Towards Greater Tolerance

Yasser Latif Hamadani:

You are a pride & joy to be around. Please visit often.
Khudaa tumm ko upnee hifz-O-amaan mein rakhhay.

You are doing what a coward like me could only pathetically dream about....serving Pakistan while within Pakistan. A promise kept is a promising beginning!

Teach us more as you hone your skills sparring with the hindus here. They know not how valuable they are for you. Verily, Allahs` ways & means are mysterious.

wassalaam.

A (mercifully) abbreviated version of this article was published in the OpEd pages of Dawn on January 20th 2003.

This is vintage YLH. The same old arguments, nothing new here at all.

BTW, it is `Hindutva`, not `Hinduvta` - the `-tva` ending is exactly cognate with English `-ity` or Latin `-itas`. And it is probably Sri Prakasha, not `Prikasa`. It`s a wonder we diidn`t get to hear about Kuldip Narain yet again. Nitpicks, but YLH ought to get these small details right if he insists on dwelling on them on a chronic basis.

``Some 5.5 Million Muslims were ethnically cleansed from East Punjab and areas neighboring Pakistan, and some 3.5 million Hindus from West Punjab and Sindh then packed up and left for India.``

This represents the level of history understood by the author. The task of promoting tolerance should be left in better hands.

Ref Manjit #4

Well, here is simething more about myth-making in Pakistan, written by someone with much greater credibility than that dear boy Yasser Latif Hamdani.

http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=75822

Chakwal Diary: Caught in the muddle
|By Ayaz Amir | 31-01-2003

In the October elections in which I was a candidate for the National Assembly my opponents, rolling out their heaviest artillery, charged me with being a Qadiani.

On the strength of a column I had written about the exploitation of religion as a political tool by successive governments, in which I had also referred to legislation against the Qadianis, a local maulana, Qazi Mazhar Hussain, issued a fatwa to the effect that I was ``pro-Qadiani``.

Only too happy to get this incendiary ammunition into their hands, my opponents from the Q League – ah! the Q League – circulated the fatwa far and wide.

From every platform my good friend General Majid Malik, in times past a worthy ornament to the general staff (and then novitiates wonder why the army has such a talent for making a mess of things), denounced me as a Qadiani. Adding for good measure, that I was also a drunkard.

Nor was this all. A spirited young maulvi, Shakoori Naqshbandi by name, holding out the offending column in his hands after the Asar prayers declared to his small congregation that after what I had written it was an Islamic duty to kill me (wajab-ul-qatal). He then went to distribute the original fatwa in the bazaar.

Shakoori`s maternal family are my neighbours and our relations have always been cordial. Why was he doing this? Because he had come to me a few days earlier saying that in view of his great popularity, his friends and supporters were urging him to stand for the provincial assembly on the MMA ticket.

Since he was asking my advice, I told him that if he felt so strongly about it he should stand by all means but that it would also help if he was a bit more consistent in his actions.

In which connection I pointed out that whereas after September 11 he had helped burn tyres as a mark of protest against the United States` war on Afghanistan, during the referendum he had felt no qualms in mounting the stage when the Punjab Governor, Khalid Maqqbool, had arrived in Chakwal.

Red in the face and a bit agitated Shakoori walked out of my house. A few days later he was issuing invitations for my assassination. (For the record I might add that the offending column was written two months earlier, everyone concerned discovering it only during the elections.)

All is fair in politics, however – more so than in love and war – and candidates hoping to serve the people or save the country will stoop to any level to score a point or win an advantage. Since when have dirty tricks been outlawed in elections? The relevant point is altogether different.

In the end none of the vilification really mattered. I still ended up getting 70,000 votes, just 1,300 or 1,400 behind the officially-sponsored Q League candidate. The ordinary voter didn`t fall for the Qadiani propaganda.

After India`s nuclear tests in May 1998, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif started meeting Punjab MPAs to get their views on Pakistan`s response.

I never tire of pointing out to friends that at the meeting of Rawalpindi division MPAs, out of the 22 MPAs attending, except for two or three, the rest spoke up against a tit-for-tat response.

Anyone might have thought that from a division providing nearly 70 per cent of the army`s soldiery a hawkish line would emerge. But none did.

A bit put out, for he clearly wasn`t expecting this, Shahbaz Sharif said with some asperity that he was more interested in the views of the people. What did the people want?

Having just campaigned in the Punjab local elections, I said that in all the meetings I had addressed I was asked about schools, roads, electricity and jobs, not once about India`s nuclear tests or any mortal danger facing Pakistan.

But who`s to stop our penchant for myth-making. That we had to test was a myth cooked up by the national security establishment with the ideology-of-Pakistan lobby cheering in the background.

We would have been much better off keeping our bombs in the nuclear closet. No one was asking us to throw them away or spike our nuclear programme, only that we shouldn`t test.

When he telephoned Nawaz Sharif (four times as we keep reminding ourselves in our misplaced pride) Clinton wasn`t asking for the moon, only for restraint and a small act of self-denial.

We would have gained the world`s plaudits and some money into the bargain. Perhaps more than we have got for sentry duty in America`s war on terrorism. But against the pressing demands of self-indulgence, for our tests amounted to little more than that, the calls for prudence meant nothing.

So we fired off our nuclear-tipped firecrackers in the conviction that by doing so we were securing our defences and making them impregnable. For myth-making on this grand scale there is no known cure, in science or medicine.

Exactly a year later Nawaz Sharif was in Washington desperately urging Clinton – the same Clinton who had cautioned restraint– to get Pakistan off the hook because of the army`s adventure in Kargil.

If the commanders entrusted with this adventure had their way, they would rewrite history and make everyone believe that but for Nawaz Sharif`s dash to Washington our northern troops were on the verge of a huge victory.

The truth, as every staff officer knows, is that our beleaguered troops, cut off from supplies, were at the end of their tether. The dash to Washington, undertaken in consultation with the army command (let there be no doubts on this score), gave us a piece of paper which allowed us to pretend that our troops were withdrawing from the Kargil heights with national dignity preserved.

Nawaz Sharif lost his way later when he tried to remove Musharraf as army chief while he was still in the air. That was like showing a red rag to Musharraf`s loyalists and, as anyone could have predicted, provoked them to action.

But on Kargil, even though Clinton was in no great rush to see him (remember that Sharif was forcing himself on Clinton on July 4, U.S. Independence Day) he deserved the high command`s gratitude.

Just as Bhutto for bringing home our prisoners-of-war without compromising national dignity deserved a slightly better fate than being strung up from the gallows.

So many debacles, a whole string of them: the `65 war, `71 and the country`s breakup, the disastrous course pursued in Afghanistan, the costs of jihad in Kashmir. And even now, the refusal to learn, the preoccupation with more myths.

Surely this matter calls for investigation because it points to something wrong not just with any particular institution – that would be too facile – but with the national mood, the national psyche.

The values of a governing elite, the spirit and temper of a race or nation, are products of history and culture. When we speak of the English or the French character, or the fighting prowess of Prussia (now mercifully shackled in German democracy), we are alluding to something created by centuries of history.

National attitudes are not changed overnight. It took a revolution, and a bloody one at that, to change Chinese attitudes.

What do we have to fall back upon? A confused and not too accurate memory of the days of Islamic glory and a thin veneer of English polish yet to touch our core.

The Western outlook on life lies not in aping Western manners or in speaking the English language but in imbibing the true spirit of Western learning. (1) Faith in reason (not dogma), (2) a feeling for proportion, and (3) the ability to see both sides of a question (which is the foundation of democracy). These are Greek virtues forming the bedrock of western civilisation.

Our governing classes lack these virtues. The colonial experience introduced these qualities to the subcontinent but we never fully imbibed them.

It`ll take a cultural revolution for this to change but whence such a storm comes it is hard to say because we seem quite happy to muddle along the way we are doing.

#1 GhalibZaman
Why don`t you get a room and go on a date with YLH - you seem to be in love with him.

YLH would like us to believe that Pakistan is not based on a narrow exclusivist ideology? It may be called the `Islamic` Republic of Pakistan, may bar non-Muslims from being elected to high office, but no, Pakistan is not excluvist!!!
``Some 5.5 Million Muslims were ethnically cleansed from East Punjab and areas neighboring Pakistan, and some 3.5 million Hindus from West Punjab and Sindh then packed up and left for India.``
Why the dissembling, YLH? Were the 5.5 million Muslims killed or did they migrate to Pakistan? The millions of Hindus in Pakistan at Partition - how many of them were killed?
It is a proven fact that the percentage of Hindus in Pakistan has dwindled post Partition, whereas the opposite is true for Muslims in India. Where have all the `missing` Hindus gone? Either they were killed or have converted to Islam. How many Muslims in India do you think have given up their religion?
Remember, India has a free and active press, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to hide communal riots or massacres. Same is not true of Pakistan - the Hindus and other minorities could be killed, raped etc but would rarely make news.
At the time of Partition, India was clear that we would be a secular nation, while Pakistan was clear that it would be a nation for Muslims. So which country do you think would treat minorities better? Muslims did leave India for Pakistan, but they largely did so of their own free will for a `bright future` in Pakistan, whereas Hindus and Sikhs who were landed people or other prosperous businessmen in Pakistan had no incentive to leave it, but were forced to flee, giving up their property and life savings.
Finally, if Jinnah expected that he could ask for a nation on communal grounds and still expect that minorities could life safely and peacefully there, he was a fool. He may have been secular, but he must have been out of touch with reality not to forsee mass transfers and the communal riots. This is what happens when `intellectuals`, out of contact with and contemptous of ordinary people, are in charge of movements.
I am disappointed in YLH that he still feels he can `justify` the creation of Pakistan. I am sure Pakistanis will feel disappointed that he even feels the need to do so. But then, Pakistanis have a wierd sense of nationalism based on religion. They crave for what is not theirs (J&K), but do not miss what was once theirs rightfully (BD).

More gems from YLH ...
`` In Pakistan the incidents of violence against non-Muslims are few and far in between and usually the product of problems of a more global nature as the recent church bombings indicate. Generally the non-muslims in Pakistan are left to go about their business....``
Business of what? tilling fields, cleaning toilets?

But this might just be because the Sunni Muslim majority is more interested in killing of shia muslim minority or the ahmadiyya community than christians, Hindus or Sikhs. ``....
Yes now that Muslim majority has reduced christians, hindus and sikhs to insignificant numbers, it is now looking for new hunting grounds.

Best model is a Christian .. Because a muslim girl tried to participate in Miss International this year and was immediately subjected to governmental persecution. (I saw in Tokyo in same hotel at that time and saw poor girl going back in tears). Pious Pakistanis have no objection oogling at a christian model.

Wow, YLH, what a reasearh! and what great references!!
`` The first man to talk of Hindus and Muslims as separate nations was V.D. Savarkar who coined the word ‘Hindutva’ in a book with the same title in 1923. .... Eminent Bengali writer Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay also supported the notion``

``First man to talk`` talked in 1923. And Bankimchandra Chattopadhayay died in 1894.

Congratulations! I must send you a Ph.D for your research.

Yasser Latif Hamdanai:

A very good article, but I would say the following:

1. It would not convince Indians a bit. They think Pakistanis are brain-washed. However, a country lead by fundamentalist Hindu and extremist Government that has inspired killings of Muslims and Christians is still considered secular. The two high profile leaders of this Government had actually brought a mosque down. The ensuing riots resulted in the killings of thousand of more Muslims. Yet, Indians on this interactive board will thrash Pakistanis of being Jihadis and terrorists. In the long-run however, I believe that followers of Hinduism, which is a very peaceful religion and a very good Way of Life, will themselves send the fanatic Hindi Government into oblivion.

2. It boils down to media and diplomatic war. India has been very successful on these two fronts. In diplomatic area, Indian Government is procuring arms and related heavy equipment from all the countries whose voice matter in international politics so as to influence their opinion in their favour. In media and publicity, they have struck an alliance with pro-Israel lobby lead American media. CNN for example, is running a soft campaign against Muslims and pro-Israel and India. They have bought air-time on BBC and are achieving the same there. Of course, I am not referring to other media outlets which are decidedly against Muslims. Through exposure to media, Indians have been successfully projecting their view point and maligning Pakistan`s.

3. In order to let Pakistanis viewpoint, as the one summarised above in your article, known to the world, we will have to do a diplomatic and publicity campaign on both a strategic and tactical basis asap.

let the games begin :)

welcome back yasser....we missed you

Re: YLH

Yasser, it has been nearly 56 years since Pakistan was created. The reasons behind its creation have slipped away into the mists of history.
They should be left in the past, because we as a nation can not always look backwards - we have to face the future, which lies ahead and that is where we are headed, because we cannot go back to justify the past and we have to move forward. We have to move ahead, because our salvation as a nation lies in justifying our existence in the the future.

We, Pakistanis, cannot for ever justify the reasons for Pakistan`s creation, but those arguments pale in comparsion to the arguments on how to make Pakistan a better, tolerant, progressive looking state. Pakistan needs no justification. Good or bad, benign or evil, tolerant or intolerant, regressive or progressive, inclusive or exclusive, Pakistan exists. As long as it exists, it justifies its own reasons for its creation; it does not need any intellectual justifications, because it exists in reality.

Let the Indians disparage Pakistan. Let them deny the reasons behind its creation and let them belittle its accomplishments. Let the Indians deny the reality; a reality, which has existed since 1947. Everyone has a right to ignore the reality and deny it, but denial of a reality does not make the real any more unreal. Indians have a right to believe what they want and whether it is a wise choice or not, is not the concern of Pakistanis. We should we more worried about own code of conduct than what the Indians are thinking about us. If the Indians want to hate us; then let them hate us to their heart`s content. If hating Pakistan or denigerating its creation makes India internally more progressive, more tolerant, more diverse and more humane for all its citizens, then there is a valid reason to hate Pakistan and Pakistanis. On the other hand, if this anti-Pakistani rhetoric gains India nothing, then what has India gained by hating Pakistan?

Let India hate Pakistan. This hate is slowly but gradually destroying the very rationale, which the Indians used to hold up to make the distinction between themselves and Pakistanis. Pakistan`s hate of India, never justified, destroyed Pakistan. Same thing will happen to India, because hate and justifcation for hate destroys everything. Hate is irrational and hate cannot be reasoned.

I also know that, after reading this interact, I will be personally called all sort of names by Indians. It always happens; they kill the messanger, because of the message and it will happen again. Both India and Pakistan are heading for a holocaust with eyes wide open and only after they have ended up destroying each other, will they learn that hate does not solve anything.

The land of my birth is in flames; the land of my ancestors is starting to crackle with the fires of hate, which are fast spreading though it and those foolish souls igniting the fires, do not realize that their are burning their own homes. Pity.

Ciao

...here we go again...ylh moves his ass to the islamic republic of pakistan, but still can only write about india...pakis, give up this obsession with india...

Jhangvi group added to terrorist list

WASHINGTON, Jan 30: The Bush administration has designated the Pakistani Sunni Muslim group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi as a ``foreign terrorist organization,`` State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Thursday.

The group has been blamed for a string of attacks on Pakistan`s Shia community, and the leader of one faction, Asif Ramzi, was suspected of involvement in the killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl last year. Ramzi died in December in an explosion, possibly an accident.

Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is the 37th group on the United States list of ``foreign terrorist organizations.``

The designation makes it illegal to provide material support to the groups. Their assets in the United States are frozen and members can be denied entry to the country.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell signed the designation order on Jan 21 and Boucher said it became effective on Thursday.-Reuters


////YLH, you cannot see the commonality with the above group..the focus is always on to the out side. You cannot accept the truth that only change you can make is to yourself. How long will you pakistanis will plead for tolerence while attacking others every which way, even their inteligence by articles like this.

This is the same whining gentleman who had once written in a letter to ``The Friday Times`` in which he claimed that the title ``Mahatma`` was given by Gandhi to himself. So much for the veracity of his sources and ideas. No wonder he feels Pakis are victimized by Indians. Grow up Yasser!!!!! For someone with so much of a habit of complaining against the perceived superiority complex (or ``pseudo-intellectual tradition`` in his words) of Indians, what is hard to digest is that Mr. Hamdani tries to project himself as a campaigner genuinely interested in seeing his nation make peace with India (or rather vice-versa), while he remains silent on the same tradition in Pakistan that has been the sole unifying factor for Pakistanis. In fact, Pakistan`s interests would be much better served if arm-chair patriots like Mr. Hamdani who are ever ready to defend Pakistan`s cause at the drop of a hat with a heady concoction of half-truths and imagination, do something to halt Pakistan`s slide into the self-destruct mode (it it hasn`t already), instead of further sullying the already foul atmosphere existing between the two perpetually hostile neighbours.

YLH,

Instead of writing this inane piece askinf for tolerence from indians, If you had written an article on Abdus salam, his birth day on 29 th january, you would have proven beyond a shadow of doubt that you are a man of tolerence.

This artcle only proves that you are like most of the other pakistanis on chowk, ``with beard in the tummy``.

It is sad that you can write about tolerence, mind filled with events and quotes more than a fifty years ago, as you travel to the golden age of the book, another 1400 years back.

At least you are a smart man, you could find the INS torture coming and escaped before that. Good luck to you and your article from pakistan only reinforcess my convictions about the future shape of pakistan.