Burqa Vaganza – A Satirical Backlash

abu_safwaan.Urstruly,

None of the 7 demolished mosques were built illegally. That`s why I had asked abu_safwaan to check his facts. All this press reporting about the madrassa trying to occupy land forcibly is propaganda and organized disinformation, while the factual position was available on the Jamia website before it was shut down, as well as clarified in all media interviews of the Ghazi brothers.

The demolition of the mosque adjoining the madrassa was the last straw which precipitated the current movement. This mosque was not in the original Islamabad masterplan but sanctioned later personally by Zia, and the Jamia has papers to prove it. CDA does not deny it either. However the sanction was revoked for road widening and notices given to the Jamia. When these notices were not honored, CDA demolished it. That`s when the girls occupied the library next door (which is in fact just one 14x12 room ... hardly a building) to protest and things took on their own momentum after that.

Only the adjoining mosque was in management and control of the Jamia. It didn`t have anything to do with the other six. They nevertheless included all demolished mosques in their demand to rebuild obviously for unselfish reasons.

The current position is that the Government has agreed to build 4 out of the seven mosques in their original locations, while 3 will be relocated. Work is continuing on the adjoining mosque and prayers will commence soon when the occupation of the `library` will end.

However, there is certainly expansion/extension by the madrassa on extra land in excess of that allotted to it, which they acknowledge and for which they have been offering to pay at market rates, but CDA doesn`t want to sell it to them. Nevertheless that is not the contentious issue at the moment. The issues are the mosques which are perfectly legitimate.

#355 by dullabhatti re #332

... but my feeling is it was a figure of speech....

Your feeling is quite wrong. CJ is referring to and reaffirming the preamble to the constitution (tamheed) which says exactly what he said in urdu. This preamble has been reproduced on many boards and extensively discussed recently, but you have obviously missed all that.

teshah #353 Mukhtaran Mai`s family no doubt lacked the gunmen necessary to inflict revenge upon those who attacked her. That simply means her family is weak in the ``might is right`` environment of the Pakistani village, it does not mean that her family lacked ``ghairat``. The entire world has in fact applauded her courage, and the Washington Post had an article titled ``A courageous Pakistani woman``. The only beghairat in Pakistan are individuals like you who think it is OK for a woman to be raped if she is from a poor socio-economic status.

As for your referring to me mockingly as ``dear gujjar`` - I realize that many gujjars are considered ``low caste`` by many Pakistani ``muslims``. Rest assured, however, that that does not bother me. I dont have a need to claim to be of the Quresh khandaan or a Syed or of Arab or greek descent in order to bolster my self-esteem.

And in any case, gujjars have a proud history and have nothing to be ashamed of - they came to India in the 5th century AD, and by the 9th century were the dominant empire in india, the gurjara-pratihara empire, that fought of the invading arab armies under mohammed bin qasim, forcing the arabs to go north from sindh rather than east. They fell only when attacked on both sides, by the turkish invaders from the north and the Rashtrakutas from the south in what is now maharashtra in india. It was a gujjar (Gujjar Singh) who ruled over lahore and saved it from the marauding pathans of ahmed shah abdali. It was because gujjar troops in delhi were the first to rebel against the british in 1857 at meerut, and so were declared a mutinous tribe and stripped off their land by the british and thus pushed into the low socio-economic status that many gujjars live in. In the India-Pakistan wars, gujjars have fought bravely on both sides, earning highest military honors (vikram chakar in india, and the first nishan-e-haider in pakistan). Khem Karan (the only major indian town ever to fall to the pakistan army) was captured by a brigade led by a gujjar. I could go on, but you get the picture.