Lets Destroy The Bamiyan Buddhas!

re rdesikan advise to asif n and cohorts

``Heck, aren`t you better off immigrating to heaven aka afghanistan where you can live the life you`ve always wanted to--instead of living with infidels and kafirs of all hues.``

No. That`d involve actually making the hard sacrifices that these people are incapable. As long as the shari`a is something they can preach to others, they are lions. WHen it comes to putting roots where your mouth is, these folks are AWOL. Remember Khomeini who lived in heathen Paris most of his active life?

``...as i am cutting down severely interactions on chowk.``

Thank you. Who needs a nutcase like Solitude with people like you and Mullah Omar around. And if you are aware of the history (which I seriously doubt) then learn from it.

Asif Nasqbandi

I will miss you very much, if you cut down the interactions on the chowk. You are a true pakistani who believes in the islamic republic and not an accidental theorist. You represent the views of the majority of pakistanis, who unfortunately cannot articulate the vuews as good as you have done so far.

Now we are left with the psuedo pakistanis, trying to be the liberal whiteman, trying out the industrial grade bleach to change thye skin colour, b8ut still relapses into urdu inanities when confronted with unpalatable truth.

Asif, stay on, let the world see the true pakistan.

regards and best wishes.

jay.

Instead of the kashmir border, if you choose to take the sea route, pl do drop in at Calicut, and ask for Jayaprakash, they will guide you on.

Rajanjua, sigalph & others re. asif n

I really wish the guy doesn`t stop. It always gives me a perverse kick from peeping into his mind through his posts - a bit like watching a freak show.

Free entertainment is otherwise hard to come by nowadays.....

jay is a girl?

woohoo

Taleban a monument to Western folly

Rosie DiManno

COLUMNIST

DON`T BOTHER crying over limestone Buddha statues if you`ve no tears for living - and dying - Afghan children.

It must say something about us, both in the West and in Islamic Arab nations, that more outrage has been expressed over the demolition of two monolithic monuments - which only students of antiquity had heard of a fortnight ago - than 2 million Afghans on the verge of starvation.

It`s indeed hideous that the one-eyed Mullah Mohammed Omar, spiritual leader of the ultra-orthodox version of Islam at the heart of the ruling Taleban movement, issued the obliteration order against the historic twin Buddhas, carved from an isolated mountainside 1,500 years ago. The Buddhas were doing no harm and had few worshippers in a country where Buddhism died out a millennium ago. Even if Afghanistan were a nation that encouraged tourism, it`s doubtful whether many would make the arduous journey to Bamiyan at the southwestern juncture of the nearly untraversable Hindu Kush.

What public indignation exists towards the Taleban, particularly in the sophisticated West, has been aimed - and with good reason, I don`t disagree - at the theocracy`s crushing decrees against its own population, specifically the denial of basic human rights to females. This is a country which, since the Taleban seized power by overrunning the capital Kabul in 1996, has forced women into a rigid form of house arrest. Females must wear the traditional burqah, the head-to-toe blue (not black) covering that hides even their eyes, whenever they step outside their homes, which they can do only in the company of male family members, a husband or a brother. Girls may not attend school, although a recent loosening of the law has permitted, or at least tolerated, girl-children attending privately run classrooms. But even boys receive an education that teaches them little beyond the recitation of the Koran and other approved Islamic texts. Women may not hold jobs, except for female doctors working in all-female hospital wings. Not that the career prospects are all that much better for male doctors, who earn about $4.50 a month working under appalling conditions in government-run hospitals.

The Taleban does not allow photographs of any human image, which they consider sinful by their reading of the Koran, just as they forbid all graven images of artwork - the basis upon which the Bamiyan Buddhas were ordered dynamited. Everyone must pray five times a day - a customary practice for Muslims, except in Afghanistan those found to be neglecting their religious duties are flayed on the spot by the roving ``soldier-monks`` of the Taleban. Music is forbidden. TV is forbidden. Videotapes and cassettes are forbidden. Only the proscription against kite-flying - an expertise elevated to an artform in Afghanistan - has been quietly dropped by the government, which is now also allowing its citizens to keep pet birds, another avid pursuit of Afghans.

What`s happened is that Afghanistan`s educated class, or at least those who can afford the $20,000 to $25,000 required for forged documents and exit papers, have fled their homeland. But what must be remembered by those of us in the West who can`t even imagine such a strict existence is this: For the majority of Afghans, having come through two decades of horrendous civil war and Russian occupation verging on genocide, the Taleban`s edicts are not so insupportable. What the Taleban gave Afghans was a measure of peace and security that many had never before known, so decimated had this country become by violence and inter-tribal warfare.

And the only reason the Taleban was able to assume power is because the West permitted it.

It was the West, specifically the United States, that propelled the Taleban to ascendancy in the first place. Only a decade ago, the U.S. funnelled arms and military expertise to the mujahideen guerrillas because it was strategically imperative to thwart Russian imperialism and Moscow`s lust for the rugged jewel that is Afghanistan, with all its economic riches and its geographic situation in the heart of Central Asia.

The mujahideen, in rather spectacular fashion, pushed the Russians back over the border. When the Russians turned tail, the Americans lost their keen interest in Afghanistan and the glorious mujahideen fell into a decade of factional, tribal and ethnic warfare, Sunni versus Shiite, fundamentalist versus secular. Now the most fierce of all the mujahideen military commanders, Ahmad Shah Massoud, is isolated in a small corner of Afghanistan while the Taleban, enjoying the endless military and political succour of Pakistan, controls 90 per cent of the country and official recognition from only two other nations.

The Americans, who had encouraged Islamic militancy when it meant thwarting Russia, allowed Pakistan to take the lead of political influence in Afghanistan. Strategically, the U.S. is more preoccupied with bringing oil out of neighbouring Turkmenistan via a pipeline that would go through Afghanistan and Pakistan, but at all costs not Iran. Meanwhile, the Taleban - which cannot feed its own people - reaps the stupendous profit from its newfound distinction as the world`s largest producer and exporter of opium poppies and heroin.

For those of us who love Afghanistan - a magnificent nation that gets in your blood, with a proud people whose likes may never be seen again - there is an abiding faith that the country will endure and survive the ravages of the Taleban, if merely by its sheer obstinacy, just as it has always endured and survived - on its own. Politically, the Taleban will go into eclipse, eventually. There are many who believe if foreign aid was shut off, the Taleban would be ousted from power by an enraged citizenry, most of whom practise a form of Islam that takes its lifeblood from tribal and regional cultural affiliations.

But three consecutive years of devastating drought have left the Afghan citizenry weak and dying. Hundreds of thousands are starving and freezing in camps. Foreign aid is a slim lifeline, but all they`ve got. I`ve no idea what`s to be done, except that the West, the U.S., should hold itself accountable for what it has wrought.

By comparison, why all the wailing about two stone Buddhas reduced to rubble?

Extract from a commentary in the Washington Times:

``As they confront increasing internal opposition, the Taleban zealots have managed to pull off something rather extraordinary, in geo-strategic terms. They have provided Iran, Russia, China, India and the United States with a common enemy. Iran plies the Shi`ite connection. India supports the Northern Alliance,because Pakistan supports the Taleban. China says the Taleban supports Muslim rebels in western China. Russia resents Taleban-trained terrorists who stir trouble in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.``

``The Russians also see direct links from the Taleban and Osama bin Laden to Chechen rebels. For the United States, harboring terrorist kingpin bin Laden puts the Taleban in the crosshairs.``

``The Taleban leaders can blast stone Buddhas. Confronting their own failures and the wrath of the globe`s most powerful nations is a much more difficult battle.``

scout 236

It is ``Jayaprakash`` as in ``Chandrashekhar`` or ``Madhusudan``

and not ``Jaya Prakash``

t-bhai #237,

nice article. thanks for posting it.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/170301/detnat02.asp
Taliban’s idol-smashing edict had Pakistan’s tacit approval
HT Correspondent
(New Delhi, March 16)

TWO MEMBERS of the Taliban council that passed the edict calling for the destruction of Buddha statues in Afghanistan`s Bamiyan province were Pakistani nationals, say diplomatic sources here. Analysts say this may mean Islamabad, despite its pleas to the Taliban regime not to destroy the statues, tacitly gave a green signal to the edict.

The Taliban have two theological councils, or shura. The theological council, Dar ul Ifta, has five to seven members. It was this shura, at the instance of the hardline Taliban Justice Minister Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, which past the edict calling for the breaking of ``all statues and idols.`` But two of the council members are Pakistanis and they each head two fundamentalist Islamic groups based in that country.

According to a diplomatic source both these Pakistani groups have “well-known links with the Pakistani establishment.” Analysts say it is unlikely that Islamabad`s military and intelligence establishment would not, therefore, have known about the vote or been in a position to influence the vote. In fact the members of the Dar ul Ifta voted unanimously in favour of the edict.

Reports of Islamabad`s links to the Taliban edict are surfacing at a time when the Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar is in Tokyo trying to persuade Japan to resume financial aid to Islamabad. It would mean Mr Sattar`s ‘regrets’ over the Taliban edict are the diplomatic equivalent of crocodile tears.

Most Japanese are Buddhists and Tokyo was at the forefront of international efforts to try and save the statues. “Incidentally Pakistan was initially reluctant to issue any statement critical of the Taliban edict,” say the diplomatic sources.

aicha #239,

Thanks for bursting my bubble before it got too big.

dammit :)

Taliban’s idol-smashing edict had Pakistan’s tacit approval

TWO MEMBERS of the Taliban council that passed the edict calling for the destruction of Buddha statues in Afghanistan`s Bamiyan province were Pakistani nationals, say diplomatic sources here. Analysts say this may mean Islamabad, despite its pleas to the Taliban regime not to destroy the statues, tacitly gave a green signal to the edict.

The Taliban have two theological councils, or shura. The theological council, Dar ul Ifta, has five to seven members. It was this shura, at the instance of the hardline Taliban Justice Minister Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, which past the edict calling for the breaking of ``all statues and idols.`` But two of the council members are Pakistanis and they each head two fundamentalist Islamic groups based in that country.

According to a diplomatic source both these Pakistani groups have “well-known links with the Pakistani establishment.” Analysts say it is unlikely that Islamabad`s military and intelligence establishment would not, therefore, have known about the vote or been in a position to influence the vote. In fact the members of the Dar ul Ifta voted unanimously in favour of the edict.

Reports of Islamabad`s links to the Taliban edict are surfacing at a time when the Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar is in Tokyo trying to persuade Japan to resume financial aid to Islamabad. It would mean Mr Sattar`s ‘regrets’ over the Taliban edict are the diplomatic equivalent of crocodile tears.

Most Japanese are Buddhists and Tokyo was at the forefront of international efforts to try and save the statues. “Incidentally Pakistan was initially reluctant to issue any statement critical of the Taliban edict,” say the diplomatic sources.

The main reason for the international furor over the destruction of statues, and almost universal condemnation of the people who carried out this act or condoned it (like Mr. F. Khan!) is that it was simply unnecessary and stupid. A government is supposed to take care of people it rules. Taleban, instead of dealing with those severe issues which are torturing its population for years, came up with this edict and diverted their attention and resources to a cause which was neither a security issue nor a bread-butter issue and it was an issue which no other government in this World will prioritize.

If your argument is this that it happened because the Taleban were pushed to the wall; then it means that you admit that international sanction and isolation against the Taleban are working. And, now,the statue destruction will increase that isolation not reduce it.

Finally, get this. Among the journlist reports that Pakistan had silent approval of this deed, Its FM is blaming the West that it did not do enough to stop the destruction!

What a game!!

To PM,

In the opinion piece of dawn today, titled ``sectarian violence and law`, there is a statement that hardly any one is tried for the mass killings, like the recent shooting in a mosque. The article also states that the only one is the recent hanging after several protest from the iranians, that too after 11 years. I find this hard to believe, but from your general impression of the situation in pakistan, do you consider this credible.

I regret to ask you this, but I remeber a few years ago, you gave a true response to a touchy question.

regards

jay

The Taliban`s actions perhaps should be seen as an attempt to wipe out all alternate identities.

E.g., I picked this up from a posting by a historian on another newsgroup. Taliban-like actions are aimed at erasing this version of history and identity. The issue is not whether the version is accurate or not; but that it must be wiped out.

-Arun Gupta

Quote :

You may be interested in what an elderly Balouchi historian, Prof. Agha Mir (Noori) Naseer Khan, told me in Quetta in April. He said that ``Balouchis are less fundamentalist than are Pathans and Afghans``.

He explained how Balouchis were converted to Islam during one of the first waves of Arab invasions in the ninth century. He said at that time, Balouchis had agreed to observe Islamic customs in exchange for keeping sovereignty of their land.

``Prior to converting to Islam, Balouchis had been fire worshippers, Zoroastrian, and even up to the present day, when Balouchis take a vow, they swear their oaths on fire.`` They still, a thousand years later, he informed me, ``have myths and stories about the sun and about fire.``

Professor Noori Khan claimed that ``Pathans and Afghans are more fundamentalist than are Balouchis because Pathans were converted to Islam numerous times. As successive waves of Islamic invaders moved across Central Asia, the Pathans and Afghans were their victims, time and again.``

The octogenarian Balouchi gentleman, who had been the emissary of the Khan of Kalat in the forties when Jinnah came for negotiations, explained that the people living in Afghanistan and NWFP had been Buddhist for centuries. After each invader would pass through their territory, forcefully converting the inhabitants, the local residents would again revert to Buddhism. Then the next invaders would come and convert them ``by the sword`` again and again.

This, he explained, was why the Pathans and Afghans practiced such a conservative and rigid Islam. They felt they had to prove their ``Islamness`` to save their lives, so they became strictly orthodox and conservative. Balouchis, though often outwardly conservative, particularly regarding the role of women, don`t support the type of fundamentalist Islam promoted by the Taliban.

End quote

To all those who like to talk about the hypocrisy of the people criticizing the Taliban while they are quiet about other issues in Afghanistan and are posting such articles:

1. What has the international community really done regarding the Buddhas? NOTHING. ZILCH. ZERO other than appeal to the Taliban to stop.

2. What has the international community done to prevent the Taliban`s disgraceful conduct against its own population? Give money, arms & support to the Northern Alliance.

So what is the hypocrisy that the international community is being accused of?

These articles about hypocrisy are toilet paper.