An Indian Muslim

#28 Posted by dawa-i-dil on November 29, 2008 2:39:15 am

{"Sorry Islam has nothing to do with terrorism. There are 56 independence movements going on in india. Are they all muslims !

Fact is that RSS/RAW like Col. Prohot as countered by late ATF head was shot dead specifically as he was bringing BJP and Hindutava inner connections !

For God sake, allow muslims of india to live in peace , 60 years have passed and still u burn them alive ballat kaar thier lil girls and then make this terrorist Moodi again CM Gujrat

Thanks Allah we Pakistanis in 60 years never have such riots"}

Dawa,
In a few brief sentences you have brilliantly summarized much that is wrong in the way Muslims are treated in India. This clearly negates the much-chanted mantra that Muslims are equal citizens of a secular democracy. Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia have sent their human-rights violating criminals to De Hague - Indians "elect" theirs to high offices such as Chief Ministers, Mayors, etc..

Shoaib #23 {"The ML did not even have a govt in the Punjab (a unionist govt) and NWFP (Congress govt) till a few years before 1947. Most of the cadre of the ML was drawn from UP. Pak's first PM was from UP. (Hence the importance given to Urdu in the new nation)

Why was the ML weak in Punjab? Because there was no safety issue at all for the Muslims. They anyways outnumbered the Hindus(which in turn led to horrible massacres in Lahore). If anybody needed a Pakistan it was the Muslims who lived in minority provinces like UP and Delhi. But they were left in the lurch as Jinnah had gotten his fiefdom."}

Shoaib,
That is a very broad, drive-by history of partition narrated from an Indian perspective. Things were much more complicated than the way you presented them. Maybe later we can discuss at length the reasons and fallacies of the partition.

By the way, Pakistan's first PM Liaquat Ali Khan was from Karnal - which was in undivided Punjab and now, I believe, in Haryana.

Shoaib #14 {"For example who is stopping us from bringing women into our Masjids? Who? Why don’t we?

Why do we have a civil code that makes polygamy legal? Why don’t we agitate for that instead of wasting our energies over some cartoon drawn in Europe?"}

Shoaib,
Once again, very important observations. Women can visit mosques in US, polygamy is banned in Turkey - so go ahead and tell that rascal, Imam Bukhari, that the world doesn't come to an end if Muslims step up to mediocrity.

Mullahs want to keep us backward so they will not lose the last ounces of power they hold on our people.

{"The rule for Muslims all over the world appears to be that they will lag behind every other community in societies that they do not dominate politically. The causes of Muslim inability to compete with others must lie largely within Muslims themselves."}

Aleph,
Good points - cruelly stated, but true. It appears that many capable Muslims, not afraid to compete, tend to gravitate to the US where it's not an advantage, in fact it's more like a handicap, to be Muslim.

And when Muslims attain political domination, it is the beginning of the rapid end of our success as human beings. Islam is best suited as a grass roots philosophy, unencumbered with the tag of power.

bulleya #122

{{i meet more indian christians in senior IT positions than indian muslims........even though christians in india are a fraction of muslims.....}}

Christians in India do not have the attitude that the world or India owes them something, and do not believe that the Indian system is biased against them or anyone else. They are quite unlike Muslims in this regard. They tend to be somewhat overrepresented wherever selection based on individual merit is the rule.

The rule for Muslims all over the world appears to be that they will lag behind every other community in societies that they do not dominate politically. The causes of Muslim inability to compete with others must lie largely within Muslims themselves.

#8 Regards {"Every morning at 5AM, students, night shift workers, sick and in short who are trying to sleep are woken up by Azaan. Hindus have also taken the cue, political assertiveness is put through loud speakers for Kirtans, Bhajans..."}

Regards,
You have my sympathy and support. It's amazing how these electronic muezzins learn to behave themselves in the US and other western countries. I spent many a sleepness night in Karachi during Ramadan when numerous mosques kept up the annoying loudspeakers - sometimes in competition with each other. The resultant noise was totally incomprehensible and was definitely another form of terrorism. May all these polluters be silenced - and I say that as a religious person.

hamdim and romair, as in the feritility debate, the argument here has to be tightened (it may or may not be true, though):

(Hamidm's) argument is:

Within any non-Muslim country with signficiant Muslim populations, Muslims will generally tend to lag behind most others.

The best Muslim countries will generally tend to lag behind the best non-Muslim countries.

and so on.

(again, this is a hypothesis that IMO hamdim wanted to put forward, and I expect him to thank me for it.) :)

hamidm mian #: ".......... now THINK and you will get the answer to your silly question as to why muslims are not doing well anywhere ......"

....they seem to be doing alright in usa.....i heard some are, now, relatively high paid powerpoint pushers in the us auto industry (then again, your theory may be true, and they may have been the ones who brought the auto industry down).....

having said that, it is, surprising, how much one learns when one travels......i suggest you see the world outside dearborn, sometime.......

.....i used to think the biggest example proving your theory was not what you have mentioned....but the fact that christian arabs are everywhere in the usa - from nader to ford to yasmine bleeth to sanunu to spencer abraham - but muslim arabs are nowhere.....

however, then i travelled.....

keep an eye on three places - turkey, malaysia and the 6 states in the gulf - (and to a smaller extent on iran and indonesia)......

turkey is, now, my favorite place to visit in europe.....malaysia can go toe-to-toe with any country.....

however, it is the gcc which has totally turned my definition of the illiterate bedioun on its head.....they are getting a common currency, a common reserve bank, a common energy grid etc......once this happens, everyone will be lining up to them for funds.....oh wait that is already happened, both bush and brown are in front of them with begging bowls.......

and they are building/buying the most high-tech and biggest buildings, banks, beaches, malls and even museums.....

....with their 100 years of oil reserves, they are going to be quite a force......

the rest of the muslm world.......well they can always migrate to michigan and push powerpoints......

#6 Posted by shoaib_daniyal on November 28, 2008 10:21:03 pm
{"The good people at Chowk have made some changes which I feel are very important to the whole article.

I have written to them about it. However since my permission was not taken before these changes were put into place I am taking the liberty of putting down my original points here"}

Shoaib,
Very logical points presented with dexterity to emphasize your viewpoints - I agree with most of your comments.

What is disturbing though is your allegation that Chowk officials unilaterally modified your article and did not respond to your attempts to have the matter resolved. You did the right thing by posting the significant changes here for all to see.

I experienced the same unjustified censorship when my last article was published - and, frankly, I haven't got the enthusiasm or the passion to write another one. I have had numerous ideas but the prospect of my work being altered for some inexplicable agenda bothers me.

Good for you in exposing this nonsense. Keep writing and let's hope one day you won't have to be Daniel just to rent an apartment. If it's any comfort to you, thanks to the misdeeds of Al Kayda, many Muslims in American have become Shan, Joseph, Cameron, and Daniel.

shankar #: "Maybe this is the best opportunity that India & Pakistan have got to genuinely cooperate, because the enemy is a common one."

...there is a strange thing happening.....i have noticed it on this site also.....ever since the demise of w bush, the one trump card that was playable has been played....

whether one supports it or opposes it, one has to agree that it failed......this was the card of massive threatening force to exterminate anything one disagreed with.....

the general consensus prior to this was that the more powerful state could use force, if it wanted to, to crush a movement (be it terroristic or genuine)....

everyone thought it would work......but it didn't.....

now even the more powerful nations have realized that the only way to control terror is, first, not to create a situation where it exists......and then to ensure that countries do not fail to a point where they end up as terrorist havens....

i.e. even if you hate someone....bombing them will do no good......you have to build them up, constructively.....solve their problems, and jointly isolate terror......

this, i think, will now force india and pakistan to work together.....even if they don't want to.....pakistan has its hands full with terror.....it is everywhere....east, west, north, south.......some of it is forced upon pakistan.....some of it is a result of its own policies for harboring organizations, which had terrorist tendencies.......

this terror, in pakistan, is now out of control.....if the pakistan govt. cannot do anything to control it, then rest assured, the indian govt. has no chance to control it.....

so, now, it is, slowly becoming clear to pakistan that instead of dominating and controlling and destabilizing afghanistan, it has to build it up.....otherwise pakistan will destabilize......similarly, it is becoming clear to india that instead of destabilizing or remaining in confrontation with a smaller pakistan (even for the right reasons), it has to stabilize it and build it up, otherwise everything will spill into india......

this failure of hamid bush (sorry, i meant w bush) has, now, left no option but to review tactics for fighting terror.....

i am still standing by my hunch that this terrorist attack in india, had an al-qaeda link, plus some link to some organization in pakistan, plus link to a local organization in india......

as strange as it may sound, the best scenario for india would be for it to be only local.....if it is int'l than india is, now, also in the int'l war that pakistan is caught up in......

pakistan, daily finds chechnyans, saudis, uzbeks, etc. operating in pakistan......the govts. of these countries cannot do much about these elements.....if indians find a rogue pakistani in this group, it will be the same situation.......the best (and probably only option) for india would be to work with pakistan, not in opposition to it.......

It takes no leap of imagination to see right through the rationalizations of most of the interacters'(at least on this board) opinion and trace them to their emotional roots.
Emotions popularly provide an instinctual moral compass as well as "valid" evidence for judgement.It so happens that certain notions become the inevitable category of human mind through which other things are seen.Most of these notions are based on the 'emotive meaning' or the social or intellectual climate they represent.

That is precisely the reason why majority of Non-technical and non-philosophical minds always tend to construct their 'view of reality' on the basis of some sort of ethical concepts, for these 'ethical concepts' satisfy their social and 'intellectual prejudices.

This ethical reductionism sees every view of reality and ideology on the basis of the emotive meanings of these ethical notions which almost become the inevitable categories of their intellectual discourse.

For example, if certain ideology(in a lose sense) accomodate and cherishes all 'moral principles' they have already accepted as an 'intellectual dogma' than not only would they grap it with both hands but also consider it a technically and "objectively"valid ideological system.

Contrary to the ordinary thinking, no philosophy or ideology ,for that matter, constructs itself on ethical notions,in fact ethical notions have only "secondary"or 'derivated' significance in these systems of thought.

This is true of all the great religions,philosophies,ideologies and even scientific theories of the world.But most followers and critics of these systems and views of reality follow or deny them on ethical basis and prove one to be superior or inferior to other on the basis of the emotive meanings of the prevailing ethical concepts in their society or intellectual milieu.

After the renaissance movement and the devolpoment of secularism and Democracy as the socio-political doctrine,notions like,"freedom" and "peace" became almost a methodology to judge the "validity" of any ideological and philosophical systems.

Liberals hold that freedom is a fundamental value, and that the just state ensures freedom for citizens.It holds that coercive state power is justified to the extent necessary to protect the right to freedom from coercive interference.If we closely look into this libertarian view we will see a certain description of these notions are emotively propagated with the perspective of the pragmatic approach of libertarian doctrine.

Democracy initself has no view of reality of its own.It is an anti-systematic tendency when it comes to its philosophical grounds. It denconstruct every ideology and philosophical systematic into parts and judge it with rhtorics and its pragmatic view.Democracy or the libertarian view has all the paradoxes in the ultimate analysis which we see in any anti-systematic tendency.

Even Marxism which seems to stand firmly behind all these "values" doesn't have the ethical system of its own.In fact Marxism is against constructing any moral and ethical theory.Ethics in Marxism has only derivative significance in the large of scheme of Marxian outlook of reality.But superficial minds as always propgate for and against it on ethical grounds.

Many religions which couldn't which didn't have the ability to record its response to the contemporary intellectual movements and hid themselves behind the reform movements.These religions picked and chose the similar notions from their texts and made them look accomodative to the libertarian view.Ever wondered why Hindus and Christians or for that matter Orientalists criticise Islam and muslims on the basis of these notions instead of their own religion??

But it is one of the charachteristic of Islamic religion that It has always shown a living awarness of all contemporary intellectual issues. Islamic being an all-inclusive view reality deals not only with man's social activity but also with the existential discourse of the ultimate reality. The problem arises when such a doctrine is judged on abstract "moral" grounds based on the preconcieved notions of the indvidual or a group or the moralities having derivative value in a certain ideological or philosophical system.


This Ethical interpretation of Islam leads to some ridiculous conclusion from a serious intellectual standpoint.You don't have to be Einstien to see this tendency prevailing both in Muslims and Non-muslim alike with a same zeal.

For example, Islam's validity and its propositions dealing with existential discourse are judged on the basis of the outcome of its being peacfull or violent doctrine in the social realm.The Opertaional value of any system cannot,in any way, detrermines the validity of any doctrine.Nor can it become the methdology to judge other views of reality.

More later.

Re: # 122

captain cluless,

... let me try to help you

... you asked: "and, for whatever reasons, i am afraid, they are not doing well in india....i meet more indian christians in senior IT positions than indian muslims........even though christians in india are a fraction of muslims....."


..... okay, fair enough .... bit think about this too: "and, for whatever reasons, i am afraid, they are not doing well in france....i meet more hungarian christians who are the president of france than muslim clerks ........even though hungarians in france are a fraction of muslims......"

.......... now THINK and you will get the answer to your silly question as to why muslims are not doing well anywhere ...... let me give you a hint - the answer starts with the letter 'i' ...

I really have no need for sanctimonious lectures from individuals who couch their own bigotry with bogus "history" provided by bogus "historians" like Yasser miaN on worthless web-sites like this one. So, feel free to go screw yourself. Thank you!

Often times, I have found that people resort to unprovoked abuse thinking that somehow it would replace cogent arguments. I asked you to read about Khilafat movement because you said it was around 1910 or so. :-)

Anyways, this is an unrelated issue for this topic. Feel free to abuse further.

oho, these are upsetting times, and my brother beej is upset as well!

Beej, masana is simply saying that Gandhi aligned himself with forces that were much more evil (in Masana's view) than the British were, themselves.

You may disagree, but for Masana and many others, it is hard to understand Gandhi's actions. My personal resolution of this odd conundrum is that Gandhi simply did not know about people and their religions, and went in for an 'alliance' simply on 'good faith' as even today, in the age of so much information, so many of us continue to do.


(I think Gandhi was a phemonenally progressive person, yet a traditionalist to the core. He simply believed all others who cared for their religion were just like him. I have a feeling Gandhi even thought of Deobandis as like himself. Today, looking back, one can eithier argue that deobandis and Gandhi were indeed the same, or that Gandhi simply was not familiar with their huge differences.)

So, please don't get upset. Masan knows his history (far better than I and many others ever will) and seems to respect Gandhi just like you and most others do.

Cheers.

Re: # 117

Shankar miaN, you need to be careful when you get your answers from Romair miaN on citizenship information. There are people here who are very cynical (perhaps too cynical)!

Here is the real stuff – from the horse’s own mouth – the Government of Pakistan website. (www.pakistan.gov.pk/divisions/ContentInfo.jsp?DivID=23&cPath=221_227&Co ntentID=754)

Since you show an interest in becoming a Pakistani citizen, here are the categories under which you are eligible. I list those along with (within parentheses) how you could qualify for each.

These are the headings under which Indians can migrate to Pakistan:

(A) Old parents of Pak nationals who are residing in India. (You may have some difficulty with this because, even if we assume the unlikely scenario that you HAVE sired a Pakistani or two, you may not qualify since you don’t live in India. (Claiming that your heart is still in India will not work with those khuRRaat Pakistani Immigration agents!))

(B) Commonwealth citizens who transfer Rs 5 million worth of foreign exchange. (I realize that the amount is probably pocket change to you – but it may be difficult to convince GWB or BOb to join the British Commonwealth!)

(C) The nationals of Countries other than Commonwealth after they have resided in Pakistan for a period of five years under the Naturalization Act,1926. (The timeframe involved creates obvious difficulties – especially if you were not yet born at the time – and it also represents a "catch-22" situation – you can not live there till they let you in and you won't be eligible to apply till you live there!)

(D) Foreign ladies married to Pakistani nationals (All you would need would be an eligible Pakistani man (i.e., with no more than three wives) and a sex change operation!)

(E) Minor children (below 21 years of age) of Pak ladies married to foreigners. (More difficulties associated with the time frame!)

(F) Children born to Pakistani mother and foreign national father after 18.04.2000 are to be treated automatically as citizens of Pakistan. (I would not dare to imply anything regarding the applicability of this category – but if does apply, there is no need to apply!)

Re: # 120

Muthu miaN, thanks to Yasser, I have heard more than an earful on the Khilafat movement and I have done my share of independent readings on the pre-independence politics. I stand by my earlier assertion that Gandhiji was motivated by (probably misguided) goodwill when he allied himself with that movement. I really have no need for sanctimonious lectures from individuals who couch their own bigotry with bogus "history" provided by bogus "historians" like Yasser miaN on worthless web-sites like this one. So, feel free to go screw yourself. Thank you!