The Mullah and the Munir Report

Stuka...

Please read my post addressed to Nazar Hayat Khan... It was a power play ... Mullahs couldn`t care less about the bifurcation of the Muslim community.

-YLH

ardeshir haider...

Yaar you suffer from a very simplistic understanding from history... but good for you anyway...

1) Implementation of all the proposals of the Munir Report ... Separating Church and State completely in Pakistan.

C`mon Manto, putting aside the passionate diatribe for the moment, do you really think that in the current environment this is possible. With the likes of MMA brought into power to the serve the very secular Musharraf and destabilise the Crooks of PML and PPP. Infact Musharraf has brought the state more closer to the Church with the current political setup.

2) Continuation of the democratic process

Democracy in pakistan is a cosmetic cover for Army rule, which is the only form of government that is in place at the moment.

3) Review of the existing legislation in light of the fundamental rights of the constitution

With MMA in the Senate, any review that will take place will only be based upon shariah, something that would further enforce the medieval practices from Islam`s History. The Shariah itself is a perfect source of code, but it is proven that the devil is in the interpretation.

4) Abolition of the CII, or at the very least CII to be filled up with scholars of modernist ijtehadi outlook on Islam.

Where will you gather these Ijtehadi scholars from, where the society has lost its moral balance and is towards two extremes. The Liberal Flagbearers who feel that capitalism is the answer to all plights or the extreme fundoos who preach religious hate.

5) Education reform... not just more education, but better education. Reform of the curriculum. Textbooks etc.

I agree completely on that, but then you will have to look at the extreme difference that has been created over the last 30 years between the local and foreign education standards and answer that question as well. Govt vs Private education

6) Promotion of Art, culture and music ... promotion of media, free speech and international channels. Access to Internet ...

Isnt this all happening already, right here at chowk to all the international channels like ARY etc.

7) Making Pakistan an integral part of the the global economy so that the Mullah is marginalized to a point where he is no longer a player nor can he afford to be a player.

The bourgeosie in Pakistan have been trying this one for 5 decades and look where this has got us too, a marginalised, bigoted, hatefull Mullah repressed out of mainstream social development and sent to obscure madarassahs and allowed to hatch into a potent political force like the MMA. Nice one YLH.

8) Allowing for a liberal left movement to gradually re-emerge after going into hiding

Houses, Corporate Jobs, Western Lifestyles ; the Liberal left is kind of morally bankrupt itself to reclaim religion from the fanatic.

9) Marginalizing the Mullah within the faith, by rejecting organized priesthood.

Maybe in the Vatican, but isnt this a tad little impossible for Pakistan.

Organised Preisthood; maybe you oight to write an article about this as well.


On a personal note, chill out a little bit dude, dont take it so personally all the time. I respect the passion that endears your write up, i just feel that all the firework & aggression in your words is misplaced.

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wajahat #35

An effective way to counter Manto is to tell everyone what your approach to making things better may be. Manto`s solutions might not work. So what will?

Point of Information:


Re: [Modudi`s] freedom of speech was usurped by the undemocratic entities.

Section 298 C of the Penal Code of Pakistan suggests an imprisonment of upto three years, and a fine for an Ahmedi who ``preaches or propagates his faith, or invites other to accept his faith, by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representations or in any manner whatsoever.`` This is a direct violation of Article 20 of the Constitution of Pakistan which grants every citizen a right to ``profess, practice and propogate his religion``, and Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This violation of Human Rights was brought about in the Martial Law Ordinance XX of 1984 by President General Zia, who qualifies to be called an undemocratic entity.

Wajahat...

Mind sharing your solutions with us sometime? It seems like that you will accept nothing but a marxist critique... I personally could care less about capitalism or socialism... but I do admit that with a strong leftist movement Pakistan was much better of... I am a bit of a sympathizer myself if you know what I mean... In any event Remember what theory said... the creation of a Liberal Bourgeoise National Democracy is necessary for the move towards a Marxist state... so even if you are a marxist you should hardly be throwing stones at the Liberal Bourgeoise for now... If we talk in terms of such development... let me remind you that we are stuck in a stage where we haven`t emerged out of feudalism completely nor have we rejected the church as of yet... an attempt to make a marxist state will be not only futile... it will be dangerous.... and don`t give me Shariati`s Islamic Marxism mumbo jumbo... look what that brought Iran to ...

As for your post.... That was my point exactly... We know the solutions... the question is implementation. The reason why we keep repeating and harping on this issue is to keep the dissent alive... because we fear the Mullah is about to shut us permanently.

Look at ARY... granted it has channels after channels dedicated to Indian Music for which I can care less... but really have you seen some of the `religious scholars` and `political views` aired on that channel? Have you had the chance to see Dr. Shahid Masood...The Mullah is more than visible there than anywhere else... they are the modern mullahs continuously spreading lies and conspiracy theories amongst Pakistanis... same goes for channels like Geo... etc... though Geo has hope ... because it is run by a progressive liberal and an extremely patriotic man ... Imran Aslam... But even a left leaning channel like Indus TV is the victim of Mullah Mentality... every week atleast twice they repeat a verbiage against the theory of evolution ... holding it responsible for Nazism...


So the Mullah is sitting in the senate... and the Mullah is sitting in the national assembly and he is ruling two provinces.... what are your solutions? My solution is to allow the democratic process to run its course without interference... and hope for the Mullah to be kicked out of office, which I am sure he will be. You will probably settle for no less than a Marxist revolution... something I think it counterproductive at this stage of our national development...

Also when I said review ... I meant a judicial review... but for that to happen you will have to find judges like Kiyani again.

-YLH

I agree with wajahat on the rhetoric part. The munir report is dead. It is good historical reference and should be looked as such only. The circumstances and politics have changed since then. Politics is cyclical. Nothing stays the same and things keep moving.
Wars are fought and justified on ideologies. Economic interests are hidden behind ideological rhetoric. The current rise of fundamentalism in Pakistan is related to the Afghan event in the 70s. The US and Pakistan had to fight communism and the only plausible platform they had, was the religion. Consequently, the Mullah v/s the liberal struggle in Pakistan changed from the one in the 60s and the 70s.
Nobody gives up power and benefits of powers easily. Mullah is no exception.

So, Pakistan will have to go thru this struggle. The handicaps are there but giving up this fight would be suicidal. The problem is with the army. Any economic progress in Pakistan directly helps the army and it is not going to choose liberals as allies until liberals give up the demand for democracy.

There are currently two major groups of liberals in Pakistan. One wants to help the army and the US in its fight against the mullah and the terror that Mullah supports. The other group doubts army’s commitment to this cause and feels that the army will never totally severe its patronage of the mullah. Interestingly, the group that opposes the army is behind Nawaz Sharif. Though Nawaz Muslim league itself is not fully anti army. But the liberals need political patronage and they are getting that from Nawaz League. The group that wants to work with the army, travels with the PPP more.

The real struggle for the democracy in Pakistan is going to come from the smaller provinces and that’s why we see currently sindhis are being arrested all over the province. People who just rely on newspapers are being misled again by the media into believing that Sindhi and Baluchis are into some narrow nationalistic struggle. That is not the case. The democrats in Sindh or in Baluchistan have to create some ideological ground to rally people around them.
Recently, The daily times, otherwise a worthy newspaper ran an editorial condemning the democrats from the smaller provinces. This shows that even the most liberal media in Pakistan has army infiltration and as the battle intensifies more and more so-called liberals are going to switch sides.
Yasser is perhaps from the group that wants to work with army and expects that the army would change things. I doubt that is going to happen. Aggressively going after the mullah is good but until we condemn the army equally, the liberals would end up playing in the hands of the army.

I recently heard that the PPP is going to support a Hindu candidate to run against Shaukat Aziz in Sindh. I think it would be a good move and this will further help liberals in Pakistan. The results of the elections are known but the PPP move would send a very good signal to the international community.

re: #28 Ardeshir_Haider

A Chinese proverb says, ``Believing same at 40 what you believed at age 20 means wasting 20 years of your life``. Pakistanis are third generation removed from partition and 5 generations removed from Muslims (read Punjabi Muslims only, becasue Bengali, Sindhi, Balochi and Pashtun Muslims never opted for Urdu) opting for Urdu. We are changing as the evolution of nation, society and cultures we live in are changing around us. Your post is naive, simplistic, weak and worth garbage. Based on your logic, Americans should own slaves because founding fathers owned them. You have no idea how different Pakistanis are now from 1947 and language politics of 1920s. The three-way religion based group intrests that motivated Punjabi Muslims to opt for Urdu no longer exists and the politics of partition ended with the creation of Pakistan. Due to Punjabis Muslims opting for Urdu, evolution of Punjabi language among Punjabi Muslims was arrested for 6-7 decades but now on fast track of evolution to catch up with the needs and with more developed neighboring languages like Sindhi. Changing and adopting with time is actually hopeful sign of Pakistanis who are ready and open-minded.


Manto:

Like rozaiba`s post, I dont disagree with the degenerating and retrogressive role urban mullahs have been playing on the evolution of rational society and influencing society evolution just as much, if not more, as they were to be in power like Talibans in Afghanistan. However, if mullahs are idiot, then sizeable urban public is stupid as I laid out the case in my article. Pakistani urban society has failed to limit the role and power of mullah as rural society has successfully done. One can argue that mulah is able to make inroads due to pryng on public sensitivity to Islam and the importance they grant to religion in all affairs of social conduct. I would tend to blame public for letting the genie out of the bottle than othe way around. A good 20-30 percent urban population in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad supports mullahs in political matters. The percent is much higher if the role of mullah is tabulated on his role on non-political social conduct and added to political conduct. It is public. However, since it is politically incorrect to lay blame at the doors of public, the blame is passed on to the next best group available as the direct consequence of bad public choices for leadership in political and non-political social conduct. Mullahs are not blameless because they have taken the advantage of public delusions.

What can you say about a public who votes 20-30 percent for pan-Islamic platform parties and not happy to live with their neighbors. Large number of these people dont want to be called Sindhis or be part of Sindh despite living there for three generations and then voting for pan-Islamic platform. Is this speaking from both sides of the tongue (or mouth it is?) or what? Not only mullah but every tom, dick and harry including the dismissed and unemployed general for 3-4 hours who grabbed power by using his connections to invade Islamabad and was determined to hang another elected prime minister on trumped up charges, would thrive in this confusing, hypocrite, principleless environment. There is powerful army who will back mullahs whenever it deems necessary; there are Pashtun and Balochi nationalsits, who would be more than happy to join hands with pan-Islamists than neighboring Punjabis. Then there are people who claim Punjabis are really three distinct ethnicities and in the same sentence talk about Punjabis domination of middle and lower rank government employments. Idiots dont realize that both of these arguements contradict each other. If Punjabis are really Sariaki, Punjabi and Potowari, then there is not even remote case of Punjabi domination in government employment and if Punjabis dominate, then they must be one ethnic group.

So, Yasser, mullahs are the product of favorable conditions provided and produced by a combination of factors with Islam and army leading the way.

HP...

Dude... have you not read my articles posts etc?

I am a die hard PPP Wallah...

-YLH

Ralph...

Thanks for your compliment... but it hasn`t been 5 years yet... However I don`t think I will move for another 60 years ... I love it out here... though I am often irritated by the growing Mullah presence...

But the chowk crowd out here is pretty cool... You should come visit us sometime...

Kaurasuch...

SAW is an abbreviation for an arabic term of reference used in Islam for the Prophet.

Ahmadis believe that the word `seal` means perfection... that Prophets can still come but none of them will ever bring a new `sharia` because Muhammad (SAW) was the last prophet in that respect... As for marrying pretty girls off to make more Muslims Ahmadis ... I don`t think so... for one thing, I really haven`t seen a pretty Ahmadi girl ... no offence to Ahmadis... secondly they are very conservative, always in Purdah and are often married within the Ahmadiya sect...

The Ahmadi community suffers from its own problems... one of them is that they follow the sunni mazhab to the letter when it comes to religious practice... they are usually very resentful of Shiites for some weird reason...

They are however educated and high-achievers... and this is the real cause of resentment by these Jamaat-e-Islami wallahs... it is quite clear when one reads Maudoodi`s life history and the life history of other Ahmadi-Bashers... that they were trying to pull another Hitler in Pakistan... the name `Ahmadi Problem` sounded a lot like `the Jewish Problem`... and the accusations and vocabulary that is used by these fanatics is quite similar.

In 1970 Maudoodi`s son visited Rabwa an Ahmadi city near Sargodha... what he said to Mirza Nasir Ahmed, then leader of the Ahmadiyya community was `It is a given that the Jamaat-e-Islami will sweep the polls... but if you promise us your support, we assure you safe passage out of Pakistan`...

This was what caused the Ahmadis to come out in great numbers to support Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the Peoples` Party... the rest we know is history... the Ahmadis were ultimately betrayed by Bhutto himself... however it was out of Political expediency and not out any ideological commitment and therefore Ahmadis were spared the concentration camps promised by the Jamaat-e-Islami...

I have no doubt that if any of the Mullahs... these enemies of Pakistan... ever came to power they would do to Ahmadis what Hitler did to the Jews...

-YLH

MaudidiLives (#7):

Here’s a different take on the Ahmadi/non-Ahmadi prayer issue.

Praying behind an imam is tantamount to accepting his views of Islam. Ahmadi view of Islam accepts continuation of prophethood and belief in prophets of Allah is an important belief of Islam. If a Muslim refuses to accept Promised Messiah … it is fair for Ahmadis to refuse to pray behind him.

This issue came to a flashpoint as threats of violence, as well as violence against Ahmadi-Muslims started to rise in the sub-continent. There were hundreds and thousands of Ahmadis living side by side with other Muslims in town and villages all across the country. Several Ahmadis were thrown out of mosques (and their seats washed, to make them holy again!), they were declared kaffirs and even wajib-e-qatal (deserving death) by Islamic scholars.

As the conflict escalated and threats of violence became imminent, the jamaat leadership took a stand in this regard. Rightfully so. It seems that a lot of violence and bloodshed has been avoided by this simple and firm decision of the jamaat. Do note that … to this day, lives, mosques, and property of Ahmadis continue to be attacked and destroyed in “the land of the pure” … at the incitement of mullahs in villages across Pakistan. And by no coincidence, perpetrators are never captured or brought to justice. And this supports the position of Ahmadi-Muslims, that their fears were not unfounded to begin with.

And one more thing … the charges against Ahmadis … that they conspired with the British to suppress Muslims … is based on bogus propaganda.

In short, Ahmadi-Muslims rejected calls of jihad against the British … since the jihad pre-requisites, as specified in Quran, did not exist. From what I understand, there was an on-going debate among Muslim scholars … with little consensus on this issue. Ahmadi-Muslims interpreted Quran in a way that called for peaceful resolution of the political conflict, and hence their reluctance in picking up arms against the British.

YLH.

Aap kay unplugged pay farmoodaat bata rahay thai kay aap PPP kay hi ho saktey hain.

It is no wonder that ``secularist qadiyanis`` like Mantolives are rejoicing at the butchering of Iraqi people. We should be very aware that Qadiyanis strengthened British occupation.

Qadiyanis chose to connect themselves with British Colonial govt in India. They know so well that it is in their interest to support foreign occupation because it suffocates Muslims and helps them achieve gains and destroy Islam. An independent and free Muslim nation is a hateful unfruitful land which they abhor greatly.

We can quote many texts taken from Mirza Ghulam Ahmad`s assertions and from his followers` declarations, but it suffices us to quote some and without commentary.

--``The English Government has bountifully rewarded, helped, and favored us to the extent that if we leave this country neither Mecca, nor Istanbul would shelter us. So how came you to doubt its goodness``.
(Ahmadiyan Talks, vol 1 pp.146)

--``I am unable to perform what I wish in Mecca, Medina, Domascus, Persia, Kabul or Rome except under this government`s protection for whose glory and victory I do pray God``. (Conveying the Message by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, vol VI pp. 69)

--``Oh, just think a little which land all over the world will shelter you, if you leave this country. Mention one government that will welcome and shelter you. All Muslim countries detest you and wish to kill you because, in their opinion, you are disbelievers. So estimate well the heavenly favor (the favor of British occupation) and be aware that Allah had not
brought the British into this country except for your welfare and interests. If catastrophes befall the British, you will not escape their dire effect and if you demand a proof of what I say, go and find shelter under any other regime and when you do this you will
see what happens to you. The British are Allah`s mercy and blessing, and a citadel for your protection. Estimate the British well and love them dearly because they are a thousand times better than Muslims who oppose you. It is sufficient to convince you with only
one thing: the British do not wish to humiliate or slaughter you``.
(Ghulam Ahmad`s valuable advice in conveying the message vol 1, pp. 123)

--``It is well known to all those who study the historyof nations how the Persian government maltreated Mirza Ali Mohammad Bab, the founder of Babism and his followers. It destroyed Babism for nothing else than religious disputes. It is as well known how the Turkish government ill-treated Bhah`Allah, the founder of Baha`ism and his followers between 1863-1893. It imprisoned them in Istanbul first, then in Edranovel and Acca. We also not know any other three countries which demonstrated religious fanaticism and narrowness
and which do not cope with the age of civilization and culture. Our knowledge of these three countries leads us to the conviction that the freedom of Ahmadis is closely related to the British throne.

All true Ahmadis who believe in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as a holy prophet sent by Allah to people do believe, without any little bit of flattery, that the British Government is Allah`s favor and the shade of His mercy. They also believe that the life of the British
Government is theirs``. (Al Fadl 13 Sept 1914)

These above mentioned assertions quite clearly certify to the fact that this gang of pretenders are aware of the benefits of disbelievers` occupation of Muslim counties because under the protection of occupation they can achieve their aims. If Muslim got power into
their hands, these pretenders will be crashed because free Muslims will not abide with those who destroy their religion and split their society.

Maududilives: You got that wrong too. Maudoodi is dead. And no doubt paying for his sins in the next world. As you will too, in due course (unless you stop worshipping your god Maudoodi).