Islams Challenge

Re: Sadna

``…Your assumption that the ordinary Indian and the ordinary Pakistani have the same value for political institutions and democracy is flawed….``

I beg your pardon - I did not make any such assumption.

`` ``Only a fool would believe hat such an attack will weaken resolve to fight terrorism`` … Thats the most flawed assumption of all….``

So you think that it will weaken India`s resolve? If anything, I have not seen your resolve bend.

shammi, sadna,

How dumb are you people, cant you see this is an obvious attempt by the brahmin-bania-cunning-bagal-mein-churi Hindoo goverment to discredit the ``moderate, peacefull, self-purifying, freedom-fighting`` jihadi`s?

the sad part is, most people in Pak will actually believe this line :-(

Kashmir banega Afghanistan!

ylh & sarwari,

Read this till your eyes swell. From the pages of the New York Times.

In Pakistan, a Shaky Ally

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/02/international/asia/02ALLY.html

Choice quotes from the article:

``For years, Pakistan has seemed a place about to blow. Bankruptcy is at the door; angry mullahs are at the gate......The army has taken charge, again putting democracy on the shelf. More people own guns than refrigerators.``

``Pakistan was devised with religious cohesion as a Muslim state. But it, rather than India, has been the one struggling for a national identity.``

``Democracy has never taken a firm foothold. The military has remained the dominant institution, and while it has failed in its three wars with India, it has had repeated success in overthrowing its own democratically elected governments.``

Read it again, ylh. It says ``FAILED`` against 3 wars in India.

When asked by a reporter whether he felt guilty about wot his co-religionists had done on september 11th, mohammad ali replied `do u feel guilty about wot hitler did?`

i rest my case...:)

LIVES

For New Yorkers, the Attacks Came as a Surprise. But Families in Pakistan Wait for What They Know Is Coming

By MOHSIN HAMID











My parents went out for dinner in Islamabad the other night. They sat among tables of foreign journalists who chatted about the war they had come to cover. My mother was frightened. She told my sister to consider leaving Pakistan. My sister refused.

She just graduated from college in June, from N.Y.U., as a matter of fact, and she loves her job. She does not intend to give it up. She is working on a television promo for the South Asian Federation Games, due to be held soon in Islamabad. The games may now be canceled, but in her office people are still trying to stay on deadline and on budget.

My sister says you just have to be careful. Stay away from public places, avoid large gatherings. Because people say the country may tear itself in two. Recently, in the mosque near our house, there was a calm appeal to support the Afghans. They are desperately poor, it was said, running out of food and fuel for heat in the coming winter. Less temperate voices have called for civil war if the government supports America in an attack on Afghanistan. And the Taliban have moved troops to the border.

People in Pakistan were not awakened to the possibility of violence by a surprise attack that claimed the lives of thousands of unsuspecting innocents. Instead, they have been forced to watch it coming from far off on the horizon, as they read the news about New York and Washington and waited for the reverberations of these distant tragedies to reach them. In that period of mounting dread, there were polite phone calls between heads of state and orderly airport closings. The embassies and multinational corporations sent home dependents and nonessential personnel. Twenty-four-hour news stations showed the gathering of carrier battle groups, special forces, aviation fuel. People had time to see their lives changing.

Perhaps because she stays home when my father and sister go to work, my mother now seems the most frightened of the three. She is normally a woman of impeccable poise, so I find it unsettling to hear her voice slip from steady on the phone. ``We could go,`` she says. ``But what about your aunts and uncles and cousins? Not everyone can leave. So everyone stays.`` She tells me she attended a peace rally and watched as a small group of bearded protesters passed by, accompanied by a much larger flock of journalists. ``It was as if they were the Beatles,`` she says. Despite everything, my mother has not lost her ability to be amused.

She watches television, still surprised that famous correspondents she has seen reporting from Bosnia and Somalia are now standing in front of buildings near the house. ``I have complete sympathy for the Americans,`` she says. ``It is terrible, what happened. But now they are so angry. They talk about a war on terrorism. But they never seem to think what they do terrifies normal people here.``

I can remember seeing my father afraid only once, when I was in hospital as a child, before I underwent surgery for a vicious case of sinusitis. But having seen him then, I can imagine how he looks now -- his lips a bit pale, more wrinkles in his forehead. ``Nothing is happening,`` he says. ``The shops are empty. The streets are quiet. Even the police seem few and far between. But every night we turn on the television, and we see what is coming. We just have no idea what it will mean for us.``

Having no idea makes them nervous. An explosion brought my sister running from her bathroom. My parents reassured her the sound was only thunder. My sister, of course, claims she was not afraid. ``The first few days, it was pretty bad,`` she says. ``But then a week passes and you say, I can`t wait forever. So you get on with it. I guess that must be a little bit like what people are doing in New York.``

She used to live on Thompson Street, only a few blocks from my place on Cornelia. ``You know,`` she considers, ``I`m glad I`m not in New York now. When the attack happened, I almost wished I were there. I still felt more like a New Yorker than someone from Islamabad. But now I hear how scared my Pakistani friends are, the abuse they`re getting, and I`m glad I`m not there. I don`t want to remember New York that way.``

So my family waits, like many families in Pakistan, watching battle plans being discussed on television, ex-guerrillas being interviewed about the Afghan terrain, radical figures threatening bloodshed if Pakistan helps America. Meanwhile, the long summer has come to an end in Islamabad. The city is green and bougainvilleas are blooming. Fresh pomegranates are arriving from nearby orchards, along with grapes and apples. The fruit, which rarely makes the news, still makes people smile.

Mohsin Hamid is the author of ``Moth Smoke,`` a novel.

hamidm,



….eating 5 meals a day won’t kill you…I mean look at anNy : )

anNy

”where have i called my lovely father abu? i thinks its very paindu….”

….heyheyhey, I resent that…..i call my father abu and have been since day 1….even when growing up in america…abu would have none of that dad/daddy nonsense…..so, neither am I paindu nor a young pak arab, (that’s gotta be jay’s best one to date) thank you very much…

ylh

you didn’t go to LAS by any chance, did you?

shammi #415
PS: Re Afghanistan, don`t forget, defending the most unrepresentative, dysfunctional and barbaric government of a few hundred thousand (which is systematically illtreating 20 million? fellow-Muslims) is popularly called a religious duty and `defence of Islam` in Pakistan. An attack on such a exploitative cruel government is called an attack on Muslims so how can there be concern for the fate of sundry `temples of democracy` ?

shammi #415
shammi, your reply to Romair typifies three key miscalculations of India and Indians in dealing with Pakistan, which has lead us to the current situation.

``Even the govt. of Pakistan expressed shock and distanced itself from the attack (better now than never -- but how come they allow such organizations to flourish in the first place, only to be embarrased by their foolish acts?)``

The government of Pakistan is distancing itself from this incident only for the sake of the US and Western journalists, all 700-odd of them parked in Pakistan presently. In reality, this attack is very much part of their strategy in Kashmir. Jaish-e-Mohammad is not any fringe group, it reportedly operates openly in Karachi and other cities and is connected to influential clerics and religious schools.

``this attack on a temple of democracy just illustrates how wide the chasm is between the forces of darkness and barbarism and that of civilization. It also illustrates just how critically important it is to preserve these political institutions, for they are the ONLY ray of hope, keeping alight the flame of democracy. ``

Your assumption that the ordinary Indian and the ordinary Pakistani have the same value for political institutions and democracy is flawed. Political institutions have been the most dispensable thing in Pakistan for many years. Pakistani generals and a large fraction of their upper class donot believe in political institutions. The Assemblies and legislatures as well as political parties are groupings and gatherings of thugs and thieves, who cannot under any circumstances be allowed to hold office. When out of office, they cannot be allowed to hold even peace rallies without causing deep harm to the national interest.

``Only a fool would believe hat such an attack will weaken resolve to fight terrorism``

Thats the most flawed assumption of all. The fact that he went public with his brazen `indigenous struggle` while in Agra shows how disconnected he and his supporters are from Indian public opinion in this respect(which they consider is solely without merits and purely a creation of Indian propaganda). The fact that Musharraf refused to give any assurances on cessation of violence and expected to get a deal from India anyway shows that the Pakistani Army and government do believe that the more the violence, the more likely India will give in to their demands.

And take a second look at the masonry in Afghanistan to see how far he and his Army will go with this article of faith.

Re: YLH, sigalph -- Raj nostalgia

Who can say that we Subcontinentals are not foolish? Of course, we LOVE to define freedom in terms of narrow, religion-based, 19th century nationalistic ideologies (when the world is moving towards greater economic integration). Well, we got wanted we wanted. We asked for 2 countries, history gave us 3. We can cherish our freedom to be the poorest region of the world, while glossing over the millions killed in the partition riots, the kashmir problem, the huge indo-pak defence budgets, the banglades war, the russian invasion of afghanistan (would russia have dared attack afghanistan if India were still united? after all, afghanistan was not the end game, but only a move towards Pakistan eventually with the sea lanes of the arabian sea. Would russian thinking have remained the same, if they had India to contend with?), am I missing any other problem that is rooted directly in the partition? Well, we wanted it, so now we have it. Do not cry over spilt milk.

Oh, BTW, there have been other countries gifted with more visionary leaders than our own blighted subcontinent -- take the case of Gen. Robert E. Lee in the US civil war. When the writing was on the wall for him, and it was either surrender, or fight a never-ending guerilla war against the Union, he chose surrender (even though it would probably have meant his own incarceration and hanging) AGAINST the advice of his own president. Why? Because he knew that a guerilla war would destroy both the north and the south, with no gains for either side. He had lost a `fair` fight, and was man enough to know when to stop. After the surrender, he said, `it is time to rebuild the country`. The north, surprisingly, pardoned him, and he died as president of a university.

Re: Romair #411 on the Black Tuesday board

``...One or two who have actually gone in and carried out attacks ... explained all of this to me in great detail. They were about as enlightened, moderate, educated and wealthy as anyone you will find in Lahore, Islamabad. Their aim was not to protect Islam, but to get Kashmir free...``

Today, 29 people were killed by a suicide bomber from the Jaish-e-Mohammed (who accepted responsibility for the attack) outside the J&K state assembly building. The suicide bomber was from Pakistan. Most of the killed were civilians (non-govt. employees) -- usually the people lowest down on the political order (the peons, the paanwallahs, etc.) hanging around the entrances to important buildings (the important busy bodies getting police protection). Even the govt. of Pakistan expressed shock and distanced itself from the attack (better now than never -- but how come they allow such organizations to flourish in the first place, only to be embarrased by their foolish acts?). I wonder, how Romair continues to think that these terrorists who killed wantonly are `enlightened, moderate, educated` people. I wonder which `enlightened, moderate, educated` person would enjoy seeing the sight of splattered brains, bloody organs, and dismembered body parts strewn on a city street? Even if Kashmir`s democracy is assumed to be flawed, it still has a functioning legislature where free debate is allowed, and this attack on a temple of democracy just illustrates how wide the chasm is between the forces of darkness and barbarism and that of civilization. It also illustrates just how critically important it is to preserve these political institutions, for they are the ONLY ray of hope, keeping alight the flame of democracy. Only a fool would believe that such an attack will weaken resolve to fight terrorism -- just as only a fool will believe that this months demolition of the twin towers in NYC will weaken the US` resolve.

Awami league lead by Sheikh Hasina & BNP lead by Zia`s Widow Khaleda Zia .

Islamist have coalition with BNP,just giving it a better chance!

NDTV Correspondent

Monday, October 1, 2001 (Dhaka):

Millions of people went to polls today in Bangladesh amidst unprecedented security arrangements to install the eighth Parliament in one of the most fiercely fought general elections in the country`s 30-year history.

Despite fears that the law and order situation could threaten a free and fair poll, reports indicate that voting was largely peaceful. There were some reports of clashes between supporters of the two main parties. However, in most places the situation was under control.

Awami League led by Sheikh Hasina and Bangladesh Nationalist Party headed by Begum Khaleda Zia are the main contenders for power. Hasina and Zia were among the record number of 37 women who contested the polls in which 1,933 candidates from 52 parties and independents took part.

Hasina, daughter of Mujibur Rahman, founding father of Bangladesh, was among the first voters to cast her vote. ``I am confident people will vote for the boat (Awami League`s election symbol) and inshallah we will win,`` she said.

Zia, after casting her vote, also expressed confidence that her party would come to power. ``I am confident that BNP-led alliance will form the next government. Yes, we will get comfortable majority,`` she said.

Polling at 29,848 centres in 299 constituencies across the country was conducted by a million-strong security and election officials, following a wave of pre-poll violence in which 200 people were killed and thousands injured. Polling was postponed in one of the constituencies following the death of one of the candidates.

There are more than 300 foreign election observers and roughly 60,000 local observers monitoring these elections. Though the army and the police are out on the streets in large numbers, observers are worried that the damage could have already taken place. Some voters may have already been intimidated by the increasing violence, especially in the week before the polls.

Counting will begin immediately after polling ends and by morning Bangladesh should have some idea of who its next prime minister will be. The authorities and the election observers have appealed to parties to accept the verdict of the people gracefully. Perhaps, an indication that violence after the polls is also something to worry about. (With PTI inputs)



Time Line



Oct 1: Polling underway in Bangladesh

Oct 1: Bangladesh goes to polls

Sep 30: Tension in Bangladesh ahead of polls

Sep 25: Army to counter Bangla pre-poll violence

Sep 19: Bangladesh Islamic groups form poll alliance

Sep 16: Bangladesh to deploy army from September 18

Aug 26: Former Bangladesh PM arrested

Aug 21: Bangla caretaker govt rejects charges

Aug 20: Bangla politicians accept Oct 1 poll date

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 02, 2001

THE TIMES OF INDIA







Islam not linked to terrorism:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *



RADHA RAJADHYAKSHA

TIMES NEWS NETWORK



UMBAI: Islam. It’s an innocuous five-letter word, but after September 11, its sub-text has, sadly, been rendered more sinister than ever before.

Islam, read jehad, read fundamentalism, read terrorism, read destruction of infidels, is the subliminal message flung at audiences by American television channels that juxtapose horrific images of the WTC bombings with those of celebrations in Palestine and declarations support to Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. It’s a message that’s being reiterated by Muslim baiters all over the world— George Bush’s belated clarifications notwithstanding—and Mumbai has been quick to pick up threads.

But, say outraged Muslim intellectuals, this simplistic rhetoric is just not on. The stigmatisation of Islam is a legacy of the West,’’ says Islamic scholar Zeenat Shaukat Ali. Right from the Crusades, the religion has been equated with fundamentalism by Judeo-Christian thinkers and journalists —take Samuel Huntington’s notoriously ill-founded thesis in Clash Of Civilisations. But to construe the September 11 attack one on Christianity by Islam is ridiculous.

It is preposterous to draw Islam into this debate since religion sanctions violence, least of all Islam.’’ Ali quotes British journalist Robert Fisk who described the attack on America as “the wickedness and awesome cruelty of a crushed and humiliated people’’. Fisk said this was not a war of democracy versus terror,’’ she says. “It is also about American missiles smashing into Palestinian homes, US helicopters firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance... And while we’re at it, who trained Osama bin Laden? I don’t need to point out that it was the CIA, at a when America needed him fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.’’

Scriptwriter-lyricist Javed Akhtar is equally disturbed at the attempts to give the scenario a religious colour. “Of course the WTC incident was atrocious,’’ he says,“and all the Muslim countries condemned it, even the three countries that recognise the Taliban. Besides which, every country has a lunatic fringe. The 1995 Oklahoma bombing, for instance, was by a disgruntled American.

So should one have bombed the whole of Oklahoma for that?’’ It is not only the western media that is responsible for Islam’s image problem, points out reformist-scholar Asghar Ali Engineer. “A few days ago, S. Gurumurthy of the Swadeshi Jagran Manch declared on TV that America was experiencing Muslim terrorism only now, but India had been suffering it for the last 1000 years,’’ he says. “I was shocked—and more so by the fact that the anchor didn’t even attempt to counter that statement. This kind of media-spread poison reinforces the perception gained from history books that Muslims were all mosque-breakers and slaughterers of infidels.’’

Javed Anand, co-editor of Communalism Combat, points out that even the liberal media, in its quest for sensationalism, is to blame. “Take the recent fatwa on burkhas issued by the Lashkar-e-Jabbar to Muslim women in Kashmir,’’ he says. “The Lashkare-Jabbar is a completely obscure militant group, yet this was frontpaged by the media. But was the condemnation of the fatwa by the very conservative Jamaat-e-Ulema Hind given equal prominence? No. Again, when the Bamiyan Buddhas were destroyed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, all Muslims from Iran to Egypt to India condemned this barbaric act—I don’t remember this kind of confluence of Muslim views on any issue in the last 40 years. But again that gets relegated to the media sidelines.

So, cranks use this media penchant for sensationalism to gain instant fame—never mind that the image of the average Muslim takes a further battering.’’ Which brings one to a rather sensitive issue: the fact that many educated liberal Muslims are perceived as unwilling to speak out against incidents that tar the community with the fundamentalist brush. Quite apart from Kashmir, the response from Muslim liberals has been muted even when Mumbai singers and film producers have been forced by hardliners to change lyrics and film titles perceived as disrespectful to the Prophet.“Yes, I grant that Muslim liberals don’t speak up to the extent that they should,’’ says Anand.

“But I’d say the same of Hindu liberals.Also, it’s a question of demographics. Muslim fundamentalists are routinely criticised in Pakistani newspapers like Dawn or Frontier—here, that space is naturally taken by Hindu writers. So, why shouldn’t the perception be formed by what Indian Muslim writers are saying in the media?’’ Liberals just don’t get the same exposure in the media as fundamentalists, agree Asghar Ali Engineer and Javed Akhtar.

“Besides,’’ says Akhtar heatedly, “everytime some stupid man gets up and says something, why do you expect me to find the time to contradict him? I don’t expect my Hindu liberal friends to condemn every statement that Giriraj Kishore or Ashok Singhal make. So why am I perennially in the dock?’’ “Muslims are sensitive about being asked this question because of the context,’’ explains Anand.“After Partition, the patriotism of all Indian Muslims has been suspect unless proved otherwise. So it’s a kind of defence mechanism—like, do I have to prove myself everytime by standing up and speaking?’’ Anand and Engineer both agree that religion does have a greater hold on the Muslim masses but this has to be seen in context.

“Given that most Indian Muslims are poor and illiterate, there is bound to be a disproportionate influence of the clergy,’’ says Engineer. “For backward people of all communities, the only support is religion. Also, different social classes understand religion differently—for the upper classes it’s more of a philosophy, for the lower classes an emotional support. That’s why the mullahs, who are themselves from poorer classes—they come madarsas that only the patronise—tend to have a backward view of the religion and perpetrate it through their teachings.’’

The part played by politicians also crucial, says Anand, citing example of Kashmir, where terrorism began as a response consistently rigged elections much later fell prey to Islamic fundamentalism. “There’s also fact that the political representatives of the Muslim community have been progressively deteriorating,’’ he avers.“What have of the so-called secular done to promote leaders Arif Mohammed Khan variety? Have they ever fielded a Muslim candidate from a constituency which is not Muslim-majority? The net result of this kind of politics is that the Muslim politician feels compelled to appease moulvis, emphasise his ‘Muslimness’ and appear more Muslim than anyone else. Obviously, so-called secular democratic societies, whether of the American Indian variety, need to ask themselves some hard questions.’’

Engineer and Ali also emphasise that the Koran itself not preach violence as is commonly believed. “In the the permission to use violence purely contextual, not normative,’’ says Engineer. “Peace normative.’’ “In fact, the Islam itself means peace,’’ Ali. “All this stuff about in heaven and gaining entry jannat if you kill a kaafir absolutely nonsensical. are just myths, circulating malignancies, and there are verses the Koran that directly contradict all this.’’ She adds, interestingly, that though knowledge Islam has always been derived through the clergy, the Prophet never created or recognised clergy to spread his word.

“Today’s terrorism has seen in a political, not a religious context,’’ concludes Engineer. Take the case of Afghanistan the Taliban has no real political or religious base there, it simply ruling by might. Again, Pakistan armed the Taliban, was behaving politically, today in allowing American troops, it is behaving politically. Religion has nothing to do all this—and that’s something we shouldn’t forget.’’

tahmed

....... you are absolutely right - there are many brave souls like asma jehangir who are doing their best and not only do i respect them, i envy them ...... i just hope there are enough of them at ground zero .... i know there are enough cackling roosters posturing on the ramparts of fortress usa - silly old birds like me and sillier young chickaninees like ylh .....

MaheshG #386,

My views are pretty simple, I don`t know why you are fascinated by them, but here goes.

Killing innocents is wrong. Suicide bombings are wrong.

Hope that quelled your curiousity.

Reply #: 289

hamidm

``

unlike other civilized religions you cannot live your life and then go to confession, say a dozen hail marys, and walk away without the burden of guilt ........ anyhthing that you do five times a day becomes an obsessive compulsive disorder which will finally consume you and kill others .....

``

-- Hamidm, as a Hindu, I both agree and disagree with you. I agree that anything that is imposed on humans, does become a burden. And thus I oppose all the rituals that are associated with ensuring that I am a pure Hindu.

But to imply that all people who are religous suffer from obsessive complusive disorder... is wrong. There are many people for whom this is a personal choice... which you should not critisize.

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re Bapu 392

National Review, inspite of its loonyness, is a very influential journal amongst conservatives. The views of its editor do count for more than your or my views in a Republican administration.

I very much doubt that the Pankaj who interacts here is Pankaj Mishra. Pankaj Mishra is known to live in a remote village in Himachal Pradesh in India. Interacting regularly on a web forum would not be very likely from such a place.