Fw: [Pakistan Post] Muslim On Muslim Violence

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gac4233 (AT) aol (DOT) com Washington Post (USA)June 25, 2003Page A23Radical Muslims

Killing Muslims By Zahir Janmohamed When Pakistan was created, its founder,

Mohammed Ali Jinnah, famously declared, "You are free, free to go to your

temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship

in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed --

that has nothing to do with the business of the state." Fifty-six years later,

I wonder what Jinnah would tell my family and countless others who lost loved

ones because of rising religious intolerance in Pakistan. On April 2, 2000, my

uncle, Sibtain Dossa, a doctor, was gunned down at his medical clinic by

Islamic radicals seeking to cleanse Pakistan of its minority Shiite Muslims.

Over the past few years, extremist Islamic groups in Pakistan have mounted a

unilateral terror campaign. But Americans and Christians have not been the only

victims. Women, secular advocates and even Muslims -- Ahmadis, dissenting Sunni

Muslims and Shiite Muslims -- have also come under attack. Recently two gunmen

on motorcycles opened fire on a truck full of policemen, killing 11 and wounding

nine in the Pakistani town of Quetta, near the Afghan border. Nearly all the

victims belonged to the minority sect of Shia Islam. The attack on Shiites was

the third in Quetta in less than two weeks. Speaking of the attack, Rahmat

Ullah, a Pakistani senior police official, accurately noted, "It was sectarian

terrorism." The gruesome cycle of violence against Pakistan's minority

citizens could not have occurred without the complicity of the Pakistani

government. Consider the example of Azam Tariq, a religious cleric and former

leader of the radical, Saudi Arabia-inspired Sipah-i-Sahaba. In an interview

with the BBC in 1995, Tariq openly praised the Taliban and endorsed attacks on

Shiites in Pakistan. Instead being brought to justice, Tariq was rewarded.

Today he is a member of Pakistan's National Assembly. There is a tendency to

view the Muslim population as a monolith, with a uniform agenda and little

dissent. This outlook on Islam has prompted a slew of articles with titles like

"Why Do They Hate Us." But in Pakistan, many Islamic radicals hold equal (and

sometimes more) animosity toward dissenting Muslims (particularly Shiites) than

toward westerners. The Sipah-i-Sahaba have even killed many of their own Sunni

clerics, because the clerics rejected their divisive agenda. Often,

implementing a skewed understanding of Islamic sharia (religious law) -- and

not hatred of the West -- is their prime motivation. If the United States

wishes to gain credibility in Pakistan, it should pressure Pakistan to protect

all of its residents who stand threatened by the rise of Islamic radicalism in

Pakistan -- not just westerners and Christians. As Muslims lobby the United

States to treat its religious minorities with respect, Muslims themselves have

averted their gaze while minority groups -- particularly Ahmadi and Shiite

Muslims -- are butchered by their "fellow" Muslims. Indeed, much of the Muslim

world looked away when Saddam Husssein was executing Shiites in Iraq and

ignored the Taliban's mass beheading of Shiites in Afghanistan. This does not

absolve Shiite Muslims of guilt. Many Shiite clerics have irresponsibly

inflamed sectarian tension by denouncing beloved Sunni icons or, worse,

endorsing retaliation. But a Muslim group that condemns violence when Islamic

radicals kill Christians, then remains silent when Islamic radicals kill Shiite

Muslims, is not a human rights group but a PR firm. Pakistan can curtail the

rise of sectarian violence and prevent the spread of extremist Islam by doing

three things: punish (instead of reward) those who commit unprovoked acts of

aggression against innocents of other faiths; block Saudi Arabia from flooding

Pakistani schools with textbooks that preach draconian interpretations of

Islam; and restore civil society in urban centers so that extremist groups

cannot exploit Pakistan's woes to promote their divisive agendas. My last

memory of my uncle was sitting with him in the sprawling garden next to the

tomb of Jinnah in Karachi. I asked if Pakistanis -- particularly Pakistani

Shiites -- still respected Jinnah. "We do," he told me. "Because at least

Jinnah tried to create an open Islamic country where all could flourish." That

seems to summarize the history of Pakistan: It has always tried but never

achieved Jinnah's goal. Zahir Janmohamed is writing a book about the rise of

religious violence in South Asia.N. B. The moderators or the listowner do not

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