Protest in New York!

RE: Zahra

aah! my name. I aint a FrOg and I aint a gOd(and I aint a prince either, that was once a fRoG.:)

uRsTrUlY:

Thanks for the correction: Buch`kanaa` than Buch`ganaa`.

KRashid:

I appreciate your logic and reasoning behind Q vs K.

ThAnKs

Omar:

I think you are quite generous when it comes to using `adjectives.` Is it good or bad ? I will leave that for your finer senses to decide! The following post was quite an entertaining piece.

Rather than proving Netown`s 3rd law of motion, I will simply state that you misread my post.

Oh, lest I forget, I am not a Cancer. I am a
Gem-in-ian. I hope you aren`t :-)

``Zahra : You are a pessimist....................``

Take Care

PS: It does not hurt to read others carefully. I admit I have not been reading all the responses to this article and your enlightened views.

Zahra #

Aap Alfaaz Ki Bhool Bhulayyon Mein Gum Ho Gaen.

I wrote it for Omar.

It is Quran.

Kaan Pakra.

Re: Zehra `It should be backed up by a proposal, a thought, a plan and based on that legislations can be passed/should be passed.`

ITS JUST A MATTER OF POLITICAL WILL!!! Why can`t you understand that, how many TIMES do I have to repeat it, till people get this simple simple thing. All it takes is for the decision to be made, for that, one needs to create public awareness and political pressure if possible.

Naturally, you can expect reactionary elements in society to oppose anything good, so what, they are not much in terms of electoral strength, only street power. If they create too much tamasha all that is required is to give the police orders to shoot them in the legs, instead of just lathi charge.

What is required? Iron will & resolution. Things get done every day in the world believe it or not. Achieving `Consensus` before every action taken, is just another term for institutional weakness.

Zahra : You are a pessimist. You obviously have the unshakeable belief that nothing in the world can ever change for the better, no matter what any one does, and unless some sort of Guarantee comes with every effort, even an attempt is not worth the bother. So everyone should accept that the world is run by people who can never be influenced to change. You must be a Cancer. I`m NOT. And its not my problem that you always get up on the wrong side of the bed in the morning either, and the glass is always half empty when you look at it.

And its certainly not the responsibility of any ONE person to make something happen from A to Z. I`m not Mushy, and its not like i can roll out of bed in the morning and say, hmm, `okay, joint electorates for the elections ... no more Blasphemy law` its my will, it shall be done.

The history of Pakistan since the death of the Quaid e Azam M.A Jinnah, is a history of small men betraying great ideals.

Jihalat & Illiteracy, and the admixture of politics & religion make it all possible.

OMAR MIRZA

Omar 259:

Congrats!!!

Then What ?

Phir Kya Hoga ??

Phir Kya Hooaa` ???

More Protests ????

More Speeches ?????

You aren`t catching the drift.

Are U ?

All the steps from raising an issue to creating awareness are fine. I am asking where do you drop the ball assuming that the issue will be addressed or will be taken into consideration seriously. I do not think the protests are the only way of emphasizing your point. It should be backed up by a proposal, a thought, a plan and based on that legislations can be passed/should be passed.

That`s it!

RE: Zahra

I am the last person on this planet to discuss English language with. I didn`t even understand one single word from those ``Bombay Poems``. I was just trying to hide behind my Bachkana Harkaat, and you wouldnt let me :)

A modified version of this article, `Protest in New York` has been published in the Friday Times in their Features section under, `Issues` this week. (http://www.thefridaytimes.com) So now the issue is open for national debate.

OMAR MIRZA

The News International / News on Sunday

11 June 2000

THE PAKISTANI INQUISITION

The price of intolerence is stagnation

``The progressive intellegentisa need to get as organized as their opponents are and take their battle of ideas into the realm of practical struggle to change the very foundations of our social and political existence. After

all it is the outcome of this struggle on which the fate of our intellectuals and of the whole society depends``. Political Economy takes

sides with enlightenment in the struggle against obscurantism

Zain UI Abedin

(Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Daste-Saba)

O judgement,thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason!

(Mark Antony in Shakespear`s Julius Caesar)

The ``Grand Inquisitor`` is an interesting and thought-provoking story by Dostovysky. Long after the Crucifixion, Chirist returns to earth from his

heavenly abode, and is shocked by the sight of innocent victims of the Roman Inquisition being brutally mutilated and burnt at the stakes on

account of being ``heretics``, under the supervision of a Roman Catholic cardinal. Angered by Christ`s protest at this inhumanity, the cardinal has him arrested and locked up in a dark cell. Later he gives a long lecture to Christ on how to deal with heretics and orders him to go back to heaven,never to return again. He threatens Christ with another crusifixion if he dares interfere again in Church matters. The self proclaimed custodians of state and religion in Pakistan and the defenders of our ideological boundaries are as committed to the task of eliminating dissent and fanning frenzy as the cardinal in Dostovysky`s story. They abuse venomously, they lie and distort facts shamelessly, the have raised hypocracy to an art form.

The recent vilification campaign by the right wing and its gutter press in Islamabad against Professor Dr Abdul Hameed Nayyar of Quaid-e-azam University is a case in point. Dr. Nayyar is respected in the academic world as a conscientious physicist and is known for his unflinching commitment to spreading anti-nuclear consciousness around the world. He is

one of the very few people who have the courage to talk sense in a society which abounds with creatures least amenable to reason. This is not the first time Dr. Nayyar is being targeted for his views. In the turbulant days of 1968 Dr. Nayyar was sacked from the University of Karachi . In 1998, after the May nuclear explosions Dr. Nayyar, Pervaiz Hoodbhoy and Late Eqbal Ahmed were attacked by the right wing goons during a press conference explaining the disastrous impact of nuclear arms race and a possible war between India and Pakistan.

This time he is being targeted by the right wing because he dared utter some words of wisdom at a place supposed to be a centre of learning.

Persectution of intellegentisa for holding nonconformist views is not new in Islamic History. Much romanticism is built around the fact that once there was a galaxy of Moslem thinkers and scientists who contributed greatly towards various fields of learning. No one bothers to ask the question as to why this glorious intellectual tradition became extinct. It certainly did not vanish into thin air. It was ruthlessly destroyed by obscurantists. To quote a few examples, Averroes (Ibne-Rushd) of Spain was thrown out of the mosque while offering his prayers and later exiled, Avicenna (Ibne-Sena) was condemned as a heretic, al-Kandi at the age of sixty, was lashed in public and his personal library containing thousands of books was burned down, Al-Razi`s head was struck with his book so many times that he went blind. We can find similar instances of ruthless suppression of dissent in western history. Galalio was put on trial by the church, Roger Bacon had to spend ten years in prison,John Huss and Giondeno Bruno were burnt alive and so was Michael Servetus along with his controversial book.These are but a few examples from a long history of brutal oppression by state and organized relegion.

One thing common about the persecuted intellegentsia both of Europe and the Muslim world is that they spoke of reason and rationality and stood for freedom of expression and freedom of thought.They became victims of state and organised religion, represented by the feudal monarchy, aristocracy and religious orthodoxy. The difference between the West and the Muslim world is that in Europe at last, the commercial and industrial classes overthrew the forces of status quo and reorganised the society on a radically new basis. No such development took place in the Muslim world. It remained a close society with no windows. Opinions not congenial to the rulers and orthodoxy were supressed with force. And as late sibte-Hasan put it: ``No community however virile and creative can progress under the fear of death, persecution, punishment, isolations and ostracism`` The result was the mental and intellectual enslavement of the Moslem world by the west-by those who once lived in the ``dark ages``.

The bigots and fanatics of today have zealously kept the torch of obscurantism burning. They want to eleminate every trace of reason and rationality from our lives and make every effort to arouse the savage in us. They madly attack ideas that smack of humanism and in this, they are directly inspired by their predecessors. Our society with its moral and material backwardness is a breeding ground for these enemies of all that is good and beautiful in life. In order to realize their reactionary agenda they resort to violence against and persecution of the weakest sections of society,e-g women,religious minorities, secular and enlightened intellectuals. The objectives they aim to achieve through violence, vilification and witch hunting are (a) a general atmosphere of hatred and intolerance (b) emotional mobilisation of the people away from their real problems (c) creation of consent within the society on a large scale for their reactionary agenda. What Dr Nayyar said in his lecture was bold and needed to be said loud and clear. But was the well-organized reaction of the right wing faced and fought in an equally organised manner? Is it enough being enlightened? Is it possible to counter the right wing propaganda against an individual or a minority by individual actions,e-g newspaper letters, articles and speeches? No doubt the courage shown by Dr Nayyar while speaking at the institute of Psychology is laudable. The religious right is organised, trained and perhaps the only developing political tendency in Pakistan .It has now even learned how to use the press to propagate its antihuman dogmas, breed intolerance and run hate-campaigns. If there can be Dr Nayyar at QAU then it is possible to have a section of teachers and a mass of students challenging the ideas of the right wing.

The question that finally needs to be asked is: are the progressive elements of our society doomed forever to remain impotant in the face of obscurantism or there is a hope of change? If there is, then how to go about realising it?. In reviewing historically the conflict between progressvise thinking and obscruntaism in the West, I mentioned that the reactionaries were overthrown by classes whose interests and world view ran directly counter to the Establishment of those days. It was not the intellectual vigor of the intellengtsia that changed the society but the fact that during an open class struggles the ideas of the progressive intellegentisa were owned and used against the status quo by the classes in whose interest it was to overthrow the then prevailing order.The ideas and visions of our progressive thinkers and enlightened scientists will remain only ideas unless they become part of the understanding of the world, of a class who has the capacity and need to change the reality that surrounds us. The progressive intellegentisa need to get as organized as their opponents are and take their battle of ideas into the realm of practical struggle to change the very foundations of our social and political existence. After all it is the outcome of this struggle on which the fate of our intellectuals and of the whole society depends.

Politics & Religion don`t mix. Its quite elementary. When this volatile cocktail is mixed, you get bloodshed in Imambargaghs and in the Streets. The Quaid e Azam was farsighted enough to understand this, and convey this msg on August 11, 1947 to the Constiuent Assembly and to future generations. But Pakistanis have yet to learn this lesson. Much blood has flowed already but it is not enough to quench the nation`s thirst for yet more of the same.

OMAR MIRZA

Just like `Rau`shni` is not part of English Language, therefore can be written as

Roshni
Rau`shani
Raushni
Raushanee
Roshnee
Roshnie

and many other permutations. Similarly, Lota can have different words in its configuration as well. That is why you cannot find it.

On an ending note, do not try to replace the original topic with silly example. Humor is one thing, Buch`gaa`na Hurkataen is another :-)

RE: Zahra

English is a strange language; I never found a word for ``Lota``-any roshni on this aspect.

Urstruly:

On second thoughts, your reason cannot be applicable here. The word Q-u-r-a-n is not an English word. So there is no way you can start applying the rules of English grammar to it. It is an Arabic Word and when you try to write it in English you ought to sepll it the way, it is pronounced in Arabic than the way it should be in English.

I will take the same example that I took for other names:

Qureshi - It is a proper noun, a surname and does not follow any grammar rules.

Qafus - Does not have any double vowels like you`ll have for Quotient or Quilt or Qualm or Quay or Quadrant. Simply, because they exist in English dictionaries whereas the word Qafus does not.

?

RE: Zahra

I think Rashid makes that exemption to the proper noun:)

Urstruly,

Good Point, but shouldn`t the Proper Nouns be exempted ? Or they`ll have to follow the same rule ? I think there is something else to it besides the grammatical part. I CANNOT seem to remember, but it has to do with certain groups pronouncing differently. ?