Lessons From the Pearl Murder

suxena #99, ``dear, yahaan adults baat kar rahe hain.``

to tum yahan kya kar rahay ho?

``jao baazu ki gali me khelo...``

don`t you mean `baaju?` please be true to your Indian heritage.

veeresh #106,

what`s all this baalti business, if yours are better, good for you. those damn things should be done away with. it`s annoying to see ugly old baltis hanging out, accumulating mildew and soap scum in beautiful tubs in desi households.

The plot is very thick. I would say that the higher echelons of the Pakistani establishment are moving away from tacit support of terrorist and criminal outfits. However, with equal if not more confidence I would say that many terrorists, and terrorist sympathizers are still employed in the government agencies. Read http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/25/international/asia/25PEAR.html

Pakistan cannot be half-assed with its clean-up operation. Before liquidating Omar Sheikh & co., links to current terrorist sympathizers serving, or having served in intelligence agencies must be followed. But wait a minute, shouldn`t someone in the government have this information already ? If the current Pakistani leadership has `little` information on the terrorist groups it provided support, arms and the means to conduct `operations`, then they really are a very sorry bunch.

Is Pakistan telling these guys to lie low and save their energies and efforts for Kashmir ? Can they be that stupid and short-sighted ? If not, then why aren`t we seeing more arrests and convictions ? The police and army can take out people when they really need to (fake encounters in Karachi). Why are they lost and need prodding now ?

Apart from the ongoing investigation, Musharaf was right when he said that the people caught so far need to be made an example of... hangings for Omar Shaikh & Co. are in order. Other accomplices (Masood Azhar and the entire Jaish outfit) need to be crushed, in a way that they lose the will and the means to operate.

Will Pakistan go all the way or will it let the Kashmir cause, make it lose its morals, its ethics, and it`s own security once again ?

The kind of cleanup required should be measured in scope against the Karachi clean-up by Naseerullah Babar. It should be the same if not more. The terrorist centers in Pakistan or AJK should be shut down and their leaders put away to send a strong message. In the process, the moles and terrorists in the agencies will be exposed as they see their fellow terrorists suffer and try to protect/warn them.

Long way to go.....the question is: Are we still saving some terrorists in reserve for Kashmir ?

On Human Beings and Revenge:

Emotion is an irrational yet integral part of what humans are, and in one way it is a higher control mechanism then what exists in animals (i.e. the id). The main program (i.e. the primary function) dictating out existence is survival which we as humans share with the animals, but somehow our brains evolved into a much more complex control system (i.e. the ego).

Human Beings and animals are a result of their conditioning. A child is a clean slate when he enters this world, and family, society, education, they all scribble on this slate, to present the individual that exists. As a part of the society, the individual is conditioned to a particular value system, and since in this process he has had no other experiences (hence no other reality), he has little choice to be anything else (he has choice, but I will talk about that later). Hence to blame a person for his ``crimes`` against you is to blame yourself for ``crimes`` against him (in rational terms). Hence on this forum if an indian behaves the way he does and blames a pakistani and a pakistani blames the indian the way he does amounts to 2 seperate realities, one for each being defined by his value system. There is no universal truth which exists since our realities are shaped by our experiences.

By now you might be wondering how this is all linked to revenge. The link is quite simple. The ego is developed in a particular value system in which the ``good`` for the community/nation is held as an ultimate state of being, it is glorified, it is re-enforced through different mediums. Revenge starts at micro-level and gets to the macro level with increasing glory, i.e. the right to hold accountable the person(s) for their crimes against you -- your family -- your community -- your nation.

This post is in no way justifying any crimes; rather it is just explaining human behaviour, and this pertains to ourselves as well as to the killers. We are given the same slate to begin with, its just who writes on them that defines us.

As educated individuals, we can understand this subtle yet such an important distinction, and this is where our ``choice`` comes in. An educated individual has a choice to decide if he will remain a part of something that he is conditioned to, or will he rise above this conditioning, and have a better understanding. This is indeed the ultimate test of transcendance; i.e. how high can a human rise.

Dear TAhmed 321 # 11?something or the other . . . how dare you, kind Sir, have I coveted your baltee or your neighbour`s ass that yu= compare me with 1234567890??

I do not walk the streets of Delhi. I drive on them, and even our traffic challans are better than yours.

Now all I need is ylh to give me gyaan on Jinnah`s baaltee, it was better than Bennett & Coleman`s baaltee by Sahu Jain which is why Dalmias gave Times of India to Jains and Dawn to Jinnah and there lies a tale I heard today by one of the surviving patriarchs of media from undivided India, heard of Vishwa Nath of Delhi Press?

Wabbit stew to you, too. We are all ending up sounding like AHmed Madani if not careful we are being, soonly ji.

scout:``Another thing that bothers me about this article is the apologetic tone, as if you or other Pakistani Americans are responsible for this awful crime. Why should you, a law abiding, patriotic American feel less American for the crimes that some fundamentalist nuts committed in Karachi? ``

hiya, and first of all thanks for the email - NOT :)

You are right in that the tone should not be apologetic, if anything it should be one of helplessness, of impotency and shame, that we as Pakistanis have little say over what happens in our country. I knew after the IA hijacking that Masood Azhar, Omar shaikh and the hijackers had come to Pakistan. They had nothing to fear, Masood Azhar gave these big speeches in Patel Park, Karachi, otherwise a regular venue for Muharram majalis. The hijackers had to be around.. what does Pakistan do ? absolutely nothing. Why ? because of the goddamn Kashmir cause. We as Pakistanis had become blind or ignorant to the crimes and criminals in our midst because they happened to be doing the `dirty` work for us against India and helping build strategic depth in Afghanistan. Maybe being blind, looking the other way, or choosing to be ignorant is something to be apologetic for. We the silent majority did not commit the crimes, but we did not stop them either. Our government played the role of facilitator hoping that it would one day benefit from the actions of criminals - shame.

The moment we sacrificed our morals and ethics over Kashmir we had lost. We lost the goodness in our souls for Kashmir, thats the way I see it. Now is the time to redeem and to correct our past errors. What the governemtn of Pakistan `really` does remains to be seen, but we the common citizens and newspapers should be hounding and bringing to light the criminals. There should be a thousand Pakistani Daniel Pearls digging and looking at what the militants are doing.

take care...

Koshish Foundation presents an evening of Literary Readings & Networking. A One-of-a-Kind literary evening in which Bay Area Urdu and Hindi short-story writers and humorists will read from their work.

When: Sunday, March 10, 2002, at 6:30 p.m.

Where: Mehran Restaurant, 5774 Mowry School Rd, Newark, CA 94560

Price: $13/ person (includes dinner)

Program:

6:30-7:30 p.m. : Dinner

7:30-8:45 p.m. : Short-story readings

8:45 -9:15 p.m. : Humor readings

For more information please send email to admin@koshish.org

Please forward this message to others.

Koshish Foundation (a non-profit, 501-c-3 organization) is working on education-related projects in Pakistan. Please visit us at www.koshish.org

re: veeresh #106

no white people don`t use baltees (for laundry) - they only EAT from baltees in bangladeshi resturants in bradford and london in the belief they are eating authentic desi fare - go figure !

BTW - i am quite amazed at the new baltee design - are people finally enforcing patents in desh and some bright spark making money off the baltees ?

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/25/international/25CND-STAN.html

Should Pakistan hand over Omar Sheikh to the Americans ?

No, Pakistan should hang him themselves.

The dignity and grace with which BJP accepted its defeat in UP elections and decided to sit in opposition is praiseworthy. It is also a slap on the face of all those who called BJP a fascist party. BJP is in an introspective mood currently to assess its strength and failures. The bottomline is- there is no substitute to good governence. If you dont govern well, people will throw you out, Hindutva and temple issue notwithstanding. Another significant outcome of the elections is a significant increase in the vote share of BSP this time. Mayawati did a smart thing this time. She moderated he stance against people of other sections especially upper castes and around 25% of BSP candidates were from upper caste this time. This again underlines the point that in the Indian society you need the support of all sections of society to rule. So this is a good trend. Agreed that they(BSP) are unsophisticated and inexperienced, but the fact remains that they command support from a significant section of downtrodden Indian population. What is more important is political power-sharing and I hope this opportunity will make everybody more responsible.

Long live Indian Democracy

http://www.eci.gov.in/se2002/index_st.htm

By an analysis of Muslim sounding names, approx 40 or 10% of elected MLAs in UP are Muslims.

Also a mini-inversion: instead of the so-called ``upper caste`` parties like Congress/BJP accomodating ``lower castes`` and Muslims in seat distributions, it was the ``lower caste`` parties such as Bahujan Samaj which efffectively became the mainstream and accomodated ``upper castes`` and Muslims and gave them tickets to fight elections.

Urstruly:``Not just emperor bush but all pakistanis must realize that, bush`s heavy handed policies have put not just american people but the people of whole region in greater danger-a danger that is graver than 9/11``

If by danger you mean more terrorist attacks, I think we should face the terrorists headlong instead of avoiding dealing with them. This will save us from their future crimes and blackmail. Otherwise the message to them is that terrorism pays, you threaten us and we will back down. As far as the Pakistani population is concerned, NO ONE is going to come out on the streets for murderers and criminals. No one came on the streets when the Taliban got their butts whupped, when the terrorist offices were shut down, when the leaders were jailed, and no one will come on the streets if they hang Sheikh Omar either. His terrorist buddies might commit more crimes, but the Pakistani people will be the better for it.

``People! why dont you understand that the solution of political problems is politics. Democracy and basic human rights come through political process. Justice comes with a political process (hindus excepted). You grow cactus and you expect to harvest apples? ``

Urstruly, after a long time some words from you that follow logic and are agreeable to me. The solution to political problems is political, not religous and not through violent means.

We must burn down our cactus field (militant extremism in all its forms), so that the ground is ripe for apples next season that we can share with our family, friends, and neighbours.

Keep thinking, it seems to be helping you.

Tahmed

Yes. Infiltration by organizations bent on creating terror and conditions for terror and by Indian security services AND certain acts of reorganization in Pakistan. Mr. Haider and Mr. Musharraf have voiced these concerns. There is a lot going on with regard to Mr. Pearl`s murder that will not be made public and a lot of it has to do with restructuring, reorganizing in Pakistan, this has been made public, to serve the interests of reorganization and redirection; other interests have not been as public.

Recall, last year, when Qazi Ahmad began saying that Mr. Musharraf was a ``security risk`` - what direction had Mr. Musharraf sought to give the Afghan and Kashmir departments of the directorate that prompted remarks about ``security risk``. With regard to ``handing over`` certain individuals to India - this question should be revisted after Pakistani authorities are satisfied that they understand and have apprehended - ``liquidated`` is a also a term that has been used in this regard -rank and file of anti-Pakistan organizations, in Pakistan and else where.

One interesting thing about the coverage of Daniel Pearl`s murder in the american media was the repeated mention of the possiblity of ``rogue`` elements of the ISI being involved. The major TV channels (NBC etc.) and newspapers made the same comment, which may mean that they might have been ``tipped off`` about this by some official source. Could this indicate some fear within the establishment about the ISI not being fully under the General`s control?..a kind of warning shot that the US knows what they are up to?

If it is indeed the case, could these ``rogue`` elements mount a coup against Pres. Musharraf`s regime sometime? Do they have the ability? If they do, what are they waiting for? If they do not, how much nuisance value do they have?

-narain

..... What if the brown people of South Asia could get their governments to cut their Defense Budgets in half a thus easily spend 5 times the current budget of Health, Education and Welfare?

Till you do that and make more investment in your own people ``Goray Rang ka zamana kabhi ho ga na purana.....``

Ras....

Bravo! What more can I say. Except that the goras have well proven for centuries now that is their zamana and by golly they`re going to never make it purana! At the risk of sounding glib..and yet ironic..I think that slogan is worthy of a bumper sticker, or a huge banner that we should have on our cars, in our houses, our places of work, etcetera etcetera etcetera *mimicking Yul Brynner *, since our leaders and we the people seem to have bumbled and fumbled and crumbled our own `naya zamana`.

(And I can just imagine the vicious responses that I may get to this...in which case irony is dead here)

And a belated Eid mubarak to one and all..

pmishra2 #109 ``Of course, I am just a caste-ridden Indian, why should you be impressed by my opinions? ``

Is this a cue for paki poster to write: ``There, there, PMishra. You are not caste-ridden at all. And your opinions are really, really impressive: Not abusing people of other nationalities or religions (Pakistanis in this case). Imagine!! What a concept!!``

PS It is of course a difficult concept to grasp for some posters like arjun and bharatvaari.