To Rakshas 10 Anan

Submitted by M. Saleem Akhtar (United States), Dec 29, 2005 at 15:44

Being a pakistani, my personal, and humble, opinion on Musharraf is that he is a secular person at heart trying to survive in a Punjab/NWFP-dominated tribal culture. I think Pakistan has become more liberal over the past 4-5 years but I agree that the government in Pakistan has to take more steps to change the mind-set of the tribal populations and remove the sharia law written during Zia-ul-haq's tenure.

Unless Zia's remnants and mullahs are pushed back, Pakistani society will move very slowly towards a true liberalization. The current government has done little to change the mind set of the Pakistani public. This is not because of Musharraf but the conservative/backward remnants in the so-called 'government'.. ministers that were very close to mullahs during the era of Zia-ul-haq. These ministers, although support Musharraf in public, will never ever become true liberals. The government must expose the weaknesses of the madrassa system and the mullahs to the pakistani public.. eg involvement of pakistani mullahs in pedophilia. Reportedly there were approximately 500 complaints of sexual child abuse by mullahs in the pakistani madrassas during the past year alone. However ironically the pakistani press has stayed away from bringing out this fact in its coverage.

Also I have noticed that many pakistani mullahs are born/bred in tribal areas of Punjab and NWFP. You wouldnt find a single mullah in karachi who was actually 'born' in karachi. These 'tribal' mullahs are now focusing upon the urban elite and spreading 'wahabism' there through the madrassas. Really the government must focus upon blocking the funding of these madrassas as they are polluting the minds of young orphans and brainwashing them.

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