Smash the Evil Within

Smash the Evil Within

1991 1 January 22-24 Smash the Evil Within (1139) Wafaq is a daily newspaper of Pakistan, which is published simultaneously in Lahore, Rawalpindi, Sargodha and Rahim Yar Khan. On the first page of its issue of May 10, 1990, there is a photograph, which shows a crowd laughing, and throwing stones and pieces of wood at some object. The caption under the picture reads: ‘Demonstrations organized by the Jamaat Islami against nudity and obscenity. The demonstrators are smashing a TV set!

Wafaq also published a detailed report on this incident: “On the final day of this campaign to eradicate evil, launched by the Jamaat Islami, a TV set was symbolically stoned at Hasan Square, Gulshan Iqbal (Karachi) to express condemnation of evils such as nudity and obscenity. When thousands of stones landed on the TV set, it was smashed to pieces in no time. This demonstration by the Jamaat Islami in which thousands took part, was of an exceptional nature. Addressing the demonstrators, the Naib Amir of the Jamaate lslami and Professor Ghafoor Ahmad, the secretary General of the Islami Jamhoori Ittihad, said that today, a TV set has been destroyed, but if the TV does not change its programmes, tomorrow, the hands of the public will reach the walls of the TV station. If even this does not stop the satanic exhibition of obscenity, the next things to be broken will be the hands of satan’s agents.

It is almost certain that many of those who smashed the TV set with stones themselves have TV sets in their homes. This being so, is it not also satanic to expect that by placing a defective TV set at a crossroads and then stoning it, the evils of television will be eradicated from the country. The truth is that the evil of TV exists, not within the TV station, or in parliament house, but within the people themselves.

If you want to put an end to the evil of TV, you must change people’s hearts. The evil of TV can never end just by raising slogans against the government. Even if the Pakistan government ordered the stoppage of all of the current TV programmes, and permitted only programmes on the Qur’an and the Hadith to be relayed, there would still be no benefit to the public if the people themselves had not first experienced a change of heart.

Experiments of this nature were made during the long rule or General Ziaul Haq, but they were a dismal failure. For instance General Ziaul Haq announced that as Indian films showed obscene sequences, he was banning the exhibition of Indian films on TV and in the cinema throughout the length and breadth of Pakistan. But the only difference this made was that, now, instead of seeing Indian films on cinema or TV screens, people obtained video cassettes of them and played them on VCRs so that they could watch them at home on their own TV screens.

General Ziaul Haq had absolute power in Pakistan for about eleven and a half years. Everyone from Maulana Abul Ala Maududi to Maulana Sayyed Abul Hasan Ali Nadvi upheld him as a true believer. Moreover, Ziaul Haq had given the entire administration of the Ministry of Information to the Jamaat Islami, and General Ziaul Haq, with his powerful military influence, made joint efforts to end the evil of television in Pakistan, but they could not reduce it by even one per cent. According to estimates made at the time, the situation, if anything, deteriorated.

This experience dearly proved the futility of the theory held by the Jamaat Islami and, of course, by Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, that the reform of television, as well as other social evils of this nature, could be effected by the power of the government. If such reform had been possible just by promulgating ordinances, it would have already been carried out when such powerful men as Ziaul Haq and his Minister of Information joined hands to put an end to moral backsliding.

The truth is that those who stoned the television set should have stoned themselves instead. It is this ill-considered theory held by the Jamaat Islami and Maulana Maududi, which is the greatest obstacle to ending the evils of TV in Pakistan. If the members and supporters of the Jamaat Islami had not been misguided by it, they would not have allowed their energies to founder on the rock of politics; they would have devoted them rather to the reform of individuals. Their ultimate objective would by this time have been achieved. The fact that it has not already been achieved shows that the problem has been approached from the wrong angle.

It was Maulana Abul Ala Maududi who formulated this quite baseless theory that the reform of society, or of social institutions, can be effected only by the government. It therefore became incumbent upon those who subscribed to this theory to keep channelizing all their energies towards the assumption of governmental power. In spite of this theory being unsupported by events, the members of the Jamaat Islami have continued over the last fifty years to launch such campaigns as will bring the reins of government into their hands.

In respect of argument, this theory has already been rejected, evidently because attempts to put it into practice during the mandate of General Ziaul Haq (1977-1988) proved abortive. Now if the members of the Jamaat want their activities to bear any fruit, they must first of all concede that their political theory was wrong. Then, desisting from all destructive activities, they should devote themselves to reforming the minds of individuals in a purely constructive way. Although this method take& longer to produce results – because it has no appeal for the masses – it is preferable to any other method, because there is, in fact, no other method which is truly effective.

The eradication of social evils by using government power is ostensibly a beautiful theory. But, in practice, this does not work. If you attempt to end evils at the level of the government, without having first changed the wrong doer from within, the only result will be that evil will re-appear in a new garb. It can never be abolished in this way from the lives of the people.

The first task to be undertaken in ending social evils is to create a willingness on the part of the people to shun those evils. Without this, no campaign launched by the government to forbid evil can never be of avail. Such evils as already exist will only become more and more rooted.

Attracting large crowds and then stoning TV sets is false leadership. The true leader is one who can so condition people’s minds that when they go home, they voluntarily break up their own ‘TV sets’. In the whole of the Islamic world, no such leader exists today.