Of Medical Students, Passports and Religous Tolerance Re: # 12 by moharr11

If you have a look at the passport form, the declaration is "For Muslims Only". The Pakistani government of course reserves the divine right to determine such issues of conscience and has accordingly declared Ahmedi's non-Muslims. Therefore, no Ahmedi's need sign the declaration. They can only read it and weep.

Of Medical Students, Passports and Religous Tolerance Re: # 1 posted by krbhatti

Actually, the author is completely correct about the declaration for the passport. Calling the author a liar and then calling him an Ahmedi as if it were a term of abuse rather than a simple religious designation clearly shows how bigoted some of the comments here are. Not to mention disingenious: whereas the author mentions a passport application, the reponse points to the declaration required for an ID card! I'll refrain from calling the poster #1 a liar because the ID card declaration he provided is not the same as that required for a drivers license (!), and urge him to read the actual declaration quoted by the author that can be found at the bottom of the official passport application form at: http://www.pakmission.ca/admin1/Embassy/FillableForms/PASSPORT%20APPLICATION%20F ORM.pdf

Now, of course, the discussion can shift into the vein of pure bigotry and intolerance, stripped of the pretence that there was actually some rational factual refutation to be made.

Intellectual Diversity of Human Thought tahemd32 #19 i completely agreed with the conclusions of your previous post (#15), if not with the route you took. in my opinion the epistemology of rights can be traced back much longer than the existential philosophers of the 20th century and their forerunners in the likes of nietzche. following a line of liberal and natural philosophers, i think the western liberal concept of individual rights culminated in the works of rousseau, and of course, went on to inspire the french revolution. of course, alternate versions of rights, or rather, of freedoms, probably emerge from different knowledge systems (e.g. the chinese, sub-continetal or islamic). but sadly these have been manipulated by authoritarian regimes (such as s.korea`s lee kuan yew and his so called `asian values`) rather than studied and critcally examined at length.

also, i hold the opinion that the idea of the `nation state` itself is quite divisive and has a racial matrix at its heart. dominant groups equate the state with the nation and hence, often attempt to cleanse the state of diverse nations representing the racial or cultural `other`. racism, i believe, is the heart of the nation state, a concept itself an imperial construct.

finally, i never thought about the unity, faith, discipline, maxim sounding exactly like a military dictate. brilliant point, well made.

Lessons from Constitutional History reading the discussion here has been very interesting. i imagine communal riots and massacres start in much the same way, with displays of ignorance, factual inaccuracies, and chauvinism on both sides. and harimau`s unrepentant and fascistic ethnic slurs betray the dark heart of ethnic nationalism. i thank you all for the enlightenment.

Intellectual Diversity of Human Thought in my opinion, whether iqbal makes it on the list of prominent philosophers on the world stage is not essential. for better or for worse, he is a major modern sub-continental philosopher and a prominent urdu poet. what is more noteworthy is the myth that he is essentially a meta-physical philosopher/poet. this is largely a result of his semi-divinsation after partition due to his contributions towards the pakistan movement (which are, despite romanticised and bastardised official histories of pakistan, often greatly exagerrated). in fact, his ideas were largely affected by the social context of his writings and were in a constant state of flux.

his poem `new temple` gives us a glimpse of his turn away from the metaphysics he had imbibed at the heidelberg. it reads:
``i shall tell the truth, o brahman, but take it
not as an offence:
the idols in they temple have decayed.
thou hast learnt from these images to bear
ill-will to thine own people,
and god has taught the mullah
the ways of strife
My heart was sick: i turned away
both from the temple and the ka`aba,
from the mullahs sermons and from
they fairy talse, o brahman``

his `complaint` or `kalaam` is well know and again see him eschewing meta-physics, if only by implication. his lesser known `gods commandments` actually sees allah listening to lenin and then commanding the angel gabriel:
``arise, awaken the wretched of this earth
shake the foundations, tremble the walls
of the mansions in which the wealthy sleep;
and in every field where a peasant starves,
there go and burn every bushel of wheat.``

and finally, the break with meta-physics is conveyed quite clearly in `the reconstruction of religious thought in islam`, where he argues that propechy reached its nadir with islam and thus, annihilated itself. islamic culture (as opposed to solely the religion) could only progress by becoming dialectical and synthetic and concentrating on the material and the finite.

thus, by treating iqbal as a meta-physical philosopher/poet, we ignore the wealth of his critical and materialist works and only contribute to the many historical distortions and myths surrounding him and his works.

Lessons from Constitutional History >Are you saying that preserving mother tongue and unique ancestral >culture is distracting and divisive political act and learning Urdu is not?

no, thats not what i said at all. if you re-read the post the first point i stressed was the importance of preserving unique languages and cultures. that the minority urdu language was forced into being the national language in a multi-linguistic state was absurd.

what i wanted to equally emphasise was the second point; that in india, pakistan and bangladesh, the most important language still remains english because it is the institutional language. access to courts and justice remains the preserve of elites who can communicate in english. even the supreme charters of these nations, ie their constitutions, which are meant to define us in terms of national character and aspirations, is in english. even employability in these countries often depends upon mastery of this language.

therefore, it is english which has been the biggest tool of social exclusion and marginalisation. but there is no comparable outcry at this state of affairs. hence, i meant to say that certain langauges seem to be more equal than others and it is this status quo is never challenged. what remains is divisive and manipulative politics and politicians using charged slogans and jingoisms for their own strategic gains, and the price in human misery which they extract.

Waste of Talent >I am not in favour of MMA nor agaionst it .Iam ignorent about it .

your ignorance does quite shine through on your post, i`m afraid.

it is actually not a know `fact` that students of single sex schools perform better academically than those of co-ed ones. to my mind, no study has been conducted thus far which would corroborate what you say. perhaps youre confused as to the studies done about women in pakistan, from both single sex and co-ed schools, generally performing better than men. other than that, your proposition is ridiculous.

the most demonstrable benefit of co-education is that most social interactions are not segregated. work places are not segreggated and to make them so would be economically and socially disastrous. co-education, in my opinion, is invaluable towards inculcating the etiquettes of interaction with the opposite sex. pakistan already doesnt posses nearly enough schools to fulfill the education requirements of its children and youth. in this respect, doubling the cost by having single schools only is ridiculous and would most probably mean even more substandard facilities for women.

i do agree that the way one looks has precious little to do with academic performance or the elusive concept of `modernity `and perhaps blindly mimicking the apparel of different cultures isnt the best way to go. but this has nothing to do with the issue of co-education. ultimately, its about having the freedom to choose how one wishes to dress without having others passing judgement or pointing fingers at them. every man in pakistan becoming a guardian of every womans morality has been a social distortion which primarily occurred during zia`s brutal regime and thinking of this sort doesnt help us reverse this retardation. you should stick to your own advice: dont be on of those morons who determine which aspects of `modernity` one should or shouldnt adopt and dont criticise something like co-education or the way women dress when the alternative doesnt provide any demonstrable benefits. if it aint broke...

Lessons from Constitutional History the bengalis werent the only ones who resisted jinnah`s call for a ``linga franca``. there were riots and protests in sindh as well. over the years, violent and violently suppressed language riots have claimed the live of thousands of sindhis and even balochis. of course, the point that the so called constitutionalist jinnah refused the voice of the (bengali) majority on the issue of national language (which, i think, was demanding the recognition of bangla as a national language as well) is a good one.

it must also be borne in mind that the language riots had as much to do with underlying schemes of doing away with a federation in favour of ``one unit`` which would have, some assert, sealed punjabi dominance of pakistan through over-representation in the two institutions which run the country; the bureacracy and the military.

despite the `dominance` of urdu, the vast majority of peoples in pakistan still retain their actual mother tongues. the issue of language is of course given pertinence for 2 main reasons: 1) the preservation of the most important vessel of unique cultual identity and reprsentation; and 2) social exclusion or marginalisation of peoples who cant converse in the dominant language. sadly, all over the sub-continent, even bangladesh, it is the english language which is truly dominant institutionally, as the language of law and policy. the constitution of the peoples republic of bangladesh is also in english, like its pakistani and indian counterparts. the supreme charter of these countries in a langage alien to most of its residents! english is thus the ultimate tool of social exclusion in these societies and our more parochial concerns and conceits over preserving regional languages is little more than a distracting and divisive political acts.

Intellectual Dishonesty of Pakistani (Pseudo-) Liberals Mr.Alam lamentation about so-called liberals attitude or approach and thinking is appreciated and he succeeds in pointation of ills pervading Pakistani society at large.What bothers me is that looking into faults lines of a society deserves a looking glass untainted by any pre-percieved notions.My point is that in Pakistani society ,there are no liberals-no intellectuals.the group of people who are addressed by the author as pseudo-liberals are no more than hypocratic self styled morons.Liberals in true sense has to be primarily free thinker and has to have a dialectic approach and no compromises on principles.Calling Mr.Jinnah as liberal by some self seeking opportunists is the biggest intellectual fraud.Mr.Jinnah`s personal life and his adoption of religion as political tool is vice worst compounded.This very hippocracy is become deep rooted in the artificial society forced created by vested interests and they are blamed as pseudo liberals.There are not and there cannot be any liberals in such society.I will go back to my considered opinion that sub-continent is the garbage of the world,with special reference to Pakistan.However,in the wake of criticism of liberals ,the author has well pointed out real fault line-The army,the main reason of infertility of minds in Pakistan. JS

Lessons from Constitutional History my bad about how jefferson felt about his slaves. i stand corrected.

the debate here seems to have been sidetracked and the original thread forgotten. its quite telling though that we (referring to the pakistanis here, and not our indian bretheren) instantly tend to foget our own historical and political blights and problems and jump on the gun shooting criticisms at india and indians (some valid, others not so) instead. indians, by the looks of it, enjoy doing the same.

i dont particularly see a cause of argument here. the short of it is that both india and paksitan have horrendous human rights records and have been responsible for massacres of its own citizens. the indian state has slaughtered muslims in kashmir, and the much publicized riots of bombay, gujarat and a number of others. the reasons have been political, as gujarat is the last big state which still has a bjp government. india has persecuted, incarcerated, tortured and killed thousands of sikhs in punjab, as well as others in nagaland and even tamil nadu.

pakistan has similarly persecuted and killed thousands of ahmedis in and since the 1950`s, tens of thousands of baluch in the rebelions of the 1950`s and 1970`s, around 200,000 bangladeshi`s in the 1970`s, thousands of muhajirs in the 1980`s under zia and thousands since, and of course, our military advenures in kashmir, as well as our military backed militants, have also cost thousands of kashmiri lives.

we should shed tears for all of them (it is quite true that when we mention bangladesh, we mention our military failiures and indian intervention rather than our humanitarian failiures and crimes. pakistanis have been largely silent about bangladesh since 1971. our previous ambassador to bagladesh was sent back because he spoke in favour of the genocide. it has only been musharraf who apologised very recently for bangladesh, because of certain political pressures). interesting that our perceptions are so molded by the official lines which both india and pakistan toe, that is, whenever there are domestic problmes there is heavy fighting in kashmir. similar arguments or conflicts here about adopting holier than thou positions doesnt take away that both states have cost the peoples of the many nations living within this geographical area dearly.

like all the lives lost in the subcontinent because off and since partition, partition itself is also a historical fact. personally, i feel that india has long since accepted partition and pakistan as a state (whatever other problems india might have, i will not be vane enough to address them here). pakistan now has to move on and stop defining its identity and politics, especially its foreign policy, in oppositional terms to india. if we, as pakistanis fail to achieve this level of mental and intellectual independence from india then that is what might be the final nail in the coffin of the 2 nation theory.

Lessons from Constitutional History i found that the article provided interesting and not generally acknowledged facts about pakistans legal and constitutional (as opposed to straight political) history. it made an important point about one of pakistans most `sacred cows`. jinnah might have been, as nawaid said, ``some sort of dictator``. he appointing himself as governor general (essentially the post of vice-roy, re-packaged for de-colonisation consumption) instead of mountbatten continuing the position till an independent constitution was framed (as was expected). thus, he gave himself all the powers that should have legally or rightly belonged to the parliament (or constituent assembly) and the prime minister.

the issue with the NWFP government was that it was a congress government which did not oppose joining pakistan outright but asserted its rights to maintain its democratically elected government in the province. further, jinnah used arbitrary emergency powers to dismiss khuros government (the then cheif minister of sindh). the dismissal was over khuros long standing dispute with hidayatullah (the then governor of sindh) as the former was a big advocate of land reform and peasant rights while the latter was a major spokesmen for the waderas. in this way it was ensured that, in fact, conventional and not constitutional politics would dominate sindhi and national political life.

i dont quite understand the issue which nawaid takes up with the article but godot definitely makes a very intelligent one. we must look to the future. however, this has to be done with a thorough historical analysis. the political situation in paksitan has historical roots which must be analysed. even today, jeffersons writings and recorded speeches form important parts of debates over US constitutional interpretations and his ambivalent attitude towards slaves (he was against them in principle but not in practice, a conflict he tried to resolve by keeping his slaves mostly locked up out of sight in the cellar) still crop up in contemporary academic debates about race relations and identity politics. only when historical problems are understood and brought into the popular conciosness will popular solutions be devised to them. the resistance to the presentation of facts about jinnah and his role in pakistans sad constitutional history, as well as the general ignorance of these facts is testimony to the fact that the article might be too late but is still a welcome start.

for these reasons, i appreciated the article as it presented its factual analysis in a largely objective manner. if jinnah appears to be a de facto dictator with a view to the facts then it says more about us than about the author. if the shoe fits...but that is a seperate debate altogether and was not what, i believe, the article primarily adressed.

finally, being a stranger to these discussions, the `debate` between tipu and faisaluno is ridiculous (at least to someone not aware of the background) and displays a general tendency to argue gross generalisations rather than actual factual positions.