Is It A War On Islam?

From India Policy Institutehttp
http//groups.yahoo.com/group/IndiaPolicy/message/2487
Date: Wed Jan 8, 2003 5:51 pm
Subject: Is the West`s military supply creating its own demand?

There used to be an old (and fallacious) slogan among 19th Century
economists that ``supply creates its own demand``. It comes to mind
when one sees the obvious excess capacity in the Western military
industrial complex being attempted to be put to use in Iraq: with
Tony Blair apparently ``calling up reservists`` in Britain in case
there is war against Iraq!

The Presidency of the United States of America or the Prime
Ministership of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern
Ireland used to be august offices: they are being diminished by the
decisions of the present incumbents to make Saddam Hussain or Osama
Bin Laden their worthy adversaries in war!

Subroto Roy

#43 : we had the influx of afghan refugees in time of zia - not when taliban took over

#43: You are right about that proverb. I think all punjabis work on this concept

In a sense - this IS a war on Islam, a war to cleanse the islamic system of the cobwebs of antiquity which has rendered it unsuitable for modern times. The intense pressure exerted on Islam these days is necesary and inevitable and long overdue.

It is time for all muslims to get out of the victim mentality. It is time to reform - throw out Wahabism and Arab-centered domination of the religion which is regressive and exteremely fundametalist. Time to bring back sufism as the mainstream and only Islamic belief system.

Re: ali87 # 33

In order to realize what you suggest and effect the change, Islamic studies have to be liberalized. Liberalized in the sense of political reforms and even more important than that, discussions within the subject must be tolerated. There is no use towards having an encompassing study of Islam as a subject, if the prevailing view in Islam is to deny dissenting opinions and use the threat of religion to silence non-orthodox opinions.

The debate within Islam, in the contempoary sense, is deeply rooted in a revisionist glorification of its past history, as genric formula for solving its future problems. Islamic studies are polarized between exteremes and in order to bring about a renassiance of Islamic intellectualism, a middle ground based on pragmatic objectivity has to be created. In other words, ironically, religion will have to be moved from the subject of Islamic studies.

Dissent has to allowed and tolerance in the discipline of Islamic studies has to be implemented in the society, because all intellectual pursuits are a reflection of their societal enviroments. The society has to learn tolerance, because otherwise there will be no tolerance within the discipline of Islamic thought itself. Lastly, no group should consider itself as owning a monopoly on Islam and its interpretations itself and must realize that being mortal, its opinions are by defination imperfect and open to critism.

Do the people have the power to change and make this possible?

No. Not unless the people reject their emotional state of intellectual myopia, which results every time the issue of Islam is discussed and learn to carve a dicothomy between their reasons and rationales and stop using their rationales as a substitute for their reason. People have to be dispassionate and only by being dispassionate, can Islam be studies in all its various intellectual and cultural perspectives.

Ciao

#38: romair:
[ ... After all, Pakistanis migrate to secular America, and they migrate to religious Saudi Arabia. Indians do the same. The deciding factor is always jobs and physical security, not Church or State. ...]

Romair, have you ever lived in Saudi Arabia? Lets take an average Pakistani from Lahore, Karachi or Quetta and offer him a US citizenship (secular) on one hand and a Saudi (religious) bataaaqa on the other hand. How much are you willing to bet on the outcome?
The issue of separation of state and church is not as moot as you try to make it sound like. The greatest proof of this is that you are sitting in this secular land (by your own free will, I might add) and not in ultra-religious Saudi Arabia or even your own country Pakistan. In the US, you have the freedom to rant, pray or do whatever you like. Try doing the same in Saudia (at your own risk). You proclaim that ``the deciding factor is always jobs and physical security, not Church or State.`` But, don`t you think that the jobs and physical security (for all races, religions and genders) is a direct result of such separation? Today you are living in this secular society and reaping its benefits - e.g. no one requires your kids to recite the Bible in school. It is true that after 9/11 Muslims are facing hardship in this country, but can anyone honestly say that prior to that they had any problems in practicing their religion and culture the way they wanted to? Why is that what`s good for you is not good enough for your own countrymen? Why is it that while you continue to reap the benefits of secularism and religious freedom, you want your countrymen to dance to a different beat? To me it sounds like a perfect example of ``do as I say, not as I do.``

``Readers browsing through book bazaars in Rawalpindi and Peshawar can, even today, find textbooks written as part of the series underwritten by a USAID $50 million grant to the University of Nebraska in the 1980`s. These textbooks sought to counterbalance Marxism through creating enthusiasm in Islamic militancy. They exhorted Afghan children to ``pluck out the eyes of the Soviet enemy and cut off his legs``. Years after the books were first printed they were approved by the Taliban for use in madrassas - a stamp of their ideological correctness``

So the world according to the prof, it is US that created taliban. No sir, not at all. A new generation grew up in pakistan indoctrinated with hatred, by the k for kafir education, with identifying the hindu a curriculum requirement. Long before taliban came, hoodood ordinances were in place, ahmadias were non-muslims, the honour killing was legitimised, the sheria courts were in place.

Al that the americans did is to fund the madrassas in acountry were hatered for other religions were taking roots in tune with the TNT that created pakistan.

What all of the educated of chowk have refused to admitt is that TNT is simply a political operationalisation of the jihadic idea of killing the kafirs, TNT is only a political prelude to religious jihad.

PROF IN CLOUD 9,

My dear prof, long before the educated of pakistan demonstrate in pak streets for peace, there would be streets named after Abdus salam, Gaznavi would have been erased from the pak books. Prof, pull your head from the clouds and look for the following signs in pakistan.

The president of pakistan would be greeting the chrisittians for the christmas.
Honour killing would be declared illegal. There would be state holiday for basant. The ilks of tahmed and urtruly will be posting on chowk that muslims should not under take the task of finiding and killing the non-innocent kafirs as part of jihad.

Prof, it is time for you to realise that the verage pakistani is in support of jihad as much as a mdrassa graduate. At least madrssas chap is honest and open about his joy in attaining the jihadic heaven, the others are more sbtle, they fund and support the jihadists. With out this wide spreead poplular support for the sheria principles as practiced in pakistan, the blasphemy laws, hoododd ordinance etc would not have survived so many regime changes.

Prof, realises that mushy has taken pakistan on the path laid out by zia by declaring the madrassa products as graduates while declaring the education of benzir as not at par with that of a madrassa fram faislalbad.

Urs Sahib,

I certainly hope your hypothetical prof. wasn`t hauled up on the Blasphemy Laws because his students Amir, Saliha and Tahseen were terrified by the dynamics of simple logic that dictate that Prophet Mohammad`s parents weren`t Muslim. There are many kinds of starvation; actual physical hunger and spiritual and intellectual hunger for reasonable knowledge unmediated by those idiots raving into the loud speaker at Friday prayers. I can guarantee that your feeding a starving child and then brainwashing him with Islamacism is no real victory, hain na?

Speaking of integrity, I certainly hope that you have the modicum to admit that the Taliban was leading Afghanistan on a chain to impoverishment. There were many reports that Afghani women were forced to sex work because 1. they were not allowed to work 2. the infrastructure of the Taliban`s Afghanistan did not address the economical needs of indigent Afghanis.

mbenzenglish # 28

While I am my reservations about dropping nukes on Japan imperial Japan is no laughing joke. They killed more Asians than Uncle Sam every will. May be Uncle Sam should have allowed Japanese to impose their rule on the Muslim world. A few years under Japanese rule might knock some senses into some in the Muslim world.

Sameer JB: Please visit the following thread at chowk unplugged to see how sincere I am with my people at chowk. ``

Indeed. And I also saw it on headless chicken board. Thank you very much.

hamidm

Yep, that was expected. We have a proverb for that in punjabi, which goes like this ``Ghairat aani jaani shay way, banday nooN dheet hona chahida eh`` . On another board I also saw tahmad kissing his thumbs and touching them with his eyes, saying ``Racial profiling? wah subhanallah, goray di we kia baat ay ji - sadqay jawaN hooN saadi racial profiling hoay di - wah ji wah bhaag lagay rehn, khair hoay goriaN di``

tsk tsk tsk

urstruly

..........let`s not get all silly and emtional about the incorrigible afghans .......

``And that Afghan widow might also forgive him whose face never a stranger saw but now sells her body right in Islamabad where professor lives.``

.....nonsense ! .. .........these afghan ``widows`` were selling their bodies in G-8 and G-9 while the taliban were praying and partying with their nadas in kabul ......... as a matter of fact there has never been a dearth of afghan prostitutes (male or female) in any large pakistani city .......... let`s save our pity for those who deserve it - the poor people of pakistan whose cities have been overrun by the afghans fleeing from the bearded monsters who banished music and laughter .......... the sad part is that other than those who were living in the border camps, none of them are ever going back to that god forsaken land .............. not that i should complain - afterall, grandpa came to quetta from kandahar twenty years before the big earthquake ............but even he used to say, ``there is a big difference between a insaan and a pathan`` .......... god bless his soul

#36
[If you couldn`t be sincere with your own people, how could you be sincere with us``. That stage has also come in this neocolonial aggression. So next time when hamidm and sameerjb lower........]

Please visit the following thread at chowk unplugged to see how sincere I am with my people at chowk. What is your contribution to your people at chowk?

http://63.194.130.82/cgi-bin/show_forum_topic_post_list.cgi?tid=00000389&fid=00000006

Merely talking about sincerity with your own people and using it as a shield for self-righteousness means nothing. OBL also talked much about his sincerity with Afghan people without spending a dime for any school, college, hospital, road or bridge.

Ref arjun_m #27

[...Sun micro, hotmail etc. were founded by American citizens..not Indians...]

Are you sure about this? Vinod Khosla and Sabhir Bhatia would have had to wait 5 years AFTER becoming permanent residents to become citizens,and the green card process itself might have taken 2 years. So, it is entirely possible that these guys held an Indian passport at the time they were part of the group that founded Sun and Hotmail respectively.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

A bit off the topic, but there is an interesting organization in Pakistan, for the, ``best and brightest`` teenagers in the country, called Buraq Space camp. I think it is jointly run by the PAF, SUPARCO, some scientists and a private group.

http://www.buraqonline.org/

How my life changed ... in ten days

By Fauzia Ahmad Bawany

On the morning of Friday, January 11, 2002, I was trying my best to fight away the tears that kept on welling up in my eyes. I said the most reluctant goodbye to my family while struggling to conceal those uncontrollable tears, and turning away, dragged my luggage into the Karachi airport.

An hour later, I was seated comfortably in a plane on its way to Islamabad. Hiding my loneliness, uncertainty and fear of travelling in planes behind my fictitious smile, I forced myself to imagine the camp I was going to attend, the friends I`ll make and the fun we`ll have together ... However, when I finally reached the camping grounds of the Buraq Space Camp, innumerable shocks awaited me.

Led by a team of ex-Buraqians, the camp turned out to be nothing of the sort I had imagined it to be.

One wake-up call at 7:00am and we were expected to line up in front of our tents - upright and displaying not a single show of dislike for the biting cold winds, which haunted our vicinity. After jogging and breakfast, used to commence a series of the most wonderful, eye as well as mind opening, soul stirring lectures, presentations and activities under the sun. They varied from cryptology to astro-navigation, history and future to the discovery and exploitation of antimatter, from problems of population explosion to the colonization of Mars. From the discussion of women`s rights to career guidance talks regarding all options were explored. From construction of our own small rockets after determining their centre of gravity and centre of pressure and launching them, to visiting the vicinity of the runway and watching two roaring F-16s take off, the Buraq Space Camp was a roller coaster ride to a little bit of self-discovery, to the realization of the limitations of my efforts, yet to the vision that nothing is impossible.

By the end of the day (our days used to end at 2:00am), I used to be so tired that as soon as my head touched the pillow, I used to feel myself dreaming about making a difference, about overcoming my worst fears, about doing things which would lead me to immortality - to be able to do something which would never allow this world to forget me.

During those ten days, which I have spent in Islamabad, of my sixteen-year-old life, Buraq has revolutionzed my thoughts, perspectives, imagination and most of all my being. The realization of the value of teamwork and the pricelessness of time now keep me from taking people and objects around me for granted.I think that the chance I have to change this world through my beliefs, makes my life worth living. I believe in walking barefoot on the dewy cool grass, accompanied only by my thoughts after Fajr prayers. I believe in being carefree and in making mistakes sometimes and I believe that neither money nor any other thing except the passion and craziness to pursue your dreams makes this world go round.

Buraq, in short, has made me one of the luckiest people I know. Why? Because now, every day when I open my eyes, I remind myself that it is special. Everyday, every minute, every moment, every breath truly is a gift - an irreplaceable gift from Allah... (http://www.dawn.com/weekly/yworld/yworld5.htm)

various replies: Church and State and State and Church.

I think people spend way too much time debating this. Pakistan is not going to prosper if it combines State with Church. It is not going to prosper if it separates State from Church, either. Yet everyone seems obsessed with it. People are obsessed with Islam, joining and separating it.

A better usage of time would be to move this debate way down on the list of priorities. And start spending mental bandwidth on important issues, like education, law and order, jobs etc. Separating or combining State and Church is not going to solve these problems.

After all, Iraq is the most secular Arab country, with a Christian VP. It has been destroyed by other secular countries. Turkey is a forced secular country, yet maulvis have been elected there. India is a secular country, yet the most non-secular govt in the world, BJP, is running the show. Not to mention the fact that India`s, Iraq`s and Turkey`s economies have traditionally been no better than Pakistan`s. Similarly, Afghanistan was non-secular, but poor. Pakistan has been semi-secular, but poor also.

Poverty does not discriminate between religious and secular govts.

People need to get out of this obsession for and against religion. Pakistani surveys clearly indicate that religion and state is a problem very low on people`s priority list. They could care less about separation and joining of Church and State, as long as they have security and jobs. It is only people at the secular and religious extremes who keep obsessing with it. After all, Pakistanis migrate to secular America, and they migrate to religious Saudi Arabia. Indians do the same. The deciding factor is always jobs and physical security, not Church or State.

Obsession with religion being the solution (by maulvis) and religion being the problem (secularatics) is a big problem in and of itself. It is a debate that only the well-fed and well-looked after can lead and waste time on. How about we debate how to educate kids in rural areas? Or how to get rid of feudalism? And how to end discrimination against women? All these issues are common to secular and religious govts.

Until these problems are solved, debating church and state is a useless excercise, designed only to push one`s own point of view. All these debates do is to tear socieities apart in two different directions, with each group calling the other a fanatic. If these two groups had some sense, they would realize that instead of completely trying to wipe out the other, and the other`s point of view, they should spend more time trying to find out how they can get along with the other.

Pakistan, unlike USA, consists of many people who want some religion in their public lives. And, Pakistan, unlike Saudi Arabia, consists of many people who don`t want religion in their public lives. If one group can constructively convince the other to change its point of view, then that is where the country should be pointed to. However, that will not happen, because the two groups will never budge. The solution in such a situation is not for each group to attempt to wipe out and discredit the other - which is happening now.

A solution is for each group to accept the other, and to meet somewhere in between, and not force their own agenda completely. That requires some enlightened and non-fanatic people on the maulvi brigade side and on the secular brigade side. Unfortunately, each side is filled with fanatics, with a, ``My way or the Highway`` mentality. Each group dead sure the other is an idiot, and each group dead sure that they have the answer.

In the meanwhile, no one has time to discuss the real problems of Pakistan, like education.

Maybe it is good that maulvis are running NWFP. After, five years, we will know at a practical level whether the maulvis in NWFP and Baluchistan or the non-maulvis in Sind and Punjab can do a better job. Both groups will have to put their money where their mouth is.

In the meanwhile, Pakistan will become a much better and peaceful place if the secular and religious brigade get off their high-horses of self-righteousness, and stop trying to force the whole country to do what they want it to do. Live and let live, and let the people decide what kind of govt. they want - secular or relgious.