The Future Is Another Country: 2050 And Beyond

Akash #263 you write ``I was going to write a very angry post in generalisations after reading Urstruly. But then I accidentally read Tahmed`s post and I decided against it. ``

It shouldnt take a response from me or anyone else to urstruly`s posts for you to stop from making generalizations about Pakistanis. What is wrong is wrong, and stereotyping people is wrong -there are murderers as well as social workers, scientists as well as illiterates, subhumans as well as humans in every religious, national or social group.

Ras mian #317,

Didnt you forget to put in that bit about cessation of terrorist activities? Oh Sorry, I forget you dont really care.

Re Hamzad Afaqui (#262):

Yes, one calling himself a Muslim (or a Jew, or an atheist, or plain agnostic, or not calling one’s self anything for that matter…) should be adequate and should not cause an uproar … like the one caused by the mullahs in Pakistan when an Ahmadi calls himself a Muslim. But I fail to understand your post # 191 in light of all this …

By the way … you let Zia and mullahs off the hook way too easily. Persecution of Ahmadis existed even before the times of Bhutto, as evidenced by the 1953 riots in Pakistan. Bhutto singled out Ahmadis for persecution in efforts to unite the rest of the Muslim world on common grounds. This is one issue where all the mullahs are willing to set aside their sectarian and political differences and unite. Zia came later and further capitalized on the anti-Ahmadi sentiment. In order to appease the mullahs, his major power base, Zia and his clan of ullema took persecution of Ahmadis to new heights. Mullah’s role in this cannot be denied and is still evidenced by the fatwas of kuffr and riots incited by the leaders of likes of Anjuman-e-tahaffuz-e-khattam-e-nabuwat-and-god-knows-what-not.

Asad

Oye Mulley UrsTruly Hypocrite:

Read this and weep:

``Pakistan`s military rulers have introduced new laws to enable members of the armed forces to join high court judges in hearing cases of alleged terrorism.

The new legislation allows the government to establish special anti-terrorism courts headed by a panel consisting of three members, which will include a high-ranking military officer.

The change is being introduced by the Pakistani leader, General Pervez Musharraf, as part of a series of measures to curb militant Islamic groups.

In a special order, President Musharraf said terrorism was ``disturbing the peace and tranquillity of the people and menacing their life and freedom, and disturbing the economic activity in the country``.

The special courts will also deal with cases of murder and other serious crimes.

Tough laws

The three members serving in the court will include someone qualified to be a High Court or Sessions Court judge and a magistrate.

Military officers will join high court judges



The third member is to be a serving military officer of a rank not below Lieutenant-Colonel.

The government says the move will help to speed up the lengthy adjudication process.

Under the new law:

All terrorism cases will be transferred to the new courts

Courts will function until 30 November but can be extended

Entire `terrorist network` to be targeted

People who aid and abet terrorists face possible death penalty

But a convict will have the right to appeal

In a landmark speech on 12 January, General Musharraf announced a crackdown on militant Islamic groups in Pakistan and outlawed several radical organisations, including two groups fighting in Indian-administered Kashmir. ``

Saaley Kanjar, you were criticizing India for Jammu and Kashmir Disturbed Areas Act and POTO, now your own country is adopting tough laws to fight terrorism to the resounding ``wah wah`` of Pakistanis. Kuch to sharam karo, kameenapan kee bhee hadh hai..Islamic terrorists can kill rest of the world but civil rights should be protected, but your own people if harmed, forget civil rights...wah rey Pakistani democracy, wah rey Pakistani self-determination

Addendum to previous pos:

YLH, if you do not believe my utterances on dilution of Pakistani and Indian sovereignty, just read the latest column by Ayaz Amir. Much of what he says, applies to India as well.

Re: Layman #167

``…I am not sure an EU type union will work for us at all. We should probably try for something on a lower scale…An EU type union in S Asia will not lead to peace, lower defence outlays etc. Rather, peace and stability are a pre-requisite for an economic union. ``

What comes first - chicken or the egg? Dost-Mittar also expressed similar sentiments as you did (as did Pmishra). YLH rejected entertaining any thoughts of diluting Pakistan`s sovereignty. All are valid reasons although YLH should reconsider whether Pakistan`s sovereignty has not already been significantly diluted in recent months, especially so in light of the emergence of the Pearl kidnappers who go around calling themselves `Organization for the restoration of Pakistani sovereignty`. If you have to lose sovereignty at all, much better to lose voluntarily it in a controlled way to an entity whose composition one can influence (a la SAARC-EU) rather than to a country on the other side of the globe on whom one has little or no influence.

Most Indians` objections are on account of the poor relations between India/Pakistan that will render an EU-type arrangement unworkable, rather than due to any inherent flaws in it. Amongst Pakistanis, Romair likes the idea, but YLH objects to it even on its theoretical basis.

So consider it dead for now. In the long term, I think that most countries in S. Asia will have to give it serious consideration because the deadlock in Indo-Pakistani relations cannot be broken otherwise. And unless that deadlock is broken, there will be rising defence spending, spiraling instability, diversion of funds away from development needs, and no return of democracy to Pakistan. An Indo-Pak détente is a long ways off, and as Zafar Al Talib mentioned, we will curry favors from the US, and humiliate ourselves in the process. Until then, partisans on each side will keep hurling insults at the other side. Keep at it. We are too blinded by hatred of each other to see the forest for the trees.

re: sigalph

{{Don`t lose sleep over it. The Bangladesh-India problems are nothing that cannot be contained within the framework of negotiations by two Commonwealth, pluralist, parliamentary democracies. I doubt India is gonna let go of its Western border problem just because some of you are trying to raise the canard of an Eastern border flareup. Democracies do not fight each other! Sorry, to disappoint you}}

exactly...pakis can`t be expected to understand this...india may have disagreements with its other neighbors, but they are always resolved in a civilized manner, and life goes on...unless the other party is pakistan, which will send terrorists to your country if it doesn`t get what it wants...

Re: Zafar Al Talib

``...but, as an Indian, I find it humiliating...``

Ditto here -- and I suppose, the same applies to Pakistanis as well. That is the price one has to pay for eternal conflict...

Urstruly,

Actually I think Hamid should pick on someone his own size and leave poor Hamzad Afaqui alone; clearly Hamid dances circles around the bantam weight...I have been reading some of your posts and am compelled to ask, are you physically involved in any of the movements you support? I mean, I know its not possible that you are sitting in Canada or the US while supporting violent movements in Kashmir.

hamidm---306

[he always had a gajra of fresh motia wrapped around his wrist as he stood out on the thara swaying to sound of the gungroo, harmonium and tabla ... he was an honorable man]

Yes Broker hamidm there were times when such men could be used as examples to distinguish between honour/dishonour(words becoming increasingly alien to our inglisyphlisised types).

But Pakistan has spawned & imported so many of such kind that it is no longer an embarassment.Au Contrair,it is a shame to be of other kind.

Just as zunkhays are ruling the roost(ha ha co/cks) in the `modern,`rational`,& `personally hygienic`(this was a hoot--seems dog licking your face clean is your concept of it) western world & steely upright softness-seeking being apolegetic,similar `advancement` is taking place what was meant to be Darul-Salaam(Jeru-Salem)----Jeru is Daru in arabi/farsi.Remember Jericho?--oldest city in Falasteen.

PS:Lot of the issues are settled if one reneges & openly declares his disbelief.This dusk to dawn religious (or Eid to Eid religious curfew) is what leads to spiritual schizophrenia (& the off-spring inherit)....I know,I know you do not want the incinerator before the show begins.Secretly you do want to be counted Among the Believers(thank you Naipal) but do let those in tuxedos at the F/parlour know.

Chowkies,

The World Economic Forum has started in NYC. I just heard an very interesting discussion that featured several differing global opinions on the goals and agendas being discussed. If anyone is interested in hearing the full spectrum of perspectives regarding this conference, check out Democracynow.org. Also, two very fine progressive journalists Amy Goodman (Democracy Now) and Aniruddha Das (NYC Pacifica station WBAI`s Asia Pacific Forum) will be hosting a show on 99.5 f.m at 12 EST on February 2nd. It should be possible to hear the broadcast on the Internet as well...

WBAI has been featuring various speakers participating in and protesting/critiquing the WEF and are also covering the alternative conference in Porto Allegro.

Any thoughts?

Musharaff is an admirer of Kemal Ataturk but fortunately NOT his clone.By being less western than the turk,more centrist than radical ,he may quite be the saviour ,Pakistan needs & desrve.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 01, 2002

THE TIMES OF INDIA

EDITORIAL



INDIATIMES

OPINION

Editorial

TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 01, 2002 1:52:59 AM ]



OLLOWING his prime time heroics on January 12, TRP ratings for General Musharraf have shot through the roof. In the western hemisphere, where the past, outside academia, is now the preserve mainly of parody or pastiche, commentators are scrambling to enrol for crash courses in European history.

The reason is to honour a man who the general in Islamabad has claimed as his inspiration for sweeping domestic reforms: The architect of modern Turkey, Mustapha Kemal Ataturk. Like his mentor more than half-a-century ago, General Musharraf has become the quintessential good guy who is taking the fight to the mullahs. Not since Ataturk, we are told, has a leader of an Islamic country made such a bold attempt to “secularise and modernise a Muslim-majority society”.

This bald narrative has its takers in India, but with the signs reversed. After a quick and cursory bow at the altar of itihas — the ironic currency of erudition in a culture where history is increasingly a name for official vandalism — analysts have fallen back on old prejudices. The general, we are told, is a fork-tongued impostor who has about as much integrity as the ubiquitous netaji from a cowbelt mohalla. General Musharraf might have spent seven impressionable years of early childhood in Turkey, concede the doubters, but there is little likeness between him and Ataturk. Where Kemal was a noble crusader clearing Turkey of antiquated religious debris, the general is a petty time-server with dubious credentials and weak intent. Forget reforms, he would have to be lucky to survive the next few months; whether the nemesis is a mad mullah or disgruntled fellow officers.

Surprisingly, these conflicting versions share a deeper metaphysics; disagree as they might on the general as Ataturk’s ghost, they at least agree that it’s worthwhile debating the issue of afterlife in this instance. What is intended to be a case of resurrection, however, turns out, on closer scrutiny, to be no more than a series of biographical coincidences. Both men began their working careers in the armed forces. At a certain stage in life, they made a bid for state power. Naturally, like Ataturk, the general remains wary of democracy.

Contrary to what some might think, the point is not that it is too early to judge General Musharraf’s true intentions. Nor is it that the general’s past record is a poor notice for his modernist ambitions. The point is that commonality — or even identity — of intent, assuming that the general is a perfect mimic man for his mentor, is a weak foundation for comparative history. The same good intentions can, in different historical circumstances, yield different hells. General Musharraf cannot be Ataturk not because that is logically impossible but because the world he inhabits has changed so dramatically. Unlike Ataturk, the general is a prisoner of an age when the roadmap of universal, secular modernity seems more and more like tragic wilderness to an increasing number of (non-western) societies in the world. Fortunately, General Musharraf himself is hardly blind to this dilemma.

He has recently been quoted as saying that his vision for Pakistan is not that of the “westernised” Karachi elite; his dream is that of a moderate Islamic state. And for what it’s worth, the intellectual genealogy for his January 12 speech was not Ataturk’s modernity vs Islam paradigm, but the somewhat forgotten exegetical tradition of apolitical Islam. He often sounded defensive because he can ill-afford Ataturk’s confident air.

This is not a criticism of General Musharraf. It is an argument against his interpreters. Whatever one’s politics, in hindsight it is difficult to view Ataturk and his generation of self-certain modernisers — among them Nehru — without a certain degree of critical ambivalence. In Turkey itself, the mood remains if not despairing at least ambiguous. The Kemalist era is no longer universally regarded as the golden age. Whereas the lure of the European common market and its promised economic rewards is strong, there is a great deal of ferment on the issue of a proper place for Islam in Turkish society.

Since the much sought after Turkish entry into the European Union is not premised on economic considerations alone, there is a strong incentive for the state to keep the genie of radical doubt in the bottle. Meanwhile, Europe remains wary of Muslim Turkey and what its inclusion might do to the cultural homogeneity of the union. No one other than a Berlesconi would dare admit it openly, but the ruse about lack of human and political rights in Turkey standing in the way of its eventual European destiny, is just that — less than a timetable for inclusion than a figleaf for European apprehensions.

Why then, when it comes to Pakistan, are cheer-leaders so eager to applaud the general’s Kemalist pretensions? Perhaps, the uncritical enthusiasm betrays a sub-text. Insofar as General Musharraf is hailed as an heir to Ataturk, there is an implicit suggestion that the only legitimate way of dealing with Islam is to consign it to the margins of public life. After all, if Ataturk deserves a footnote in the history of the 20th century, it is because he did more than anyone else to purge Turkish society of Islamic influences; not just at the level of substantive state ideology — from western jurisprudence and civil code to the replacement of the lunar Islamic calendar — but also at the level of symbols — from a ban on the use of the fez cap or the veil in public to a forced renunciation of the traditional Arabic script in favour of a Roman one.

Unfortunately, the battle between universal reason and modernity on the one hand and conservatism and tradition on the other can no longer be viewed through a binary matrix of good vs evil. Ataturk might have thought it possible in his time, but we are not allowed that hubris — not after two decades of identity politics which makes nonsense of such simple-minded distinctions. In sum, General Musharraf’s predicament is a global one.

The irony is that the same circumstances which invested the general with the halo of a crusader against obscurantism will likely prevent him from carrying out his reformist purge even assuming that he believes in it body and soul.

After all, Zia’s Islamicisation of Pakistan’s polity was no deus ex machina. Bringing the country back from that brink would require the general to transcend Zia’s ideological compulsions and imagine a new basis for a viable political community in Pakistan. It is this challenge — at once global and local — which would determine his fate.

I was browsing through this Pak website www.pak.gov.pk (I know, I know, too much time on my hands) and came across this interesting section:

http://www.heritage.gov.pk/postindep.html

Post Independence Pakistan

``Pakistan was born on the map of the world on 14 August 1947. At its birth Pakistan had two parts commonly referred to as East and West Pakistan.

``During the year 1970 when Pakistan had a war with India, East Pakistan was completely cut off from the West Pakistan and following the elections in 1971, the East Pakistan was separated from the West and since then it is known as Bangladesh.

``Pakistan now has 4 provinces namely, Sind, Balucistan, NWFP and Punjab.``

Hmmm, I thought the elections were in 1970 and the war in 1971. How come the Pak site says the elections followed the war?

Nothing like the Indian Army standing on its borders for Pakistanis to put poverty and illteracy at the head of the list of their problems. At all other times they are more preoccupied with principled stands and India`s fake democracy and fake secularism.

As someone said, poverty and illiteracy donot go away simply by labelling it `S. Asian`. Pakistan as a sovereign nation has to find its own solutions for Pakistani poverty and illiteracy and leave India to find its own solutions.

Kabir says:
Dukh me`in suminaran sab kare`n, sukh me`in kare`n teh koi
Jo sukh me`in sumiran kare`n tho dukh kaahe hoye

Namely(excuse the rough-and-ready translation)
All remember God in times of distress, none remember him in times of joy,
If you had only thought of God in happy times, there would be no times of distress.

God : poverty, joy : no war, distress : war

PEACE RALLY IN SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA

The Pakistani Americans War Prevention Committee (PAWPC) of the Pakistani-American Congress, brought its caravan for peace between India and Pakistan to the steps of the California State Capitol Building in Sacramento on Friday January 25, 2002. And as with the previous Rally covered by this reporter held in San Francisco earlier this month, it was not the number of people that were present that mattered but more the impact that they made which counts. Just to compare, I even received a call from the Washington Post Newspaper (a career first) on the report written on the San Francisco event. PACWPC’s initiator Dr. Khawaja Ashraf was also interviewed in a subsequent Post report.

The Sacramento Peace Rally was part of what can be termed “A Day of Peace in South Asia” that the Pakistani Community here held with much success. The other events of the day including the visit of Pakistan’s Consul General Raana Rahim warrant a separate detailed report.

Mr. Talat Sattar, Mutahir Kazmi, Abdul S. Khan, Arshad Wahla, Tasawar Khan and myself from the Sacramento region remained at the local forefront of this effort assisting Dr. Khawaja Ashraf, Prof. Jehangir Hamdani and Javaid Syed from the San Francisco Bay Area. And just to mention here, we are indebted to Mr. Rashid Ahmad for his help in the initial planning of this Rally and I believe that due to the many other responsibilities that he had on the same day, this later split up of individual efforts worked in our collective favor.

The Sacramento peace rally venue, the California State Capitol has historically been utilized for many of our Community efforts due to its high visibility and the fact that this landmark is a symbol of our vibrant American democracy. And it is here that on this day Ms. Punam Kaura from the local Hindu community and Subedar Joginder Singh representing the Sikhs of this area along with a number of Pakistani-Americans utilized their democratic rights to say “NO” to war between India and Pakistan, whose poor people already suffer the indignity of poverty, illiteracy and the shortage of other basic human needs. This message was echoed at many places in Sacramento throughout the day (on local television (Channel 3) and the Sacramento Bee Newspaper gave it significant coverage the following day in its Saturday edition.

The message from the Pakistani-American community was put together in the form of a petition to the Governor, which was received by Mr. Steve Maviglio, Press Secretary to California Governor Gray Davis. The basic message was two fold: 1) There should be no war between India and Pakistan and 2) A Peaceful and just solution has to be found to the Kashmir Dispute the main source of the problem between India and Pakistan.

Thanks are in order to all that made this Rally possible especially members of our Pakistani-American community from ages 7 to 70 along with our Hindu and Sikh friends for showing their concern for people back home. We are aboard this India-Pakistan peace train in the United States at the moment. Let us hope that the current leadership in India especially and in Pakistan will hear our collective message and stop a great tragedy from happening to a people who already share a great deal beyond just borders.

Ras H. Siddiqui

Hamidm

At least Sharabi Kababi Zaani liberals socialists commies and ataturks ARE resposible for losing half of the country to horrible heeng flavored, idlee eating hindus. And this act does make them zankhay, kanjar, .....etc. etc. as well. Hiding behind some ``gashtis`` with heart of gold does not change this fact. Hamidm your defence was as pathetic as you accuse others of.