The Follies of the Natives

re: tahmed32 # 44

I am the least bit nationalistic, but are you telling me that a tie and a jacket is the national dress of Pakistan? The glass is half full or half empty is meaningless, because in Pakistan it is the not the question of the glass`s capacity to hold a volume of water, but the quality of the water itself! Lets follow your logic and say that the glass is half full. If I drink from this half full glass and die as a result of drinking polluted water, will it make a difference to me if that glass was half full? What is important? The glass or the water it contains? If the water is pollulated, then can I drink the glass and satisfy my thirst? If the water is pollulated and I cannot drink the glass, how do I quench my thirst? If I am thirsty, will it really matter to me even though I cannot drink, that the glass is still half full?

Optimism without pragmatism is idealism and is the reason, why an idealist calls a realist a cynic!

This the problem with Pakistan - too much emphasis on form and nothing on substance! Isn`t that what you keep telling me? Did you not say, during our agruments on Iraq war that I was putting too much stress on the form and not on the substance? What are you doing right now! Do you not see the cognitive imbalance in your logic?!

Dress code is being inforced regardless of the skin color? That is hardly encouraging, when taken in balance with everything else in Pakistan. Are you saying as long as the dress code is being inforced it is okay and that makes up for a lack of enforcement in the areas of justice, law and order, minority rights, economic equality, access to a decent education? These rights are more important than a dress code, right? Should we judge, as you say in the analogy of half-full/half empty glass, the progess in Pakistan and consider Pakistan to be developed nation, because our elitist clubs enforce a dress code? Ha ha ha!

Universial dress? Like the unilateralism of a universial American world view? LOL

Secondly; as you admitted, ``I did read the article just now...`` and you had commented before reading it in your post # 16! LOL You also mentioned once, when correcting me that you had practical experience for working with IFI, when you disagreed with my hypothesis. If you worked for IFIs and commented and made decisions without reading the reports or the data in front of you, it would explain a lot why the IFIs are in such a mess! You have clarified and explained so much! Thank You!!!!!!! Now I understand better!!! ROFL

Ciao

re: ana_dobarah # 35

I will have to ask his permission. What I can tell you is this. He describes the air raids; the attack on the airport and says that the Iraqi dead had no flesh or tissue - only blackened bones. The question is: what kind of weapon generates such heat to vaporise human tissue? I will try to post that email, after getting the permission.

re: dost-mittar # 17

I think that rsaxena has answered your question. It is the influence of the Christian Coalition and the role of ``the Bible Belt`` in US politics. Religion and religious groups in US are using emotion and tailoring it to suit their political aims. Rsaxena is absolutely right. GOP is fast becoming a right wing neo-religious party in America and since the party is indebted to Christian Coalition for its funding, it has assumed the outlook of CC in politics. The neo-cons originate from this world view and this also explains their nexus with the Jewish lobby. The CC believe that the messiah will come, when there is peace in the middle east and peace will only come when the enemies of Israel are defeated.

In this sense, GW Bush has made his first policy mistake and that is, to become engaged in the middle east peace process. Peace in the present international paradigm suggests that there has to be a consensus, but to have a consensus you are appeasing the enemies of Israel and delaying the arrival of the messiah! The CC will not agree to this policy, which it sees as anti-christ and against the interests of Isreal. Hence, the Isrealis and the Palestinians have do nothing; the CC will gladly disintergrate the peace process in the middle east on the basis of its own religious interpretations.

America is not a democracy but a free market. In a free maket, supply and demand create the criteria. What is the source of access to power in America? In a simple sense, it is campaign financing. What is the average amount a congressman/woman or a senator spends on re/election? How many Americans can afford a financial disburement on such a scale and after spending all this money, how is this money re-generated? As a result of the increasing cost of politics in America, what are realistic levels of American citizens representation in his government? Demographically, what group is represented in the congress and senate? What are special interests? Why is fund raising so important and when you raise funds from a $ 1000 a plate dinner, what are you promising in return?

I remember that senator Hatch from Utah would ask for $ 1000 for a plate; I remember when Bush came to Salt Lake, he charged # 10,000 a plate! I know this, because I was entering the transactions for FEC and dealing with soft and hard money! Politics in America are awash with money and money forces fund raisers at golf courses, where deals are made and the public is told of the policy announcements when all is settled and agreed! There is nothing they can do about it! The majority of the core fiancial supporters of GOP are CC and they expect a return on their investment! Politics in America is not about representation; it is about appeasing the special interests and getting relected!

Ciao

Although all of your other articles are just as well worded and equally well thought out, this one is clearly your best one ever. Not only are your arguments well reasoned, you also have deep feelings and the writing seems to have come straight from the heart. I agree with everything you’ve written but have you not left out an important angle? Perhaps you’ve considered it but decided to leave it unsaid. Maybe it`s not taking the `road less travelled` which created the problem. Perhaps either road may have lead to the same place because the problem was with the traveller?

I am, of course, referring to the idea that all the problems stem from the fundamental reality that the state of Pakistan is untenable because it was flawed in its conceptual design and therefore non-viable as an entity. In other words, could it be a possibility that the state was like a crippled child at birth, born with a genetic defect? It might have been made viable with extraordinary and heroic measures, but given the abuse and neglect in its infancy it died a natural death instead of being able to over come those odds.


What I am saying here applies to the state entity and not necessarily the country. The implication being that the state cannot be reformed. It has to be reorganized. The state entity is the lethal parasite that has choked and killed off the country. The existing state apparatus has to be dismantled and rebuilt from a scratch. In the process it may or may not retain its existing geographic jurisdiction, but the state cannot, and indeed must not, retain its original politico-legal format. The people, the culture, the intellectual heritage, the history and the economy are the things that make up the country. They need to be liberated from the clutches of the colonial-imperial-feudal nexus that is the state.

…SR

Is there hope?

ABSOLUTELY!


Ras

ferozk #49 So lets see: what is the national dress of pakistan? Sherwani and Jinnah cap. Here is an exercise for you: close your eyes, breathe deeply, and imagine a man wearing a Sherwani and Jinnah cap. Now tell me what face do you see between the Sherwani and the Jinnah cap. If we are both talking about the same country, the face will be that of Jinnah himself. As in the countless Jinnah portraits in public buildings, wearing the ``national dress`` that you wont find anyone wearing on the streets of Pakistan. Indeed, you probably wouldnt have found Jinnah in it either most of the time: only when it came time to pose for the picture or to make speeches. Even he normally wore what was then considered a farangi dress (suit, tie, and even with a monocle and fancy boots that would make any farangi proud) even more than it is today.

No sir. The concept of a national dress is just one more bs. People wear what they want to wear, and in Pakistan it is normally the shalwar kameez and/or pant shirt (with tie and jacket added in case of certain situations like workers in commercial banks, marriage ceremonies and so forth).

natives and zulus on park avenue .............

........... i don`t know much about this national identity crap but there should be a law against men wearing ``the national dress`` in public ......... for god`s sake, they are pajamas!......... half the people in pakistan simply roll out of bed in the morning and take to the streets in their night clothes without brushing their teeth or combing their hair - it is appalling! .......... the whole country looks like a set from michael jackson`s thriller or the day after a nuclear holocaust............it is depressing! ......... sure we are poor and all that, but we all don`t have to look like a bunch of beggars .........

.......... have you noticed, that the more backward, impoverished and third-worldy a country is, the more its leaders (and people) are hung up on wearing leopard skins, underwear, dead animals, bed-sheets and night gowns in public .......... you don`t see the japanese or the chinese running around in kimonos and gowns .......... as a matter of fact people in tokyo and shanghai, especially the women, look like they just stepped off the pages of vogue and glamour ..........it is hard not to stare at the smartly dressed women in tokyo - they all look like a million bucks, even the ugly ones! ...........we, on the other hand, are going in the other direction ......... it all started with gandhi who disgraced us by running around half naked with his goat and nieces in tow .......... jinnah, a man with more sense, tried to buck this trend by dressing like a civilized man but even he fell to this idiocy by putting on a silly tunic and a dead sheep on his head ............some might call it political expediency - i call it stupidity .........and nehru, a perfectly intelligent man, went around with a silly paper hat from burger king on his head ............ but everyone from mountbatten to truman humored him by saying,``how quaint, how native``............ the bushmen running around naked in the kalahari desert are native!............ it is not quaint, it is primitive............

...........bhutto, a man who normally wore tailored double breasted suits, tried to curry favor with the masses by putting on pajamas and calling it an awami suit .......like other socialist leaders of the time he also tried to dress up his minions in mao suits with gold and silver braid on the collar - luckily that didn`t last long........during zia`s time people gave up on all good things in life, discovered islam, and started wearing the awami dress to work ........and it has been down hill ever since ........some might argue that a shalwar kameez is more suited to our climate - nonsense!......... a half sleeved cotton shirt with cotton trousers is a lot more comfortable than a six-yard shalwar with a full-sleeve kurta and a waist coat .............and the only people who wear crisp starched white shalwar kurtas and freshly dry-cleaned waist coats are the politicians and drug lords - the rest of the public wears these miserable brown and gray pajamas that are washed once a week and don`t have a fly so that you can pee standing up like a man ...............now, how can you take these people seriously? ............ how can you take a man seriously when he has to squat like a woman to pee? ............how can they take themselves seriously?............walk into any government office (try the gpo in pindi saddar) and you will know what i am talking about .............it looks and smells like a fish market.............people who went to be taken seriously, dress properly......

............. and the only people who dress properly, and are therefore taken seriously, are the military - that is why they rule the country while the rest of the fools are running around in their night clothes feeling native!

p.s. next we will talk about all these silly desi women who insist on wearing native clothes from ``back home`` on park avenue ......... pat buchanan was right when he worried about assimilating zulus in manhattan ............

dost-mittar:
Need I say more about curtailing the importance of past after reading good posts by SR and hamidm2? I am glad you agreed with me about a very low percent importance to the past in the state affairs but most people from both side wouldn`t agree with us.

Various shapes and sizes of pajamas, caps, beards, sherwanis and dhotis fall within this 10 percent but their symbolic importance is enhanced none other than gandhi, jinnah, nehru, mullah, sadhus, politicians and government officials in both Pakistan and India. The irrational part of identity and nationalism is more visible than the rational one - constitution, rule of law, service to people and freedom. As long as it is not acceptable as less than 10 percent, the point of religious versus secular within it is meaningless. Once its importance is reduced, the coming to agreement on differences is easy. It is tentamount to defeat for Islam and Hinduism to be relegated to less than 10 percent importance from fundamentalists and most Pakistanis point of view. It is in fact acceptance of past as failure than past perfect and golden ages ideas. I, for one, do see last 1000 years of subcontinent as a major failure for public with no freedom, no justice, no local rule, colonialism, authoritarianism etc etc. However, the first picture one sees of Indian or Pakistani PMs, the memory of past stares right in-your-face as if this is what our identity and we are all about. I seriously believe that too much emphasis on half nakedness and pajamas/ dhotis in India too would end up hurting India`s place in the world.

Less than 10 percent importance to past discredits TNT and that is what SR meant by defective birth. However, it does not mean ONT by default. I would have never supported half naked fakirs and topi-sherwani-pajama people knowing too well what half naked fakirs of the past did. The Sufis were half naked fakirs of the past, the moral consultants, never using hands and feet for earning decent living and telling others to sweat, work hard, be this and be that and worrying about internal-external relationship with a nonsensical concept. The descendants of these half naked drive Mercedes, live lavishly, have land and property, win elections yet still begging from poor for more money - niaz, nazrana as I have received a request for donation by mail from Ajmer for the coming urs later this year
(P.S. Sorry to use this example because at another site an ardent follower of Sufis was fuming over lazy and dishonest livelihood of Shiv Kumar Batalvi for being absentee employee of the State Bank of India as if his favorites earned living honestly).

Less than 10 percent also means reducing the importance of Shah Bano case, Babri masjid and Hindutva in India and getting rid of Islam from state affairs in Pakistan. Once we get over it, then importance of pre-Islamic past for Pakistanis make more sense. Under current conditions, it would be merely intellectual curiosity of few individuals.

In cultural terms, the importance of near past can not be ignored. One can not tell us to forget Faiz A. Faiz becuase he died some 20 years ago. What is the future of cholay or pulao in cuisine? Nothing to discuss and that is why culture is best as is and let it evolve whereas languages do need intellectual and official promotion to survive. The culture is the real arena where identity should be practiced and social also to some extent but not state affairs, economy, and secular humanism.

The identity at state or national level is nothing but loyalty or patriotism. It is unfair to undermine and subordinate other identities which are basically cultural and social with decreasing overlap with each other with the distance. This becomes more important when one cultural identity is more closely tied to national identity than the rest leading to other cultural identites to start creating a national identity of their own.

The bottom line is that identity can not bring about prosperity, development, education and success but playing it too much or wrongly can be detrimental.

hamidm2 #52 Great post, enjoyed reading it. One minor quibble: a shirt and cotton trousers in Pakistan in June or July is not my idea of comfort. The proper thing to wear is a t shirt and shorts if you want to be comfortable. Actually the shalwar kameez is more comfortable than a pant - and there is nothing preventing one from wearing a clean one. And one can look presentable in it if one has a flat belly and not a round one and is not sweating like a pig in it.

``Pakistan will never progress as long as we are determined to bury our heads in the sand and pretend that we do not see the danger``, Ferzok, the answer is right there, there is progress as long as the head is in the sands of arabia.
Pakistan has made tremendous prograess. It was only a few months ago you all used to declare that there are only 3 percent extremists, religious parties ecured on 3 seats. Now they are in the ruling coalition, the identity of pakistan is emerging from the barren hills of NWFP. The sheria law, that should have been in force at the stroke of midnight, is at last creeping up, province by province. Third in command of alquida was found in the house of a pak army major, at last there is convergence in the pak society, military and the mullahs are one with the people.
When blasphemy law deaths entences are not carried out, the people of pakistan are rising to the occasion to enforce it. There is tremendous social movement in pakistan, which the western schooled ones like you are refusing to accept, the movement os towards jihadic islam. It is time that you read the writings on the roads of karachi, marked out by the dead bodies, jihadic republic of pakistan is at the door steps.

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there is no harm wearing different dresses,provided these are according to occassion.it remins me a joke.
a woman was roaming naked in thestreet,she was arrested and prosecuted.
judge ask her :``how much load you have to take daily?
she replied:i have 7 kids.
judge set her free by saying what more you expect from a mother of seven.

hamidm dada, pls don`t compare japan and china...or tokyo and shanghai...or god help, the women of tokyo with those of shanghai...the avg. chinese woman still runs around with discolored teeth and a lampshade on her head...she cannot afford much at gucci in comparison to her japanese counterpart whose average income is several times higher...

...i know pakis have a thing for china, but let`s not get carried away....

ferozk#48
I am in unchartered territory in defending the U.S. On Chowk, I have consistently and strongly criticised U.S interventions abroad whether it was in Kosovo, Afghanistan or Iraq. But that was in regard to its external policies; wrt internal matters, despite some of the valid points you make and despite my own misgivings about the republicans on many socio-economic matters, I have a hard time agreeing that it is not a secular democracy.
First, the secular part. Well, being an agnostic, I always had a problem with ``In God we trust`` bit, but I don`t think that`s your problem! Yes, evangelicals are busy doing their thing on tv and in shopping malls, but so are various other religious groups - sunnis, shias, ahmedis, hindus, sikhs, hare-krishnas and anyone else you can think of. The U.S is allowing muslims to convert Americans at an amazing rate despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of its citizens regard that religion to be its enemy number one now.
As for democracy, I agree that money has become a very important factor in the U.S democracy. But as a true democracy, Americans are quite aware of its evil consequences and I am certain that the legislators will take some action to mitigate its effect on the body-politic of America. Moreover, a true democracy is more than elections, as you have yourself pointed out. True democracy in America exists in its grassroots and its institutions and I don`t see any weakening there.
You have pointed out to the hold of the christian coalition on the republican party, yet you have noticed that this coalition has not been able to stop Bush from following a middle east policy against its beliefs, and if it fails in the end, it will be for reasons other than the Christian right. And the U.S media can be accused of many sins but championing of christian right wont be one of them.

#52 hamidm2
i really enjoyed your post.you have good sense of humor.

hamidm2 # 52 - on your good post (write a full fledged article on it)

When Benazir was being elected Prime Minister the first time, the Pathans had this objection `` Khanaa ... How can she be the Prime Minister ... She has to take off her Shalwar even for the small pee.``

rsaxena

..........been to shanghai lately? ...... since you mentioned gucci, shanghai is one of the few cities that has two, not one, gucci stores - check out the new one in shanghai times square on huai hai zhong road.......... and the surprising thing is that these stores are packed with chinese women with perfect teeth and cash to spend ............

......... the chinese transformation over the last ten years has been nothing short of miraculous ......... sure they still have a lot of peasents with bad teeth but they all seem to have a chicken in the pot and a color tv......... as my friend raj kanthadi says, `` indians need to stop comparing themselves to china, there is no comparison - they fall in diametrically opposite quadrants on any two by two`` ........... and if you don`t believe raj, walk down the hall and talk to anyone who has done a gig in shanghai or guangzhou ............shanghai is the only place left on earth where clients don`t quibble over consulting fees, you are always walking distance from a starbucks, has a maglev train that goes at 270 mph and, according to zubin metha (another indian), has a symphony orchestra that will give the tin band in new york a run for the money............

............ anyway, let`s not waste our time worrying about the chinese .............so what if they had $54B in fdi last year and we had less than 500M (the horrible hindoos scrounged up 4.3B) ........we dont believe in all this fdi and globalization crap and, in any case, we have better things to do, like fighting over kashmir, digging for ancient temples under ancient mosques and making sure people pray five times a day .............