12-02-2007, 02:36 PM
POPULAR PROTESTS MAKE NONSENSE OF MUSHARRAF's RESORT TO MARTIAL LAW
Zafar Bangash
http://www.muslimedia.com/pak-protest.htm
Three weeks after General Pervez Musharraf hit Pakistan's crumbling political system on November 3 by declaring a “state of emergency”, the Supreme Court, stacked with loyalist judges, handed him the verdict he wanted. His questionable “election” as president on October 6 was declared valid on November 22: the judges simply dismissed the last of six petitions challenging its legality. Two days before, Musharraf had issued a presidential decree amending the suspended constitution and granted himself indemnity from prosecution. He also decreed that no court has the authority to challenge his proclamation of the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO), the state of emergency or actions taken since its imposition. Clearly, he did this aware that he was skating on thin legal ice.
Under the new dispensation—essentially martial law—thousands of political activists, lawyers and journalists were arrested and imprisoned. Supreme Court judges who refused to take oath under the PCO were also arrested by soldiers, dragged from their chambers in the Supreme Court building and placed under house arrest. There were disturbing scenes of club-wielding policemen beating up lawyers inside court premises and punching and kicking them as they were dragged to waiting trucks to be taken to jail. Journalists were similarly treated, and continue to face the police's usual brutality.
Musharraf signed the order declaring a “state of emergency” not as president but as chief of army staff. This demonstrates the reality facing Pakistan today: the country is under the boot of the military, which has no regard for any rule of law. The Chief of Army Staff has no authority to declare emergency; only the president can do so on the advice of the prime minister, provided there is a credible threat to the country's internal or external security. There was no such threat except Musharraf's fear that the Supreme Court, hearing petitions challenging his unconstitutional presidential election of October 6, would deliver an unfavourable verdict. So he struck first, sending the judges home to house arrest.
On the night on November 3 and 4, he appeared on state-owned Pakistan Television (PTV), the only station allowed to broadcast, to explain the reasons for the emergency. He sounded like a drunken sailor trying to defend the indefensible. He alleged that the country faced a threat from “extremists”; if true, he has a lot of explaining to do. For eight years he has been the sole authority in the land and done as he pleased. His troops are attacking and killing civilians in North and South Waziristan, in Swat and Bajaur in the North West Frontier Province, and in Baluchistan. Cobra helicopters and F-16 planes are being used against Pakistani villagers, thousands of whom have been killed in the last three years.
Musharraf also lamented the fact that judges were releasing “terrorists” apprehended by his security forces, and that this was demoralizing them because it prevented them from “doing their job”. Is it their job to arrest opponents of the regime, throw them in jail and throw the key away without pressing charges against them? Several people picked up by the intelligence agencies have been murdered. The judges merely ruled that the government either press charges against detainees or set them free; it has no right to detain them indefinitely. Interestingly, the two judges—Faqir Muhammad Khokhar and Muhammad Nawaz Abbasi—who had ordered the detainees' release are still serving as judges because they took oath under the PCO. So Musharraf was not complaining about judges doing their job; his real concern was that the other judges refused to confer legitimacy on his illegal acts.
Musharraf's rambling speech on November 3 lacked sophistication and coherence; he wandered between Urdu and English repeatedly. Gone was the self-confidence of the commando soldier, an image he had carefully cultivated and projected in the past; his body language clearly betraying nervousness. When he spoke in English, he compared himself with the nineteenth-century American president Abraham Lincoln, saying that he had to violate certain laws to “save the nation”. He has wrapped himself in the garb of the “nation's saviour” so often that few take him seriously. What “nation” is he talking about anyway? As for comparing himself with Lincoln, Musharraf is no Abe Lincoln and he knows it.
There has only been mild criticism of his actions in Washington and London, the two power-centres that matter most in Pakistani politics, against Musharraf's actions. On November 16, US deputy secretary of state John Negroponte arrived in Islamabad to urge Musharraf to work with Benazir Bhutto, the US's darling in dupatta. America is working to create a Musharraf-Benazir axis and thus provide a civilian gloss on a military dispensation. The Pakistani people are aware of this and want none of it. They view both as American puppets, but feel that no alternative is available to them. The disarray in the ranks of the political parties is shown by their lack of coherent strategy to mobilize the masses to confront the general even after three weeks. This is Musharraf's second coup in eight years, this one carried out against the judiciary. There is deep weariness among the people, who see the politicians as equally bad and have little reason to come out in the streets to replace one set of crooks in uniform with another set in civilian clothes, both totally subservient to the US.
There is, however, something unusual about the situation in Pakistan this time round. Before being placed under house arrest, eight Supreme Court judges, led by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, declared Musharraf's state of emergency illegal. Aware that something was afoot, the justices were present in the Supreme Court building on Saturday November 3 and issued their ruling immediately after the “emergency” was declared. This is likely to haunt Musharraf when the political tide turns against him. Displaying unusual courage and adherence to the rule of law, the overwhelming majority of Supreme and provincial courts’ judges refused to take oath under the PCO. Musharraf and his cohorts had to scramble and bring retired judges out of mothballs to fill the courts' benches.
Even so, it took nearly two weeks to get enough judges on the Supreme Court bench to fulfil legal requirements. Interestingly, not a single chief justice of any of the five superior courts—Supreme Court and the four provincial high courts—agreed to take oath under the PCO. They risked arrest but refused to confer legitimacy on an illegitimate system, as has been the wont of judges in the past. It is reported that the three Supreme Court judges—Abdul Hamid Dogar, Faqir Muhammad Khokhar and Muhammad Nawaz Abbasi—who took oath under the PCO with Dogar as chief justice were blackmailed because they or relatives of theirs had been caught on camera in compromising situations. Dogar was with the government all along and was acting as an informant against his fellow judges. For this act of betrayal he was rewarded with the plum job of chief justice.
Though the legal battle, on hold for now, is likely to drag on for years, the political circus is in full swing. Benazir Bhutto of the Pakistan People's Party and maulana Fazlur Rahman of Jami'at-e Ulama-e Islam are both in league with Musharraf, hoping to cash in on their loyalty to him by reaping rewards after the farcical elections that Musharraf has promised for January 8. The assemblies were dissolved on November 18 and a caretaker government led by the senate chairman, Muhammadmian Soomro, was sworn in, again an illegal act. The senate chairman cannot become the prime minister because he must act as president in the absence of the current president. For instance, on November 20, when Musharraf flew to Riyadh to urge the Saudi authorities to prevent former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who has emerged as his fiercest critic, from returning to Pakistan before the elections, Soomro was acting president. There were also reports that Musharraf had attempted to meet Sharif, but the latter refused.
Also on November 20, the government announced that it had released thousands of political prisoners and lawyers, including Imran Khan, the cricket-star-turned-politician who was arrested on November 13 at the Punjab University campus in Lahore. He was handed over to the police by members of the Jami'at-e Tulaba, the student wing of the Jama'at-e Islami, in what has turned out to be one of the most shameful episodes in Pakistan's tortuous history. Imran Khan was moved to Dera Ghazi Khan jail, where he went on a hunger strike on November 17. Lawyers have accused the government of playing a cynical game; it releases people but promptly re-arrests them or drags others to jail in their place. On November 22 the government announced that the deposed judges were no longer under house arrest. When retired justice Wajihuddin Ahmed and lawyer Athar Minallah, a former minister in Musharraf's cabinet, tried to visit Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry at his residence, they were prevented from doing so by a heavy contingent of the police. As they drove off, Minallah was arrested for “violating the law”.
While this cat-and-mouse game continues with some lawyers, others, such as Munir A. Malik, former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, and Aitezaz Ahsan, its current president, both staunch supporters of the displaced chief justice, have been held in horrible conditions in jail. Munir Malik, held in the notorious Attock Jail, was so badly tortured that he had to be rushed to a hospital in Islamabad on November 23. Nobody had been allowed to see him, his wife said on November 20. She said that the jail authorities even refused to allow medicines to be delivered to him. Aitezaz Ahsan is being held in Adiala Jail. He refused to be transferred to a hospital because he said other lawyers and political workers were being badly treated in jail and he did not want to abandon them.
The future course of events will depend on how many political parties boycott the elections on January 8. If enough of them join the boycott, it will completely deprive the process of any illusion of legitimacy and will provide impetus to a mass movement. With Musharraf out of uniform—his “second skin”, as he put it—his first skin, albeit quite thick, which he has been trying to save, will become vulnerable. The new army boss, General Ashfaq Pervez Kiani, a staunchly pro-American officer, will become his own man. Pakistan has a long history of loyalists turning against their benefactors. Musharraf did it to Nawaz Sharif, as did General Zia ul-Haque to Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. In fact, Musharraf has stabbed a lot of people in the back besides Nawaz Sharif. He swiftly dismissed the three generals—Mahmoud Ahmed, Muhammad Aziz and Muzaffar Usmani—who had brought him to power when his plane was prevented from landing in Pakistan on the orders of the then prime minister in October 1999.
If the political turmoil continues and the police are unable to contain street violence, the army may be called out to shoot people. If this goes on for any length of time, this will result in soldiers disobeying their officers; it has happened before. The upper echelon of the military will not want such a situation to develop or continue for long, and will force Musharraf to quit. Whether this will end Pakistan's immediate problems is uncertain. What the political farce in Pakistan shows is that the system is incapable of providing any solutions to its myriad problems. The choice facing the people is stark: oppressive, corrupt military rulers or an equally corrupt bunch of ruthless feudal lords who maintain private armies and run private prisons. The people's contempt for both is high.
Pakistan is in a tailspin; the only way to get out of this disastrous situation is to dismantle the present colonial-imposed order by means of an Islamic revolution brought about by means of an Islamic movement. It would appear that an increasing number of people in Pakistan are beginning to realize this. What they need is a leadership with a clear vision to mobilize the masses and consign this decaying system to the history books. Failing that, the people of Pakistan will continue to stagger from one crisis to the next, and each change of rulers will only make the situation even worse. This is hardly a prospect to look forward to and may even lead to the disintegration of Pakistan; all the signs are already there. The march of history does not wait for anyone; Islamic activists ought to give this serious consideration. Nature abhors a vacuum; other forces are bound to step in and fill it if there is no credible solution offered to the problems of the people and their country.
PAKISTANI MERCENARY GENERALS LEADING PAKISTAN TO AN ALL OUT CIVIL WAR
Abid Ullah Jan
http://www.icssa.org/article_detail_parse.php?a_id=1211&rel=1204,1160
A Combo picture shows Pakistan's military dictators, from top left, clockwise, Ziaul Haq, Ayub Khan, Yayha Khan and Musharraf. Pakistan military has sucked the nation dry. Eighty percent of national resources are going directly and indirectly into the service of half a million strong army, which has won no war for Pakistan. However, it hands are littered with the innocent blood of fellow Pakistanis (AP Photo)
Pakistan's army has literally occupied the country for more than half of its 60-year history and dominated _ or ended _ the fragile rule of the few civilian governments to take office.
The army’s position as a mercenary force – rented by US for $100 million a month - on the front line of the neocons’ war of terror and the army's ever increasing involvement in the economy suggest the generals are well-equipped to defend their privileges and are reluctant to share them in the name of democracy.
Officers and their families have their own upscale schools, hospitals and housing compounds. The military is deeply involved in businesses from banking to transportation and, under President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, scores of retired officers have been appointed to run civilian institutions, from universities to the municipality of Islamabad.
"You now have the army completely embedded like marble inside most of the civil institutions," said Shaun Gregory, a Pakistan expert at the University of Bradford in Britain.
Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup, declared Pakistan's current state of emergency in his capacity as army chief, underscoring the importance of the military in the nation's turbulent politics. He is refusing to say when constitutional rule will be restored.
He promises to step down from the military once his Oct. 6 presidential election victory had been endorsed by a hand picked Supreme Court after unconstitutionally and illegally removing judges of the Supreme Court as they were about to declare that he is not eligible to run the country. After relieving the Supreme Court of the most independent justices, Musharraf tempered his pledge again on Sunday with an affirmation that the nation's soldiers will back him in any dispute. As if the army is sold to him, he declared: "Even if I'm not in uniform, this army will be with me," Musharraf said.
Pakistan was not founded with an oversized security apparatus. However, it was strong enough to take over. To establish its hegemony within, the army fought three wars with its eastern neighbor India, the first within months of independence in 1947 and lost all of them. Pakistan also has had border disputes with Afghanistan that have fueled enduring tension on its western frontier.
"Unfortunately, Pakistan did not inherit a strong political system. In the first nine years we couldn't even find a constitution," said Mirza Aslam Beg, a former army chief. "It was in this time that the military physically took over."
Pakistan army has always exploited the fear of India and make the nation feel that without a black budget for defence and without un-accountable military rleadership, Pakistan will be over run by India. Some historians see that legacy in the harsh attitude of Pakistan's military-dominated elite toward dissent, its bickering politicians and the US interference and using the army as a mercenary force. The subservience to the US and its mercenary attitude is unlikely to change soon.
"As long as there is the context of the war on terror for the next decades _ goodness knows how long _ that is going to continue to create a security-focused situation" that the military can exploit, said Gregory.
Musharraf insists his latest suspension of the constitution amounts to a state of emergency, though critics note that he acted in his capacity as army chief and have called it "mini martial law."
The general insists he had no choice but to remove Supreme Court judges who were hampering the fight against terrorism by ordering the release of suspects held without charge. The Supreme Court judges said on TV that they were given no evidence of the alleged “terrorists” involvement in terrorism at all. They said the court documents are on the record and the government officials failed to produce a single shred of evidence against the people Musharraf now calling as terrorists. Moreover, the judges who were sitting on the panel who ordered the alleged terrorist released have all taken oath under Musharraf’s new PCO after November 3, 2007, whereas those judges who were not even on the panel of those cases have been deposed.
Musharraf lies and raising the banner of fighting terrorism has underlined how both Musharraf and his supporters in the West - who appear loathe to sanction Pakistan's latest authoritarian lurch - see the military as the key bulwark against Taliban and the mythical al-Qaida amid rising extremism, particularly in the regions bordering Afghanistan.
Like all uniformed rulers before him, Musharraf insisted he was acting to protect the nation's vital interests.
Political parties, in contrast, remain weak - dominated by individuals rather than policies, lacking nationwide appeal and with a record in government stained by corruption and vicious feuding.
The generals, abetted by Pakistan's powerful and well-resourced intelligence agencies, have been quick to cut down the few prime ministers who tried to take control.
Gen. Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, who staged his coup in 1977, overthrew Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, father of current opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and arguably the most able politician in Pakistan's short history. That is what the US wanted at that time. The US allied with the opposition religious parties and supported a campaign for Islamic rule to throw out Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto through street power. Musharraf toppled Nawaz Sharif when the latter tried to fire him.
The criminal record of Pakistani general grows. Pakistan army troops on the lower level, however, suffer from the damage which policies of the slavish generals are following at the top.
These days, it is hard and humiliating for the military personnel to come out in public in uniform without having looked down upon by ordinary Pakistanis. The hatred towards army as an institution grows. People don’t know that the ordinary soldiers have no power or say in the decision making at the top. It is the generals with sick and slavish mentality who sell their conscience and the country’s independence. The public, however, only know that the soldiers at the lower level are the one’s who are holding the gun to their head and detaining, torturing and killing their loved ones.
Therefore, military as an institution has generated enough hatred for itself that anything can trigger a civil war in Pakistan. The struggle has already begun between the people and the mercenary army. But in the full fledged civil war, it would be most of the military personnel fighting on behalf of the people - not as soldiers of the mercenary army but as the people of occupied Pakistan. The desertions have already begun. These would simply increase in frequency.
That is when the matter will get worse for the generals who are busy digging their own grave these days. No slave master will come to their rescue from Washington as no slave master came to the rescue of the Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussain. Those who wanted a "war within Islam" will be the only one to enjoy the bloodletting, but not for too long.
PAKISTAN AND EGYPT SUFFER FROM THE FAILURE OF THEIR ISLAMIC MOVEMENTS
http://www.muslimedia.com/abudhar216.htm
The Islamic Uprising in Iran a quarter of a century ago is too important and too special for Muslims to simply watch it wander from its original and true course. We remember all too clearly the impact this breakthrough had on Muslims everywhere. For the first time in modern history, Muslims had risen against a corrupt government and its imperialist and zionist sponsors, and were able to take control of their own country, and begin to show the rest of us how things should be done.
Of course, the road forward was not likely to be smooth. The sponsors of the Pahlavi regime could not be expected to sit and watch a people shape their own future on the basis of their Islamic faith and commitment. Throughout the last 25 years, America and Israel have been working to bring the Islamic government in Iran to its knees, with the support of their Western allies, Iran’s pro-Western neighbours and even supporters within Iran. Iran’s borders amount to some 8,000 kilometers; American troops are now based across six thousand kilometers of this border. This grim scenario has been gradually built over 25 years, and has passed almost unnoticed by most Muslims, and even most Iranians. There has never been any cessation of hostilities between the followers of the line of Imam Khomeini (r.a.), who refuse to compromise when it comes to the independence and sovereignty of the Islamic state, and the numerous other interests wanting to shape the state on their terms.
Part of our object in this new column is to look at some of the gaps that have developed since the passing of Imam Khomeini (r.a.), many of which are rooted in earlier events, and how these gaps have caused serious problems about which we can no longer remain silent. But before we walk into this sensitive area, one point needs to be made absolutely clear. This is that none of the points we make are intended to express any criticism of Imam Sayyid Ali Khamenei, the successor to Imam Khomeini (r.a.) as Rahbar of the Islamic State. Many of the points we make will be highlighting natural processes in the evolution of post-Revolutionary state and society. Others will indeed involve criticism of errors and failures in Iran, mainly on the part of those who have been responsible for aspects of Iranian government and policy at the executive level. It was inevitable that such errors and failures should emerge over a quarter of a century in an unprecedented and highly-pressured historical situation; unfortunately they have contributed greatly to what many now see as the Islamic experiment’s current stagnation.
Sometimes frank statements of truth can be bitter pills to swallow; we hope no-one will consider this column to be too bitter a pill. We say what we say only to express our honest understanding of the issues. If we are correct, we appeal earnestly to Allah to accept our humble words to our humble readers. If not, we request Allah’s forgiveness and correction from anyone able to do so; without, we hope, descending into personal issues or hidden agendas. Ameen.
Pakistan and Egypt suffer from the failure of their Islamic movements
The main factor exacerbating the situation of Pakistan and Pakistanis is the state of the local Islamic movement there. The Jama‘at-e Islami is in no position to show anyone the way out of the morass that Pakistan has become. Likewise the Ikhwan – the Jama‘at's analogue in the Arab world – are running around in circles in Egypt. Both of them apparently still have to be “burned” further by the system which they so desire to be part of in order to learn the implications of one short ayah in a short surah of the Qur'an: lakum deenukum wa liya deen (“you [the kuffar and mushrikeen] have your deen, and I [Mohammad] have mine”:Q. 109:6.)
In a quickly sinking Pakistani nation-state the Jama‘at in the course of the past six years has failed to expose the media-intensive but futile campaign of “spreading democracy” that was launched in Washington DC and parroted in the ruling chambers of Islamabad and Karachi. Anti-imperialist luminaries could see that the “war on terror” policies springing from the Pentagon were disguised by means of worldwide blanket propaganda in favour of ‘democracy'. But our brothers in the Jama‘at were unable to do so; or if they were aware of it they kept this insight within their own circles, far away from the Muslim public. The people of Pakistan, with the connivance of their president and political parties (including the Jama‘at) are now reeling under the threats of imperialist-zionist menace of terrorism, an American controlled nuclear arsenal, and what is beginning to look like a failed state. Because Pakistan is the only Muslim country that has nuclear weapons and a slight potential that it might become an Islamic State like the one in Iran, it has become the main target of the American-zionist aggression, like Afghanistan and Iraq before it. The low-intensity conflict that has been gradually growing since September 2001 between the Islamic tendency on one side and secular tendencies on the other has moved the country to the brink of disaster. The warlike conditions in neighboring Afghanistan have gradually spread into Pakistan. Separatist tendencies are lurking just below the Pakistani surface; Baluchistan, for instance, may become a hotbed of breakaway tendencies. Meanwhile the bulk of the Pakistani military is tied up in an “alert” status, toe-to-toe with India's army along the border of Kashmir.
In the midst of this official nonperformance General Musharraf (whose nickname in Pakistan is General Whiskey) is looking good to India. On Musharraf's watch opposition to India over Kashmir has effectively vanished. While looming over his own citizenry as general and president he has become a pussy-cat to India's officials, though the ex-special forces soldier is going to have to do even more to appease the imperialist-zionist-hindu triangle. His juggling act of playing anti-Islamic secular parties with pro-Islamic shari‘ah orientations is in its final act. Not all the guilt for everything can be laid at the imperialists' and zionists' feet: Pakistan's own hang-on-to-power-at-any-cost wishful thinkers and the long-shot dreamers also impede the Islamic transformation of Pakistan by their own incompetence and lack of nous.
The ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) agency may have a cadre of sincere mu'mineen who are watching out for Islamic activists in Pakistan, but the US$ 10 billion that have been channelled into Pakistan by Washington is proof positive that – whatever political game Musharraf is playing internally – his credentials with Uncle Sam are sound. This does not mean that Washington will not dump its “pukka sahib” once he has outlived his usefulness. This may partially explain why Benazir Bhutto, through American channels, was routed back to Pakistan. The cold blood and cool nerves of Pakistan's enemies are hedging their bets by backing both Musharraf and Bhutto. Both of them are anti-Islamic, both of them are tried and true friends of the US, and both of them have the necessary experience to delay Pakistan's Islamic progress. We may add that in the case of Bhutto, there is a personal grudge against the Islamic trend in Pakistan because she blames the “crowd of Islamists” for her father's execution. The swords are locked now; the fight is on. Parvez Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto are going to have to prove themselves to their American superiors. It baffles the mind that the Jama‘at Islami can lower itself to compete for any position in any of their current or future governments.
The wild card in all this is the army. In the past, the army has stepped into political turmoil and taken control of the country as usual, to placate the US. To date no one has heard of any prominent Islamic leader who has been detained. Could their relative silence be what they are giving for their relative security? We simply do not know. What we do know – and this is true in all other Muslim countries too– is that the silent majority of people are looking for and longing for an Islamic leadership that can deliver, an Islamic leadership that answers to its own people and not to the holders of bank-accounts in Arabia, Switzerland or the Gulf. Even Pakistani officers and soldiers do not have their hearts in their assignments in the Northwestern Frontier, Waziristan or Swat. Their defection to the mujahideen in significant numbers is evidence enough of where their sympathies truly are.
This is no time for dilly-dallying. If Pakistan is going to survive it needs an Islamic leadership akin to the leadership of the Mustafa (saw) in Madinah, who did not look for favours from financial centres, did not abandon the underclass, nor wait for signals from Byzantium or Persia (the superpowers of his time). During these defining times we can notice the difference between the Islamic leadership in Iran 30 years ago (and of its successors today) and the Islamic leadership in Pakistan today. Imam Khomeini (ra) held himself accountable to Allah (swt) and was a servant of his people; Pakistan today has no such leader. Those who are going through the motions of Islamic leadership in Pakistan have their hands in a “Saudi” connection that never seems to go away.
Similarly it is reported that the Ikhwan in Egypt has resumed contacts with the US. “Our rare contacts with the nominally independent [Ikhwan] members of [the Egyptian] parliament occurred only on the full light of day, with many other Egyptians present, including members from the ruling National Democratic Party,” Francis J. Ricciardone, the US ambassador to Egypt, has said. The Ikhwan, unlike Hamas and Hizbullah, is not on the US list of foreign terrorist organizations. But the Egyptian government has long been imprisoning members of the Ikhwan for various periods of time: in the past two decades the practice has become routine.
It cannot be said what the Ikhwan can realistically hope to accomplish from these contacts. It is also difficult to understand why the many failures of such contacts in the past have not taught decision-makers in either the Ikhwan or the Jama‘at-e Islami to adopt a serious programme of Muslim unity and consolidation instead: using, for instance, the Hajj and ‘umrah, because millions of Muslims go there every year, to cement a worldwide Islamic awareness and aspiration for Muslim self-rule and Islamic autonomy. Makkah can become the crucible for such leaderships and movements if we cultivate it. If our leaders cannot discuss our affairs and other burning issues in Makkah of all places, then they will continue to go around in circles until Muslims are dizzy with their vicious circles and flat minds.
Is there an Imam Khomeini waiting to emerge in either Pakistan or Egypt? Has the Islamic movement in these two countries reached the age of maturity? It seems unlikely that the answer to either of these questions is “yes”. It is much more likely that there is a lot of preliminary homework for each organisation to do before either is in a position to offer its people hopes that are not delusory.
Abu Dharr.
Zafar Bangash
http://www.muslimedia.com/pak-protest.htm
Three weeks after General Pervez Musharraf hit Pakistan's crumbling political system on November 3 by declaring a “state of emergency”, the Supreme Court, stacked with loyalist judges, handed him the verdict he wanted. His questionable “election” as president on October 6 was declared valid on November 22: the judges simply dismissed the last of six petitions challenging its legality. Two days before, Musharraf had issued a presidential decree amending the suspended constitution and granted himself indemnity from prosecution. He also decreed that no court has the authority to challenge his proclamation of the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO), the state of emergency or actions taken since its imposition. Clearly, he did this aware that he was skating on thin legal ice.
Under the new dispensation—essentially martial law—thousands of political activists, lawyers and journalists were arrested and imprisoned. Supreme Court judges who refused to take oath under the PCO were also arrested by soldiers, dragged from their chambers in the Supreme Court building and placed under house arrest. There were disturbing scenes of club-wielding policemen beating up lawyers inside court premises and punching and kicking them as they were dragged to waiting trucks to be taken to jail. Journalists were similarly treated, and continue to face the police's usual brutality.
Musharraf signed the order declaring a “state of emergency” not as president but as chief of army staff. This demonstrates the reality facing Pakistan today: the country is under the boot of the military, which has no regard for any rule of law. The Chief of Army Staff has no authority to declare emergency; only the president can do so on the advice of the prime minister, provided there is a credible threat to the country's internal or external security. There was no such threat except Musharraf's fear that the Supreme Court, hearing petitions challenging his unconstitutional presidential election of October 6, would deliver an unfavourable verdict. So he struck first, sending the judges home to house arrest.
On the night on November 3 and 4, he appeared on state-owned Pakistan Television (PTV), the only station allowed to broadcast, to explain the reasons for the emergency. He sounded like a drunken sailor trying to defend the indefensible. He alleged that the country faced a threat from “extremists”; if true, he has a lot of explaining to do. For eight years he has been the sole authority in the land and done as he pleased. His troops are attacking and killing civilians in North and South Waziristan, in Swat and Bajaur in the North West Frontier Province, and in Baluchistan. Cobra helicopters and F-16 planes are being used against Pakistani villagers, thousands of whom have been killed in the last three years.
Musharraf also lamented the fact that judges were releasing “terrorists” apprehended by his security forces, and that this was demoralizing them because it prevented them from “doing their job”. Is it their job to arrest opponents of the regime, throw them in jail and throw the key away without pressing charges against them? Several people picked up by the intelligence agencies have been murdered. The judges merely ruled that the government either press charges against detainees or set them free; it has no right to detain them indefinitely. Interestingly, the two judges—Faqir Muhammad Khokhar and Muhammad Nawaz Abbasi—who had ordered the detainees' release are still serving as judges because they took oath under the PCO. So Musharraf was not complaining about judges doing their job; his real concern was that the other judges refused to confer legitimacy on his illegal acts.
Musharraf's rambling speech on November 3 lacked sophistication and coherence; he wandered between Urdu and English repeatedly. Gone was the self-confidence of the commando soldier, an image he had carefully cultivated and projected in the past; his body language clearly betraying nervousness. When he spoke in English, he compared himself with the nineteenth-century American president Abraham Lincoln, saying that he had to violate certain laws to “save the nation”. He has wrapped himself in the garb of the “nation's saviour” so often that few take him seriously. What “nation” is he talking about anyway? As for comparing himself with Lincoln, Musharraf is no Abe Lincoln and he knows it.
There has only been mild criticism of his actions in Washington and London, the two power-centres that matter most in Pakistani politics, against Musharraf's actions. On November 16, US deputy secretary of state John Negroponte arrived in Islamabad to urge Musharraf to work with Benazir Bhutto, the US's darling in dupatta. America is working to create a Musharraf-Benazir axis and thus provide a civilian gloss on a military dispensation. The Pakistani people are aware of this and want none of it. They view both as American puppets, but feel that no alternative is available to them. The disarray in the ranks of the political parties is shown by their lack of coherent strategy to mobilize the masses to confront the general even after three weeks. This is Musharraf's second coup in eight years, this one carried out against the judiciary. There is deep weariness among the people, who see the politicians as equally bad and have little reason to come out in the streets to replace one set of crooks in uniform with another set in civilian clothes, both totally subservient to the US.
There is, however, something unusual about the situation in Pakistan this time round. Before being placed under house arrest, eight Supreme Court judges, led by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, declared Musharraf's state of emergency illegal. Aware that something was afoot, the justices were present in the Supreme Court building on Saturday November 3 and issued their ruling immediately after the “emergency” was declared. This is likely to haunt Musharraf when the political tide turns against him. Displaying unusual courage and adherence to the rule of law, the overwhelming majority of Supreme and provincial courts’ judges refused to take oath under the PCO. Musharraf and his cohorts had to scramble and bring retired judges out of mothballs to fill the courts' benches.
Even so, it took nearly two weeks to get enough judges on the Supreme Court bench to fulfil legal requirements. Interestingly, not a single chief justice of any of the five superior courts—Supreme Court and the four provincial high courts—agreed to take oath under the PCO. They risked arrest but refused to confer legitimacy on an illegitimate system, as has been the wont of judges in the past. It is reported that the three Supreme Court judges—Abdul Hamid Dogar, Faqir Muhammad Khokhar and Muhammad Nawaz Abbasi—who took oath under the PCO with Dogar as chief justice were blackmailed because they or relatives of theirs had been caught on camera in compromising situations. Dogar was with the government all along and was acting as an informant against his fellow judges. For this act of betrayal he was rewarded with the plum job of chief justice.
Though the legal battle, on hold for now, is likely to drag on for years, the political circus is in full swing. Benazir Bhutto of the Pakistan People's Party and maulana Fazlur Rahman of Jami'at-e Ulama-e Islam are both in league with Musharraf, hoping to cash in on their loyalty to him by reaping rewards after the farcical elections that Musharraf has promised for January 8. The assemblies were dissolved on November 18 and a caretaker government led by the senate chairman, Muhammadmian Soomro, was sworn in, again an illegal act. The senate chairman cannot become the prime minister because he must act as president in the absence of the current president. For instance, on November 20, when Musharraf flew to Riyadh to urge the Saudi authorities to prevent former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who has emerged as his fiercest critic, from returning to Pakistan before the elections, Soomro was acting president. There were also reports that Musharraf had attempted to meet Sharif, but the latter refused.
Also on November 20, the government announced that it had released thousands of political prisoners and lawyers, including Imran Khan, the cricket-star-turned-politician who was arrested on November 13 at the Punjab University campus in Lahore. He was handed over to the police by members of the Jami'at-e Tulaba, the student wing of the Jama'at-e Islami, in what has turned out to be one of the most shameful episodes in Pakistan's tortuous history. Imran Khan was moved to Dera Ghazi Khan jail, where he went on a hunger strike on November 17. Lawyers have accused the government of playing a cynical game; it releases people but promptly re-arrests them or drags others to jail in their place. On November 22 the government announced that the deposed judges were no longer under house arrest. When retired justice Wajihuddin Ahmed and lawyer Athar Minallah, a former minister in Musharraf's cabinet, tried to visit Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry at his residence, they were prevented from doing so by a heavy contingent of the police. As they drove off, Minallah was arrested for “violating the law”.
While this cat-and-mouse game continues with some lawyers, others, such as Munir A. Malik, former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, and Aitezaz Ahsan, its current president, both staunch supporters of the displaced chief justice, have been held in horrible conditions in jail. Munir Malik, held in the notorious Attock Jail, was so badly tortured that he had to be rushed to a hospital in Islamabad on November 23. Nobody had been allowed to see him, his wife said on November 20. She said that the jail authorities even refused to allow medicines to be delivered to him. Aitezaz Ahsan is being held in Adiala Jail. He refused to be transferred to a hospital because he said other lawyers and political workers were being badly treated in jail and he did not want to abandon them.
The future course of events will depend on how many political parties boycott the elections on January 8. If enough of them join the boycott, it will completely deprive the process of any illusion of legitimacy and will provide impetus to a mass movement. With Musharraf out of uniform—his “second skin”, as he put it—his first skin, albeit quite thick, which he has been trying to save, will become vulnerable. The new army boss, General Ashfaq Pervez Kiani, a staunchly pro-American officer, will become his own man. Pakistan has a long history of loyalists turning against their benefactors. Musharraf did it to Nawaz Sharif, as did General Zia ul-Haque to Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. In fact, Musharraf has stabbed a lot of people in the back besides Nawaz Sharif. He swiftly dismissed the three generals—Mahmoud Ahmed, Muhammad Aziz and Muzaffar Usmani—who had brought him to power when his plane was prevented from landing in Pakistan on the orders of the then prime minister in October 1999.
If the political turmoil continues and the police are unable to contain street violence, the army may be called out to shoot people. If this goes on for any length of time, this will result in soldiers disobeying their officers; it has happened before. The upper echelon of the military will not want such a situation to develop or continue for long, and will force Musharraf to quit. Whether this will end Pakistan's immediate problems is uncertain. What the political farce in Pakistan shows is that the system is incapable of providing any solutions to its myriad problems. The choice facing the people is stark: oppressive, corrupt military rulers or an equally corrupt bunch of ruthless feudal lords who maintain private armies and run private prisons. The people's contempt for both is high.
Pakistan is in a tailspin; the only way to get out of this disastrous situation is to dismantle the present colonial-imposed order by means of an Islamic revolution brought about by means of an Islamic movement. It would appear that an increasing number of people in Pakistan are beginning to realize this. What they need is a leadership with a clear vision to mobilize the masses and consign this decaying system to the history books. Failing that, the people of Pakistan will continue to stagger from one crisis to the next, and each change of rulers will only make the situation even worse. This is hardly a prospect to look forward to and may even lead to the disintegration of Pakistan; all the signs are already there. The march of history does not wait for anyone; Islamic activists ought to give this serious consideration. Nature abhors a vacuum; other forces are bound to step in and fill it if there is no credible solution offered to the problems of the people and their country.
PAKISTANI MERCENARY GENERALS LEADING PAKISTAN TO AN ALL OUT CIVIL WAR
Abid Ullah Jan
http://www.icssa.org/article_detail_parse.php?a_id=1211&rel=1204,1160
A Combo picture shows Pakistan's military dictators, from top left, clockwise, Ziaul Haq, Ayub Khan, Yayha Khan and Musharraf. Pakistan military has sucked the nation dry. Eighty percent of national resources are going directly and indirectly into the service of half a million strong army, which has won no war for Pakistan. However, it hands are littered with the innocent blood of fellow Pakistanis (AP Photo)
Pakistan's army has literally occupied the country for more than half of its 60-year history and dominated _ or ended _ the fragile rule of the few civilian governments to take office.
The army’s position as a mercenary force – rented by US for $100 million a month - on the front line of the neocons’ war of terror and the army's ever increasing involvement in the economy suggest the generals are well-equipped to defend their privileges and are reluctant to share them in the name of democracy.
Officers and their families have their own upscale schools, hospitals and housing compounds. The military is deeply involved in businesses from banking to transportation and, under President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, scores of retired officers have been appointed to run civilian institutions, from universities to the municipality of Islamabad.
"You now have the army completely embedded like marble inside most of the civil institutions," said Shaun Gregory, a Pakistan expert at the University of Bradford in Britain.
Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup, declared Pakistan's current state of emergency in his capacity as army chief, underscoring the importance of the military in the nation's turbulent politics. He is refusing to say when constitutional rule will be restored.
He promises to step down from the military once his Oct. 6 presidential election victory had been endorsed by a hand picked Supreme Court after unconstitutionally and illegally removing judges of the Supreme Court as they were about to declare that he is not eligible to run the country. After relieving the Supreme Court of the most independent justices, Musharraf tempered his pledge again on Sunday with an affirmation that the nation's soldiers will back him in any dispute. As if the army is sold to him, he declared: "Even if I'm not in uniform, this army will be with me," Musharraf said.
Pakistan was not founded with an oversized security apparatus. However, it was strong enough to take over. To establish its hegemony within, the army fought three wars with its eastern neighbor India, the first within months of independence in 1947 and lost all of them. Pakistan also has had border disputes with Afghanistan that have fueled enduring tension on its western frontier.
"Unfortunately, Pakistan did not inherit a strong political system. In the first nine years we couldn't even find a constitution," said Mirza Aslam Beg, a former army chief. "It was in this time that the military physically took over."
Pakistan army has always exploited the fear of India and make the nation feel that without a black budget for defence and without un-accountable military rleadership, Pakistan will be over run by India. Some historians see that legacy in the harsh attitude of Pakistan's military-dominated elite toward dissent, its bickering politicians and the US interference and using the army as a mercenary force. The subservience to the US and its mercenary attitude is unlikely to change soon.
"As long as there is the context of the war on terror for the next decades _ goodness knows how long _ that is going to continue to create a security-focused situation" that the military can exploit, said Gregory.
Musharraf insists his latest suspension of the constitution amounts to a state of emergency, though critics note that he acted in his capacity as army chief and have called it "mini martial law."
The general insists he had no choice but to remove Supreme Court judges who were hampering the fight against terrorism by ordering the release of suspects held without charge. The Supreme Court judges said on TV that they were given no evidence of the alleged “terrorists” involvement in terrorism at all. They said the court documents are on the record and the government officials failed to produce a single shred of evidence against the people Musharraf now calling as terrorists. Moreover, the judges who were sitting on the panel who ordered the alleged terrorist released have all taken oath under Musharraf’s new PCO after November 3, 2007, whereas those judges who were not even on the panel of those cases have been deposed.
Musharraf lies and raising the banner of fighting terrorism has underlined how both Musharraf and his supporters in the West - who appear loathe to sanction Pakistan's latest authoritarian lurch - see the military as the key bulwark against Taliban and the mythical al-Qaida amid rising extremism, particularly in the regions bordering Afghanistan.
Like all uniformed rulers before him, Musharraf insisted he was acting to protect the nation's vital interests.
Political parties, in contrast, remain weak - dominated by individuals rather than policies, lacking nationwide appeal and with a record in government stained by corruption and vicious feuding.
The generals, abetted by Pakistan's powerful and well-resourced intelligence agencies, have been quick to cut down the few prime ministers who tried to take control.
Gen. Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, who staged his coup in 1977, overthrew Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, father of current opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and arguably the most able politician in Pakistan's short history. That is what the US wanted at that time. The US allied with the opposition religious parties and supported a campaign for Islamic rule to throw out Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto through street power. Musharraf toppled Nawaz Sharif when the latter tried to fire him.
The criminal record of Pakistani general grows. Pakistan army troops on the lower level, however, suffer from the damage which policies of the slavish generals are following at the top.
These days, it is hard and humiliating for the military personnel to come out in public in uniform without having looked down upon by ordinary Pakistanis. The hatred towards army as an institution grows. People don’t know that the ordinary soldiers have no power or say in the decision making at the top. It is the generals with sick and slavish mentality who sell their conscience and the country’s independence. The public, however, only know that the soldiers at the lower level are the one’s who are holding the gun to their head and detaining, torturing and killing their loved ones.
Therefore, military as an institution has generated enough hatred for itself that anything can trigger a civil war in Pakistan. The struggle has already begun between the people and the mercenary army. But in the full fledged civil war, it would be most of the military personnel fighting on behalf of the people - not as soldiers of the mercenary army but as the people of occupied Pakistan. The desertions have already begun. These would simply increase in frequency.
That is when the matter will get worse for the generals who are busy digging their own grave these days. No slave master will come to their rescue from Washington as no slave master came to the rescue of the Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussain. Those who wanted a "war within Islam" will be the only one to enjoy the bloodletting, but not for too long.
PAKISTAN AND EGYPT SUFFER FROM THE FAILURE OF THEIR ISLAMIC MOVEMENTS
http://www.muslimedia.com/abudhar216.htm
The Islamic Uprising in Iran a quarter of a century ago is too important and too special for Muslims to simply watch it wander from its original and true course. We remember all too clearly the impact this breakthrough had on Muslims everywhere. For the first time in modern history, Muslims had risen against a corrupt government and its imperialist and zionist sponsors, and were able to take control of their own country, and begin to show the rest of us how things should be done.
Of course, the road forward was not likely to be smooth. The sponsors of the Pahlavi regime could not be expected to sit and watch a people shape their own future on the basis of their Islamic faith and commitment. Throughout the last 25 years, America and Israel have been working to bring the Islamic government in Iran to its knees, with the support of their Western allies, Iran’s pro-Western neighbours and even supporters within Iran. Iran’s borders amount to some 8,000 kilometers; American troops are now based across six thousand kilometers of this border. This grim scenario has been gradually built over 25 years, and has passed almost unnoticed by most Muslims, and even most Iranians. There has never been any cessation of hostilities between the followers of the line of Imam Khomeini (r.a.), who refuse to compromise when it comes to the independence and sovereignty of the Islamic state, and the numerous other interests wanting to shape the state on their terms.
Part of our object in this new column is to look at some of the gaps that have developed since the passing of Imam Khomeini (r.a.), many of which are rooted in earlier events, and how these gaps have caused serious problems about which we can no longer remain silent. But before we walk into this sensitive area, one point needs to be made absolutely clear. This is that none of the points we make are intended to express any criticism of Imam Sayyid Ali Khamenei, the successor to Imam Khomeini (r.a.) as Rahbar of the Islamic State. Many of the points we make will be highlighting natural processes in the evolution of post-Revolutionary state and society. Others will indeed involve criticism of errors and failures in Iran, mainly on the part of those who have been responsible for aspects of Iranian government and policy at the executive level. It was inevitable that such errors and failures should emerge over a quarter of a century in an unprecedented and highly-pressured historical situation; unfortunately they have contributed greatly to what many now see as the Islamic experiment’s current stagnation.
Sometimes frank statements of truth can be bitter pills to swallow; we hope no-one will consider this column to be too bitter a pill. We say what we say only to express our honest understanding of the issues. If we are correct, we appeal earnestly to Allah to accept our humble words to our humble readers. If not, we request Allah’s forgiveness and correction from anyone able to do so; without, we hope, descending into personal issues or hidden agendas. Ameen.
Pakistan and Egypt suffer from the failure of their Islamic movements
The main factor exacerbating the situation of Pakistan and Pakistanis is the state of the local Islamic movement there. The Jama‘at-e Islami is in no position to show anyone the way out of the morass that Pakistan has become. Likewise the Ikhwan – the Jama‘at's analogue in the Arab world – are running around in circles in Egypt. Both of them apparently still have to be “burned” further by the system which they so desire to be part of in order to learn the implications of one short ayah in a short surah of the Qur'an: lakum deenukum wa liya deen (“you [the kuffar and mushrikeen] have your deen, and I [Mohammad] have mine”:Q. 109:6.)
In a quickly sinking Pakistani nation-state the Jama‘at in the course of the past six years has failed to expose the media-intensive but futile campaign of “spreading democracy” that was launched in Washington DC and parroted in the ruling chambers of Islamabad and Karachi. Anti-imperialist luminaries could see that the “war on terror” policies springing from the Pentagon were disguised by means of worldwide blanket propaganda in favour of ‘democracy'. But our brothers in the Jama‘at were unable to do so; or if they were aware of it they kept this insight within their own circles, far away from the Muslim public. The people of Pakistan, with the connivance of their president and political parties (including the Jama‘at) are now reeling under the threats of imperialist-zionist menace of terrorism, an American controlled nuclear arsenal, and what is beginning to look like a failed state. Because Pakistan is the only Muslim country that has nuclear weapons and a slight potential that it might become an Islamic State like the one in Iran, it has become the main target of the American-zionist aggression, like Afghanistan and Iraq before it. The low-intensity conflict that has been gradually growing since September 2001 between the Islamic tendency on one side and secular tendencies on the other has moved the country to the brink of disaster. The warlike conditions in neighboring Afghanistan have gradually spread into Pakistan. Separatist tendencies are lurking just below the Pakistani surface; Baluchistan, for instance, may become a hotbed of breakaway tendencies. Meanwhile the bulk of the Pakistani military is tied up in an “alert” status, toe-to-toe with India's army along the border of Kashmir.
In the midst of this official nonperformance General Musharraf (whose nickname in Pakistan is General Whiskey) is looking good to India. On Musharraf's watch opposition to India over Kashmir has effectively vanished. While looming over his own citizenry as general and president he has become a pussy-cat to India's officials, though the ex-special forces soldier is going to have to do even more to appease the imperialist-zionist-hindu triangle. His juggling act of playing anti-Islamic secular parties with pro-Islamic shari‘ah orientations is in its final act. Not all the guilt for everything can be laid at the imperialists' and zionists' feet: Pakistan's own hang-on-to-power-at-any-cost wishful thinkers and the long-shot dreamers also impede the Islamic transformation of Pakistan by their own incompetence and lack of nous.
The ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) agency may have a cadre of sincere mu'mineen who are watching out for Islamic activists in Pakistan, but the US$ 10 billion that have been channelled into Pakistan by Washington is proof positive that – whatever political game Musharraf is playing internally – his credentials with Uncle Sam are sound. This does not mean that Washington will not dump its “pukka sahib” once he has outlived his usefulness. This may partially explain why Benazir Bhutto, through American channels, was routed back to Pakistan. The cold blood and cool nerves of Pakistan's enemies are hedging their bets by backing both Musharraf and Bhutto. Both of them are anti-Islamic, both of them are tried and true friends of the US, and both of them have the necessary experience to delay Pakistan's Islamic progress. We may add that in the case of Bhutto, there is a personal grudge against the Islamic trend in Pakistan because she blames the “crowd of Islamists” for her father's execution. The swords are locked now; the fight is on. Parvez Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto are going to have to prove themselves to their American superiors. It baffles the mind that the Jama‘at Islami can lower itself to compete for any position in any of their current or future governments.
The wild card in all this is the army. In the past, the army has stepped into political turmoil and taken control of the country as usual, to placate the US. To date no one has heard of any prominent Islamic leader who has been detained. Could their relative silence be what they are giving for their relative security? We simply do not know. What we do know – and this is true in all other Muslim countries too– is that the silent majority of people are looking for and longing for an Islamic leadership that can deliver, an Islamic leadership that answers to its own people and not to the holders of bank-accounts in Arabia, Switzerland or the Gulf. Even Pakistani officers and soldiers do not have their hearts in their assignments in the Northwestern Frontier, Waziristan or Swat. Their defection to the mujahideen in significant numbers is evidence enough of where their sympathies truly are.
This is no time for dilly-dallying. If Pakistan is going to survive it needs an Islamic leadership akin to the leadership of the Mustafa (saw) in Madinah, who did not look for favours from financial centres, did not abandon the underclass, nor wait for signals from Byzantium or Persia (the superpowers of his time). During these defining times we can notice the difference between the Islamic leadership in Iran 30 years ago (and of its successors today) and the Islamic leadership in Pakistan today. Imam Khomeini (ra) held himself accountable to Allah (swt) and was a servant of his people; Pakistan today has no such leader. Those who are going through the motions of Islamic leadership in Pakistan have their hands in a “Saudi” connection that never seems to go away.
Similarly it is reported that the Ikhwan in Egypt has resumed contacts with the US. “Our rare contacts with the nominally independent [Ikhwan] members of [the Egyptian] parliament occurred only on the full light of day, with many other Egyptians present, including members from the ruling National Democratic Party,” Francis J. Ricciardone, the US ambassador to Egypt, has said. The Ikhwan, unlike Hamas and Hizbullah, is not on the US list of foreign terrorist organizations. But the Egyptian government has long been imprisoning members of the Ikhwan for various periods of time: in the past two decades the practice has become routine.
It cannot be said what the Ikhwan can realistically hope to accomplish from these contacts. It is also difficult to understand why the many failures of such contacts in the past have not taught decision-makers in either the Ikhwan or the Jama‘at-e Islami to adopt a serious programme of Muslim unity and consolidation instead: using, for instance, the Hajj and ‘umrah, because millions of Muslims go there every year, to cement a worldwide Islamic awareness and aspiration for Muslim self-rule and Islamic autonomy. Makkah can become the crucible for such leaderships and movements if we cultivate it. If our leaders cannot discuss our affairs and other burning issues in Makkah of all places, then they will continue to go around in circles until Muslims are dizzy with their vicious circles and flat minds.
Is there an Imam Khomeini waiting to emerge in either Pakistan or Egypt? Has the Islamic movement in these two countries reached the age of maturity? It seems unlikely that the answer to either of these questions is “yes”. It is much more likely that there is a lot of preliminary homework for each organisation to do before either is in a position to offer its people hopes that are not delusory.
Abu Dharr.