The Milli Yakjehti Council (MYC), an umbrella organisation of religious parties from different schools of thought, has announced that it would oppose all measures taken to ‘liberalise’ the country. Promising to launch a drive for the protection of the Islamic ideology of Pakistan and threatening to initiate a million-man march across the country if their demands were not met, the council termed the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the Mumtaz Qadri case ‘un-Islamic’. The conference, chaired by Sahibzada Dr Abul Khair Muhammad Zubair – who heads one faction of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan — also vowed to resist all efforts to make Pakistan a secular country. Members of religious parties and other right-wing groups took serious notice of a statement made by the prime minister at an event held to celebrate the Hindu festival of Diwali on Nov 11 in Karachi. The declaration also condemned the death sentences awarded to Jamaat-i-Islami leaders in Bangladesh. “The sentences [for] Salahuddin Chaudhary and Ali Ahsan Mujahid are a violation of the 1971 Indo-Pak treaty,” Jamaat chief Sirajul Haq said, adding, “The silence of the government in this regard is a crime and the same applies to silence over the persecution of Palestinians at the hands of Israel.”He narrated an account of a meeting with Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, during the time when the PM was in exile in Saudi Arabia. Needless to say, these men are just outraged by the way women dress, any peace that minorities can have in Pakistan, and the interest they have to pay on loans because they cannot fathom how an economy works. These are leaders, yet they sound like a mob- a mob that is giving conservative values a bad name. One can greatly contest the idea this organization has of what ‘liberalisation’ of society actually means. Liberalism simply means being open to new ideas, and advocating equality of all before law. Liberal fascist, pseudo-liberal — are both oxymorons used to shame and silence an opposing point of view. The opposition to the philosophy in Pakistan is mostly guided by ignorance and in no way does it challenge “Islamic ideology” any more than extremely conservative thought does. In fact, Islam, at the time of its birth, was the liberal answer to the conservative and ritual heavy society of Arabia. Yes, we are a conservative society- we hold our customs dear, give religion precedence, and are security obsessed. But this does not mean that we will be this way forever. There will come a time when everyone’s rights will be recognised. In the last century, the moderate right has started looking more and more like the liberal center. Ideologies are converging as people and states realize the importance of rights for all, while religion becomes a private matter and economy takes precedence over security. The left and right are not static. In Pakistan conservative values will evolve to come closer to liberal values, or move away more fascist and exclusionary. If these men have their way, the latter is more likely.
pk.shafaqna.com
