Lal Masjid: Misguided Behaviour
In a bid to discredit the Lal Masjid leadership, a number of court cases are being registered against the Khatib. To craft a deterrent against possible attacks on the families of Pakistan's finest, the family of the Khatib is also being targetted with criminal proceedings.These court cases are poorly constructed without due thought to the lack of evidence or the even the slightest thought to sustainability of a prosecution. In the case of Omar Saeed Sheikh in the Pearl murder case, something similar was done to save the "image of Pakistan". Now the that same miguided legal drama is being staged with a more pressing aim .. i.e. to demonstrate the legal credibility of the regime. All this is being done by Musharraf's men under the belief that the Pakistani supreme court will rule in Musharraf's favour.
That anyone can believe that the very court that this regime brutally humiliated will not pass up an opportunity to stick it to Atapak is possibly the Eight Wonder of the World.
The attacks after last friday have left well over a hundred Pakistani Armymen dead. The openly acknowledged casualty tallies are lower but that is understandable given the circumstances. The truce in FATA is dead and many Pakistani Armymen are going to follow. There is an exodus from government pasand tribal belts, because already a sustained campaign of violence has already begun against them. If there are repraisal attacks against other tribes for any assaults on the Pakistan Army, the cities of Pakistan will host a new wave of violence.
A number of the children killed in Lal Masjid operation hailed from the Pakistan Army's recruiting grounds, their relatives are in the Army, it is unclear how soon it will be before their anger over these events manifests. Qazi Hussain of the JeI has already asked that Musharraf personally be punished for the fiasco at the Masjid, even if the court of Pakistan does not take him up on that, others will. There is no way that this claim that only 10 odd children died in the seige is going to hold water for very long. Once news of this gets around, which should be a week or so from now, I suspect that there will be defections in the Pakistan Army, Punjabi speaking soldiers will simply desert their units with their arms and ammunition.
posted by maverick @ 8:50 AM
7 Comments:
Hi maverick,
Although the comparison is probably just academic, do you see any similarities (in cause and consequence) between Op Bluestar and Lal masjid operation?
hi m,
one cannot fail to understand as to how you easily grasp pakistani power play and its after effects.
it looks as if its an in born trait.
Never knew the Lal-Masji crisis has had such serious ramifications.
Mushy the rat did not even spare small kids! What a (wo)man he is?
Hope the desertions start sooner than estimated.
1)Maverick, since you read the pakistan so well, do you predict more Lal-Masjid type standoffs.
2)Do you think we should play the game of running with the hares and hunting with the hounds.
3)This place has left me very confused.
Hi Vivek,
The Pakistan Army's operation at Lal Masjid attempts to challenge the authority of the leaders of Pakistan's religious majority. That is very different from what happened in Bluestar.
This makes the consequences of the Lal Masjid mess far more severe than the consequences of Bluestar.
Anonymous,
A repeat of the Lal Masjid standoff is likely but it is unlikely to be have the same psychological effect. This will limit its attractiveness to people who want to do such things.
We have to do whatever it takes to survive as a nation.
Did you see the bomb blast that preceeded the CJP rally? This is all part of the intimidation campaign being followed to ensure that the court supports Musharraf in the show piece battle against the Islamists.
This more misguided behaviour.
hi m,
has musharaff ever learnt from the east pakistan fiasco! He is commiting the same blunder that his predecessors did.
1) Is this all very controlled i.e the reaction from different parts of pakistan to events ocurring at lal-majid? Or this all uncontrolled?
Hi Anonymous,
There are some people who believe that it is possible to control society by carefully and deliberately inserting highly choreographed violence into society.
The Pakistani leadership, military or civilian all share this notion and their collective behaviour showcases the limitations of such a way of thinking. Each fellow tries to show that she or he is more capable of doing harm than the next person. Rather than show what positive impact they can have on society, political competition reduces to a demonstration of each group's social destructive power.
The over-reliance on choreographed violence to promote their brand of social leadership steadily destroys the very society they want to dominate.
In a misguided effort to display their power to light a controlled fire, they manage to burn the house down.
This my dear friend, is already written on the epitaph of Pakistan.
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