An Empowering Verdict!

ajeet #: "I tend to disagree. The CJ got the support from the people precisely because, the honeymoon with Mushy was getting sore and there was no other Messiah available."

...i think you may be missing the point......the cj was an unknown entity, prior to this issue....i doubt most pakistanis could have named him.....

.......had this, "honeymoon" been for a known political leader, who was to actually get executive power, your theory would have been correct........however, what executive power does a cj have........none.......he cannot do anything for anyone......he could barely get his own son a govt. job through sifarish (the case against him was based on that)......

........the people came out because they wanted the supremacy of law.......led by the lawyers and media......lawyers came out because they were tired of their institution getting kicked out by the army, and their own leadership - judges - not taking a stand........

as i said, this may be internationally unprecedented.......i have heard of people putting politicians into power.......but i have never heard of people putting a cj back into power.....

.....another ironic part of this is that the whole future of the country was in the hands of a hindu judge....all this was overseen by justice bhagwandas......he could have very well declined and allowed musharraf to push the judiciary into submission.......

Re: # 111

Similar things are in India.
There girls are killed at birth so no education problem.
There is going to be war in india for brides. It is getting ugly specially in former pakistan area of east Punjab. Jaths are sending people south India for brides in south and buy them for "good" money and marry them and so bad even they accept dalits girls as daughter in laws. Afterwards they are beating them for producing girls and dark boys. Any way in india or pakistan its hard for women either die early when 3 days old in india or become burden of beast for bad lands/tribal. Nothing has changed in India. Atleast in Karachi rich family women are driving car go foreign for shopping trips india its hard for man woman or even beast due to lack of food water and clothe and living quarters.
Any way its just such stuff going in badlands of Mullah dominated religois areas rest is just fine like europe.

Funny how almost everyone has missed the point here.

BJ you said "Fear of mass uprising – or fear of the Bush?! (If you thought the former, guess again!)" ...and pray tell why would Bush be so interested in reinstating a guy who is asking for habeus corpeus for the northwesteners in Bush's war aginst whatever? It is precisely BECAUSE of the mass uprisings and the media coverage which would reach all the way to Washington.

Again, the victory is of a nonviolent well executed unprecedented grass roots movement that won.

Many people are on this CJ honeymoon for the wrong reasons thats true ...and those people will likely be dissappointed pretty soon, some of them have already left the party. This will not result in Mush being sacked or anything else on the MMA agenda ....infact they have little long term gain from this.

Like i said the only long term victors are the ones who belive in a civil (and secular) society.

Dear hamidm sahab ....although a lot of pakistani media coverage is trash, and alot is propaganda but its freer and stronger than its ever been and now i think it will be tough to put the genie back in the bottle. Thats always good for civil society. The price of freedom is that people you dont like will also be free to speak. I accept that.
And about the pin stripe Quran holders...i hope that they will transform the islamist movement and free it from thee the paralyzing stupidity of the other better known kind of mullahs...at this point i actually think i might shoot fazlufuk in the head myself.


Villages in competition to stop education of girls




By Sher Baz Khan

IMAM DERI (Swat), July 21: Seven-year-old Shireena is playing in a stream with some other children at a somewhat unusual pre-noon time on a busy working day. Normally, she stays in her classroom at this hour except during weekends, but today she is not. She is among more than 2,000 unfortunate girls of the area whose parents have decided to take them out of the schools after cleric Maulana Fazlullah issued an edict declaring girls’ education ‘un-Islamic’.

According to some locals, a majority of the girls stopped by their parents from attending schools, were the first in their families to have had the opportunity of getting formal education and Shireena was one of them.

The female education ratio in Imam Deri and the nearby Koza Banda, Bara Banda, Kabal and Char Bagh villages is very low. And things are likely to remain the same with little chances for many families to send their girls to schools after the edict.

Perhaps it was because of the very low literacy rate and vulnerability of the locals to religious propaganda that Maulana Fazlullah chose Imam Deri to build his first markaz — where he wanted to establish his first religious school, his FM radio station and all the facilities to gather people for sermons.

Fazlullah got a befitting response from parents in the area after he declared girls’ schooling un-Islamic.

According to local journalists and some elders, thousands of parents across Swat followed his edict and stopped girls from attending schools.

The maulana has adopted a successful method of putting various villages into competition. He announces a fatwa on his radio station and gives the task to a single village to follow it. Then he announces the number of people from that village who follow the edict and promises them heavenly rewards for taking a step towards the implementation of sharia in the country.

Then he gives the challenge to another village to surpass the first one and the response is always more positive.

“He is playing with the psyche of simple Pakhtuns who want to be ahead of their neighbours in anything that is meant to spread the cause of Islam,” says Hidayatullah Khan of the nearby Kanjo village.

When Fazlullah announced recently that polio vaccination was un-Islamic, he followed the same method and the response was amazing.

On the very first day, parents of about 5,000 children refused to get their sons and daughters vaccinated. The maulana congratulated all those parents on his radio station and appealed to more families to win heavenly rewards.

The next day, the anti-polio teams were denied permission to administer the vaccine to 8,600 children. The third day saw attacks on vaccination teams in many villages.

The same method enabled Fazlullah to collect donations amounting to about Rs400 million for his markaz project, some locals told Dawn. They said the money was never deposited in any bank and, till recently, kept in the basement of the under-construction markaz. They said a large number of women had donated their jewellery for the project.

The radio station has been installed in the building for over a year.

Even after the deployment of 5,000 army and FC men in the Malakand region, the maulana was able to broadcast his recorded messages on Wednesday night, in which he termed the deployment un-Islamic and told the people to wait for his ‘very important’ announcement to be made shortly.

Many people in the nearby Mingora city believe that the maulana will keep on giving edicts on various issues as long as he is in control of the radio station and the markaz.

Fazlullah has vanished from the scene after the army deployment but everything is still in his control.

Though Shireena will tell you how she liked her school and wanted to become a doctor, an increase in girls’ education in the area will remain a dream as long as the maulana is there, issuing edicts, the locals said.

Dost,

'.. I think that Pakistan may not have had a democratic government, but it generally has had governments with popular backing. Pakistani governments have been more in tune with their masses..'

This might be true, but it is like driving a car with no brakes, and having to hit a wall every time you want to stop.

Bulleya,

'..........however this instance is ...unique.....perhaps unique in the world.....people aren't rising up to support a political leader or a dictator...'

I tend to disagree. The CJ got the support from the people precisely because, the honeymoon with Mushy was getting sore and there was no other Messiah available. Check out the tons of rose petal being showered on CJ every where. This an offering to the new Messiah and not to the rule of law. Sadly all Messiahs have feet of clay, when people expect them to be all gold.

OK - why does mullah32 keep insisting that pakis don't like their mullahs, against all evidence and common sense?... it looks like mullahs are more in tune with paki unwashed masses than anybody else, certainly not the so-called "moderate" types like lawyers and what not...

I mean - pakis like sharia, mullahs like sharia... pakis want an islamic republic, mullahs want an islamic republic... so WTF is mullah32 talking about?

BJ

Dude - Don't rain on the paki parade, let them celebrate their victory, however small and incosequential it may be... allah knows they don't get much victories over their military... :)

Alright pakis - don't mind BJ, go splurge... why don't you send some cyber sweets to all chowkies for this great day of vitory?... :)

tahmed#104:

Do you disagree with me that Musharraf's support of the US operations in the NWFP lacks popular backing? If so, you have probably been reading different Pakistani media than I do.

bulleya:

".......however, they still have faith in the judicial system.......another point that i have always highlighted......there is, a general sense of the importance of rule of law in pakistan......the legal system and the media are two areas that still have some credibility......."

You may have a point. All Pakistani dictators have thought it necessary to get a rubber-stamp approval from the Supreme Court under the "doctrine of necessity". A British legacy, perhaps?

How delusional a whole class of individuals from a certain land (which should have been) called West India seems to have become!

First, who has always held power in that place? The guys with guns! Guess what, they still do. Along with the gun – they get the prize of running the place – creating more stakeholders who like things to stay in those same hands.

Second, what made the justices take their “principled stand”?! Love for the country (stop laughing!)? Their love for idealism? (I said STOP laughing!) Love for their own behinds?! (They do have their behinds – haven’t you seen them looking at it continuously and nervously?!)

Third, what made the khakis not crack the whip last week?! Fear of mass uprising – or fear of the Bush?! (If you thought the former, guess again!)

Fourth, how many divisions does the CJ or anybody else except the khakis command?!

So what has changed since last week? A big fat zero! Now go back to your pillows and cry…

MaiN ne chaand aur sitaaroN ki tamannaaa kit hi
Mujhko raatoN ki sayahee ke siwa – kuchh na milaaa

Dost Mittar: That is a bold stand you are taking (i.e. that "dictators" in Pakistan have been there with the de facto support of the people, and have been removed from power through "bloodless" revolutions. It is certainly one based on reason. And let us pray that Musharraf does not try to change the precedence, and leaves peacefully rather than trying to have a violent confrontation with peaceful demonstrators.

I have one quibble on popular opinion concerning Musharraf's handling of Islamic extremists: while no doubt the Islamic extremists are a vocal bunch, they are also the minority and considered to be the problem rather than any kind of solution by the vast majority of Pakistanis. As proof of this, note the public reaction to the storming of the lal masjid, where there has been no popular uprising of any kind. Far from it, in fact. People simply said that this was long overdue, and the next major demonstration was the one in Lahore a few days after lal masjid - that demonstration being part of the democracy movement led by the lawyers (mantolives colleagues!!) where religious parties merely tagged along like the non-religious parties.

So, dont make the mistake that gandhi made of paying attention to the mauvlis because they squeak the loudest and ignoring the lawyers and other middle class professionals of Pakistan. The latter provide the moral and intellectual leadership in Pakistan, and people see through the maulvis despite the latters attempts at inflating their importance through loudspeakers and noisy demonstrations with flag-burnings etc.

dost-mittar #: "Pakistani governments have been more in tune with their masses. When they are sick of politicians, a popular military dictator emerges (I still remember how Pakistanis were happy when Ayub took over as "milkmen stopped adding water to the milk", among other things), and when they are tired of the dictator, he goes."

..i would agree with this.......however this instance is different....unique.....perhaps unique in the world.....people aren't rising up to support a political leader or a dictator.......they have risen up to support the rule of law.....

basically, people have come out on to the street for a concept, not for a person........no one even knows who the chief justice was.......or maybe even is......he cannot do much for them, as he will never have political power........

.....in addition, people have not come out on the street against musharraf, as such......they are yet to do that, despite the efforts of political parties......thoough they are fed up of musharraf - if for no other reason than the incumbency factor -, they are equally fed up of the political parties.....

.......however, they still have faith in the judicial system.......another point that i have always highlighted......there is, a general sense of the importance of rule of law in pakistan......the legal system and the media are two areas that still have some credibility.......

#101 Posted by dost_mittar on July 22, 2007 7:47:42 am


I still remember how Pakistanis were happy when Ayub took over as "milkmen stopped adding water to the milk", among other things)


Capt clueless was as pro-military-takeover as they come..he was telling us, when mushy took over, that the people only cared about economic issues and they didn't care about democracy..

of course..he also told us after 9/11 that pakiland had US winds in it's sails and India had better hand over Kashmir ASAP or Pakiland would be stringer in a few years and would use the jihadis to take it away by force..

ajeet:

"My only concern is, that was this massive support for the rule of law, or is it that the public was tired of the old Messiah and just looking for another Messiah. Would the people again celebrate the coming of another dictator when they are tire of the politicians."

I think that you are closer to the truth. I think that Pakistan may not have had a democratic government, but it generally has had governments with popular backing. Pakistani governments have been more in tune with their masses. When they are sick of politicians, a popular military dictator emerges (I still remember how Pakistanis were happy when Ayub took over as "milkmen stopped adding water to the milk", among other things), and when they are tired of the dictator, he goes. All this is accomplished without bloodshed. The directions they give to the country are geneerally with popular backing, whether it is declaring Pakistan an Islamic state, creating sharia courts or adventurism in Kashmir or Afghanistan. The major exception has been Musharraf's support of the US in the post 9/11 period, especially his collaboration with the Americans against his own countrymen in the NWFP and FATA.

While in India, especially during the Nehru era, a lot of policies-good (Hindu Code Bill and banning of caste) and bad (anti americanism)- were pursued which did not have popular support because the elected members of Parliament went along with it because of the Party discipline and their fear of Nehru. Even now, my hunch is that most Indians would prefer a Uniform Civil Code over separate laws for Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Parsees. There have been times when Indians too have been tired of their politicians and would have also supported any white knight if one had emerged, as indeed they did when Indira Gandhi imposed a virtual dictatorship and "babus started to come to work on time".

The verdict is in...Dubya says pakis need to do more..

Bush terms Sept deal a failure: Report on ‘Al Qaeda havens’ endorsed

By Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON, July 21: US President George W. Bush on Saturday endorsed an intelligence report claiming that Al Qaeda has established a safe haven in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

In his weekly radio address, Mr Bush also noted that the agreement President Gen Pervez Musharraf had signed with tribal elders in North Waziristan has failed but expressed full confidence in the Pakistani leader’s ability to fight terrorists.

Referring to a report submitted to the White House last week by 16 US intelligence agencies, Mr Bush said: “One of the most troubling is its assessment that Al Qaeda has managed to establish a safe haven in the tribal areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan.”

The Pakistan Foreign Office, however, has rejected the US report as ‘unsubstantiated’ and has urged Washington to ‘actionable intelligence.’

“It does not help simply to make assertions about the presence or regeneration of Al Qaeda in bordering areas of Pakistan. What is needed is concrete and actionable information and intelligence sharing,” the Foreign Office said.

Mr Bush, however, said that even President Musharraf recognised that the agreement he signed on Sept 5 with tribal elders for policing their area had failed and he was “taking active steps to correct it.”

He noted that earlier this month, President Musharraf sent in troops to go after radicals who seized control of a mosque, and “then he delivered a speech vowing to rid all of Pakistan of extremism.”

He linked the US global campaign against Al Qaeda to Pakistan’s efforts to quell extremist violence and expressed full US support for Gen Musharraf efforts to rid his country of extremism, including an Al Qaeda “safe haven” in tribal areas.

“Pakistani forces are in the fight, and many have given their lives. The United States supports them in these efforts. And we will work with our partners to deny safe haven to the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan — or anywhere else in the world,” Mr Bush said.

Govt trying to avert foreign attack: FM

By Ashraf Mumtaz

LAHORE, July 21: Pakistan has informed the Western countries that it is trying to control cross-border movement of militants in tribal areas so that no country gets an excuse to go for direct strikes.

Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, talking to reporters at his residence here on Saturday, said the government wanted to deal with the situation through political means, including adherence to the peace accord.

He said although the extremists had unilaterally withdrawn from the agreement, the NWFP governor was still doing his best to deal with the situation in a peaceful manner.

The minister claimed the army had been sent to the tribal areas in an attempt to save the accord and avoid ‘collateral damage’. Asked about the possibility of direct US attacks, he said the army wanted to avoid the killings and it was because of its careful planning that the casualty ratio between the two sides was much less than the one being witnessed in Iraq.

He said 500 troops had been killed against 800 militants, which was much less than 1:20 or 1:100 ratio monitored in Iraq. In tribal areas, he said, hand-to-hand combat was going on and the government was not using artillery.

Mr Kasuri said the Western countries were alleging that militants were crossing into Afghanistan from the tribal areas. The government, he said, had informed them that it was trying to stop such activities.