May
11 , 2007
Eerie
Prognostications
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need to be repealed but the most urgent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)
