Afghanistan Reflections

Stuka #103: Alpha Bravo Charlie was really good, if you ask me. It is kind of like the Indian movie titled Vajayta (good flick), but covering the Pakistani Army; while Vajayta covered the Indian Air Force. Most of the main characters are actual Army Captains and Lieutenants. There are scenes filmed at Siachen and Bosnia. It used to be available online. It may be available at your friendly local Pakistani video store.

Burger Family series wasn`t that big of a hit, I believe. So I think that will be hard to find. Omar Sharif is definitely a funny guy. He himself does not belong to the, ``Burger`` category, and I think that is why he made the drama, to poke fun at Burgers. Nearly all Pakistanis you will see in US colleges belong to the Burger category. Pretty much everyone on Chowk is more than likely a current or former Burger; some more than others. The biggest Burgers I have seen in the US are the Pakistani students who come here from UAE and other Middle Eastern countries.

I am not quite sure whether Burger is a solely masculine concept, or whether it applies to girls also. I am also not quite sure whether it is an insult or a compliment (just like, I am not quite sure whether calling a Sikh a Sardar is a compliment or an insult). I think it is considered a compliment.

temporal: BB is enough to make grown men start pulling their hair in frustration. On the quote from her article: […In Washington he surprised audiences by declaring, ``you want the label of democracy. Okay. I will put a label``...], I see you considering a reprimand for your faithful reporter for not including this in back-to-office report on chowk after attending the paki dinner. If Musharaff had said such a dumb thing (and the word ``label`` would not have escaped the attention of your humble servant who was all ears at the time), I would definitely have reported it. The fact is he said no such thing. BB is either making up a convenient quote, or else (since she wasnt even there) one of her informers made it up for her. Of course, this does not mean that Musharaff will step off the wicket and go back to the pavilion like a good boy in October, but he simply did not say anything about putting on labels as BB claims. How can a woman look so cute and yet be so devious!!

Romair:

The term had been around before, but Omar Sharif`s TV drama, ``Burger family`` made it household.

I am a big fan of Omar Sharif. Would this play be available in the US? Also, long back, you mentioned a play called Alpha Bravo Charlie. I haven`t found it in Boston yet. Any suugestions if they are available online?

Stuka #96: ``Why are some Pakis called Burgers anyway? Could someone elucidate?``

Just when I start to think that India and Pakistan have very similar cultures, differences like the above change my mind. Not being familiar with the term, ``Burger,`` in and of itself, in my opinion, is enough of a reason for India and Pakistan to be separate countries :-)

I believe the term, ``Burger`` owes its popularity to the Pakistani comedian Omar Sharif (not the one in Dr. Zhivago). The term had been around before, but Omar Sharif`s TV drama, ``Burger family`` made it household.

A, ``Burger`` is a young to very young person who is a cross between a yuppie and a rich kid. Someone who lives in upper class neighborhoods, speaks English well, wears Western clothes, listens to the Spice Girls and Ricky Martin etc. And is able to do the above, naturally, without looking artificial. Speaking English with a foreign accent is probably the most critical part.

Stuka:

Burger is a term used to describe the somewhat westernised young folks in Pakistan. It is usually the first step in branding someone that offends someone`s middle class sensibilities. The next step is usually `American agent` and nirvana is finally achieved in the epithet `zionist agent`. Field Marshal(Hon.) ROmair is usually more polite and refers to the burgers as `English medium types`.

re ali1:

As I`ve tried many times to explain to FM(Hon.) ROmair, ones background is immaterial to the opinions one expresses specially on an anonymous forum like Chowk. That is beauty of it all. If you want to interact with others keeping both yours and others respective stations in life to be relevant there are more amiable as well as practical ways of doing so. You are more than welcome to call me whatever you feel like but please keep my parents out of it.....contrary to your assertion they are extremely unhappy with my antics :) And BTW I didn`t do any A or O levels. Matric, FSc, BSc all in Pakland. Nothing special or I may add relevant.

re ROmair:

FM(hon.) sahib: I am afraid I cannot allow you to fade away. How else can the rest of the world understand the unbending mind of the `enlightened` Pakistani? It provides a murky yet invaluable window into the thinking of the GI Joe running the affairs in Pakistan and considers him/herself to be the true salvation of that hapless nation. Keep writing. You can run but you can`t fade away.

later

-sac

hobbytv #89 ``The FC1, Super7 is ready for trials, if the ship performs to specs (actually, somewhere close would be great) and Pakistan can gain design and industrial production expertise, you can be sure, Americans will never, under any circumstance, be involved with Pakistan or any other Muslim nation in the same way.``

This is an interesting comment. I actually had a chance to work on the predecessor of the Super7, the F-7. The later is the mainstay of the Pakistani air defence (people talk about the F-16 all the time, but it is actually the F-7 and Mirage that are the PAF`s main aircraft).

Do you have any recent info on the FC-1? I remember the original design was supposed to have Pratt and Whitney F-100 engines (the same as the one in the odler F-16s and F-15s). I know the joint project has been going on in China. Pakistan and China have actually produced and marketed the new trainer, Karakoram-8, which is now being used by the PAF (quite an achievement for a county that has yet to produce its own car). I believe the K-8 project was a success. Why do you however think that just due to the production of an aircraft (FC-1), ``the Americans will never, under any circumstance, be involved with Pakistan or any other Muslim nation in the same way.``?

I can think of only one aspect: If Pakistan can get a hold of the Middle East market and sell the K-8 aircraft, imagine the foreign exchange Pakistan could earn (India recently signed a deal worth $1 billion with England to purchase the Hawk aircraft, which is somewhat similar to K-8). All the high command of the Middle East Air Forces has been trained by the PAF. Many of the junior officers received most of their professional training through the PAF, so the PAF knows those Air Forces, inside and out. If it could sell the FC-1, along with the K-8, then this could turn into the biggest foreign exchange earners for Pakistan, after textile.

I have always felt that Pakistan needs to privatize portions of its defence production base (particularly the marketing and sales side), and use this successful crown jewel of the military, more aggressively, as a foreign exchange earner.

Re: Hobbyty

``...(Oh yeah, This is not a war on Izlum, or Muzlums - not yet)...``

Are you implying that the US attacks on Taleban can be construed as an attack on Islam? That the war is headed that way? BTW, what is WP?

Ref shammi

I think we Indians are at much greater fault in Sino-Indian relations. Of course we should mount an effective defence of our borders and play the internationl realpolitic at the same level as China, but there was no need to have made the `62 war an emotive national issue with ``Mere vatan ke logon`` on the radio and stories of how the chinese stabbed us in the back after ``hindi-chini bhai-bhai`` in our textbooks.

Sac

Are you Indian or Paki? You sound Indian, but Ali# 1 referred to you as ``Burger`` type, which I believe is Paki slang.

Also, there was an interview of an American lady who was in the hijacked Indian Airlines flight in Kandahar. She said that one of the hijackers was referred to as ``Burger``.

Why are some Pakis called Burgers anyway? Could someone elucidate?

Hobbyty:

The Chinese relationship w/ Pakistan is predicated on the dictum -- an enemy`s enemy is my friend. Pakistan did not recognize PRC until the early `50s, was almost ready to fight her in Korea, and joined SEATO against her. The turn-around came after the `62 Sino-Indo border clashes. The Chinese have found in Pakistan a willing partner to counter India. Also, arms supply to Pakistan is as much based upon the Chinese need to oppose American arms sales to Taiwan. If and when Indo-Chinese relations improve, you can be reasonably certain that it will affect the Sino-Pak relationship as well. The Sino-Pak relationship is based entirely on realpolitik -- not on any shared values of governance, human rights, religious or cultural ties. Indeed, Pakistan and China were on opposite sides over the Taleban issue.

While the Chinese find that Pakistan has played a `helpful` role in confronting India, I do not think that when push came to shove the Chinese have reciprocated and been equally helpful. For example, in `71 Yahya Khan kept hoping that the Chinese hordes will descend across the Himalayas into India (and executed his Bangladesh policy accordingly) -- it did not happen. Likewise, in `99 Nawaz Sharif almost implored China to intervene in Kargil diplomatically -- China stayed out.

The notion of playing one country against another is an old game -- it has been played for centuries (especially in S. Asia). I do not have any reason to believe that things are about to change anytime soon unfortunately. We are condemned to repeat history, because we have failed to evolve any confidence-building mechanisms.

Concerned:

When I in graduate school, I came across a number of Chinese engineering students studying for Ph.D.s in Amercian universities. Some were old enough to have worked on farms as forced laborers in Mao`s Cultural Revolution. I was shocked to learn that even this upper crust of Chinese elite society was completely unaware of the dynamics of Sino-Indian relations, or that there had even been a `62 border clash! While the level of awareness was shocking, it was also in a way encouraging. It meant that a whole generation of Chinese youth are not indoctrinated on anti-India literature.

Hobbyty, in so far as personal relations are concerned, my experience with the Chinese students was no different from yours.

Wonder if any Pakistani would be participating in this scheme (international recruitment).....read all about it at

http://in.tech.yahoo.com/011011/64/16j29.html

makes interesting reading.....ofcourse pakistan has variations to this theme....

http://in.tech.yahoo.com/011011/64/16j29.html

Infosys goes global with interns

BANGALORE (Reuters) - Carlos Gomez Uribe, a 21-year-old Mexican studying at Boston`s elite technology institute, has come to India not as a college backpacker of yore but as part of the 21st-century global ambitions of India`s ``Silicon Valley``.

Uribe is one of 22 interns picked out of 800 applicants from a dozen top technology and business schools in the United States, Canada and France by India`s leading technology firm, Infosys Technologies Ltd.

Nasdaq-listed Infosys is trying to shake its image of a low-cost provider of software for global giants and become a multi-cultural international company of its own.

``When we look at what we mean by globalisation, it means being global in all respects,`` Infosys managing director Nandan Nilekani told Reuters in the firm`s 50-acre campus in India`s high-tech capital, Bangalore.

Infosys, India`s second largest software exporter with 10,000 now on the payroll, last year kicked off its global Internship programme with 14 interns chosen from 300 applicants.

``What interested me was Bangalore,`` said Sandrine Rol, a 22-year-old management student from France`s ESSEC Business School. ``I would like to specialise in cross-cultural training.``

EXOTIC TRAVEL, MODEST PAY

The interns spend between six weeks and six months in Bangalore and get a modest 15,000 rupees a month as an allowance, besides food, accommodation and round-trip airfare.

Eating local food, travelling around India`s exotic destinations and watching ``Bollywood`` Hindi movies are some of the fringe benefits.

But the interns also get job experience -- and Infosys says the company benefits from their work.

Uribe, from Boston`s Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he wrote a program for Infosys that will help migrate old Cobol language applications to the Internet language, XML.

``I always wanted to come to India,`` Uribe said. ``Mexico and India have some parallelisms...but in Mexico we don`t have companies like Infosys.``

Rol worked on a project to boost Infosys`s media image in Europe, a market the software giant is courting actively now that the United States is in a sharp downturn this year.

Company officials want the intern programme to be a springboard for Infosys to raise its profile as a global employer and attract new talent into its Bangalore headquarters.

``Maybe they have some expertise which the organisation does not have,`` said Aditi Madhok, programme manager for the internship scheme, adding the interns are changing the conventional wisdom that India only exports talent.

REVERSE BRAIN DRAIN

``It is a reverse brain drain they bring,`` she said.

Right now, 99 percent of Infosys`s employees -- 3,000 of whom are overseas -- are Indian. The company aims to change that.

Most interns work in Bangalore but a few work in other offices, including one at Toronto. Madhok said three of the 14 interns applied last year for jobs with Infosys. Two were hired.

This year, one American intern has sought a job, even if it means getting only a fraction of the pay he would get in the U.S.

This summer, Infosys recruited interns from two French business schools and 10 U.S.-based institutions, including Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania`s Wharton business school.

The intern programme was launched in part as a recruitment vehicle because of a tight job market, but that is no longer the case, analysts said.

Sukumar Rajah, fund manager at ITI Pioneer Mutual Fund, told Reuters that global hiring made more sense before the slowdown, when there were fears that Indian talent would become costlier.

``All these things will take a backseat,`` he said. ``In the current mode, the constraint is not the availability of people.``

About 71 percent of Infosys`s revenue in the quarter ended September was from North America, mostly the United States and only 19 percent from Europe.

The company on Wednesday beat market forecasts by a whisker by showing a second quarter net profit of 2.01 billion rupees, up 31 percent from the year-ago period.

It expects revenue of $535-$545 million in 2001/02 (April-March), up from about $416 million in 2000/01.

Founded nearly two decades ago, Infosys has steadily built up a reputation, serving clients like network gear maker Cisco Systems and telecoms giant Nortel Networks. In 1999, it became the first Indian firm to list on the Nasdaq.

Its growth, doubling in revenue every year for the past four years, has been forecast lower at 30 percent in the current fiscal year, but it still plans to add more than 1,500 employees, in a year when layoffs are the flavour of the season in America.

Apart from software centres in three Indian cities, Infosys has a competence centre in Toronto, which has 60 mainly local employees, three small centres in the United States and one in Britain.

Concerned

Yes, perhaps I managed to run into the only Pakistan friendly Chinese person. Do Chinese love Pakistanis? I don`t think so, but they do think we are friendly to them. Do Chinese hate Uighur (Turkistan) Muslims? Is the pope Catholic? Do they trust us? They trust the inherent inability of Western civilization as it is today, to form a civilizational bond with Islamia. And in the meantime, there are other fish who think they are too big for this pond, to fry.

Chowkies - WP calls for the removal from power of Mubarak (see yesterday`s WP or today International Herald Tribune) and the House of Saud has this problem: (Oh yeah, This is not a war on Izlum, or Muzlums - not yet)



``The fatwa against the royal family

Oct 11th 2001

From The Economist

The Afghan war carries risks for Saudi Arabia`s ruling family

LATE last month, a blind 80-year-old sheikh was led before Saudi officials. They had just one question: had he really issued a fatwa that in effect excommunicated the al-Saud royal family? “Whoever backs the infidel against Muslims is considered an infidel,” replied the old man.

Sheikh Hamoud bin Oqla al-Shuaibi is no lonely firebrand. He is a prominent scholar who once taught law to the Saudi chief justice. Now, from his home in Burayda in Nejd province, the kingdom`s Wahhabi bastion, he has become the standard-bearer of Saudi Arabia`s turbulent prelates. When the royal family sought the retraction of his fatwa, other religious scholars added their voice, including some mainstream preachers. Anonymous statements pronounced King Fahd and his 30,000-strong family expelled from Islam. All echoed the sheikh`s opinion that Muslims had a duty to wage jihad on those who attack Muslim states.

These ominous documents risk upsetting the House of Saud`s partnership with the Wahhabis, the puritanical sect whose followers consider themselves the only true believers. For 250 years, the Wahhabis have given the al-Sauds religious legitimacy in return for a licence to wage jihad, first against neighbouring tribes, then against Shia Muslims, the Ottoman empire and the Soviet Union. They sowed their ideology among Muslims abroad, including the Taliban. But now America, the royal family`s backer, is the enemy, and the sheikhs are threatening to transform King Fahd from the patron to the target of jihad.

Some dismiss these dissenters as a lunatic fringe. But as a precaution, Prince Sultan, the defence minister, invited a delegation of Burayda scholars to visit him ahead of the American defence secretary`s visit last week. Prince Sultan`s son Bandar, the ambassador to Washington, defended his father`s refusal to join America`s military alliance with a rare admission of vulnerability: “In a western democracy, you lose touch with your people, you lose elections. In a monarchy, you lose your head.”

An early sign of violence came on October 6th when a suicide bomber, apparently a Pakistani, struck Eve`s, a favourite shop for foreigners in the eastern city of Al Khobar, killing two Americans. Protecting the righteous, he blew himself up during evening prayers. Presumably to avoid inflaming public opinion, the Saudis did not invite Tony Blair, Britain`s prime minister, who was touring the region this week.

We`re just innocent bystanders in this war, plead the Saudis. But the puritanical clerics have their stern answer from the “Tawhid”, the Wahhabi manifesto, which is compulsory study in schools: one form of apostasy is “support for the pagan by hand, by tongue or money. As Allah has said, never support the infidels.”

For decades, the al-Sauds have succoured their own opposition. The ultra-orthodox had free rein in schools, the media and the police to enforce bans on music, dancing and showing female faces. School-leavers were given grants to train in Osama bin Laden`s camps, public-sector workers were encouraged to spend their holidays on package tours to Afghanistan. Arab afghanis (Muslims who fought to expel the Russians from Afghanistan) in London estimate that 5,000-10,000 Saudis have passed through the Afghan camps, and most are now dormant in sleeper-cells. Of the 19 hijackers on September 11th, 12 are believed to be Saudi.

“The al-Sauds have no source of legitimacy besides the Wahhabis,” says a Saudi academic. “They have to find other voices for legitimacy.” This should not be impossible. Only a small minority of Saudi Arabia`s 20m or so people are Wahhabis, and most of those who are not, long for release from the Wahhabi stranglehold. But the longer the confrontation is postponed, the greater the risk of a backlash.

From their base in the Nejd, Wahhabis have now spread across the kingdom, establishing strongholds in such isolated corners as Asir, the rugged south-western province from where many of the hijackers are said to have come. Their denunciation of royal corruption, indebtedness to the West and the American hold on the oilfields has a wide appeal.

Youths have been arrested in Abha, Asir`s capital, after showing solidarity with the families of the hijackers. And Arab afghanis say hundreds of Saudi veterans of jihad in Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan have been detained. But Saudi Arabia`s rulers are wary of tackling the main source of their own support. After an outburst six years ago, Sheikh al-Oqla was put behind bars. Now officials fear that their customary tactic of silencing him carries too great a risk.``

Kya se kya ho gaya bewafa teray pyar maiN

Chaha kya, kya mila bewafa teray pyar maiN

dost-mittar, you must have heard this old Rafi song. It fits Pakistan so good. The bewafa are Mullah Omar, Taliban, ISI, Ummah, Islam, Sharia, military, politicians, bureaucrats, mullahs, feudal, USA,...........

Make a pick. Let me tell you a secret. OBL is hiding in the mazar of Mahmud Ghaznavi and sometime hides in the mazar of Ahmed Shah Abdali. These two will be pretty good targets for 5000 pound GBU-28 bunker busters. By the way, Zia mazar in Islamabad does not need bunker buster, just one dynamite stick placed in a hole in the side will do the job.

hobbyty,

[...And this as a person who has travelled to China and knows the friendly response of ordinary Chinese on learning I was from Pakistan...]

actually, ever since kargil, i have been curious about what ordinary chinese think of pakistan or pakistanis. there doesn`t seem to be any cultural/social/ethnic/linguistic/religious link between the two. is there? what would an ordinary chinese and a pakistani talk about in terms of their respective countries? as far as politics is concerned, the chinese people, living in the usa, appear to have very little knowledge of their country`s foreign policies. i would imagine the ones living in china to be even less knowledgable. is it possible that the people who you met in china would have been equally charming to any tourist irrespective of his/her nationality?

a chinese friend of mine, who is generally very well read, claimed that she never knew china had some sort of special relationship with pakistan or if the general chinese public considered pakistani people to be somewhat special.

sac #80: ``The Field Marshal refuses to fade away, I see.``

It is once again interesting to read your comments. I am desperately attempting to fade away from you. I never address you. I never attempt to engage you in a debate. However, you continue in your name-calling. That is the point I am trying to highlight.

By all means, say whatever you want, but please keep me out of it. On this thread, on #30, you addressed me, and as usual resorted to name-calling. I had not addressed you in any manner, before that. So I would appreciate it if you would fade away. I will once again attempt to not mention your name, if you do not mention mine.

``It used to be Ayaz Amir now its Najam Sethi he quotes with abandon.``

Ayaz Amir and Najam Sethi are two of my favorite writers. I consider them two of the best in Pakistan. Moreover, they are upright and honorable people, in my opinion, and have a very good insight into the affairs of Pakistan. Ayaz`s knowledge of the military-civilian relations is beyond comparion, since he was in the military, was a beaurecrat, and MPA, and is a journalist. Sethi`s is ok, but not at Amir`s level. Sethi is a journalist, the owner of a huge bookstore, an Amnesty Intl award winner, an ex-Minister (I think), and a close student of the military. So much so, that he has been invited to give presentations at the military Staff colleges in Pakistan. This is an indication of one`s knowledge of the area.

Both these people should be quoted in all kinds of abandon, in my opinion. I really like them.

``On the one hand you refuse to hear opinions of people who haven`t served a single day in the army and then you quote Najam Sethi who falls in the same category to make some point(only God knows what...). I just don`t get it.``

If you don`t get it, then I will explain again. I am unaware of any experience or basis on which you are claiming the two Generals to be Islamists. I think they were superseded because the other guy was better, or they disagreed with Musharraf on a policy issues. If one goes by reputation, Gen Aziz is supposed to be the, ``religious`` one. Yet he was the one who was promoted.

Najam Sethi is a journalist and has studied the Army closely (please see description above). If you fall into that category, then your statements become valid. Please point out anything in your background to indicate that.

``I have time and again pointed out the fallacies in your arguments.``

I have not read anything but name-calling and statements, from your side. No arguments. You have stated the Generals were Islamists. That is not an argument, that is a statement. I would like to read an argument, so I can update my info. It is quite possible, mine and Sethi`s info is wrong.

``I presume you are not an immature bipolar kid like ylh trying to find himself in this crazy world. Learn to be a little more tolerant of others before complaining about the `childish` behaviour of others and admit your mistakes gracefully. Otherwise keep getting beat up from the likes of me. I am not going to lay off.``

Once again you have resored to name calling :-) As I stated, I will not join your game. I left it as a little kid.

If you want me to fade away, then just don`t attempt to mention me in your post. I only reply, when you mention my name. Otherwise, as I have stated I have no interest in discussing anything with you.

So, quit mentioning me in your posts, and then requesting me to fade away. I will attempt to make this post my last to you. After that, hopefully you will stop addressing me.

Shammi

You don`t seem to realize it but I actually count on you to offer constructive criticism and to engage thoughtfully.

There is much so miss between the lines with regard to China. You are absolutely correct that chinese have made no official public statements about needing Pakistan, but then neither Urstruly nor I are speaking on behalf of the Government.

For US or West to have a meaningful relationship with pakistan or Muslims, it must be the peoples and culture, not the government. Whereas with China, the emphasis is on an alliance against a common perception of trends, events and remains specific.

Keep your eyes on where the Chinese ambassador in Islamabad keeps turning up (the intellectual and cultural forums, and you will be to get a feel for the depth of institutional acceptance of the chinese - And this as a person who has travelled to China and knows the friendly response of ordinary Chinese on learning I was from Pakistan) - The FC1, Super7 is ready for trials, if the ship performs to specs (actually, somewhere close would be great) and Pakistan can gain design and industrial production expertise, you can be sure, Americans will never, under any circumstance, be involved with Pakistan or any other Muslim nation in the same way. (A continuation of the intolerance of Western Liberalism for any structure that does not reflect it)

Romair

Appreciate your comments.