The Panel of Vendettas at UC Berkley

re: the article

Ms Sarwari,

Sorry to say buy in my books, you are a whiner. You did not like what was being said. I did not find anything grossly wrong.

1. Do you deny that Pakistan has been a haven for terrorists? Do you deny the link between one terrorist connected with the IA hijacking and Md Atta to whom he remitted a certain amount of money?

You ask:

``Why then is our existence questioned till today?``

Who is questioning your existence? You Pakistanis seem to suffer from some kind of identity crisis. I do not see Bangladeshis posing the same question to Indians.



``Why does Mr. L. K Advani of India propose that we should reunify?``

For the same reason stated above. He knows the best way to get a Pakistani throw a fit is to question his identity. Best response would be not notice him at all.

``Why should Kashmir be made a religious issue and not a human rights issue?``

Pakistan`s claim over Kashmir is purely based on the fact that Kashmir valley has muslim majority. It has been training and infiltrating the valley and has been responsible for much of the suffering. No doubt Indian Army has also contributed to that suffering but the Indian army has come there in response to terrorism and is defending its turf. The world knows this but Pakistanis keep deluding themselves. This also answers your next question:`` Why does India have a veto over International mediation?``. India does not have a veto but the world does not see India as the culprit. Paksitan`s dabbling with terrorism and being a safe haven for many of the world terrorists has been taken note of. How can you claim any moral standing on the Kashmir issue when the terrorists that have been training in your madrasaas have been going around killing people all around the world.

``Why did the spiritual guru of the Modern world, Mr. Deepak Chopra, add a chapter of fundamentalism in Pakistan when his book was aimed to heal the world after September 11th?``.

Go, ask him. Part of healing is to understand the cause of misery. Pakistan`s ISI, terrorists that it harbors are a part of the misery. To understand Pak is to understand the root of terrorism.

``Significant evidence of the December attack on the Indian Parliament to the Pakistan-based terrorist groups. (Evidence that is sealed behind the four walls of the Indian Government, but he seems to be taking the governments word for it, and people call him a critic.``

Come on, now. Ms Sarwari, Even you should have known by now the link between the terrorist who killed Mr Pearl and the attack on the Indian parliament. I just finished watching hardball on MSNBC. The editor of ``The News`` who has fled to the US for fear of his life, has revealed how the ISI was unhappy with some of the editors of that newspaper and wanted them sacked for revealing the link that i am talking about. This guy refused and had to flee the country.

Hope next time you whine less. Whining kind of takes away objectivity.

Sridhar

Ref ylh #: 23

[Like I explained before, whereas Jinnah is the ideal we aspire too, Bhutto is what we are `Greatness Interrupted by Great Human Flaws`!]

Why do you consider Jinnah to be merely an ideal that you aspire to?

After all, you guys took Jinnah`s statement that Hindus and Muslims cannot live together and carried it to the logical next step: Punjabis and Bengalis cannot live together. In fact, ZA Bhutto had a very big hand in demonstrating that. ZA Bhutto then proved that Ahmadiyas and Muslims cannot live together.

Ref ylh #: 13

[Let us NOT assume all Indians are bad!]

Why, thank you so very much! My cheeks are burning as I blush!

[Kuldip Nayar my favorite writer from Dehli wrote this awesome piece in Dawn a few days ago.

.....What Pakistan did in 50 years to disfigure history, India, under the BJP-led government, is trying to do in five years, its term till next parliament elections. At the command of Human Resource Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, history is being rewritten to glorify ``Hindu culture.`` Even otherwise, there is an effort to saffronize the country. It is a pity that the BJP-led government should be busy in polarizing society. It will be counter-productive because the majority in the Hindu community believes in pluralism and open society.]

I am waiting to see if the new textbooks will stop at saying that Akbar married a Hindu wife or will go to the next step and point out that his son through that Hindu wife was raised as the rabid Hindu-hating Jahangir.

I am waiting to see if the textbooks will say Akbar made peace with several Rajput princes or will point out the wanton slaughter of every man, woman and child in Chitorgarh.

I am waiting to see if the textbooks will say Akbar was beloved by his Hindu subjects or will continue and state the fact that his bones were dragged out of his mausoleum in Agra while his dynasty was still in power.

You see, I had to re-learn all the history I was taught by reading books by Western historians.

If on the other hand, Kuldip Nayar objects to a few more pages on Chandragupta Maurya (his rule was described in my history books as `the Golden Age`) or the flowering of arts under King Vikramaditya, I really don`t understand what his beef is.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

The conduct of the self proclaimed liberal Congressites like P-mishra have made me realize that Urstruly was right about the Indians all along!

Indians are truly amazing people. I quoted a famous Indian Journalist to prove a point I have been making many times, and which Indians like P-Mishra have made a point to contest. So I quoted Kuldip Nayar and asked rhetorically `Is Kuldip Nayar a delusional Pakistani too?` meaning that is obviously a well known fact that Kuldip Nayar is a well respected Indian journalist and politician. Instead once again I got a barrage of abuse, insults and taunts from the likes of P-Mishra who claim to be `Moderates` in India. This time they claimed that I was suggesting Indians would have trouble with Kuldip Nayar. Perhaps bigots like P-Mishra should read the first line of my post 13 ``Let us NOT assume all Indians are bad!``

I will repeat this story again: This Pmishra is the same person with whom at one point I was the most respectful I have been to anyone on these boards. Yes he proceeded to twist my words about my post about Bipan Chandra, in which I had merely mentioned that Bipan Chandra considers Jinnah as one of the 10 greatest Indians of all time which he did. That was the only reason I mentioned Bipan Chandra. I never said I agreed with his `Jinnah Hypothesis` and yet P-Mishra used Bipan Chandra`s article to somehow claim that all my points were ill founded, without even reading the crux of my argument which rested on authors like Sailesh Kumar Bandopadhaya, Dr Ajeet and Prakash Almaieda and their books about Jinnah, all three of them Indian Nationalists, the first two of whom defend Jinnah against the charge of communalism rather brilliantly.

I replied to him within hours and with the utmost respect even praising him for his work on Mohandas Gandhi. But two weeks later this reptile re appeared on chowk to accuse me and lie about me declaring that I had never responded. This is the best of Indian `intellectuals` ... You can go see for your Pankaj Mishra`s name on Google. The best amongst you are dishonest liars. Pankaj Mishra`s only problem with me is that I challenge his narrow minded views, I challenge his `Good vs Evil` hypothesis on which he has built the tale of Indian moral superiority in his mind. I challenge his basic belief system, and clearly I have read more than this scion of Indian Intellectualism ... so I have to discredited and my character has to be assassinated.. Why? Because I fight P-Mishra`s misplaced emotionalism with true facts, something which P-Mishra has made a career out of avoiding.

Look at my responses to P-Mishra which are full of respect and are in a spirit of intellectual debate:

http://www.chowk.com/bin/showr.cgi?f=fversey_jan2002&n=100#reply432

Instead of debating with me on the facts. Mr. P-Mishra the great intellectual took the easy way out. He decided to character assassinate me like many of his countrymen. Does this individual deserve my respect? This individual who has repeatedly lied about me and adopted a degrading and humiliating tone with me?

And then people like anNy ask me why I call these fools what I call them!



PMishra,

``As you lack experience with democracy``

Typical arrogance from a typical Hindu Nationalist bigot. Goes to show that the difference between BJP and Congress is only slight: Congress is full of Hypocrites, BJP is not! Ideology is all the same. Bigotry exemplified!



Having been passionately involved as a party member with the Democrat Campaign for 2000 I think I have seen true Democracy a little more closely than you Indians have. Granted that now I classify myself as a Moderate Republican but that too shows true democracy. My post was in response to your shameless assertion a few weeks ago, the after math of which exposed your bigoted and dishonest character, enshrined undoubtedly in your creed as a Congressite Hypocrite.

Amazing isn`t it, if I quote some Indian, I don`t have experience in Democracy, and if I don`t well then I am without any `objective` sources. You are such a shameless little P.O.S... I can`t believe at one point I respected you. With people like you, India will surely dig its own grave.

YLH.

He is also a visiting professor at Columbia University from what I understand.

Romair.

I understand and agree that healthy critisism is great and the more it ouchs the truer it is, however it was one bad combination of words and the time and the place. It left a very bitter taste for me. After Mr. Pradeep I was clapping perhaps the loudest to welcome Mr Khalid and my face dropped to the floor after he was done. Still I survived, what cracked me was when Sumit Sahab took Mr. Khalid`s words and used it to vindicate Indian agression on our borders today. Khalid Ahmed`s writing is still great, he still continues to screem down the fundoos in the government and for that respect is due.

You are right what it all boils down to is who makes the greater strides on the ground. Kites do raise in oposing winds and I`m sure this has propelled me to get the mess out before I am out of here.

Hobbyty,

Radical=distinguished nowadays. :(

Ras,

Thanks for your support that day.

Aisha Fayyazi Sarwari

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

I do not agree with the basic premise of this article. What Sarwari is suggesting here is that why aren`t we as coniving, as deceiving, and as untruthful as the rest, especially like Indians. My question is why cant we be as truthful as we can be. As a `people` I want my government to be honest, transparent, and truthful. We definitely do not want to create an Orwellian world. If third world propaganda had any effect in Western world the west would definitely have acted on Indian propaganda and its psychotic sommersaults to lure the american favors, after 9/11. The West and US are amoral, conscienceless, neocolonial powers who have their own agendas of self-interst on top. What do you think if US wanted to go against Paksitan after 9/11 would it have taken more than a week for CNN to build a case against Paksitan? Would it take more than a week even now? think about it.

I dont want Paksitani government lying to me. I think Paksitan`s Kashmir case is solid on moral and legal grounds. I dont want Paksitani government con me into beleiving that we have a GDP of 5% when we beg for more debt from neocolonial powers. I do not want Paksitani government lie to me that we have a 40% literacy rate when the maximum number of copies any newspaper prints is no more than 100,000; when no book is published in numbers more than 5000 per edition; when there hasn`t been a single high school opened in Paksitan since 1992. I dont want thugs to rule my country; I dont want thugs telling me what to do; I dont want thugs telling me what truth is.

In the end let me paraphrase what Jesus Christ (pbuh) said ``A person dishonest in little things is also dishonest in big things``. So I want my government to be truthful in all things; big as well as little.

Romair

Sadly on Chowk atleast you have never shown any aptitude for a more cognitive understanding of History and Historical figures. To you, they remain Heroes and villians.

``I hope they take heed of his words on Bhutto.``

Further down from the article:

``The fall of the Bhuttos is a family tragedy and a national one for Pakistan.``

Like I explained before, whereas Jinnah is the ideal we aspire too, Bhutto is what we are `Greatness Interrupted by Great Human Flaws`!

Wolpert says:`` Ms. Bhutto inherited her father`s charisma, passion for politics and insatiable ambition, but also his cruel streak and willingness to undermine democratic institutions.``

And isn`t that true of us? Aren`t we Pakistanis all that and more?

Wolpert goes on: ``Yet despite his Western education, he never rose above his feudal roots, always practicing saisat, vengeance.``

Is that not true of us? Our father taught us constitutionalism, but our mother surely was always deeply feudal. We have remained Feudal despite best of us having been educated in Oxbridge and Harvard.

You declare:

``A country is in a sad state, if its youth cannot even decide who their heroes should be.``

So by suggesting that Zulfi Bhutto was a Pakistani Nationalist, he has become a hero to me? He was a great Pakistani Nationalist who would have gladly died for Pakistan. Whatever his faults, there is no denying this. One reading of `Zulfi Bhutto of PAKISTAN` makes this abundantly clear.

ylh #13

As you lack experience with democracy and all your time is taken up with worshipping at the shrine of Jinnah, you will naturally think that Indians would have an issue with Kuldip Nayar. Far from it.

There is a rich variety of debate and discussion in India, and Kuldip Nayar is one of the more important figures (also a member of Parliament). If you read his article carefully, you will see he is warning indian society that it may be going down the poisonous path taken by Pakistan for pver 50 years. Who can quarrel with such an analysis?

BTW, the curriculum changes introduced by the BJP have been stayed by a indian high court judge. In other words, they will not take be implemented.

I realize that you may not be able to understand concepts like these (after all you presented a hate site like hindunity.org as the voice of all indians!). Good luck in la-la land!

Romair,

You don`t know anything about Bhutto. In any event, he is the microcosmic image of our nation. That is something Wolpert said as well. Whatever his faults he was a true Pakistani Patriot. Whoever denies this is denying History. Even our president Musharraf is a closet admirer of Bhutto..

As for this constant tirade against ZAB and BB, that you self proclaimed intellectuals carry out, you can babble all you want...

-YLH

Ras #6: ``We should have a ``Zulfikar Ali Bhuuto Chair`` of Pakistan Studies at UC Bekeley someday.

``

Why are you bent on having Pakistan destroyed. Bhuttos` chairs should not be at Berkeley, they should be in jail. Maybe that is why Pakistanis put their money towards mosques, and not towards Berkeley chairs.

Since all Pakistanis excitedly jump up and down about Wolpert`s words on Jinnah. I hope they take heed of his words on Bhutto.

``STANLEY WOLPERT, ``History`s Hold on Pakistan ,`` New York Times, November 12, 1996----

LOS ANGELES -- Four years before his fall from power in 1977,President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan warned his nation, ``What is built on hypocrisy and deceit must finally crumble.`` But he never took that message to heart. Nor, her opponents say, did his daughter, Benazir.

Just like her father before her, Benazir Bhutto cleverly used populist oratory, inspirational promises and idealistic national platforms to rise to power. If words had the fructifying powers of water, they would have brought bountiful harvests to impoverished Pakistan. Instead, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto`s quest for power led to charges of corruption, removal from

office and, in 1979, his execution. For the last eight years, her critics contend, Ms. Bhutto has seemed determined to carry on her father`s troubled legacy. When she was ousted

as Prime Minister last week by President Farooq Leghari on accusations of corruption, even some former allies despaired of this family drama.

The parallels are clear. Ms. Bhutto inherited her father`s charisma, passion for politics and insatiable ambition, but also his cruel streak and

willingness to undermine democratic institutions.

As he campaigned for power, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto claimed to be a reformer. Yet despite his Western education, he never rose above his feudal roots, always practicing saisat, vengeance.

Indeed, a Cabinet minister who dared to complain that Bhutto had been late to a dinner reception was beaten unconscious by his men. Many of

his promises for reform were broken. A self-proclaimed socialist, he enacted land reforms that protected landowners.

Benazir Bhutto started her political career with Western credentials, degrees from Radcliffe and Oxford, and a great deal of goodwill.

Returning home in 1986 after a self-imposed exile, she endured imprisonment before the popular movement she led helped end the

military dictatorship. In 1988, she won the country`s first general election

in more than a decade.

It was a brief interlude of hope and pride, especially throughout Sind province, where cries of ``Jiye Bhutto!`` (Bhutto lives!) greeted the Prime Minister.

But that euphoria quickly ended, even among those who worked closely with her in the Pakistan People`s Party. Instead of focusing on efforts to

help develop the economy and trying to provide education and work for tens of millions of poor Pakistanis, Prime Minister Bhutto worried about

how best to immortalize her father, planning costly monuments and hoping to persuade the World Court to exonerate him.

Her term ended after only 20 months, when President Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismissed her for what he said was incompetence and corruption.

After winning back power in the 1993 election, she made sure to hold a firm grip on it.

She staged a bloody crackdown on armed rivals, who conducted a campaign against her in Karachi.

She directed a campaign of harassment against judges and reporters. Meanwhile, her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, has been widely accused of

enriching himself from government contracts.

Her hold on power has split her family. She is estranged from her mother, and in September her brother, Mir Murtaza Bhutto, who had been

involved in a long feud with his sister, was gunned down outside his home in Karachi.

The fall of the Bhuttos is a family tragedy and a national one for Pakistan. The glorious legacy Zulfikar Ali Bhutto hoped to leave his children, tightly held for almost half a decade by his daughter, lies in ashes. Few Pakistanis mourn the dismissal of Benazir Bhutto any more than they now

mourn the fate of her father.

Stanley Wolpert is the author of ``Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan.`` (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/stanley.htm)

ylh #5 ``one of PAKISTAN`s greatest Nationalists, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto`` You must mean ``one of PAKISTAN`s greatest Egotists, one of Pakistan`s best educated and at the same time the one of Pakistan`s most primitive and self-centered minds, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto``

ylh #5: ``one of PAKISTAN`s greatest Nationalists, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto``

I hope you don`t seriously consider ZAB a Pakistani Nationalist. He did more to harm Pakistan than even his daughter. His legal prosecution of Ahmadis, thus opening the gates for Pakistan`s religious extreme right. His ill-conceived plans for an attack in Kashmir in 65. His ability to use that attack to strengthen his position in politics, by jumping on the other side of Ayub. His support for the 71 war, the subsequent division of Pakistan, and then once again jumping on the other side for political advantage. His nationalization of Pakistan`s fast growing industries (the most harmful decision in the history of Pakistan). His Federal Security Force (a private army). The FSF`s assasination of his political opponent`s father.

Everytime Pakistan was harmed, Bhutto gained. Yet the original harm done to Pakistan was based primarily on his decision. It is no coincidence that Ayub was discredited after 65, Yahya after 71, yet Bhutto cannivingly jumped to the other side and used these events to his advantage, after having caused the original harm.

He handpicked Zia-ul-Haq, against all military traditions, superseding too many generals, under the assumption that he wanted a COAS he could suppress.

And the lesser said about his off-spring, the better. At the very least, the guy could have raised decent kids. He didn`t even do that.

A country is in a sad state, if its youth cannot even decide who their heroes should be.

Aisha,

``and all Pakistani technocrats do is provide fodder for their claims``

Aisha, you are the embodiment of `Lab pay ati hai Dua ban kar` ... You are a guiding light to all Pakistani Nationalists every where, and you can change the baneful trend.