Opinion

Eerie Prognostications
By Dr. Mahjabeen Islam
Toledo, Ohio

I knew I had telepathy but political clairvoyance is definitely a new talent. Realistically, it was more a mundane case of reading the writing on the wall, less the mysterious gazing into the Pakistani crystal ball.
Gathering together articles written in the past few months to place in the binder in my waiting room, meant to entertain patients while they wait, I noticed a couple of articles which now seem eerie in their prognostication.
“The Panacea for Pakistan” was written in May 2006 and makes for interesting reading now: “Certain archaic and murderous laws in Pakistan need to be repealed but the most urgent issue is the overhaul of the judicial system of Pakistan to the point that it works. Rendering oaths of allegiance by Supreme Court judges to a sitting government should be made unconstitutional. The sole path to success is an independent judiciary. The citizenry must be able to challenge the ruler du jour when he attempts to mangle the constitution to fit personal political ambition. From a minister’s son getting away with assault in public by virtue of dad’s position, lucrative contracts being awarded to cronies rather than competitive bidders, husbands acid-burning their wives and parents killing daughters for violating their honor, fear of legal retribution is the only deterrent. That said the only cure is for the judicial system to truly change, from the Supreme Court right down to the small town policeman. We must swallow this or else face a dismal prognosis. This simple pill may well be the panacea for almost all of Pakistan’s ills.”

In less than a year from that prognostication, on the fateful day of March 9, 2007 the independence of the judiciary is suddenly front and center of Pakistan’s political landscape. And the protests by the legal and political communities and the media has taken on a life of its own, contrary to the expert predictions of the legal help employed by General Musharraf. Where the current crisis is headed is not that easy to predict; this much is safe to say that withdrawal of the reference against Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry would be the best option for all parties. If this does not occur, the upheaval will only increase and one wonders about the degeneration of the entire protest situation reaching alarming and uncontrolled proportions, leading to a heavy handed response from the government, with possibly loss of lives and the envelopment of the entire nation in this disturbance.
I visited Pakistan in June 2006 and the following quotes from an article written in July 2006 titled “Hooked on Lahore” are equally grim in their predictions: “The obvious Arabization of Pakistan was the greatest damper. The shalwar kameez is inherently a modest outfit and the dupatta can and has been adequately fashioned to serve as a hijab. That seems to have fallen by the wayside; black jilbabs (long coats), hijabs and niqabs (veil) are common to see. During that time Dr. Israr Ahmad’s statement that Arabic should be made the national language of Pakistan deepened my angst, for it seems that a firebrand, literalistic version of Islam is taking root in Pakistan.
Hijab is mandated in Islam, but nowhere does it say that it must come in the jilbab-hijab duo. Why are we wordlessly accepting a culture that is in and of itself devoid of culture? What difference is there between an Arab wedding and any European one? Why can religion and culture not be compartmentalized? If all art, music and literature in Pakistan are deliberately dismantled, we too will have a soulless country, as though life in Pakistan is not morose enough as it is.”
I could not have imagined that the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa extremism was brewing as I wrote. The initial controversy occurred in regard to the mosque that was built on land that was not owned by the mosque authorities in a case of poaching; a practice rife in Pakistan. The female students of Jamia Hafsa were up in laathis protesting the possible demolition of the mosque. Sitting oceans away and seeing the hijab-jilbab-niqab-gloves attired women wielding lengthy laathis and then sitting in row after row listening to revving-up speeches, was unsettling at the minimum and unnerving at max.
And as though that were not enough, these laathi-ladies took it upon themselves to clean up society: they kidnapped a brothel owner, beat her up, got out a confession and then released her after three days.
Since when did Islam or any Muslim practice mandate a “confession room”; I thought that was a Catholic practice. Jamia Hafsa is furnished with a confession room where you can be washed of your peccadilloes and come out brand spanking new.
Dr. Shahid Masood interviewed the administrator of Jamia Hafsa on Geo Television. The administrator, I thought, had an eerie resemblance to Osama Bin Laden, if Bin Laden had gained 20 pounds, the red and white checkered scarf completing the comparison. He sat directly across Shahid Masood and fielded the initial questions. He claimed that the government had no writ so they were forced to take the law into their own hands.
Suddenly a high-pitched voice erupted and the viewer realizes that there is a group of the laathi-ladies sitting several feet away from the two men. With her pressured speech one demands of Masood whether or not he realized how the Prophet (pbuh) fought in Makkah. “They were defensive wars,” said Masood. “They may have been,” said the lady, only momentarily destabilized with this sudden revelation of fact, “but what about the sahaba?” She railed on as though reading from a memorized script, lambasting adult videos and brothels and the immodesty in attire reigning in Pakistan.
There is video documentation of Kalashnikov wielding women in Jamia Hafsa, but just to add to my vertigo, Chaudhry Shujaat Husain visits Jamia Hafsa and issues a statement that there were no guns or ammunition in the complex. That he is capable of doing a bippity-boppitty-boo and making all arms disappear speaks of, actually adds on to, his multifarious abilities.
The incredible size of the protest led by the MQM against this extremism was heartening and representative of the general opinion in Pakistan. It seemed like a sea of people, stretching as far as the eye could see. The numbers and size of protests in several cities in Pakistan against the rise of this fanaticism felt quite the balm.
Perhaps the separation of East Pakistan was the only event of greater magnitude than the current and sudden upheaval that Pakistan is going through. Islam is the religion of the middle path; moderation and a live-and-let-live policy have reigned in Pakistan for its first 50 years of life. It is vital that that era is resurrected and promoted as the national inclination. General Musharraf should not consider ego and pride; he must take the reference against the Chief Justice back and try and Band-Aid this bleed. If ego takes precedence over practicality, an error in judgment could translate into a national hemorrhage. Better to swallow individual pride than shatter a nation’s future.
(Mahjabeen Islam is a freelance columnist and physician practicing in Toledo Ohio. Her email is mahjabeenislam@hotmail.com)

------------------------------------------------------------------------