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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (43397)	10/23/2002 3:10:16 AM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

MMA should abandon coercive proposals <<This is us...editorial of our Daily Times today..the long struggle with the mullahs starts..>> Qazi Hussain Ahmad says no Islamic measures will be forced on the people by any Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal government. He accused the West of having misgivings about the MMA ulema when it told Pakistani women that they would be forced to wear “hijab” in public by the MMA. He said it was also wrong to say that the MMA government was intent on banning music and films. According to him, the party had won through the democratic process and would be answerable to the people instead of coercing them. The same day, however, a newspaper survey revealed that the women of Lahore thought their rights would be curtailed in case the MMA joined the government. This confusion was certainly exacerbated by a statement from Qazi Hussain Ahmad’s own daughter in London who said that the MMA would definitely ban coeducation in the country. In Lahore, an MMA gathering has demanded that the present banking system should be dissolved to eliminate the “curse” of interest. The MMA programme is focusing on the recommendations of the Council for Islamic Ideology (CII) and seeks to give them the shape of laws in parliament. The CII, sniffing the new air, has already declared Prize Bonds as un-Islamic. The CII has also held that prisons should be banned, currency notes should not have the likeness of the Quaid-e-Azam, women should wear the veil, those who don’t say namaaz should be punished, etc. Add that to the irreducible consensual demand of kicking the Americans out of their “bases” in Pakistan, and you may still see a change under an MMA dominated government that shakes the polity to its foundation. Should we believe Qazi Sahib? Given the fact that our ulema have not yielded the Quranic principle of “amr” (approval) and “nahi” (ban) to the state, vigilante action under their governments could so easily proliferate. Indeed, had it not been for the toughness shown by General Musharraf in 2001, a group of powerful ulema was ready to enforce “hijab” and namaz in selected cities of the country through “danda” action. We have known Qazi Sahib’s own youth wing join this “danda” brigade on every New Year’s Eve. The more austere and less “political” members of the MMA have won their votes swearing that they would put an end to the “fahashi” cinema. Maulana Samiul Haq, unless his worldview has broadened, was known to be opposed to women’s presence at the workplace together with men. Some cinemas in the NWFP are already bracing for the campaign. Unless Qazi Sahib can really rein in his zealots, the cinemas will have to be converted to plazas, and traditional pleasure seeking will go dangerously underground. Speaking of the democratic process, one MMA religious leader, who has won from Gujranwala, has taken oath in public to abolish democracy! Religious violence has historically harmed culture and civilisation. The inspiration of the Islamic revolution led to the persecution of women in the streets of Iran; but after 20 years, the people, all devout Muslims, want the moderation of their civilisation back through President Khatami. The cruelty of Mullah Umar towards men who didn’t keep beards and women who stepped out of their houses was mistaken for true Islam, but that is no more and Afghanistan is back into its old cultural routines. Pakistan’s culture, like the cultures of the other Islamic countries, is Muslim in essence. Any coercive reshaping of it through force will bring down no blessings and will not succeed. *