Islamic Utopia?

mr mittar:

at least my view of history is not formed by listening to the khabarnama.

It is all about money and power and has nothing to do with religion.

First of all I don`t believe that the leaders of the Pakistan movement were envisaging mass migration. Pakistan was not created to be ``the promised land`` for all the muslims of the world. It was simply carved out of India for giving power to the leadership who did not want to share power in a united India with a Hindu majority. The simple fact is that the Muslim minority ruled over the Hindu majority for many years in India and wanted t hold on that belief of superiority when the British left.

The other issue that has been raised is that if the people of Pakistan did not like dictatorships, then why have we not seen a popular uprising or revolution. There are a number of factors that contribute to people not rising up against dictatorships in Pakistan. The single biggest factor is that over 60% of the population comes from one province and the vast majority of the armed forces comes from the same province. Whenever we have a military government the majority province takes control without having to share power with the minority provinces. The other issue is that the public is not under such a state of oppression that they would need to come out on the streets. The final reason being that civilian governments have not really done much for the nation either so that the majority of the populace has become indifferent to civilian or military rule.

re: pakfin

{The single biggest factor is that over 60% of the population comes from one province and the vast majority of the armed forces comes from the same province.}

...isn`t it a little absurd and dangerous if 60% of the people in a country are so close to the military that they can`t see beyond it?...either the military is too damn big, or people really love their distant relatives a lot more than in other parts of the world...

{The other issue is that the public is not under such a state of oppression that they would need to come out on the streets. The final reason being that civilian governments have not really done much for the nation either so that the majority of the populace has become indifferent to civilian or military rule. }

...so the majority does not have a problem with dictatorships, for whatever reason...then why shove it down their throats?...

pakfin (23),

“First of all I don`t believe that the leaders of the Pakistan movement were envisaging mass migration.” First of all I don’t believe you said that! All “the leaders of Pakistan” were from India (not from within the current borders that define Pakistan.) Pakistan came into being only and only because of the Muslims living in India. If it weren’t for them, there would be no Pakistan. Why would they demand a piece of land and would not migrate to it in huge numbers when it was given to them?

“Pakistan was not created to be ``the promised land`` for all the muslims of the world.” That’s a pretty funny statement considering that “all the muslims of the world” don’t give a didley about Pakistan. Pakistan was created so those Muslims living in India who did not want to live as minority could live in a country where they could be in majority.

“that if the people of Pakistan did not like dictatorships, then why have we not seen a popular uprising or revolution” There is a very simple explanation as to why there is no revolution: people inhabiting the subcontinent are not the revolutionary type. They haven’t protested and risen up against oppression in 5,000 years! They never will. They are completely resigned to their fate. Lucky for the oppressors. They sleep well at nights knowing that they can keep abusing and kicking the unfortunate souls mercilessly forever without worrying about revolution and uprising.

“the majority province takes control without having to share power with the minority provinces”. You may have a point there. But you seem to have a problem with the Punjabis being in majority. Well, first of all, that’s a fact of geography and you cannot run away from it. Secondly, my experience with the Punjabis is that they are among the most moderate and tolerant people I know. They don’t go around killing those who are different than them, like the Iraqis and the Turks who mercilessly kill the Kurds. In that respect, Pakistan is lucky to have the Punjabis as majority. It is no accident that the Pakistan Army, although dominated by the Punjabis, counts among its top Generals minority Pathans and Mohajirs. One must give credit to the Punjabis for their openness and tolerance towards other ethnic groups. Not only that, Pakistani Punjabis, being in majority, have changed themselves to accommodate the minorities. How many ethnic groups in this world you know who are in a majority in their country who would do that? I also believe that more Punjabis in Pakistan marry outside their group than any other group in Pakistan. Kudos to Pakistani Punjabis for that.

“The single biggest factor is that over 60% of the population comes from one province”. I think the percentage is more like 45, not 60.


Yasser,

An excellent article. It is my most sincere hope that you become a leader in Pakistan.

dost mittar #20 I am not sure if things are getting worse or better with respect to communal polarization and violence in the subcontinent: after all, zealots on both sides did kill over half a million people in 1947. While incidents of communal violence continue, with Gujrat being a major one, nothing after that approaches that scale. While communal animosities no doubt exist among a substantial proportion of hindus and muslims in India, they dont seem to be any more intense than in most relatively backward communities.
What I think we need to see is WHAT causes religious extremism (which provides one door to communal violence). I suspect that at least part of it has to do with the spread of ``modernism`` (or ``a global culture`` to use the current buzz word, or ``westernization`` to use the older buzz word, or ``americanization`` to use the European view on all this): the culture shock caused by the invasion of the household by TV (the trojan horse of the global culture) alone has no doubt rattled established cultures to the core. It is if fact indicative of this that a major target of religious parties (particularly in NWFP) is to snip off cable TV. This behavior of muslim zealots in Pakistan that of hindu zealots in India who beat up poor Ronald McDonald: beneath their religious veneer, muslim and hindu zealots are basically tiny brained mastadons that are finding it very hard to adapt to the change in the cultural environment all around them, and as such lash out blindly. They have no place in the future. (Of course this is not the only reason, but I think a major one).
Only trouble is: we will probably see them lashing out blindly for the next 2-3 generations (assuming they dont take the whole planet out in the process). The mastadons will ultimately become extinct, but not before exacting a heavy toll in terms of human misery (as they just demonstrated in Afghanistan).

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Ref pmishra2 #14

[I would suggest to you that Mr. Advani is the exact Hindu analog of Mr. Jinnah. ]

What is wrong with that? You don`t want the Pakistanis getting a dose of what they shoved down Congress`s throat in 1947?

You may want to ``behave like a Christian`` and turn the other cheek to the Islamist thugs but realize that these pederasts have a different cheek in mind.

[Both have taken a ``short-cut`` to power. This is also the reason why it is extremely important that Mr. Advani not be the prime minister after the next election.]

What IS your problem with an assertive Hindu?

[Inshallah, the BJP which is steadily being crushed will be reduced (once again) to a significant but small party representing conservative north indian hindus. ]

Inshallah, not.

[Both individuals chose demagoguery over substance when it came to the crunch. Without a doubt Mr. Jinnah was a much higher quality individual but when his back was to the wall he carried out the exact equivalent of Advani`s rath yatra in his ``direct action days``...]

A thug is a thug is a thug. A thug by any other name is still a thug. Jinnah was a thug.

[Exactly as fantastical as the theories of ``hindu grievance`` that Advani has directly and indirectly supported in India and which may in the end destroy Indian democracy.]

Hindu grievances are NOT fantastic theories. They are true and a direct result of the systematic oppression of Hindus by Muslim rulers. The fact that not a single Hindu temple of antiquity stands in Northern India should be testament to the savagery of the Muslim rulers. Despite your North Indian surname, you seem not to have noticed anything out of the ordinary in North India compared to the South.

[The question for us Indians is whether Indian democracy is robust enough to resist the pakistanization of India with demagogues like Advani and Modi.]

No. The real question is whether vote-bank politics will be allowed to perpetuate the ghettoization of India`s Muslims -- which is supported by the Congress and Muslim leaders such as Imam Syed Bukhari.

Ref dost-mittar #12

[An islamic state does call for the pre-eminence of islam in the state but it also provides for the protection of the basic human rights for other minorities, doesn`t it?]

Not, it doesn`t and you know it. Just read the history of any country that was invaded by Muslims (such as Sindh, Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Greece, India both Northern and Southern) and you will know exactly how much protection Islam offers to minorities. And I don`t want any mealy-mouthed distinction now about how the Islamic rulers weren`t practicing True Islam. If they weren`t, it would have been `off with their heads` too.

[If not, the proclaimed Islamic countries of the Gulf would not have attracted so many non-muslims, even certified kafirs, who seem to be willing to pay even bribes to find jobs in the true dar-ul-islam.]

No; they go their for job opportunities that they don`t have in their own country and a chance to make more money than they ever will in their native lands. It has nothing to do with the attractions of an egalitarian society. My Muslim driver returned from Saudi Arabia with no regrets after 2 years.

[I wonder how many christians, hindus or parsees in Pakistan care about whether or not they can be the president or prime minister of the country as long as they can live their ordinary lives, earn their livelihood and practice their faith with dignity and honour?]

That same criterion would then negate the raison d`etre of Pakistan.

[I do not believe for a moment that the creators of Pakistan saw a role for minorities - which at that time meant hindus and sikhs - in the country of their imagination. ]

Yes, they did. The minorities were to remain as slaves to the True Believers or to leave their wealth behind and try to get out of the country with the clothes on their backs and their lives.

[You have over the past 2-3 years posted a large volume of Jinnah`s speeches and quotations. Neither in these quotations nor anywhere else do I recall to have seen Jinnah assigning a role to the minorities in Pakistan during the crucial period of struggle for the new country, namely during 1940-46. At best, one can say that he never really gave a serious thought to what kind of country Pakistan would be as he was only using it as a bargaining lever and did not expect to end up actually having one.]

Don`t attempt to whitewash the crimes of that megalomaniac Jinnah. There are enough Pakistanis in the world who do that.

[Pakistan was created for the Muslims of India.]

No. If that were the case, there wouldn`t be about 130+ million Muslims living in India. Pakistan was created so that the Nawab wanna-be`s of Lucknow could find some brain-dead folks whom they could rip off. They got that in the people of Sindh, West Punjab, Balochistan, NWFP and, tragically, East Bengal.

[o, instead of fighting for the doomed cause of a secular Pakistan, why not join the struggle to ensure that Pakistan becomes a moderate islamic state like Iran...]

Iran? Moderate state? Probably by strict Koranic standards.

[I think that the citizens of Pakistan have the right to be an islamic country because that is what they believed that they were promised.]

They deserve a Taliban-like government. That would be God`s justice for imposing and supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

#26 by tahmed32 on October 31, 2002 5:36pm PT
`` after all, zealots on both sides did kill over half a million people in 1947. While incidents of communal violence continue, with Gujrat being a major one, nothing after that approaches that scale.``

So the 1.5 million Bangladeshis killed (by conservative estimates) in 1971 and the 8-10 million made refugees were a footnote to history?

dear harimau:

why do you think every two-bit muslim invader from central asia was able to have his way with hindu india for about 700 years? also why do you think one third of the population of the subcontinent so eagerly adapted a value system so different from that of their ancestors?

also wanted to thank you for giving hope to people like me who would like to see the dismemberment of the indian political union. the damage you and your bjp allies do to india is far worse than anything inflicted by the pak supported terrorists like maulana azhar . seems to me that the fundos in pakistan as well as the pak army has its strategy upside down. instead of sending terrorist, the pak army should be financing bjp election campaigns and encouraging bjp goons to launch other ayodhias. i for one will certainly be praying for bjp success.

YLH

How lovely to hear from you, I hope all is well. What a huge topic you have chosen to cover, a couple of comments:
I could not agree more that the obscuritanist are utopians, which in itself is reason to deny them support. However; Taliban as revivalist? most certainly not.
I wonder if you had read an article that appeared in the ``Daily Times`` by F. Fukuyama and N. Samin (I think). They make a compelling argument that Taliban, OBL and obscuritanist are inspired by modern political and economic ideology (of the fascist and totalitarian variety).

This struggle will not succumb to handy characterizations but of course we need those to organize. It`s not so much about revivalists vs modernists - because both factions are modern, in as much as their education and inspiration is concerned - for me, most compelling is, that one group posits Islam in the context of an ``open`` society, realizes that secularization will inevitably lead to religions seeking social space, and through that venue, seek a role with regard to conscience and culture in society. The other group too realizes secularization as an agent of change and rejects it. But it posits Islam in a totalitarian melieu and fashions of Islam a vehicle to propel that particular ideology.

If you get a chance, please do drop me a few lines.
All the best.

Faisaluno:

What is the corelation of a BJP Government with the dismemberment of the Indian Union? The only thing a BJP gov`t would achieve in the long term is oppression of some Indian citizensa at the hand of others. How can there be a break up when the Muslims are a minority across the length and breadth of India?

Now, do you see the cruel joke played on Indian Muslims by Jinnah?

tvarad #29 1947 was non-government communal violence where the perpetrators were on both sides, with the British, Indian and Pakistani governments all responsible for not taking action to end the violence. But the actions were not sponsored by any of these governments as a matter of policy.
1971 was civil war with brutality inflicted on both sides, with the Pakistan army no doubt being primarily responsible given that it was the stronger party until December. I have always maintained that the perpetrators (starting from the top) on the Pakistani side should be brought to justice. But that is a different thing altogether from what I was talking about, if you had read my post with some attention.

re: harimau


… how have you been?…back in top gear, i see..


“What IS your problem with an assertive Hindu?”


…there is nothing wrong with an assertive hindu…but when that assertive hindu happens to be the deputy pm of a SECULAR state and whose not-so-secret affiliations with a firebrand hindu group alienate other minorities, then there IS a problem…



“Hindu grievances are NOT fantastic theories. They are true and a direct result of the systematic oppression of Hindus by Muslim rulers.”



…this argument sounds suspiciously like the whinings of bin laden and his ilk when they talk of american ‘oppression’ against the muslims…



“They deserve a Taliban-like government. That would be God`s justice for imposing and supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan. “


...tsk, tsk...so 9/11 was God’s justice against american citizens for their government’s biased support for israel in the middle east?...