Peace in South Asia

yasser...you never cease to amaze me ;)

re: nasah # 364

nasah ji, but Bilal saheb would have been extremely proud of you too.

Although you are far more passionate (which, in my book, is a very charming quality), you two belong to the same class of wonderful people anyone would be fortunate to know.

And, there is no need for ylh to feel any sense of regret. He did the right thing. He stood up for his beliefs. Passion for their beliefs - that`s what we need for young people.

Bilal saheb was too good a person to have not seen and forgiven the rest.

The Mehdi gives up -- Corruption since Khulfa-e-Rashedeen -- being eliminated by Mehdi Musharraf of Pakistan -- for the first time -- NOW can`t be eliminated afterall -- impossible -- drat -- the last excuse for the General to be the Messiah of Pakistan -- gone

QUETTA: Chairman National Accountability Bureau Lt Gen. Munir Hafeez said that like other accused in corruption cases, the bargaining process could be made with both the former prime ministers.

He said that corruption can not be eliminated completely, it is going on from the era of Khulafa-e-Rashideen and the present government is trying its level best to reduce it.``

-- so how about transferring the power to a civilian -- and going back to the barracks, General???

````There are times in your life when you regret a lot of what you said... it is one of those times for me... while I was learning Professor sahib was way ahead of me... but I didn`t understand ...He wrote to me several times, telling me that I misunderstood him, but I never gave him a chance... I am so sorry. Please forgive me Bilal Sahib.

He was a true humanist and a true patriot... not the lesser and uglier variety of patriotism that I belong to ... but genuine patriotism which sought the greater good for Pakistan and even its neighbors... All I can say is that his inherent goodness changed me a lot.````(YLH)

My son YLH -- that`s one of the most moving, sweetest eulogy and magnificient tribute -- that any human could give to another human being.

I did not know prof Bilal -- I came to Chowk only last year -- BUT readin his article reposted by you YLH -- I could see why such a unanimous praise and acutely felt loss for the profesor by EVERYBODY on Chowk --

Prof Bilal was indeed one of the most civilized Pakistani Humanist intellectual that I will always regret not having the opportunity to communicate with.

And YLH -- my dear young man -- u R a very decent person indeed -- God bless you -- DO work for Peace and Friendship between the two countries -- something that prof bilal chesrished all his short life.

BTW I DID NOT post number 358!

Bilal Ahmed, may God bless him, was humanist. And was adamant about his thoughts.
Although, I have disagreed with his idealist approach, but my respect for him never faltered.

``Prof. Bilal Ahmad was the single most instrumental person to turn chowk into an intellectual discussion platform. Lord knows, how many of us are here solely because of the experience of interacting and learning from him.``

Sameerjb, that latter statement is certainly true for me.

I had no idea that Bilal Ahmed was unwell. Please pass my condolences to his family.

There was one occassion that I used particularly foul language on Chowk - I did not regret that it was hurled at that specific Chowk member, I did regret that it was far below the standard that Bilal Ahmed had set on Chowk. In fact, I directed my apologies to Bilal Ahmed even though he was just a bystander in the interactions.

It behoves us to work for a better India, a better Pakistan as a tribute to Bilal Ahmed. He would not have been happy to leave us when we are still squabbling like petty children or when mobs of Hindus are slaughtering Muslims in Gujarat. He was both a measure of how good we could be and how far we are from that.

Bilal Ahmed was an extremely intelligent and knowledgeable person. Very few people have as much knowledge of the internal details of Paksitani polity as Bilal sahab and fewer still have an intellect to critique it. His absence will be felt by all. I commiserate with the bereaved family.

Prof. Bilal Ahmad was the single most instrumental person to turn chowk into an intellectual discussion platform. Lord knows, how many of us are here solely because of the experience of interacting and learning from him. He was fortunate to be an intellectual and very learned person who diligently tried to pass on all of what he knew. It is very sad that such a remarkable individual is no longer with us. I am absolutley sure that anybody who had the good fortune of knowing him, interacting with him and learning from him, is grieving for the loss of Prof. Bilal Ahmad. I sure will remember him as a friend and a teacher for long time to come.

Ref Reichsmarshall Rommel #: 359

[Case 2:

``The commodification of women is also the basis of the tradition of vani when a woman is handed over to an adversary to settle a conflict, as was the case in an incident that took place on July 23 in the village of Abbakhel, located at a distance of 12 kilometres from Mianwali. In this instance, four murder convicts managed to save themselves from the gallows after agreeing to pay eight million rupees and eight girls of their family as `compensation` to the aggrieved party.

The four convicts, Sardar Khan, Muhammad Akram Khan, Muhammad Ashraf Khan and Asmatullah Khan, were awarded the death sentence in 1988 by the District and Sessions Judge Mianwali, for the 1986 double murder of Noor Khan and Saadullah Khan. After the rejection of their appeals by the superior courts and the President of Pakistan, the convicts and their relatives sought the help of influentials of the area. They approached the Nawab of Kalabagh, Malik Asad Khan, who wielded considerable influence on the aggrieved camp and was on close terms with the deceased Noor Khan. The head of the aggrieved camp, Atta Muhammad Khan, demanded 12 million rupees in compensation and 20 young girls as per the local tradition, but upon the intervention of the Nawab of Kalabagh and other influentials of the area, the aggrieved party brought down its demand to eight million and eight unmarried young girls.``]

Can you, or any other Pakistani, explain how the feudals proposed to spring the convicts from prison? Does the Nawab just walk up to the warden of the prison and gently suggest the release of the convicts and the warden obliges?

I am curious about the criminal justice system in Pakistan.

MY FAVORITE ARTICLE ON CHOWK:

This is my favorite article on chowk and it was by Bilal Ahmad, the first one I actually read on Chowk... and the first time I interacted on Chowk... Overtime I have come to agree with every single word of this beautiful and patriotic article which was motivated by an overwhelming love for Pakistan...

Bilal Ahmad probably didn`t know this but this article was the one which introduced me to the real Pakistan and Jinnah`s vision that he so eloquently mentions and that secularism to which I am so ardently committed... to me this article is right up there with the 11th August speech which I mention so often...

May God bless Bilal Ahmad...

http://www.chowk.com/bin/showa.cgi?bahmad_feb0400

Pakistan: A Failed State?

by Bilal Ahmad



Pakistan needs to foster an alternative discourse that prioritizes the values of humanity, freedom, justice, and peaceful coexistence.

Many scholars and political commentators have addressed Pakistan`s apparent failure as a nation-state by focusing upon the East-West Pakistan divide, military-bureaucracy ruling alliance, the continuity of colonial form of governance, core-periphery relations, etc. In his controversial New Delhi speech, Najam Sethi argues that contemporary Pakistan is embroiled in: (1) the crisis of identity and ideology; (2) the crisis of law, constitution and political system; (3) the crisis of economy; (4) the crisis of foreign policy; (5) the crisis of civil society; and (6) the crisis of national security.

If Sethi`s diagnosis has some merit, Pakistan is a potentially failed state. This article, however, argues that the crisis of Pakistani nation-state rest essentially in a failure of her dominant discourse (ideology; worldview), which not only allows the reproduction of elitism but fails to prepare our youth to deal with the political, economic, and cultural complexities of the world we live in.

Soon after Pakistan`s inception in 1947, Pakistani ruling elite constructed a discourse around the notion of an Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The proponents of this discourse have incessantly argued that Pakistan was created in the name of Islam which provides the only true basis of our national identity. The critics argue that Pakistan was an accidental product of a struggle to safeguard the rights of Muslims in the pre-Partition India. They further maintain that no Pakistani should feel insecure and be treated as a second class citizen in view of his/her class, gender, ethnolinguistic background, religious preference, or any other basis of collective identity. This view is in tune with the vision of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah who asked all Pakistanis to live and work cooperatively irrespective of their color, caste or creed because they are ``first, second and last`` the citizens of Pakistan with ``equal rights, privileges and obligations.`` Jinnah indeed believed in a secular Pakistan. In addressing the people of Pakistan, he unequivocally said: ``You may belong to any religion or caste or creed–that has nothing to do with the business of the State. . . .``

In spite of Jinnah`s secularist vision, the Pakistani ruling elite (the army-bureaucracy-bourgeoisie alliance) has invariably taken refuge under the perceived, constructed, or real internal and external threat to the national ideology and/or security to legitimize: (1) an authoritarian centralized system of governance; (2) too much reliance upon the coercive state apparatus; and (3) intolerance of opposition, counter-hegemonic struggles, and sectionalism. These developments have fostered not only numerous corrupt and unresponsive regimes, but exacerbated difficulties for our national cohesion. Instead of constructing national cohesion through the development of a sense of belonging and loyalty to the state (not necessarily to the incumbent government), the Pakistani ruling elite has often resorted to the rule of danda to deal with the problems of inequality, marginalization, and conflict resolution. The bloody conflicts in Baluchistan, East Pakistan, and more recently in the province of Sindh (particularly in Karachi) provide considerable evidence of the ineptness of a highly centralized and authoritarian state to deal effectively with citizenship rights, local-central relations, and other issues of national integration.

In contemporary Pakistan, the tension between secular and theocratic forces has become much more severe, primarily due to the growth of so-called ``fundamentalism,`` which I prefer to call ``Neem Mullahism.`` There is an element of truth in the famous Urdu proverb: Neem Mullah Khatrah-e-Emaan (which means that a partially/poorly educated Mullah is a threat to the religious faith). Neem Mullahism unequivocally stresses that:

1) Islam needs to be imposed with or without the power of the state as a solution to the existing crisis-prone everyday life in Pakistan and elsewhere; and

2) a struggle in the name of Allah would ensure each Mujahid a secure place in the immortal world of happiness and luxury in the heaven.

This view has at least two major flaws:

1) Neem Mullahs want to impose a particular interpretation of Islam; and 2) the word Jihad is used in a narrow and corrupted sense, and the actions of the so-called Mujahideens violate the human rights of other people (both Muslims and non-Muslims).

Since most Pakistanis are not adequately educated, they often fail to distinguish between ideology and reality and remain emotionally vulnerable to Neem Mullahism. In contrast, most college and university educated Pakistanis tend to reject the worldviews of Neem Mullahs suggesting that the proliferation of Neem Mullahism is likely to turn Pakistan into a hotbed of enhanced internal conflict and violence. This situation calls for the need to:

(1) institutionalize a separation of state and religion, and (2) foster an alternative discourse that prioritizes the values of humanity, freedom, justice, and peaceful coexistence.







Long Live Pakistan

-YLH

Professor`s Bilal`s sad demise

There are times in your life when you regret a lot of what you said... it is one of those times for me... while I was learning Professor sahib was way ahead of me... but I didn`t understand ...He wrote to me several times, telling me that I misunderstood him, but I never gave him a chance... I am so sorry. Please forgive me Bilal Sahib.

He was a true humanist and a true patriot... not the lesser and uglier variety of patriotism that I belong to ... but genuine patriotism which sought the greater good for Pakistan and even its neighbors... All I can say is that his inherent goodness changed me a lot.

May Allah bless his soul,

Can someone please pass my condolences to his family?

-YLH

The Shahab Nama,

Some of our friends have been quoting as a source of History on this board… this includes Layman.

The writer of the Shahab Nama, Mr. Qudratullah Shahab was an ICS officer who opted for Pakistan… while he served Pakistan diligently and honestly, and it is true that he probably wasn’t a fundamentalist, but Shahab’s book is an extremely narrow view of history based on his petty biases. When giving the reasons for Pakistan’s creation, he deviates from the reasons Jinnah and Iqbal gave, and instead starts a vitriolic of hate against the Hindus. He views the entire politics of the time through those lenses… the whole world according to poor Qudratullah is out to get the Muslims, … while Hindus according to him are inferior foes, the Jews and Christians (Yahood-o-Nisara) of the world have joined together to bring down the Muslims. In short this ‘historical document’ is a diatribe against the Hindus and the British.

Moreover Mr. Shahab is a delusional and superstitious wreck sadly. He dedicates an entire chapter to ‘Bimla Kumari ki Bechain Rooh’ (the restless and frustrated ghost of Bimla Kumari) which comes to haunt his house, and dedicates many pages to a haunted tape recorder which bothers him. He also goes into some detail about a supernatural entity ‘Ninety’ and even dedicates the book to it. Even G.M.Syed, a former League stalwart turned Sindhi separatist, quoted this ‘historical document’ in his deposition to the Sindh High Court… What more can one say of his mental ability at that advanced age?

God save Pakistan from people like these…

-YLH

Fuzair #364:

Fuzair, Bilal Ahmed was an excellent person, his kindness and goodwill clearly came through in his posts on Chowk. I feel saddened to hear the news.

re: Fuzair # 364

Fuzair,

I had noted your occasional difference with Prof. Bilal, but that was only natural between two people with such brilliant minds and sincere hearts.

I am extremely saddened...Professor Bilal was, for me, what a man ought to be.

Dear Sir, you will live in our hearts. And your memory will help cleanse our souls of all the hatreds and corruptions lesser men like me naturally ingest in our daily lives.

I recall one of Professor Bilal`s posts to ylh. Ylh - for whom I have a great fondness - had accused Professor Bilal of not caring for Pakistan enough, or not loving Pakistan enough, of being a defeatist. Professor Bilal explained patiently that he would not write such long posts so patiently as he did if he did not love Pakistan dearly...

Let`s hope Pakistan attains the glory that Professor Bilal envisioned for it. Although few of us can really fill his shoes, let`s hope some of us will strive to be worthy of his sacred memory.

As Fuzair said: a humanist in the very best sense of the word.