Communicating Arts - Main Web SitePost Start: 070709-0630H EDT; Updated: 070709-0820H EDT
The military overhead photograph of Lal Masjid-Jamia Hafsa, the "Red Mosque", shows three or four buildings, the sparse landscaping of now mature trees, the ocher ground beyond its back walls. [1] It is about 4 p.m. in Islamabad, so the bulk of another working day has passed, so far, without a full-scale military assault.
On Saturday, the BBC News ran a profile of the leading cleric remaining in the mosque, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, who once worked for UNESCO. [2] In that piece, Sanjay Dasgupta, the writer, quotes Ghazi as follows:
"We will not agree to any condition which makes it appear that we have made the slightest concession or that we have bowed to pressure from the government," he told the BBC.
"We would rather die than to make any such concession."
Dasgupta's piece suggests the cleric's radicalization started with the assassination of his father by an unknown gunman and then contact with Pakistani intelligence services and the Taleban, but no related introspection comes from Ghazi himself, only the defiant statement that overlooks the idea that he would rather die than surrender but not the children who were shot trying to make their way to safety.
Five days ago at the start of hostage taking, or the gathering, the BBC covered the anguish of parents in the disaster and offered this glimpse into the deeper heart of the language and perception part of the puzzle:
"My two daughters are inside and I am worried about them," said an agitated Mohammad Javed, a retired soldier from Kashmir.
"They are 14 and 10 years old. I have talked to them and they are willing to die for Islam."
He insisted that the government has put students' lives at risk.
"It is the government's fault, they should back down... They don't care about the common man." [3]
What is the true Islam?
To a western mind, Mohammad Javed's observation that his children are willing to die for Islam overlooks the fact that the government's troops are fighting for it too, and that the government, giving this as many days as it has, has been trying to save those who are not actually involved in challenging the state and its laws.
Which is the more just Islam?
We would think provoking a fight with police, firing on them with Kalashnikovs, gathering innocents together for martyrdom (whether they like it or not), and subjecting all to anguish and hardship would not much represent the will of a benevolent God, but here it must because . . . God willed all of it.
Perhaps the government gets the blame because it represents man and the militants obtain praise because they can only be acting on behalf of the will of God.
No mention, so far as I have seen, has been made of arrogance and vanity, both of which arguably have to do with the sense of God working through the expression of the person, which may be something most of us feel in working with piety, engaged with art, breathing through song and poetry our appreciation of life.
In a religious society, the same feeling--that induced and accepted elevation and exhaltation--may be interpreted as God-given and pure.
How that gets around to shooting girls wishing to escape the horror of the scene created on behalf of the imagined beatification of a few young men and a handful, if that, of old ones almost beggars explanation. However, as regards the willingness of children, 14 and 10, to die for Islam, the statement belies assumptions about childhood across cultures as well as the circular returning to the will of God speaking through the very young.
The good secularist might say quite simply, "the imam trained them for this," and he would not be wrong.
For those who will the following of unreconstructed religious scripts--fundamentalists--there's the generally hoped for Armageddon--who would not want to be a part of that great happening? And here it is in the Asia Times Online:
"For the al-Qaeda leadership sitting in the tribal areas, the situation is fast evolving into the promised battle of Khorasan. This includes parts of Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan from where the Prophet Mohammed promised the "end of time" battle would start." [4]
Political leader and writers share this much at least: the weight of cultural, political, personal, and social beliefs and interests bears down on them. I do not envy President Pervez Musharraf his plate but rather admire his fortitude, patience, and love in this drama.
Musharraf has taken no hostages at gun point (in fact, to those who surrendered, or, really brought themselves over to police, he provided amnesty, money, and a safe return to their homes).
Musharraf's troops, disciplined, equipped, and present in number, have refrained for days from directly assaulting the mosque in order to spare the lives of the noncombatant participants in it (that, without question, is truly the government's fault).
If Allah determines all, Allah has determined Musharraf's position as well as that of those who have brought AK-47 submachine guns into the sanctuary intended for devotion, education, and prayer.
2. Dasgupta, Sanjay. "Profile: Abdul Rashid Ghazi." BBC News, July 7, 2007, 2218 GMT.
3. Hasan, Syed Shoaib. "Anguish of Pakistan mosque parents." BBC News, July 4, 2007, 1825 GMT.
4. Shahzad, Syed Saleem. "A moment of truth for Pakistan." Asia Times Online, July 10, 2007 (is it somebody's Tuesday already?).
Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim
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