The roar of the radicals

THE disturbing happenings of April 11 in Baitul Mukarram Masjid square are a stark reminder to all of us that the specter of religious extremism continues to hang over our head like the proverbial sword of Damocles. It is a serious threat to our social fabric unless we deal with it firmly now. Thanks to wide media coverage, a worldwide audience watched with awe video footages of hirsute young men in white robes and armed with sticks chasing police and hurling bricks and stones that were presumably stored near the mosque.
Few people who watched this encounter from abroad had any knowledge of what led these people to such violence; but they saw who they were, and that they were challenging armed law enforcers to a show of strength.
This may sound a bit over-dramatic, but to underscore a point I must say that to some of us the incident at Baitul Mukarram brought back uncomfortable flashes of the Lal Masjid incident in Pakistan last year.
True, the Lal Masjid had ultimately turned into a war zone with disastrous and murderous consequences. But we must remember that the forces that had challenged the law enforcing agencies of Pakistan from that center originally started their crusade against the authorities with sticks and stones, and ended up with machine guns.
And we must also remember that, like the Baitul Mukarram mosque, the Lal Masjid is also a government owned religious institution.
To explain away the April 11 incident as another instance of bigotry by a small group of fanatics is a cop-out. This was not an impulsive act by a group of people misled by propaganda that hurt their religious feelings.
This was not a spur of the moment protest against any political rhetoric. This was a planned incident orchestrated by people who want to impose their interpretation of religion on others, and along with it their political ideology.
I say this because there has been a pattern of behaviour of a section in our country in the last few weeks over a legislation concerning women's property rights. This started with claim by this section that it was beyond the government's legal power (ultra vires) to have a policy that allows equal rights to women since it would go against religion.
The claim was followed by public utterances and protests by some people following that line of thought, that such actions would violate religious dictates on the subject. No one cared to explain how a policy espousing equality of human rights, of men and women, would militate against our religion.
These utterances went unchallenged since we, the educated majority, have delegated the responsibility of interpreting religion to the clerics. The culmination of this silence was the April 11 incident.
Our worries and concerns would have been minimal, had the efforts of this school of thought been limited to interpretation of religion only for religious purposes.
Unfortunately, these clerics, products of largely unchecked religious institutions, not only act as guardians of the religion, but they now also want to ensure that our legislative agenda also carry their seal of approval.
To me, the implications of this incident are far wider than the protest over an issue of legislation that may have "religious" connotation to a group of people. Although in the minority, this school of thought is rarely challenged, as most of us tend to shy away from topics that touch religion.
Our political leaders in the past either avoided these issues, or embraced the proponents of this line of thought as political partners for short-term gains. Our reluctance to deal with topics of religious sensitivity through public debates, and often coddling of some leaders of this radical line of thinking, have made this section of people take the lead on these issues and insinuate themselves in formulation of public policies in the name of religion.
The Lal Masjid happenings of Pakistan taught us that religious militancy can grow at one's door step when state power nurtures radical elements, either through negligence or for short-term political gains.
It has shown how radicals can proliferate at state expense when young minds are tutored and trained to implement radical ideologies with a wrong interpretation of religion.
There are two parts to tackling any looming threat of religious extremism. One is treating it as another law and order concern; and the other is treating it as a potential threat to our goal of establishing a pluralistic and democratic society.
A law and order concern is addressed when the law-breakers are contained and order restored. But a potential threat by religious radicals cannot be stopped simply by police actions. This needs, first, a full awareness of the potential threat, an acknowledgment by all that it exists, and engagement of all righteous sections of our society in opposing such ideas and ideology.

Ziauddin Choudhury is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.