'We Have To Show Nothing To Anybody'

In the name ofAllah, the Most Beneficent, the MostMerciful. Jenab Mehmood Ghazi Sahib, Federal Minister for Religious Affairs.Jenab Zaman Sahib, Chairman Council of Islamic Ideology, Jenab Bhutto Sahib,Federal and Provincial Ministers and all Religous Scholars (Ulema & Mushaikh),Ladies and Gentlemen, Assalam-o-Alikum,

Today I am happy attending this seminar and feel honouredthat I have been invited to this conference where religious scholars of greatrepute are present and I have been provided an opportunity to address them. I amgrateful to Dr. Mehmood Ghazi for providing me this opportunity and all thosewho have come to attend this conference from far-flung areas. Mehmood Ghazi andZaman Sahib have delivered thought provoking speeches. I fully agree to whateverthey have said.

At the moment, there are four subjects under discussion inthis seminar i.e. ideology of Pakistan, Sectarian terrorism in Pakistan, unityof Muslim Umma and the responsibilities of religious scholars. When I came toknow about these topics, I was thinking that all of them are very important andI am fully confident that you will thoroughly analyse them and deduce betterresults for the welfare of the country and its people. In my opinion, I havealready expressed my views about it in my speech of January 12, 2002, but thereare certain points which I would like to point out again and elaborate.

We all know that there is an internal strife in the countryand there is also external threat. The challenge before us is to eliminate theinternal crisis and avert the external danger. We have also to frustrate theenemy’s design of exploiting our problems emanating from external threat. Youknow about the presence of the Indian armed forces on our borders. In militaryterms, the intention of the enemy and capabilities are two things that are to beweighed.

A few days back I used to say that war is not possible. Iused to say this on the basis of the statements of the Indian leaders whichshowed their intention but not their capability because they had not deployedtheir armed forces. They were in their respective cantonments. But when theforces have been deployed, it means they have also developed the strategiccapabilities. Now their armed forces are in a position to initiate anyaggressive action against Pakistan. Now if they have intention, it can be verydangerous. But, by the grace of God our armed forces are fully prepared.

I have made it clear time and again that there should be nodoubt in it that our forces are fully alert and capable of not only of defencebut also taking any counter offensive action. The second thing is our will andresolve to take action against any aggression and our enemy should know that wehave the will and the capability to defend our country against any aggression.And I would like to second the views of Mr. Zaman that our real strength is ourown defence and our military strength is the guarantee for peace. Any externalpower can help us in our defence, in dialogue, in mediation but our real defenceis our own military strength.

Nobody can harm Pakistan as long as our own defence isstrong. Hence, I am fully confident that by the grace of Allah, there is nopossibility of war. We don’t want war. We want peace but if war is imposed onus we are fully prepared to counter it with full might, force and vigour. Ilament the statements emanating from the Indian leadership who say "we arejudging your actions." "You have to show actions." But we have to show noaction to anybody. Whatever we are doing, is for Pakistan and for ourselves. Weare doing everything we deem appropriate for ourselves, our development andinternal peace. We have to show nothing to anybody. We won’t allow anyone tobe a judge on us.

Nobody should be under any illusion in this regard. Theirdefence minister also has been giving this kind of statements but this is allpublic posturing. As a saying goes in English "Being more pious than thePope" he indulges in rhetoric just to maintain his position which isregrettable. He should abstain from giving such statements. As I’ve said ourfocus is our own interest and our requirements.

The first thing is to reform our society and to restoretolerance in the society. I have visited China many a times. During my firstvisit I happened to travel in a micro bus. On the same road there was a cyclistin the middle of the road going ahead of us. His speed was slow. The busfollowed the cyclist in a slow speed for five minutes. The bus driver wasneither angry nor did he say anything. He continued driving patiently till thecyclist got aside. Here in Pakistan we are always in a mood of fighting andquarrelling. We have to eliminate this atmosphere of squabbling. We have toeliminate terrorism, sectarianism, extremism and rancours.

The second thing is that we have to protect our Kashmircause, our defence installations, our missile capabilities, revive our economy,improve it, create conducive atmosphere for investment and flourish businessactivities which ultimately will eliminate poverty.

I know, people say that poverty is pervasive despite ofmany steps initiated for the revival of the economy. This is true. It saddensme. My heart weeps. The question is what should we do for the poor. I think alot about it. Ours is a poor country. We have taken unprecedented steps toremove poverty.

You know about the strategy of distribution of Zakat. Wehave distributed thousands of rupees. We are distributing up to 50,000 rupees.We have distributed 2 billion rupees in these three, four months. We expect tospend up to 5 billion rupees in the current fiscal year and we plan to spend upto 5 billion rupees every year enabling the poor people stand on their feet andwhoever wants to do some business could do so. In the next three, four years weexpect to spend an amount up to the tune of Rs. 20 billion which will benefit 8to ten lac families i.e. four to five million people. We have already startedthis process.

The Khushhal Pakistan Programme also aims at providingemployment to the people. I know there are 5 to 6 thousand projects underway, inwhich 5 to 6 lac people are employed. We are spending billions of rupees onthese projects with the objective to eliminate poverty.

Apart from this, the Khushhali Bank also aims at reachingthe poor. All these steps are for the poor but they are not sufficient. Revivalof economy is the biggest step which will cause more factories, more employmentopportunities, more construction work and more jobs. This is the most importantstep for elimination of poverty which is possible only when law and ordersituation is improved and peace and stability restored. This will make theinvestment climate favour able in Pakistan. That’s why I elaborated in detail.Therefore, our three focuses are to bring balance and harmony in the society, toguard our core interest and boost economy in order to eliminate poverty.

As stated by Mehmood Ghazi Sahib, our policy is to developconsensus. I have met you people on many occasions and consulted you. Interactedwith you. I am ready to listen to you, sit with you for hours. I’ve sat withyou for hours to listen to your opinions. In this way we are moving ahead withmutual consensus. We have to move together in cohesion. We have to decideunanimously what to do and proceed accordingly. As we know Pakistan is anIslamic Republic with more that 98 per cent Muslims and there is no room for anydoubt about it.

In my view our society is divided into three classes.  Oneis westernized modernists, ultra modern, who are in abundance in cities likeKarachi and Lahore, who have adopted a wrong path. We definitely want progressin Pakistan but not in the way of the west. The second category is those ofsectarian and religious extremist who nurture extreme views, who do not want tolearn anything other than religious knowledge and want to enforce religiousbeliefs of their sect upon others. This, too, is wrong and should not happen.There should be some middle path. There should be no division amongst thecitizens of Pakistan as progressive or religious. There should be no suchdivision, we all are progressive, we all are religious. At least I have no suchconfusion. It doesn’t mean that I want to be modern and progressive and have aseparate identity for the religious people. In fact we all are Muslims. I am aMuslim. Everyone in this auditorium is a Muslim. We all value our religion high.

Hardly there is any Muslim who does not respect Islam. Weare emotional people. Almost all Muslims are like that. It is good to beemotional but there should be no division in it. As I’ve said we are allprogressive, we are all religious.

Now, the question arises what is the path of progress forPakistan, Islamic Umma and how we can achieve the betterment of the Islamicworld. I brood over it and we all may be doing the same. Our basic objective isthe progress of the Islamic world and Pakistan. We have one objective but wediffer in the ways to achieve the objective. This is a good thing. Difference ofopinion is a healthy sign, provided it does not entail any fighting and killing.As Zaman Sahib has said, in the absence of difference of opinion, we will becomea dead community.

We are not dead. We can think. People who think, will havedifference of opinion. There is no harm in it. But when followed by bickeringsand squabbles and fighting and enforcing our views upon others, it will createproblem. As I say that nobody can be coerced to change his views. This is myexperience of the army and history is witness to it and you too, can observe itin your daily lives that change comes only through setting your personalexample. You set a trend and people follow it. You can't force people forchange. I would like to repeat that there is no need for any coercion or forceto change someone. If you want to change someone do it by setting your personalexample.

Now coming back to the issue, what is the way to achievethe objective? Should we have to follow the path of confrontation and fighting?In my opinion this is not an appropriate option. It is a folly. Through economicstrength and power, others can be forced but it is very difficult withoutinternal stability and strength. First, you must stabilize yourselvesinternally. Many people complain that our embassies are not working effectively.I say that they will work effectively only when we are strong internally. Unlessyour internal stature is strong, nobody will pay any heed to you outside. YourAmbassadors will have a say only when your country is strong internally.

Therefore, we will have to improve our internal conditionsif we have to make progress and strengthen our country. This will entailwomen’s development, restoration of self-respect, improvement of society,spread of education and progress of science and technology.

Recently, in a conference on higher education, Dr.Atta-ur-Rehman presented his superb ideas while presenting a comparativeanalysis of Pakistan and other progressive Muslim countries with many smallwestern countries of EU, proving that we stand nowhere as compared to those tinywestern countries whose population is small but their GDP is very high, US $ 200or 300 billion, and our GDP is $ 6.5 crore, twenty time less. So we have tochange this situation. We have to expedite the rate of progress by adoptingmodern science, technology and modern knowledge.

We have to increase our GDP by opting for engineering andadvance technology. Otherwise we will be growing only cotton, wheat and rice. Wehave to produce import substitutes, we have to grow our industries, we have togrow engineering goods for which we need scientific knowledge.

We  also haveto rectify our education system. At present there are three systems of educationin our country. One, madrassa education, second, Urdu medium, third, Englishmedium. In my view, all these three systems should be made similar and effortsshould be made to make them rectified. We have formulated a policy for themadaris in the country. In this regard, I have assured you earlier and I wouldlike to repeat that the government has no intention to take control of madaris,  because, it cannot run the madaris the waythey are being run.  We don’t haveenough resources at our disposal, so we want that you should continue runningthem. We want to help you only.

What I want to tell you is to bring some improvement andnothing else. In my view, this betterment and improvement is possible byteaching other subjects in the madaris. Because, by introducing other subjectsthe students coming out of these madarisas will have more knowledge andconsequently will have more  respectin the society, even If they become prayer leader in a mosque. But if samestudent of a madarisa wants to go to Government college or I grant him ascholarship to study there, he should be able to do so or should get anopportunity to join a bank or any other profession.

The objective is to make the students of the madariseffective and valuable members of the society. Who does not want this? It is not something against Islam. In this regard my request to you isthat please try to understand this. The subjects including in the madrassasyllabi, if are difficult to teach, we will provide training for your teachers,provide new teachers and will try to assist you financially. We will utilize ourresources for this purpose to their full capacity. My objective is to make thesestudents valuable citizens of the country and to absorb them in society throughbetter education.

Question:Mr. President we request you to provide us teachers of computers, Englishand Mathematics in Madaris. Then you will see our performance Insha Allah.

Pervez Musharraf: Insha Allah, we will give you,rather I have told Mr. Mehmood Ghazi of my intention to visit Madaris and talkto students personally. You invite me. I will try my best to solve your problemsand provide you the assistance you have requested for. We will give youcomputers, so you can teach your students. We have established an institutionNADRA which is making identity cards. There are about 8 to 10 thousand computerexperts employed there. They are earning Rs. 5000 to 8000 there. I will requestall of you to cooperate with us in this process.

Ghazi sahib has established a board for this purpose. Youtake your exams etc under this system and you will be awarded with certificatesequivalent to the degrees of Matric, FA, BA & MA and you will be able toabsorb in the society. I know, many of the madaris are already providing thebest education to their students. They have computers. I would like to go andsee, we will recognize their certificates. The syllabus of different educationsystem in English and Urdu is being improved. We have to introduce this neweducation system in these madaris, so that we can advance our education systemsimultaneously.

Question: We are all with you but the police should bedirected not to harass the religious leaders.

Pervez Musharraf: If some one is doing it withoutreason, he is committing excess. But some religious leaders are  misusingmosques,  as I cited the example ofa prayer leader in Karachi, who murdered many people and is proud of it.

Question: You have permitted the use of loudspeaker forthe Friday sermon with the instructions that its misuse will result in thewithdrawal of this permission. But the police in the country has been giveninstructions that the use of loudspeaker is prohibited, even for Friday sermon.Would you please explain it? We will abide by what you say.

Pervez Musharraf: Ideclare that Friday sermons are allowed on loudspeakers and it will be deliveredon loudspeakers and these are our orders. You have known me well by now. Idon’t say things which I don’t do. What I have instructed will beimplemented. May I know who has issued this order of prohibition of use ofloudspeakers for Friday sermons?

Question: Sir, such orders have been implemented. When Itold them that the President has allowed the use of loudspeaker for Fridaysermon, they replied that our SSP has ordered us ……

Question: Some Ulema have been implicated in falsecases, with the intention to create hatred against you. Can you terminate thesefalse cases?

Pervez Musharraf: Obviously, I will abolish allfalse cases. No one should be implicated in false cases. Your complaint is veryserious and we will examine it.

Question: We are quite satisfied with the discussion ofDecember 27 with the Ulema. We will abide by it.

Pervez Musharraf: Thank you. In the end, about themental aberration that I talked about in the beginning that it should beremoved. Briefly, I would say that all external problems including Kashmir andother international affairs affecting Muslims should be left for the governmentto resolve and the government should be trusted in these matters. We will takeappropriate steps in this direction, reflecting the wishes of the people ofPakistan. Insha Allah,  I will leaveno stone unturned and will do the utmost. Therefore, you leave it for thegovernment and for me to handle. However, my request to you all is to supportthe government to improve the internal situation.

Question: We are with you but you also pull theirstrings.

Pervez Musharraf: Tolerate them a little bit. Youknow the performance of law enforcing agencies regarding implementation of suchorders. There will be some problems in the beginning. Probably, there is somemisunderstanding. We will find solution to these problems within few days andwill rectify everything. Innocent will be let free. Only wrong doer will becaught. Insha Allah everything will be set right. I repeat my appeal to youclearly that there should be a ceasefire as far as religious sectarianism isconcerned. This fight should   bestopped.