An interesting article that sheds light on some aspects of the issue. I don’t believe NWFP people can do much about it all, they voted for MMA & now will have to accept whatever comes there way.
Though I am kinda curious by the comment “Nobody dared question them on how an ‘Islamic edict’ could be proclaimed through a ‘secular’ process.” Does any of the MMA supporter have an answer?
Whose law is it anyway?
By Shehar Bano Khan
Shehar Bano Khan questions the motives behind the adopting of the Shariat Bill in the NWFP and the ramifications this may have for the rest of the country.
There is a section of society that believes that many dichotomies exist in Pakistan. They argue that the one outsmarting all others is its ‘Islamic Republic’ appellation. They believe that democracy is not the same as a khilafat, a parliament cannot be read as a majlis-i-shoora and a head of state is not a replication of an amir. So, how can we be a democratic and, at the same time, an Islamic state?
The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) has the answer: adopt the Shariat Bill, as it has done in the NWFP, and the country will no longer have a contradictory title. Islam and Pakistan will be one and the same, implying they are not exactly analogous at the moment. But the MMA’s method in answering the question has only served to make it more confusing.
On June 2, 2003, the six-party alliance of the MMA passed the Shariat Bill through the provincial assembly of the NWFP. Nobody dared question them on how an ‘Islamic edict’ could be proclaimed through a ‘secular’ process.
Nobody even so much as attempted to demur nominally for fear of being burnt at the stake by all those defenders of faith who felt entitled by their religious supremacy to use any available stratagem of democracy to make the NWFP into a state of believers.
If all else remains the same, the MMA, hand in hand, will soon lay siege to the city of Islamabad. Will the debate of whether Islam should be institutionalized or not finally come to an end?
I. A. Rehman, director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in Lahore, who has a wealth of experience as an activist and a columnist, cautions the people against the dangerous game being played by the mullahs of the country. “If you want to stop this law’s progression you have to go to the basics first and de-ideologize your state. The makers of Pakistan felt insecure and had to institutionalize religion. It is they who are responsible for giving in to the mullahs and creating confusion,” says Rehman.
Playing liberally with concepts (the only time liberalism is shown by religious extremists) and uncaring of contradictions, the MMA has theocratised the NWFP by adopting the Shariat Bill, which is now an act, and delivered on its election promise to make the province conformto Islamic principles.
However, Rehman believes that the law does not mean much. “It is what it projects which matters,” he says. “Here the concept is reaching far beyond the legislation.” Even legal experts view the legislation with much less of a trepidation than they do its actual implementation.
“It’s not the first time someone has tried to impose the Shariat,” says Hamid Khan, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan. “Ziaul Haq and Nawaz Sharif both tried to Islamize the country. As an act I would say it is not harmful, but it definitely has the potential of being misused by somepeople. Pakistan’s history is full of the misuse of laws.”
Human rights activists call it the beginning of the Talibanization of the country and call for a counter movement by the liberal forces of democracy and unadulterated peoples’ political participation. Afrasiab Khattak, head of the HRCP, told a foreign newspaper that “our society was gradually being pushed towards religious totalitarianism”, on the lines of the system practiced by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Well before the Shariat Bill, the MMA government in the NWFP had already prohibited playing of music in public places and on buses, banned cable TV and school going boys had to wear the traditional shalwar kurta instead of shirt and trousers. And taking the place of foremost priority, above that of economy, unemployment, illiteracy and much more, was the MMA’s drive to force girls to cover their heads. The Shariat Bill has not changed anything for the Frontier people that did not already exist with the MMA in power. The only difference now is that a violation of these rules would carry a strict punishment. Many ask what is next: Talibanized styled public prosecutions?
“We have learned through the Zia period that his policy of theocratising the state went beyond the laws he made,” says Rehman. “The impact of the Peshawar initiative will also go beyond what it says in the body of law. Male doctors can no longer attend women patients. Education will be strictly segregated, offices, schools and shops will be closed during prayer time. And as attempted before, saying prayers five times a day will be mandatory for civil servants. All these have nothing to do with the Shariat Act. These are policy directives.”
The dangers of the bill and its far reaching ramifications, expressed by Rehman and Khan, took little time tomanifest themselves. Jubilant crowds ran through the Frontier streets celebrating the Shariat Bill by tearing down billboard advertisements showing women and destroying the satellite cable TV. Their “joy” spilled over to other parts of the country, especially the Punjab, where dogmatist MMA supporters went on a campaign to purge the country of obscene market promotions.
Similar efforts at “Islamization” were made by Ziaul Haq in 1985 through the Eighth Amendment to the constitution and Nawaz Sharif by introducing the 15th Amendment in 1991.
Through a presidential order, Ziaul Haq directed the addition of Article 2A into the constitution, which was subsequently ratified through the Eighth Amendment. Both the amendments were a legal cover for absolute and totalitarian control of the country.
“The problem is when Liaquat Ali Khan introduced the Objectives Resolution, he believed that the mullahs would be satisfied and nothing more would be required. Similarly, when Mr Bhutto declared the Ahmedis non-Muslims, he too believed that nothing more was needed. Then Zia came and he made a law which could be implemented. Nawaz Sharif tried to do the same in 1991 with the 15th Amendment but the enforcement of the Shariat Act never took place,” explains Rehman. He also pointed out how the Shariat Bill of 2003 was a legal encroachment of the Frontier government on the centre, likening the MMA to a qabza group. “In spite of it being illegal, they will still carry it out in some ways,” continues Mr Rehman.
The Frontier Shariat Bill is only one part of the Islamization process in the NWFP. The other part, which in many ways is more oppressive, is the Hisba Act. A few days after the passing of the Shariat Bill came another reminder of how the MMA was going to keep the memory of the Taliban alive. The Hisba Act (hisba means accountability) is the establishment of the Department for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue. Under this act, cases will be decided on a jirga pattern, which according to the NWFP chief minister, Akram Durrani, “would lighten the burden of the courts.”
The more sinister side of this act will be the formation of a group of ‘technically virtuous’ people, bludgeoning others to follow strict Islamic guidelines set by it. “The Hisba Act is much more dangerous. The central part is the creation of a force that will enforce the Shariat in the state,” warns Rehman.
The Islamization project of the NWFP has five components. First is the enforcement of the Shariat Act, then comes the Hisba Act, the reform of the behaviour of the state is the third part, followed by the creation of a separate prosecution branch, with the last one being amendments in the court fees act.
So far, the MMA has only enforced the Shariat Act, promising to implement the other four shortly. The NWFP chief minister’s statements on the MMA believing in democracy have made a mockery of this form of government. How can its misuse be checked and counter-balanced? If the MMA decides to take the bill to Islamabad and succeeds in getting it passed in a deal with the establishment, should we be left to accept it because of some contorted, manipulated version the MMA refers to as democracy?
The rest of the country is content to let the MMA play fair or foul on the NWFP’s political ground, not realizing the game is about to be played in their backyards as well. Did we anticipate that nearly one-fourth of the National Assembly would be occupied by the MMA? Similarly, the approach of we-can-never-be-Talibanized should be reconsidered, unless we have completely detached ourselves from whatever is happening in the Frontier.