By Faraz Ahmad
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has finally taken the jehadi bull by the horn by storming the Lal Masjid and confronting the jehadi mullahs holed up inside. Ironically, this happened in the month of the 30th anniversary of the ouster of the first elected prime minister of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, by the first mullah in khaki, General Zia-ul Haq.
Also, the man who threatened Ghazi Abdul Rashid, the cleric leader holding children and women as hostages, with military action is none other than Religious Affairs Minister Ejazul Haq, the late Zia's son. Ghazi in Persian/Urdu means a crusader; this is a title the fanatic has given himself.
On July 5, 1977, Zia took over Pakistan and in the name of Islam set to turn a rather irreverent, boisterous country created in the name of religion into an Islamic state after pulling out of bed at 4 a.m. a groggy Bhutto, ostensibly suffering the previous night's hangover.
It is another twist of fate that Musharraf, a military dictator, is battling the Frankenstein created by his predecessor dictator: the fundamentalist jehadi girls and boys of Jamia Hafsa and Jamia Fareedia of Lal Masjid. Over years these jehadi elements have fed parasitically on the army, the ISI and the Pakistani establishment including the judiciary and sections of the Urdu media. Now they have become so powerful that no one can be certain of an eventual victory over this lot, notwithstanding the Musharrafs and Ejazul Haqs.
Even today the Musharraf regime is not entirely free to act against these mullahs. Taking a leaf out of the activism of the Indian judiciary, Pakistani courts first tried to force the military to lift the siege of Lal Masjid to enable Abdul Rashid and his armed men to escape unhurt. Simultaneously, the Supreme Court ordered the release of all the men caught from the masjid/madrassa precincts by the armed forces, clearly coming to the aid of an embattled losing lot of the jehadis.
But it all goes back to the god-fearing, non-smoking, non-drinking, five- time praying general who died a mysterious death. Zia once told a journalist that Western democracy was alien to Islam and that Islam had its own democratic tradition, mentioning the Majlise Shoora (literally, the assembly of faithful advisers).
Zia was the one who first introduced this virus into the body politic of Pakistan. The modern world watched Zia approvingly and benevolently till one day he became too big for his boots — and died when his plane crashed.
For all the bluster, the wily old foxes of jehad have all along saved their skins and egged on the others. They egg on young impressionist minds like those of the Bangalore brothers or the young students of Jamiya Fareediya and Jamiya Hafsa of Lal Masjid to die for Islam. But when it comes to their lives, the chief Ghazi, Abdul Aziz, attempts to surreptitiously slip out in a burqa while his other brother is holding innocent women and children as hostage to secure his safe passage.
They are no different from Osama bin Laden or Ayman Al Zawahari, the great commanders of Al Qaeda prodding the youth to die for Islam while sitting comfortably in some hilly resort in Afghanistan, holding innocent Afghans as hostages, acquiring any number of young Afghan women as their wives.
But not so long ago this same lot was lionized. Novelists like Ken Follett wrote "Lie Down with Lions", which became a bestseller. Hollywood stars like Sylvester Stallone were acting as white-skinned Osamas; all because they were united in their bid to finish off Soviet Union and communism.
Zia understood this better than anyone else.
Zia described former Indonesian ruler Suharto his role model. Suharto had deposed Sukarno and controlled Indonesia for decades, in the name of combating communism. This helped a thoroughly corrupt, most ruthless ruler to rule Indonesia with US support.
Zia adopted the same model. He subverted every democratic and liberal institution in Pakistan in the name of Islam. Every time Zia was in trouble, he invoked Islam and the mullahs came running to his help.
In the 11 years he ruled Pakistan, Zia vitiated the atmosphere so badly that things could never return to normal. It mattered little whether a modern woman Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto or the robust Punjabi Muslim Leaguer Mian Nawaz Sharif or even a pragmatic general like Parvez Musharraf succeeded Zia.
Zia rose as the great crusader for Islam, he introduced Islamic courts to sentence to whipping and death rape victims as adulteresses. He was responsible for bringing in Hudood Ordinances whereby one could accuse any person, especially a non-Muslim, of blasphemy against Prophet Mohammad. And the mullah heading a Hudood court could instantly order the poor victim's death.
Zia turned the modern Pakistani armed forces into an army of indisciplined bunch with skullcaps and flowing beards who were saying their prayers all the time. The army of mullahs was so beholden to him that they declared him Ameerul Momineen (chief of the believers).
This man first initiated cross-border terrorism against India by sheltering and encouraging Khalistani militants in the early 1980s. It was he who devised the strategy of slowly bleeding India through cross border incursions.
Even if Musharraf is personally sincere in fighting the jehadis, the disease has seeped so much into every Pakistani institution that fighting and eliminating jehadis is easier said than done.
(The author can be reached on [email protected]. These are his personal views.)