Pakistan’s leadership during 1980’s were convinced that Islamization means imposition of harsh punishments, welfare aspect of Islam was ignored, though system of Zakat was introduced to help needy and the poor section of society, but due to moral degradation of society in general and ruling elite of that time in particular was resulted in utter failure in terms of provision of relief to the poor and needy, poor majority was sending their children for religious education in religious seminaries where their bread and butter was guaranteed by administration of those religious institutions, the rich was sending their children to high standard institutions of learning where they were getting western education, middle and lower middle class people were depending and are still depending on government educational institutions, or on those private educational institutions where fees are considerably low, during 1980’s and 90’s middle class was shrinking, gap between rich and poor sections of society was enlarged due to wrong economic policies.
In 1986 being a student of M.phil in Quaid I Azam University Islamabad, I was writing regularly for an English daily the Muslim, on 1st January 1988, at the end of semester, I received a telephone call from my senior, he assigned me a task to accompany two German ladies, for sightseeing in major cities of Pakistan, both the ladies were quite educated madam Christa was wife of a journalist and was having very sharp observation, when we started our journey from Karachi Sheraton hotel towards Hawks bay, where the ladies were in a mood to do some swimming in the sea, on the way ladies were impressed with the outlook of modern Karachi but suddenly houses of poor section of society became visible on our way towards Hawks bay, poor in Karachi were living extremely poorly built houses, after having look at that difference, madam Crista had remarked, “in Germany our houses are well decorated , but outlook of our houses is quite simple, houses in Karachi are giving glittering outlook, but houses of the poor are in a real bad shape, conflict between rich and poor will dominate this city soon,” poor of Karachi is also educated and fed by religious seminaries, same is the case in Islamabad capital of Pakistan, where frustrated students of a religious seminary had snatched guns from police men trying to build fence around Lal Mosque and Religious Seminary Hafsa, interestingly Maulan Rasheed Ghazi had also graduated in history from Quaid I Azam university Islamabad, in same years when I was doing M.phil, I never came across him, or probably due to my preoccupation with my academic and journalistic pursuits I was confined in a circle of high class group of international students, British, Jordanians, Mauritian and Americans were in my circle, now that he has become focus of international media, news agency AFP has revealed his profile, after murder of his father ex serviceman of UNO keeps AK47 rifle with him and has become a leading militant religious figure in Pakistan. Unequal education system lack of equal opportunity, and economic disparity among different sections of society has caused present unrest, now that three Chinese are murdered yesterday night in Peshawer capital city of NWFP, it has become evident that confrontation between government forces and Lal mosque militants, is spreading in rest of the country too, in Swat district of NWFP Maulana Fazalullah forces have also started attacking government law enforcing agencies where now army is deployed on request of civil administration.
Leave Your Comments