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| Saturday, 15 November 2003 |
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Fears of rise in religious intolerance in Pakistan KARACHI, Friday (AFP) Students of southern Pakistan's Karachi University stood by terrified last week when bearded Islamist youths stormed a campus exhibition, ransacking sculptures and musical instruments and declaring them "Satanic." "They were shouting 'We will not allow any un-Islamic practice'," recalled one of the students, who was reluctant to give his name. "Girls hid behind cement pillars in terror as they fled chanting 'Revolution, revolution, Islamic revolution'." Pakistani liberals say the rampage was symptomatic of rising religious extremism and intolerance in the 56-year-old Islamic republic. "This... showed extremism is gaining ground," Tauseef Ahmed, a professor of mass media and communications at Karachi's Federal Urdu College, told AFP. Fundamentalist Islamic parties aligned under the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) coalition surged to power in two provinces in national elections last year and won spectacular gains in the federal parliament, where they now lead a combined opposition and effectively hold the balance of power. The Islamic parties have pledged to enforce already existing Islamic sharia law, and are encouraging interest-free banking and segregated education. At the same time President Pervez Musharraf has been waging a high-profile campaign for moderate Islam, both at home and on the world stage. But people are questioning the seriousness of the campaign, pointing to the re-emergence, under new names, of militant groups he banned. Veteran human rights activist Asma Jehangir ridiculed his campaign, pointing out that laws allowing the death sentence for blasphemy still exist. "Intolerance has certainly not decreased," said Jehangir, a founder of the independent Human Rights Commission. "Musharraf's pledge to turn Pakistan into a liberal society is only confined to Islamabad and in the media. He has not repealed any discriminatory laws like blasphemy and those against women." Pervez Hoodbhoy, a columnist and professor of physics at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam university, believes religous vigilantes are suppressing any flourishing of intellectualism and arts. "On their orders, drama, theater and musical events are forbidden, as is any other activity that brings male and female students together," he said. One of the capital's few cinemas was torched to the ground by fanatical religious students rampaging after funeral prayers for slain extremist Sunni Muslim leader and MP, Azam Tariq, on October 7. A worker inside the movie house died in the flames. Senior psychiatrist Haroon Ahmed said many of Pakistan's 10,000 religious schools, known as madrassas, are brainwashing the children of poverty-stricken families, who cannot afford any other form of education. "Faith does not call for logic and thousands of young minds have been brainwashed by madrassas, which need to be reformed," Ahmed told AFP. Government plans to regulate the madrassas, and enforce syllabuses broader than rote Koranic learning, have been rejected by madrassa leaders. "There is no fault in our system. We only tried to produce the best Muslims who can also compete with the computer generation," Federation of Madrassas spokesman Mufti Mohammad Jamil told AFP. "Madrassas don't teach killings, even of infidels.". |
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