ISLAMABAD October 6, 2006: A book titled "The MMA Offensive" three years in power (2003-2004), is launched by ActionAid Pakistan here on Friday. Authored by a young writer and activist Ms.Nazish Brohi, the book presents an analysis of three years in power of MMA (Muthahida Majlis e-Amal) a religio-political party mainly active in NWFP areas in Pakistan. The book is a first of its kind initiative, towards unmasking the true face of MMA and presents a clear picture of the political strategic agendas of MMA.

The speakers for the occasion included author of the book Ms.Nazish Brohi, Dr Fauzia Saeed, Ms Nasreen Azhar, Dr.Tariq Rehman, Dr.Saba Gul Khattak and Country Director of ActionAid Pakistan Dr.Rubina Saigol.

While speaking at the occasion Nazish Brohi said that women were centre to politics and not peripheral to it as portrayed by MMA that had been saying that Pakistan was going through moral crisis and the alliance had been busy implanting policies that only add to the miseries of women. She further indicated that MMA had succeeded to diffuse its religio-political ideology in all four provinces of the country.

In her book Nazish writes that for MMA the 'us' is a moral community of 'pious Muslims', who abide by their interpretation of religion, observe the ritual ,and respect their dress code, share their distaste for arts and culture. ‘Them is everybody else, who then translate into ‘bad Muslims or 'non Muslims'.

Dr Saba Gul while speaking at the book launch said that there was a dire need of this kind of book and its an excellent piece of writing. She said, "It is very easy to target wests cultural symbols MMA is doing that and promoting a particular kind of culture".

The writer says MMA needed the long term framework to assure the political relevance and found the solution in creating and then responding to a morality crisis. To do this, the MMA targeted repositories of culture i.e. women, education, media, cultural expressions, and have usurped history.

The author writes "to entrench their transient support base and their permanence relevance ,the MMA has packaged Pakistans political crisis as a religious and morality crisis and are crafting policies to respond to this projection".