Islamabad: Jamaat-e-Islami’s crusade to rid the country of ‘obscenity’ has always been monumental.
Jamaat’s
members are found a little extra vigorous these days about cleansing
our culture of “fahashi.” Hardly a day goes by when Jamaat members do
not pressure the government to curtail “the growing obscenity.” On
Tuesday they moved a resolution asking for a ban on a few television
channels which showed ‘obscene’ programmes, including Geo’s musical show
‘Pakistan Idol’. They had a grouse against virtually all 100 or so TV
channels. How come news and religious channels are part of this grand
design to spoil the nation, you may ask. Elementary: all of them show
advertisements which allegedly entice ordinary folk by showing sexy
legs, armpits and what not. The list of advertising items that could
possibly encourage the pious to envision “wrong ideas” (ganday khayalat)
included soaps, shampoos, mattresses (what the hell!), hair-removing
creams and, of course, that rubbery Western invention meant to control
population. No wonder we have doubled our population in the last 25
years and are all set to match India in numbers in another 50 years. The
pious brigade should care, as these impoverished hordes are not likely
to have clothes, forget about food, which could generate lots of “wrong
ideas.”
Jamaat’s Tariqullah was overly agitated that
almost all TV channels show obscenity and nudity. He bemoaned that this
was spoiling our youth as these channels show “naach-gana and music all
day long.” On Wednesday Jamaat’s Sher Akbar again raised a storm about
the growing obscenity. We already have YouTube banned here. One may
agree about having filters to check the unwanted substance but there is a
limit to how much we could shut ourselves from the outside world.
Particularly in the age of the globalised village where every child is
exposed to the Internet and satellite TV, not to mention the new vistas
that 3G/4G licences will open. If one were to follow the Jamaat
strictures, it would have us everything closed from TV to the phone to
the Internet.
It is pertinent to recall that when Imran
Khan, who played cricket at that time, invited several noted Indian
artistes including Rajesh Khana and Rekha for the first open air
theatre musical event in Lahore, the Jamaat and its student wing the
Islami Jamiat-e-Tulaba opposed it tooth and nail. Imran had arranged the
event for raising funds for his hospital. The sticks-bearing IJT
activists threatened to stop the event forcefully. Imran then held talks
with the then Jamaat leaders and an agreement was struck only two days
before the scheduled date of the event following which a very successful
musical function, including dancing, was held at Qaddafi Open Air
Theatre.
It is heard that some people in the government
have teamed up with the likeminded people outside the government to push
the Pakistani media into the dark ages and embarrass PM Nawaz in the
world. They are completely ignorant of the advancement the world has
already achieved. Nawaz ought to remain vigilant about the designs of
such people who may be hatching a big conspiracy against him. It is the
first time that Nawaz has got the mandate from both the left and right
sections of the people. These intriguers will surely end up in damaging
the vote bank of Nawaz.
Here are a few problems that we
may have against the Jamaat doctrine. Obscenity is a relative term,
which may mean different things to different people. Jamaat-e-Islami
definitely does not have the mandate to impose its interpretation of
morality with the kind of representation it has in parliament. The
Jamaat has only three elected members (the fourth being on a women’s
quota), two of them from distant Dir on the Afghanistan border. They
constitute less than one per cent of the 447 members of the joint
houses.
One just hopes that the new Jamaat Ameer, Sirajul
Haq, may have grown out of his Punjab University days when IJT goons
considered it holy to stop people from, among other things, celebrating
new year. And this approach to force people might have been the reason
why Jamaat stands reduced to the periphery from one of the two biggest
parties until 1970. We hope Sirajul Haq will learn from the experience
of its sister organisations in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, if not
Turkey, who may have adapted to the changing times. A few lessons in
Islamic history will not be out of place. Muslims conquered the Middle
East within 40 years but it took 300 years to convert large populations
in Egypt, Syria and Jordan etc to Islam. The reason for rapid Islamic
expansion was largely because earlier Islam adjusted to the local mores
of the Indians, Chinese and the Persians etc. No wonder Iran,
Afghanistan and Central Asia celebrate Nauroze even today and retain
most local names. And the downfall of most Muslim empires started when
someone like Aurangzeb enforced ritualistic puritanism as opposed to
more accommodating Sufi tradition.
Thankfully, information
minister Pervaiz Rasheed rescued us with a classic answer. He requested
Jamaat members to encourage their cadres to learn using the remote
controls and change a TV channel every time it shows something nude or
obscene. This was quite a change in the PML (N), which had removed
billboards of shampoos and soaps in their heavy-mandated government in
1987.
PTI’s Asad Omar also wondered in the cafeteria that
how come Jamaat members get to see all these nude ads whereas he was
yet come across anything like that. We were not sure whether he was
talking about himself or his party, such being the shenanigans of Maulvi
Khan these days. In any case, Asad needs to check this out from his
coalition partners in the KP. We hear the coalition seems troubled by
the 14-member informal forward bloc that has emerged against Pervaiz
Khattak.
The surprising development was that MQM’s
Salahuddin Sheikh joined the Jamaat ranks by asking for the steps that
Pemra may have taken to stop such ‘obscenity.’ This was different from
the liberal position usually taken by Altaf Bhai’s team. Perhaps the
absence of Haider Abbas Rizvi in the National Assembly is beginning to
impact the MQM.
Tailpiece: Asad Omar again challenged
Ishaq Dar’s latest claims about the economic revival. His thesis was
that the rupee got devalued earlier because the State Bank purchased
dollars from the market as proved by IMF report, which mentions the
buying of $125m. Also, he questioned the government claim about the
reduction of debt-to-GDP ratio. He believed it had actually shot up from
58 per cent to 63 per cent. Will some one please educate us on this in
plain speak?
