Caught In Between

Now China is on the action, and what a way to di it. I wonder if any of our jihadis have the guts to go to China to liberate the muslims there. Naah!

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001330017-2001333354,00.html

Alcohol is final insult for the condemned



FROM OLIVER AUGUST IN NORTHWESTERN CHINA



ISLAMIC militants faced the execution squad yesterday, stupefied by drink and driven to their deaths on an open lorry past laughing crowds.

In the afternoon sunlight bathing the People’s Square in Kashgar, northwestern China, several dozen Islamic prisoners were lined up on blue lorries, dazed and barely comprehending.

Standing under a 100ft granite statue of Chairman Mao, the handcuffed Islamic prisoners swayed gently, steadied by white-gloved policemen. Their eyes were bloodshot, their unfocused gaze testament to their confusion. They did not realise they would face the executioner within the hour. As a final insult to their faith, they had been fed alcohol with their last meal.

These men had apparently been captured fighting for an independent Islamic state in the predominantly Turkic province of Xinjiang. For many years separatists have been trying to prise the largely Muslim area from Beijing’s grasp and establish a new nation, East Turkistan. The current confrontation between Afghanistan and the West has heightened Islamic fervour. Many local people sympathise with the Taleban and see little difference between the “infidels” in Beijing and Washington.

Elite troops loyal to Beijing have been posted here since last week, fearing a knock-on effect from Afghanistan. The crisis has also given China’s leaders an opportunity to crack down on separatists with renewed ferocity. And yesterday Beijing government officials turned the sombre moments before an execution into a political rally.

Hundreds of Communist Party members seated in neat rows, with the lorries of Islamic prisoners arrayed before them, applauded a series of blood-curdling speeches quoting President Jiang Zemin. Ringed by banners, flags and propaganda pictures, the prisoners silently peered through their alcoholic haze.

The ghoulish spectacle lasted a full hour, blocking the city’s main thoroughfare. Then, after a final rallying cry and a wail from a police siren, the lorry convoy started its grim journey. Thousands of onlookers lined Liberation Street, surging forward as the lorries sped past. Many laughed nervously when they came face-to-face with the prisoners heading to the execution ground. Only a few children, clutching their veiled mothers’ hands, recoiled from the crowd.

The prisoners said nothing. Each had a large sign hung about the neck. Written in the local Turkic language, not in Chinese, the signs spelt out the men’s crimes, including “disturbing public order” and other catch-all charges.

“Two of those prisoners will die now,” a man wearing an embroidered cap said. “The rest will go back to prison.”

At the main intersection near People’s Square, the convoy split and most of the vehicles headed to the local police station next to the crumbling city wall.

I jumped into a taxi and followed the other half of the convoy, now down to one lorry, its cargo now the two condemned men, and a few police cars.

Crowds still lined the road miles away. Many onlookers were probably told by their bosses to attend the event in a move calculated by party officials to intimidate. The more frightened chickens, the better.

We passed several mosques in this ancient oasis city on the Silk Road. A petrol station attendant said: “This is not the first time I have seen one of these lorryloads.”

The paved road lined with trees and mud huts was heading to the edge of the desert. Where the city finally ended, the lorry abruptly entered a military training ground.

Across the Kashgar desert the two condemned prisoners could take a last look at the mountain range dividing China and Afghanistan. Their hands were still tied behind their backs as they were led off the lorry.

I did not observe the moment of the execution but arriving shortly afterwards I spoke to an eye-witness.

“They got a bullet in the back of the neck,” he said.“It was all over in just three minutes.”

According to local custom, the bullet will be sent to the family of the deceased as a warning to future generations.

Reply Sarwari #520

Abe Sarwari

For your halLLUCINATORY!! thesis ,i give you PhD. in political science from Unintelligent POLYTECHNIC!!!!!

What a logic!!!

Yea,here is example of Pakistani humour .Unfortunately ,even when Pakistanis are serious they get laughter like the village idiot LOL...rotfl rotfl

What ? Did you say you never heard of it ??,

Neither have of your name , or how low your E.Q. & I. Q. is is or if have it even.?????????????

India has to make choiceses & discision & it has.I think they are correct.But even if it turns out to be wrong so what??.Pakistan has made DOZen of them including 10 of them in Kashmir alone .One grave one when you WERE ABANDNED BY, US AND WHY NOW YOU ARE RUNNING BACK TO THEM LIKE lonely DPOnkey longing fOR STICKJ!!!

Those Pakistanis who blame INDIANS for Violence are nothing but Prejudiced,preconceieved,RASCIST.No better e.g. of blaming & BRANDING especially when it is ALL YOUR, FAULT, faltu!!!!

It has somthing due to inability to feel anything ,like a drugged NUMB,zindah laash ,which is walking talking ZOMBIE.Those who do not CHANGE when faced with challenge are doomed! Aisha!

You are nothing but BAKWAS. Go back to school, and YTHios time not, to polytechnic but to proper one, perhaps if you are LUCKY RUTGERS WILL TAKE YOU (only if your maai baap pahyh into BUILDING FUND hahsahah! Rotf!)

ALSO hjave some pity for rATS and FLEAS your relatives!

Reply Hobbyty # 500

“First things first - Yes, we disagree, sometimes deeply - but we have built civility between us and I can say there is a level of trust between us and that our disagreements are not due to ill will”

Alhamdolillah!

“ - having said that, I will proceed to undo all of it”

Mashallah...(sigh)

Kashmir:

“Like I said to Narain - there is really too vast a distance between our understanding of the meaning of events in Captive Kashmir.”

I totally agree. ALL our readings of events in Kashmir flow from the basic assumptions of our different countries and our different nationalisms.

At base the difference is philosophical, or even existential. Does religion form the basis of nationhood, or does nationhood transcend different religions – how big is our tent (to paraphrase the much maligned Daniel Quayle – btw didn’t you think Marilyn Quayle had a scary haircut?) Yeah - I know we`ve been through this before, but bear with me.

From that flow our different perceptions of Partition: success on one hand, and profound failure and human tragedy on the other.

And from that our determination on how to deal with Kashmir. Pakistanis see it as a captive part of their own nation, which would be set free by a recognition that nationality is a function of religion.

India is determined not to let the tragedy of Partition be visited on the country again. Furthermore, a partition based on a definition of nationhood that is inimical to India, not just philosophically, but practically. (140 million Indian Muslims mixed into India’s fabric like zari in a sari – how can one even think of separating them without shredding the sari in the process? It is not a far fetched analogy. North India has not totally recovered from Partition to this day. The wound has not yet healed. That is why we are so sensitive to the possibility of another one like it.)

I would agree that on a philosophical level, India does not believe in the justification for Pakistan. And perhaps that comes through, and results in Pakistan feeling threatened. On the more mundane level, I truly believe that India has nothing to gain from attacking Pakistan, diminishing Pakistan’s prosperity, encouraging the further break up of Pakistan – all of this would be bad for India - and that this is recognised at a strategic level by our Government.

Evidence: in ALL of the wars fought between the two countries, India (perhaps by reason of size, whatever, I am not interested in comparing the size of our respective militaries` bhindis) has prevailed – but has ALWAYS dealt far more generously with Pakistan than it absolutely had to. This is not the attitude of a country which wants to destroy Pakistan. Neither was it charity. India needs Pakistan to succeed if India is to succeed. It is that simple. As has been amply demonstrated, a Pakistan which hates India is not good for India. Further evidence: India has held back in the struggle over Kashmir, even before the Nuclear option became available to both countries. Even when Pakistan was engaging in bizarrely antagonistic behaviour like trying to flood the country with bogus rupees. Let`s not get into the Khalistan thing, but essentially more of the same: extreme provocation met with restraint.

I realise this is an Indian point of view. But please take it in good faith. I am trying to explain why we think the way we do. (Who is we? All Indians who think like me of course….heheheheheh)

Anyway – I think that both of raised very valid points in our last posts on the subject – understanding what these points mean is, I am afraid, a function of our different assumptions, and hence the facts seem to point in one direction for you, and in another for me.

I seem to recall being told in a Political Science class in college that while it is very hard to change people’s deeply held beliefs, it is possible to alter the way they act on them, or behave. I think that while it is good for Indians and Pakistanis to understand each others motivations, what is more immediately important is to have us behave decently with each other, or at least not maliciously or harmfully.

When it comes to Kashmir, this seems to indicate that the countries need to find a solution that both they and the Kashmiris can live with, thereby ending the bloodshed. Too many years have passed while Indians and Pakistanis have repeated their points of view ad nauseum without essentially changing anything – and while we could put up with that so long as people were not being killed in Kashmir, it is less and less a morally acceptable position.

So…what is needed are practical, concrete suggestions, and a willingness to compromise on the implementation of our beliefs about our nation. Hard to swallow, but that’s the truth as I see it.

Btw, I will read Jalal’s book if I can find it. I admit that this interests me more than Soroush, whom I have still not given up on. Expect a post on the subject in, oh, perhaps two or three years. :-)

Re: radicalisation of even a small proportion of Indian Muslims – I suspect that this has already happened, and that it spells nothing but trouble for the subcontinent, especially for India’s Muslim population, but in the long run also for Pakistan. I have a belief in India, and I think that this trouble can and will be overcome, but I wish that we did not have to waste precious lives and time on what is essentially a negative issue.

Taliban:

Hobbyty, I am not questioning the impact of ethnicity or religion on democratic politics. It is certainly there. But when ethnicity or religion becomes the basis of politics, I cannot see it resulting in anything but disastor in heterogeneous countries and nations (such as India, Pakistan or Afghanistan). I am willing to be persudaded otherwise, but even Lebanon – which tried to give every major religious/ethnic group in the country a guaranteed slice of power – proved to be unstable. (Yes, external powers fought proxy wars there, but they were able to so by exploiting the fissures and tensions generated by the interaction between Lebanon`s changing demographics and a static power sharing arrangment based on past demographics.)

“… I think that you are being too trusting of the motives of the American Administration.”

On the contrary – I don’t trust them further than I can throw them, BUT just because I don’t trust them doesn’t mean that I automatically support their enemies. In this case their enemies are the worse of two evils.

“What is about it Indians, that they deposit all faith and good in the hands of people thousands of miles away and deposit all evil in their own neighbors and peolpe with whom they have had relations for more than a millenia?”

It’s time for a charm crusade!!!!!! (Please excuse the unfortunate choice of words.)

Shall we rescript the Agra summit? Sushmaji will be sent on a tour of duty to Ladakh, in winter (so she has to travel by yak and mobile phone recharger will “unfortunately” be dropped in the river by our operative in her entourage). I await your suggestion as to what you lot will do to make sure that Musharraf wins Indian hearts and minds instead of poking them in the eye.

“Only Muslim perception is at work here then? yes? Been on a flight recently? or a grocery store or anywhere else where you have identified yourself as Al-Talib? What do you think of those perceptions?”

Hobbyty – we cannot allow our religion to be spoken for by Mad Mullahs and then expect this to have no impact on the way we ourselves are seen. I totally understand how difficult it is to stand up to them, and also how impossible it is in some circumstances, but if we don’t make clear that they do not speak for all Muslims, what can we expect when they start killing people in the countries in which we live? We cannot support their understanding/representation of Islam, either by speaking for them or by staying silent when we should oppose them, and then be surprised when people bundle us in with them in their perceptions. Unless we’re part of the solution we are part of the problem. And not getting involved is, as has become apparent, not an option.

All your concerns about the US filling a power vacuum in the area are justified. But what is the best concrete outcome for the people of the area – and why? I’m asking about roti kapda makaan issues – not intangibles like “speaking for Islamia”. Every statement from OBL about Muslims being oppressed by the West is TOTALLY undercut by a single Muslim going without food or shelter that OBL didn’t help with his money (which he spent on arms instead). I am wary of “leaders” who do nothing for the people in whose name they claim to speak.

“The message of terrorism is that the days of arrogance are over, that if you push, you should expect to be pushed back.”

Hobbyty, your reasoning frightens me. Mardanagi dikhane se kisi ka pet nahin bhartha. Aur yeh bhi hai, ke mardanagi dikhane vale kabhi bhooke nahin rahthe.

There is a famine in Afghanistan. Pictures of ordinary Afghans leaving the country show many frightened, thin people who are obviously going without the basic necessities. Contrast this with pictures of Taliban spokespeople.

“And in the US, what kinds of laws and procedures, designed to fight terrorism, how will these impact the lives of Muslim Americans?…I will bet 1 Dollar, that there will be laws that apply or will be made to apply specifically to Arab and Muslim Americans.”

Hobbyty – this is up to Americans, and I include you in their number. You have a duty to influence the outcome to one which is moral.

And forgive me for asking, but on one hand you seem to be saying that many Muslims around the world (including the US) will be ready to hurt America so America had better watch out, and on the other that any wariness of America towards Muslims is totally unjustified and unfair. This seems contradictory. Please explain. If nothing else the attack on the WTC has clarified that when push comes to shove you cannot run with the hares and hunt with the hounds.

Zafar

Reply Subroto # 521

Mera Rochistan Mahan?

Now that you’ve started this, the possibilities are endless:

Mr Roachistan

For songs:

Saare jahaan se achha, yeh Roachistan hamara hamara… Reeferen hain iss ke…yeh chillum hamara hamara…

Amar shonar Roachistan…

Roachen hain hum chaalees karore…(number needs updating)

Vande Roachistan…

National Anthem should of course be updated to “Dam Maro Dammmmmmmmm”

Or one could imagine Vaju at Lal Qila

“Jai Roachistan!” The crowd roars back…

For websites:

Roachrakshak

Magazines:

Aaj ka Reefer

Pardes Ka Joint

Mashallah, we really have a lot to thank Ms Sarwari for.

Yours in blissed out filth and secular democracy

Zafar

Reply Sarwari # 520

“I urge the likes of you to not invite shame to yourself”

Charity begins at home.

Rsaxena,

…..excuse the nitpicking, but there are no air flights to kabul

Sarwari, daughter of TNT

``In Pakistan about many women are killed annually in the tribal areas in the name of honor. The more attention you bring this the better.``

no sarwari, no, the famous case of murder in the office of asma jahangir aws in lahore, performed by a highly educated and wealthy parents, the elected legislators refused to condemn it, the lahore high court approved it, and the highest sheria court approves the state of affairs, unlike the interest rate charges which the sheria court wants to be removed.

It is the implicit support of you, the children of TNT who are unaware of the state of pakistan. It is the ingrained nature of the TNT in all walks of life that propels the likes of you.

regards and best wishes

jay

Re: 494 Sarwari

``The Indians will most likely ignore this.``

Did you happen to read the address from where this report was published - New Delhi India - hmm, now I wonder where that could be?

Ooh! Got it now thats the capital of roachistan.

And most probably written by Indians/Roaches and thats where the strength of our imperfect secular democracy is - that there are still people who refuse to see the world from a purely saffron perspective, people who will continue to highlight inequities in our society.

Mera Rochistan Mahan.

roachily yours,

Subroto

ref: Ras #518

``This is the generation of hopelessness``

Are things really that bad in Pakistan?

-narain

Thank you Ras and Hobbyty for those links.

As for Nameless and his and her friend: slap yourself.

I would if I had a founder who said ``my inner voice tells me you should not be vaccinated against the disease.`` Who said, ``My inner voice says, do not kill the rats and the fleas even if they spread plague.`` Who said, ``Doctors should abandon medicine``

I would if the very same founder went in for surgery and used the most modern machinery to publish his little-minded news papers.

It is for this reason Sarojani Naidu said, ``It took a great deal of money to keep Gandhi living in Poverty.``

THIS IS BIGOTRY!! I may be a “small-time” bigot in comparison.



Aisha Sarwari

I urge the likes of you to not invite shame to yourself

Reply Sarwari # 507

Ms Sarwari

What is the connection between Honour Killings in Pakistan and Dowry Deaths in India, apart from the fact that they are both horrific and anti-woman?

Since you bring them up together, however, let me point out that in India killing or tormenting a women for dowry is illegal, people go to jail for it. (There is a ward in Delhi’s Tihar jail where evil mothers in law are locked up. Truly.) Much more needs to be done to implement this law fully, but a start has been made.

In many Muslim majority countries Honour Killings are treated as crimes, despite their being a part of local culture. (Jordan and Syria, to name just two.) This shows that it is entirely possible to start to address the problem through the judiciary in countries where Muslims are the majority of the population. Ignoring it, or minimising its seriousnes, won’t make it go away.

If you reply to this post, please do not mention the caste system, Babri Masjid, Palestine, Chechnia, Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah, Partition or Kashmir – they are not related to this subject.

Sincerely,

Zafar

A must read for all at

http://www.time.com/time/asia/news/magazine/0,9754,176029,00.html

sarwari #472

``I rest my case``

I notice that you are really caught between, in doing cut-n-paste.

Do write if you can`t find 10 readers who agree with your interpretation of your own text. I will even accept 5 people who will agree with you.

Re: Education bill on the anvil

A bill to make primary education a fundamental right is pending in Lok Sabha (Lower house)of Indian Parliament. Hope this gives a phillip to the literacy efforts in the country and make it a knowledge based economy.

The URL:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1552000/1552441.stm.

Sridhar

All Hail King Akash

King of the Roaches

PS: Were you talking about the smokable roaches perchance? Also known as joints?

RSaxena :

I would like to hear what you have ro say about Nehru`s attitude towards kashmir, and if he was working against indias interest when he was ready to discuss kashmir, and reach for its solution.