In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful

#903 Posted by tahmed32 on April 27, 2008 2:33:00 pm

{"hamidm: i can understand a hindu or a sikh to consider islam as being an evil religion - since that is the brainwashing they have received in india. and i can understand their hatred for pakistan.

but you have chosen to join them in equating maudoodism with islam, just as you have chosen to equate musharrafism with pakistan. one day i hope you will extend your liberal views and give your own people a break as well."}

Tahmed Sahib,
I can understand your pain in having one of our brightest and most illuminating light bulbs flicker more often than guiding us through dark periods. Sometimes I too feel like pulling his plug, but then I always consider the alternative. Hamidumdum Sahib serves a very useful function for Pakis and Muslims - it is he who stands firm against the possibility of Pakis and Muslims drinking our own bathwater. If he joined in the Take Beer chant with the rest of us, what would set us apart from the "India Shining" mantra chanting horrible hindoos and Sikhs?

Tahmed32 #904.
It is well past the right time to eradicate ethnic thinking in Pakistan. The commendable behavior of Asif Ali Zardari in his reaching out to Urdu-speakers and others is a positive sign of a better future for all Pakistanis. MQM and its message of "hate others while hating yourself" is hopefuly dying its last breath. Good riddance to another group of violent people. Pakistan Zindabad.

Re: tahir and Zeemax ,

How ambassadors for UN are selected..?? what is the criteria and merit for such selections..??

Following report of Asia Times is saying that Ms Faryal Gauhar was selected as UN ambassador by Musharraf..??

South Asia

Pakistan polls: Lights, camera, action ...
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - President General Pervez Musharraf's National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has cut off the political careers of hundreds of politicians with its investigations into corruption and misdeeds. Another several hundred potential politicians are ineligible because they are not university graduates.

This has created a vacuum which a number of show business personalities - many of whom failed in previous political forays - are willing to fill.

At a time when the military regime announced the date for national elections to the national assembly, senate and provincial assemblies - October 10, just four days short of three years since Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup - the famous Pashtun film heavyweight (physically as well as at the box office), Musarat Shaheen, threw her hat into the political ring.

She will contest in the Dera Ismail Khan constituency in North West Frontier Province, a political fiefdom of the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam (JUI), whose leader there, Maulana Fazalur Rehman, hails from the Taliban school of thought. His father, Mufti Mehmood, was once chief minister of the state. In the elections of 1997, Musarat Shaheen ran against Rehman, and they both ended up losing. For October's polls, the actress says that she will try to compromise with Rehman for the sake of their political careers. There has as yet been no response to the offer.

The hero of many Urdu films, Kamal Haasan, has also announced that he will re-enter politics. He has joined the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan. Kamal contested elections in 1985 from Karachi, but was heavily defeated by Professor Usman Ramz, a leader of the Jamaat-i-Islami. After that defeat Kamal announced his retirement from politics.

Artists are considered sensitive folk in any society. They often prefiguring future change in their work. One of the modern world's greatest revolutions was the French Revolution, in which the contribution of artists was vital. This is not the case in Pakistan. Film artists have dallied in politics, often contributing "colorful" scandals. But while they have become social climbers, they have never been agents for change in a positive manner.

One of the country's first political scandals occurred 1963-64 in Dacca, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), when the governor of East Pakistan, Abdul Munim Khan, convened a Pakistan film festival. The youngest member of Field Marshal Ayub Khan's federal cabinet and foreign minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was the chief guest.

The doyen of Pakistan's show biz writers, A R Slote, recalls that the festival was rife with gossip that the beauty of her time, Zeba, had been seen running semi-naked out of Bhutto's room. A famous writer, the late Inam Durrani, handed Zeba a shawl to cover herself. Once the festival ended, Bhutto was said to have taken Zeba to Calcatta (now Kolkata, in India) to continue their fun.

Zeba later married film star Mohammed Ali, while Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto became president and the first civilian chief martial law administrator. The Zeba-Bhutto friendship bore fruit for Mohammed Ali, and by the early 1970s he was said to be the richest and most socially elevated person in the country. So much so that during the second Islamic summit held in Lahore in the early 1970s, Mohammed Ali's mansion was used by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. When Bhutto was removed and imprisoned by General Zia ul-Haq in 1977, Mohammed Ali sent him food in Hyderabad jail.

It was just a blessing of nature that Zia ul-Haq's child Zain Zia was a fan of Mohammed Ali, and so the actor was able to become close to the dictator. After Zia's death in a plane accident in 1988, the Pakistan People's Party came into power, but premier Benazir Bhutto did not draw close to Mohammed Ali, who instead used his Zia connections to court Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League. When Sharif came into power in 1990 he appointed Mohammed Ali his advisor on culture.

Melody queen and legendary singer and actress Madam Noor Jehan was one of the most colorful and controversial characters on the subcontinent until her death at the age of 74 in 2000. According to her birth certificate, she was the daughter of a prostitute from Punjab. Her unique melodious voice captivated the entire region, from Nepal to India, from Kabul to Myanmar.

A prominent personality of the Pakistani newspaper industry, who happens to be the biggest art collector in the country, told Asia Times Online that former Afghan monarch Zahir Shah was a staunch fan of Noor Jehan's work, and he collected all of her movies of the 1930s and 1940s. He apparently hid them in secret shelves in the palace in Kabul, so well in fact that not even the Taliban could find them.

Noor Jehan had several husbands and many friends during her life. One of her first "catches" was Nazar Mohammed (a Pakistani test cricketer) and father of veteran Pakistani opening batsman Muddasir Nazar. One of Noor Jehan's former husbands, Shaukat Hussain, tells in his memiors Noor Jehan and I, how he caught Nazar and Noor Jehan in a compromising situation. When Nazar saw Shaukat he jumped onto a roof and broke a leg - depriving Pakistan of a batsman for ever.

Noor Jehan was the topic of many books, and her sex scandals with former military dictator General Yahya Khan made front page news. In the Hamoodur Rehman Commission report into the fall of Dacca in 1971 (leading to the establishment of Bangladesh), Noor Jehan's role in breaking up the country receives a whole chapter.

She is cited as Khan's great weakness. Like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, at the time that there was civil war and chaos in the eastern wing of the country, Khan was busy with Noor Jehan. The then Intelligence Bureau boss submitted his statement before the commission that he asked Mrs Khan to intervene in the affair, but without success.

Noor Jehan is also accused in the report of being an Indian spy. A former director general of the Intelligence Bureau and later leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), Rao Rasheed, said that there were strong suspicions that she was anti-Pakistan, but no one dared to do anything as she was the darling of many dignitaries. She was also believed to be the patron of many underworld kingpins, and whenever any of them got into trouble, she was their licence for immunity.

Nowadays, at socialite parties, Zil-i-Huma, the daughter of Noor Jehan, claims that Musharraf is her best friend ...

Faryal Gohar, a TV artiste, rightly terms Musharraf her mentor as he elevated her to the position of ambassador at large. The general is said to have been a fan of hers for many years, long before he became chief executive of the country, and now she has been made a special United Nations envoy. Faryal's vacuum was immediately filled by another TV actress, Marina Khan, who is the new ambassador at large. In the past, only prominent businessmen held this position.

Tariq Aziz is the only actor to have become a member of the national assembly. He was a Marxist, and in the 1960s he represented the hardline Marxist lobby in the PPP during Z A Bhutto's time. He was always the hero of the proletarians in his films. "What actually happens with the poor in this country, happened with my films - they all were flops," admitted Aziz in an interview.

Aziz raised his voice during the Bhutto regime over labor abuses, but he was targeted and arrested. After Bhutto was removed from office and subsequently hanged in 1979, Aziz reduced himself to anchoring a quiz program, which became very popular due to his extraordinary oratory skills.

Aziz was elected on the Pakistan Muslim League ticket to the national assembly. He led a procession that attacked the supreme court to mark solidarity with then premier Nawaz Sharif. When Sharif was removed, he was one of the first to announce a parting of the ways with Sharif, but the army regime put him behind bars nevertheless for the storming of the supreme court. He subsequently helped Musharraf at a public appearance, but this drew widespread criticism as he was an ex-convict, and Musharraf ditched him, but he has said that he will contest the October elections.

So now Aziz, Kamal and Musarat Shaheen will represent show business in the polls. Whether they, and other stars who seek to rule the hearts of the new rulers by more indirect methods, can influence the course of the country's politics, as did some of their precessors, only time will tell.

(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com

#905 bjkumar: muqarrar! :-)

Dost Mittar #860 I checked post #350 that you referred to - and all I see is a post from arjun with one of his usual anti-muslim cartoons.

So unless you have some other post, i will simply respond to your question with a question - first, when have you ever seen me defending a king (muslim or otherwise) that you ask me this question? if anything, i have always condemned kings like babar as having used islam as a means to gain power (which in fact is no different than modern day thugs trying to carve out a piece of Pakistan for themselves under the guise of islam).

the point i raised was nor irrelevant - and your refusal to consider my view of islam as being legitimate is something i have come to understand, as i note to hamidm below. so it is OK if you dont want to discuss it further.

Re: # 902

Good Lord, Tauheed sahib, you should have been a detective! You sure have this Tahir's number!

Come out, come out wherever you are, miaN Tahir - you kambakhat German-wannabe-closet-Pakistani!

Samjhe thay kabhi jinko hum ne
Jinnah ki aulaadoN ki tarha
Nikley haiN wohi kambakhat yahaN
Hitler ki aulaadoN ki tarha!

cliftonbridge: when i say "paindoo", i mean jahil. and some of the biggest paindoos are from your favorite party - the mqm.

this "ethnic" view that you cant seem to get rid off is merely another form of tribalism - and tribalism is the mark of a paindoo. whatever his or her ethnicity.

hamidm: i can understand a hindu or a sikh to consider islam as being an evil religion - since that is the brainwashing they have received in india. and i can understand their hatred for pakistan.

but you have chosen to join them in equating maudoodism with islam, just as you have chosen to equate musharrafism with pakistan. one day i hope you will extend your liberal views and give your own people a break as well.

tahir: you didnt answer the question (i.e. why you write in german to US-elite) actually. it is easy to connect the dots and know the answer -

first, it is obvious you live in germany (becuase you are using a german keyboard that has that special german character, the sharp S.

second, i happen to be quite familiar with the pakistani immigrants in germany (which i first visited over 30 years, and visited many times since).

you have switched to german twice when a "gora" showed up (konraad, and now you seem to think, US-elite). this strange behavior is not so strange if one understands the mentality of many of the pakistani immigrants to germany, which has some special twists to it.

So - no need to answer my question. i only wanted to give you a chance to be honest for once in your life.

Azra, congratulations on hitting 900 plus interacts! Great piece!

Best of luck!

ajeya#879:

"or this or that monstrous deed by mo is both funny and sad to watch, at the same time."


I have my occasional tiff with tahmed but I do not recall his defending the monstrous deed by any prophet, unless you can call GW Bush a prophet, too.

I see that people are discussing "Sati" which is valid in the context of women's issues in the region.

Any idea on how widespread the practice is and what caste groups practised those. I know of the cases of a few upper caste Rajputs and Bengal Brahmins.

It could be a propaganda ploy of the Brits too to play up "Sati" and "thuggee" (worship of the goddess Kali) to justify their "civilzing the brutes" theory. In the 1830s when they were supposedly abolishing "Sati" they took out whatever little rights to given to British women.

Urstruly#873:

"I am talking about our Hindustan. It only broke up into pieces when European secularism was forced down our throats.
One should give the credit where it is due."


I agree here with Pardesi and give most of the credit to the British for uniting India. The Muslims were able to rule unchallenged for a long time because of the hindus' subservient nature while faced by a powerful enemy, as you used to say in more colourful language in your uninhibited avtar. As soon as they were turned from "chidees" to "baaz" by the Sikh gurus and by Shivaji in Maharashtra, it was game over for the Mughals.

echoboom#863:

I am listening to it and I have heard him before. "Mainda ishq" has been sung by almost every singer but Pathanay Khan infuses it with tremendous emotion, although I don't know whether the 'tu' here refers to Allah or Hazrat Mohammad. Anyway, your love of sufis makes you a suspect Muslim in as diverse eyes as that of kaal and tahmed, but not mine. :)

Various interactors -

Why do you keep referring to Arab, Persians, Afghan invaders as Muslim conquerors? These folks were brave, ruthless and had better war strategies than our ancestors and therefore won the battles and that is history. Later on when our folks learned their lessons, they did pretty good too.

However, calling them Muslim conquerors, many Tom, Dick and Harries who converted later and changed their names to Ali, Mohammad etc. become delusional and start believing that their ancestors ruled and conquerored their Hindu cousins.

I mean if we start calling British rule as Christian rule, then some naive and delusional native convert will also start behaving as if he is ruler and superior to his neighbors.

Thank God, Indian Christians are too smart for this BS.

#889 Posted by Urstruly,

Sir, the Generals were playing a double game. The 'terrorists' went along at first, and then outwitted them.

Same thing with General Mahmoud Ahmad sending $100,000 to some Muhammad Atta a few days before 9/11, and having breakfast with Senators Porter Goss, Bob Graham, and John Kyl when the towers came down, which entire episode was expunged from the 9/11 commission report as the Chairman explained "who financed it is not significant to how it happened", or something to this effect.

These 'terrorists' are better at double games than anyone else in the world.

Only Pavocavalry could expound re the double games, I won't. But he rarely shows up nowadays.