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Antigone, Irony, and the Nation State: The Case of Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) and the Role of Militant Feminism in Pakistan Shaireen Rasheed Introduction conform to Islamist norms (i.e., by their dress, their “moral policing” In the absence of institutional of values), they are also often pub- state support from their home coun- licly branding themselves in “stereo- tries or support from Western femi- typical” performative roles at a time nists who are critical of a “feminist when such a label carries within it Muslim identity,” I hope in this paper the potential fear of making them- to elucidate how certain grass roots selves vulnerable to hostility. What I women’s movements in Third World hope to elucidate via Devji’s article countries are forced to make alter- native alliances. I will discuss the is- ‘radical Islamist, ‘piety’ ‘liberal or a sue of the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) ‘secular’is the difficulty discourses in engaging when interpret solely in- incidence in Pakistan to illustrate, ing nuanced scenarios such as the how Muslim militant feminists have Lal Masjid. As a way to extrapolate re-aligned themselves with the na- the events of the Lal Masjid tion, state, and religion to justify useful to interject Hegel’s notion of their feminist identities. Through irony in the Phenomenology ,of I Spiritfind it1 the case study of the Red Mosque to the women in the nation state. in Pakistan and the militarization of the Jamia Hafsa feminists, I hope Background of the Lal Masjid to discuss the problematic of engag- ing in a “radical Islamist” discourse In 2007 women students be- when interpreting scenarios such as longing to a religious school or ma- the Lal Masjid. drassa called Jamia Hafsa, which is Faisal Devji’s article on the part of the Lal Masjid mosque in the Red Mosque is the pivot on which I capital city of Islamabad, illegally contend that although Muslim wom- occupied the premises adjoining en in these situations are making a the mosque. They were protesting political and/or religious choice to against the government’s threat to 84 demolish and reclaim the mosque as Rashid Ghazi, had the support of the a potential venue for terrorist indoc- Jamia Hafsa women—or the “burqa trination. The Jamia Hafsa women brigade” as they are called in Paki- students conducted a vigilante pu- stan, comprised of women wielding ritanical drive against “unislamic” sticks and fully clad in a black burqa practices, such as the sale of music, so their faces are not visible. Analysts and demanded that video shops be have argued that the stick-wielding shut down. They also kidnapped burqa-clad women who had illegally a woman from the neighborhood occupied the compound were being suspected of running a prostitution used as human shields by the cler- business and only let her go once ics of the Lal Masjid, but the women she “repented.” had a different story to tell. To quote General Musharraf, the army one “rescued” woman who was in- chief instructed to dismantle the terviewed after the military opera- religious school and the mosque tion, “we were here on our own free where the militant women of Jamia will and of the desire of martyrdom. Hafsa were living. During this siege, government security forces alleged leave our madrassa. We were ready that the women and two other cler- We spent five years here and cannot ics in the mosque compound were for our teacher, Maulana Abdul Aziz armed with sophisticated weaponry Sahib.”to sacrifice4 the last drop of our blood and bombs, and suicide bombers were living among them. “Television Faisal Devji’s Red Mosque Inter- pictures of a young woman carry- pretation shocked many Pakistanis.”2 Maul- According to Devji, what we anaing anAbdul AK-47 Rashid rifle insideGhazi, theone libraryof the see in the case of the Lal Masjid is two clerics, died in the attack by the an example of the gradual transfor- security forces, while his brother, Maulana Abdul Aziz, was detained Islamic militancy, which has in many by the police after trying to escape partsmation of or the at world least ‘flatteningbeen weaned out’ offof the building in disguise—wearing its dependence on highly organized a burqa—even before the security or institutional forms to become forces launched their attack.3 Many yet another kind of voluntary asso- women died in the attacks, although ciation that individuals join for their actual numbers have been withheld. own reasons, often as part-time Openly empathetic to the Tal- members rather than full-time radi- cals. According to Devji, an interest- Pakistan army, the two cleric broth- ersiban who and tribalheaded militants Lal Masjid fighting, Maul the- militancy as it spreads through soci- ana Abdul Aziz and Maulana Abdul etying isaspect that it ofdoes this not flattening change so out much of 85 into a popular or national movement which he claimed was not only the as it does into a relatively open and world’s largest, but also included undisciplined sort of activism within English and science as part of its cur- civil society.5 riculum.6 Devji’s essay makes three Devji’s third point is that we might be able to account for these the presence and participation of phenomena by seeing the Red womenimportant in largepoints. numbers The first in theis thatRed Mosque crisis as a crisis of tradition- Mosque controversy was highly un- ally organized “fundamentalism” usual for any group of Sunni in Paki- of the militant kind, by its gradual stan; such behavior is more familiar opening up to the forms and vocabu- from Shia revolutionaries in Iran. In lary of civil society actors like NGOs, this sense, the Red Mosque event especially in the part-time and ex- can be described, in Devji’s word, as tracurricular activism that differs so “co-ed.” radically from the closed and cult- Devji’s second point is that like character often said to mark the language used by the mosque’s radical groups. According to Devji, teachers and students during the comparing these held up in the Red controversy was strongly marked Mosque to the Taliban or al-Qaeda by the vocabulary of development, is also misplaced. For one, he noted transparency, and accountability that their kidnappings and their for- that is the stock-in-trade of NGOs cible closing of immoral businesses and other civil society organizations. were attempts to court publicity that They made use of this common and resulted not as much in the meting also “secular” language during the out of Islamic punishments as in the controversy rather than the usual almost Maoist “re-education” and sectarian tirades. This language was subsequent release of alleged pros- matched in its “secularity” by the titutes.7 fact that the female students in the In statements and interviews complex were taught English and before its siege, the residents of the science, thus departing from the Red Mosque mentioned such civil usual stereotype of a radical mad- society issues as the lack of security, rassa; English and science were the transparency, and equal opportunity very subjects that “secularists” insist - upon when talking about madrassa cally religious subject. This suggests reformation. When Al-Jazeera’s re- thein Pakistan mutation rather of Sunni than militancy any specifi into porter Rageh Omaar described the the kind of mobilization that is nei- Lal Masjid as a “conservative” insti- ther nationalist nor, in fact, militant tution, Ghazi rejected this appella- in any professional way but perhaps tion precisely by pointing to the ma- nongovernmental. drassa of the institution’s women’s, Devji implies in all of this that 86 the Red Mosque was linked more to Amina Jamal. They have a feminist the everyday and even secular prac- agenda when it comes to issues of tices of modern life in the region rights in marriage and divorce as than to any religious or cult behav- well as economic and social em- ior. This is evident in the fact that powerment, but they often take on it was the supposedly traditional a conservative religious ideology to Maulana Abdul Aziz who tried to es- achieve these ends, advocating seg- cape the besieged institution, not his regation of the sexes and a complete more modern brother, Maulana Ab- reliance on the Islamic way of life.9 dul Rashid Ghazi, who had studied The secular nature of the history at Pakistan’s most prestig- state is seen as a threat to the sta- ious university and had also worked bility and security that can come to for UNESCO.8 religion and religious politics. These Militancy and the Lal Masjid politicallywomen only active within women the seeconfines religion of Feminism as the lowest common denominator that can unite men and women, de- It is not uncommon for wom- spite differences in their aspirations. en’s religious groups from Jamia An important aspect in the Jamia Hafsa taking up various causes to Hafsa activism has been the women’s promote better living conditions for struggle against the perceived secu- women, protection of their civic and larization of the state. The women of legal rights and free education, and the Jamia Hafsa, who were rescued the establishment of Islamic univer- expressed their anger at a state and sities. An important aspect of Jamia government, that was moving away Hafsa has been the women’s pro- from Islamic principles and adopting tests and activisms against the per- a secular/pro Western idiom.10 The ceived secularization of the state of women argued that the secular sta- Pakistan. The women of the Jamia tus quo under Musharraf’s military Hafsia who were “rescued” by the regime was problematic because it state security forces expressed their denied religious women their rights anger at a state and government and opportunities to pursue their (then led by General Musharraf) identity as articulated through the that was moving away from Islamic “ideal” or “divine” woman in an Is- principles and adopting a secular/ lamic society.

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