Of Carnage and Triumph

The “profound” wisdom of chowk Pakistanis can leave one wordless!

The facts of the matter are rather simple.

(1) BB’s past is not an issue here. Like the Laloo (a figure more popular in Pakistan than his native Bihar), there are charges of corruption against her. Well, you supposedly have an “independent” judiciary – use the judiciary to deal with the allegations. If your system does not work – fix the system, do not try to “do the job yourself” – then your approach is no different from a jihadi!

(2) One must wonder why so many chowkwalis are so viciously attacking the BB – especially since the BB is the only person (out of the current lot) who even seems to have at least shades of democratic thoughts about her – and these ladies have nobody better to suggest in her place.

(3) The people who attacked the procession are the real culprits. If the khakis were complicit, then they are equally to blame. Blaming BB is totally dishonest – and no different from blaming a rape victim for being there - “Usne itna bhaDakdar kapDa kyun pehna?!”

(4) From the Bumbaiwali to the Scout, the Neembu, the Bridge, the Sobia, and the Zeena are all busy playing Monday morning quarterbacking – “why did she have the juloos?” This is one of the most asinine statements I have ever heard. Why not answer honestly the very simple question – why did 1.5 million people line up that route? The answer is simple – BB wanted to exercise her freedom – and those people wished to do the same – in a democracy, one has the right to assemble. If you do not do so because of coercion, you do not have that freedom – “true” democracy or otherwise, and then you have allowed the bad guys to win!

I sometimes think that Pakistan is backward because many of its women are primitive in mindset – especially those who consider themselves “educated” but are more retrogressive than the least literate of village ladies! Unfortunately, most of them have decided to permanently park themselves in the chowk corridors!

So between BB and the general, will the elections (if and when they are held) produce another leader by default who is the best of the worst and not really good enough? If so,that is a pity,because the people of Pakistan and any other country for that matter, deserves better.

Re: # 12

arjun,

.. please do me a favor and pull out romair's old t-shirt post ... that might shut him up for a while ......

thank you and best regards

Re: # 13

ahmedmadani sahib,

.... i hear you, but you have to play with the hand you are dealt ..... so far the only queens and kings we have in this lousy hand are bb and the general .... other than that you have jokers and knaves like imran khan and the qazi ...... unless, of course, you have an ace up your sleeve .......

#1 Posted by neembu on October 19, 2007 1:25:51 pm


the bombings do not bode well.


really? bombings don't bode well?

profound..

Re: # 4 Romair.... You have thoughtful comment.
I second you over long term religious parties will get benefit as people are not swayed and fooled as deal is transperant between military ruler and Mrs. Bhutto you scratch my back and will return favors. On human level most depressed will PPP ground workers , they went and kept all faith and what they got. BB leadership will loose lustre fast as people do not like people leading them of so low character to just get personal benefits and throw down followers to gutter. It saddens people like me as all this Tamasha and farce. General went "april fool election" as a short cut and it proved strategic blunder, mistakes can be be corrected not strategic blunders. He proved talkative and fast but not intelligent and subtle. I hope you are wrong and general and BB work for betterment. May be people who distributed sweets after coup or hundreds of thousand welcoming BB ( total corroupt person), NRO etc deserve what they are going to get. One can not blame general or BB as may be they understand moral fiber and caliber of people who act as children. I think corrouption will kill pakistan internally as cancer has now reached at head at top and people are happy for that. It is hard think how things can better when only common denominator is moral corrouption amoung leading people of nation.I remember a german saying " If money is lost nothing is lost, if health is lost something is lost and if moral Character is lost then everything is lost".
Last hope is general is disqualified that will be best. Even if general declares marshall law still better than corroupt compromising democracy. Hardship of marshall law over long term will throw up better moral leadership, this corroupt democracy will throw up pigs. Some times one wonders all this 60 years of journey is from something to nothing. I honestly feel BB and general not much better than dakoos and terrorists in Karachi who loot and rob people by holding TT pistols to their heads.Things are fine means they are not fine.
Let us hope technical disqualifications of general stops his low moral games.
Some how I feel things will go against people of pakistan, general will be okeyed as pakistan never gets breaks only shafts.

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bhaand u are the biggest moron of all to continue supporting the conservatives after they proved oevr the last 7 years that they are the undisputed kings of chutyap

teray bhejey mey kya gobar bhara hai?

Re: # 9

borvili,

.... as the wise dr shankar said: next time you have gas, blame someone other than america and bush for your flatulence ......

this class 1 chutya bush, and his company of idiots, rumsfield, cheney and the assorted conservative jokers have made a complete mess of afghanistan and iraq

how stupid the american people are can be estimated from their relection of such incompetent nincompoops

the soney pe suhaga would be relection of a conservative admin next year.

Re: # 6

ras mian,

.... even though i am not a big admirer of benazir, it is true that ppp is the only real political party in pakistan ...... the rest of them are a bunch of opportunistic neophytes - other than the murderous jamaat-i-islami, which should be banned and its leaders sent to guantanamo ....... the ppp worker is a true jiyala and i know many who have stood by their party over the last forty years regardless of all the ups and downs for no obvious personal gain (a friend of mine who works eighty hours a week running a small business in canada, actually went with his family to welcome benazir back to pakistan - a true jiyala!) ....... unfortunately, i am not sure the party can survive without benazir ....

..... given the choices, i think most sane pakistanis, regardles of their political affiliations, would hope that this benazir-musharraf thing works out ...... if not, we might be in for some tough times .....

.... i wish my garain, sheikh rashid, would have a change of heart and join bb so that i could vote for both of them ......

sheikh rashid zindabad !
bb zindabad !
musharraf, go home ... but zindabad until he does

p.s. every time i see someone with a beard i feel like slapping him ....... i must go and see a shrink (not shankar)

This whole shit has happened because Bush and company didnot sort out afghanistan before entering Iraq, if they had only invested some of their money in the nation building they so despise Afghanistan would be midway on the road to recovery by now. Al Gore knew the importance of nation building

How high a high price the world has had to pay for the florida fraud

Timely and accurate article Dilawar,

SR #2 please cut back on the strong stuff..

hamidm & ahmedmadaani both continue to make sense...

and bulleya, Musharraf and BB are not competing...

This attack was carried out to scare the PPP supporters

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20071019/wl_time/whoisbehindtheattackonbhutto

Ti me will tell whether they succeeded.

I think that actually increased their resolve.

Killing so many innocent people cannot go unpunished.

Re: # 2

SR,

... stop being so melodramatic ! .... in another week or so most pakis will forget about this event and go about their business as usual (until the next explosion) ...... we are a very resilient (dheet) people ......

....... personally i wouldn't mind the aerial bombing of mansoora and akora khattak in retaliation for this carnage ......... i would also like to see a ban on beards and maswak

....benazir's stock is, now, going to hit the roof in the usa....one of the reasons musharraf is so popular in usa is because he was physically targeted by al-qaeeda assassins....now benazir is going to be able to steal his thunder......she is set and will milk it for all that she can.......

......i suppose if one survives an assassination attempt, one has the right to milk it for all that one can......

......ppp has a history of fighting military dicatorship(s)...even in musharraf's case, ppp leaders have suffered quite a bit....navid qamar and yusuf gilani spent years in jail without being tried......however, fighting extremist militants has never been in ppp's history......in fact, it was she who created the taliban......

.......what will musharraf do now that benazir can steal the thunder on which he has based his whole survival, i.e. convincing the usa that he is the last bulwark against al-qaeda taking over pakistan, with nukes.......i think he will have to bring back nawaz sharif to split benazir's vote, and get the two to fight it out, with the army playing divide and rule......

....i think the short term outlook for pakistan looks bullish for liberal elements (musharraf, benazir and mqm), however, the long term outlook looks bullish for urstruly....

......pakistan is not a religiously orthodox society.....however, there is a limit to how long people will tolerate poor goverance....musharraf has long overstayed his welcome as a dictator.....benazir and co. are massively corrupt; not to mention feudal to the core.....they have no regard for the voter......mqm is an openly fascist party, which kills regularly to achieve its object.......

uptil now, these three forces were working separately.......now with them joined together, things are going to get ugly......

at which point, i think even the overwhelming majority of pakistan which is neither liberal nor orthodoxily religious is going to say, "let's give the maulvis a chance, how much worse could they be"

....muslim countries, have, all had liberal, generally secular govts. to start off.....one by one, wherever there is democracy, islamic govt. are coming into power......even turkey, which is more secular than the pope, has elected an islamic party.....

i think if the benazir, musharraf, altaf bhai trioka gets another five years, qazi hussain etc. will be the biggest beneficiaries.....

.......i saw, first hand, pakistan's enthusiastic allegiance to the usa, in the first afghan war......the result was pakistan holding the bag of klashnikovs, drugs, refugees and violence, while everyone packed their bags......the same thing is going to happen once again.....

germany and holland have, barely, lost 15 people combined in afghanistan, and have not had a single explosion within their boundaries, yet their population is pressurising their govts. to get the troops out of afghanistan.....in germany, public support for the afghan war is down to 31% or so.....spain had one expolosion, within its boundaries, and the govt. was changed and forced to withdraw troops from iraq, by its public....

pakistan has lost hundreds of soldiers on the afghanistan border and the country is in the begining stages of becoming an iraq - with one explosion after another in the heart of pakistan; none of which any govt. will be able to control, regardless of how much it bombs waziristan - yet all the leaders are doing is to jump ahead of each other in showing their loyalty to the us administration - gyrating their hips, so to speak - in making pakistan a frontline state (again!).......

bad days ahead for pakistan........the chief justice needs to disallow musharraf's election, and prosecute bb and ns for corruption.......and altaf bhai needs to be prosecuted in england, as per imran khan's case.......maybe then someone reasonable can come to the top........however, that is wishing for too much......

p.s. my condolensces to the families of the individuals who died......though i am not sure if it worth one's life to lose it in support of an individual like benazir; not to mention the long line of feudals and nth generation pirs who accompanied her in the front row of the truck......

This time to reflect and not spread gloomy things.
All important players have understood. Army, BB, General, Terrorist to think of some constructive work rather than destruction. Let us hope past is past and sinners have future and all they will work for Pakistan as once general said Sabse pahala Pakistan. Rulers come and go but pakistani state and pakistani state go ahead. One step backward two step forward. Many things are going good but reporters only report bad things, for them bad news is only news. Good morning and things are going to be fine, soon election, democratically elected govt after almost 10 years. Things may look bad in vicinity but in long term we are on way up.