Mullahs - alive and kicking

Yesterday, Sheikh Rashid said in a press conference to the effect of, "Do not underestimate Fazalur Rehman. He has a big role to play".

Rashid's comments side apart, Fazl is indeed making smart moves and playing his cards very wisely, much to the chagrin of "moderates". From today's editorial of Daily Times:



Second Editorial: MMA returns from the brink?

After an explosion of mutual criticism, the two clashing Pushtun leaders of the clerical alliance Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), Qazi Hussain Ahmad and Maulana Fazlur Rehman, have met and, if reports are to be credited, made up. The Maulana went and asked after Qazi Sahib at his home where the latter was recovering from an illness. Apparently all is mutually forgiven, the Maulana’s dilly-dallying over dissolution of the Peshawar Assembly and Qazi Sahib’s “stab in the back” through vacation of the same assembly and destruction of JUIF’s majority there.

One has to first note the sophistication of conduct among the clerical leaders as opposed to the rough and tumble of the non-clerical leaders of the political parties. Most TV discussions are unwatchable because of the way the politicians shout at each other, exchanging defamations that would put to shame any “bhaand” (the village wit known for his foul tongue) of the lower order. One also has to appreciate the clerical realisation after 2002 that they can make their political presence felt only by sinking their “unbridgeable” confessional differences. The roles have reversed: there was a time when mainstream politicians used to make fun of the clerics for not “praying together”; now we have a complete lack of consensus among the politicians.