| 24 October 2004 | Sunday | 09 Ramazan 1425 |
The search for a better system
The curse of honour killing
Sectarian conflict has plagued Muslims since the early beginnings of their history. It has derived from doctrinal differences, political rivalries, or a mix of these two elements. Two rival groups surfaced soon after the fourth pious caliph, Ali ibne Abu Talib, took office. His supporters came to be known as "Shi'yan-i-Ali" (partisans of Ali).
Some of his opponents, notably, Talha bin Abdullah, Zubair bin Awan, and Muawiya bin Abu Sufyan declined to accept him as the rightful caliph and waged war against him. Muawiya's son and successor, Yazid, authorized the slaughter at Karbala (680) where Ali's younger son, Husain, and a small band of his companions, were killed because he would not accept Yazid as a legitimate ruler.
During the Umayyad rule (661-750), and more particularly during that of the Abbasids (750-1258), the Shias were persecuted and thousands of them were killed, especially in Iraq. Most of their "imams" were assassinated or kept in prison until they died.
Simple fanaticism can also lead to sectarian violence. At the beginning of the 16th century, when the Safvids made Shiaism the state religion in Iran, Shah Ismail threatened to kill those who did not convert, and actually ordered the killing of some 20,000 Sunnis in Azerbaijan. Sultan Salim, the Ottoman emperor, retaliated by killing an equal, or an even larger, number of Shias in eastern Anatolia.
At about the same time, the Hazaras (a Shia tribe) in Central Asia were massacred and those who survived were expelled. In our own time, the support that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait extended to Saddam Hussein in the long war he had imposed on Iran may be seen as a most brutal conflict between Sunni and Shia regimes.
We know of cases in which doctrinal differences led the parties concerned to persecute, even kill, one another. Some theologians in early eighth century justified the wicked actions of certain Umayyad rulers on the ground that, being pre-destined, these actions were part of a divine plan, and that therefore the rulers bore no responsibility for them.
Hasan al-Basri (d. 728), leader of a Qadri group, and his disciples rejected this interpretation, advanced the doctrine of free will, and condemned the impious rulers. Two prominent spokesmen of this school, Mahad al-Juhani and Ghaylan al-Dimashqi were executed in 699 and 749 respectively.
Wasil ibn Ata (ca. 700-748), a disciple of Hasan al-Basri, founded an important theological school, known as "Mutazilism" and distinguished by its commitment to rationalism. In addition to the doctrine of free will, the Mutazilah maintained that God had created the Quran for a specific period of time, implying that, like His other creations, it was time-bound.
The traditional theologians, including Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal (780-855), found this view to be outrageous. They believed that the Quran, being the word of God, was a part of His being, co-eternal with Him, that it had existed since the beginning of time, and that it had been placed on the "Preserved Tablet" ("Lauh-i-Mehfooz").
The Mutazilah became exceedingly popular with the Abbasid caliph, Al Mamun, himself a rationalist and a friend to science and philosophy. In 827 he issued the notorious ruling that any judge (qazi) who did not subscribe to the Mutazilite view of the Quran would be dismissed or imprisoned. During the rule of one of his successors, Imam Hanbal, leader of the opposing school, was publicly scourged and thrown into jail.
Al-Mutwakkil, who came to the throne in 847, released Hanbal and reversed the religious policies of his three predecessors. Now the Mutazilah came under severe persecution. Within the next three or four decades thousands of them were put to death and open profession of their views receded from Muslim theological discourse.
Returning to the Sunni-Shia conflict, it is safe to say that the Shia were persecuted where Muslims formed the overwhelming majority of the population and, among them, the Shias were a minority. This was not the case in the Indian subcontinent. Here the Muslims, all of them put together, amounted to a rather small minority.
Encountering a much larger and potentially unfriendly external force, they did not fall upon one another quite as much as they might otherwise have done. Most of the Muslim kings, and later the British, had an overriding interest in the maintenance of public tranquillity, and accordingly they discouraged religious and sectarian strife.
In sum it may be said at this point that historically sectarian conflict tended to be intense when political power and religious doctrine were allied. In post-independence Pakistan, moves were made to join religion with politics. Under pressure from the ulema, the politicians in power obligated the state to "enable" its Muslim citizens to fashion their lives according to Islam, and undertook not to make any laws repugnant to the Quran and Sunnah. These undertakings did not impact societal interaction because the rulers, being essentially secular-minded, did little to implement them.
During British rule and during the first three decades after independence, the Sunnis and Shias lived peacefully together for the most part. A few persons on each side may have found some of the other's beliefs to be offensive, a few more may have felt estranged, and they did have a fight once in a while. But theological differences did not keep the great majority of them from being friendly to one another.
Following Ziaul Haq's usurpation of power in July 1977, the government's secular disposition gave way to a professed determination to Islamize society in all of its dimensions. This gave the ulema a sense of political efficacy that they have not had before. It was further enlivened by the revolution in Iran that put the ayatollahs in power.
Ziaul Haq proceeded to enforce the "hudood" prescribed by the Shariat, imposed Islamic taxes, inserted numerous Islam-related provisions in the Constitution, established Shariat courts, encouraged the ulema to establish "madressahs" and funded them. The ulema as a class and the Islamic political parties worked as his allies, their occasional assertions to the contrary notwithstanding.
Not unexpectedly, they wondered which theological persuasion would prevail if they were to become participants in the country's governance. Would the Sunni have to share power, and its rewards, with the Shia? Would it not be more prudent to intimidate them into a mode of quiet subservience?
The ulema's expectation of acquiring political power in the foreseeable future is, in my view, one of the basic causes of the heightened sectarian conflict that we have lately been witnessing. It has been aided by other developments such as the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran during the course of which each side encouraged and funded its partisans in Pakistan; the rise of militant forces like the Taliban and later Al Qaeda and the spread of their influence to certain categories of public officials and private individuals in this country.
Is there anything wrong with the ulema gaining political power? Yes, and it is that, even though we humans have been sent down to live in this world, the ulema's whole approach to worldly affairs is unprogressive, and they remain entangled with issues that have little relevance to the improvement of our lives here and now. The editors of this newspaper noted recently, as have other perceptive observers, that our ulema impart to their audiences lessons in "obscurantism," intolerance and hatred, towards groups other than their own.
Let us go back for a moment to the controversy between the Mutazilah and the traditionalists. Surely this was not an issue over which believers should have been ready to kill and get killed. Taken as the word of God, injunctions in the Quran are binding upon Muslims regardless of whether it was revealed at the beginning of time or at some subsequent stage. Clearly, this was a futile debate.
I should like, at this point, to cite Allama Iqbal's chiding of our ulema. The opening poem in the last volume of his Urdu verse (Armaghan-i-Hijaz) is entitled Iblis ki Majlis-i-Shura (the Consultative Council of Satan). Satan appears to be worried and his counsellors wonder why. They debate whether the rise of communism, fascism, or democracy might be the cause. Satan says, no, he is worried because he sees the danger that Muslims may begin to understand the real message of Islam.
This must be prevented. His agents must keep the Muslims occupied with abstract theological issues such as: whether the son of Mary is dead or eternally alive; whether the attributes of God are part of His being or separate from Him; whether the one to appear before the Last Day is meant to be Jesus of Nazareth or a revivalist who will have the qualities of Mary's son; whether the word of God (Quran) goes back to the beginning of time or it is a "creative accident."
Satan thinks these theological concerns, these gods and goddesses of idol worshippers ("Lat" and "Manat"), should be enough for Muslims in this age. Go out then, he says, and keep them aloof from the life of action so that they meet defeat in the battles of life; keep them trapped in poetics and mysticism so that they remain blind to the realities of life and abandon this world for non-Muslims to manage. (My free translation).
It may not be an exaggeration to say that many of our ulema (though surely not all of them) are sending out the same message to Muslims that the protagonist, in Iqbal's poem, wants them to absorb. If that is indeed their message, they would appear to be doing his work, even if unwittingly and inadvertently.
If sectarian conflict in Pakistan is to be controlled, our government must stop being scared of the ulema, and hold them responsible for the consequences of their subversive teachings. It must also drop the pretence that it can "enable" Muslims to attain eternal bliss in the hereafter. That quest must remain each individual's personal responsibility.
The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA.
Email: anwarsyed@cox.net
The search for a better system
The numerous diverse viewpoints expressed in the "uniform" controversy have opened up a gamut of constitutional and political issues. At one extreme is the note of warning sounded by the chief justice of Pakistan that if the Constitution goes the country too will go. At the other, is the information minister's sentiment that this is no more than a hullabaloo which will die down as the country and the president in his military uniform march together on the road to progress till elections in 2007.
In between these two extremes of the grim and the flippant is the moderate but dominant view that the country does need a new constitutional scheme that works better and has wider acceptability. In the background, however, lurks the fear that once the constitutional questions are opened to discussion in parliament and in the press, and debated from the public platform and mosque pulpit, it might become impossible to reconcile the conflicting demands of the provinces, political parties and religious groups. So, better to live with what we have.
It is this very fear which has left the prerogative of amending the Constitution to the military heads of government. Ziaul Haq's eighth and Pervez Musharraf's seventeenth amendments altered the basic structure of the Constitution but successive parliaments have not been able to reverse them for want of consensus.
The raging debate on the role of the president and the military in national politics and administration offers an opportunity to the members of the assemblies and other leaders of public opinion to take the initiative of bringing the Constitution in line with the aspirations of the people and provincial autonomy, instead of reacting in anger or dismay to the amendments imposed from above as they always have been.
To do nothing or to vest total authority in General Musharraf is not the answer to the present situation. If political forces fail to act, extraneous forces will intervene once again to break the agonizing stalemate. Further, Pakistan desperately needs a change of image in the world which would be possible only if it brings about stability in its political behaviour marked by tolerance for dissent and the curbing of violence.
Constitutional changes and political upheavals combined with the military and judicial interventions of the last three decades, have had the effect of fostering individual ambitions at the cost of state institutions. Its worst victim have been political parties and without them parliamentary democracy, or any other kind of democracy, cannot function.
Political parties with hard-core programmes and membership have all but ceased to exist in Pakistan. Some individuals have chosen to join the government, others are opposing it and still others keep switching positions or sit on the sidelines to strike bargains.
The void is being filled by religious groups who have brought to bear on public life their own archaic ideas of statecraft. Particularly pathetic is the state of politicians coalescing to form a government headed by an international banker who is neither reared in their culture nor has risen from their ranks nor is chosen by them.
In the absence of party discipline, every member siding with the establishment expects to become a minister or get an equally profitable office. Having swallowed the bitter pill of a battalion of ministers with no work to do, or the ability to do it, the technocrat prime minister still has to spend long hours to placate or admonish those who have been left out.
Besides being footloose and fancy-free, the parliamentarians get funds to spend the way they choose. Leaving aside the waste and embezzlement inherent in the practice, it detracts from the collective role of the parliament which is to legislate and work for the welfare of the community as a whole without discrimination of any kind. A member investing public money in his own area will, quite naturally, see to it that his kinsmen and political supporters and not his rivals benefit from it.
The lure of office and funds has devastated both political parties and parliament. Without them the government may be good or bad but it cannot be parliamentary.
How powerful this lure can be was recently seen in the Northern Areas (comprising Gilgit, Hunza, Baltistan) where the members returned under the banner of the ruling faction of the Muslim League doubled their number overnight, enough to form the government.
In this atmosphere of mutual bribe and blackmail the parliamentary system, underpinned by party loyalties, as conceived in the 1973 Constitution is no longer relevant or workable. Truly speaking, it had never worked except for the first few years when the parties were few and held together by strong leaders.
Recognizing this degrading transformation in the political scene, there remains no alternative but to modify the parliamentary system which we were never able to work and that has since been made altogether unworkable by the eighth and seventeenth amendments. The new system must, in its political form, fall somewhere between a single head of state wielding absolute power (as he did in the early days of Islam) and the Westminster type of democracy in which a parliament can do everything but make a woman a man or a man a woman.
The system devised should preserve the conservative spirit of Islam, the past traditions of our own land and yet meet the requirements of the modern times. Here may be quickly recounted the essential features of the proposed new system.
- The president will be elected directly by the people.
- The prime minister will be elected by the members of the National Assembly and Senate sitting together.
- The senators will also be directly elected in equal number from all the provinces.
- The president will take a leading role in foreign policy and defence but leave internal and economic affairs to the prime minister.
- The committees of the parliament (of the Senate and the National Assembly) will check the powers of the president.
- The president will not be able to dissolve parliament nor will parliament have the power to remove the president.
- The number of ministers will be limited by the Constitution.
These are the bare outlines of just one framework. There can be others more suitable and practicable so long as they retain the central idea that the state institutions should be truly representative and change only through the vote of the people.
The curse of honour killing
Two men brandishing guns forced their way into a village home along the Indus. Within minutes, they had shot dead two young women who stood terrified before being gunned down. This gruesome homicidal act may appear to be the consequence of a long-standing tribal feud or even one involving a notorious dacoit (such occurrences being a common feature). However, closer examination reveals that this bore all the hallmarks of "honour killing" - a tribal custom that claims many lives each year throughout the country.
In another incident that took place in a remote village of Punjab, a young girl of 16 years was observed by her family to be giving looks to a young neighbour. Her brother came into her room and dragged her into the street. In front of many onlookers he poured kerosene over her and set her alight. Nobody came forward to stop that barbaric act. She did not die easily, but slowly in unimaginable agony. Her charred body lay in the street for hours before it was removed. According to her brother, she had been having illicit relations with her neighbour and had brought dishonour to the whole family.
What was the fault of those young girls? In the first case, the girls had refused to get married to old men in lieu of money owed by the family. In the second, mere suspicion was enough. In both incidents, real brothers carried out the killings without any remorse.
In Pakistan's rural areas, women live in fear, and violence against them is a norm rather than an exception. The all-encompassing term "honour" has acquired notoriety and is now equated with the "sanction to kill" those viewed as having illicit affairs, and consequently, dishonouring their families. The perception among the people in the rural areas in general and Baloch tribes in particular is that the honour of a family is dependent on a woman's virginity. It is believed this is the property of the men around her, first her father's, and later a gift to her husband.
In this context, a woman's honour must be guarded by a community of male family members to ensure that she does not lose it and bring shame to the family name. Any transgression almost immediately results in a crime of honour.
Monetary gain has motivated many men to accuse their mothers, sisters, wives or female relatives of dishonouring their families, and consequently, killing them in order to extract compensation from the "karo", the alleged paramour, if he does not want to die. A man in a village near Larkana is reported to have killed his 70-year-old mother as a "kari" and obtained Rs. 20,000 from the man declared as "karo."
Despite the government's resolve to curb this practice - its efforts have seen the presentation of a bill on the subject in parliament - honour killings show no abatement. The number of incidents is actually higher than the cases reported as people have little faith in the fairness of the criminal justice system. In spite of it being cold-blooded murder, committed with brutality and scant regard for religion or law, honour killing continues to be regarded more as a custom rather than crime. The law enforcement agencies and the courts also seem to endorse this view by their conduct.
It is the government's responsibility to prevent its citizens from taking the law into their own hands and developing a violence-free culture in society. This cannot be achieved unless the rule of law is rigidly enforced. No person should be allowed to circumvent the process of law, and everyone should be accountable in the eyes of law without any discrimination.
Gender bias, which is pervasive, must be eradicated, particularly from the police. Efforts must be made to sensitize the police towards its lawful obligations. In this respect there is an urgent need to undertake measures for training, and recruitment of lady officers and the extensive use of forensic facilities.
The government must fulfil its obligations to the international community by ending parallel justice systems affecting the rights of women. It must also take concrete steps to eradicate or at least minimize gender bias in the law. Amendments in the Qisas and Diyat Ordinance are the need of the hour. It would be better still if it is repealed altogether to remove confusion. The government should adopt legislation outlawing all forms of violence against women, including domestic violence, women trafficking, and the giving of women in marriage against financial consideration or as a form of compensation.
It is the government's responsibility to ensure that all its subordinate law enforcement departments take prompt notice of "honour killing" cases and investigate them impartially. The culprits should be brought to book and tried under the law. Where the complainant is not willing to come forward, the cases should be registered on behalf of the state.
The government should undertake a series of wide ranging public awareness programmes through the media, the education system and public announcements informing both men and women of their equal rights and for the prevention of gender violence. The state should bring together human rights activists, lawyers and women's rights groups and assist them in pursuing their legitimate activities without harassment.
Victim support services provided by the state or the NGOs should be strengthened and expanded. They should be run as places of voluntary recourse for women and their purpose should be protective providing protection to the public and private run shelters for women. There is a need to change the ethos and culture of government organizations dealing with these sensitive gender issues. If the state has to show any respect for human dignity and the international covenants it has signed, then, it will have to address the issue more seriously. There is an urgent need to revisit the issue in its totality.
The Qisas and Diyat Ordinance, which is especially discriminatory towards women should be re-examined. The focus of these laws is not so much on justice, as it is on punishment. It calls for a research on Muslim societies which should address the problems, specifically women empowerment; the problem of the status of women in specific geographical locations and historical periods; dealing with issues such as women's labour force participation, education, democratic behaviour and political activity.
Honour killings is an issue that forces us into a great deal of introspection and urges us to ask whether legislators, religious leaders, philosophers, social scientists, researchers and state administrators have failed women.