A Case for Moderation

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//...We as a nation must also disown our shaheed and those soldiers who protect us at borders as well. Because they do not protect us and they did not die protecting us, but they died protecting a system that oppresses us....//

Very interesting ... Is urstruly alone on this, or are there other pakis also signing on? I mean - we have never heard this stuff before - ``disowning shaheeds and soldiers``. What`s going on here?

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JIbbe

I only support extremism because any effort to remove these despots from power is defined by them as extremism. I am left with not much choice now do I. Perhaps I was not able to convey my message to you as it shows despite your conciliatory tone. Let me try to put my message in another way.

No one loves a child more than his or her parents. Every time this child does his cute little things he delights his parents. The parents also give him all the love they can. A mother keeps awake at night, wipes his feces, feeds him, and takes care of him while sick or healthy. Similarly father works hard, he gives up his indulgences, he spends more money on his child than on himself. He makes extra efforts to educate his child and he puts new and better cloths on his child than he can afford for himself. This child then grows up, becomes strong, and independent. He forgets all the efforts and hardships his parents went thru to raise him. He disrespects his mother. He does not care about his father’s property and uses it for his indulgences. Sometimes while insulting his parents he goes to the extent of raising his hand on his mother. So a time comes when parents say enough is enough. As much as it bleeds their heart they announce that they are disowning their son from now on. They expel him from their house and tell him that they would never want to see his face again.

The relationship of military and people of Pakistan is like that of parent and child. Pakistani nation has raised this military feeding them with their sweat and blood. Pakistani nation ignored their own well being, their own education, their own health, and their own shelter so that our army is well fed, well educated, and has all the amenities possible that this poor nation can afford. But when this military grows stronger, instead of obeying the house rules, it ravages them, it disrespects the very nation who raised it by telling them that they are ignorant and illiterate and what do they know. It disrespects and disobeys blatantly. So a time has now come that the nation is saying enough is enough, we are going to disown you from now on. A process of this disowning has now begun. Musharaf’s referendum was the first evidence when not even 1% electorate came out to vote for his enlightened shenanigans. Shaukat Aziz’s election where human beings were hauled like cattle into voting booths is the latest telltale. This process will go further. We as a nation must also disown our shaheed and those soldiers who protect us at borders as well. Because they do not protect us and they did not die protecting us, but they died protecting a system that oppresses us. WE must divorce military for its good things along with bad things as well, if we want to protect the integrity of our house. That is the reason today when Na Pak army kills its own citizens and gets killed as well each and every newspaper in urdu addresses those civilians as Shaheed and those military men as JaaN-Bahaq. The GHQ then admonishes urdu press and orders it to address their dead as shaheed and the innocent people butchered as “JaaN Bahaq”. Smililarly, those Afghan freedom fighters who die while struggling to free their homeland from foreign occupation are now called JaaN bahaq and not Shaheed after directive from GHQ. When urdu press reports that each and every mufti has issued a fatwa that any Na Pak fauji who dies while killing his own citizen must be refused his namaz-e-janaza, the GHQ again issues directive to newspapers why this news was published.

Jibran, I humbly request you to open up your eyes and see where this country is going. Whether we at internet like it or not the nation has disowned this military. A time has finally come to choose sides. Be on the winning side. No one in the history of mankind has ever defeated people.

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Urstruly:

good points. the first one - I agree, and have argued for that in the article. MR. MUSHARRAF MUST come into public, he must come on T.V., radio, speeches, be in the public spotlight and reassure us.
The second thing this government must do is to stop alienating us the people and stop engaging in social engineering whereby they hold monopoly on all key decisions while having a puppet parliament.
I do not argue against these points, and if there are questions as to why I have not argued more strongly for them in the article is because it was aimed at a slightly different theme.
Unlike you, I will not support extremism, because as we gained independence by ballet not the bullet, so change must come in the same way now. For now, our fight is not to overthrow or further destabalize the `govt.` it is too bring reforms, slowly they might come, but gradually we will win.
Lastly, you are a Pakistani brother no matter what our differences, lets stop alienating each other by political, religous, tribal or communal divide. We are Pakistani first, then come our views as to how it should be.
Cheers mate.

Jibbe

I will promise to keep my religion at my home if you promise to keep your agnosticism at your home. But if you still insist then I challenge you, Musharaf and shuakat aziz to step into public like a mullah does every day from dusk till dawn and deliver your message to them directly. You shouldn`t have a problem with that if your message is so enlightening, now would you? After all, Bush, and what`s his name India`s PM sonia Gandhi, also go in public don`t they. Are their lives less precious than our leaders. Don`t they have to face the threat of terrorism domestically and internationaly as well? Too bad that despots and their arguments like `` However, democracy can never work in a large illiterate population, in a country where a man considers himself to be either Punjabi or Sindhi first before thinking about Pakistan. `` are getting outdated after invention of internet and satellite, now peple in the remotest part of Pakistan know that democracy in Pakistan can work, just like India, Bangladesh, and Tuvalu if army keeps its nose from where it doesn`t belong. And if people like you stop aiding and abetting rapists and thugs. Pakistan came into existence with ballet and not bullet when population of Muslims was even more illeterate than they are now. Are you trying to insult the insight of our forefathers as well now? Shame on you.

In the end I can only appeal to your good conscience to see the error of your own ways. Please do not sacrifice the future of Pakistani children for your short term benefits. Come join us. Leave those scared and besieged leadres of ours. Be our brother. be a Pakistani.

People like urstruly and echoboom have a brilliant idea to reform Pakistan, they say that the poor class has to take back the government from the army who are American agents and bad Muslims.

The only way to touch the masses in the mostly illiterate Pakistan is by religion. ``let pure Muslims run the country,`` they say. Since when does being a `good Muslim` - a very subjective character assesment a prerequisite to being a good leader. But people like this take advantage of the poor, illiterate by using religion as a way for their political objectives to be realized. These political objectives may include democracy. However, democracy can never work in a large illiterate population, in a country where a man considers himself to be either Punjabi or Sindhi first before thinking about Pakistan. The infrastructure for a democracy is not in place, the last thing we need is large complicated beaucracy.
Using religion to meet political ends meet is dangerous, because once in power, a lot of allowances need to be made for complicated, ambigous and backward religious laws over 1200 years old. For those who want to live in a backward country - please pack your suitcases and go to Afghanistan. Unfortunately people there never were to keen on a so called `Islamic state` with over 8 million of them running across the border to Pakistan where we have housed and fed them.

Religion is not the political answer, keep your religion in your house.

Again, Echoboom seems to like to attack my character, what a pathetic joker. Listen mate, you really need a visa to Afganistan where you will have no computer to log into chowk.com, instead you will probably be selling heroin or spend your life reading Quran in a madrasah somewhere. I propose all chowk members start a fund we can call it SEND ECHOBOOM TO AFGANISTAN - I will be the fist contributor to this righteous charity. cheers.

Wajahat

Post#74

Quote:

``Do detail your point about Pakistanis killing Palestinian, and enlighten us...``

Here is just one excerpt although there is plenty of material on this and is well documented too ...

Quote from elsewhere..

`` In fact, the bloody conflict dragged on for weeks. The Jordanian Army was not equipped nor trained for urban warfare. The 60th Armor Brigade, which carried the brunt of the initial attacks did not coordinate well with accompanying infantry and was ineffective. Moreover, units from the two infantry divisions pulled off the Israeli front were composed of a high percentage of Palestinians and small village East Bank Jordanians. Many of the Palestinians deserted and later constituted several PLO battalion-size units in southern Lebanon. The Second Division’s commander Brigadier Bajahat Muhaisein, an East Banker who had married into a prominent Palestinian family, quit. In an ironic turn of events General Zia al-Haq, then head of the Pakistani training mission to Jordan, basically took command and kept the 2nd Division operations going.``

Now surely, Zia ul Haq was not welcoming Palestinians with garlands! And of course he was representing Pakistan officially.

So it is difficult to see (does not make much sense) Pakistanis talking about Palestinian cause when they (Pakistanis) themselves have been contributing to the killings/overthrow of Palestinians.

Wajahat

Here is some more info .....

Quote:

1) Jordan, 1970.

The 1967 Six Day War was a shambles for the Palestinian cause as the IDF decimated the Arab forces, revealed the total military superiority of Israel and stole East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordanian control. Of Jordan`s total population in 1970, seventy-five percent identified itself as Palestinian. Nevertheless, both the Jordanian monarchy and the United Nations repeatedly called them ``refugees`` or ``displaced persons`` and denied them the right to fight for both the right to their lands in the west or for the creation of a democratic state in Jordan. Jordan, itself a creation of the British, relied upon oil monies and its subservience to the other Arab monarchies as well as to its exploitation of the highly-trained and literate Palestinian population for its own economic survival. Nevertheless, the Jordanians, like the Syrians and the Egyptians, utilized the Palestinians for their own purposes rather than allowing them to control their own destiny within a democratic framework.

Many Palestinians realized the need to control the movement, so Dr. George Habash founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Yasser Arafat founded Harakat Tahreer Falasteen or Al-Fatah. Habash announced that ``the liberation of Palestine will come through Amman [capital of Jordan],`` mostly to challenge both King Hussein and a broken Nasser (both of whom came under Israeli hegemony by 1970, something recognized in the US Secretary of State Rogers` Plan). King Hussein (with help from Zia-ul-Haq of the Pakistani army) sent in his Bedouin army on 27 September to clear out the Palestinian bases in Jordan. A massacre of innumerable proportions ensued. Moshe Dayan noted that Hussein ``killed more Palestinians in eleven days than Israel could kill in twenty years.`` Dayan is right in spirit, but it is hardly the case that anyone can match the Sharonism in its brutality.

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[#78 by M.B.Z.Isphahani on August 28, 2004 7:07pm PT
einsteinwallah:``While we should follow the laws and punishments
set in the Quran, we should also exercise judgement
we have developed`` ]

Are you attributing this text to me? I did not write it. It is quote from the article. I do not understand rest of your interact. Can you be a little bit more clear? When I think it is clear and directed to any remarks that I made, I will respond.

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sucka,

[Hey, Jinnah was an idiot. He left you to our mercy didn`t he.]

Nope. We simply didn`t follow the piper...in fact, the tune he sung was that of warning of exactly what you just ``promised`` Urstruly...

[But heck if there is a civilizational conflict between Hinduism and Islam and south asian borders become irrelevant, I know where I stand.]

Yeah, you stand with the idiots who talk about ``civilizational`` conflicts.

rahul,

Soothing words from people like yourself are infinitely more valuable than the rantings of an imbicile, I`ll give you that.

``Anyway,why do you think you need reassurance from stuka to believe that India is your country?``

We don`t, but it`s none too reassuring when there is suggestions to the contrary. Slip-ups like his admit to at best a hostile attitude towards a ``tolerated`` (like a toothache) community. Let`s put it this way. If a Muslim decided to join the anti-Hindu dingbat wagon (a pakistani one no less), and started talking about wiping out Hindus from India he would be lynched on the spot. Yet, when the opposite is true, it`s merely ``venting``?