Pakistani students show their appetite for protest

Nov 14, 2007, 16:03 GMT

Lahore, Pakistan - The world's media came in large numbers, along with the Pakistani riot police, as around 300 fired-up students tested their potency as a force for change amid the virtual martial law that grips their country.

'We know we are going to get batoned by the police soon but still we stand, screaming our lungs out. That shows that we are coming alive now,' said college student Mahir Aftab, who at age 16 was one of the youngest - and most eloquent in English - of the throng gathered on the campus of the Punjab University in the eastern city of Lahore. 'We will have to break the system,' he added.

Even for a Pakistan political demonstration it was chaotic, with too little coordination and too many competing leaders and self-appointed spokesmen, each plugging his own vision of resistance to the state of emergency imposed November 3 by the country's military leader, President Pervez Musharraf.

Some preached detachment from all political parties, others sided with cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, who came out of hiding during the current wave of arrests of opposition leaders in order to address the students.

The head of the Tehreek-e-Insaf (Justice Party) was promptly detained by young activists of the Jamaat-e-Islami Islamic party and turned over to police in apparent retaliation for his attempt to steal the show from them.

'The only thing we are agreed on is that Musharraf must go,' psychology student Mustafa Zaidi said amid the confusion and scuffles that then broke out as the police stood back and let the event run its course.

But every movement has to begin somewhere.

'It starts from the bottom upwards,' Farhad Khan, 18, said of the spirit of opposition he believes must halt the rulers who have 'eaten away Pakistan like rust.'

He looks increasingly nervous as he approaches the rally site past police holding firearms and the wooden canes that were used to lash participants of numerous rallies by lawyers, journalists and civil rights activists in recent weeks.

Tuesday's protest passed more or less peacefully with no known detentions apart from Khan's. While lacking the high drama of other recent developments in Pakistan, it indicated the gradual stirring of a significant part of the population.

In response to the current situation, the students established a countrywide Muttahida Tolba Mahaz (United Students' Front), an alliance of the students' wings of various political parties.

Raja Imran Junjoa, 24, the Islamabad head of the People's Students' Federation (PSF), attached to the Pakistan People's Party of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, said this will 'encourage millions of students to join our struggle against the dictatorship.'

'We are having difficulty in mobilizing the students since they have been politically disengaged for several years due to a ban on students organizations,' Junjoa said in the capital. 'But slowly their participation in protest rallies is becoming increasingly visible.'

'Today, we joined the lawyers and the civil rights activists in two rallies in the capital. Tomorrow (Wednesday) we intend to hold demonstrations in at least three colleges and one university in Islamabad and Rawalpindi,' he said.

Students in the past played a crucial role in Pakistan's opposition politics. They were the prime force in the mass movement against the dictatorship of President General Muhammad Ayub Khan in the late 1960s, led by a young Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the man who became prime minister and whose daughter Benazir, a former premier herself, now vows to spearhead opposition to Musharraf.

And again in the late '70s when the opposition accused Zulfiqar Bhutto of rigging elections, students were the backbone of the movement against him.

Since the students have traditionally opposed every authoritarian regime, successive military rulers tried to suppress and neutralize them. President General Zia ul Haq, who ruled the country from 1977 to 1988, banned students' organizations, and hundreds if not thousands of students were arrested and dozens killed under his rule.

Musharraf re-introduced the ban after he seized power in a military coup in 1999, saying the students should concentrate on their studies.

Now, during today's escalating confrontation, opposition parties are clearly looking to tap this energetic resource as they square up to the president.

'Now is the time to mobilize the students,' said Abdul Rashid Chughti, general secretary of Khan's party in the city of Faisalabad, located 100 kilometres west of Lahore.

'When students are involved it is more successful, fruitful, the young people are more enthusiastic, old people have seen a lot of movements and don't think there will be change in the country.'