As the Bald Eagle Tries to Rule

ahmadzai,

That was a long post on the principled stand of pakistan. Please read the statements of general mushy , he said that `` Simla and Lahore declarations are not worth the paper as it did not address the kashmir``. He has shown that his way of addressing kashmir was through kargill invasion.

People like you are the central part of the indo pak problem, not ready to accpt the pak ideology, the miliraism and how it integrates with the jihadists, who have achieved majority through pak military manipulations.

Whe you accept that jihad and killing of kafirs is widely supported in pakistan of today, then there can be some progress.

re: #110 by AlephNull
My last post should read as ``command over English`` and not ``command of English``. My poor grammar!
Sridhar

re:#110 by AlephNull
A good post. You have a command of English that one would envy. Did you do masters in English? BTW, what the heck is ``delendam esse``?
Sridhar

Alephnull #110 and #112: I read your posts with interest, and am grateful for your taking the time to explain what you mean.
So what you are saying, I think, is that
(a) the ``huge majority of Indians who have no deep organic connection to Pakistan (i.e. are not fellow panjabis, nor up-ites with relations in both countries).
(b) that this majority (as you say) is likely to view Pakistan ``in cold anger, without warmth or sympathy, as a practical problem to be dealt with in the most cold-bloodedly efficacious way possible.``
(c) The reason for this anger is (i) identification of islam and/or pakistan with past invaders (ii) terrorist activity within India supported by the Pakistan government, (iii) fanning of these negative views on pakistan by the BJP government.
And finally you say that there are grades of such feelings.

Without engaging in a debate on the justification for such feelings (e.g. I could point out that north indians are also descendants of invaders, and no group of people can claim to be saints and martyrs - human history is a history of man`s inhumanity to man), I would say that the above may explain something about Indian public opinion (and you, having grown up as an Indian obviously understand Indian public opinion better than I do).
However the above does not explain the deep hatred and spite that so many Indians posters seem to bring with them to chowk (and then many of them mellow after a few months, except a couple of individuals who seem incapable of thinking outside the rut their minds are in). You explain that by saying this what I call hate-mongering is not hate-mongering. Without quoting examples, let me just say I beg to differ. Let us leave it at that.
One last word: With regard to respect for all religions and all cultures, while there has indeed been a strong strain of this throughout muslim history (and indeed some of it is rooted in the fact the teachings of the Quran), and people like Hazrat Omar and Salahuddin Ayyubi - Saladin, to you nonmuslims, :-) - were indeed noble and chivalrous men in victory and in peace. But the muslim tradition is NOT the only that has such antecedents: I think that wherever men think for themselves, and can see beyond personalities and personal likes and dislikes and think in terms of universal principles, you will find such thinking. And such thinking is NOT goody-goody, I may add, but the difference between the animal-like ``tribal instincts`` of some individual on chowk (I find them to be complete bores with their single string theme of insult exchanges) and the far more interesting material one finds from people like shankar and stuka and dulla bhatti (to name three individuals from ``your`` side of the border, who actually think for themselves and in terms of some underlying universal principles.

Ahmedzai # 113, we shall have to do much moe than hope for things to improve at only a personal level (inside our stretch limo?) . . . so from Salman Rashid`s Pakistan First board . . .


```` #18 by veeresh on March 27, 2003 5:49am PT
Increasingly, and I say this with a bit of world vision and no Indo-Pak rancour, I feel that North India & Pakistan never really attained freedom, it just had borders re-drawn for it by the Colonials. ````

As I see, almost on a daily basis, how the South and West of India move ahead of the rest of the sub-Continent / country, I can begin to understand where this Indo-Pak yo mama/mah mama stuff comes from.

Isn`t true that in Pakistan, the greatest insult for any Paki is to call him a Hindu? And isn`t it a part of school text books to teach how to differentiate between a Musalman and a Hindu?

If so, then I don`t understand this latest breast-beating from Pakis about how Indians(read, Hindus) hate them more than they hate the Hindus. Is it a case of kettle calling the pot black, or what?

(Last time such paranoia prevailed was in Nazi Germany - calling a German a Jew was supposed to be ultimate insult to him.)

We are all used to the incessant whining and moralizing and breast-beating by pakis in chowk - but this latest beat ( Look mummy - Hinoods are doing ``Paki-bashing`` so openly , look how they have turned perfectly gentle paki souls into rabid Hinood-haters ) takes the cake.

Ref My Post #118

It should be ``The Pot Calling The Kettle Black``. :) But you guys know what I mean.

AlephNull #110
Terming the repeated use of personal abuse against other posters `Persianate norms of politeness and civility` is a travesty against Persianate norms of politeness and civility. For that, we had the example of Bilal Ahmad, who never implied he was better than anyone else, who never implied that the norm for civility was obeying HIM wrt what should be discussed and how, and who never debased another for disagreeing with him.

Sadna #120

I remember Professor Bilal Ahmed’s persona well, though I was a Chowk lurker at the time. I recall that Bilal Sahib set an exceptional personal example rather than try to promulgate norms of behaviour. On the rarest of rare occasions he might remonstrate with someone in the very mildest terms. That was the entire extent of his attempts to control other peoples’ posts. But he seemed to have been a genuine saint. Those who are not cut from the same cloth are probably better off not trying to emulate him. To thine own self be true …

As to ‘Persianate norms’, you are definitely more familiar with them than I am. I may have used a completely inappropriate term out of reprehensible ignorance and am glad to have my knuckles rapped by someone more knowledgeable. I was groping, mostly in the dark, for the origin of a phenomenon I’ve noticed time and time again, namely that those who directly address matters that certain people find uncomfortable are forthwith anathematized as hate-mongers and cast out into the outer darkness.

This behaviour seems to be associated with a particular definition of tolerance, which requires that opinions not be expressed if they are offensive to someone or the other (in particular – opinions critical of religion, or of some aspect or other of a particular religion, are verboten). This places the burden of tolerance squarely on the speaker, and implies limits on free speech. The concept of tolerance that I prefer, (which happens to be the norm in mature democracies except during periods of war hysteria) allows all opinions to be expressed no matter how potentially offensive, and places the burden of tolerance primarily on the listener. It is based on rejection of the notion of blasphemy or thoughtcrime.

I guessed that the first (and bad, IMO) notion of tolerance had its roots partly in the concept of blasphemy and partly in (Persianate?) cultural norms that require that you express your disapproval elliptically, that you let your adversary save ‘face’ by not confronting him directly, etc.

Rsridhar #116

Thanks for the compliment, but I think my posts need work. Tahmed has just contrived to read #110 all wrong – was it the fault of my obscurity or was it perchance intentional evasiveness on his part? I envy people whose posts pack a powerful punch in a few pithy phrases. Mine just go on and on and on … I don’t think grammar and spelling are important beyond a point. Oh for the gifts of an Ahmed Madani!

And to answer your questions – no, I never formally studied English beyond 12th standard. My formal training – such as it is - has been in scientific/technological fields. The phrase “delendam esse” that puzzled you is Latin; it means “is to be destroyed”.

AlephNull #122
I was not rapping your knuckles at all, I was rapping poor tahmed`s knuckles via you :). I agree with everything else you say ! I am as informed as you are (or not) on Persianate norms of civility, except that I speculate for example that Zia Ul Haq never failed in politeness to Bhutto even when he ordered him beheaded.

I actually wrote a post in response to your thoughtprovoking posts which I later deleted - on my out-on-a-long-limb thesis that you probably have here a microcsm of public dialogue in Pakistan, ie, when a select few take it upon themselves to tell others what they should or shouldnot discuss and how.

Imagine an ordinary guy persistently demanding rights to his land, or his language or a road in front of his house, and being told that he was being uncivilised and was a hatemongerer to hold on to his point thus disturbing the peaceful civility and order maintained by his self-defined betters` decrees. Its an unfriendly comment for me to draw out of personal conversations, so sorry if anyone gets offended.

Alephnull #121 I am sorry if I still dont understand your point. I thought what you wrote was reasonably clear, and I thought my summarization of what you wrote was reasonably accurate. But if you say I dont get it, I shall defer to your judgement.
Hoever, rest assured that I am not ``contriving`` to misunderstand you, as you say: I dont expect to win any prizes for misunderstanding people on chowk. Nor am I here to prove anything.
So let us end this discussion in peace, and I wish you a good weekend. (And I am not contriving anything here either - I dont get medals for ending discussions in peace, nor am I interested in winning popularity contests on chowk: God has blessed me with enough good family and friends in real life).

sadna #123
``I speculate for example that Zia Ul Haq never failed in politeness to Bhutto even when he ordered him beheaded. ``

Meaning what the heck is the use of such meaningless show of politeness? There would have been more fundamental civility and politeness even if they had yelled at each other rudely but believed in keeping the other alive.

A democracy doesnot come from practising polite speech while going ahead and killing or imprisoning or banishing your opponent because you donot like what he says or does(even the horrible Narendra Modi is relatively soft spoken).

I remember reading some excerpts of Aurangzeb`s letters to his father, very respectful and decent letters, giving no indication that he would later kill his brothers and lock his father up for many years (no doubt never violating the norms of civil discourse all those years).

sadna #123
``I speculate for example that Zia Ul Haq never failed in politeness to Bhutto even when he ordered him beheaded. ``

Meaning what the heck is the use of such meaningless show of politeness? It would have been more fundamental civility and politeness even if they had yelled at each other rudely but believed in keeping the other alive.

A democracy doesnot come from practising polite speech while going ahead and killing or imprisoning or banishing your opponent because you donot like what he says or does(even the horrible Narendra Modi is relatively soft spoken).

I remember reading some excerpts of Aurangzeb`s letters to his father, very respectful and decent letters, giving no indication that he would later kill his brothers and lock his father up for many years (no doubt never violating the norms of civil discourse all those years).

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