The Right To Bigotry

Tahmed

``And no, Hobbes, this is not about destabilizing Musharraf`s government - and I am shocked that you should think that destabilizing the government in Pakistan is a good thing, or that it justifies these killings.``

Ahmed Sahab, where did you read that I said it was a good thing or it justifes these killings? or that it is good to destabilize the government of Pakistan?

Can you show not just me but all Chowk that your assertion that I think these killings are good and justified?

I wrote on Aug 6 in post #73 on the ``Myth of Autonomy`` board that a we can expect a major terror offensive; and this offensive in my opinion is about destabilizing the governmemt of Mr. Musharraf.

ana

.....i dont know how it is like being called a choora ....i dont know its like being made to feel discriminated systematically......i know how i feel when i get jokes like ``are you al-qaida`` are you supposed to have 4 wives . ...i swear even though i could never live in pakistan as americanized as i am i think maybe i belong in lahore.....lahore is home ....my ancestors are buried there,,,,,on fridays i wish i could be praying jummah at badshashi........in summers i wish i could have summers in muree......but these are just idealized fanatasies and whims ......you are more pakistani than i will ever be and i know it............i dont blame you one bit for not being in pakistan or leaving why should you live in that shthole ???????? i guess all i could do is if i ever saw you is give my apologies on behalf of my retarded co-religionists and give you a hug ......i share your anger deeply .................without being facetious pakistani xians happen to demostrate a love for their homeland not shown by pakistani muslims often mde poignant by the challenges they face i wish their could be some national reconciliation and pakistanis all of them ---xian muslim hindu and what have you just get together and better their nation i dont see it happening i just hope you are not disgusted by all pakistani muslims ...............maybe its time for these mullahs to take the cinder block out of their own eyes before they look for the piece of woods out of either people`s eyes

bye

aziz

im sorry for what they are doing and i apologize

hobbes/ana On the murder of the three nurses in Pakistan today, here is what the NYT reports: ``Throughout the morning, local Muslims, who make up the vast majority of the hospital`s patients, came to console wounded Christians. ``These people cure the Muslims,`` Manafia Begum, a local Muslim, said as she held the hand of one wounded nurse. ``And look what happens.``

This is the only saving grace I see in today`s killings of nurses: the common humanity that joins muslim and christian Pakistanis together.

And no, Hobbes, this is not about destabilizing Musharraf`s government - and I am shocked that you should think that destabilizing the government in Pakistan is a good thing, or that it justifies these killings. This is about a gang of criminals trying to take over Pakistan by force. It is time that the military government woke up to the evil that mullahism that it has spawned in Pakistan.

re: ana

``...stuck in the shadows of Zia`s jahilia...``

And probably you would not even know that Zia was educated at Delhi`s ST. STEPHENS college -- one of Delhi`s best. Where did all the liberal education that he imbibed there go? Terror has hit close to me as well -- I just made the sad discovery that I know the father of Danny Pearl (the WSJ reporter beheaded in Karachi). He was a professor of mine at graduate school. An absolutely brilliant one at that, and the founding father of an entirely new branch of artifical intelligence, Bayesian networks.

Reply Ana # 128

“What the `ell good is technology and new and modern buildings alongside Main Boulevard when our hearts and minds have expanded so little?”

Ana, yeh tho hum Hindustan meiN bhi sochthe haiN. And for much the same reasons. Be strong. We SHALL overcome.

Reply Saminashah, Dost Mittar, Shankar # 118

PLEASE stop drinking that muck they call coffee at Starbucks. Take yourself directly to an Italian café and have something decent, or take up chamomile tea. (Starbucks? Astaghf....)

Salaam e dua

Z

PS Dost Mittarji, please listen more to your daughter who sounds like she has a conscience which is a credit to you!

APPEAL to jay

Learn how to spell for God`s sake... Please?

Thankyou

YLH

Ana,

Everytime these bast@rds kill a Pakistani especially from the minorities, I feel like going and breaking a Mullah`s head. To think that we are killing our Pakistani brethren for the sake of those uncouth bearded fools from Afghanistan?

It is time Musharraf acted like a dictator, that he is, and came down hard on the mullahs and the fanatics who are the greatest enemies of Pakistan, a thousand times greater an enemy than India can ever be.

There is no point in returning to democracy without cleaning up Pakistan... It is time for all of us to unite against the menace of the mullahs...

-YLH

PS: Saxena have you forgotten to count as well? tsk tsk that syndrome is getting really worse now...

Please seek some psychiatric help...

Ladies and gentlemen,

Please don’t mind the petty insults and abuse hurled at me by Saxena. He can’t help himself. He suffers from a strange ailment which makes him think that he is the God’s gift to mankind, which makes him act this way. Other than allegedly making a ‘Bakra’ and ‘bleating’ the hell out of me, he has never contributed anything positive to this website. He declares: ‘I am on chowk for fun’. I wonder what kind of a life-less loser would go to a serious issue-oriented website like Chowk for kicks? It is in my faith to show compassion to the pathetic and the underprivileged suffering from severe psychological problems. Therefore I urge others to do the same.

A concerned well wisher of Rsaxena,

YLH

Ana

You do have a point - If ``we`` are really with you, why have we not publically or peacefully demonstrated that? - A march, some event to show publically, that this is not us. None of the political parties or politicians have made specific comments, neither has the president.

Is it our failure? Yes it is. Not only are ordinary persons terrorized, the highest officials in the land know these murderers are gunning for them. The policy thus far been not to antagonize them, like keeping away from a hornets next - but it`s not possible anymore, they have made the choice that either Pakistan will conform to their vision or die. keep the faith, Pakistanis will not allow that vision nor will it allow Pakistan to die.

re: ylh

...bleat, bleat, bleat...keep it up...4 posts in repsonse to one-liners?...bleat, bleat, bleat...

hobbes,

that is the line that Nisar Memon and others may give, but I, personally, refuse to believe that this isn`t about Christians. Everyone can tell me otherwise, but I`ve heard of enough churches being razed, and as I`ve mentioned here before, my mother`s village was attacked, churches razed, houses set on fire..and this was prior to the Generalissimo`s arrival on the presidential scene...so yes, while there are those haramis who want to create trouble for Musharraf..the target is definitely Christians..Pakistani or foreign nationals.

I heard that right at the onset of the war in Afghanistan, there was a mullah who actually called for taking the lives of Christians. For every Muslim life lost in Afghanistan, he called for two Christian lives to be taken in Pakistan. Not just one but two. THAT is what the life of a Christian living in Pakistan is worth to some deranged individuals. Not two Parsees, not two Hindus, probably not even two Martians if they were sighted, but two Christians..because these jahils associate Christianity with the West. America being the great shaitan, and Christians being their followers..puhleeze!

I remember our earlier discussion about women, and was thinking, how can we as Christians even go out in the streets and protest these actions without being accused of blasphemy or being thrown in jail on some trumped-up charge. There are Christians already languishing in Pakistani prisons on trumped-up charges. And now this. Surely there must be more effective ways of causing trouble for the Generalissimo, then to take the lives of Christians (and Muslims in the crossfire).

I`ve been sad about this for quite a while now, and my sadness has slowly been converting into anger. When I said that these attacks seem to be hitting closer to home, I say that because I have either met people connected to, or have visited these two places that were attacked this week. Both of these places have personal significance for me..so this added personal dimension to the situation has me incredibly anxious for the entire Christian community, but especially for my relatives as well as for family friends..and if there is a plan..and a pattern, who will be next in the troublemakers` plan to eliminate? And when is anyone besides those of us who have no protections going to come out and speak on this..someone other than our forked-tongued Generalissimo, and his cronies, who are politicians afterall, and who cannot always be believed?

hobbes, I do appreciate you saying how you are all with me on this one. It is somewhat consoling, but unfortunately many of us Pakistani Christians feel that we do not have the support of the people. I, myself, have been fortunate to grow up around family friends who are Muslim, and treated us like their very own, and we loved them as though they were ours, which is why this hurts even more..these people, devout and secular showed me what Pakistan could be..and that was thirty something years ago. How sad indeed it is to think that rather than progressing in thirty years, we have regressed, and continued to do, still stuck in the shadows of Zia`s jahilia. What the `ell good is technology and new and modern buildings alongside Main Boulevard when our hearts and minds have expanded so little?

Ana #125

We`re all with you on that one Ana - that`s not us, or at least, not most of us. This isn`t about Muslims or Christians or Parsees or martians - it`s about creating problems for Mr. Musharraf`s government.

fawad..

I woke up this morning and turned the television on to find out what time it was, and the news said something about a Christian hospital being bombed, and all the anchorperson kept saying was it was in Pakistan, not indicating where. I felt incredibly anxious, thinking it was the one in Lahore, but finally found out it was the one in Taxila. And it just keeps hitting closer and closer to home.

You asked me earlier how I felt. Today, I feel angry, very angry, and very sad for those who have lost their lives. Because these people did not deserve to die. I`m not really convinced that Americans or other foreign visitors are the ONLY targets. As an ignorant fool once told my cousin, who still lives in Pakistan, `Why don`t you go to America, or England. You don`t belong here.` I feel angry and helpless, because I can`t do anything from where I am, `cept what my mother keeps telling me to do. And somehow, prayers are not enough..they have to be followed by some positive action.

I remember one time when my Pakistani passport had expired, and I called the embassy here to renew it, and the guy started giving me this lecture on how I should return to Pakistan, how Pakistan needed young people like me. Perhaps I had told him my full name (which indicates what faith I follow), I don`t remember. I didn`t know how to respond then, except to say `you`ve given me something to think about.` But now I would say that when we as an entire nation value the lives of all those who are physically still among us (and those who are not), when we can learn to respect each other with our separate beliefs, yet equal in terms of our humanity, when we realize that the roads to Karachi, to Bahawalpur, to Jhika Gali, and to Lahore, and all the cities and villages in Pakistan can no longer be paved with ripped apart bodies from suicide bombs and Kalashinikovs, and when women are recognized throughout the country as more than just chattel, or mindless and voiceless creatures, then and only then will I even consider returning to Pakistan to live. But today, I am angry, and am tempted to rip my Pakistani passport to shreds.

Jinnah`s words about us being free to visit our churches, our temples ring really hollow for me right now..those words are as dead as he is. I have no faith in Musharraf, I have no faith in the politicians, exiled or otherwise, at this point my faith in God is on shaky ground as well.

And perhaps you can tell your friend who believes in a secular, progressive Pakistan, and thinks that those of us whining should come back and do something about it, that I am bloody tired of being told to return to a country where I have been made to feel less of a person both in terms of being a Christian and a woman, and really, my modest proposal is, if the goal here is to do away with the Christians, be they Pakistani or foreign nationals, to just kill them all..because the Pakistani Christians won`t budge, they too are sons and daughters of the soil, they too have made their contributions to the nation, and their stories, their history is either erased or will never be included in your bloody school and college textbooks, and thank God for that because it would be all lies!

You did ask how I felt..perhaps next time azizam, you would do well never to ask me that question again. Khodahafiz!

dost-mittar #111 My nephew (who lives in Europe) went one step further. After finishing high school, he convinced German authorities that he would do social work (which is permitted in lieu of compulsory military service in that country), and go to Pakistan to help ILO implement a program of education for children working in factories. He spent the hot summer months last year bouncing around the Panjab countryside in Pakistan, and returned after having successfully extended the program across a number of towns in that area. That is not easy work of course, but the program is a good one: the children keep on working in factories (thus earning badly needed family income) and also get a chance to get education. And factory owners proved quite receptive to this idea (since no doubt they are neither the ogres they are made out to be, and are also sensitive to the pressure being put on them to do something more for the children than paying them minimal wages and expecting them to sweat it out all day long in the factory).