RIYADH, 11 July 2007 — While a section of Pakistani expatriates has blamed the government for mishandling the situation concerning the Red Mosque in Islamabad, others said the militants asked for it with the continued refusal to deal with the government resulting in the death of 50 persons, including ten security personnel.

Reacting to the events, Ateeq-ur-Rahman Kailani, consultant, told Arab News that the government’s use of force in trying to flush out the militants from the mosque has created a feeling of ‘uneasiness’ among the people. “They are our own people. The deployment of troops and tanks gave the impression as though the country is at a war with an enemy. It should have used all the available means to reach a peaceful solution.”

He said that so long as the government refuses to deal with the root cause of the problem, it cannot win the war on terror, Ateeq said, adding that the current crisis is the result of Pakistan moving too close to the US, which has still not got the message that “terrorism is born out of a state of denial or deprivation of one’s legitimate rights.”

Speaking in a similar vein, Ayaz Haider, who works for a major Saudi conglomerate, felt that wrong teachings in madrasas are partly to blame for the situation. “When young Muslims fall in misguided hands, moderates are sidelined, then extremists set their own agenda.”

According to Mohammed Imran, who works for a major advertising agency, Islam has been hijacked by extremists who exhort young children to die for the sake of Islam. A Pakistani parent who had admitted his 14-year-old son in a madrasa in hopes of making him an enlightened Muslim was filled with shock and dismay when he discovered that his son was being trained to get ready to wage jihad in Afghanistan, he said, adding that the government had exhausted all the options before resorting to force.

The feeling among Pakistani expatriates is that the textbooks taught in madrasas should be revised in order to instill an enlightened vision among the students. The imams should also explain Qur’anic teachings in the current context instead of harping on things that are divorced from realities on the ground.

“The divorce rate in the Pakistani society is rather high. That should have been one of the topics of their discourse rather than pure philosophical issues,” said Ateeq.

Magdy Fayeq and Hisham Ferhat, Egyptian expatriates, recalled a parallel in their own country where the Muslim Brotherhood also came under pressure from the government for preaching an extremist ideology.

However, the Egyptians have realized that such an approach will do more harm than good to their country in terms of economic development. But both agreed that the Pakistan government’s close ties with the US is a major factor in strengthening the hands of extremists.

They point out that the events in Pakistan are the result of a chain reaction unleashed by the US-led war on terror and the counter-attack by those who see Islam as being under siege. The innocent are caught in this spiral of violence.