Re: Terrible news from NWFP…
Why are you people just posting articles? Write your own opinion and provide a reference to the article. Anyone interested in the topic can find articles on their own.
Re: Terrible news from NWFP...
But in my view the situation is more alarming now. As federal government is going to file a reference before Supreme Court against the bill and Governor is also going to take a similar step in High Court. In my view, we are going to a far dangerous step now.
MMA with their wrong and poor policies in the province has lost their confidence among the general masses and in my view it would have been extremely difficult for them to get even a single seat in the next elections. However, if the Federal Government and the Governor take these steps, I doubt, this will only serve MMA, since in last few years nothing was done in NWFP and MMA was mainly blaming Centre for all that, now if there is a fight between MMA and Centre the general masses will definitely show their sympathy with the MMA government and as such will strengthen their position in the province.
In my view, whether Hasba Bill is good or bad, it should have been allowed, as a weak and poor leadership of MMA could not deliver anything out of this bill to the common man hence it would have been an end of MMA. But now I have all my doubts.
Re: Terrible news from NWFP...
^^ We will see if they get a single seat or not....After the heavy handed proxy war our gov't waged in Sarhad on the behalf of Hamreeka, it probably did not endear itself and its gang of corrupt ruling party officials to the masses and the voters in the next election would be mindful of this as they were in the last election.....
Re: Terrible news from NWFP…
Do I know you?
Re: Terrible news from NWFP...
Please, you people keep thinking that democracy is actually going to work, in NWFP of all provinces. People there don't care a flying rat's arse about whether the MMA or the Centre is better. All they know is that life keeps getting more tough economically, and no one does anything at the grassroots level anyway.
The oddest thing is that this bill will hinder and bother the average individual in NWFP anyway. Imagine someone coming into your home and bullying you over what you're wearing, what you're watching on TV, what you're saying and talking about, and who you're talking to.
They already have gotten rid of music in most areas. Do you think they're not gonna come into people's homes and make them turn off their stereos and tv's?
This has the potential to be HIGHLY ABUSED. Have mohtasibs at the government level - that's fine. But not among the average man. That's just crazy.
Re: Terrible news from NWFP...
pc,
In NWFP you can't go into anyone house and tell them what to do, that would be a deadly mistake. Yes on the streets of the cities is another thing. Frankly it is nice to see this change if indeed it does happen to it's fullest since I know MMA does this sort of stuff to stay alive and remain in the picture. I was tired of Peshwar becoming a Lahore or Karachi. Last thing we need is another Pakistani city looking, feeling, smelling and tasting like Bollywood (Mumbai). Those who don't like Islamic laws stay in your Un-Islamic cities. :- )
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So you don't think women should be allowed to walk on the streets?
And what's so unIslamic about khi? I've been there, and I never see anything that bad. Okay, fine boys will grop girls, but that's about it.
I doubt that's what the MMA wants to control...
Re: Terrible news from NWFP…
hope the law gets passed through
:insha:
it will benefit all people
Re: Terrible news from NWFP…
I guess the news about Pakistani lesbians, Pakistani porno industry, Pakistani homo groups and their mettings etc. etc. skipped your inbox.
Re: Terrible news from NWFP...
On one hand they say Musharaf should take off his 'wurdi' since it gives an impression of a dictator...on the other hand, these mullahs are gonna set up a gangster group who is going to come to my place and tell me whether I am praying five times or not? whether I'm following islam as prescribed or not? Who is the dictator now? Why can't they let ppl, especially minorities live? why do they wanna force down Islam on people's throats? It's repulsive really....Which non muslim would wanna embrace Islam when it sounds like a jail.
They should just shove it! god wannabes.
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*Since this is what the people of the NWFP want, I hope they get it. *
Neither the people of Frontier elected these zombies nor they want such a nonsensical law to be imposed on them. MMA is a creation of Pakistan's military dictator Pervez Musharraf, who brought these mullah to power through rigged elections. Pakistan's military dictator cannot fight and support these radical religious zealots at the same time.
Re: Terrible news from NWFP...
The people who are against (secular people) this hasba bill should be relieved coz it is still not fully including ALL the islamic laws, which should be implemented.
Also i agree 100% with LOGO, peshawar was slowly becoming like an indian city, just like Lahore and other places. If all this corruption is removed, not only do our people get an islamic identity, but they keep their cultural identity as well. Because part of being a pashtun is to be firm on the deen! this is what distinguishes us from others, and if we start to just become slaves of other people, follow the west, follow the indians, follow the ways of un-islamic people, we are lost, we will suffer. I remember a few years ago, all they used to play in the buses in peshawar, was some bollywood crap...at least if you were to play music, play your own peoples music, why hindu rubbish. but anyway alhamdulilah all of it is stopped.
Women can walk the streets, but should be modest in the way they dress. is that something wrong? is it something wrong to believe in the Quran? to say look woman you are a muslim, if you are a muslim, you believe in the Quran. if you cause harm to yourself thats your own problem, but dont cause harm to others! by women dressing immodestly, they cause harm to themselves as they disobey Allah and on top of that, they create fitnah in the society!!!
People of frontier want full islamic shariah (except the munafiqeen). because a muslim who doesnt accept islamic shariah, they are rejecting Allahs law. to say MMA is with pervez, isi, and so on...if they implement shariah that is something good for the people. if you choose between kufr law or islam law in your society, which would you choose as a MUSLIM?
People are fed up of corruption spreading in pashtun areas, even women are complaining about MMA not fully implementing islam. you guys are clueless about the average person in NWFP (i dont speak for the so-called nationalists munafiqeen)..by that i mean ANP. because they did nothing for pashtuns, and for even uniting pashtuns, they speak BS 24/7..why people didnt vote for them, they are with the government more than MMA. they are pleased more with pervez than MMA. who are they to speak.
Re: Terrible news from NWFP...
^Still a very dangerous law that is very easily abused... Most such Islamic laws passed in Pakistan have been counter productive and simply promote harrasment etc...
Re: Terrible news from NWFP…
Im pretty sure the Military didnt want the Mullahs in power.. The Kings party is PML Whichever..
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why you lying for-NWFP and Pakistanis want Shariah law- in all form- not this form which you consider as evil
Re: Terrible news from NWFP…
Here is ana article from Dawn that paints a very good picture of whats going on..
Towards a shackled society, perhaps
By Omar R. Quraishi
THE controversial Hasba bill passed by the NWFP Assembly on July 14 has already forced the federal government to seek the opinion of the Supreme Court regarding its constitutionality. Passed in the face of stiff opposition from the opposition MPAs and after an amendment which exempts all members of the provincial assembly from its applicability, the Hasba bill could well push the province into a process of Talibanization.
A day after its passage, the NWFP senior minister, Sirajul Haq, in his sermon at Peshawar’s Mohabbat Khan mosque, told the audience that the NWFP government had only done what it had promised its voters to do. These sentiments had been repeated a few days earlier by the secretary-general of the MMA, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, who had attended the assembly session as a visitor when the bill was initially tabled. Both said that the religio-political alliance was elected precisely on an Islamization platform and that the MMA government in the NWFP was only keeping the promise that it had made at the time of elections.
This line has been used consistently by Akram Durrani’s government, and from a strictly technical point of view, cannot really be challenged. The six-party MMA has a majority in the NWFP assembly and hence it can get any law passed. Passage of such a law would in fact, on the face of it, seem to be a step in line with democracy because the MPAs are the chosen representatives of those who elected them.
Clearly, the passage of any bill by a legislature is supposed to represent the will of the people after which the legislation acquires the force of law. Nobody can take away this right of law-making from them, and certainly not in a democratic dispensation. The problem, however, is that sometimes actions which may be technically faultless can be very retrogressive, even ruinous for society. One cannot find a more telling example of this from history than Adolf Hitler who was put into power by massive electoral majorities, and rose to become the chancellor of Germany.
The point here is not to compare the MMA with the Third Reich but to emphasize that sometimes even elected governments can make terrible mistakes, and the MMA-led one in the NWFP may well be on its way to that. It has made the unfortunate assumption that being elected to public office allows it to make laws that are tantamount to gross interference in the private lives of the people, which is precisely what world happen if the Orwellian Hasba bill is signed into law by the NWFP governor (who, thankfully, has said that he will resist any such move).
Under the law, the governor, in consultation with the chief minister, will appoint a religious scholar as an ombudsman or mohtasib. This official will have powers to “reform society” in accordance with the teachings of Islam and whose main job will be to “discourage vice and encourage virtue”. He will be vested with the power to “reform society” in accordance with the teachings of Islam.
The office of the ombudsman — which will be set up at the district and tehsil levels — will have the power to issue directives to ensure that those living in an area under his jurisdiction adhere to the tenets of Islam and to ensure society is indeed being ‘Islamized’. To discourage vice and encourage virtue and to enforce his directives, the proposed law sanctions a police force to be at the ombudsman’s beck and call.
Even more worryingly, no person will be able to challenge in court any action “taken in good faith” by the ombudsman. Critics — and these include the federal government and the PML which has warned that it will challenge the law once it is passed — have argued that in the presence of the Objectives Resolution in the Constitution there is no need to have a particular law to ensure that people live their lives in accordance with Islamic teachings and that the system proposed under the Hasba law will create a parallel system of justice, dependent on the notions and interpretations of one individual with immense powers to interfere in the people’s private lives. Besides, apart from being a parallel system, of justice, the Hasba bill places the office of the ombudsman above the law.
The powers of the ombudsman include “ensuring Islamic values at public places, discouraging business activities or playing during prayer times, begging, misusing loudspeakers, preventing corruption in government departments, protecting state property, creating a
spirit of public service among government servants and ensuring parents’ obedience by children”.
The vague and ambiguous provision of “ensuring Islamic values at public places” is bound to open a Pandora’s box because it would be safe to assume that the person whom the NWFP government will appoint as ombudsman will share the MMA’s rigid and retrogressive interpretation of religion, and of Islamic values in particular.
A situation can well be imagined in which police will stop and question all men and women walking or driving together to check if the man is ‘mehram’ or not. ‘Ensuring obedience of parents by children’ seems all right and is a worthy goal but a government-appointed official ensuring this is not only absurd but also seems unworkable and far fetched.
Implementation of the Hasba bill could well take the NWFP back to the Dark Ages. Helped by the police — who will assume the role of the dreaded mutawwa or religious police of Saudi Arabia — we could well see business and shops being forcibly shut down at prayer times and people being coerced into going to the mosque. This is quite contrary to the true spirit of Islam which relies on a direct and personal relationship between the believer and the God and emphasizes that there should be no compulsion in religion.
Unfortunately, the religious alliance in power in the NWFP fails to appreciate this precept and its logical corollary, believing that religious, moral and ethical values are in need of being enforced through coercion and threat of coercion. In fact, the MMA government has repeatedly said that enforcing such a system is precisely its goal. Its leaders, and many ministers in the NWFP, have openly expressed their admiration for the Taliban and some of the MMA’s component parties, especially Maulana Fazlur Rahman’s JUI, have had very close links with the Taliban. However, that should be of little comfort to many people residing in the province who will soon face the consequences of the proposed system of Islamization forcing religion down people’s throats.
For instance, under the MMA government, women have been at the receiving end of discrimination and other forms of unjust treatment. Discriminatory policies have been followed by the provincial government such as a ban on male doctors treating women, forced segregation in government colleges, prohibiting male coaches from teaching women and so forth.
Then there have been MMA-backed or affiliated groups, such as the Shabab-i-Milli which have acted as vigilantes and gone about exercising a very misogynist agenda of forcing women out of public life. This they have done by indulging in activities like blackening female faces on advertizing billboards or forcing men to stop women from voting in local and provincial elections.
In fact, in one highly publicized case, one such group in Haripur in Hazara district — known to be traditionally less conservative than the rest of the province — forced the local administration to ban the hiring of women in public call offices. The reason for this ridiculous action was that the presence of women in PCOs was promoting immoral practices when in fact women saw it as a much-needed opportunity for them to augment their family’s income.
Other than women, all creative individuals and groups such as musicians and artists were driven out of the province after their activities were banned.
The situation is bound to get worse because under the proposed new law, the ombudsman will have the power to imprison or fine anyone who listens to music or takes photographic images. The NGOs, too, should prepare themselves for some rough times ahead.
Working in the more backward areas of the NWFP, they have been routinely harassed, criticized and herried and have had to deal with a very hostile environment in the province. This has led to some tragic incidents in which some NGO activists have been physically harmed, and for some cases even killed, as happened recently in the case of a woman, who was working for the Aurat Foundation, and her daughter. One can well imagine what will happen once the Hasba bill begins to be enforced, because senior MMA leaders in the past have repeatedly called most of the NGOs ‘un-Islamic’.
Other than making the NWFP a joyless and shackled society whose residents will probably go through the vigorous process of legally enforcing religion (and
a highly retrogressive interpretation at that) the Hasba bill also has the potential to snowball into a confrontation between the provincial and federal governments, with far-reaching legal and political implications.
http://www.dawn.com/2005/07/19/op.htm
Re: Terrible news from NWFP...
If Pakistan is against shariah law and the people are against it, may Allahs curse be upon them, they will see the same fate as Iraq and other countries and Allah will strike them. you think you can escape from Allahs punishment?
You reject the basic ayat in the Quran which says all muslims should enjoin good and forbid evil. this is even more important for those in power. it also says do not rule by other than the Quran and Sunnah, it also says those in authority should make people establish prayer and pay zakat. it also says you cannot legislate something which is against what Allah says, so i dont know where in the Quran it says if people make homosexuality permissible, you should accept it because of the PEOPLE?? if majority of people vote to make stealing permissible, we should accept? when majority of people vote for bush to go butcher innocent muslims, just coz people voted, it makes it all good?
So fear Allah, you are against things which are good for people and society. you complain about crime in Pakistan, rape, un-fair business, looting, un-fair weighing, fraud etc...but then when somebody says we will sort these out, oh its against privacy BS. if people have to close shops when its prayer time, this is something bad?
Then if you are so much for freedom, you should not be against any group, whether they preach hatred or not. You dont let normal muslims live in freedom, waziris are occupied and nobody speaks against their freedom, but when somebody says let us target real criminals and discipline people to go to mosques...there is an outcry. if you are so against islam then why are you muslims?
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IF we cant have shariat law in a muslim country where can it be implemented?
You guys should watch yourself for saying things like mullah this or that.
Maybe you are thinking that it would be like the Taliban or something, but that was a different situation.
Fact is that a working model for a proper islamic state/government has to be developed somewhere and this is a step, no matter how small.
Re: Terrible news from NWFP…
Can u enlighten us as to what kinda shariat needs to be implemented ie Hanafi, Shafai, Hannabali, shia??? when u hv that figured out, then come back in another 1000years.
Re: Terrible news from NWFP...
Keep religion out of politics. Will you people never learn?
Eqbal Ahmed
Islam as Refuge from Failure
His picture in the New York Times, August 29, shows Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif surrounded by admiring political colleagues of the religious right. Shaking hands with a bearded Maulana he too appears pleased and triumphant. Neither the admiration nor the feeling of triumph is likely to last. In our time, dragging Islam into politics invariably produces internal dissension and civil strife, risks to which Pakistan is more vulnerable than most countries.
The occasion for the celebratory scene is the proposed amendment to the Constitution. It is likely to push Pakistan toward the totalitarianism and the darkness of a narrowly imagined past. Whatever happens to Mr. Sharif, his yes men and cheerleaders, the country and its people may not return from it in a single piece. Throughout Muslim history the infusion of religion into politics has been a mark of weakness and decline. For his many Islamic measures and his war on Sikh and Hindu chiefs, Aurangzeb (l 918-1707) has been a revered figure in the Islamist circles of South Asia. In addition to ignoring his excesses, his killing of brothers and imprisonment of father, they disregard a central fact of Aurangzeb's long reign: he inherited a strong state and left behind a tottering one. This enormous failure was attributable largely to his theocratic disposition.
The admiration for Aurangzeb is a symptom of a deep ailment. It suggests a widespread psychological disposition to throw religion into politics as a reinforcement mechanism. Hence, in Pakistan Islam has been a refuge of troubled and weak leaders. As the country has suffered - increasingly over five decades - from a crisis of leadership, the promise of an "Islamic state" has recurred as the core symbol of failure.
Mohammed Ali Jinnah was perhaps the only secure leader in Pakistan. However much his former detractors and new-found followers attempt to distort his views on the issue, Jinnah was a modern Muslim, with a secular outlook, contemporary life-style, and a modernist view of Islam's relationship to power and politics. He believed those Islamic values of justice, equality, and tolerance ought to shape power and politics without the formalistic imposition of structures and strictures of centuries past. His August 11, 1947, speech to the Constituent Assembly should be seen for what it was - his last testament to this vision for Pakistan. We are witnessing yet again the betrayal of this notion of statehood, and to avoid becoming accomplices, we must say No to Mr. Sharif's amendment forcefully and collectively.
Jinnah's successors were less sure of their political roots in the new state. They were also competing with each other. Yet they were saddled with the task of defining the constitutional dispensation of this diverse and divided nation state that lacked most attributes of nationhood. The Objectives Resolution was a product of their ambivalence, an attempt to apply the cement of Islam to secular purposes. To them 'amr bil ma'ruf wa nahi anil munkar' was a call to good government, not a prescription for re-inventing the past.
Thus, they deployed the Resolution to legitimize governance under the 1935 Act, and eventually to produce the 1956 Constitution of which the only 'lslamic' provisions were that the head of state shall be a Muslim and the parliament shall enact no laws repugnant to the Quran and Sunnah. Their constitutional acrobatics disregarded the fact that given the uneven development of Muslim society and the revelling in past glories which is so common to people in enfeebled civilizations this Objectives Resolution and Islam itself shall be subject to distortions and misuse. The riots of 1953 were an early warning sadly ignored. Their formal commitment to 'amr bil ma'ruf ' did nothing to discourage their squabbling and other indulgences in "munkar". The drafters and votaries of the Objectives Resolution set the stage for Pakistan's first military take-over.
Ayub Khan's coup d'etat was a welcome change from the misgovernance of Pakistan's Islam peddling opportunists. Feeling politically secure and confident of his ability to govern, Ayub adopted what has been to date the most enlightened posture on the relationship between Islam and politics. He enacted fairly progressive family and marriage laws, and removed the adjectival 'Islamic' from the Republic of Pakistan, thus honouring Islam by delinking it from venality, opportunism, and mismanagement features which have characterized government and politics in Pakistan.
In his early years in power Ayub Khan had, nevertheless, cared enough about the 'reconstruction of religious thought in Islam' to have invited back to Pakistan Dr. Fazlur Rahman, by far the finest Pakistani scholar of Islam, to lead an Institute for Islamic Studies. The 1965 war marked the decline of Ayub Khan's power. Hence, the end of his enlightened outlook on the relationship between religion and power. Already before Ayub's government had fallen the religious parties had hounded Dr. Fazlur Rahman into exile. As trouble mounted and desperation set in Ayub Khan too made feeble attempts to deploy religion as a political weapon.
Islam rarely figured in Z.A. Bhutto's anti-Ayub campaign. His focus was on betrayal - in Tashkent, of national security, our valiant armed forces - on imperialism and America, and on poverty as in the slogan roti, kapra aur makan. He was a master rhetorician. At the height of his power he silenced his critics with that memorable line "mein sharab peeta huun, awam ka khun to naheen peeta" (l drink wine, not the blood of the masses.) His career presents nevertheless a textbook case of Islam-as-a-refuge-of-the-weak-and-scoundreI regime. His first bow to 'Islamism' - declaring Ahmedis a non-Muslim minority - occurred after he had dismissed the government of Balochistan, that of the NWFP had resigned in protest, opposition leaders were imprisoned, and an insurgency was ignited. His last bow to Islamism was made as he struggled to hold on to power in the summer of 1977. Z.A. Bhutto had promised then, much like Mr. Nawaz Sharif today, to introduce the Shari'a and turn Pakistan into an Islamic state on the model of Saudi Arabia.
Mohammed Ziaul Haq, Bhutto's protege and executioner, gave the country his 'solemn promise’ to hold elections in 90 days as the Constitution required. The self-styled "soldier of Islam" lied then and repeatedly thereafter, and never ceased to invoke Islam. He was an isolated dictator aided by right-wing 'Islamic’ parties. So he proceeded on a programme of "Islamization" and Jihad in Afghanistan. We are still reaping his bitter harvest.
And now, with tragic familiarity and despite the hair-raising models of Islamism in Sudan and Afghanistan before him, Mr. Nawaz Sharif is proposing to, further divide, embitter and, possibly, destroy this unfortunate country. Unlike Ziaul Haq he is an elected prime minister, not an isolated dictator, and unlike Z.A. Bhutto he is not facing a do-or-die challenge to his power. On the contrary, he commands an overwhelming majority in parliament while his brother safely rules Punjab. Then why has he so panicked as to put in jeopardy both the faith and the country?
The answer lies perhaps in a sense of failure, and the fear one feels when things appear out of control. Mr. Nawaz Sharif was elected with a large parliamentary majority, which he interpreted as an unprecedented mandate. He inaugurated his prime ministerial term with a stirring address to the country, full of all the right promises, this amendment not being one of them. He has not fulfilled one, even one-half, of those pledges, and is unlikely to do so. Rather, in every respect the reverse of what he had promised has happened, and the people are suffering from a rising excess of want. So now Prime Minister Sharif wishes to, compensate by giving them the gift of God, the Shari'a, five enforced prayers a day, and a fully empowered Amirul Momineen. He must be feeling very feeble indeed.