanistan has already come into being. It’s called Talibanistan and it rhymes with the two countries that surround it.
In the words of a senior US military official in Afghanistan, “The bottom line is that Taliban can do what they want in the tribal areas because the Pakistan army is not going to come after them”. Ms. Samina Ahmed, a South Asia Director of International Crisis Group, is blunter when she says, “The state has ceded this territory. The Taliban have been given their own little piece of real estate”. Malik Sher Muhammad Khan, a tribal elder from Wana contends, “The Taleban walk through the streets shouting that children shouldn’t go to school because they are learning modern subjects like math and science….” Malik Haji Awar Khan, head of a 2,000-person tribe in North Waziristan claims, “This is a jihad dictated by outsiders. It is not a holy war. They just want power and money”.
Taleban have already carved out two safe havens in NWFP, South and North Waziristan. Last year they extended their influence up to Tank, and from there on to further north around Bannu and to the neighboring district of Lakki Marwat. Even Peshawar is not free from their impact; international chains of schools, such as Beacon House and Bloomfield have had to remain closed whenever the threat from the Taleban comes.
And now the Taleban factor has reached the very capital of Pakistan, Islamabad. If Afghanistan has a rich crop of warlords, Pakistan is having a bumper yield of Maulvi-lords. In the words of Mr. I. A. Rahman “both prosper in chaotic situations”.
In his Friday Khutba of April 6, Maulana Abdul Aziz of the Lal Mosque, did not mince any words when he categorically announced the setting up of an Islamic court to stop “vulgar activity”; warning the government of Pakistan of suicide attacks if it acted against the mosque. “Sharia or Shahadat”, is their popular slogan.
The Lal Mosque administration contends that it is a war between the ‘Lip-stick brigade and the Stick-brigade”, and their girl students are armed up to teeth with baton and Kalashnikovs. The impact, as say the human rights groups, has already begun affecting the citizens because they are “terrorizing ordinary citizens in the name of Islam”. Hordes of students of this Hafsa seminary affiliated with this mosque have already begun circling around the music and video shops.
Two-and-a-half months ago, students of this school took over the children’s library and held two police officials as hostage, till some “peaceful negotiations’ resolved the problem. Last week, once again female students of this madrassa abducted a woman whom they accused of running a brothel, and held her captive for two days. “Peaceful negotiations”, once again, saved the face of the government.
Unlike the government, this Maulana and his brother, at least, are clear in their minds. They openly say that the land (Pakistan) belongs to Allah; it is the government that had usurped this land in the last sixty years. They, however, conveniently exclude those areas from this land of Allah which fall under their purview. Now they are challenging the very writ of the government. Thanks to their sympathizers like Ejaz Ul Haque, the problem will again be amicably defused, as once he helped resolve the issue of the insertion of the religion column in the passports.
Wusut-ullah Khan of the BBC finds many a point of similarity in the Lal Mosque’s current-tension-build-up, and the Golden Temple’s takeover by Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwala in 1982. Both, the Maulvis and the Bhindranwala have been religious people; both have been non-political in the initial stages; both coined similar slogans and catch-phrases for their followers, namely refrain from alcohol, refrain from adultery, and be true followers of the respected Sharia; both gained popularity till they got intoxicated by it; both promoted zealotry and bigotry till their followers began administering justice themselves (in Bhindranwala’s case the death of over forty Narenkari Sikhs, and in Maulana Aziz’s case the issuance of edicts and the setting up of a Sharia court); both have had the support of the government in the beginning, and felt emboldened by the inaction of the government, (Bhindranwala in 1982 took over the Golden Temple and huddled himself there, and in Lal Masjid’s case, these two Maulanas managed the takeover of the Children’s library).
Add to this duo, a third incident of a similar magnitude. The Waco incident of 1993 in which the Branch Davidian leader, David Koresh fortified himself in his Branch Davidian residence, till 76 agents of the ATF failed to flush them out. It was then AG Janet Reno who had to give permission to the FBI to flush them out, which they did by using tanks to smash holes in the walls of the building, and had to spray gas into the residence. The only point of dissimilarity in this incident is that the Branch Davidian people, as they claim, were ambushed without provocation, and that they had acted only in self-defense. The two Maulanas of the Lal Masjid are in breach of all such claims. They have been highly provocative; have been in complete defiance of the authority of the government; have been a nuisance to other citizens as they have been accused of shoving their brand of self-righteousness, and Islam on other people.
The one question that agitates the mind incessantly is: Who are these two “Maulanas”? Are they the new prophets mandated by Allah to “rid people of evils”? Except for a few religious leaders, why has there been a mysterious silence in the realm of the religious-cum-political leaders in condemning their actions? Why the opposition, with the exception of MQM and People’s Party, has remained criminally but amusedly stoical and unconcerned? The Bhindranwala’s takeover, as we all know, resulted in the army action of 1982, leading to the assassination of Indra Gandhi in 1984; the Waco incident resulted in the death of 76 Davidians, including 27 children, and it still is considered one of the most controversial law enforcement operation in modern American history.
The Lal Masjid, as the name suggestively hints, would not be without its toll and price. When 45 tribal elders from Pakistan’s borderlands feel compelled to beseech Hamid Karzai, “You are our President. You can free us from this disaster. We are at your service, and we support you,” it means that something is really rotting at the core. And in the words of Simon Robinson, “That the tribesmen would turn to one of Musharraf’s rivals for help against the Taliban is a telling indictment of his leadership”. What more President Musharraf needs to feel convinced that the Taleban and their brand of Islam has reached from the North and South Waziristan to the very inroads of Islamabad.

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