Men in Khaki

#68, vanguard {``Mohajirs had it coming``}

Mr. Vanguard,
Using your logic, my friend, maybe the Muslims of the world had it coming. 100% of the 9/11 WTC and Pentagon mass murderers and terrorists were Muslim. 100% of the Madrid train station killers were Muslim. 100% of the London subway bombings were Muslim. 100% of the attackers of the Indian parliament and various Kashmiri terrorists were Muslim. The plot against the US, resulting in almost 3,000 innocent deaths, was hatched, planned, and executed by Al Kayda leaders, who were in Afghanistan/Pakistan and are still being sheltered in the remote caves of Pakistan.

#68, Dear Mr. Vanguad,
The sins of Altaf Hussain or Amir Khan should not be used to justify the killing, torture, and looting of Mohajirs in their own homes in Karachi and Hyderabad. If a terrorist group kills people for political leverage, it is still not right for the security forces of a nation to kill innocent citizens who may belong to the same ethnic/linguistic group as the miscreants. The good thing about Mushy is that he put an end to the massacres and the occupation of Karachi. If he goes, I am worried about more bloodshed by the PPP Rangers.

#47 by hamidm2 on March 17, 2007 6:29am PT
{``Re: # 44
salim mian,
...... either way, you have lost it ! ........ i can`t believe that you are now siding with the mohajir military dictator because you think the ppps are against him ......... ``}

Hamidum Sahib,
I am siding with the ``Mohajir military dictator`` ONLY because he put an end to the massacre of Mohajirs in Karachi at the hands of the PPP Rangers. He also rid Pakistan of the corrupt and power-hungry yet ``democratically-elected`` ex-PM PPP Nawaz Sharif who has Mohajir blood on his hands. I am glad to learn about your lip-service to the so-called Biharis - the loyal Pakis ``stranded`` in BD. May Allah put some caffeine in your intoxicating refreshments.

Re: # 67

Mohajirs had it coming. Being a mohajir myself, I remember the slogans MQM used to have spray painted all over Karachi ``Crush the corrupt Pakistan Army``. They were the warlords before the operation started.

With their slogan of SOS (security ourSelves) they have provided Klashinkovs to every kid. With their unit incharges, sector incharge they were involved in target killing. If Altaf Hussain comes back, he will be killed by a mohajir (most probably some father, mother, brother or sister of some MQM worker who was sacrificed by Altaf Hussain).

On being power hungry, nobody is more power hungry than Altaf Hussain. Of all the ethnic communities in Pakistan, only Altaf Hussain is capable of killing his own party men i.e., Azeem Ahmed Tariq or Khalid Bin Waleed. They were behind the murder of Hakeem Saeed and would have even killed Edhi to achieve some political mileage.

#55 Zeemax {``Punjab alone is 2/3rd of the population. All the 3 other provinces plus the Northern Areas, FATA and AJK combined are 1/3.
Therefore, Punjab will always set the direction, and it is fair. Punjab is 2/3rd Pakistan, and no one should crib about it.``}

Mr. Zeemax,
Surely you exaggerate with that 2/3 ratio. Regardless, in 1971, Punjab was much less than 1/2 the population, now you say it is 2/3. At the rate you PPPs have been behaving, you will soon be 100% of the population. Good luck, sir.

Hamidm Sahib:

Please go easy on Salim sahib, and continue to support him. He and Yasser stand out at Chowk. Salim was only correcting the fundoo Urstruly`s attempt to misinform chowkies. He, like Yasser, has tendency to let emotions take control.

#58 Hamidm2

[``urdu sheer ast, farsi sheer o` shakar ast, pukhtu goz-i-khar ast ``]

Sir, I am immensely relieved to learn that he stopped there and did not try to extrapolate to other languages of the region and of the world!

Re: # 59

pepe le pew,

.... i hate to disappoint you, but even though i might occassionaly suffer from an identity crisis, i am a firm believer in the union of pakistan and the liberation of kashmir ......... as tahmed points out i`d rather be a paki than a monkey ``hopping from one tree to another howling ``paki! paki! paki!``

....... tahmed, thanks for your counselling :)

hamidm: you write i remain a man without an identity .......

let me then help you.....

do you deny your identity as a human being?

if you do....then see all these various traditions (ethnic, like pathan, panjabi etc., or religious like hindu, muslim etc, eastern, western and so forth) as being all part of the rich fabric of human history, particularly of the past 10,000 years. And you can consider yourself heir to ALL of these traditions. And be proud, because without this rich history, you and I and everyone else would be hopping from one tree to another howling ``paki! paki! paki!`` or something like that, searching for berries.

if you do indeed consider yourself to be without even the identity of a human being, then we can talk some more... :-)

#56 by hamidm2

Hamidm did you answer my question re the ninjas of Jamia Hafsa and their demands on the other board? If you did it would be very kind of you to c/p here because Ican`t find it.

Re: # 57

zeemax,

sure, here you go .... this is what i said about your ninja girls : `` i wouldn`t support their stand even if they prayed in the nude ! ``

............ it is a matter of principle - it has nothing to do with their attire (or lack thereof)

#25 by Salim_Chauhan re #21 Zeemax {``As long as you`re a Pakistani (or claim to be), Punjabis are the majority and they will always have the last say in major decisions, as you`re seeing right now. There`s not even been a stir in your Karachi. ``}

Mr Salim Chauhan, when I said majority, I should have clarified what kind of majority.

Punjab alone is 2/3rd of the population. All the 3 other provinces plus the Northern Areas, FATA and AJK combined are 1/3.

Therefore, Punjab will always set the direction, and it is fair. Punjab is 2/3rd Pakistan, and no one should crib about it. Besides, Punjab has not stolen anyone`s rights but rather subsidised them as I have proven several times through facts & figures.

#53 bjkumar: he does make some valid points. but he ignores some significant points and so does not have any actionable conclusion to offer.

Specifically, he ignores the distinction between emphasizing the ``muslim identity`` vs. criminal actions in the name of islam. Thus, if someone puts on a headscarf (as he laments is happening in egypt), that does not mean she is going to blow herself up. I personally consider this ``muslim identity`` to be rooted in the ``tribal mentality`` - the same mentality that one sees on chowk in spades. While regrettable, it is not criminal.

similarly, while his warning against attempts to introduce the sharia (read: writ laws that are not subject to the popular will expressed through the democratic process) is I think valid - but again, there is no broad-based support to it, certainly not in Pakistan where ``hadood laws`` are widely condemned as being gimmicks by military dictators.

These are my two cents. What do you think?

Tauheed sahib, is Geneive Abdo on the dot?

---

A More Islamic Islam

By Geneive Abdo
Saturday, March 17, 2007; A19
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A small group of self-proclaimed secular Muslims from North America and elsewhere gathered in St. Petersburg recently for what they billed as a new global movement to correct the assumed wrongs of Islam and call for an Islamic Reformation.

Across the state in Fort Lauderdale, Muslim leaders from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Washington-based advocacy group whose members the ``secular`` Muslims claim are radicals, denounced any notion of a Reformation as another attempt by the West to impose its history and philosophy on the Islamic world.

The self-proclaimed secularists represent only a small minority of Muslims. The views among religious Muslims from CAIR more closely reflect the views of the majority, not only in the United States but worldwide. Yet Western media, governments and neoconservative pundits pay more attention to the secular minority.

The St. Petersburg convention is but one example: It was carried live on Glenn Beck`s conservative CNN show. Some of the organizers and speakers at the convention are well known thanks to the media spotlight: Irshad Manji, author of ``The Trouble With Islam,`` and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the former Dutch parliamentarian and author of ``Infidel,`` were but a few there claiming to have suffered personally at the hands of ``radical`` Islam. One participant, Wafa Sultan, declared on Glenn Beck`s show that she doesn`t ``see any difference between radical Islam and regular Islam.``

The secular Muslim agenda is promoted because these ideas reflect a Western vision for the future of Islam. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, everyone from high-ranking officials in the Bush administration to the author Salman Rushdie has prescribed a preferred remedy for Islam: Reform the faith so it is imbued with Western values -- the privatization of religion, the flourishing of Western-style democracy -- and rulers who are secular, not religious, Muslims. The problem with this prescription is that it is divorced from reality. It is built upon the principle that if Muslims are fed a steady diet of Western influence, they, too, will embrace modernity, secularism and everything else the West has to offer.

Consider the facts: Islamic revivalism has spread across the globe in the past 30 years from the Middle East to parts of Africa. In Egypt, it is hard to find a woman on the street who does not wear a headscarf. Islamic political groups and movements are on the rise -- from Hezbollah in Lebanon, to Hamas in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Even in the United States, more and more American Muslims, particularly the young, are embracing Islam and religious symbolism in ways their more secular, immigrant parents did not.

I traveled to Florida to serve as the keynote speaker at an annual convention hosted by CAIR. On my way to the event, I spoke with Imam Siraj Wahaj, a charismatic intellectual from the Masjid Al-Taqwa in Brooklyn who has thousands of followers here and abroad. His words summarized the aspirations of mainstream Muslims in the United States and around the globe: ``What we need to do is borrow those attributes from the West that we admire and reject those that we don`t. That is the wave of the future.``

Already, signs support Imam Wahaj`s words. Muslims living in the West and those in the Islamic world are searching for this middle ground -- one that fuses aspects of globalization with the Islamic tradition. For example, Muslim women have far greater access to higher education today than ever before. In Iran, there are more women than men in universities, a first in the country`s history. But as increasing numbers of Muslim women become more educated, majorities are becoming more religious while also taking part in what are called Islamic feminist movements, which stretch from Egypt to Turkey and Morocco.

These women, who often wear headscarves to express their religiosity, have found this gray area between modernity and traditionalism. They are fighting for more rights to participate in politics and greater equality in ``personal status`` laws -- the right to gain custody of children or to initiate divorce -- but also view Islam as their moral compass.

Similarly, the political future of the Arab world is likely to consist of Islamic parties that are far less tolerant of what has historically been the U.S. foreign policy agenda in the region and that domestically are far more committed to implementing sharia law in varying degrees.

In Europe and the United States, where Muslims have maximum exposure to Western culture, they are increasingly embracing Islamic values. In Britain, a growing number of Muslims advocate creating a court system based upon Islamic principles.

What all this means is that Western hopes for full integration by Muslims in the West are unlikely to be realized and that the future of the Islamic world will be much more Islamic than Western.

Instead of championing the loud voices of the secular minority who are capturing media attention with their conferences, manifestos and memoirs, the United States would be wise instead to pay more attention to the far less loquacious majority.

Geneive Abdo is the author of ``Mecca and Main Street: Muslim Life in America After 9/11.``

Re: # 53

bj,

............i agre with geneive abdo 100% and more .............. regardless of tahmed`s positive spin, the world is in for big trouble with a raging islam - and that includes horrible hindoos like you .......... if it is any consolation, as an apostate and whatnot, i will be in trouble long before you ...........

#49 hamidm: is there anything about your identity that you are proud of? and please remember that you are at best talking of your own experiences only when saying that all muslims take the lota to work, or that panjabis have an inferiority complex, or when saying that a white man can do no wrong. Where does all this negative energy come from??