http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\05\17\story_17-5-2010_pg3_4
Monday, May 17, 2010
VIEW: The fountainhead of religious extremism -Yasser Latif Hamdani
Pakistan will have to undo the Maududian infiltration of its state and
society. It means liberating our campuses of organisations like the IJT. It
means purging the state and its machinery of elements that are furthering the
Jamaat's hate-filled agenda
My article last week on Faisal Shahzad's radicalisation elicited
unprecedented response on the issue of Islamic organisations operating in the
US, thereby necessitating this sequel. There are things that need to be said
before it is all too late.
Faisal Shahzad's e-mail to the "peaceful ummah" as published in the New
York Times (http://documents.nytimes.com/e-mail-from-faisal-shahzad#text/p1)
leaves no doubt about Shahzad's state of mind. It was his association with
Islamic organisations in the West that transformed him into a global jihadist
in the classical Qutbian mould. His language, his denunciation of the West and
of hypocritical governments in Pakistan, his appeal to "Khilafah" had all the
fingerprints of a campus or a local Islamic body, possibly one infiltrated by
the Hizb ut-Tahrir and/or global activists of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI).
All this however should not mean that we should shut ourselves off from
the reality of religious extremism in our own neck of the woods. The lashkars
and the mujahideen Pakistan's cynical and wretched establishment prepared
against the Soviets, with American blessing, are obviously one part of the
overall story. Religious extremism in Pakistan has a sordid history, one of the
state's constant retreat in the face of religious parties - the same religious
parties that had opposed the very creation of Pakistan - and horrible
compromises with extremist and fascist elements.
To recap, Islamic religious organisations have been part of the political
landscape of the subcontinent ever since Indian independence leader Mahatma
Gandhi brought them into politics under the guise of the Islamist 'Khilafat
Movement'. It bears repeating that when Gandhi first encouraged Islamic
religious clerics for his own anti-imperialist goals, the lone dissenting voice
of reason was that of Pakistan's founding father Jinnah who told Gandhi not to
bring "unwholesome elements into public life". Yet it is Pakistan - ironically
- that has come to be associated with the same unwholesome elements today.
After partition, religious extremism in Pakistan reared its ugly head
when Majlis-e-Ahrar, a vociferously anti-Pakistan Islamic party during
pre-partition days and an erstwhile ally of Gandhi, in 1953 started its
campaign of terror against a hapless sectarian minority with the help of
another witchdoctor of dubious history, i.e. Maulana Maududi, who till then had
become completely irrelevant after his opposition to Jinnah and the Muslim
League. To the credit of Pakistan's judiciary, it swiftly handed down a death
sentence for the person who is singlehandedly responsible in providing the
ideological foundations for not just the Islamisation in Pakistan but the
global Islamic jihad.
Nevertheless the Maulana's sentence was commuted and it is Pakistan that
has suffered as a result. Subsequent to commutation, his book, Islam and
Communism, was picked up, reprinted and distributed allegedly by CIA's JI desk
all over the Muslim world. The idea was to use Maududian extremism to stiffen
resistance against Soviet expansionism. It is therefore ironic that the JI,
Maulana Maududi's enduring creature, which in 1977 received funds from quarters
in the US to overthrow the increasingly pro-Soviet Bhutto, is today the bastion
of anti-Americanism. Wonders never cease.
The fountainhead of religious extremism in our country is Mansoora, the
headquarters of the JI, in Lahore. Unless Pakistan and the US seriously take a
look at the activities of the JI, any meaningful progress in stopping extremism
feeding this terror will be impossible. The JI actively works on Pakistan's
largest university campuses to spread its doctrine of hate and bigotry not just
against other countries such as the US but religious and sectarian minorities
in Pakistan. Its student wing, the Islami Jamiat-i-Talaba (IJT) is modelled
after the National Socialist Party. The JI seeks to infiltrate the army, the
air force and the civil bureaucracy to weaken the state's resolve against
extremism in Pakistan. Key members of the JI sit in departments such as
education introduce nothing but poison in Pakistan's young minds.
The JI's mouthpiece, the Daily Ummat, is full of (fifth) columnists who
advocate not just extremism but open violence against minorities. Maududi has
inspired a generation of Islamists globally. His exegesis of the Holy Quran is
widely read and followed by the Salafi Islamic order, predominantly found in
the West and the main source of terrorism in the name of religion. Along with
Sayyid Qutb of Egypt, Maududi remains the most widely read Islamist ideologue
for relatively more affluent Muslims in the west. Within Pakistan too, the
target audience is the middle class. It is, therefore, not uncommon to find
inter-city bus services advertising during their in-coach entertainment the
publications containing "sagacity and wisdom that defeated Communism,
Secularism and Capitalism, which flowed from the pen of Sayyid Qutb and Sayyid
Maududi" (direct translation). In the triumphalist Islamist narrative, Qutb and
Maududi are prophets without parallel.
Pakistan - if it is serious about tackling terrorism - will also have to
undo the Maududian infiltration of its state and society. It means liberating
our campuses of organisations like the IJT. It means purging the state and its
machinery of elements that are furthering the Jamaat's hate-filled agenda
instead of doing their job. The time has come to take stock of the damage this
body of conspiratorial and bigoted men has done repeatedly to the body politic
of Pakistan.
It must be remembered, for those who still care about the reasons why we
made this country in the first place, that Jinnah's Pakistan and Maududi's
Pakistan are mutually exclusive. Pakistan must decide here and now: do we wish
to make Pakistan a prosperous and democratic state, which is at peace home and
abroad ala Jinnah? Or do we wish to make Pakistan a violent dystopia run by
maniacs and religious extremists with twisted ideas about religion ala Maududi?
The former route shall save us a lot of heartbreak and humiliation. The
latter will ultimately lead to our destruction.
Yasser Latif Hamdani is a lawyer based in Islamabad. He can be reached at
yasser.hamd...@gmail.com
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