Religious parties need to realise that it’s not 1977; it’s 2016 and all of these leaders have now been fully exposed
JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: A grand gathering of 35 religious, sectarian, proscribed and banned outfits and party leaderships recently took place in Lahore. What brought them together was the Punjab’s Women Protection Bill. Are they so afraid of the changes to legislation to accept women equal to men as human beings?
What amazed me most was their threat to withdraw the entire Bill or else they will start a movement along the lines of the infamous 1977 violent protest, which finally resulted in a dark night that continued for the next 11 years. I wonder how these religious leaders never felt the prick of conscience that their protest pushed Pakistan into a quagmire of ‘jihad for dollars’ and terrorism, which we are still fighting in 2016. It’s obvious these religion- and sect-based parties can never come to power by democratic means. Their only hope is a military dictatorship, which could use them as a tool, provided they are paid in dollars.
These outfits and parties need to realise that it’s not 1977; it’s 2016 and all of these leaders have now been fully exposed. They have been exposed on their stance on terrorism and suicide bombings by justifying them with ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, exposed by resisting madrassa reform, exposed through their views on child marriage, polygamy, rejecting DNA reports to implicate rapists, and now, by standing with men who abuse, beat and torture their spouses, exploit them mentally and economically. It’s high time for the government, political parties and the media to just ignore them and let their protest meet its natural death.
Masood Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, March 20th, 2016.
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