Understanding Sanatana Dharma i must not carry on self-respecting discussions then. . .

Zwingli’s Zurich banjaara,

interesting travelogue. . .i wonder, with your mention of swiss banks, top name designer companies, and what not, did you have a chance to visit the site where the irish author james joyce is buried. . .that is at the highest vantage point in zurich is it not, and not too far away from one of the cathedrals you describe? perhaps you missed that particular highlight of your travels? or perhaps it just wasn`t so important to mention?!

and those of you who consider yourselves to be gentlemen. . .this is a travelogue about europe. there was no need to either bring up or respond to anything regarding islam and hinduism. honestly. . . .*sigh*.

Understanding Sanatana Dharma i just wanted to see who the 666th interactor was, and i was expecting it to be manto. .not khamkhwahi. . . :))

i shall return if this reaches another number which shall remain nameless.

Dear Sisters, Meet Maria Sharapova of course i will have to break silence to say that it has long been established that lady ana was NOT my user name. it belongs to a man! however, ana, ana_dobarah and nooralain are, and i`ve never made a secret of that. just to keep you updated, since you`ve made an effort to list names that most everyone who`s been around long enough is well aware of.
goodbye! goodbye!

Dear Sisters, Meet Maria Sharapova #209.

and you are excellent in biatchiness as well as dramatics!!! oh how i envy your style! consider your request honored!

Dear Sisters, Meet Maria Sharapova
LET FREEDOM RING

how about secular eastern democracies? i heard someplace somewhere that hmmm, oh yes, india is a democracy. goodness, either it is not secular, or it is not eastern, or even worse, it is not a democracy. oh my goodness, it doesn`t count. *mock horror*

holding up high the flame of the Greeks, the Romans and Brittania? what flame would that be? would that be the flame of conquest and colonialism per chance? were we free while the sun did not set on Brittania? oh well, we might as well have your western amigos take over. . .the multinationals are working on that as it is. truly, truly, freedom will come. let it ring! ching ching! *the sound of money going to the multinationals*

have you read the website regarding RAW per chance. . .yes, considering how opposed you are to the veil RAW is the website for Revolutionary Afghan Women. Do you know how opposed they are to islamic fundamentalism and rightly so, but do you understand what you read when they say that afghanis themselves, they must look to themselves to combat the scourge of what has robbed afghanistan. not the united states, or brittania? themselves??? they do not want a secular western democracy. these women who are your sisters wish for a secular afghani democracy. my god, haven`t the western powers and the russians just as enough to them as they`ve done to themselves?

i suppose hijab clad women cannot be in love. they just have no feelings. i shall have to ring my hijab clad friend who married the man she fell in love with and has recently had a baby. guess what yaar? you were never in love because you were ugly and filled with hate!!! and you cannot be a successful business person, or respected teacher because you wear a hijab. you cannot make a difference in the world. . .whether it is working with battered women, or being an educator, because you wear a hijab. you cannot know freedom because you wear a hijab. yes, my hijab clad friends will be shocked to learn of all these things they have not been able to do. these poor ugly women. . .*sigh* show us the suicide bombers. pray, don`t tell us about those who have made accomplishments not just because of what they wear on their heads, but who they are as people, as intelligent young women. tell them they are ugly, but first pretend to be concerned for their welfare, that of many, yes, many muslim women in pakistan, and the rest of the muslim world.

you just cannot be taken seriously anymore. every word you utter is a further indication of the maturity of your thought process. hamidm writes more entertaining humor than you do, but your words are still definitely worth a laugh. which is truly sad because you have no real answers except off with their heads. . .and that certainly isn`t good for the islamists of osama`s ilk, nor is it good for you.

next time you send an article please don`t insult the intelligence of those who do read and think here. give some thought to your own as well.

no regards
n~

Dear Sisters, Meet Maria Sharapova urstruly,

thank you for clarifying that. i`ve made a career out of university and read enough books hopefully to differentiate between what is hate-speech, what is scholarship, and what is possibly hate-speech sugarcoated with scholarship. when i was doing an analytical paper on rushdie, there was a daniel pipes book as one of the critical books on rushdie. i don`t consider daniel pipes to be scholarship, though undoubtedly there are those who do.

and believe me, when shiraz calls to join hands with the west, i know there is an agenda involved. we both live in the west. .at least i`ve always understood you to live here as well. now perhaps we can prove the colonial kipling wrong when he says `east is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet.` , but meeting is one thing. . .obliterating an identity is a whole different bag of chips. and that is what i, a non-muslim, practicing a balancing act between a world without religion and a world with, read in the words and between the lines here. i may be unduly alarmed, but i have read words not all that different, uttered by racists. calls to a better life by upholding a certain standard. . a glorious past, or as this article suggests a glorious future free from slavery. i think i have read enough to know what this reads like. and that is why given that this is addressed to women, i think we as women do know what we are being coopted into, compared to, and denied which is why some of us have been so vocal.

on the other hand, there is the possibility that we are giving this article far too much importance, but everyone considers what they have to write and say as being important. but given that shiraz has deemed women who cover themselves as ugly hate-filled women, how much more importance will we give to this venom? shiraz attempts to make hijabi women as inferior. no one can make you feel inferior unless you allow them to. my hijabi friends are not filled with hate. they are beautiful intelligent women.

and urstruly, you addressed a post to both zahra and i, but i don`t know if you know the difference between zahra and i. if you don`t, please feel free to inquire and i will be happy to fill you in. . .or perhaps zahra will. perhaps 2005 came sooner than expected. and therefore the only similarity between zahra and i is that we keep saying goodbye chowk and we keep coming back sooner than we profess we will. :) what is it about this bloody place, eh???!!!

******
If you want aid or food or foreign troops or weapons to mediate your internal sectarian wars ask those gullible Christians. Those guys will give you anything if you cry and moan long enough. If crying and moaning doesn`t work try kidnapping and beheading.

Its the Christians who are into ``turn the other cheek`` etc. and they are into stuff like forgiveness and love and compassion.

and so you now will malign us Christians as well, eh? really mr. shiraz, are you so bloody ignorant? Compassion is not a Christian trait alone, it is a human trait. where the focking hell is yours? i do hope that your real sisters are filled with compassion. you need it.
as for the other brothers and sisters, i think what you`ve managed to share with them is a less covered hate-filled man. the best of luck to you and your secularist agenda.

Dear Sisters, Meet Maria Sharapova Urstruly,

i do know what the difference between right and wrong is. . .thank you. my mother raised me well, and she has always known that difference. and the pastors and priests at church taught me well also. they didn`t teach me to hate. just because i may not always be right doesn`t mean i don`t know the difference. thank you for the advice all the same. i will try to be a better judge, and i daresay some of the credit will go to you. :)

Dear Sisters, Meet Maria Sharapova rsax,

given that yesterday was bastille day, i can only point you in the direction of the aftermath of the french revolution for now. robespierre, guillotine, rounding up and murdering of `innocents`. i will try to do better, but we`re not talking about the horrific aspect of extremists i.e. beheading and bombs here. we`re talking in part about a man who thinks he knows more than women about what`s best for them.

now given that you`ve just returned from india, let me ask you, do you think pakistanis, be they extremists or so-called balanced liberals and conservatives, know what is best for india as a democracy when they can`t figure out what is best for themselves? they may have a right to an opinion, but do they know? and how would you respond if they insisted they knew? different scenario, of course, but still. . . :)

it`s good to see you back safe, and hopefully sound? :)

faiza ji. . .

thank you for the clarification. i was not familiar with that. :) chowk can be a place of learning afterall :)

Dear Sisters, Meet Maria Sharapova in #181, summaiya says:

first and foremost, other problems facing the Muslim women should be solved for instance:
* karokari
*Rape and gang rape
* Forced and iilegal and unislamic marriage to the Quran to save property
* a Muslim woman not being allowed to choose her own husband even though Islam has specifically given her rights to do so.
*The stigma atatched with divorce
* sexual exploitation in the work place for females
*literacy
* Right to even use family planning methods etc. etc. etc.
the list goes on and on...

good points summaiya. but do you mean `forced and illegal and unislamic marriage according to the Quran to save property? there is a word missing.

as some of us tried to express in another article regarding hijab, rape is not going to come to an end once sisters dehijab themselves. the constant flashing of maria sharapova`s pictures speaks volumes as to the issue of objectification and image. i am not convinced by the continual satire, the references to body parts, that the welfare of women is being addressed. fantasies are being addressed here, not realities.

have you ever come across missionaries from a different faith who tell you that your existence is nothing until you embrace their faith? zia ul-haq did that to non-muslims in a press conference not too long after he took control. i have seen and experienced western christian missionaries telling me that, and talking about pakistanis in an offensive and condescending manner, much like shiraz and his friend zahra. wimbledon is not the only answer to liberation. maria sharapova is not the epitome of womanhood. and religion is not the only gauze or chain that binds our souls. when the extremist secularists have reduced our religions even more than the extremist religiosos have done or attempted to do, we shall see how the love and concern for dear sisters is translated by the brothers. what i have seen and heard what men have done to women has nothing to do with god or religion. nothing.

i think more intelligent people see through this article and its language, and their silence is more voluminous than i have been.

Dear Sisters, Meet Maria Sharapova as free as we all appear to be here, there is satire, and then there is poor taste:

There may come a day when a woman who cannot hang herself with her Hijab around her neck will attempt to enter Wimbledon to prove that even women with extra layers of clothing can play tennis.

i think swift wrote better satire than this. vaisay hanging oneself by the neck with any kind of cloth is no ridiculing matter. i know women who have attempted this, i had a friend who succeeded. and this man says he loves ``women``?

A tree shall be erected by the court to allow the woman to retract her tail and hang by the branches, scratch her self and yelp her jungle cry (which Muslims refer to as ``Azan``).

this man would dehumanize a woman to such an extent, and then tell us that he loves ``women``?

oh yes, this man wants a free society alright. . .a free society where he loves women as long as they are the way HE wants them to be, in HIS image. the more he posts, in my opinion, the more one has to wonder if HIS idea of a secular society is just as unreasonable and chauvinistic as the one he so venomously denounces.

respect. i see no respect for women given in the above quotes. if i presume to tell this man who i believe he respects or doesn`t, does he not presume with his words, his flourishes, his sarcasm and poor satire to TELL women what he believes they should do?

i think John Milton may have had a point when he said: New foes arise, Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains. it isn`t just about the hijab, or not wearing it, or veiling or deveiling. if you believe that religion chains our souls (personally i felt at one point that my faith freed mine), secularism can also be a chain. why do you men presume to know what is not just good, but best for our souls? isn`t that what priests and maulvis, and rabbis do as well? again, this article is not about freeing women, or wanting women to show themselves so the author can tell them they`re hot as he told yasser aisha is. do women, and men not see the objectification here? does any self-respecting feminist/non-feminist not see this as objectifying and problematic:

Whether a woman adorns herself or not the mere sight of her inspires us men to song and poetry and dreams of glory. It inspires us to invent and to buy and sell, to sail across the seas and fly to the moon and back. The sight of women is the engine of modern civilizations.

no amount of hyperbole that shiraz keeps `thopoing` on us, in my opinion again, can disguise the fact that there is no choice here for some of us, and the message that comes through in parts of post #175 is that women who wear hijab, and veil are not really women. what about women who cover their heads with the pallu of their saris? my nani marhooma, god rest her soul, would have liked to have known that she really wasn`t a woman, as highly respected as she was. no amount of hyperbole can disguise the fact that this article is not really about ``his sisters``. it is more about the muslim ``fathers and brothers``, it is yet another way of expressing his total disgust, which by the way, he is personally entitled to, for the islamic faith. hijaban ``sisters`` just happen to be a part of that faith. when a person cannot accept that their strong personal opinions deny other people their own opinions and their own beliefs, i`m not entirely certain that that person is really all that chivalric a secularist.

Dear Sisters, Meet Maria Sharapova and this folks is what freedom is all about: the right to disrespect other peoples choices and be vocal about it.

shiraz, much as i don`t agree with zahra ji, i will agree with her on this, you DO have a lot of growing up to do. *rolls eyes* good luck with that! do let us women know when you REALLY begin to respect us and love us. we will not be holding our breaths.

vive la revolution!

Stout! nadeem #19

yes, i do understand your flight. i asked myself the same questions once upon a time. . . :) and then my question was answered. . .and a whole new set of questions came up. . .it never ends. :)

Stout! yes, here it comes, the `you`re just as bad as we are if not worse. .` scenario. i guess the number of lives lost on the basis of irreligion does exceed the murder of the six million in nazi germany, as well as those who were fighting `for god and country. .`

this is a work of fiction. . .this takes place in pakistan. last i heard, quite a few of the mullahs and the mullah-minded are being the exploitative ones. last i remember, quite a few of the ``marxists`` or any one who is labelled one because they don`t fit anywhere else in pakistan were either thrown into jail or their lives were made a living hell. marxism has never been much of a force to be reckoned with there. last i remember, religion has been used in pakistan to kill those not just in that country, but in kashmir and india. . .and various parts of the world.

so yeah, if you want to provide statistics about irreligion being the cause of more deaths in the world. . .you are no less passing a judgment than you believe a character in this fictional satirical piece is passing. the fact is that people are still being killed in the name of someone`s god in pakistan, in iraq, in palestine and israel. and we`ve entered a new century here. . .

Stout! both good pieces nadeem.

why does god appeal to the most exploitative? iss maiN khuda ka kya qasoor hai? the exploiters will find a way to exploit anything and anyone. the question is why does god permit such exploitation? then again qasoor kis ka hai?

interesting how the various complexes play out in laps. . .a la freud. and the thin line between love and lust.

n~

Understanding Sanatana Dharma forgive me. . .i am still trying to understand what the point of this article is.

and while i will try to avoid being as harsh as sadna was in #81, i nevertheless get the gist of what she is saying. while the interest of a pakistani ``liberal`` in `helping us to understaaand` (or trying himself or herself) what hinduism is all about is admirable, i do so wish that more efforts were made in explaining why ``non-muslims`` and ``muslims`` are being targeted and murdered in cold blood. other than the ``liberal`` tendency to blame it on the occupying army and the mad mullahs respectively. as i said your desire to reveal the kinder gentler side of hinduism is admirable. i also unfortunately find it to be rather condescending. but then such is the tone that continues to be in motion by the ``liberal heavys`` at chowk.

hopefully you will get just as much encouragement when you try to explain political islam. and i do mean try.