On the Picket Line in Islamabad

hamidm2 #71 Hate to agree with you, but you get it right sometimes. I would only add that all good muslims should also insist on not using anesthesia in case he needs to have his body cut open. Anesthesia was another trick the white man developed back in 1846 (at the height of the colonial era I may add, a clear indication that this was part of the western conspiracy to rule the world!!) to put the muslim into sleep while the white man secretly loosened some screws in the the good muslims head. In fact, in the good old muslim tradition, in case of surgery the good muslim should dip his wound in boiling butter to cauterize it as was done by the noble muslims to captives (not themselves though if they could help it) when they cut their balls off to make them eunuchs thus ensuring that the good muslim women did not fool around with them.

hamidm & ahmadzai

Your posts make sense, therefore, we the people of the world will have to devise a unified strategy. I think we should follow the footsteps of United Auto Workers (of USA) in this regard. Every year when the time comes to renew their contracts they negotiate with only one of the big three i.e. Ford, Chrysler, and GM. If there is a need they go on strike only in one of these three - the other two and Japenese take advantage of this opportunity and try to grab the market share of one that is closed down under strike. Though, it rarely happens because in this cut throat business no one can afford a strike. So when one of the three signs the contract the other two just accept it as it is.

Similarly, we can do a partial boycott e.g. we can boycott ciba-giegy and not the merc, we can boycott motorolla but not the sony and so on and so forth. God, this really kills these m/cs.

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......... for those fools who are suggesting the boycott of chicken and pizza, i suggest they should also boycott antibiotics and aspirin ........ pfizer, ciba-geigy, sandoz, merck, abbot, schering-plough - all happen to be multi-nationals ......... next time you are sick go to the hakeem or get a taweez ..........and how about using cell phones ? ...... drop your service from motorola, instaphone and paktel and go back to using smoke signals as befits cave dwellers .......... and maybe that is why the faithful don`t stop at the trafiic lights which are all manufactured and installed by siemens .......... and stop using those land lines - they all pass through switches and exchanges made by simens, ericcson and alcatel ............ and not that it matters, because this breed of men rarely take a bath , but stop using unilever products and go back to using sand and sufi soap ......... drop colgate and reach for that twig from the kikker tree ............ how idiotic can you get!

Diar-i Magrab ke rahne waloo Khuda ki basti dukaan naheen hai
Khara jisse tum samajh rahe , wo zar kam ayyar ho ga

Urstruly at # 67:

Don`t you think that in order to be rid of any western exploitation, we need to single-mindedly focus on economic, social and military development first? Once we attain that, we will be able to achieve all our other objectives too.

Why take a pre-mature punga with powers that be and get a holy kick in the butts?

Wajahat

I agree with the ideas presented in your posts. These MNCs and oil cartels on one hand plan, fund, and execute the massacars of our women and children and on the other hand sell their shitt to us. The global greed and glut of Capitalism has now reached the rabid proportions. Now they have lowered themselves to destroying conuntry and after country in the name of rebuilding and making fat profits. This madness of greed has brought untold misery upon human beings.

Isn`t it tragic that in this day and age of information, and technology, and ``freedom of thought and opinion``, in the whole wide world only the Muslim lands from Indonesia to Morroco are under direct colonial occupation of the West? - with a possible exception of probably Malysia and Iran. As a matter of fact, in the words of Naom Chomsky, West has the monoply on violence for the past 800 years. This has to stop.

Jay at 63:

On dowry death penalty in India that you have mentioned, could you please gude me to a website? I am sure that the penalty you have mentioned is a far eastern model that has been discussed at length for implementation in the social and legal circles of both India and Pakistan with complete failure.

Besides, dowry deaths are on the increase in India, which goes to prove that its the Indian culture that will be difficult to get rid of for a while. Ditto honor killings in Pakistan.

The Talibans banned it completely in Afghanistan and the MMA is about to ban it completely in the NWFP and the Pushtoon belt of Balochistan. At least some good does come out of having Islamists in power.

Also notice that honor killings are most common in the interior of tribal Sindh, a region that is in any case cited as closest in cultural practices to Hinduism.

The specific instance that you have quoted is an excellent example quoted out of context. It is not an honor killing (the practice). It was plane and simple murder of a daughter by a deranged mother who came from an influential family. The PML of Nawaz and PPP condoned it under political expediency, since they did not wish to lose support at any cost. It happens all the time in India too. When Tehelka raised the issue of corruption in the Government of India, it was Tehelka that disappeared under pressure from influential circles.

Rest assured, that the law is in the making. The honor killings of interior Sindh and Punjab (mostly tribal and clannish set ups) will diminish once the rule is made. There are lot of parties who are making valuable contribution towards this to happen, unlike you who want to score some browny points.

Taking your point further in good spirit however, I would request Jamil and his `hum-nawa` to picket for focusing on removing social ills from both India and Pakistan.

this is how you hurt the u.s. advice from the only sensible muslim leader around:

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/asia/story/0,4386,189749,00.html?

`We cannot yet afford a five-day week because we have to catch up with those in the developed nations. We need to work even harder than them so that we can compete with them,` he said, adding that those workers work only about 35 hours a week but their wages are 10 times higher.

`If we were to work in the manner that they do - earning higher wages and doing less work - believe me, there`ll be no investments and returns for anyone. Nobody will want to make investments,` he said at the Workers Day 2003 rally at the Putra Stadium in the Bukit Jalil Sports Complex.

_ _ _ The Prime Minister said if workers realised that Malaysia was not yet a developed nation and refrained from making demands which the country could ill afford, the nation would continue to enjoy peace and harmony.

ahmadsai,

Let us take dowry deaths in india, and the collective indian position on it is well known. Killing is illegal. Now there is a law in india that if a married woman dies with in 7 years of marriage due to an unnatural cause, the husband has to charged with murder and the case investigated. In tihar jail there are more mother in-laws than any one elsy.
Now ahmedsai, if you are a honest man, if you know anything about the pak legal system, can you please let the world know why the killer of samia sha in the office of asma jihangir was not charged. Let me reapet why the killer was not charged. Why did the legal system of pakistan declare that no crime was committed.

This is a simple question about pak legal system, do not shoot the messenger.

wajahat #59 long time indeed.....:-)
Your first point (i.e. that capitalist societies reduce individuals to worker bees) was indeed a concern expressed by some writers in 19th century Europe. I dont agree here: Actions speak louder than words, and all you have to do is see which direction people are migrating - for the past 50 years, people in very large numbers have moved from villages to the cities in Pakistan, and from cities in Pakistan to cities in western countries. I have not heard of any Pakistani seeking the life of a bedouin in North Africa, and the very few Pakistanis I know who maintain a house in rural areas are those who also have a house in the city and are very rich. So, your concern is not supported by clearly observable facts.
Even you have a choice to go to a village and live the timeless life of a farmer, but would you really do that unless you are guaranteed things like ``capitalist`` medical attention, ``capitalist`` electric goods like airconditioners or at least fans and electric lights, ``capitalist`` services like internet accounts?? You have obviously not taken that choice since you would not be accessing chowk, and thus even your own actions are contrary to your concerns.

The problem I think is not the capitalist system but the discomfort among many people with CHANGES that are being brought about with increasing rapidity. Thus, in the 19th century, the maulvis condemned railway trains as being the product of the devil, and today all that is forgotten. They also condemned the loudspeaker as the voice of the devil, and today the favorite tool (for abusing society unfortunately) for the maulvi is that same loudspeaker that he once condemned. And the first thing a maulvi does when he gets heartburn from eating too much is rush to a heart specialist, preferably one who is UK or US trained. :-)


Having said this, I agree that we need to be vigilant to protect our basic humanity and individualism that can of course be suppressed by a ``big brother``. This brings me to your second point, the role of the west.

You seem to think that the west has a need to ``suppress muslims``. Nothing could be further from the truth in my humble opinion. If you look at the incredibly rich and varied interests of the educated elite of the west, you will realize that ``suppressing people`` is hardly something of interest to them: these are people who work long days and nights in their chosen field of interest (biology, medicine, engineeering, anthropology, music, or even space exploration) and who routinely take time off to go for sports and vacations (people of all ages from 10 to 70 take to the mountain slopes in winter, go to remote places in the pacific, the carribbean, africa, and elsewhere, and so on). So rest assured, the best among these people (the ruling elite in the west) have far more interesting things to do with their time than try to suppress muslims - their horizons extend to the frontiers of science and technology in their professional lives, and to sports and extreme sports in their free time. It is only the idle Arabs on the streets of Cairo, or the idle elite of Pakistan (with servants to do their every bidding) for whom the ``horizon`` begins and ends with conflict with other communities, and who use their imagination to come up with conspiracy theories of all kinds. Western societies, particularly in the US, have gone well beyond that stage by now.

There are no doubt serious problems in Pakistan. Educated youth dont have jobs. The answer is not to start cursing the west for this, but to try and take advantage from the west in this regard. And indeed, the fact that we are among the most backward of nations in the world presents us with an advantage - we stand to benefit greatly through association with the rest of the world. We must look outwards towards other cultures with appreciation, including not just the western countries but all other progressive countries like japan and increasingly india as well. See what they are doing right, and then join them as partners rather than hold back with suspicion and hostility. This will ensure a better future for our next generation.

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wajahat and jamil,

......... i don`t know what you guys do for a living other than pray five times a day and protest at kfc, but my advice to you is that if you want to put kfc out of business, go and start a local franchise to put it out of business ............ first thing you have to do is put together a business plan and take it to an islamic bank, or a venture capitalist with a beard, and see if they are willing to lend you the money ...... then you make a product that will meet or beat the colonel`s original receipe and make sure it doesn`t kill the ummah with food poisoning ............ if you can do that then, inshallah, you will not only drive kfc out of the holy lands but will also drive it out of the bronx and harlem .......... remember, there are over 1,000 kfc`s in china and - this will really drive you nuts - there are over 300 starbucks in china where the chinese pay over two dollars for a cup of java ......... and they want more franchises - tgif, ruby tuesday, outback steak houses, tony romano and, for god`s sake, pf chang!............. but here is the kicker - they still run a 20 billion dollar trade surplus wth the the americans ......... go figure?

.............. you guys should stop whining, get off your islamic duff and do something instead of protesting outside chicken and pizza joints ............ and you really should have taken some economics classes instead of loading up on shariah, fiqa and bomb-making ..............

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#52 tahmed

Long time....about your idea of the greatness of these capitalist structure which provides these jobs and this unimaginable happiness to the masses. Isnt it a catch 22, you make a society vulnerable by introducing a system of greed, called the capitalist economy. You make life miserable for the middle classes as they bend further towards a system of totalitarian Credit, thus the Citi Cars, houses and Credit Cards. It is how the western societies have been subdued into their worker ant like lives and social structures. You kill off the essence and fabric of that particular culture, e.g Japan, and you make it into a greedy and materialistic society, a road that we have already travelled quite a bit of distance on. But Mr Ahmed can I ask you isnt it a bit sick of us to debate that because there are more ``educated`` unemployed in the country , the best avenue we could provide them is Fast Food Restaurants. I mean can i just present to you the logic of it, You have a MSc in Physics from university of Karachi, Unemployed who is better off working in a Mcdonalds. Thus local education becomes irrelevant, local graduates become irrelevant, exactly like the Urdu Medium System was made irrelevant by society in the past few decades. My point being that this level of short sightedness has brought us to this state of degradation.

My next point on this form of West Loving Shortsightedness is the effect of the rise of extremist idealogy. First and foremost, do you deny that the current set of Tableeghis and Madrassa culture has not been bred by the CIA and ISI to counter Russia in afghanistan in the 80s. Next let me tell you that the West can never be able to subdue Islamic Countries in Particular. Primarily because of these Fundamentalists who will counter and threaten the west and their representatives with terror. We can see it throughout history, and are seeing it in effect in that quagmire called Occupied Iraq. The japanese can be controlled, because their morality is not defined by their religion. The indians too can be subdued as they were by Muslims and then the british because of primarily the same reason. You see the key is to overwhelm the moral identity of a race, and it is not possible with Islam. Just like you Mr Ahmed , I detest the fundamentalists and their twisting of Islam, but can we not see that we have made them into who they are because of our short sightedness. Because we let the education system of the masses to deteriorate into nothingness. because we let our politicians play the religion card everytime they wanted to get elected. It is time to live up to the long term problems of our society and not just look at issues in a short sighted manner. And all we can worry about is that we arent getting enough KFCs opening up Pakistan. Would you say that if you graduate from a university in Pakistan and if it is not one of the elites, all that a Masters degree holder can aspire to is a job at KFC. I think that tells more about us than the issue itself. I look forward to your reply.

Regards

Syed Ali

tahmed32 @ # 57:

I am only espousing the course of involved diplomacy. Pakistanis can make the biggest difference by keeping involved with the Americans. They need to be out of their emotionalism that the Islamic parties, Imran`s TI and Nawaz`s PML is getting them into. What you have advised them earlier is perfect. By boycotting American businesses, Pakistanis are at present in no state of getting anything registered. On the contrary, they will be damaging their economy further.

Once again I would advise them either to segmentise as earlier suggested in my post at # 1 or let their feelings be registered in the cutomer opinion / suggestion cards. A still better approach would be to meet with the Management of these concerns and convince them into writing letters to the policy makers in Washington about the feelings in Pakistan.

Moreover, why do they want to create enemies everywhere when India in their neighborhood has declared an `undeclared` war on Pakistan?