Where are all the jihadis?

ISLAMABAD: There was a time not too long ago when jihadi outfits had placed their donation boxes at the shops, in the restaurants, on street corners, urging Pakistanis to donate generously to the Jihad in Kashmir and elsewhere in the world where Muslim minorities were supposedly waging struggles for self-determination.  General Musharraf, after declaring himself an ally of the US in the post-9/11 scenario, wrapped up all such activities, forcing the Jihadis go  underground.

The same people indoctrinated, trained and sent many an innocent young man in the line of fire, mostly to face bullets in Kashmir or Afghanistan and win paradise in the bargain. They were also the ones found behind assassination attempts on Musharraf and in various acts of terrorism. Their politically more acceptable cousins and mentors, the six-party religious alliance under the banner of MMA, which heads the provincial government in the disaster-hit Frontier, are conspicuous by their absence in the national quake relief effort.

This, at a time when the holy month of Ramzan is calling them to wage war against death and destruction wrought on their Muslim brethren by nature. Not a single religious outfit or its worker is seen collecting donations or helping out the sick and wounded in the disaster areas, despite the Frontier being their home base.

The Frontier’s MMA government blamed Islamabad for the low pace of relief work on Monday; a day earlier its treasury legislators prayed for the souls of those killed in the quake during the assembly session and adjourned for ten days in mourning of the victims.

This kind of learnt behaviour on the part of the religious right, say analysts, is the prime reason why it can never become a potent political force with roots in the people.  If the MMA were not helped to win seats by the military establishment in the 2002 election it would not have been there in the assemblies today to start with.