THIS is no way to run a country. We are being let down. Not only has the gap between the promises and the delivery widened to its fullest extent but too many things, through sheer non-governance, are going wrong at one and the same time.
On February 12 of this year, our president, General Pervez Musharraf, in an address at the Joint Staff headquarters, assured his audience that “the writ of the state will be maintained at all costs, no matter what it takes.” While he spoke, a few cannon ball shots away in our capital Islamabad, the writ of the state was being trampled upon with impunity by a bunch of burqa-clad baton wielding students of the Jamia Hafsa madressah who, since January 21, had been in occupation of a children’s library which neighboured both the madressah and the Lal Masjid on Murree Road.
The bone of contention that had prompted the mullahs of Lal Masjid to activate the girls of the madressah and throw them into the fray was the threatened demolition by the Capital Development Authority of a few of the 80 or so illegally constructed mosques in Islamabad, one target being the Lal Masjid in the interests of a road widening project. When the CDA men moved in to demolish whatever had to be demolished, the mullahs of the Lal Masjid retaliated by ordering the madressah girls to arm themselves with batons, come out and take over the library. The government and its fearsome law enforcement agencies pleaded helplessness – they made not a move.
That February day, while Musharraf spoke, his minister for religious affairs, Ejaz, son of Ziaul Haq who had allowed all the illegal mosque constructions, went to the Lal Masjid, hat in hand, assured the mullahs that no further demolition would take place, symbolically laid a brick in a partially-demolished wall, and happily fed the mullahs sweetmeats and in turn was fed.
The occupation of the library continues and last week the girls moved out of the library, took to the streets with their batons where they were joined by male students of other madressahs, raided an alleged brothel, took three women who had allegedly engaged in ‘immoral activities’ (the world’s oldest profession) as hostages, threatened shops selling CDs, VCDs etc, kidnapped two policemen and two police vehicles, made merry, had a good time, and, after a few hours of gentle negotiations with the police, agreed to return to the status quo ante and dispersed – the burqa brigade going back to their conquered library.
One might well say, flippantly and in desperation, well done to the burqa brigade for asserting themselves – for living up to General Musharraf’s scheme to ‘empower’ women, particularly in the light of how their less advantaged sister citizens fare in the Islamic Republic. According to statistics published last week, during 2006, some 12,000 women were found to have been victims of violence (the true number, unreported, may exceed this figure by hundreds of thousands).
Over 7,500 were criminally ‘tortured’, 200 of them suffering at the hands of the police ; over 250 were gang-raped ; 800 were victims of that disgusting habit known as ‘honour killings’, a phrase which should be expunged from the national lexicon and replaced with straightforward premeditated murder; over 1,300 were murdered under various circumstances; over 800 reportedly committed suicide; there were 500 reported cases of sexual harassment; 200 were burnt to death, victims of family feuds; over 100 were ‘sold’ in murder cases.
So much for the much trumpeted women’s empowerment bill which so far has done nothing to ease the prevalent attitude towards women. But then, this is to be expected in a land where the writ of the law does not apply, where law and order is a foreign concept and where civilised behaviour is not only largely unknown but not encouraged.With the judicial system in turmoil because of the hamfisted actions of a dysfunctional government, which in the main acts against the interests of the people – and the much touted ‘larger national interest’- and the Chief Justice of Pakistan who has been rendered ‘non-functional’, suspended and sent on forced leave at one and the same time, the agencies continue to pick up citizens who simply disappear. Is our vastly overpopulated mango republic converting itself into a banana republic? Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry did as much as he could in the case of the many who ‘disappeared’, even taking suo motu action, but as his jurisdiction did not extend to the unheeding disinterested government and its agencies, his success was limited.
Last week Secretary-General Iqbal Haider of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in a statement issued to the press informed us that citizens of Pakistan continued to be arrested, or simply abducted, with no reason given and no trace of their whereabouts. He cited several recent cases of disappearances which continued despite the petitions still being heard by the Supreme Court.
The president may insist that there are no pick-ups, no forced disappearances, and that those who are untraceable have disappeared at their own volition, joining militant jihadi groups to wage war in the name of God and religion in this lawless land. Facts belie his belief, for the majority of those who have disappeared are Baloch and Sindhi nationalists who are fighting their own battles for provincial autonomy. Are the honourable judges who sit on the benches of our courts ignorant of the words habeas corpus?
Balochistan and the Frontier province are out of control. The other two provinces have some semblance of governance which merely benefits a chosen few. The 80,000-strong legal fraternity is up in arms. One must wonder where these ‘learned friends’ were and their protest marches and strikes in November 1997 when a sitting prime minister arranged for the physical storming of the Supreme Court, while the Chief Justice of Pakistan was hearing a contempt case against him, and got away with it scot free.
Musharraf’s national plate is full, but he soldiers on regardless, with the same old discredited team which has served him so ill, his sole support coming from his friends in Washington.
arfc@cyber.net.pk