At Last...Nationalism at Last

Mere bhai, you have put yourself up against some very big challenges. Both with respect to Islam and in reference to Urdu(ization of Pakistan). The two issues, of course, are not totally unrelated.

Re: # 30
Eklavya I am taking the liberty to assume that you are Indian, non-Muslim and live in India. Your experience with Muslims is as a minority...hence the fallacy in your analysis...

ANP is all what I stand for...they don't want to break the country...all the nationalist parties in Pakistan are anti-Feudal, anti-bureaucracy, anti-Military...they demand provincial anatomy...not independence...they are all Muslims and they are all Pakistani...

Its this urdu-speaking class that feels threatened by them...because autonomy on cultural basis would leave them in the middle of nowhere..because they have no region...its only by shouting the slogans of equality, Pakistani nationalism, PanIslamism, voting for MQM, helping the Army and eroding the cultures that they can survive...There very life depends on it...Since a centre controlled subservient Pakistan is indispensable to US needs...they have formed indirect alliances with US...hence the critique for US...nothing personal...US does what it should...and we should do what we should...
Read the interacts of "Militant Liberalism" carefully and minutely...and you'd be enlightened...

You'd see how MQM would play its role to undermine the political process by continuing its unconditional support for Musharraf...

Preaching for universalism...they are the most clanish of all the social groups in Pakistan...just look at the poll results...but as they say...time is fast running out for them...

Ahmad Hayat

Re: # 30
The question that you should ask is "Why you are so virulently anti-Islam and anti-Muslim?"...Anti-Americanism comes to the fore only as a definition of forces that support Feudals, Urud-Speaking centralists, Mullahs, Army and Bureacrats...U.S. needs/needed Pakistan to have an influence on Rusia/China. It is in US interest to maintain non-representative governments in Pakistan that are more pliable and could act regardless of the interests of people inhabiting Pakistan.
What helps U.S. is the ultimate idea that every solution to our problems must be found by pre-accepting the existence of Pakistan. This puts the ideology that defines Pakistan under intellectual scrutiny. This scrutiny reveals the fallacies inherent in this ideology that relies fundamentally on the sham theory of Pan-Islamism...
Pan-Islamism on the other hand is just a philosophical tool to keep pre-medieval arab-conquered masses of sub-continet under the moral hegemony of Arabs by the proxy of Islam...This hegemony can only be put to end by renouncing this sham medieval doctrine and each and everything assoicated to it...

"He married the daughter of a landlord to cement a political alliance with Feudals"

LOL , the Gabol guy is a Punjabi businessman based in karachi. Once again you make baseless allegations without providing any kind of evidence or using any historical examples. I'd be surprised if you have any kind of knowledge relevant this issue. I have proven all your hate filled rubbish to be a figment of your imagination in my previous post but I don't expect a reply.

In general, arguments like 'not all so and so are such and such' are always true. Not all men are men. Not all women are women. Not all nights are dark. Not all days are bright.

Many ideologies and political views survive on the strength of such statements.

ahmad hayat,

Where you stand, the ONLY people who can coooperate with you, and work with you, without trying to destroy both you and all that you stand for, are non-Pakistanis, in fact, only non-Muslims.

Why are you so virulently anti-American? Sorry, I probably missed something you said earlier. So, can you please explain your view of the US? Is it something like the French view?

As expected...US and UK want to keep Musharraf as president...Just as Mr. Siddiqui "The Analyst with the Urdu-Speaking Spin" had suggested...

Refer to these news briefs...

The Guardian
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/dont-sack-musharraf-us-an d-uk-warn-election-victors-784909.html

People's Daily Online
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90852/6359139.html

IBN
http ://www.ibnlive.com/news/us-uk-tell-pak-oppn-alliance-not-to-sack-musharraf/59577 -2.html?xml

I have already emphasized in my posts and my previous article as well that...

(i)Urdu-Speaking People represented by MQM (please don't go on saying that not all urdu-speakers vote for MQM, yes they do, look at the poll results...its like saying that not all jews are zionists...surely there are non-zionist jews like 1% of the total jewish populations...)

(ii)Pakistan Army
(iii)Religious Political Parties

are all mutually intertwined and supportive of each other because their interests converge.

The only party and political theory that contradicts them is Nationalism (the main reason of it being detested by the above-mentioned forces)...MQM speaking of anti-Feudal reforms...this is plain laughable...He married the daughter of a landlord to cement a political alliance with Feudals...and MQM was in coalition with PML-Q for five years that represents quasi-totality of Punjabi and a few Sindhi landlords...actions speak louder than words...

Surely with the overwhelming urud-speaking support for military (concretised by MQM wins in Provincial and National assemblies) Musharraf's tenure would be prolonged...I mean he would resign but after a year or two and not immediately as the opposition parties are demanding...MQM has provided the cushion necessary for Musharraf's survival...

Nationalism is just plain political death for these centripetal forces of Islam, Ethnicity Erasing Urdu-Speakers and Military...hence opposition with full force...

Like Mullahs...now MQM is also openly pro US...of course with full military backing...so much for democratic spirit...

Useless rhetoric on this forum has marred the spirit of intellectual discourse...

Saddening to see...

Ahmad Hayat

Ranjit...This automatic acceptance of multiculturalism and heterogeneity is incomprehensible...why should people from other regions be able to and be allowed to move into other regions? What is the morality and logic behind this automatic acceptance? Why should the borders (natural frontiers) of a region not be open only to
Students
Tourists
Merchants/Traders...

Why are you for this occupation by settlement/immigration doctrine?

Similarly why do north Indians want to live in Mumbai? for a good future, to take advantage of the economic oppurtunity...well this oppurtunity is a regional resource...why not try to do the same thing in one's region? why the support for this parasitic socialist egalitarian theory?

Finally, although people at this forum have tried hard to be apologists of Musharraf regime and urdu-speakers' unconditional and uniform support for MQM and hence for Army, the award would certainly go to one Mr. Siddiqui who said on TV the other day...

"The country is in need of a president who has experience of dealing with Army and Politicians at the same time, someone who could become a bridge between army and politicians and I think President Musharraf fits the definition to the word..."

I somebody in the studios vomited after hearing this statement...it wasn't reported...

Ahmad Hayat

Ahmed sahib,

My basic point is that nationalism is a very human urge given our inherent attachment to our land, culture, language and religion. At the same time, in any diverse society there have to be limits to this urge or else you have balkanization accompanied by gory violence. For instance recently we have seen an offshoot of Shiv Sena in Bombay organizing a virulent campaign to expel north indians from bombay in the name of preserving marathi culture. Already two people have died. Unless the government and society at large curbs such tendencies, you will have mass scale slaughter given the extreme diversity in the subcontinent, whether it is in india or pakistan.

Therefore, every heterogeneous society tries to come up with some attributes that can unite disparate people even as they are given room to express their nationalism. Its a fine balancing act. India has done that to a large extent by avoiding a state religion, giving equal status to all languages, having smaller states and eliminating feudalism. In addition, the economic incentive is there to stay together.

Pakistan has adopted islam as that natural glue but it has not worked out that well. Now you need some other glue to substitute for it or rather augment the islamic glue. It could be economic interests, equal opportunity, equality of languages, state rights etc. If you do not have any such glue, your country will be ruined as you already saw happening in 1971.

haji004,

Your lack of knowledge and ignorance is surprising for someone who likes to throw around a lot of pretentious meaningless words. Your assertion that Urdu has been imposed on what remains of Pakistan is laughable. Urdu was imposed on the Bengali's with the active consent and participation of the Punjabi/West Pakistani political elite as well as the evil matarua's. Since the separation, no Urdu speaker has held any kind of prominent position in any setup until the outgoing thugs. If populists like ZAB (I suppose he is a hero of yours) could steal entire industries in broad daylight as well as severely restricting the employment oppurtunities of this supposedly all powerful Urdu Speaking Elite without so much as a peep than what was to stop him from making the official language Sindhi or Punjabi? The language riots of 1972 have been the only occasion where any kind of clash was seen over language and these subsided quickly. Sindhi is now taught in all public schools in Karachi up till class 9. Urdu is also not the lingua franca outside the major urban centers. The MQM has also repeatedly stated that Urdu as a Naional Language is Punjab's choice and that they would not protest atll if regional languages were to be given more prominence.

This brings me to your second point that Urdu Speakers have always been diametrically opposed to provincial autonomy. To begin with the One Unit Scheme was implemented by a military man from Hazara. Secondly, maybe you should read MQM's manifesto which stresses heavily on provincial autonomy and even goes as far as to state that eventually Defence, economy and telecommunications should be the the only subjects under the control of the center.

As far as support for the Army goes, yes Musharraf was liked and supported by the "Urdu Speaking" community mostly due to the infrastructure development projects carried out in Karachi (for the first time in many decades). Despite this many of Musharaff's fiercest critics have been Urdu Speaking. All communities in Pakistan have been guilty of supporting one dictator or another at various times. The predecessor to the May 12th incident was when armed pathan gunmen supporting Ayub Khan opened fire on mostly Urdu speaking supporters of Fatima Jinnah.

Re: # 6

Well done for answering all. You need not answer me!

You said:
Nikhat you st**k of the sham education..

I say:
Address her nicely if you disagree. Do you wish to progress beyond first-draft writing or not?

You said:
We are muslims of conquest. I am totally against this sham philosophy of "Islam-is-a-mode-of-life"...complete BS

I say:
Appalling views Mr.Hayat! Have you been reading Rushdie? Who told you all this? If you spend any more time doing that doctorate in the land of fashion freaks, sex orgies, and the guillotine, not much will remain spiritually within you.

You said:
...This Islam is just the slavery of Arabs...intellectual, moral, psychological, cultural and finally economical.

I say:
What do you recommend, Nicholas Sarkozy wearing a French letter?

Now take a walk around the Airbus factory and think what present you are going to bring for Pakistan.

Peace.

Re: # 19
Eklavaya...you got it all wrong bro...ANP can not take the route of PPP...they are anti-Feudal...no problem if you have never been to Pakistan...use internet to gather information...PPP is a people's party in name only...this is a band of feudals...and if you have read the article...I have written about a feudal democracy...I would suggest you read the interacts of "Militant Liberalism"...that would do you good ...I hope sincerely...

The greatness of Sardar Patel lies in the fact that he dismantled the medieval ( that was kept intact by the British) Feudal system prevailing in India...on the other hand, leaders this side were either Aligarh educated and/or urdu-speaking ex-Feudal lords (Nawabzada Liaqat Ali Kahn...the name gives the hint) or Punjabi/Sindhi Feudal lords...kept in intact and legitimized it...hence the pseudo super-position of pseudo democracy over this Feudal fabric...

PPP...socialism preached by Feudals??? biggest joke...and even bigger irony...people believing it too...

Ahmad Hayat

Re: # 20
Bubba...the US hasn't even started licking ANP's a**...$1 Billion is peanuts really...US would give its right hand for ANP's collaboration...thats why I wrote of Faiz coming to mind...Mardood-e-Haram masnad peh bithayay jayayin gay...US tried to subdue ANP by proxy using every Pakistani despotic regime...Qayyum Khan's ML,Ayub Khan, Bhutto, Zia...not now...things aer going to be very interesting in the times to come...Karachi Urdu-speaking have again proved by voting for MQM (38 seats in PA) that they are with the Army...the greatest despot in Pakistan working for US interests...and we keep on hearing on this forum..."NOT ALL URDU SPEAKING VOTE FOR MQM"...well they do...the polls have shown...

In any case it is self-evident that they are not going to vote for ANP...even though it is anti-feudal, anti-military, anti-US...why , because ANP for them is a regional party...voting for MQM is good...but if if others think on the same line...it is bad...intellectual dishonesty at its summit really...

Ahmad Hayat

I would try to answer all the comments one by one but I can't summarise them in one response, so please bear with me...

First thing...Read the article "Militant Liberalism" and its interacts...many of the questions would be answered there...

Ranjit...you need to be a lot more aggressive while analysing post-independence Pakistani politics and politicians...saying that they did not show maturity is wrong...They did do exactly what they were meant to do...safeguarding the interests of Feudals in Pakistan, undermining the political institutions by not abolishing Feudalism and strengthening urdu-speaking bureaucratic control...This is not at all a question of maturity...This is a question of how they defined their objectives...The objective was to secure a piece of land for Urdu-speaking (self-proclaimed non-Indians ethnically) elites who ran the risk of living as minorities in the regions that they had governed (on the basis of military conquest) for centuries...

It brings wry smiles to my lips when urdu-speaking classes here in Pakistan try to efface indigenous cultures by proclaiming equality for all while assuming that Urdu and by this proxy they would be considered ascendant by default: However they are the most clanish (minority fear factor)

Its just like Jews in the Occident. Crying for equality and justice all the time while being most despotic and nepotist all the time. The reason is the same, they don't have a region and a localised culture hence they can not support "Nationalism".

Only Jews could have created the culture destroying theory of Socialism and indeed it were them (if anybody has cared to read the evolution of Socialism...from Marx, Trotsky, Lenin to Gulag Torturers in USSR...sounds like a Jewish wedding really) Similarly only Urdu-speaking people living in Indian midlands would have come up with the sham theory of Pakistani Nationalism.

And then we say naïvely...Oh there are many similarities between Israel and Pakistan...both are ideological states...what we don't say is that both were created on the grave of nationalism by the people who don't have a region and a localised culture...

More of it soon...

Ahmad Hayat

Re: # 19"Now, sixty years down the line, promoting ANP (or even Hindu) brand of land-based/geographical nationalism is very unfair to the millions of Pakistanis who left the safety and comfort of 'their own lands' on a clear and unambiguous promise of religious nationalism, nurturing the dream of building a great Pakistani nation".
Exactly!Thanks Sir
You see Hayat sahib, how this extreme emotion of racism (Pushtoon nationalism) is plaguing your logical mind and humanitarian soul. You are suffering from the same fanaticism of which you blame radical Islamists, Jihadis or other religious bigots. You seem to have high expectation of ANP which has no vested interest according to you but I prophecy that soon you will be witnessing ANP, MQM and PML N shaking hands to form a govt. along with PPP in N.A. forgetting the carnage of 12th May forgetting all about poor Pushtoons. ANP MQM, PPP (under the leadership of Zardari) PML-N and PML –Q have only one mission to come into power.
ANP Sir, like other separatist, extremist, nationalist movements just harp of nationalism and chant attractive slogans of “fighting for the right” for oppressed class based on highly volatile issues like race, language, land or religion. We the Karachiite have witnessed what MQM did to Urdu speaking people. They had so much power and federal funding but they did not fulfilled the top most demand of Mohajirs i.e. getting rid of ill-famed biased “quota system”. Urdu speaking people of Karachi had high expectations from MQM and they got united on one platform with a hope that their political strength would bring back to them their lost rights. On the contrary Karachi suffered, Karachi bled, Karachi’s educational system deteriorated, every young boy was armed with guns instead of books and Karachi was raped by this Mafia group. This is what these so-called leaders of separatist movements do. They did it in Sindh, in Baloachistan and Karachi.
Let’s see what ANP does for Pushtoons.
My parents migrated from India so my mother tongue is Urdu but I was born and raised in Karachi learned Sindhi. I brought my personal life here just to let you know that we grew up in those times, in that environment where Mohajir nationalism is the way for survival. But my parents always discouraged us to call ourselves as Mohajir. They told us we were migrated not you. They told us we are Pakistanis who speak Urdu language. I just want you to know that not all Urdu Speaking Mohajirs favors MQM like not all Pushtoons favors ANP. One can celebrate one’s own culture, one’s own living styles, food, and richness of their vernacular, prose and poetry while living within diverse human groups if one just rise himself up from petty negative issues. In this way man forms a bigger human community, humanity.
The lessons we as a family learnt from our atheist,liberal Mohajir father, Muslim leaguee(hard core fan of MAJ) Mohajir mother, from our Pakistani but Agha Khani school teachers, many of our Punjabi, Mohajir , Sindhi, Memon, Ismailee, Christian, Shia colleagues/friends and according to you “sham education from state media”(BTW we are proud of PTV and did learn lot from Sohail Rana, Ashfaque ahmed, Ubaidullah Baig, abdul Qadir Juneijo and many more Pakistanis) helped us to accept, respect, incorporate and enjoy multi cultures of not only Pakistan but of entire world while keeping our identity as Pakistani Muslims intact. You know as a result of that upbringing my brother married to Sindhi speaking girl, another of my brother married to girl whose parents are from Multan and I married a Pushtoon formin a mini Pakistan.( smile plz)
So instead of instigating prejudices, promoting nationalism and advocating more fragmentation within Pakistan start movement for justice and equality for all. Join Tehreek-e-Insaaf (haha just kidding).
Victor Hugo wrote in his novel Les Miserable, "Never let us fear robbers or murderers. These are external and small dangers; let us fear ourselves; prejudices are the real robbers, vices the true murderers. The great dangers are within ourselves. Let us not trouble about what threaten our head or purse, and only think what threaten our soul."


Nikhat Riaz

ahmad hayat sahib,

great article, however, one caveat is missing. do you think that the announced $1B USaid package for NWFP had anything to do with the winning of ANP? regardless of how you slice it, what matters is ANP winning in the most troubled area of Pakistan.