A Time for Renewal

Urstruly

“SEXY OSSAMA

Well the other day Rush Limbaugh reported in his talk show that the British and American women are finding Ossama quite sexy. According to one British `damsel`, as Rush puts it, the guy has that animal magnetism which drives women crazy. and according to another american belle, it is his ``brooding eyes`` which are hard to resist. But according to Rush he would like the look of those brooding eyes when they will be looking at the bunker piercing bomb coming through the ceiling. Tsk tsk tsk.

I am seriously thinking about growing a beard as soon as Americans stop beating up sikhs and other bearded fellows.”

…..urstruly with a sense of humor?…what is this world coming to? :)

In Pakistan, A Softer Side of Islam

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23872-2001Oct19.html

(My apologies in case this is not on the appropriate article replies post - It`s very difficult to keep track with multiple posts after you`ve missed a few days)

tahmad321, aicha : thank you very much for the info on the mysterious `LOL` - things are suddenly clearer now! That must have been some dissertation, aicha ... I have visions of ENIGMA-like character strings floating before the computer screen !

tahmad, by the way that was a cricket match played between the Afghan team and the Nowshera team. I talked to the Afghan captain for a bit (chap called Nouri) and found out that cricket has become very popular among the Afghans. He had lived in the refugee camps in Pakistan and got addicted to it there, as did the other Afghanis. Most of them were shopkeepers, sabzi wallahs and the like - very reminiscent of village cricket (as in England). Each and every one of them had flowing beards as well and in their cricket flannels it all looked like W.G. Grace and his boys from the old cricket photos I have seen!

On the developing events here: I want to wait for two more days before I write about it. I just don`t know at the moment, because things are moving just too quickly.

Zafar Al-Talib, please give me a day to reply to your questions : I will hopefully be able to put together a better sense of what is going on here by then.

12 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi Citizens!!

`Saudi connection` puts new strain on alliance

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington

18 October 2001

Investigators are concentrating on a ``Saudi connection`` to the 11 September terrorist attacks on America, suggesting that part of the conspiracy was hatched there – to the intense disquiet of Saudi Arabia`s ruling monarchy.

Relations were already queasy between America and the world`s largest oil exporter – which happens to be both Washington`s most important ally in the Gulf and the birthplace of Osama bin Laden.

American investigators soon discovered that up to 12 of the 19 hijackers of the four aircraft used that day entered America with Saudi passports or with visas issued by US consulates in that country. Since then more than 700 people have been questioned or detained by the authorities in America in connection with the attacks –among them an unspecified number of Saudi citizens.

Neither the Saudi embassy nor the Justice Department will say how many of the suspects are Saudi: indeed, so little has been divulged, and so minor are some of the charges on which the detainees are being held that American civil rights groups are asking whether their constitutional rights have been violated.

According to lawyers, two members of Saudi Arabia`s ruling family were detained for more than 20 days after being picked up at Denver airport. They were released last week, but will still have to answer for minor infringements of immigration laws.

The Saudi embassy has retained lawyers for all the suspects, The Wall Street Journal reported this week, after personal instructions to counsel from Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the veteran Saudi ambassador in Washington, that ``each and every one of them is to be helped as if you have no other cases and nothing else to do``. This vigorous stance may be an admirable example of a country helping its citizens who find themselves in difficulty on foreign soil. But it is bound to raise fears in America that, as with the investigation into the deadly 1996 attack on US barracks at Khobar, Saudi Arabia, the kingdom might prove less than fully co-operative with US investigators into a terrorist incident with which it is linked.

In the case of the 11 September attacks, pointers to such connections continue to grow.

American investigators believe that several of the hijackers were recruited by al-Qa`ida cells operating in Saudi Arabia itself. The inquiry is focusing on the town of Abha in the south west of the country, where four hijackers are believed to have originated. People from this region have also been linked with the attack on the USS Cole in Aden last October, in which 17 American sailors died.

These allegations, and others that Saudi-based charities and companies have channelled finance to Mr bin Laden and his network, have placed the kingdom on the defensive, and increased resentment of America in Saudi Arabia –the very outcome that the Bush administration is seeking to avoid.

In a television interview last month, Prince Bin Sultan, who has been ambassador since 1983 and is very well connected to the White House, acknowledged that some people in Saudi Arabia supported Mr bin Laden, but said their numbers were few. ``When you say `so many` you have to put it relatively,`` he told his questioner. ``Relative to what? Are there sixteen, twenty, one hundred?

``Bin Laden – what he represents, and people who preach like him or support him – yes, they don`t like my government. Yes, they don`t like my political system. But they don`t like it for the wrong reasons, not for the right reasons you think of. They want us to go back 1,000 years. We want to move forward.``

But these arguments have not stilled public criticism. A recent editorial in The New York Times declared that the ``deeply cynical and cold-blooded bargain`` at the heart of the Saudi-US relationship – Saudi oil in exchange for American military protection –was in urgent need of updating. ``Decades of equivocation and Hobbesian calculations have left US-Saudi relations in an untenable and unreliable state,`` the paper said. ``These deformities must be addressed before they do further damage to both nations.``

Search this site:

tahmed321 msg # 556, my point is simple: we have so many religious debates here, I just wanted to see how many people of whatever religion acually check out their or others scriptures.

For ``hilarious`` ladies in search of ``Character``:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/550682/posts

To all those who do not skip my posts:

There are few typos, few crucial verbs missing.

A long post brings its own problems.

Kindly Adjust. :)

And if you can`t, then... take a walk...

We are like this only. ;)

(if u have stayed in Avadh never use `I`)

Pullu

pullu #566

First lets distinguish between corruption and crime on one hand(whose illeffects are pretty evenly distributed ), and propagation of divisive ideologies and incitement of communal disharmony which are much more destructive in scope to India as a whole and demand greater attention as they relate to Indians self-perception and how they relate to other Indians..

``She deserves no better attention than perhaps Ashok Singhal or Vinay katiyar.``
Maybe, but she is holding office in the government of India, unlike them. She is minister for 140 million Muslims, too, how can she speak against them?

I understand and agree with a lot of what you are saying, and your point is welltaken about her being `demonized in the English language press`. That protests and exposes have not had sufficient effect is a good reason to continue them, not to discontinue them. Even if Uma Bharti is only the `visible` face, thats not a good reason to stop demanding that she be held accountable for her statements.

And btw, protests and demands of accountability do work. A minister in the Karnataka cabinet had to resign for a statement he made after the Gujarat earthquake. I remember a major incident sparked off when a letter to Doordarshan from a viewer asked why there were no DD programs in Nepali and a DD functionary replied that Nepali was not an official language in India. There was a big uproar and protests(because Nepali is an official language of India) and DD had to transfer the guy and apologise profusely.

If a minister in the Central govt spoke similarly hatefully against any other group, say Kannadigas, or Meghalayans or Dalits, there would be a similar big uproar, and surely they would not be allowed to continue in office.

And there is a larger issue than one ministers vitriol against Muslims, I believe. Look at it from a Muslim perspective, say one in UP. Imagine having to choose between the double-speaking Cong and double-speaking BJP at election time. These parties have proven to be undependable as far as security of Muslims is concerned . Thats why a reformed criminal Mulayam Singh Yadav has survived politically. And its a pathetic shame that Muslims have had to vote with their physical security as prime factor. What a choice! The safety and security of citizens is a fundamental right due to them, not something up for negotiation with or manipulation by political parties which one must choose at election time.

How could we as ``300-million strong middleclass`` presumably sufficiently educated have not make this clear to the state apparatus, the political parties and our elected leaders that they can claim to speak for us in any dealings and conflicts only after the safety and security of Muslims(who seem most vulnerable at this time and of course others, including Hindus) are accepted as baseline nonnegotiables?

I donot think fatalism and `least worst` rationalizations is a good answer. All politicians all over the world are the same, namelt they make the most of the leeway they are given. Its our fault we hold our leaders to such abysmal standards and give them so much leeway.

dost-mittar #561 ``you too can be proud of your ancestor who wrote Shakuntala or Meghadoot...no less impressive than Shakespear`s work.``

A point worth remembering. Draw a boundary around the culture you grew up in, and you have only imprisoned yourself. I end this post with the ringing cry:

Urstruly`s of the World

Re-examine your Domains

You have nothing to Lose

But your Chains

:-)

Sadna:

I stand corrected. I was under the impression that it was someone in Indira Gandhi`s cabinet who said it, because it was in reference to the Emergency.

Regards

Stuka

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Dear Satyavadi,

May I just mention that your dear Salman Khursheed is not that bhola. I was told that he had a big role to play in the trouble in Jamia Millia Islamia University in 95, 96 (?) when the acting VC had to quit for allegly making some blasphemous remarks. Apparently Mrs Khursheed works at Jamia and didn`t get along with the acting VC.

Bhai about the BJP yuva post-meeting party, I can only compare with what I saw of a Samajwadi party gala in Nainital. The ``participants`` (mostly bussed in from Haryana and western UP) had come in the expectations of good food but mostly free alcohol. They were not dissapointed. Local tharra in plastic packets flowed freely throughout the venue. And when you have a few hundred drunk jats running all over the place, you can pretty much guess what the situation was like. Incidentally ``pretty`` would not be the word to describe it.

-narain

Sadna:

I agree in totality with all that you have written. But you must also understand that nowadays whoever takes the name of Osama gets the front page. I have never known Bukhari to have amassed so much attention even in the Babri

days. Nor has Uma bharati got any more attention than him. But if Bukhari is going trans-national, if he is going agianst the official policy, if he can condone Osama then he asking to appear in headlines. I think the best response has been

from Shabana Azmi and Tavleen Singh(India Today).I have read innumerous articles and editorials criticizing Uma the anti-muslim,hindu fundamentalist;Uma, the pseudo-sanyasin and a stupid khel mantri. She was an object of ridicule

in every major daily when she had to change her constituency to get herself elected. Since I read TOI regularly, along with Hindu and THT, I can say

for sure that she has been amply demonised by the english press. She deserves no better attention than perhaps Ashok Singhal or Vinay katiyar. It would be unwise to cover every speech of theirs and put them in front pages. If doing so could lead to actions by the executive(or by the public), we would have put many of our problems behind bars. Inspite of tehelka exposure nothing has moved, it never will.

How many politicians have we seen being imprisoned in the last 55 years? Or is it that, none of them are corrupt? How many police officials,lawyers,judges and babus have been reprimanded for dereliction of duty? While leaders blame the officials, VHP leaders go scot free after forcibly entering the disputed site.

In our anger and our frustration we blame the most visible source. But even if they told, even if we knew, nothing would change. Somebody has to do something. {see..i used the word somebody``...}





Stuka:

You are right. BJP inspite of their many shortcomings do look like the best choice.They have an array of capable young leaders who seem to be comparatively less corrupt. The prospect of Mulayam,Mayavati,laloo or sonia`s chamchas ruling

us is frightening. But we must not forget that BJP is very media savvy, hence they always manage to put forth very united and pleasing faces. BJP is being pulled away from not doing many things because of its determined allies. To see what BJP can do once it gets majority, you must track events in Gujarat and UP. Both the states are its experimental fields for a much larger game. In UP

fashion shows were officialy banned. Local toughies threaten young people who celebrate valentines` day,New Years day. They have even demanded Tuesday to be declared a holiday, like friday in Muslim countries. In colleges in kanpur,

Girls are not allowed to wear Jeans because Bajarang Dal and VHP thugs feel our women folk ought to be more cultured. Over a period of time, it can only get worse. Behind every Arun Shourie,Pramod Mahajan and Modi are hard faced,hate filled, fundamentalists who have no idea of a plural India and will have nothing of it. India has always been defeated by internal dangers. Yes it is a tough choice, between the devil(fundamentalists) and the deep sea(pseudo-secularists). But then when have our politicians ever given us a choice.

Zafar:

Thanks for reminding Sulabh souchalay. I think that is a revolutionary concept and a lovely service. For a nation of dirty and broken toilets, Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak reminds us that we all can do something for our society in our own and innovative(if it so pleases us) ways.

Pullu

ref: Stuka #558

I too think its about time that the BJP was booted out of power. Firstly becoz they are becoming too full of themselves and need some chastising, and secondly becoz their govt. has proven to be quite ineffective. Vajpayee may be a good man himself, but he is a very ineffectual leader. In addition the BJP, or rather the NDA, seem to lack talented ministers. But is the congress in any position to be able to form the govt?!

Somebody correctly said that god didn`t want us to have democracy. If he did he would have given us better candidates :)

-narain

Now that`s an idea!

``Air-drop Shahi Imam in Kandahar: Shabana Azmi``

http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=3694

In today`s Indian Express: couldn`t agree with it anymore

http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=3694

Air-drop Shahi Imam in Kandahar: Shabana Azmi

Press Trust of India

New Delhi, October 19: The Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid should be air-dropped in Kandahar. It will help him and India as well.

The suggestion was floated by well known cine star Shabana Azmi to get rid of such religious leaders who she alleged not only make claim of being community leaders but also make provocative statements leading to communal tension in the country.

``If the Shahi Imam is so keen to help the so-called on-going jihad in Afghanistan then the air-dropping will help both him and Indian government as the country will also not face any problem by his provocative statements which lead to communal tension,`` said Azmi. The actress was participating in a prominent Muslim gathering in New Delhi to denounce the Imam`s support to Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the recent terrorist attacks in US.