What is Secularism?

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#57:

[In Turkey even men were prohibited to get education and employment if they did n`t dress up in a certain way. ]

I think that has more to do with the policies and procedures of certain environments than anything else. I also think that religion should not be brought into education and/or employment. If you are studying religious studies or are in a madressah then that`s different.

echo,

......... what the heck is a tiktikee ?........ never heard of it - is it something the judges in iran invented recently ? .......... just curious

......... look, no need to get upset ...... dost-mittar has suggested the rafique zakaria is going to be the next messiah; some say it could be this woman who led the prayers or it could be irshad manji .......... personally i think there is no hope for internal reform - it will have to be forced by others ..........

Amit #46: First of all, you have started making far too much sense. At least, in my opinion. And when people`s views start agreeing with mine too much, I usually don`t interact with them much. Because there is nothing the two can learn from each other, at that point. The two just keep agreeing. This is why I rarely interact with people like HisExcellency, Ahmadzai etc. Since our views are nearly identical to mine on nearly everything..........

``So assuming you were in power in Pakistan, how would you architect a humane religious society there?``

Hmm......good question. Actually as I said, I have nothing against a secular Pakistan. I just think most Pakistanis would have something against it. So what would work in Pakistan. Well, Ata-Turk will not work. Nor will Ghazali.

I think Bulleh Shah might work nicely. He was definitely not secular. His poetry and philosophy is filled with Islam. He was the son of a religious figure. He studied in religous institutions. He devoted his life to the Sufi side of Islam. His poetry is filled with religious symbolism.

Yet, his poetry is also filled with a vicious critique of mullahs. Legend has it that he was denied a funeral by them. And he is loved equally by Sikhs and Hindus. And his philosophies seem to have developed in the local language from the local customs.............

aslam644 #51: ``Romair
You are probably the most misunderstood person on chowk, apart from Nazis and communists (and we all know what disaster they’ve been) I don’t think there is a purely secular country, certainly....... The ultimate aim for humanity should be humanism, I don’t think we can have that without cradle to grave welfare state something along the Scandinavian model.``

Yes. You are probably correct. Many of my views seem to be quite misunderstood here. I end up stating things many times, yet still find individuals arguing with me on issues, which I, myself acknowledged.

There is a reason for this. It is because, I see the world as shades of grey. While many on this site, see it as black and white. ``Either you are with us, or against us.`` Which is why people get so emotionally heated in debates. While I rarely get emotional. Because I am not pushing an agenda, of my own. I am equally comfortable in almost any agenda.

The other reason is that many people let their own personal beliefs dictate what is good for Pakistan (or India or USA etc.). They think they have the answer and try to morph the history and social beliefs of Pakistan, incorrectly, to portray it to support their beliefs. They don`t look at things like religion, secularism, athiesm, etc. as philosophies. They look at them through political likes and dislikes.

You are quite correct in stating that their are no purely secular societies in the world. There really aren`t any purely religious ones either. Everyone is a shade of grey. The West is currently making major decisions on gay marriage, which will decide the future of secularism. Those countries like Canada, which have accepted it, will see drastic changes in their societies once the State takes religion out of its agenda for marraiges. And those, like the USA, which are rejecting it, are basically rejecting secularism beyond a certain point.

I have always wondered what Pakistanis secularists think of gay marriage. Will they push it and support the cause of Pakistani gays (who outnumber, by a huge margin probably, Ahmedis)? If not, then do they really accept secularism as a philosophy? Or are they only using it to counter the mullahs?

Live and let live......is a good philosophy........

Dost-mittar #49:``I have seen secularism translated into la-deeniyat in Urdu.``

You are correct. It is translated like that. And it is presented like that, by many political parties. My point was that it is not viewed like that by many. However, it does require a rejection of the public laws of religion. I don`t know why people don`t openly state this when they argue in favor of secularism. It is a domination of religion over state at the personal level. And the domination of state over religion at the public level.

I think the reason religious groups in Pakistan present it as la-deniyat is because they want to hide the fact that it does allow religion at the personal level. And I think the reason secularists don`t mention the fact that it rejects religion at the public level, is because they would have to acknowledge that secularism will end up disregarding a certain percentage (the parts in the Quran that relate to govt.) of Islam as incorrect or unusable.............

``Pakistanis and other Muslims are willing to come to the greener pastures of the West because, as I had said in my earlier post, most of them have accepted the separation of personal and public aspect of their religion.``

I am not too sure about this. I think most come to the West not for its secularism or relgion. But to get a higher standard of living. That, in my opinion, is the driving force in a human`s life. Once they achieve that standard, then all of a sudden they turn into the big promoters of religion or secularism.........

``I suspect that you have too unless you think that you are duty-bound to kill anyone who renounces Islam.``

I am, personally, pretty comfortable anywhere. Relgious, secular, athiest etc. Doesn`t really matter much to me. As long as the people are nice and allow me to run a good business. The air-conditioning and heating is good. And their is good cable TV..........And of course, broadband access to the Internet is a must, since I spend 10-12 hours a day on my computer......Hot water at high pressure from the shower is a requirement also....A decent desi restaraunt in the neighborhood is an added bonus, as is a decent gym.......After that, I am set..........I don`t get too caught up in religion or secularism. And I have always found it odd and comical that so many people are so passionately attached to either of the two..........

``But I do think that Islamic reformation will take place, and it will take place in a country where challenging religious dogmas is par for the course.....but by a Muslim whose muslim credentials are impeccable, someone like Rafique Zakaria of India.``

I don`t know much about Rafique Zakaria. Isn`t he the father of Fareed, and a guy who hated Jinnah? You might be correct about some reformation taking place in a non-Muslim country. However, it is quite useless for reformation of anything to take place where it is a minority. After all, it is the majority that needs to be affected.

There is actually a lot of independent thought and literature in Islam. Genuine literature. Not the Rushdie and Manji nonsense to sell books. But that is a separate debate for another time..........

#50
Reuters reported less than 50 persons attended. Not that it matters. The hula-baloo would die down very soon a la Rushdie Manji.

But why are YOU gloating? If you want to be a walking billboard for promotion of Sharaab & Zina that is fine because you are not a muslim..you are abdoolamreeka and dushmane-Islam. Just keep a distance from the mosques; even Amina Wadud`s--you might have a bomb strapped aroung your waist. Your types do it.

Your disdain for our prophet and Islamic values are are matter of record oR are you still residing in the loop-hole of `` Yaar meiN tO mazaque krtaa hooN; George Carlin miray khaloo hotay haiN naa``!

The KoRRa & tiktikees have been specifically designed for trailer-trash like you. And it is on its way. Keep nightmaring!

There is one common element on this thread that points and shrieks what I had said earlier.


``E C O N O M I C S R U L E S``

``P E R I O D``

Gentlemen, secularism is not a choice anymore in this global village.
While we are masterbating with words, it will not conceive any result.

Any nation that does not or can not interface with rest of the world due to it`s rigidity of faith will invite wrath of big Economic Chaudhry`s led by USA.

It is like a Tsunami effect felt thousands of miles away from the epicentre.

For e.g. Saudi Arabia, 100% Muslim, Shariat following, reverse of anything that Secularism is about, Oil Rich but heavily dependent on other nations for everything else other than oil;
has been pressurised to change its theocratic mindset.

You might say, by who and when,
I`d say look at the way around us in West in the mass media, universities, poitical rallies, how a consensus is being build against Saudia on the grounds of terrorism creeping up from religous intolerance.

Since West is the forerunner of all the major world shaping activities of our planet these days, and they do not like Non-Secular nations because of conflict of interest with what they value as their right of way.

Any nation that is not secular will simply stand isolated and blown away or forced to commit suicide.

I am not a Westophile but a realistic person.

All of our present day existence is a gift of Western culture and Western masters do not want theocratic states. That is why Secularism will be exported to Pakistan and rest of the World, with or without their approval.

Why the hell in 4 days after 9/11 Pakistan`s Govt put JUPHEES around uncle Sam and disowned Afganistan after working hard for 30 years. Why was Quranic affinity overlooked when pressured by a big Hawaldar with a Danda.

Humbly yours and no offence intended!

echo,

is this what is bothering you ?? :

A professor in the US is thought to have become one of the first Muslim women to lead mixed Friday prayers.
More than 100 men and women attended the service and sermon given by Amina Wadud, professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University.

The location was moved to an Anglican Church building in New York after mosques refused to host the event.


............ this is nothing - i proposed bingo on friday nights at the local mosque to raise funds ! ......... i am also working on a local imam to allow two glasses of merlot between maghrib and isha in the tradition of hazrar umar .......

The notion that secularism restricts religion to onlya personal sphere is just a hogwash and an absolute lie. The fact on the other hand is that the Secularism in its essence is against ones choice as personal as one`s dress if it feels threatened by it. The prime example is Turkey where doors to women`s education and employment were shut to those who wouldn`t dress up in a way that was less threatening to the so called ``all inclusive`` secularism - my ass. In Turkey even men were prohibited to get education and employment if they did n`t dress up in a certain way. Recently in France and in germany doors to Muslim women have been shut down for education and employment unless they give up their personal choice of attire and conform to the state manadated dress code.n. Hello!!! am I missing something here; is this the the secularism that restricts relifgion to individual choice- my ass. If an ideology and political system feels so threatened by the Hijab of a 10 years old child then there is something wrong with it in its core. Why don`t we accept the fact that Seculatrism in itself is a religion, it prolysetizes, and it demand people to give up their individuality to a society where culture is the values and not the other way around.

And is this not the western agenda which former atheists, communists, erstwhile socialists and the neo secularists, liberal and humanists have on their troubled minds?

Licking their wounds after the demise of their AmmaNjaan Russia, such scum have put on new costumes and are trying to put up a show which is pretty comic but they consider that they are enacting a tragedy.

With Islam & muslims: It will simply not work. The ultimate secularist experience in recent history, communists, tried their best to suppress & oppress muslims in former soviet republic and see how it has rebounded and is now prpering & blooming--despite the throttle of western-appointed thUggs; kike Musharraf Mubarak et al.

It is blossoming & blooming in the cradle of Mill, Hobbes, & Locke. The ``education`` didn`t work. It is the western man who is the most powerful voice in the western world. The term ``western`` would itself be rendered archaic--because now there are muslims in the west and they are heard & listened to.

This ``terrorist`` ``Islamist`` ``suicide-bomber`` bogeyman cry doesn`t impress anyone anymore. Islam & Muslims have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

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Rand Report on Islam revisited
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Al-Jazeerah, March19 ,2005
March18 th marks the first anniversary of formal release of the Rand Corporation report on Islam, entitled Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies.

The report has two fold agenda:1 . Try to create a version of Islam that suits the post9 / 11western agenda.2 . Creating divisions in the Muslim society at home and abroad.

The Rand Report recipe to achieve this objective is to encourage and promote the so-called modernist Muslims and play one section of the society against another to split the society. In another report released in December2004 , the Rand Corporation elaborated on the second point and recommended playing the two major Muslim sects Sunnis and Shiites against each other to achieve policy objects.

We are not sure what impact the Rand report has on the1 . 5billion Muslims living in independent Muslim countries as well as minorities in many other countries.

However, we can see some reaction in the American Muslim community where the so called progressive or modern Muslims are trying to benefit from the current atmosphere of fear and siege caused by the arbitrary arrests, FBI interviews, racial profiling, surveillance of their mosques, closing down of Islamic charities and constant anti-Islam and anti-Muslim propaganda in the mainstream media.

We are experiencing the re-emergence of Orientalism of the19 th century aimed at forcing the Muslims living in US to abandon the basic tenets of Islam. This neo-Orientalism is coming in the shape of such research documents as the Rand Report which questions the authenticity of Islam’s holy scripture, the Quran. Even a fake version of Quran is now available in print. It was distributed in a private school in Kuwait.

At the same time, we see cropping up of some Muslim groups such as Free Muslims Against Terrorism, Progressive Muslim Union of North America (PMUNA) and Center for Islamic Pluralism which are not only challenging the basic tenets of Islam but also challenging the established Muslim organizations.

Free Muslims Against Terrorism, established by Kamal Nawash who ran for Virginia State Assembly in November 2003 as a Republican candidate. One can well understand his political ambitions and hidden agenda of his organization. Just one example, how it is working against the American Muslim groups. In January this year the Executive Director of Free Muslims Against Terrorism, wrote an e mail to Enver Masud of an Islamic website, Wisdom Foundation, saying: We are very disappointed in your site and it should be taken down…. I will recommend to our extremist watch committee that we place your site on our list of extremist sites or sites that support terrorism. Here is the website address of Wisdom Foundation where one can see what kind of message Enver Masud has: www.twf.org

The Progressive Muslim Union of North America (PMUNA) was formed on November15 , 2004 by some professed moderates who embrace the simple proposition that “you are a Muslim if you say you are a Muslim -- for whatever reason or set of reasons -- and that no one is entitled to question or undermine this identity.”

The PMUNA is now forcing mainstream Muslim organizations to take positions on even non-issues in order to put them at odds with their own community, and if don`t take a position they would be considered as the ``bad or extremist`` Muslims. Sarah Eltantawi, one of its co-founders is demanding the major Muslim groups and organizations to take position on a non-issue, i.e. if a woman can lead Friday prayers. It is not an uncommon knowledge that the status of woman in Islam is now being used by the West to defame Islam.

“I demand to know where the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) stands on this issue. I demand to know where the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) stands on this issue. And KARAMAH, the American Sufi Muslim Association, Women in Islam, Azizah Magazine, and other groups who speak for Muslims and Muslim women,” Eltantawi asks.



The PMUNA is not alone in working against the major American Muslim organizations. The first goal of Center for Islamic Pluralism established by Stephan Shwartz, a Muslim convert, is the removal of CAIR and ISNA from monopoly status in representing Muslims to the American public because, according to CIP, as long as they retain a major foothold at the highest political level, no progress can be made for moderate American Islam. By the way, Shwartz claims to be a Sufi Muslim and the Rand study recommends promotion of Sufism in Islam for US policy objectives.

The Rand Report is silent on the reasons of discontentment in the Muslim world. The report does not address any of the core issues that are central in developing the perceptions of the Muslim world like; Palestine, Kashmir and Chechnya issues and the exploitative political systems supported by the American or European elites. No reference is made to the West’s support for totalitarian secular Muslim regimes, Israel ’s endless pogroms against the Palestinians and ethnic cleansing perpetrated against Muslims in Eastern Europe and Chechnya.

A number of recent studies have reaffirmed that the reason for anti-American sentiments in the Muslim masses is because of American policies. Pentagon advisory group, Defense Science Board, in its November 2004 report pointed out that Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather they hate our policies. “American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single-digits in some Arab societies.”

To give a helping held in the daunting task of countering the anti-American sentiments in the Muslim world some ‘moderate’ Muslims established the American Muslim Group on Policy Planning (AMGPP) on December13 ,2004 . “The AMGPP is willing to play a very active role in helping improve US image and counter the tide of extremism and anti-Americanism in the Muslim World, the AMGPP founder explains. Now one may ask does this group supports B! ush administration’s policy objects such as the occupation of Iraq, the war against Afghanistan, torture in Guantanamo Bay, Baghram and Abu Ghraib and support of undemocratic Muslim governments.

In this context, I would like to refer to a report “Understanding Islamism” issued earlier this month by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group: “The failure to address the Palestinian question and, above all, the decision to make war on Iraq and the even more extraordinary mishandling of the post-war situation there have unquestionably motivated and encouraged jihadi activism across the Muslim world.”

According to the report (the quotation of which does not mean its endorsement), Sunni political Islamism, is definitely modernist in most essential respects, favoring non-violent over violent strategies, open to dialogue and debate and interested in democratic ideas. The report adds: that the West can encourage this evolution. But should it choose to do so, it will need to drop or at least moderate its more activist and interventionist impulses where Muslim countries are concerned, display greater respect for their sovereignty, understand their ambition to renegotiate their relations with it over a range of issues and come to terms with and take account of their viewpoints on the most controversial questions in the current relationship, notably the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iraq and the modalitie! s of the ``war against terrorism`` in general.



The report warned that if ``moderate`` is defined to mean ``co-optable``, it can only really refer to groups and tendencies which fail to articulate the frustrations and expectations of the mass of ``ordinary decent Muslims``, have little or no purchase on their political reflexes and will prove unable to promote either significant reform in Muslim countries or a substantive modernization of their cultural and ideological outlook. “Rather than reducing the appeal of extremist currents, the patronizing of ``moderates`` in this sense by Western governments risks reinforcing it, while undermining the modernist tendency in Sunni Islamism to the benefit of fundamentalists and jihadis,” the International Crisis Group report concluded.



Returning to the Rand report, Civil Democratic Islam: partners, resources, strategies, the suggestions of its author, Cheryl Benard, are nothing more than a Machiavellian manifesto that seeks to enforce Western hegemony and cultural imperialism through the policy of “divide and rule.” The type of Islam that Benard espouses is a passive and weak Islam that can be easily penetrated and hence reformulated to suit the West’s agenda.

The report may be seen as the latest in a long series of policy papers by the “embedded intellectuals” dedicated to further the military and economic objectives of the West as well as cultural onslaught on the Muslims.

In a briefing – entitled Taking Saudi Out of Arabia - given on July10 , 2002 to a the Defense Policy Board, former RAND analyst Laurent Murawiec described Saudi Arabia as the “kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent” to US interests in the Middle East. He argued that Washington should demand that Saudi Arabia stop supporting “terrorism” or face seizures of its oil fields and its financial assets in the US. Murawiec urged a multi-stage Grand strategy for the Middle East, beginning with Iraq as the tactical pivot, continuing to Saudi Arabia as the strategic pivot and finally to Egypt as the prize.

#54:
encore:
``iss chaman meiN kabaab kee boo hai, koi chUrsee kaheeN jala hogaa``
I know you are very touchy.

PUR dil pUr mutt ley yaar. jaa merlot pee and then standing-up pee in your kitchen-sink and wait for a miracle. [ and then call dost-mittar:reference #34 post]

it is nothing personal :)

echoboom,

it is nothing personal - here is why we have to folks of your ilk seriously :

A suspected suicide bomber targeting a theatre near a British school in Qatar has killed one Briton and injured about 12 other people.

More than 30 people have been killed and dozens injured in a bomb blast at a Muslim shrine in southern Pakistan.

sorry, echoboom ........... based on your ilogs, rantings and ravings i cannot give you the benefit of doubt like the other ``abdul-hate``, jay ...........anyone who is willing to blow himself up has to be taken seriously .............only fools take islamists lightly

#50:
Hamidm
Your schtikk is getting pathetic now.
Read Stuka`s one line again. Never forget he is what you call a ``horrible hindu`` [your `yaar meiN tO majaak kr riaa thha`` your usual fifth amendment ghoonghat is passe now]

reproduced here to for a `well-done` flavour:
[iss chaman meiN kabaab kee boo hai, koi chUrsee kaheeN jala hogaa]

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#36 by stuka on March 19, 2005 7:13am PT
Echoboom as usual has the last word on the subject:

``In Pakistan the dunda is on the white side. In India the dunda is inserted equitably & fairly.``

Good one...

---

adhee botal ka nashaa tO ``as usual`` meiN hai.

Zindabad `` Pakistan returned`` Stuka.

It is unfortunate that I cannot write simple english and these totaa-mainaas lack comprehension skills.

ubb inn ko madressa bhaij kay bhee kyaa milay gaa. bichaaray! tch tch

Re: # 43
Romair
You are probably the most misunderstood person on chowk, apart from Nazis and communists (and we all know what disaster they’ve been) I don’t think there is a purely secular country, certainly not turkey and as for USA they have thanks giving day, Christmas day and every time bush opens his mouth, he says god bless America (whats all that about).

Ireland has banned abortions and in the uk, church still performs important functions of ‘hatching, matching and despatching’ and education and welfare for the poor.
In my opinion most western countries are qausi-secular.

The ultimate aim for humanity should be humanism, I don’t think we can have that without cradle to grave welfare state something along the Scandinavian model.