Saving Pakistan with the Constitution

Friends,
All of you are beating around the bush - making love to the navel, instead of focusing your efforts on the real issue - breaking down the provinces into several smaller ones that are more manageable and less prone to provincial hegemony.

The US has fifty states and the purpose is not to torture young students by having them memorize the 50 state names and associated capitals. In fact, California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois are too populous for the good of the rest of the country. If it were not for tradition, local jingoism, and the stupid Electoral College system that makes a farce out of democracy, the US would consists of a hundred equally sized boxes resembling South Dakota.

Even India has managed to take the original provinces and decompose them into smaller, harmless dens of local government and democracy. Just witness what they did to their smaller portion called East Punjab. They trisected it into Himachal, Haryana, and rump Punjab. Even UP got divided as did Bihar. Can you imagine if India consisted of five or six huge provinces aligned on linguistic and ethnic lines? The Hindi-speaking monster would gobble up the country`s power, resources, and attention by its sheer demographic and geographical dominance.

So, let`s do the sensible thing and break Punjab into four lovely provinces (Potohar, Saraikia, Ranjitia, and Cholistan). Sind can become New Hindustan, Bhuttostan, and Khasipur. Similarly Baluchistan and NWFP can be comprised of three smaller provinces each. Of course, we need to separate Northern Areas from NWFP and get rid of this FATA nonsense.

This is my last post on this suggestion and if Pakis don`t act quickly, I am going to concentrate on more important issues, such as preservation of macaca habitats. :)

generally speaking, the more democracy you have in the islamic world, the more mullah islam you have in the islamic world. in countries as diverse as egypt, turkey, iran, malaysia and indonesia, the power of mullahs has increased after elections. after nearly 80 years of forced secularism by the turkish army, the turkish electorate in the first open election voted for an islamic party that nearly passed a bill that imposed death for adultery. the only reason this bill was not passed was due to pressure by e.u. this same turkish party is also putting restrictions on sharaab by establishing sharaab free zones and by increasing taxes on sharaab.

in iran, the secular government of shah was overthrown by an alliance of leftist forces and the mullahs. as is their want, mullahs showed their true colours after the revolution by locking up their erstwhile allies in jail or worse - by murdering them. people here have also been using malaysia as an example of a tolerant society. that tolerance however is reserved for minorities. muslim malays have to play by different rules:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115757444080555464-search.html?KEYWORDS=malaysia&COLLECTION=wsjie/6month

...Malays could not renounce Islam at all, the court argued, because they were defined by the federal constitution to be persons of the Islamic faith.

...In 2005, the country`s federal court dismissed habeas corpus applications by four former Muslims who were sentenced by the Shariah Court to three years in jail for wrongly
attempting to leave Islam...``

indonesia is another country where power of mullahs has grown after free and fair elections. in the last elections, staunchly islamic parties won 15% of the seats and are now forcing parliament to adapt all kinds of crazy agendas including bills that regulate the size of skirts.

compared to most muslim countries, the experience of pakistan has been a little different. mullahs in pak have never gotten the kind of support they have received in most other muslim countries. one reason for that is the army and most political parties have not shoved secularism down people`s throat although parties have turned to islam when they are in trouble example bhutto in `77 and ns in `98.

despite the freedom gora-lovers enjoy in pak compared to most islamic countries, gora-lovers are still not satisfied and wont be until pakistan turns into sweden. thats why they portray likes of bugtis as heroes because gora lovers unlike the hizbullah are khussies and therefore unable to fight their own fight.

Re: # 114
what is your opinion if a country places restriction on a political party is it a democracy?

you can turn that question around and ask should those party that dont believe in democracy be allowed to be a part of the democratic process?

in pakistan mullahs have behaved reasonably well. they accepted the supreme court`s decision when supreme court declared the hasba bill passed by sarhad assembly as unconstitutional. otoh mullahs are threatening to resign if national assembly amends the hudood ordinance even though there is a clear majority in favour of amendment. i think the best approach for pak is to allow mullahs to be a part of the system and at the same time, govt should steal their thunder by not implementing the radical secularist agenda as advocated by this website. also the govt should continue to highlight mullah hypocricy at every opportunity. pakistanis are smart and can see through the mullah charade.

the other approach is to launch a jihad against the mullahs which is what algeria did after radical mullahs won the election. the cost of this was bloody however with an estimated 100,000 people killed. appears now that radical mullahs have finally been defeated. thankfully, pakistani government does not have to make this choice.

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, which we hope and believe is to liberate the world.”
Abraham Lincoln:

Re: # 116
thanks for reply.
i personally think turkey`s record is better in tolerating islamic party, than US with regard to communist and even socialist party, both of which were hounded out of existence, many people were imprisoned on mere suspicion of belonging to them.

aslam, you raise a very interesting point about the u.s. government`s treatment of its domestic opponents especially in the early part of its history. there was this very famous incident known as the pullman strike when uncle sam sent in the army to brake up this strike. army action resulted in the death of 13 people. eugene debs, the most famous socialist leader in the u.s. spents years in jail for his labour and anti-war activity. u.s. supreme court, surprise surprise, upheld his detention. during his defence, debs made this well remembered statement:

``Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.``

as far as honest abe is concerned, we know what he did when southerners rose in defence of their ``economic resources``. among other things, lincoln sent sherman to atlanta who burnt the whole city down.

imagine if we have 100% free and fair elections and a swiss style democracy in pakistan...and then imagine that the islamic parties won those elections...what would the secularists on here do then? would they accept the results. I DOUBT IT.

the reason the powers that be won`t allow pakistan to be like sweden is because any time free elections are held most people in muslim countries will vote for islamic parties...

in theory i personally have absolutely nothing against pakistan having free and fair elections--indeed i would welcome them. talking of sweden, i think it is very close to an ideal
islamic society in its social security aspects--i.e. the way the govt looks after the people from birth to death and the free education and free healthcare for all; i have nothing at all against trying to emulate these aspects. indeed i wish my country, the UK, would also be more like sweden and stop trying to be like the US...

then again, sweden keeps itself to itself and is quite a homogenous society and the swedes are very proud and protective of their own culture and don`t ape others. unlike the paki rulers...

The Swedish Constitution--an astonishingly humane document! ..

a possible model for a future pakistan?

---

*when* its citizens are all educated to a decent
level.

Re: # 109

Urdu, a national language? It is `anti-national` language as it resulted in break-up of Pakistan due mainly to ill-advised insistence of Jinnah on calling it a national language. It is at the most a good `Raabita` language for sub-continental use as is the English for international use.

Do you think Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, Balochi, which constitute mother tongues of at least of 90% of Pakistanies are not national languages? Why give Urdu, a `Bhayya` language, a political hegemony at the cost of real national languages of Pakistan?

Re: # 116

There can be a simpler solution to this Mullah-gardi.

Taking into account the fact that the Mullah were as a class against the Pakistan movement and Hakeemul-Ummat Allama Iqbal had declared their deen as `Dee-e- Fassaad` why not declare them as `Non-Muslim` like Ahmadies. This is perhaps the only solution short of their Algeria type liquidation.

I think the Malaysian model is possible with the current Pakistani constitution in its present form... Pakistani constitution, even in its present form, is actually better than the Malaysian constitution.. so its implementation and evolution can eventually satisfy a lot of people on the opposite sides of the spectrum.

haroonellahi:109
I have not forgotten your query, I am quite busy these days & will write later..

I appreciate your interest in these matters and look forward to see the new generation with a
mind not shackled by colonial-chains.

teshah mian,

Actually there is a distinction between ``National language`` and ``state language``. It was supposed to be the state language and Jinnah mentioned as a ``state language`` for communication or ``Rabita`` as you say between different federating units of Pakistan. In the same speech he also promised the preservation and propagation of Bengali as a provincial language ...

In any event... the language issue was solved in 1956. The real reason Bengalis separated was the LACK of a CONSTITUTIONAL PROCESS... and everything else boiled down to this...
Had Fatima Jinnah, who won a large following in East Pakistan, been allowed to win and become the president ... it was certain that erstwhile Pakistan would have still been together...

Hinduism is more a culture than a religion. To interpret it as a religion alone would be fatally flawed fundamentally. It does not have schools for religious scholars who then go out and practise it in temples spread across towns and cities. Nor is there any hierarchy of priests. A hindu need not worship at a given time or day (or at all).It can be called the least ``organized`` of all religions. The amount of leeway available to individuals is phenomenal.

And of course.. In 2006, the words of the Nobel laureate (Physics) Dr. Richard Feynman (in ``surely...``) would be more valid when he talks of jewish scholars :

``Here they are,slowly coming to life, only to better interpret the Talmud. Imagine ! In modern times like these, guys are studying to go into society to be a Rabbi-- and the only way they think that science might be interesting is because their ancient, provincial, medieval problems are being confounded slightly by some new phenomenon``.

These can be applied to madarsas, seminaries and other places, a certain percentgage of which turn out religious zealots & professional practitioners. Hinduism on the other hand is plagued by its own evils, some of them much much worse, almost to the point of being intolerable.

The medieval texts cannot continue to govern rational minds (large numbers of which exist in all societies). Hence, Any attempts to foist ``modernised versions`` of Hinduism, Islam, Christianity cannot but fail. Increasing importance of economic and cultural factors would push religion as the defining identity for an individual to the margin.