Protest in New York!

Manoj

It is not India and Pakistan being discussed here but another issue ... as far as India is concerned... in my opinion the whole Indian political History is a black spot on the name of secularism... India is a Hindu state and it shall remain a hindu state no matter what the constitution states...

However this is not the time and place to change my opinion so please refrain from posting on this thread against me ...

All I wanted to say was this is a purely Pakistani discourse and Indians should not feel free to give us their two cents...

Physician Heal thyself...

manoj: #44: ``You say that a PAf chief was an Ahmedi. This itself is a sign of intolerance. You have choosen to potray a muslim as a non muslim?``

Please do not incorrectly extrapolate my statements. In fact, please do not attemtpt to extrapolate them at all. Just stick to what I have stated. This is what I stated in reply 29 (about which you have made an incorrect assumption)

``The correct assessment of tolerance is not the rank a minority officer achieves, but the position he occupies in combat. I believe one of the Chief-of-Staffs of the PAF was an Ahmedi.``

If you read the above correctly, you will notice that I reference Ahmedis as being a minority. Not a religious minority, but a minority, in general (hence the word minority officer, and not religious minority officer).

As far as I am concerned, anyone who says he/she is a Muslim, is a Muslim. After that, it is between them are their God. I don`t particularly care.

You stated, ``maybe after 5 years we will hear that Pakistan treats its minorities well because 3 army chiefs were Shias?? because the mullahs would have declared the Shias as non muslims?``

I am not quite sure what we will hear about the Pakistani minorities in 5 years. However, the purpose of my reply was not to state that Pakistan treats its minorities well. It is just to state that in my experience, minorities are treated relatively well in the Pakistani armed forces. That is why, I said,

``So while the general intolerance for minorities is growing in Pakistan, it is growing at much much slower rate in the armed forces.``

Kindly do not misquote or misrepresent my replies. It wastes everyone`s time.

Tsk tsk tsk. Umairr, first protect your own citizens before worrying about India`s in Kashmir. How shameful and embarassing what you guys are doing to Christians.

Krashid:

The TITLE of the piece is ``PROTEST IN N.Y!``, the discription of one of the eye catching issues which the protest was about, is what you are refering to, its NOT part of the title for G-Ds sake!

The 1000 mullahs mentioned in the piece are not an example cited of people killing Christians, just the street power of a political pressure group opposed to equal rights for minorities and their disproportionate political impact in circumstances in which the military regime felt itself under siege from every side. You are confused i suppose by the marketing of the article (Yeah, i figured i needed to make it eyecatching to get people to at least read it). I don`t feel i need to prove the killing of Christians in Pakistan, there are enough incidents recorded, and that was not my specific issue (READ MY PLACARD). If you read the piece carefully, you`ll realize there are a combination of three different things going on in the writing:

#1 Its a first person narrative account from my perspective, including my own involvement,

#2 I am reporting on what happened exactly at the Protest, and ``STOP KILLING CHRISTIANS`` was a slogan raised by the protesters.

#3 My Political Analysis & Editorial style writing.

Sac:

You focused too much on my mention of my alma mater. You should also have read the salient facts in that same post that i presented to support my `ludicrous` statement as you put it; Jinnah was a BORI, i.e a member of a religious minority himself. Also, he was a liberal, and a lawyer. The conclusion should be self-evident. Only someone who deliberates chooses to be wilfully blind to MAJs ideas/life/legacy could state that what i said was `ludicrous`. YES, JINNAH WOULD PROTEST TODAY`S PAKISTAN AS A BETRAYAL IF HE WAS ALIVE. That statement betrays your ideological bias, if anything. The truth is very hard to digest for people who have spent their lives tuned in to PTV thinking that the Vison of Jinnah is anything reemotely connected to what Pakistan has become today. I can only hazzard a guess that perhaps that experience as a PTV viewer left a deep impression on you that you have yet to overcome.

PTV has a very sanitized, black & White view of Pakistan`s history and politics. I guess they feel that in the name of patriotism, they have a right to selectively distort history as well. And if they repeat a lie often enough, people do become brain washed in their perspectives if exposed to little else, day in and day out. But things have changed since the 80s and ZIA KA DAUR, the state no long has a monopoly on information, the press is much much more free, internet use is up, SAT Dishes have increased. Unfortunately, the massses remain illiterate & ignorant, and a free press can`t change that. An image is often worth a thousand words. PTV is nothing more than a government propaganda machine.

OMAR MIRZA

RE: OMAR 1974 Reply# 52

I am really disappointed and disgusted with you after reading your reply. So it was nothing but sensationalism. What do you expect to achieve when you create resentment instead of awareness in the other party. Please spare us from your pathetic attempts to explain your motives why you sensationalized issues. As compared to you a lot of people firmly believe that the issues can be resolved-but this is not the way.

What a wonderful read this was.

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10603-2000Sep15.html

Bill Gates chilling in Delhi and Vajpayee getting standing ovations from the US Congress while our friends in the Jewish-controlled American media contrast this to the reception accorded Musharraf and the souring ties due to Pakistan`s links with ``Islamic terror groups and the Taliban``

RSexana #51: ``Tsk tsk tsk. Umairr, first protect your own citizens before worrying about India`s in Kashmir. How shameful and embarassing what you guys are doing to Christians.``

Unfortunately, I am not in a position to protect anyone. I wish I were, but I am not. What I can do is to point out the places human rights are being violated; be it Pakistan or India or any other place. I myself oppose all human rights violations anywhere in the world, and have criticised all the human rights violations that have and are being committed by Pakistan. Unlike some people, I do not make any attempts to justify the human rights violations committed by my country of origin. In fact quite the opposite, I attempt to highlight them.

You seem quite concerned about the Christians in Pakistan. I am concerned as well. If you are interested in pursuing this furthur, then I can point you to some people in Amnesty International who would be more than happy to get in touch with you in your efforts to improve the situation of Christians in Pakistan. I would you like to encourage you to get involved in pointing out the human rights violations of minorities in Pakistan, provided you have a sincere interest.

If you are just pointing out the situation of minorities in Pakistan to justify the killings of innocent human beings in India, then I am afraid you have a quite a bit of hatred inside you against any human being who does not share your views of the world. There isn`t much I can do to change that. You are the best judge of your own conscience.

Re: #53

Sigh. The trouble with me is that i`m too damn honest. ``sensationalism`` my ass. Its to make sure people read whats inside the click, which is absolutely true, and nothing contained inside is factually untrue, and the slogan was most certainly used and it is a real issue for the Christian community and even for other minorities such as Ahmadis (YES, I WOULD ALSO SUPPORT ``STOP KILLING AHMADIS``, ``IN PAKISTAN IN PAKISTAN``, who are being killed in the name of religion also on a periodic basis, so this is completely factually true. Frankly I don`t think i misrepresented anything. So don`t be childish and throw a fit. And some people are motivated by other reasons, and would love to find a way to attack the issues contained in the article indirectly by attacking me, because they are closet jamaatis for whom i literally don`t make any effort to hide my utter contempt.

Jinnah liked his whiskey `n his Pork. Deal with it. He still led the Pakistan movement, while most Islami mullahs opposed the division of India and sided with the Congress party. Then these same mullahs and their progeny tell the people of Pakistan, that ``Pakistan was created in the name of Islam``, so shariat needs to be enforced., and minorities should remain in separate electorates and be denied equal rights of citizenship.

The mullah line today is a vast oversimplification of the issues involved. The bottom line was that Pakistan was created to insure that the Muslim community was not economically discriminated against by the Hindu majority in a United India, and that it was free to practice its religion without let or hinderance. Neither of those 2 goals has anything to do with Shariat.

But how do you get that message across to people who are illiterate, uneducated and brainwashed? Its quite beyond their level of understanding, and ideological frame of reference to comprehend the distinction. And i don`t mean this in a condesending manner, its just a plain fact. So Education is the priority.

OMAR MIRZA

Re: Urstruly #53

If a tree falls in a forest when no one is around ... does it make a sound?

ylh:

Thanks for correcting me on Jinnah`s stance on the electorates issue.

My suggestion that the significance of the white part of the flag be explained was figurative -- the point being the need to drub the equal status of Minorities into public consciousness.

Attaturkization of Pakistan? hmmm.. let`s wait and see... Just remember, Pakistan is not Turkey, so that needn`t be a panacea.

rgds,

PM

rsaxena #51, ``How shameful and embarassing what

you guys are doing to Christians.``

Aww, how righteous of you to point that out. In case you missed it, go back and read my post #37.

Shame doesn`t just lie west of the border. Or do you turn a blind eye towards your own shortcomings to sneer in our direction.

Omar Mirza!

I think Jinnah was Khoja Memon and Shia. I think Bohri are different.

I completely agree with Manoj that Indians don`t need lessons from intolerant, rabid Muslims.

I think they are themselves in a position to supervise PhD thesis on that.

If educated Indians are SO MUCH TOLERANT, one can understand the Indian SECULARISM.

As far as highly respected Sikhs. It does not deny their killing 20,000 in number. (BBC. quote in case somebody starts farting)

Well Manhoj if being well off was the criterion for being free of exploitation... may I add that the Ahmadi community is perhaps a very well off community ... but that doesnt mean that they are not discriminated against....

VijayAmrit

Go read my comment on the Jinnah thread.... maybe you will know the truth...

Re: Vijay Amrit

I would suggest that you familarize yourself with Jinnah`s life and his political thinking, before generalizing Jinnah with a contempory Indian politican.

Jinnah`s seculurism, if that is an applicable term, originated in his British influenced upbringing and education; Jinnah`s political philosophy was based on constitutionalism. Jinnah was a British trained lawyer and he argued for Pakistan, in toto for the Muslims of India, on the basis of a consititutional right to political representation. Where Jinnah erred was in underestimating the raw emotional appeal of religion as a political consideration of the Muslims of India. Jinnah was, in his political attitudes, aloof from the religious sub-text of pre-partition Indian politics and since he was, for all practical purposes, a British gentleman, he never really understood the religious political under currents of the Muslim politics in India and that was his mistake; a mistake, which we are still debating in Pakistan vis-a-vis issues of Pakistan`s identity.

I am, on the other hand, in no position to make a generalized statement on Advani`s political logic and answer, or refute, your suggestion arguing a similarity in Jinnah and Advani`s political views. If I have an indication, it mostly points to the argument that Advani, and for that matter your Prime Minister Vajpayee (sp?) have blurred the distinctions in Indian politics between apolitical secularism and allowable political sectarianism.

When your prime minister, in a gathering in America, makes a statement that he is a member of RSS first and an Indian prime minister second, what does it say about his interpretation of India`s consitutional separation of the affairs of the state with local specified party political interests?

As fate would have it, Jinnah death before his vision of Pakistan could be fully articulated, but if his past political experince, historically doucmented, would suggest that Jinnah was acutely aware that Pakistan would have problems in overcoming the abstraction of secularism in its politics. Political speeches have an intent; a message that they convey and if that hypothesis is valid, then the question is not what Jinnah intended Pakistan to be, given his September 11 speech to the Constituent Assemby, but why did he use that much quoted (and infamous phrase)reference to a non-religious nature of a Pakistani polity? Was he aware of something and wanted to warn his listeners to that fact?

Jinnah`s Pakistan would have been a consitutional state with clearly demarcated boundries between politics and religion and in this intent, he differs from Advani in that sense that BJP has blurred that division of politics and religion in Indian politics.

Also, I would also humbly suggest to you that please do not generalize personalites living in differen historical periods. The verdict on Jinnah has been pronounced and the verdict on Advani is still being debated and it would premature of you to infer something that is still not decided!

History may agree with and then, angain, it may not!

Ciao!

Omar you write: ``But how do you get that message across to people who are illiterate, uneducated and brainwashed? Its quite beyond their level of understanding, and ideological frame of reference to comprehend the distinction. And i don`t mean this in a condesending manner, its just a plain fact. So Education is the priority.``

I am very tired of this arrogant view of the Pakistani elite of those less well off. What have you ``educated`` people done? stolen wealth shamelessly; destroyed democratic institutions; replaced use of your minds with rote thinking. I could go on.

The poor person in Pakistan is second to none in common sense and intelligence and strong moral character. Unlike poor people in some other countries, they dont drink (and thus dont do thinks like wife-beating due to drunkenssness as happens in some other places) and they have a deep faith in God. I have heard more than one foreign visitor comment on the inherent dignity of the poor in Pakistan.

I would have expected something more sensible from someone trying to abolish the blasphemy law than what you just wrote.