Islamists unable to stir up national indignation

Islamabad: For a week after missiles destroyed a religious school in Pakistan's tribal belt suspected of harbouring Al Qaida officers, thousands of angry men, many armed, have stormed through the area's main towns, chanting jihad against America and endorsing suicide attacks.

But hundreds of kilometres away, in the cosmopolitan cities of Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad, relative silence has prevailed.

The difference in response is telling, observers say. It underscores not only an important gap in understanding between the tribal areas and the rest of the country - a gulf that helps keep the area underdeveloped and prone to extremism - but an erosion of the Islamist parties' power on the national stage.

"[The Islamist parties] have used this opportunity to divert people's attention. But in other provinces, people have not responded to the call. They're fed up," says Afrasiab Khattak, former chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

It was supposed to be a raucous week. Fresh on the heels of last Monday's missile attack, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), the main coalition of religious parties and the ruling entity in the semi-autonomous North-West Frontier Provi-nce and Balochistan, called for national protests, hoping to stoke the fires of religious sentiment. In Bajaur and other areas of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, they got what they wanted. Thousands massed for days in several towns, carrying weapons and calling for jihad. It was even announced that a suicide-bomb squad was preparing to attack the military.

But this anger, while certainly significant, barely projected beyond the tribal zone. In Islamabad, there were hardly any protests to be seen. Lahore, a city of 10 million, saw a turnout of 500. In Karachi, 5,000 shouted slogans, hardly significant for a metropolis of 15 million.

This contrasts sharply with past protests. In January, when another militant hideout was targeted by the CIA in Bajaur, 10,000 people flooded the streets of Karachi to protest. Not long afterward, the MMA summoned 15,000 protesters in Lahore alone when the controversy over the Danish cartoons erupted, although many speculate that widespread discontent with the government, and not mere religious sentiment, brought them to the streets.