Once again, Qazi sahib’s cloned proteges are running amock disrupting life, destroying property, abusing journalists, beating people all in the name of their great fascist leaders…
http://www.dawn.com/2006/10/16/ed.htm
Conduct most unbecoming
THE Lahore police have failed to stop a group of angry Punjab University students from blocking the city’s main arteries, causing commuters and transporters hardship and distress over the past week. Students belonging to Islami Jamiat-i-Tulaba have been demanding the reinstatement of a number of fellow students who were rusticated by the vice-chancellor. The latter was forced to take the extreme step after failing to rein in the IJT hoodlums who caused disruptions in normal academic activities on the campus. Backed by the Jamaat-i-Islami, the student group has a long history of resorting to arm-twisting of teachers and the university administration to get its way in the conduct of institutional and extra-curricular affairs. Groups of the student body routinely go around imposing a self-righteous moral code on the campus, often in violation of all rules and regulations; the latest has been the IJT’s bid to get the university administration to dismantle the newly set-up department of musicology. The self-proclaimed guardians of morality are also accused of forcing the staff to manipulate exam dates, alter result cards and allow non-enrolled students to occupy hostel rooms. Thus far the student group’s highhanded tactics were confined to the university campus. But the latest acts of high-handedness witnessed in the vicinity of the PU’s new campus during the last week seem now to be getting out of hand: public transport was attacked and the roads were blocked, causing massive traffic jams that lasted several hours.
All this is more than conduct unbecoming on the part of the errant student organisation, and calls for appropriate action by the university administration and the law enforcement agencies. This must be done to ensure that normal academic activities on campus are not affected, nor roads blocked in protest over matters that are in breach of the law.
http://thenews.jang.com.pk/arc_news.asp?id=8
Campus conservatismTo see the uphill struggle to inject a broad-minded worldview into the mainstream system of education, especially in educational institutions owned by the government, one need look no further than the grounds of the University of the Punjab, where the latest attack on culture and progressiveness is currently underway in the country. Once regarded as the country’s most formidable centre of learning, especially in the government sector, the university has seen a sharp deterioration in academic and other standards in recent years. What has perhaps been most troubling is how the institution has come to be taken hostage by the student wing of a religious party, so much so that even the privacy of students at the university is no longer held sacrosanct by activists of the wing. As is the case with most advocates of extremist thought and behaviour in this country, the student activists of this wing see it their duty and responsibility to go about the campus imposing their rigid and literalist version of faith on all and sundry. In some instances, those who visit the campus of the largest public university of the country’s biggest province will find an atmosphere that would suggest that perhaps the Taliban are in charge of running its affairs. Young men and women are often told not to talk to each other or sit next to each other by activists of the student wing and those male students who choose to ignore this ‘advice’ do so at personal peril – in the past there have been several instances of students being physically assaulted by activists of the student wing.
Music shows and concerts and indeed all kinds of entertainment – a natural pursuit especially at this age – are frowned upon by the student wing and are actively discouraged. Thankfully, the administration of Punjab University recently seems to have gathered the courage to act against these self-styled guardians of public morals and taken action against some activists of the wing who were involved in activities disallowed by the varsity administration. The new controversy surrounding the student wing has to do with its public disapproval of the university deciding to offer classes in the performing arts and musicology. In any civilised and progressive society, such an offering of courses would be normally greeted with approval and enthusiasm, especially by students but in the case of Pakistan, we have just the opposite. We have students who subscribe to a worldview, and an interpretation of religion, that is more in tune with the Dark Ages. Worse still, we have students who are more than willing to force everyone else to conform to this obscurantist way of thinking. Of course, it goes without saying that matters have come to this because successive university administrations and governments chose not to act against such extremist elements and instead often pandered to their rejectionist worldview.
The result is a strange, paradoxical and depressing situation in which institutions of learning and inquiry – where ideas and creativity are thought to be born and fostered – have become a breeding ground for would-be extremists. Students are usually in the vanguard of revolutions and of change but here we have students who want to bring in a kind of change that seeks to take society back to a time of darkness and fear. What objection could the activists of the student wing possibly have against courses being offered at Punjab University in the performing arts and music? Surely, they would know that such courses are offered by universities in almost all Muslim countries and that pursuing them does not make someone immoral, sinful or perverted. In fact, if anything those who consider such study as somehow sinful are the ones who have a perverted and closed mindset towards learning. One has already observed, with much unease and regret, the attack on culture and music in NWFP by the MMA government with the ban on art, music and the targeting of cinema houses. The administration of the University of Punjab must remain firm in its decision to offer the said courses. The education of young minds is perhaps the best way to combat this stifling conservatism and extremism on campus.