Replies

Note: The following text is a quote:

http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2007/s07040068.htm

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net — E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Radical Islamists are fighting “vice” by torching CDs

By Sheraz Khurram Khan
Special Correspondent for ASSIST News Service in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (ANS) — As if nothing else was rotten in the State of Pakistan the radical Islamists have started squandering their energies to rid the country of music shops and video centers. The Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan barred women from pursuing education, pressured them to wear burqa (veil) and forced men to grow beards. The Afghans as well as the international community saw the dos and don’ts list issued by the Taliban as an anathema.

Their (Taliban) obsession with enforcing the hard-line version of Islam resulted in their isolation from the international community and caused their fall. Besides, the people of Afghanistan at large alienated themselves from the repressive Taliban regime.
It seems as if the fanatic Islamists in Pakistan have not drawn any lesson from the Taliban’s failure to enforce Islamic laws in Afghanistan by sheer force. The liberal forces at home that are already sick of the hard-line religious forces of course have not welcomed their current drive against perceived obscenity and immorality. A shopkeeper has reportedly set to fire his CDs in Bara Kahu area near capital Islamabad on Saturday, April 14. Least mindful of how such acts reinforce the image of radical Islam, the Islamists must have seen the reduction of pile of CDs to ashes as a success. Any sane mind would interpret the act as egregiously unreasonable as it cannot guarantee any good except an addition to the pollution.

The closure of music and video shops will deprive people of an inexpensive source of recreation. Do they already have access to a variety of recreation sources? Of course not! In this grim backdrop why rob them of easing their tense nerves after a busy day at work or on weekends? Liquor is banned in Pakistan still people who cannot help consuming it get access to it. Likewise, even if all the CDs in the country are torched and the music and video shops are closed the music fans will always find a way to get them. Only a shift in consumers’ disposition toward a certain commodity could keep them from buying it.

One may argue why the Islamists have singled out the Music and Video CDs? A sizable number of moderate and enlightened Pakistanis are concerned about widespread availability of militant CDs wherein the unscrupulous religious elements preach hate and provoke their followers to wage Jihad. If seen in its entirety it is the menace of religious intolerance and sectarianism that needs to be addressed on a war-footing basis. The drive against militant literature and CDs of course cannot be expected to come from the perpetrators of religious intolerance. If the moderate forces had echoed the need for setting to fire the militant CDs the self-appointed pundits of Islam would have provoked a “religious storm” in the country. They would have categorically termed the initiative as “un-Islamic” and many would have branded the forces seeking elimination of the militant CDs as arch-enemies of Islam. Let’s assume that the government let the Islamists go ahead with their manifest agenda of purging the society of the music and video centers.

Will it stop the Islamists from declaring some other area as a “threat” to Islam? Given the stake of the hard-line religious forces have in seeing Islamic Laws enforced in the country the chances of it happening are very remote. The country’s internet cafés, educational institutions offering co-education, TV channels, western food outlets, people wearing western dresses or anything seen by them as clashing with the version of Islam they espouse to will come under fire.

The scourge of immorality can be struck out from the society by reforming people’s behavior, attitude and thinking. If common sense had prevailed with the so-called champions of Islam they would have requested social scientists to try to reform the attitude of people through education. The Islamists could have made them attend classes by renowned social scientists on the genesis of vice; the way it is tearing apart the social fabric of society, and the necessary remedial measures to uproot it. It does not take any stretch of imagination to understand as to why the Islamists did not adopt the right approach. Would it not take them out of the public eye? Who will they exhort to wage Jihad (holy war) when their vulnerable target would be in safe hands? It would obviously take them more efforts and time to transform them into suicide bombers. One argues has the six party religious alliance in the North Western Frontier Province of Pakistan been able to stamp out vice from the province after launching its much-touted campaign against ‘immorality’? Did people become more righteous than they were before the launch of the drive that saw removal of billboards and banning of cinemas?

Why is it that the Islamists have to poke their nose in areas where they are not authorized? The Police and the law enforcement agencies are supposed to tackle vice and not an army of fiery clerics. Last month, when the management of a religious school in the capital Islamabad got to know about the women accused of being prostitutes why did they put up a shameful show of force that involved the forcible entry of the ‘enforcers of Islam’ into the home of the accused, the ransacking of the place, the humiliating drag the victims suffered from their home to the religious school where they were imprisoned? Instead of assuming the role of ‘Religious Police Force’ they should have reported the matter to the police.

Pakistan Cricket Team’s spokesman Mr. P. J. Mir’s recent statement after country’s humiliating defeat by Ireland and its subsequent elimination from the World Cup is worrying since he reportedly said that the players’ fixation was on preaching which affected their performance.

The Islamists see observation of Kite Flying Festival in spring called Basant as un-Islamic. They believe Pakistanis should stop welcoming the advent of spring by flying kites because it is a Hindu Sport. Tomorrow they may start preaching people to distance themselves from the game of Cricket on the grounds that it originated from England, a predominantly Christian country.

Instead of misguiding people in the name of Islam it would be better if the hard-line religious forces think of something constructive. Their tendency to take law into their hands in a bid to enforce their interpretation of Islam has not and will not work. They should better learn to win the hearts and minds of people rather than pushing ahead with their militant agenda. They must accept the stark reality that it is because of their hardened stance visa-a-vis Islamization that reinforces the notion of radical Islam. It is high time they started preaching love than hate.

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Pakistan.

** You may republish this story with proper attribution.