Independence Thinker

#253 dont worry yar..there was a civil war after the prophet died..but later the kaliphas created a great islami empire..alls we got to do is wait for that kalipha after this temperory civil war phase is over and then everything will be just fine.

IB #254 One can always point to something that someone didnt do, or some fault in someone. That does not change the fact that the Chief Justice has stood up for the basic rights and freedoms of the people of Pakistan that Musharraf and his agents were only too happy to try to take away from them.

And the vast majority of the people of Pakistan understand that. Even if you chose not to.

GT: You seriously underestimate Abdul. He is as smart as you or me or anyone else. As proof of this: I remember reading a column in the Washington Post where the columnist predicted that the Chief Justice would not find much popular support given that issues like habeas corpus and the right to vote were beyong the understanding of the average person in a poor country. Events proved that columnist wrong.
Conversely, Musharraf's lie that he could not act against maulvis of lal masjid when they were intimidating shopkeepers and others in Islamabad was proved when in fact people heaved a sigh of relief when he finally cracked down on the maulvis. Two days after lal masjid, there was a large public gathering - as part of the democracy movement, with lal masjid remembered only by maulvis.

Same in India - BJP made a big deal about "India Shining" and BJP leaders like Advani tried to play on hindu nationalism. And ended up losing elections, because the indian abduls too saw through this crap.

So, have more respect for the poor people of South Asia. And just be glad that you and I are more fortunate than them - but God gave them a brain like he gave you and me as well. Never forget that.

Re: # 253 Why Jinnah archives are still not opened ? any reason. hope soon made open as with time paper slowly disintegrates. May be under some scholars international group should compile and and gop should subsidise so even poor people can study selected works of Jinnah and gone by era.

Tahmed sahib:

You ask:

"So, why not call a spade a spade in politics, and call good governance as "good governance" rather than as "ram raj" or "islamic state"?"

I would gladly follow your prescription. But there is a slight problem. Suppose I am fighting an election and I am telling abdul that I will implement "good governance". He asks me "what is good governance". I tell him "well it means secularism, balanced budget, free trade etc. etc.". He is not very convinced. Instead I say "good governance induces ram rajya". Now you got the sucker and his vote (or even his laathi) :)

Point is you simply cannot leave religion out in South Asia today. Maybe, in some distant future.

I do not understand why these guys are struck up in Gandhi and Jinnah.

Too much of obsession with political leaders and "Prophets" makes a dis passionate evaluation of their contributions at a hind sight difficult. That makes us susceptible to making the same mistakes in the history agan and again.

Pakistan needs to kick out all the references ot "Islam" or the so called "Islamic principles" from its constitution if it is to turn into a modern democracy - otherwise they would keep on repeating the nonsense that has been carrying on since the last 60 years.

At a hind sight Jinnah's ghost also needs to be exorcized from Pakistani minds because he also strenghtens the notion of Islam as a foundation of that nation.

On UP, Saleeeeeeem has made an observation: Gandhi and Osama belong to the same spectrum but stand at opposite ends.

There is something about this statement which rings true, but I do not know what. Anyone cares to explain?

Saleeeeeeeeeem?

Re: # 250 tahmed bhai,
don't you think CJ is biased? there's a case by Air Marshal (r) Asghar Khan - which provides evidence that ISI distributed money to Nawaz Shairf,Javed Hashmi,Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Fazul-ur-Rehman and lot of other politicians. Why is CJ not going against them? Don't you think CJ's involvement in missing cases is hurting National Security?
Why are we such a emotional country? CJ is fooling everyone!

Re: # 249

Given that most of Jinnah archives still remain under lock and key, including presumably the famous draft constitution that he had been working on... we cannot say for sure how much he actually did achieve in those 13 months.

What we do know is that Muslim League- which though founded in 1906- as a mass political party had only really come to the forefront in 1936-1937. Before that it had been an annual platform/conference for all practical purposes ... except the brief role Jinnah's ML had played against the Simon Commission. With power falling to the League in 1947, one could say the party peaked too early ... and too many khota sikkas jumped other ships to join it bringing it down.

Thus in 1947... you had a dying charismatic leader and a bunch of immature politicians in a very nascent party-movement which lacked the maturity that such an organisation develops over a few decades. This is why the same party broke into a million parts after Pakistan was created.

Just imagine!

Justice loving Americans, Citizens for many many generations, Successful in their fields , highly respected by their opponents..talk about the hatred for US & why that hatred is justified...

and then there are Cantonment & Colony Kuttaaas from Pakiland, on work-permit green-card citizenship maybe, with BBS-education fromtoata-maina school...who love the maashter so much that they have yet to utter a single sentence against the US thUggs.

"Mujhhay bataa toa sahee aur kaafiree kyaa hai"?
........................................ALLAMA Iqbal

tr: Pray , at least tell me, what else is un-belief.
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Why They Hate Us
by Sheldon Richman, June 27, 2007

What’s more obnoxious than a person who constantly whines about the injustices committed against him while ignoring his own injustices against others?

A country that does the same thing.

We often hear American politicians and commentators reciting a list of “terrorist” acts committed against the “United States.” It typically includes the 1982 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the 1996 bombing of U.S. Air Force housing in Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the port of Aden in Yemen. Reciting this string of attacks supposedly demonstrates, without further argument, that the United States has been the major victim of violence on the world stage — unprovoked violence perpetrated by “Islamofascists” because we are free. Indeed, it is widely believed that the attacks on September 11, 2001, were in part the result of “our” failure to retaliate for the earlier attacks.

But this is sheer balderdash. The attacks, while often criminally misdirected, were hardly unprovoked.

The last century-plus of U.S. foreign policy has largely been a story of aggression and empire-building. American presidents have intervened and interfered in every region of the world, not in self-defense, but in the name of U.S. “national interest,” which in reality means the interest of well-connected corporations and their ambitious political agents who felt appointed to bring order to the world. As a whole, the American people haven’t gained by this — in fact, they have paid dearly in money and lives. But not as dearly as those on the receiving end of that policy. For all the pious moralizing about democracy and human rights, American foreign policy has treated foreign populations like garbage, beginning with the brutal repression of the Filipino uprising against American colonial rule from 1899 to 1902. That war and its related hardships killed 250,000 to a million Filipino civilians and 20,000 Filipino rebels.

How many Americans know that?

Since that time American presidents have intervened, directly or by proxy, in countless places, including Cuba, Haiti, Colombia (Panama), Chile, Mexico, Nicaragua, the Soviet Union, Iran, Iraq, Guatemala, Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. On many occasions American administrations have engineered regime changes (sometimes with assassinations) to install leaders friendly to “American interests.” Rarely has intervention occurred without the murder of innocent civilians, degrading hardship for survivors, and arms and (taxpayer) money for repressive “leaders.” The paradigm is the 1953 intervention in Iran, when the CIA helped drive an elected, secular prime minister from office so the autocratic shah could be restored to power. His brutal U.S.-sponsored repression of the Iranian people finally provoked a religious revolution in 1979, creating an anti-American theocracy that has been a thorn in the side of U.S. presidents ever since.

Coincidence? Of course not. Americans may be ignorant or forgetful; the victims seldom are.

Iran was neither the first nor last case of “blowback,” the CIA’s term for what happens when a foreign operation explodes in one’s own face.

How many Americans have any inkling of the crimes — yes, crimes — their government has committed against foreign peoples in their name over the last century? Most people don’t know and don’t care — and that’s fine with their rulers because when vengeful foreigners assault American civilians (unjustifiably) or military occupiers, U.S. leaders and jingoist supporters can say “America” was the victim of another unprovoked attack. “Why do they hate us?” they will wonder.

Anyone the least bit familiar with history will know the answer. The CIA is about to release hundreds of documents about earlier interventions (and domestic spying), so there’s no more excuse for ignorance. Let’s stop whining and get curious. As Walt Kelly’s Pogo put it, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation, author of Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State, and editor of The Freeman magazine. Visit his blog “Free Association” at www.sheldonrichman.com. Send him email.
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Jang:

Both MKG and MAJ were haters of the West, not simply British or the Colonisers but basically whatever stood for "WEST".

Time & Time again they expressed their derision for Western civilization and the Western system ( the quotes, excerpts, ansd speeches are not isolated or private) in the full glare of Internation media. They never ever said these things to please any crowd..all the utterences were in the language of the Maashter.

The Pakis who fancy themselves as Ooons have NO deen O Eemaan..they immediately distance themselves from these great men when it comes to expressing an unconditional, unequivocal and unabashed HATRED for the WEST. The Kanjaroon here refuse to admit & utter it..even in an anonymous capacity.

Until & unless they express hatred, at least for their barbaric invasion & killings in Iraq & afghanistan, & condemn The United Satans and their Coalition-for-the -Killings Nothing what they write or say carries any value.


Ex[pressing HATRED for the west is the only indicator today of a free-mind...If one can't even speak against the bastards what else one could expect from these Kuttaas of Macualay,

mantolives: i should add that the chief justice is an example of what i am talking about. yesterday he told the intelligence chief in pakistan to produce a "disappeared" man before court or else face jail himself!! this is the kind of a leader I am talking about - who is not scared to stand up for the basic rights of each Pakistani. Which includes the right to vote and the right to habeas corpus.

#247 manotlives: That is indeed different from what I stated earlier, because you reminded me of Nehru staying in power, which demonstrated that if Jinnah had lived Pakistan too may have had a democracy. The rule that "no man is always right" applies, after all, to me as well.

The basic point I make - i.e. that "leaders" need not be grasping for political office all the time - remains unchanged though.

Also, note that Jinnah did know he was dying, while Nehru was in good health, and so the former could have done more like I mentioned.

And I say this with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, like I said, so one can understand why Jinnah did not anticipate games that tinpot generals and twobit bureaucrats (like ghulam muhammed) and khotasikka politicians (like bhutto) not to mention halfbrained maulvis would play in the absence of strong constitutional foundations.

i think the islamis should give big hugs to paki-secularoons..they after all hated gandhis for his ramraj but loved jinnah for his nation based on islami principles. they have their heart in the right place..they are just trying to make it palatable.

Re: # 245

Agreed on this but that is different from what you stated earlier.

GT #239 I have no problem with someone being positively inspired by his personal views, religious or otherwise (a hindu with ram raj as interpreted to mean good governance, a muslim with "islamic state" as also interpreted to mean good governance, or an avowed non-religious guy who merely seeks good governance).

My point is very simple: religious terms like "ram raj" or "islamic state" do not necessarily translate into good governance. So, why not call a spade a spade in politics, and call good governance as "good governance" rather than as "ram raj" or "islamic state"?

This way, no one can do a bait and switch: i.e. protray "ram raj" or "islamic state" as good governance before coming to power, and once in power translate it differently to mean caste oppression (in case of hinduism) or oppression of women and minorities (in case of islam as zia did with hadood laws and blasphemy laws).