THE OLD FACE AND THE NEW FACE

The Old Face and The New Face

It has now been twenty three years since the death of President Ziaul Haq, bringing to an end his eleven years rule, marked by religious extremism, curtailment of civil liberties and strangulation of press. One can’t help having a feeling of déjà vu, as there are striking similarities in the way things are moving these days and the days of the military dictator. Much has been written on the gradual erosion of civil liberties in the past three years – disappearances of bloggers, vilification of women activists, banning of youth oriented social websites and ferocious attacks in social media on any voice raised in dissent. Vigorous attempts to control print and electronic media, through legislation, intimidation or armed attacks on journalists are also well known. But it is the all-pervasive religious extremism being propagated as an official government policy which must be the cause of equal concern. Because, if successful, it shall rip our society apart, as indeed it did once before in the last decade of the previous century.There is one feature however, which differentiates the times of 1980’s with the current one. The chief architect of the previous era of Islamization, President Ziaul Haq, was quite transparent in his attempts do so. His outward simplicity and modesty might be a public façade, but his demeanor left nobody in doubt about his frame of mind. Our present Prime Minister, on the other hand, presents a somewhat different picture. Having lived and educated in the West as he never fails to point out, suave, speaking in a cultured English accent and in mild persuasive tones, he presents the portrait of a modern, forward looking guy, ideally suited to transform our country and society. Women voted heavily for him in the last elections especially in the posh Karachi localities of Clifton and Defense. The reality behind this soft and shining veneer is different.Imran Khan is inside a deeply conservative person holding hard extremist views on religion and society. To be fair to him, he has always been so to some extent, he has never lacked the courage to express his views openly whenever given an opportunity. But there is a definite trend now for these views to have become even more extremist and regressive. Many things could have contributed towards this growing rigidity. Firstly, being in power now, he probably feels more bold to express his views with candor regardless of the reaction, favorable or adverse.  Two, like most of his predecessors, he has also felt the need when in power to pamper the religious vote fearing its street power, regardless of how miniscule it might be in an election. Three, his secluded domestic life may also have been a contributing factor towards hardening of his views.But make no mistake. His views have never been anywhere near progressive. Remember the dark days of 2010 to 2014 when Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had wreaked havoc all over Pakistan by their repeated deadly attacks not only on our armed forces but also on unarmed citizens of Pakistan. Most of the country was demanding strong armed action against these terrorists, which was later started as Zarb-e-Azb in July 2014. Imran Khan throughout this period had continued to oppose any action against the terrorists, instead supporting talks and negotiations. The then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had appointed a five member team headed by the veteran journalist Irfan Siddiqui to hold talks with the terrorists.  TTP in their turn announced their own team for these negotiations, naming Imran Khan as a member of their team! The other members were Maulana Abdul Aziz of Lal Masjid, Islamabad, Maulana Samiul Haq, Mufti Kifayatullh, and Prof Ibrahim Khan.So when he announces that the women of this country should better dress properly or be prepared to face physical assaults (as of course men are not robots), he is only reiterating what he has always believed. The fact that there is proven research that rape represents a show of power rather than a response to physical attraction cuts no ice with him.Or take the Single National Curriculum (SNC), a proud achievement of the current government. Without going into specifics, this is a blatant attempt to rewrite text books to conform to religious extremist views. Nobody can dispute the basic idea behind this initiative which is to eliminate disparities in multiple streams of education.  However, misuse of this principle, for example, insertion of Islamic religious content in English, Urdu and General Knowledge text books not only makes the content too narrow but violates Article 22 of the Pakistan Constitution which allows for freedom of religion at educational institutions.Under his patronage, the Punjab Assembly enacted a new law in July 2020 called Tahaffuz-e-Bunyad-e-Islam Bill 2020 (Bill for Protection of Fundamentals of Islam) which gave the government officials power to visit any printing press, publication house or book store and confiscate any book, before or after printing. There was no apparent need to pass this extremist religious law other than to please the ultra-right section of population and was sure to promote religious intolerance.So now that he is proposing to hold peace talks with TTP, who are undeniably responsible for the cold blooded murder of thousands of our people, including 132 children of Army Public School Peshawar in 2014, he has not come up with any new sudden revelation, and people should not feel surprised. He is doing what he has always done, to condone acts of savagery perpetrated by armed militia on innocent people, in the misguided belief that it is all being done somehow in the cause of Islam by decent people who only need a bit of polite advice to mend their ways.Ziaul Haq also believed in the same philosophy. The policies that he followed ended up in creation of the so called jihadis in Afghanistan later turning into war lords who carried out unbelievable atrocities on their citizens for a long time until they were taken over by Taliban in 1996. Closer to home it spawned religious intolerance which created deep sectarian fissures in our society in the 1990’s. We may be  experiencing a re-enactment of the same thinking and culture today.