Protest March on the 30th of March (no pun intended!)

of course it made a difference. shabaash.

...hey hira...i was there too:)...the best thing was all the teenagers....nice to know they haven`t become jaded yet...so you had a whole posse of friends?...nice...all my sorry as s friends were either sleeping or couldn`t care less...so it was just a friend and i...too bad i missed the speeches at the end...

You are certainly not alone.

The language of peace is universal.

Ras

you are a gem -- and a veryprecious one-- hira nabi & preciousme

Hira

You made a great difference. Normal decent liberal Pakistanis speaking out for a cause which was almost hijacked by the Mulla`s in their own narrow world.

You are a great person.

Persons like me only sit in the drawing rooms and propound theories.

And how about Gullu and Bubblee and Sajja? Did they have a blast? Chammo baajee couldn`t stop talking about it! ``Hai, itnay saarey log, I tell you, it was like a sale at Macy`s, only outdoors. By the way, sweetie, when are you going to New York next? Meri Elizabeth Arden nail polish remover khatm ho rahi hai; be a jaan and get me some. Good make-up is so hard to find in Pakistan. Almost like men, no?``

This one made me laugh. I can imagine the Lahore crowd gathering to protest against the war and I think you did that justice in your piece. You catch the conversational tone very nicely.

I`m glad you had a good time, Hira. And maybe it did make a difference. Maybe now more people are tuned in to the war than were previously. Some of them may even dare to say a quiet dua in private sometime, which is really all we can do.

Regards,

For some strange reason, shalwar-kameez with sneakers is a big turn-off for me. somehow it takes away all the effort put on the upper body to look attractive or fashionable. I guess it is because of not wearing sneakers with pair of dress pants or even casuals - only with jeans or shorts during summer. As soon as I see Pakistani beautiful ladies wearing sneakers with nice Panjabi suit (shalwar-kameez), I start imagining Indian women wearing sneakers with reshmi and Banarasi saris and Gandhi wearing Saucony sneakers with dhoti, Jinnah wearing Nike with sherwani and Nehru wearing Adidas with his pajama and keeping another spare pair in his Pajama`s rumali. My favorite brand is NewBalance and I hope not to see them with shalwar-kameez.

abhi clearance sale nahi
khoon ka badla tael nahi
bairuni dakh`l der muamlaat-e-andruni, haye haye
nee kuRay Heer, are you wearing Jean Patou`s Joy
Amrika haye haye, Bush haye haye
chalo khaiyay pajjhay day seri paye
hum Iraqi awaam kay sath haiN, sath haiN
Gucci kay dastanay maiN meray hath haiN
ZalimaN day zulm dee akheer honi thah, thah
matching color-e-shalwar-o-lipstick, wah wah

hi hira
this was interesting, hope youll interact... i got stuck in a traffic jam outside my workplace a few days ago and was astounded to see all these extremely nice looking boys and well dressed aunties weaving through the jam.. turned out there was a peace march and the cities glitterati had com out in full force... i got out, ran into some friends and hung out for a while.. what i saw: there was no narae baazi, very high strung emotions, lots of very neat posters, nice looking people wearing really nice clothes and one adorable baby who had lipstick on her forehead... protest trends too, get globalized :)
more power to you

i can`t believe i missed it :-( I read about it on monday..how come it wasn`t publicized more??? Or was it, and I live in twilight zone!?

i-am-the-cheese: which city are u at?

....sobia, aurat foundation did take out an ad in sunday`s dawn...but otherwise you`re right, it was mostly through word of mouth...i only knew about it since one of my friend`s mom was organizing it...will let you know when the next one`s planned...

Deadline

The night before war begins, and you are still here.
You can stand in a breathless cold
ocean of candles, a thousand issues of your same face
rubbed white from below by clear waxed light.
A vigil. You are wondering what it is
you can hold a candle to.

You have a daughter. Her cheeks curve
like aspects of the Mohammed`s perfect pear.
She is three. Too young for candles but
you are here, this is war.
Flames covet the gold-sparked ends of her hair,
her nylon parka laughing in color,
inflammable. It has taken your whole self
to bring her undamaged to this moment,
and waiting in the desert at this moment
is a bomb that flings gasoline in a liquid sheet,
a laundress`s snap overhead, wide as the ancient Tigris,
and ignites as it descends.

The polls have sung their opera of assent: the land
wants war. But here is another America,
candle-throated, sure as tide.
Whoever you are, you are also this granite anger.
In history you will be the vigilant dead
who stood in front of every war with old hearts
in your pockets, stood on the carcass of hope
listening for the thunder of its feathers.

The desert is diamond ice and only stars above us here
and elsewhere, a thousand issues of a clear waxed star,
a holocaust of heaven
and somewhere, a way out.

-- Barbara Kingsolver

just wondering... how is this march supposed to help iraqi children?

somehow marches in our city aren`t really publicised.
Caution: Vigilance must be exercised at all times.
i-am-the-cheese, yup the world is one global village. As for the traffic jam, didn`t encounter one.

always,
hira.
p.s. thankyou all for the positive feedback. =)

It is very approriate for people to stand up on the basis of convictions. It is self satisfying if nothing else. The problem is that most of the times public convictions are used by self appointed leaders to further their own agenda. second problem is that most of the convictions come easy. They do not necessarily backed by complexity of the modern world order. The convictions are based on simplified version of the universe, world, nature,...........and geopolitics.

In this instance, the case against war had to pass basically few simple principles such as human rights, non-intervention in the internal affairs etc and it sails through easily. The emotions are added to the mix such as plight of Iraqis - children, women, elderly -and it becomes unbeatable plank. since it has mass appeal across the board - illiterate and educated alike - makes it a matter of belief and no longer subject to any meaningful discussion with the inclusion of additional parameters which are subject to time, place, people, nations, religions etc etc. However, the broad parameters applied in favor over all places and time can not be proven to be the only or major parameters in modern world. The modern world order is long way from ``love thy neighbor`` type parameters drowning all else parameters. The importance and values of parameters are variable in modern world and ``love thy neighbor or thou shalt not kill`` can no longer drown the scholarships based upon parameters from various disciplines.

World history is full of events where love thy neighbor and thou shalt not kill were drowned repeated as near as our backyard and at home in the form of Taliban, Kashmir, massacres, sectarian violence and so on. It does not make them right but they happen indifferent to higher moral values because some people (both in religions and political history) somewhere came up with parameters that override these values.

No sane human being can support the killing of innocents or even guilty (as I am against capital punishment) although most Muslims nations love to hang, behead or shot criminals and innocents alike. Looking only at the human miseries in the currnt situation and opposing it is irrefutable. But that is not the whole picture. It is self serving for many to look at that part of the picture that justifies their convictions. The fact is that Iraqi children are not any more precious than Afghan children. When Taliban were killing left and right, many of the same people were making excuses about society being tribal or Islam is the sole supreme parameter or that misinterpretation of Islam etc. Please show me the events where Mulla Omar or UBL effigies were set on fire in large demonstrations anywhere in Pakistan? When did any Pakistani burned Afghan flag. Did Pakistan burn Saudi flag when they beheaded hundreds of rebels occupying Kaaba? A recent massacre of 13 teen age girls in Saudi Arabia did not even made news in Pakistan. These girls rushed out of school because school was on fire and the wahabi guards pushed them back in the school for not wearing hijab and they perished.

I honor feelings expressed for the sufferings of humanity but please prove to me that anti-Americanism is not at play as much as the sufferings of Iraqi children here. Please do express basic human goodness above and beyond built-in biases for and against selected groups of people or nations. When did Pakistanis burn effigy of Musharraf in military uniform for what he has done to democracy and constitution. Please burn effigies of Abdali and Taimur instead of naming missiles and children after those suckers. If you like to burn the effigy of Bush, please make another effigy for Saddam and lit them together in order to be honest and unbiased.

MMA did not lose election in the past because Taliban were butchering in Bamyan and elsewhere but won on the sympathy wave for Agghans dying by US bombing. Is this fair?

SameerJB #14: When the only argument that can be presented is that, ``Two wrongs make a right,`` then it means there isn`t much of an argument to present.

There is really one criteria for deciding whether this war is an act of humanism or state terrorism. And that is, ``Do the people of Iraq want the US to invade their country?`` If they do, it is a humane war. If they do not, then it is state terrorism. In the later case, what to talk of Iraqi civilians, even if only Iraqi soldiers get killed, it is still state terrorism (after all aren`t soldiers innocent human beings?). So far everything indicates that the Iraqi people hate the US and consider it an invading force. So case closed.

You are correct there is an element of anti-Americanism in this war, in Pakistan, and specially in the Arab world. But don`t you think there is good reason for that? Is it a sin for someone to be anti-American? Hasn`t the US screwed over the Middle East completely? It would be one thing if the Middle East despotic kings screwed it over, but what about a democratic country, thousands of miles away, screwing it over? Isn`t there a lot of anti-Saddamism and anti-Arabism and maybe even anti-Muslimism amongst the US majority that supports this war on Iraq? So what is wrong with anti-Americanism? It is not a crime. There must a lot of things you are, ``anti`` of. You have every right to be, as long as you only demonstrate against them, and do not practically harm the people who believe in them.

The part you are correct on is that there should be equal criticism of Taliban and civilian killings by Muslims (you have incorrectly put Musharraf`s coup in here, perhaps due to your own dislikes. That coup was with extremely popular public support, and not a single person was killed).

Pakistanis definitely need to speak out against the killings by these Muslim rulers also. Many of us actually have. I have been writing against Saddam, agaisnt Saudi kings, against Taliban, etc. for a long time. You can check my replies. Infact, even now I find a great deal of hypocricy in the US stance. It supports or supported at one time all the names I have mentioned, while calling for democracy in Iraq now. I think the Kurds should have their own country, not only in Iraq, but in Turkey and Iran also. More than 50% of them live in Turkey. How many US leaderships have opposed the Turkish killings of Kurds?

The problem I have with your arguments is that they are based on a black and white distinction along religion and secularism. Anything having anything to do with religion is wrong. While anything having anything to do with secularism is correct. For some reason, I have a feeling you would chose a secular rapist over a religious philanthrapist. Just like I have a feeling that most Islamic religious party leaders will chose a religious rapist over a secular philanthrapist. Hopefully, I am wrong on both cases.

Such black and white arguments, in a world which is grey, lead to strange contradictions. One group starts thinking that all religious (read Muslim) groups, countries etc. are evil in every respect, i.e. they never do anything good. The other group starts thinking that everything about the West (read USA) is wrong and it has nothing good to offer.

The actual situation is obviously different. There are good and bad things about Muslims and good and bad things about Americans. What is important is to base one`s stance on a principal of human rights, without any bias to the ethnicity, religion, secularism, nationality of the people whose actions are being considered.

Based on such a rule, what the Taliban were doing was wrong and what the US is doing is wrong. However, the Taliban were quite weak and hence have only a limited scope in which it can do wrong. The US can do wrong in evey country in the world, if it wants. Hence there will always be a worldwide reaction against what the US does, since it is involved in every country, in some manner.

In any case, if you ever go to Pakistan and initiate a demonstration against the following or more:

- Northern Alliance in Afghanistan
- Taliban in Afghanistan
- Feudalism in Pakistan
- Misdirected Islamic laws in Pakistan
- Iraqi violation of Kurdish rights
- Turkish violation of Kurdish rights
- Saudi despots in the Middle East
- Saddam`s historic actions in Iraq
- Misguided theocracy in the Islamic world
- Kingdoms in the Muslim world
- Long term Army involvement in Pakistani politics
- Short term military involvement by Musharraf in politics

Please send me an invitation, and I will make sure I attend every single one, except the last one.

If however, you are unwilling to go to Pakistan and initiate such demonstrations, based on yours (and mine in this case) convictions, then I am afraid you have to blame yourself first and admire the maulvi brigade for having the energy to initiate demonstrations on things they believe in (however right or wrong they maybe).

sameerjb -- anti-americanism IS NOT IN PLAY -- for heavens sake

do I have to tell YOU what is in play -- ok here is what is PLAYING these days in the US and on Chowk:

ANTI BUSHISM IS IN PLAY -- anti stupidism is in play -- anti texan dementism is in play -- anti bob jones university`s redneckism is in play

anti Perle-wolfowitz`s zionist-nazism is in play

anti rumsy-billycrystal, aschcroft`s fascism in play

anti Cheney`s Halliburtonism is in play

anti rightwing christian (born-again-to-murder) fundamentalist extremism -- is in play

what is playing is not anti-americanism -- it is anti White House Mongoloidism -- that is in play

and remember sameerjb -- all those above mentioned SCOUNDRELS AND THEIR SCOUNDRELISMS -- and the true AMERICANISM -- are NOT -- One and the Same -- for crying out loud

or do YOU THINK they are?