Re: Mushy is a coward. Pakistan falls at altar of radicalism.
Cleric’s writ reigns supreme in Swat
- By Zofeen T. Ebrahim*
KARACHI, May 23: “These foreign agents are against our religion. How can we allow them to work here when we know they come with an American agenda and support Israel?” asked Maulana Fazlullah, the pro-Taliban cleric, referring to non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
“All Pakistanis working for them (NGOs) are enemies of the country,” he said over telephone from his home in Swat.
Over the last few months, NGOs and aid agencies have been finding it increasingly difficult to work in some of the most underdeveloped parts of Pakistan, such as Swat.
The venom and sting in the 33-year-old cleric’s voice were diffused in the long distance call and further weakened as his words were translated into Urdu by his cousin and spokesman Muslim Abdur Rashid – but the underlying threat was chillingly clear.
Badar Zaman, president of the Swat Youth Front, an NGO working in non-formal education for girls which is funded by the government, is already feeling the hostility. “Our work can only be carried out through female employees,” he explained.
“We have become strangers in our own hometown, now a hotbed for Islamist militancy. Nobody dares confront Maulana Fazlullah. He is holding all of us hostage with his own version of Islam,” Mr Zaman said.
The 45 non-formal schools established in the community and the one girls’ college, together accounting for an enrolment of over 3,000 girls, are already in jeopardy. “We have had to hire an elderly woman to accompany our two school supervisors. Instead of the office car, they use a private car and we have had to reduce their working hours. This has affected our monitoring as, from a target of five schools, these women can only visit two schools a day.” In the last two months, Mr Zaman has received about 12 death threats. “The letters say that unless we stop our ‘agenty’ with the US, keep beards, ‘reconvert’ to Islam and find other means of employment we will face dire consequences. These are the same letters that have been distributed to girls’ schools, CD and DVD shops, barber shops and the NGOs, including those dealing with family planning.”
Saeed Jafar Shah of Caravan, an NGO working in the same region, agrees with Mr Zaman. His NGO that works on voter education and registration and also on a project to eliminate timber poaching in Upper Swat is under threat.
But Mr Shah, like Mr Zaman, refuses to close down his office even if it has meant seeking police protection for fear of attacks by the timber mafia which has resorted to using religion to prop up its activities. “They have already killed a community guard at one of our checkposts. They are using scare tactics and the mosques to malign us. The simple village people have begun looking at us with suspicion as the clerics wield a lot of influence here,” Mr Shah said.
Caravan’s ‘Feed-the-Poor’ project sponsoring 50 widows and 110 orphans was hit after the clerics convinced the beneficiaries not to cooperate with the ‘agents of Israel’. “They said whatever good we were doing was not only suspect but also not permissible in Islam,” Mr Shah said.
“Recently, on a field visit, our female workers were not allowed to enter homes and meet the women and encourage them to register as voters. The community elders said workers were not observing purdah and working alongside men. Our female workers felt very humiliated when they were told that the womenfolk of the village do not speak to such women.”
Last month, some 70 government-appointed lady health workers resigned from their jobs in Swat. This was after sermons in mosque given by clerics said they were ‘sinful’ women.
On May 19, an eight-member (including three women) family planning team was taken hostage by a horde of 100 militants in North Waziristan.
In view of the danger to women, the administration of the Bajaur agency has barred women vaccinators and replaced them with male workers.
In Darra Adamkhel, local people have been asked to dissociate themselves from international NGOs. A local cleric, Mufti Khalid Shah, issued a decree last month, declaring that NGOs were Zionist agents and that every Muslim was duty-bound to destroy their offices, attack their vehicles, and kill their members.
Two weeks ago, the United Nations announced that it had suspended its work in the quake-affected districts of Azad Kashmir after the situation turned “life threatening” for aid workers. Unidentified people in Bagh district burnt down homes of some aid workers and issued warnings against hiring local female staff.
Maulana Fazlullah is both revered and feared. Favouring horses over motorised vehicles, he has no qualms about using technological devices for propaganda work – anything from cellphones to sophisticated artillery. But his most lethal weapons are the 12 unlicensed FM radio stations that are used to transmit his vitriolic messages.
“The channels are used to preach the teachings of Islam,” said Muslim Abdur Rashid, the Maulana’s spokesman. “Almost everyone is now converted. You would be happy to learn that all the women have, of their own volition, started observing the purdah, and that dance and music have stopped.” A couple of years ago, at the cleric’s behest, many simple villagers smashed up their TV sets and torched them.
Cleric Fazlullah is especially venerated in the area by women who regard his words as divine decree, said Naheed Shamsur Rehman, a primary school teacher in Swat.
“And why not? For the first time, someone is talking of women’s rights as spelled out in the Holy Quran. He talks of our right to inheritance, provision of mehr, asking fathers to get the consent of their daughters before contracting their marriage etc,” says Shamsur Rehman. “He never uses force, and that is perhaps the reason for his success.”
“Yes, women are our most loyal supporters. All we had to do was to convince the women. It was the latter who made our task of influencing the men easy,” said the cleric. He does not chat with women unrelated to him as he points out that it is not permissible by Sharia. After much cajoling, he, however, agrees making an exception, but is unable to carry the conversation for long in Urdu.
“Recently many women offered their jewellery when he asked for funds for the construction of a mosque, and men came in droves to help with the construction,” said Mr Zaman.
However, he is against women working outside their homes. “There is no need for women to work outside and side by side men unrelated to them. If they must, they should observe proper purdah.” But people, like school teacher Khadija, feel: “We should have the freedom to choose.”
She feels the cleric has gone too far. She wears a chador and refuses to wear the burqa, being propagated by the cleric. “I think there was nothing wrong with the traditional practices we were observing in the first place,” says her husband, Siddique Akbar, in her support.
Asked about rumours that the Maulana had ordered parents not to send their girls to schools, the cleric’s spokesman Rashid said: “There is a lot of propaganda against us. We’re not against acquisition of scientific knowledge or girl’s education, but we are against what is being taught in schools. That is taking them away from their religion. And that is the reason we feel that such education is causing more harm than good.”
“There are some 30 adolescent girls who have stopped coming to school,” said Saima Amir Bacha, one of the supervisors for public schools. “Their parents have suddenly decided that it’s better for them to stay at home and learn the Holy Quran and its translation. Of course it is the work of Maulana Fazlullah. But nobody dare utter a word against his preaching.”
Asked about the abandoned polio campaign, Mr Rashid said cautiously: “We don’t stop people from getting their children vaccinated. People are so convinced that we don’t have to use force to stop them. But yes, we look upon it with much scepticism. We believe it has ingredients that cause infertility, because the West does not want the Ummah to grow and prosper.”
Mr Rashid admitted that he had no scientific proof to back the claims. “Only time will prove us right,” he said, adding that the cleric’s two children (aged two and four) had not been immunised against polio. —Dawn/Inter Press Service
http://www.dawn.com/2007/05/24/nat26.htm
*aagay aagay dekho, hota hai kya. Compared to this, Maulana Ghazi looks like a moderate. *:chai: