UPDATE Delhi Explosion in Mosque
Meerut on Fire, Karachi Burns

#123 Tahmed Sahib,
I find it disappointing that you are disappointed in my ridiculing of Pakistanis. As a former fellow ``Paki tiger`` I hope you understand the transformation of barachota from famed injun fighter to punjoo hunter. When you have Pakis like Atif2, Khamkhwa, Scout, Saminasha, Succubus, and Sobia, it is easy to ``switch`` sides and feel good about the change. The intolerance and bigotry rampant among Pakis, especially against minorities like Shias, Mohajirs, Ahmedis, Hindus, Christians, and Sikhs, and even Baluchis, Sindhis, and Kashmiris is not only suicidal but also inhumane and just wrong.

I find our Indian neighbors to be much more tolerant, friendlier, and welcoming of people with differing points of view. I am now studying under the famous expert in Paki affairs, Mr. Arjun, to take up the mantle of truth should anything happen to him.

Thanks for your kind words.

#122, ahmadzai, {``Salim:
Namustay, namooskaar.
And Dhunnaywaad.
Btw, I hope you visited France and returned during your last two posts. ``}

Khoocha Ahmadzai Salaam ba Shoma,
Namastey to you too,
Sir, I have been to France several times already, but since you mentioned it - I will be in Italy during May. I hope that I have your permission. Khan Sahib :)
Yes, I love to travel and have managed to travel quite a bit in my lifetime. I hope to travel even more as I get older. Some have time, some have just the desire, others have the time, the desire, and the funds.

#120 by discoverer on April 16, 2006 7:27am PT


Could any one tell me How can a person (a muslim person) kill some one ( other muslim believers) for the cause of Allah.


There you have it...Reductio ad ReligionOfPeaceum...we all know muslims could never kill other muslims..ergo the killers are non-muslim...

tell me..are we to assume that it`s not out of the ordinary for a muslim person to kill a non-muslim person for allah?

pakher raghalay thay, ahmadzai saayb: Good to see you on chowk. Mr. Salim is no doubt flattered to be greeted with a namastey. Hell, all he has to do is give three curses to Pakistanis in general, and one to a selected ethnic group in Pakistan - and he is assured a safe passage the rest of the day on chowk. :-)

PS: The above is for you too Mr. Salim. I dont mind fair criticism of Pakistan - but your ridicule of Pakistanis and of selected ethnic groups who are not muhajirs (``punjus`` as you call us panjabis, which tells me a bit about what your parents taught you at home, or pathans as you just alluded to in case of ahmadzai). Such good sense of humor and such poor self-image that you try to overcome at the expense of other people. Sad.

Salim:

Namustay, namooskaar.

And Dhunnaywaad.

Btw, I hope you visited France and returned during your last two posts.

;-)

#114 Ahmadzai, {``I believe that he is an Indian posing as Pakistani. Sorry, wrong English. I believe he is an Indian, but posts a few anti-Indian messages (of no sincere depth in them) here and there that befools us into thinking he is of Pakistani origin. ``}

Ahmadzai Sahib,
Correcto Mundo. With this type of detective work and brilliant deductions, one can safely assume that you are a noble Pathan. Ghol Makhora. :)

First of all let me make it clear, it is however true that MUSLIMs` nowaday are just playing silly all over the world. But we should all see where`s the difference, shias, sunnis were there even at the time of Mogul, Ottomans and Sulmania Empire but they never faught or killed any one. Suicide Bombers first originated from Japan known as Kamikaze.

Could any one tell me How can a person (a muslim person) kill some one ( other muslim believers) for the cause of Allah. As i see it, there were many incident in history where an israeli agency mosad made a prisoner to wear a bomb and made him to enter some leaders house to blow himself up, the condition put up by mosad was simple, do it or we`ll kill your family.

We should take lesson from history not repeat history, this is what happening in muslim countries. Trust me the bombers are some poor soul and i can even dare imagine the reason behind it.

There is a petition put up in self-publish for rehabilitating earthquake victims. Some of you might like to take a look and interact/do something:

http://www.chowk.com/show_article.cgi?aid=00006535&channel=self

Thanks

What is the common factor between Iraq and Pakistan? Suicide bombings. What kind of ideology propagates acts of mass killings? Extremists. Extremists can be in any form or shape, religious or non-religious. In the case of Pakistan, its a classic case of you reap what you sow, or what goes around comes around. Muslims are on the defensive politically, socially and culturally. Resistence to the attack is being led by extremists who have no respect of life or creation, most unfortunate part of this entire episode is the abject silence of the peace loving majority. Shia-Sunni sectarian riots, now we may have Sunni-Wahabi confrontation, fact is Mulsims are under attack from within and outside. This is just the begining, more is to come......

#113 by swarrier

....So perhaps there is no purpose, but one can hope for something good, something decent somewhere, sometime.....

Sure why not. As W. Somerset Maugham said in his `Summing Up` i.e. ``There`s only one thing about which I can be certain, that there is nothing about which one can be certain.

``Da`yem abaad rahey gi dunya;
Hum na honge`, koi hum sa ho gaa.``

(The world will always remain. I won`t be there but someone like me will.)

Recommended reading : `Aag Ka Darya` - Qurutul-Ain-Haider.

#100 AhmedMadani Sahib

I can understand your ``protective`` spirit (being the father of two (young) daughters myself.)

But I must bring to your attention a fact I mentioned earlier to you (on another board) - it is this spirit of ``protection`` which has caused so many of the problems in the subcontinent. The best one can do for one`s children is to enable them to think on their own rather than filling up their minds with pre-conceived notions.

You should perhaps reconsider your wholesale stereotyping of poets based on the few that you may have observed. Some of the best works of literature were not prose - take Shakespeare for example - or Rabindranath Tagore, to name a few. (I put a few additional thoughts on this issue on Mr. Ozer Khalid`s board a few days ago.)

When I wish to understand how a writer wishes to project himself/herself, I read his/her articles - when I wish to know the personality of an individual, I read their poems, if available.

Consuming enormous amounts of tea is a subcontinental specialty - not limited to any particular occupation. In fact, in the USA, most people (but not desis) take their tea without sugar.

I agree that poetry can not be the sole basis for an occupation! But I also firmly believe that interspersing a few stanzas of poetry in between those calculus lessons will surely cheer up your student body immensely and spark their interest like never before!

Dr. Gill may be in a position to provide additional advice on this issue!

#99 (Netizen)

``worry about the ``intellects`` like arjun singh, if he has his way narayan murthy/ratan tata would be running to china as fast as possible.....``

That`s the tragedy of Indian politics. Small minds holding big offices. We have a saying in Kannada which roughly translates to ``What would a monkey know about a mangalsutra``. It applies aptly to people like Arjun Singh.

News is that Devyani Rana (of the Nepal royal family massacre fame) is going to marry into Arjun Singh`s family. Perhaps we can induce her to go postal on her future in-laws. I`ll supply the milk if someone supplies the bhang.

tahmed # 48:

Salamoona.

Please be very respectful of Salim Chauhan. He is a learned man of 24 years of age, educated in America, claims to be living in Turkey, married to a Shia Turkish woman (this could be an Alavi), but on the basis of the number of his posts on the Chowk (about 100 per day), one can safely assume he resides on Chowk. On top of it, between all those posts he posts on Chowk every day, he has found time to travel to those 220 countries (read his intro page).

I believe that he is an Indian posing as Pakistani. Sorry, wrong English. I believe he is an Indian, but posts a few anti-Indian messages (of no sincere depth in them) here and there that befools us into thinking he is of Pakistani origin.

;-)

# 71
Zeemax, looking at the events of the last few days, yes I do see what you mean.

However at the end of the essay Camus writes this..

`` During the day the hall is protected by sloping wooden awnings. When the sun goes down they are raised. Then the hall is filled with an odd green light born of the double shell of the sky and the sea. When one is seated far from the windows, one sees only the sky and silhouetted against it, the faces of the dancers passing in succession. Sometimes a waltz is being played and , against the green background , the black profiles whirl obstinately like those cut-out silhouettes that are attached to a phonograph turntable. Night comes rapidly after this and with it the lights. But I am unable to relate the thrill and secrecy that subtle instant holds for me. ``

And further about a girl he had seen dancing ....

``When evening came, I could no longer see her body pressed tight to her partner, but against the sky whirled alternating spots of white jasmine and black hair and when she would throw back her swelling breast , I would hear her laugh and see her partner`s profile suddenly plunge forward. I owe to such evenings the idea I have of innocence. In any case I learn not to separate these creatures bursting with violent energy from the sky where their desires whirl.``

So perhaps there is no purpose, but one can hope for something good, something decent somewhere, sometime.

Witness the impotent rage of pakis like cab driver HP and El-Presidente..The Americans are getting ready to bomb the Islamist nuts on Pakistani soil..Bajaur was just an appetizer..

US forces are getting targetting Pakiland and pakis have wet dreams of holding the cards in AFghanistan..

there`s deluded..and there`s paki deluded

How the North-West can be won?

Are the Americans poised to go the whole distance in their search for `terrorists`? The NWFP government is worried that this may be the case

By Behroz Khan

The news is quite disturbing for the people and the governmnet of the NWFP; it has been reported that the United States has warned that it will bomb any part of the province in pursuit of `terrorists`.

The warning, it is said, was conveyed to the NWFP governor, Khalilur Rehman and of course to the chief minister, Akram Khan Durrani, by none other than President General Pervez Musharraf himself at a meeting in Islamabad. The tone of the message, an insider tells TNS, is tantamount to bullying.

``The president told the governor and chief minister that Americans have warned that those who are hiding in the Frontier and elsewhere will be bombed out,`` a source privy to the meeting revealed, requesing anonymity. The warning left the president angry as well as concerned, the source added, saying this could be an epilogue to increased target hitting by umanned Drones on Pakistani territory.

Apart from killing Commander Nek Muhammad in South Waziristan Agency, the US planes have targeted two suspected terrorist hideouts in Miramshah and Mirali areas of North Waziristan and Damadola in Bajaur Agency over the past few months. In Miramshah, all the victims turned out to be local tribesmen while mystery shrouds the president`s claim that Hamza Rabia, al-Qaeda`s No-3, was killed in a raid on Khisokhel village in Mirali sub-division of North Waziristan. Sources, having links with militant groups active in the tribal belt and across the border in Afghanistan, deny the claim.

Similarly, claims by the American media and Pakistani authorities that al-Qaeda`s No-2, Aiman Al-Zawahiri, was the target of the air strike in Damadola, or that top al-Qaeda operatives have actually been killed, are still to be verified.

The clergy-led government in the Frontier, already on the defensive over its silence on military operations in tribal areas and US air strikes, is taking the new warning as a declaration of open war. Confirming that President Pervez Musharraf has informed him of the new dangers ahead, Akram Khan Durrani has said that the US has warned to go after the so-called `terrorists` even in the settled areas of NWFP, if the attacks against the Americans and their allies continued in the neighbouring Afghanistan.

``What use is our strong defence if we cannot defend our innocent people against such naked aggression,`` said Durrani when approached for comments regarding the fresh US warnings. The US authorities, official sources said, are of the opinion that extremists and terrorists take shelter in the tribal areas along the Pak-Afghan border and parts of NWFP after carrying out terrorist attacks in the eastern and southern provinces of Afghanistan. Pakistani nationals have been identified carrying out suicide bombings and fighting the US and allied forces in Afghanistan.

``This is a conspiracy against Pakistan. The US believes that bombing can unite the Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line,`` said Durrani, adding that by doing so the Americans are making more enemies than friends.

In the wake of the warning, Pakistani officials foresee that the US air strikes against `terrorists` might be more severe than the ones carried out in North Waziristan and Bajaur agencies. ``The US action will not be limited to the tribal or border areas this time. It will engulf the whole of NWFP and even beyond,`` the sources said.

The Karachi bombing and almost all islamist violence in Pakistan is blowback from the paki jihadi strategy..the jihadi strategy that pakis support...


Religious extremism and violence —Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi

The incident is a manifestation of religious and cultural intolerance and extremism which have become a conspicuous feature of Pakistan’s politics and society. This can be traced back to the 1980s, when the military government of General Zia Ul Haq along with the United States and conservative Arab states bolstered Islamic-Afghan opposition to the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan. The hardline and orthodox Islamic groups obtained funds and weapons to fight the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Their position was also strengthened due to General Zia Ul Haq’s co-option of Islamic groups to neutralise political forces that questioned his military rule. He projected the Pakistani state as the enforcer of orthodox Islam and allowed these groups to penetrate state institutions.

Their relevance persisted after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan because the government of Pakistan launched Islamist militant groups in Indian-administered Kashmir to bolster the on-going insurgency in the 1990s. The continued patronage of the Pakistani state to Islamic militancy led to a proliferation of militant groups. They began to use their newly acquired power to pursue their narrow religious agenda in Pakistan’s domestic context. It is noteworthy that the mainstay of Islamic militancy in Afghanistan and Kashmir came primarily from the Deoband, Wahabi, and Ahle Hadith traditions. The Barelvis and the Shias played a limited role.