By
Amir Zia
Monday, October 14, 2013
The News
Monday, October 14, 2013
The News
Narratives – undermining science, developments in medical research and
rational thinking – from the pulpit and some prominent Islamic seminaries
resonate deeply in the hearts and minds of many believers, who refuse to give
the polio vaccine to their children, thinking that abstaining to do so is in
conformity with Islamic teachings.
Since
December 2012, Pakistani authorities have stopped announcing dates for the
national anti-polio vaccination drives. Instead, these regular exercises are
now being carried in a hush-hush manner at the district level to prevent any
attacks -- on volunteers administrating polio drops to children aged five years
and below – by al-Qaeda-inspired local Taliban militants and other extremist
groups.
The government’s concerns are understandable. Since mid-July 2012 to date, 17 health workers and five policemen involved in anti-polio campaigns have been killed and 14 others wounded by militants in 25 attacks in various parts of Pakistan. This list of victims doesn’t include those seven NGO workers who were killed in Swabi on January 2 or the two victims killed in a roadside bomb explosion outside the Basic Health Unit in Peshawar’s suburbs on October 7 as it is still being investigated whether these attacks were also targeted at the polio campaign.
Nonetheless the string of killings has transformed the anti-polio efforts into a high-stakes game in the Islamic Republic. Now all polio vaccination teams have to be accompanied by police or paramilitary troops underlining the ever-deepening divide and conflict among moderates and hardliners in society and the eroding writ of the state. The simple and innocent exercise of administrating polio drops to children becoming a deadly affair is also a sign of the deep ideological confusion and intellectual bankruptcy of hard-line Islamists.
Many of the clerics sympathetic to al-Qaeda and local militant groups simply see the two drops of anti-polio vaccine as a western conspiracy against Muslims to make their future generations ‘infertile’ and ‘sexually impotent’ rather than an effort to keep them healthy and free from the lifelong crippling effects of this virus.
Even some of those clerics who keep away from militancy and unlawful activities have become part of propaganda against polio vaccination – from the rugged mountains in the north to Pakistan’s biggest city of Karachi. A case in point is of the monthly Haq Nawa-e-Ihtasham, Karachi, which in its March 2013 issue carried an article saying that the anti-polio drive being run by Unicef “is basically a conspiracy to make the nation infertile.” The five-page article titled ‘Polio vaccine drive’s secret agenda’ discusses the so-called investigations conducted by a Nigerian scientist claiming that the polio vaccine is damaging for health and causes impotency among its users.
Nawa-e-Ihtasham is published by Maulana Tanveer-ul Haq Thanvi in memory of his father, the late-Maulana Ihtasham-ul Thanvi – considered one of the most highly respected and leading Islamic clerics belonging to the Deobandi school of thought. Both Maulana Ihtasham and Maulana Tanveer are known for their moderate views not just by their followers but by experts and clerics of other Islamic sects as well.
Such narratives – undermining science, developments in medical research and rational thinking – from the pulpit and some prominent Islamic seminaries resonate deeply in the hearts and minds of many believers, who refuse to give the polio vaccine to their children, thinking that abstaining to do so is in conformity with Islamic teachings.
No wonder Pakistan remains among the only three countries of the world – along with Afghanistan and Nigeria – which have failed to eradicate this virus. According to Unicef figures, so far 43 polio cases have been reported in Pakistan in 2013 – against six in the war-wrecked Afghanistan. In Nigeria, 49 such cases have been reported this year.
All our other South Asian neighbours – India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal and Maldives – have now become part of the polio-free world. But in Pakistan, a small minority of hard-line clerics and pro al-Qaeda local militants successfully managed to scuttle all efforts to make the country polio free.
In most parts of the conflict-ridden Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (Fata), authorities have not been able to run polio vaccination campaigns for the last two years in a row. The polio teams are being attacked not just in Fata, but various parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and even Karachi. Unicef data shows that nine out of 25 attacks targeting anti-polio teams have occurred in Karachi – one of Pakistan’s most developed cities.
The situation is in stark contrast to Afghanistan where Afghan Taliban and Nato troops even halt fighting to allow polio vaccination campaigns. This explains the low number of polio victims in Afghanistan compared to Pakistan. However, militants in Pakistan have no such love or care for children. They have no rules of engagement. For these ‘brave-hearts’ and ‘virtuous souls’ every target is kosher – be it worshippers, medical teams, unsuspecting women, men and children in markets and bazaars. They are the same local Taliban and allies with whom our elected government and the entire civilian leadership – from Imran Khan to Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Munawar Hasan – are willing and desperate to talk for what they call peace.
The elected ones do not care about the consequences of appeasing extremists. They can’t see all the blood on the hands of these false champions of Islam. They do not want to define the ambit of their talks with militants. In fact, they hardly seem to understand the agenda and ideology of these forces bent upon destroying Pakistan. But yet they want to talk. Should this sleep walk towards disaster give any hope to Pakistanis that our tomorrow will be better than today?
The obstacles created in the way of the anti-polio drive demonstrate that how an organised minority is exploiting the sacred name of Islam and holding the entire country hostage on gun-point and suicide bombs. They have managed to do this despite the fact that most leading clerics have issued edicts that polio vaccination is not forbidden in Islam.
The government, Unicef and the World Health Organisation have jointly printed a booklet carrying 20 edicts from leading Islamic scholars and seminaries from Pakistan, Egypt, Malaysia, India, China and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference underlying that the polio vaccine remains safe to use and is permissible in Islam. Opposing polio vaccination is not Islam, but it is extremism.
However, hardliners are in no mood to listen and misguide a section of population through their flawed interpretation of Islam or the outright use of force. The authorities, despite all the awareness campaigns, have failed to contain these elements simply because of the state’s inability to launch a decisive crackdown against them.
Pakistan’s failure to eradicate polio has resulted in the enactment of discriminatory regulations specific to Pakistani travellers by many countries. The reason: our country has, along with terrorism, also become a net exporter of the polio virus. Even Saudi Arabia has made it mandatory for Pakistani Hajj and Umra pilgrims to take polio drops on arrival on its territory.
Polio in Pakistan is now a legitimate international concern. For we are one of the few countries left in the world where the curse of this virus still exists and can be transported to other far-flung countries. This has already happened a few times in recent years and has made the world wary of Pakistani visitors. Eradicating the polio virus in Pakistan remains within grasp, but the goal cannot be achieved until the small mindset opposed to its vaccination gets defeated first. Even one new case of polio or one percent of the population refusing to take the vaccine won’t let us achieve the goal of a polio-free Pakistan.
Therefore, the narrative that every Pakistani child should get vaccinated must win. But are the elected ones prepared to take the bull by its horns? Right now, they appear to be in the mood to just talk.
The government’s concerns are understandable. Since mid-July 2012 to date, 17 health workers and five policemen involved in anti-polio campaigns have been killed and 14 others wounded by militants in 25 attacks in various parts of Pakistan. This list of victims doesn’t include those seven NGO workers who were killed in Swabi on January 2 or the two victims killed in a roadside bomb explosion outside the Basic Health Unit in Peshawar’s suburbs on October 7 as it is still being investigated whether these attacks were also targeted at the polio campaign.
Nonetheless the string of killings has transformed the anti-polio efforts into a high-stakes game in the Islamic Republic. Now all polio vaccination teams have to be accompanied by police or paramilitary troops underlining the ever-deepening divide and conflict among moderates and hardliners in society and the eroding writ of the state. The simple and innocent exercise of administrating polio drops to children becoming a deadly affair is also a sign of the deep ideological confusion and intellectual bankruptcy of hard-line Islamists.
Many of the clerics sympathetic to al-Qaeda and local militant groups simply see the two drops of anti-polio vaccine as a western conspiracy against Muslims to make their future generations ‘infertile’ and ‘sexually impotent’ rather than an effort to keep them healthy and free from the lifelong crippling effects of this virus.
Even some of those clerics who keep away from militancy and unlawful activities have become part of propaganda against polio vaccination – from the rugged mountains in the north to Pakistan’s biggest city of Karachi. A case in point is of the monthly Haq Nawa-e-Ihtasham, Karachi, which in its March 2013 issue carried an article saying that the anti-polio drive being run by Unicef “is basically a conspiracy to make the nation infertile.” The five-page article titled ‘Polio vaccine drive’s secret agenda’ discusses the so-called investigations conducted by a Nigerian scientist claiming that the polio vaccine is damaging for health and causes impotency among its users.
Nawa-e-Ihtasham is published by Maulana Tanveer-ul Haq Thanvi in memory of his father, the late-Maulana Ihtasham-ul Thanvi – considered one of the most highly respected and leading Islamic clerics belonging to the Deobandi school of thought. Both Maulana Ihtasham and Maulana Tanveer are known for their moderate views not just by their followers but by experts and clerics of other Islamic sects as well.
Such narratives – undermining science, developments in medical research and rational thinking – from the pulpit and some prominent Islamic seminaries resonate deeply in the hearts and minds of many believers, who refuse to give the polio vaccine to their children, thinking that abstaining to do so is in conformity with Islamic teachings.
No wonder Pakistan remains among the only three countries of the world – along with Afghanistan and Nigeria – which have failed to eradicate this virus. According to Unicef figures, so far 43 polio cases have been reported in Pakistan in 2013 – against six in the war-wrecked Afghanistan. In Nigeria, 49 such cases have been reported this year.
All our other South Asian neighbours – India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal and Maldives – have now become part of the polio-free world. But in Pakistan, a small minority of hard-line clerics and pro al-Qaeda local militants successfully managed to scuttle all efforts to make the country polio free.
In most parts of the conflict-ridden Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (Fata), authorities have not been able to run polio vaccination campaigns for the last two years in a row. The polio teams are being attacked not just in Fata, but various parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and even Karachi. Unicef data shows that nine out of 25 attacks targeting anti-polio teams have occurred in Karachi – one of Pakistan’s most developed cities.
The situation is in stark contrast to Afghanistan where Afghan Taliban and Nato troops even halt fighting to allow polio vaccination campaigns. This explains the low number of polio victims in Afghanistan compared to Pakistan. However, militants in Pakistan have no such love or care for children. They have no rules of engagement. For these ‘brave-hearts’ and ‘virtuous souls’ every target is kosher – be it worshippers, medical teams, unsuspecting women, men and children in markets and bazaars. They are the same local Taliban and allies with whom our elected government and the entire civilian leadership – from Imran Khan to Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Munawar Hasan – are willing and desperate to talk for what they call peace.
The elected ones do not care about the consequences of appeasing extremists. They can’t see all the blood on the hands of these false champions of Islam. They do not want to define the ambit of their talks with militants. In fact, they hardly seem to understand the agenda and ideology of these forces bent upon destroying Pakistan. But yet they want to talk. Should this sleep walk towards disaster give any hope to Pakistanis that our tomorrow will be better than today?
The obstacles created in the way of the anti-polio drive demonstrate that how an organised minority is exploiting the sacred name of Islam and holding the entire country hostage on gun-point and suicide bombs. They have managed to do this despite the fact that most leading clerics have issued edicts that polio vaccination is not forbidden in Islam.
The government, Unicef and the World Health Organisation have jointly printed a booklet carrying 20 edicts from leading Islamic scholars and seminaries from Pakistan, Egypt, Malaysia, India, China and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference underlying that the polio vaccine remains safe to use and is permissible in Islam. Opposing polio vaccination is not Islam, but it is extremism.
However, hardliners are in no mood to listen and misguide a section of population through their flawed interpretation of Islam or the outright use of force. The authorities, despite all the awareness campaigns, have failed to contain these elements simply because of the state’s inability to launch a decisive crackdown against them.
Pakistan’s failure to eradicate polio has resulted in the enactment of discriminatory regulations specific to Pakistani travellers by many countries. The reason: our country has, along with terrorism, also become a net exporter of the polio virus. Even Saudi Arabia has made it mandatory for Pakistani Hajj and Umra pilgrims to take polio drops on arrival on its territory.
Polio in Pakistan is now a legitimate international concern. For we are one of the few countries left in the world where the curse of this virus still exists and can be transported to other far-flung countries. This has already happened a few times in recent years and has made the world wary of Pakistani visitors. Eradicating the polio virus in Pakistan remains within grasp, but the goal cannot be achieved until the small mindset opposed to its vaccination gets defeated first. Even one new case of polio or one percent of the population refusing to take the vaccine won’t let us achieve the goal of a polio-free Pakistan.
Therefore, the narrative that every Pakistani child should get vaccinated must win. But are the elected ones prepared to take the bull by its horns? Right now, they appear to be in the mood to just talk.
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