KARACHI, Oct 13: Speakers at a meeting held here on Saturday said that wrong policies of previous governments, under which scores of people were trained to carry out controversial activities in neighbouring countries, had served to sow the seeds of extremism in the country.
Speaking at a meeting organised by Safma on “Role of media and civil society in the time of rising extremism in Pakistan”, they said that given the political will extremism could be checked and controlled.
Some of them even suggested formulation of a new social contract — a new constitution — so that differences between different groups could be solved and their rights be protected.
Sindh Education Minister Pir Mazharul Haq said that Malala Yousufzai was a symbol of resistance against extremism and an icon of literacy, particularly women’s education.
He said the government had upgraded the school named after her to the higher secondary level to send a clear message to the attackers of the brave girl. He said that many of the social ills could be rooted out if a majority of the people shunned hypocrisy and just told the truth.
Haider Abbas Rizvi of MQM said the constitution had failed to solve the issues of the people because it had become obsolete and the need of the hour was that all stakeholders sat together and prepared a new social contract which could solve the issues being faced by the masses.
He said there would have been no Balochistan issue had the rights of people been protected, but it was not done and they felt exploited and cheated.
He said a national policy on counter-terrorism should be prepared with the help of and input from all stakeholders.
Former advisor Kaiser Bengali called for changing curriculum and syllabus of not only madressahs but also primary and secondary schools because it was filled with hatred and intolerance and extremism.
He said that unfortunately terrorists had been produced here in the past and given different names of Mujahideen and jihadis to carry out foreign agendas in the region.
He said that an entire industry had developed around terrorism and extremism and a large number of people had commercial interests with it.
Nihal Hashmi of PML-N said that extremism had grown owing to lack of political will.
He said that even if today all political parties decided not to support it the issue could be checked.
Criticising the law and order situation, he said that it could be improved if politicising of police was avoided and police were left to do their job professionally.
He said by following the law many of the problems being faced by the people could be solved. He said the role of the military had also not been ideal in the past.
Malak Sikendar of JUI F said the real issue was that there was no system in the country and extremism and corruption were just the symptoms.
He said the need of the hour was to treat the disease and give the country a system, once that was done, all these secondary issues would be solved easily.
He criticised the people who tried to follow the western system and stressed that the Constitution be followed.
Nadir Leghari of PTI, Yusuf Mustikhan of Workers Party, Aleem Adil Shaikh of PML-Q, Nusrat Sehar Abbasi of PML F, Fahmida Riaz, Zubaidah Mustafa, Dr Tauseef Ahmed, Yasin Azad, Mairaj-ul-Huda of Jamaat-i-Islami, Kamal Siddiqui, Dr Tipu Sultan and Dr Haroon Ahmed spoke at the meeting.
Baber Ayaz and Aamer Mahmood conducted the proceedings.