A well planned campaign
The injury caused to the Muslim community’s feelings by the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo has been condemned in most Muslim countries by government leaders. After a statement from Nawaz Sharif deploring the weekly, the national assembly also denounced the blasphemous drawings as a conspiracy to create misunderstandings among civilisations. Later, Federal Minister Saad Rafique led lawmakers outside parliament in a protest march. Meanwhile Pope Paul, the spiritual head of millions of Roman Catholics, has joined the Charlie Hebdo critics by maintaining that the freedom of speech should not be used to hurt religious sentiments of any community.
It is odd that Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, which failed to take out any protest march to condemn the attack by terrorists that killed more than 140 students and teachers in Army Public School Peshawar, should use the occasion to try to storm the French Consulate in Karachi. The use of the name of Islam by the TTP terrorists to justify the killings of children was no small sacrilege but as some of the religious parties and their student wings entertain a soft corner for the terrorists, they avoided any display of strong resentment against the act. A photo journalist covering the event received a bullet injury. Media reports tell of some of the protesters firing guns.
Statements by some of the religious parties indicate they are meditating to challenge the national consensus against terrorist acts committed in the name of religion and sect. First there were attempts by these parties to get the words ‘religion’ and ‘sect’ deleted from the National Action Plan. Subsequently they demanded that the proposals regarding the oversight of madrassas be struck down. Media reports now tell of meetings being held to launch an alliance of the religious parties to oppose the campaign against terrorism and extremism. Any move in the direction would amount to an organised campaign against the national consensus. What is more this would be tantamount to dividing the nation at a critical juncture.
