Tags:
Journalism of Courage
This week I really had no wish to write about Islam and terrorism. Yes, my mailbox was filled with letters from angry Muslims and there was at least one death threat, but had bombs not gone off again in London I would have preferred to write about something else. Once the bombs went off, mercifully killing nobody this time, there was no choice but to return to the subject of Islamic terrorists because events usually dictate the subject in a column like this.
Let me begin by quoting Christina Lamb who in last week8217;s Sunday Times London described a visit to a madrasa she calls the 8216;8216;Eton of budding Islamic warriors8217;8217; 8212; the Darul Uloom Haqqania in Pakistan8217;s Northwest Frontier Province. During my visit to our own Darul Uloom in Deoband I caused too much aggravation to get into conversation with the students so I was unable to gauge their general knowledge or general understanding of what lies outside their 7th century world. Christina Lamb had more luck and this is what she writes, 8216;8216;The teenagers I spoke to were unable to do simple calculations and had never heard of dinosaurs. They laughed uproariously at the idea that man could walk on the moon. When I asked what they wanted to be when they graduated, they talked of becoming mullahs. One or two spoke of embracing shahadat, martyrdom, and of going to Paradise with its 72 virgins, almost as though this world was just a grade to get through.8217;8217;
It is my humble submission that given an education system of the madrasa kind you could turn Pravin Togadia and Ashok Singhal into Islamic suicide bombers Allah be praised and Bal Thackeray into a mullah.
I have said it before and I will say it again, madrasas can only breed fanatics because it is fanaticism that automatically comes to little children who are taught that they belong to the only perfect religion in the world and that all they ever need to learn is the Koran by rote because what knowledge can exist beyond a book written personally by Allah.
After last week8217;s bombings in London our friendly neighbourhood military dictator went on international television to aver, as he usually does after an act of terrorism, that Pakistan would never allow itself to become a breeding ground for terrorists. What he did not mention was that he has little control over the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal MMA government in his Northwest Frontier Province which just passed July 14 the Northwest Frontier Province Hisba Act, 2005 which will effectively set up an Islamic government of Taliban genre. When it becomes law, one of the first things that will happen is the creation of a governmental department to 8216;8216;discourage vice and encourage virtue8217;8217;. Sound familiar? A mullah will be appointed to head it and his job will be the protection of Islamic values and traditions according to the rules laid down by the Prophet 1400 years ago.
This cleric or Mohtasib will be helped by Hisba Islamic policemen and he will effectively become the Supreme Court in the NWFP. What can General Musharraf do to stop the official Talibanisation of one of his provinces? Nothing. What is likely to come out of the Islamic regime that the MMA government is setting up? More Islamic terrorists because undoubtedly all schools will be made to teach the madrasa way and graduates from this system of education are unemployable except as mullahs or suicide bombers.
What can us infidels do to protect our heathen temples and heathen way of life from the jehad brewing next door? Quite a lot if we can persuade political leaders like Sonia Gandhi and Mulayam Singh Yadav of the dangers of patronising mullahs and madrasas in an attempt to set themselves apart from what they call 8216;8216;communal forces8217;8217;. There is an urgency about producing a White Paper on madrasas that the 8216;8216;secular8217;8217; political class remains oblivious too.
It is not just government though that has a responsibility to bear, moderate Indian Muslims do too and so far there is no indication that they are doing anything beyond being apologists for their more rabid brethren. When Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was trying to hijack the Sikh religion prominent Sikhs spoke out openly and often. Khushwant Singh needed 24-hour police protection because of his views and your humble columnist was threatened with dire consequences after a piece I wrote called 8216;8216;Why I am ashamed to be a Sikh8217;8217; caught the good Sant8217;s eye.
As for Hindutva, on a daily basis in the Indian media you see it attacked. The likes of Togadia and Thackeray have been demonised and the RSS is routinely attacked for spreading hatred and poison. The early attacks always come from Hindus.
Moderate Muslims rarely speak out against the Islamists and the handful that do nearly always add a 8216;8216;but8217;8217;. Terrible what is happening in London but America is to blame. Terrible that small children should be killed by suicide bombers but what about the children dying in Iraq and Palestine. Indian Muslims do not add Kashmir, foreign Muslims do. As soon as a 8216;8216;but8217;8217; gets added you get justification for evil deeds and an evil ideology of hatred and violence.
An ideology that is being generated by the sort of madrasa Christina Lamb visited in Akora Khattak. If that is the Eton of budding Islamic warriors then our own Darul Uloom in Deoband is the Harrow. I, heathen and unveiled, did not have much success in unveiling its curriculum but I am sure a Muslim journalist would have more success. Why does nobody go? Where do our combatants against communalism disappear when it comes to combating communalism of the Islamic kind?
Write to tavleensinghexpressindia.com
