Lal Masjid’s
Long Shadow
By Ahmad Faruqui, PhD
Dansville, CA
The army’s
raid on the Lal Masjid, codenamed Operation Silence,
has not lived up to its name. It has triggered
Operation Loud Chatter among Pakistanis around
the globe. Of course, views are divided on whether
the raid was warranted and what will be its fallout.
To gauge public opinion, I did an informal survey.
This involved five questions.
First, is the Lal Masjid episode really over?
Secondly, will there be more such episodes in
the future? Thirdly, over the long haul, will
General Musharraf come out ahead as a result of
having launched the raid? Fourthly, will Pakistan
come out ahead? And, finally, is military force
the best way for dealing with such threats to
national security?
The survey was administered via email to some
90 individuals personally known to me. They can
be placed into two groups, the Diasporans and
the Experts. The Diasporans are people of South
Asian origin living primarily in the San Francisco
area, most of whom are Pakistani natives. They
actively follow developments “at home”
through the web and on satellite TV, frequently
host visitors from Pakistan and go to Pakistan
fairly often. The Experts are academics, researchers
and journalists specializing in Pakistan.
While the survey is not intended to be statistically
representative, since the respondents were not
selected randomly, it is still useful to know
whether it has any systematic bias. Since all
of the respondents were personally known to me,
that may create a bias.
However, a third of the 90 individuals contacted
responded, which is pretty good for such surveys.
I informally polled some non-respondents and asked
them why they did not respond. Some said they
found the questions too simplistic while others
said they found them too difficult. At least on
this score, there does not appear to be an overt
bias.
With that background, let us review the results,
beginning with the Diasporans. By a 14-4 margin,
they said the Lal Masjid was not over. By a 16-2
margin, they said that more such episodes were
likely. By a 12-3 margin, they said that Musharraf
would be worse off over the long haul for having
ordered the raid. By an 11-3 margin, they said
that Pakistan would be worse off over the long
haul. Finally, by an 11-6 margin, they said that
military force was not the best way to deal with
such threats.
The fourth question, about the future of Pakistan,
elicited the fewest responses and the first two
questions elicited the highest responses. With
the exception of the second question, the negative
answers out-numbered the positive answers. One
person answered yes to all five questions.
The Experts, by a 9-3 margin, said the episode
was not over. By the slenderest of margins, 6-5,
they said that more episodes were likely. This
was in significant contrast to the 16-2 margin
observed with the first group and may reflect
the restraint that come from following such events
over time and in other countries.
By an 8-3 margin, the Experts felt the episode
would not be good for Musharraf. By a smaller
but still substantial margin, 6-3, they felt the
episode would not be good for Pakistan. By an
overwhelming 9-2 margin, they felt that military
force was not the best solution to such threats.
Like in the first group, the negative answers
outnumbered the positive answers. As among the
Diasporans, one expert answered yes to all questions,
confirming that every statistical distribution
has a tail.
All these results represent just a single snapshot
in time. As other events take place, such as the
Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to reinstate
the Chief Justice, or an American raid in Waziristan,
opinion may shift.
With this caveat, it is clear that both Diasporan
and Expert opinion is strongly negative about
the fallout from the raid. Many respondents also
provided qualitative commentary that added nuance
and inflection.
One person noted that the dangerous activities
that had been going on in the Lal Masjid for six
months could not have gone un-noticed by the military.
Why was action not taken earlier? Another person
opined that the timing of the raid gave away the
ulterior motives of the army.
A mosaic of opinions, paraphrased and organized
by the five questions, follows.
• It is clear that the immediate crisis
is over but it has led to greater polarization
of views in the country.
• More such incidents are likely to take
place in the future unless the fundamental conditions
in Pakistan change. The extremist elements need
to be dealt with democratically. Women’s
rights and safety are at risk and Musharraf’s
guns have proven insufficient to protect them.
We are not likely to see too many “clones”
of Lal Masjid but there may well be other episodes
because the religious extreme forces are united
in promoting their values while the “secular
or moderate” forces are too busy climbing
over each other.
• Musharraf has come across as being impotent
to his foreign sponsors and lost ground with them.
His position has weakened and the danger of civil
strife has increased. The raid signals the breakdown
of Musharraf’s policy of seeking appeasement
and cooptation.
• The “silent mainstream majority”
needs to wake up. The education system from the
primary level upward needs an overhaul. In remote
areas, many schools exist only on paper while
seminaries exist on the ground. Pakistan’s
future depends on far too many factors and is
impossible to predict. The educated middle classes
and the media have a powerful role to play in
empowering the judiciary to make independent judgments
and in holding the political parties accountable.
Unfortunately, most Pakistanis remain utterly
unaware of their individual and group responsibility
in this matter.
• Terrorists and religious extremists who
violate the rights of other citizens are criminals.
They must be stopped, if necessary, with the use
of force. However, it is also necessary to eradicate
the root cause of this unrest, which is the desire
of people to obtain justice, freedom, and economic
equality.
Two individuals provided perceptive closing comments.
One, a retired military officer, said that he
did not think Lal Masjid has a military solution.
He recalled that the Church of England was not
conquered by the King of England militarily, despite
Henry II’s murder of his former friend,
Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Another individual, a political scientist and
activist, said that the Judiciary and the Media,
the two relatively free institutions in the country,
must now take all legally and morally permissible
steps to help liberate two other institutions:
the Parliament and the Election Commission.
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