VIVA, VIVA! Our latter day Ataturk has moved away from the 'core issue' and is now preaching to the extremists and the zealots of the Republic exhorting them to practice 'enlightened moderation'.

Talking to Islamabad-based journalists from Muslim countries on Thursday, President General Pervez Musharraf told them that in the OIC meeting coming up in Malaysia he would 'float' the idea of 'enlightened moderation'. "I will emphasize closer coordination among Muslim nations to combat terrorism and extremism," he said. A difficult task indeed, as he will be addressing many who have yet to shed their tails. But, we can only hope that he succeeds.

What else is new?

Our legislators of the opposition observed a 'token hunger strike', they had an early breakfast, fasted whilst relaxing on the pavement outside the houses of parliament, had a late lunch, and then were convinced they had disturbed the military mind. Now the representative bodies of the legal fraternity have threatened to embark tomorrow on a 'long march' to the capital.

Learning from past long marches, in which our erstwhile politicians indulged, they will doubtless assemble in Lahore, start walking, then either get on a truck or bus to Islamabad, dismount and march to the assigned destination, the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan where they will convene and pass their historic resolution against the contentious LFO. This might embarrass the honourable judges and force Musharraf to shed his uniform a day earlier than scheduled.

Surprise, surprise! In this space on October 9 budding columnist Mansoor Alam wrote describing what he had seen and heard on one of our television channels when Dr Israr Ahmad and retired Lt-Gen Hamid Gul were holding forth on Mohammad Ali Jinnah's 'vision of Pakistan'. According to the learned Dr Israr, Jinnah's desire was that Pakistan should be an 'Islamic state' modelled on Madina. However, at the time, during the 1940s, when a strong wind of secularism was blowing in the world, Jinnah 'found it expedient not to reveal his true vision.'

Bunkum! Jinnah was an educated westernized gentleman of liberal thought who looked forward, not backwards. He held, and he firmly believed as he told the future legislators of Pakistan on August 11, 1947, that religion was a matter of personal faith, between man and his God, and that it had "nothing to do with the business of the state." His views on men of Dr Israr's ilk he made quite clear in his wireless address to the people of the United States in February 1948 : "In any case Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic state - to be ruled by priests with a divine mission." And again, in his broadcast to the people of Australia that same month : "But make no mistake - Pakistan is not a theocracy or anything like it."

Hamid Gul went one step further, contradicting Dr Israr and claiming that there was a revelation. According to him, on August 13, 1947, when Lord Louis Mountbatten addressed the Constituent Assembly, he told the members that his hope was that Pakistan would be a liberal secular state. At this, Gul recounts, Jinnah arose on a point of order, interrupted Mountbatten, and stated that 'Pakistan would not be a modern secular state but an Islamic state on the model of Madina.' No available record exists to confirm this story, or to confirm this interpretation of Jinnah's modelling intent.

Now on to sense and an intent to progress and better ourselves. Majida Rizvi, a former judge of the Sindh High Court and now the chairperson of the National Commission on the Status of Women, has released her commission's report that dwells, inter alia, on the injustices of the Hadood Ordinances promulgated during the rule of 'Mard-e-Momen Mard-e-Haq Ziaul Haq Ziaul Haq'. At a seminar held on the subject of the Hadood Ordinances in Lahore on October 5, Justice Rizvi made it quite clear that not only were these four laws unIslamic but they made 'a mockery of Islamic justice'.

These highly discriminatory laws, promulgated for reasons of sheer expediency, were made to be abused, and are being abundantly abused. Thousands upon thousands of women over the past 22 years have suffered injustice and indignities, all in the name of Islam, with which the laws are totally at odds.

The commission has strongly recommended that the Hudood Ordinances be repealed. In the normal course, the report will go to the National Assembly. Fatal if it does, what with a non- functioning assembly, packed with obscurantists and those who support them in the interest of expediency, it will merely be filed away on a dusty dark shelf, as has happened to all previous reports on the subject of women of Pakistan and the laws that deprive them of all their fundamental rights and convert them into sub-human beings.

Justice Rizvi's commission is now doing research on the equally iniquitous blasphemy laws and the Qisas and Diyat laws, also tailor made for abuse and misuse, and also against the true tenets of Islam. Again, there is no hope that the legislators will even consider amendments, let alone repeal.

Apparently, the theocratic fraternity and their 'chamchas' are already agitating in the press and on our television channels against any change, amendment or repeal of the Hadood Ordinances. And we know how the president general backtracked on an amendment to the blasphemy laws (which would merely have made them less prone to abuse) way back in May 2000, before he gained his post-9/11 power and pre-eminence. Things are now different; we are in the age of 'enlightened moderation' with which such things as the Hadood and blasphemy laws are absolute anachronisms, being far from moderate and certainly not enlightened.

The sane and sensible amongst us can only fervently hope that before Musharraf departs from the scene he will step in, do what is right by the country and by his proclaimed intent, and, in the name of enlightened moderation, see to it that the Hadood laws and the blasphemy laws and all other such laws which in themselves are criminal and disgrace Pakistan, are done away with.