they're notorious in pakistan for occupying Sunni mosques and colloquially known as "qabza group", meaning "occupiers"
we are also to blame for some things (speaking aside from this incident, about occupations generally, Sunni mosques being made into deobandi). Sunnis have been complacent for a very long time and never focused on da3wah to masses and acquisition of mosques and spreading of the Ahlus Sunnah maslak with hikmah, planning and strategy. we don't have to be occupiers like them, but there are a bunch of things we missed doing for quite some time.
Wouldn't it be wise for Sunni jamaats to work with Dawa-e-Islami to counter the najdi/deobani/wahabi threat?
Yes. DI should have co-operated better with these other jama'ah and understood that instead of opening up new madressas they could have contributed to these existing and established madressas but they were unwilling to sacrifice their name (DI). Unfortunately.
Yes. They did not do that. btw Just to be clear, I am talking about specific cases that have occurred in South Africa. I can't comment on other areas as I don't live there. The landscape is completely different in South Africa compared to other areas/countries.but if they didn't do it like that then I can see why it may upset someone.
Which town/city was this in brother if I may ask?It would be wise but unfortunately many sunni jamaats & sunni masjids do the opposite.
I will give you one example that I've witnessed myself recently, a prominent business man decided to allow DI to use a 3 story empty mill that he owned, rent free for a number of years to run a Maddrasa, Faizan e Madina and hopefully a Jamiah soon also.
The local main sunni masjid found out and sent a group of it's representatives around and asked him to take the place back off them. When he refused they left and then heard about a objection to the council by non muslims about the opening of this place, so individual from their side decided to also get involved in adding backing to the objections to get the place shut down. This is the state of sunnis in our time unfortunately.
The thing is if DI hadn't have accepted the offer of this kind individual to use his premises then it would have almost certainly gone into deobandi hands as main Deo reps turned up a few days later saying their looking for a place to use etc. He told them his just given the keys to DI.
What would have our local sunni masjids done then if he had become upset that DI said no and instead gave it to the devs to establish a center right in the middle of the community.
Sunnis need to learn to work with sincerity and stop the agendas small & big to succeed.