Age of madness

[RabzonKhan]

The stripe on the flag

By Amina Jilani
Published in The Express Tribune, March 20th, 2011.

Tucked away, last month, in the nether region of one of our leading daily press publications was a news item regarding a debate in the not-so-honourable national assembly on the subject of our non-existent law and order which had taken place on February 23, undoubtedly under-attended as the deputy speaker was presiding.

People’s representative Nadeem Afzal Gondal of the PPP, elected from Sargodha-I, stood up and stated the obvious: “Our leaders will have to give thought to separating religion from politics for the good of the country.” We are all surely unfamiliar with Gondal and his name, as we are with the vast majority of those propelled by the ballot box to sit in the 342-seats of the assembly. How many of these members think like Gondal? We have no idea. But we could hazard a guess, familiar as we are with the national mindset, and say that there could be but a mere handful.

What this honourable representative is advocating is a state of secularism. But then the word ‘secular’ in this country is regarded as a four-letter word — unmentionable (‘liberal’ has become another). Secular, as far as our learned divines and non-divines are concerned, denotes the negation of religion, whereas in actual fact it means quite the opposite. In secular states, all religions are accorded equal respect in the eye of the law and in the national mindset; no religion takes precedence over another and all are protected by law. But, secularism has to mean that there is no such thing as a majority or a minority based on religion.

The fatal mistake made by this state was the division made at its very birth, when its flag was so designed with green to represent the vast majority and a slip of white for the minorities. Once the differentiation is made and established, doom must follow. Then came Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s now famous address to his constituent assembly when he invoked the majority-minority factor. A division of India had to take place, he asserted, because one community was in the majority and the other in the minority. So, all was not well. Then why, did the new break-away country start off with majorities and minorities? Said Jinnah, “in this division it was impossible to avoid the question of minorities … ”.

He then urged his legislators to “change your past” so that every person regardless of caste, creed or colour is “first, second and last a citizen of this state with equal rights, privileges and obligation …”. He assured them that in the course of time the “angularities of the majority and minority communities… will vanish.” They did not, they multiplied to such an extent that they now prevail over all else in a highly deadly fashion.

Well, once you are dealing with a majority-minority situation, how on earth is equality to be assured? Equality does not recognise such a division — in equality there can be no majority or minority as there cannot be in a democracy. Equal means equal and nothing else. Jinnah did of course, also famously, state in that August 11, 1947 address that religion “is not the business of the state”, and MNA Gondal is merely standing by that statement when he told the miserably attended assembly that his leadership should do good for his country and follow the line of the country’s founder.

But the leadership will not without a revolution — a revolution of the national mindset which has to be turned completely upside down if this country is to ever be free of strife, of militant religiosity, of bigotry and intolerance. There cannot be minorities if it is to progress into the 21st century. The word ‘minority’ should be stricken from the Constitution, from the statute books, from the national mindset — and there should not be a stripe on the flag.

 

[RabzonKhan]

The price of our ghairat

By Shehzad Shah
Published in The Express Tribune, March 24th, 2011.

Our ghairat is far too valuable to be sacrificed for scraps of economic aid from the emperor’s table. That honour goes to nations like Iran and Venezuela that boldly defy the superpower of the day and keep the banner of their national pride flying high. There is also the example of North Korea, a country that doesn’t possess any natural bounty and yet, thumbs its nose at pretty much the entire world. Its people may be terrorised and destitute, but the sacrifice of their lives is a fair cost for qaumi ghairat. So why can’t we be the same?

The fact is that there are two models of securing national honour. One is the North Korean model, where the state takes on all and sundry regardless of its own strength vis-à-vis the one that it is being confronted. It does this by spending what little it has on building up its armed forces and by sacrificing the welfare of its people. The culmination of this model is nuclear weapons, the national equivalent of the suicide bomber’s jacket. These allow the state to say to the world, “if I go down, I’ll take you with me!” The other model is the one adopted by the countries of East Asia, where the state dedicates itself to building up its economic strength before taking on the powerful. But building strength takes time and a sustained focus. It means ensuring that the citizenry is educated and healthy, so their productivity rises and translates into greater economic output. For the ghairat brigade, this is far too long-term and dispassionate to be accepted as a solution to our crisis of national honour. So it’ll have to be the North Korean model — the same model we have followed for the last many decades. But would the outcome have been different if we had instead latched on to the ‘East Asian’ model?

Consider education. Where the state has failed, NGOs have fulfilled some of the enormous need in this sector. Presently, it would take just under 100,000 schools to educate all the children in the country up till matriculation. The cost of building all these schools is $38 billion. The annual operating cost is $3.7 billion. These are big numbers. But consider what we have sold our ghairat for in the past. The price tag is around $45 billion in aid since the Ayub era, not including the $7.5 billion currently pledged by the Kerry-Lugar Bill. This of course is the nominal amount; in today’s exchange rate, it would be many times the sum. So for a portion of what we sold our honour, we could have educated our nation. Would that hypothetically educated nation be better able to protect its honour? Maybe not. Martyrdom is the pinnacle of honour after all and when death is the greatest glory then nothing else is needed.

 

[muse]

I would encourage all Defence.pk readers to read below and comment,



Is the media fanning extremism?
Yawar Abbas


The assassination of Salmaan Taseer at the hands of a religious zealot threw open the debate over the media’s role in encouraging extremist tendencies amongst the people of Pakistan. The proposition that the media is fanning extremist propensities may be somewhat overstated but is, at the same time, not completely unfounded.

During the last decade, Pakistan’s media has contributed positively to the cause of democracy in the country and also played an active role in the restoration of the judges through round the clock coverage of the famous Lawyers’ Movement. Nonetheless, serious doubts and conflicting views regarding the media’s role in the country have also accompanied these wide-scale developments.

Some of these views rise from concerns that the media is strictly averse to the idea of even the most modest regulation by the government and that it refuses to abide by a unanimously agreed code of conduct or ethics. The media groups in the country have grown into big mafias; they own print as well as electronic media — a situation that is almost unprecedented anywhere in the world. Critics also maintain that the Pakistani media is creating an environment of despair and hopelessness by presenting a very bleak picture of the country. This constant fear mongering and pessimistic outlook on such a broad scale can have its own psychological ramifications for Pakistani society in the future.

The most serious allegation levelled against the Pakistani media is that it is very cautious in reporting about the violence caused by religious extremists. TV channels are dominated by far-rightists and hardcore conservatives. There are very few left-wing journalists. Terrorists are called “militants” or, at the most, “miscreants”. This nomenclature is chosen very carefully. So far, the media has not been able to come up with a well-defined campaign against the terrorists’ extremist propaganda, except for a few occasional songs or advertisements. The media, at the very least, has a very high tolerance for accommodating extremist ideas in its mainstream reporting. A plausible reason put forth for the media’s sympathetic and sometimes apologetic tone towards terrorists is the lack of protection given to journalists and reporters by the government against such extremists. Nonetheless, at this critical time, maintaining such an indifferent posture is suicidal.

The propaganda put forth by extremists has undoubtedly been more effective than that of the government. Pakistan’s war effort has greatly suffered due to the lukewarm response of the country’s media. The media, it appears, is only obsessed with reporting about the death toll of drone strikes and army operations debating whether it is ‘our’ war or ‘their’ war. Blowing trivial issues out of proportion and ignoring issues of vital importance cannot be disguised under the garb of ‘neutrality’ — this is nothing but dishonesty. Sensationalising news, broadcasting hate speeches, inciting anger by inviting religious bigots on talk shows, re-telecasting events that are of a sensitive nature and may give rise to public unrest and a general feeling of helplessness, distorting somebody’s statement by quoting him/her out of context, allowing extremist figures to indoctrinate viewers by glorifying terrorists as jihadis, giving more airtime to apologists and sympathisers of militants and very little time to their critics and exposing audiences to the fanatical views propagated by semi-educated anchor-persons and politicians is by any standard yellow journalism and is reflective of an irresponsible media.

The masses, already susceptible to extremist ideas due to their exposure to fanatical preaching prevalent in society, are easily influenced by such radicalised media items. Under these circumstances, it is no wonder that the same are gradually encouraged to take the law into their hands, without any regard for the sanctity of the rule of law and the system of justice. There is no doubt that such uninformed decisions emanate from the doctrine of ignorance being fed by such shortsighted political and religious ‘analysts’.

A possible solution to the problem is the development of a clear-cut position by key media players on extremism and terrorism. In this sense a well thought out counter-propaganda policy is much needed. The need of the hour is zero tolerance for extremism. Pakistan is at a crossroads in its history and the media has a crucial role to play in its future. One can only hope that it will play its part responsibly.

The writer is in the Foreign Service of Pakistan

 

[VCheng]

Muse: This article is too simplistic in its outlook and proposed solution. Some key points it misses are the socioeconomic root causes of the propensity towards extremist ideologies, coupled with lack of social mobility, justice, and basic services like health and education. Merely a "counter-propaganda" campaign, no matter how well co-ordinated or thought out, can solve this. There is no short cut solution here.

 

[muse]

Some key points it misses are the socioeconomic root causes of the propensity towards extremist ideologies, coupled with lack of social mobility, justice, and basic services like health and education

VCheng

All one has to do to better understand the validity of so-called "socio-economic root causes" and "propensity" towards extremism, is to look at those who are persuaded by and who promote extremist ideas on this forum --- are they also poor or from socially backward classes or have not experienced social mobility??

Is Al-Qaida not led by a super billionaire who is trained as a engineer and a physician?? Aren't the majority of AQ members (original) not professionals, computer savvy, university graduates??

And how is it that where there is an emphasis on scientific education, extremist ideas find little appeal?

Don't get me wrong, I think we should continue to refine our ideas but lets not revisit ideas that have failed to offer us a deeper understanding of the issue.

Extremism is all about IDEOLOGY, how is that ideology disseminated, who are it's stars and how is their stardom spread?

 

[VCheng]

All one has to do to better understand the validity of so-called "socio-economic root causes" and "propensity" towards extremism, is to look at those who are persuaded by and who promote extremist ideas on this forum --- are they also poor or from socially backward classes or have not experienced social mobility??

Those promoting extremist ideas on this forum are probably not socially backward, but likely to be socially immobile, yes. These are the bitter chattering classes, no more and no less. Those blowing themselves up are definitely socially downtrodden and taken advantage of by the crafty puppetteers.

Is Al-Qaida not led by a super billionaire who is trained as a engineer and a physician?? Aren't the majority of AQ members (original) not professionals, computer savvy, university graduates??

Much of OBL's fortune has evaporated. His family still has assets of several hundred million dollars, but those are not accessible to him anymore. OBL is not a phyisican but was only a civil engineer. Al-Zawahiri was a trained physician but not an engineer. There are only a minoirty of professionals within the ranks of Al-Qaeda with technical degrees. Merely churning out propaganda on websites does not equal savvy in my book.

And how is it that where there is an emphasis on scientific education, extremist ideas find little appeal?

Because scientific enlightenment is a strong antidote to religious dogma.

Don't get me wrong, I think we should continue to refine our ideas but lets not revisit ideas that have failed to offer us a deeper understanding of the issue.

Could you please tell me a bit more about these ideas you regard as having failed to offer us a deeper understanding, given that my time here on PDF has been rather short. I apologize in advance if I am asking you to revisit an issue that has probably been discussed in detail before my joining this forum.

Extremism is all about IDEOLOGY, how is that ideology disseminated, who are it's stars and how is their stardom spread?

Extremism in the present context of terrorism affecting Afghanistan and Pakistan is no more than the violent attempt to wrestle political power from the established power structures by the mullah brigade who have failed to gain power over the last several decades.

This ideology is being disseminated in mosques, madrassas and associated organziations like Al-Huda who are targetting the middle classes that hitherto have not fallen in line with their political goals. The reason this is happening now is the fact that the middle classes are being slowly crushed into the lower middle and lower classes by the elite who are usurping all the resources.

The stars of this process are the middle order mullahs: Imams of the bigger mosques and seminaries, specially those with ex-military or middle eastern (particularly Saudi) credentials. This stardom is being propagated by the disenchanted middle classes who are terrified of their own and thier kids' futures due to a lack of opportunities of education, economically productive employment prospects, perpetual social injustices without any recourse to a functioning judical system and increasing insenstivity of the elite classes who are busy plundering all that they can and more.

I am mentioning everything in passing, but please note that all of these processes involve the media only peripherally, and will go on as they have even if the media are tightly controlled according to set agendas.

 

[muse]

Pakistan on a shrink’s couch
(16 hours ago) Today
Irfan Husain(



DIAGNOSING the mental health of a nation is just as tricky as diagnosing an individual with a personality disorder.

But while psychiatrists are trained and experienced in treating their patients, few venture to turn a clinical gaze towards the inner demons that trouble a state`s psyche.

Breaking with this tradition, Dr Mubarik Haider has performed a valuable service by peering into the innermost recesses of the collective Pakistani mind. His diagnosis is something some of us had long suspected, but had rarely articulated so clearly. Speaking at a lecture (Pakistan — a state on the crossroads: causes and effects) organised by the Pakistan Writers Association in collaboration with two media organisations recently, the psychiatrist spelled out his thesis with an enviable lack of hyperbole.

Displaying more brutal frankness than doctors normally use when spelling out a medical condition to their patients, Dr Haider pulled no punches. According to a newspaper report on the lecture, he urged Pakistanis to escape their state of denial and face reality. He asked them to reflect on the fact that perhaps “most of the world`s current revulsion towards Pakistan was based on good reasons, instead of it being the result of a vast Zionist conspiracy”.

I have long written about the state of denial most Pakistanis are in. From government ministers and officials to the public to the media, we are all convinced that everybody is out to get Pakistan. Whether it`s the floods that ravaged large swathes of the country last year, or the spectre of Islamic terrorism stalking the land, it`s all somebody else`s fault.

When I wrote to condemn the Pakistani terrorists who had planned and carried out the Mumbai massacre in 2008, I was flooded with emails from angry readers demanding to know what proof I had to link Pakistan with the attack. For them, the confession of the sole survivor of the gang of killers was not enough. How did the armed band slip into Mumbai so easily? Why did it take the Indian authorities so long to intervene effectively? To conspiracy theorists, all these questions pointed to a secret Indian plot to malign Pakistan.

The report on the lecture summarises Dr Haider`s argument thus: “Most people know at least one person who seems to suffer from a never-ending persecution complex. This individual is convinced that everybody is out to get him and declines from reconsidering his opinion despite a heap of evidence to the contrary. He dreams up wild and fantastic conspiracies that others have plotted against him and interprets every action with deep suspicion.

“To substantiate his view, he believes that there must be something about him that others are jealous of or desire or covet. Perhaps inevitably, he eventually becomes incapable of civilised dealing. Others are forced to resort to confrontation, avoidance or desertion. Vain to the last, he refuses to consider that something may be wrong with himself after all. He is simply incapable of one thing: critical self-reflection.”

Over the years, this paranoia and persecution complex have grown to dominate the public discourse. Indeed, these maladies now inform the thinking of policymakers as well. When I have asked well-educated people why the world should be against us, I get answers like “The Americans want to neutralise our nuclear arsenal”. Or, “Blackwater is behind the suicide bombings in Pakistan to destabilise the country”.

They refuse to see that a strong, stable Pakistan is in everybody`s interest, or that we are largely responsible for what`s happening in and around the country.

Indeed, our problems have reached such vast proportions that we find it easier to pretend they are somebody else`s fault rather than dealing with them. And America, being the biggest player in the region, is the most convenient scapegoat. The subtext in blaming Washington for all our ills is this: if a superpower is against us, obviously we cannot resist. This absolves our leaders of the need to tackle our urgent problems of hunger, illiteracy, unemployment and disease.

Dr Haider is of the view that “Pakistan exhibits all the symptoms of a schizophrenic society embroiled in innumerable conflicts”. He blames state institutions, the political and religious leadership and media organisations of “further fomenting a culture of conflict and paranoia by irresponsibly perpetuating myths about the world”.

These myths are on display in Pakistan round the clock on TV where anchors and their self-important guests hold forth on a large number of conspiracy theories. In this warped worldview, everything from a defeat in cricket to a natural disaster is somebody else`s fault.

Perhaps nobody is as responsible for feeding our paranoia and our state of denial than our TV channels. Our anchors invariably duck their responsibility of critically examining all the claims and charges flying around the studios. Instead, they fuel this madness by browbeating those few guests who refuse to take part in this orgy of unfounded accusations against dark forces inimical to Pakistan.

This mindset is also ever-present on the Internet where all manner of conspiracy theories multiply like malign viruses. When the devastating floods hit Pakistan last year, I received many emails accusing a new American technology known as HAARP for triggering the unusually heavy monsoon rains. These paranoid bloggers completely ignored the fact that the Americans were by far the biggest donors in the relief efforts, and sent in a large number of helicopters to take food and medicine to stranded communities, and rescue thousands of people.

So much for the diagnosis. What`s the cure? The hallmark of an educated mind is the ability to analyse problems coolly and rationally. An emotional response is usually the wrong one. But our minds are conditioned by years of slogans and clichés, as well as historical baggage that is no longer relevant. The disconnect between reality and our twisted perceptions grows by the day.

We could start by asking ourselves a simple question: why should the rest of the world be against us? Who would possibly gain by Pakistan`s dismemberment? Such an event would be hugely dangerous and destabilising for the entire region. Indeed, the spectre of a failed and broken Pakistan haunts security establishments the world over.

So let`s open our eyes to reality and face the world as it really is, and not how our tortured dreams have made it out to be.

irfan.husain@gmail.com

 

[Elmo]

It's been posted bY Rabzon already in the failed state thread. chk it there. Let's not talk at two places.

 

[RabzonKhan]

A civilisation of narcissists

By Khaled Ahmed
Published in The Express Tribune, March 27th, 2011.

Muslims seem to be blind to non-Muslim emotions; they are civilisationally inward-looking, but only go into denial when taxed with blame from the outside. If Muslims kill non-Muslims, they seem strangely unconcerned; when Muslims kill Muslims, as in Sudan, they turn their eyes away. It is only when non-Muslims kill Muslims, that they wake up and start complaining and pointing to their general state of victimhood. In his book Tehzeebi Nargisiyat (Sanjh Publications Lahore, 2009), Mobarak Haider goes into the minutiae of collective Muslim narcissism and examines all their overt and hidden postures, and comes up with a key to the understanding of the Muslim mind.

Haider says if you think Muslim isolationism and pride are of recent date, you are mistaken; Muslims have always been like that. It is their understanding of Islam that permits extreme posturing, while at the same time giving them the rhetoric of peace that no one takes seriously. If a Muslim terrorist kills another Muslim, the unthinking verdict is that the killer couldn’t be a Muslim or he wouldn’t have done it. Yet the bitter truth is that despite all their aggressive strutting, Muslims are busy killing Muslims all over the world. When they travel abroad and are treated with fear and loathing at international airports, they pocket their narcissism and suffer in silence. Strangely, pride doesn’t recommend refusal to migrate.

Author Haider bases this narcissism on the way Muslims absorb the following tenets of their faith: 1) Islam is a complete code of life and offers solutions to all problems; 2) Every edict of Islam is eternal and applicable to all times; 3) Islam is the only truth and any other competing truth must mould itself according to Islam or be ready to be suppressed; 4) Muslims are under obligation to make Islam the supreme religion of the world as other religions are jahiliyya; 5) Muslims are the foremost nation in the world and the only one that will be allowed into Heaven; 6) Action taken to subjugate other civilisations is jihad and not terrorism.

There are other ‘collective’ illusions contained in the edicts that follow: 7) Violence is interpreted as jihad, but then jihad is supposed to be the personal obligation of Muslims and not the state; 8) Any deviation from the prevailing dogma is non-belief or kufr; in more mitigating conditions, it is at least heresy; 9) The best knowledge is knowledge of religion and the ulema are the best among men, which means that no one can think about religion on his own; 10) No one can become a scholar of Islam except by accepting the dogma and obeying the edicts of tradition.

The Taliban are the climax of the journey of blind dismissal of the world outside the Muslim self. The idea is to rule the world not through acquisition of knowledge but through the use of the sword. The Taliban are the symbol of Pakistan’s recession into the self in the face of modern challenges. The biggest self-destructive vice that springs from this is uniformity of thinking or yaksaniyat (p.62).

Pakistan in its official and unofficial mythology claims that superpower Russia was defeated by the Taliban; and superpower America, too, will now be defeated by the Taliban, a glory in which Muslims of the world will indirectly participate. Corrupt politicians returning from the fleshpots of Europe, where they have just spent a part of the wealth gouged from Pakistan, complain that the West has lost its spiritual values and is now looking beseechingly at the Muslims as an agency of the revival of the western soul.

 

[muse]

Tehzeebi Nargisiyat by aMobarak haider (Sanjh Publications Lahore, 2009),

Top 10 things about Islam in Pakistan you may not have known about:

If you think Muslim isolationism and pride are of recent date, you are mistaken; Muslims have always been like that. It is their understanding of Islam that permits extreme posturing, while at the same time giving them the rhetoric of peace that no one takes seriously. If a Muslim terrorist kills another Muslim, the unthinking verdict is that the killer couldn’t be a Muslim or he wouldn’t have done it. Yet the bitter truth is that despite all their aggressive strutting, Muslims are busy killing Muslims all over the world. When they travel abroad and are treated with fear and loathing at international airports, they pocket their narcissism and suffer in silence. Strangely, pride doesn’t recommend refusal to migrate.

1) Islam is a complete code of life and offers solutions to all problems;
2) Every edict of Islam is eternal and applicable to all times;
3) Islam is the only truth and any other competing truth must mould itself according to Islam or be ready to be suppressed;
4) Muslims are under obligation to make Islam the supreme religion of the world as other religions are jahiliyya;
5) Muslims are the foremost nation in the world and the only one that will be allowed into Heaven;
6) Action taken to subjugate other civilisations is jihad and not terrorism.
7) Violence is interpreted as jihad, but then jihad is supposed to be the personal obligation of Muslims and not the state;
8) Any deviation from the prevailing dogma is non-belief or kufr; in more mitigating conditions, it is at least heresy;
9) The best knowledge is knowledge of religion and the ulema are the best among men, which means that no one can think about religion on his own;
10) No one can become a scholar of Islam except by accepting the dogma and obeying the edicts of tradition.[

/FONT]

 

[RabzonKhan]

Whither madrassa regulation?

Editorial
Published in The Express Tribune, March 28th, 2011.

Just about every terrorist attack in the last decade, it appears, has emerged from Pakistan’s unregulated madrassas. These religious schools, operating without government regulation, have become incubators of hate and intolerance. And, as a report in this paper on March 26 revealed, the current dispensation, much like the one that preceded it, has been unable to make any progress on that front. About six months ago, the interior ministry and the Tanzeem-e-Madaris Pakistan came to a ten-point agreement to enforce a uniform curriculum, ensure that madrassas do not teach hate literature and register all foreign students, among other things. Needless to say, this has not yet been enforced by the government. Indeed, the government has not even set up a committee to deal with madrassa reform yet.

The government’s inability or unwillingness to tackle madrassa reform is reminiscent of previous failed efforts by General Pervez Musharraf. In a speech in June 2002, Musharraf had promised to do much of what the PPP government is now supposed to enforce. Among his proposals, Musharraf called for the modernisation and regulation of madrassas to integrate them with Pakistan’s mainstream educational system. He conspicuously failed to do so despite earmarking more than $100 million for the task. After the Lal Masjid seige of 2007, Musharraf pledged once more to tackle the madrassa problem. Again he did not do so.

If anything, the problem has become worse since then. Unregulated and unregistered madrassas continue to proliferate and are still providing militant groups with fodder for terrorist attacks. Islamabad in particular has seen a mushrooming of madrassas since the Lal Masjid attack, funded by wealthy businessmen at home and expatriates from the Gulf. It is estimated that there are dozens of such madrassas, and students from at least one of them were involved in a militant attack at the Parade Lane in Rawalpindi. Apart from providing a steady stream of foot soldiers to militant groups, they are responsible for the ideological brainwashing of yet another generation of Pakistanis. For the government to be so tardy in pursuing real and meaningful madrassa reform shows just how blind they are to this threat. Fighting militancy will be ineffective unless its ideological root is also tackled.

 

[RabzonKhan]

BAAGHI: Let not the fire kiss your door

Daily Times
Marvi Sirmed
April 03, 2011

One is speechless to see how ethnic and religious radicalisation has been allowed in Pakistan to become a permanent and incurable pathology. There seems to be a general sanction from the state and society for radical militant elements who appear to enjoy impunity as well as political space. Countering radicalisation entails the state’s will and public opinion shaped by responsible media as essential factors. The state cannot curb it when the majority of people take the militants as either justified or religiously/ethically principled against an immoral, irreligious state. This could only happen in a country where religion is allowed to mingle with the business of state with no checks whatsoever.

The immunity and approval of militant radical groups in Pakistan is further garnered with the social space ceded to them by not only the state but also by the entire range of mass media. While the judiciary keeps on acquitting the terrorists on flimsy grounds, a section of media continues to support the militants by either justifying their acts or creating confusion among the public about them. The war against terrorism, for example, is still challenged by many in Pakistan as someone else’s war despite the fact that the terrorists have killed more Pakistanis than any other people.

Recently, Veena Malik, a talent from the Pakistani film industry, invited the wrath of a charged public and media elements for her participation in a widely viewed reality show on an Indian TV channel. One could not ignore an instance when on a popular TV channel Malik was fiercely attacked by a mufti (cleric) for wearing a short dress and getting close to a namehram (unrelated by blood or marriage) in the reality show. Malik gave befitting and apt answers and bravely faced the assault with arguments. The anchorperson, normally expected to objectively generate debate among opposing viewpoints, sided shamelessly with the cleric. By doing so he strengthened the impression of Malik’s ‘wrongdoings’ in semi- or completely uneducated juvenile minds that have no objective in life, and indirectly prompted them to act violently against her following the general pattern of response in a religiously inclined society. As expected, Malik later got life threats, which obviously went unnoticed by the state authorities. Who has time for a woman who slaps back right in the face of a hypocrisy-infested society?

The attacks on Maulana Fazlur Rehman are nothing but an extension of the same viewpoint that took the lives of Salmaan Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti. While addressing thousands of madrassa-infected youngsters supporting the killers of Salmaan Taseer, an otherwise shrewd Maulana probably forgot that the fire he has been fanning would reach his house soon. The day came much earlier than I had expected. Slight difference in viewpoint and you can kill the opponent — that is the mindset which brought us the black days of January 4 and March 2, the days we saw two brilliant men of this country showered in their own blood.

Maulana would probably still take time to understand how he let himself instigate radicalism and militancy in thousands of young minds by justifying these assassinations in mass rallies. But it might not be difficult for him to foresee what these misguided minds could do if made to believe by someone else that Maulana has been thoroughly un-Islamic by confiding in Indians, supporting western democracy and parliament (read Hindu and Jewish conspiratorial design). What then? A just-born Qadri would be ‘negotiating’ with Maulana in his own way!

It is not only the general immunity of militants from law that infuriates a law-abiding citizen, but also public backing for the criminals along with granting them the status of heroes by the media. A nauseating display of support from the legal fraternity and media for the killer of Salmaan Taseer was a manifestation of the deep-rooted tumour we have been nurturing for so long. It is the tumour of religiosity and no respect for the other point of view that has infected our collective thinking and behaviour patterns. In a country where an elected prime minister is hanged for a concocted case of murder, terrorists go scot-free for ‘lack of evidence’ as has been the case of not only Hafiz Saeed but umpteen mass murderers including those who attacked GHQ and Parade Lane Mosque. In a country where politicians are jailed for decades under unproven cases, our free judiciary acquits Maulvi Abdul Aziz of Lal Masjid who waged jihad on the state of Pakistan, claiming precious lives of civilians and the jawans of our armed forces.

It does not require an elaborate media report to ascertain what constitutes acts of terrorism. Using force against the state and responding to the armed forces with bullets and grenades is treason, not innocence. The Lal Masjid drama was played for seven days in front of the media, covering every moment including the last breaths of the criminal Ghazi Abdul Rasheed who was later termed a ‘martyr’ by the same media.

The question to all the screaming TV anchors is, who was a martyr? The criminal who led hundreds of students in using arms against the security forces or the brave commando from the Pakistan Army who was killed during the operation? The question to the ‘free’ judiciary is, what evidence would be considered in worthy courtrooms if not personal confessions? Like the killer Qadri, Maulvi Aziz was also on record confessing his crimes on camera. While the former is getting undue support from even the jail authorities, the latter is roaming free in the same capital city with all the more power to poison even more young minds with his myopic interpretations of religion.

The insensitivity and callousness of state, media and people was shamefully manifested when over one hundred innocent Ahmedis were gunned down in two worship places of Lahore followed by a complete silence at all levels. The appalling and disgraceful incident was followed by scores of hate banners that appeared overnight at prominent places in Lahore. It must be put on record that Punjab’s chief minister was unable to take any action for the removal of these banners. While protesting this state of affairs, one is often reminded of Ahmedis being labelled kaafirs (non-believers) and anyone supporting them would also become kaafir, thus liable to death. Probably that is why the rights activists could not gather more than a dozen people on the roads to protest against the brutal killings of Ahmedi citizens of Pakistan.

Whether it is an attack on Veena Malik or on Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the assassination of Taseer or of Bhatti, Lal Masjid’s Maulvi Aziz or Lashkar-e-Tayyaba’s Hafiz Saeed, Soofi Mohammad of Swat or the Mehsuds of South Waziristan, the Haqqanis in North Waziristan or those sitting in spy the agencies, self-righteous investigation cell heads of mainstream media who term Pakistan’s defeat in a cricket match as God’s punishment for our moral decadence, or an ambitious film-maker of Pakistan who wants to make a film on killer Qadri — the common thread is forced religiosity, confusion in people’s mind to identify the enemy, and media bigotry that largely goes to the support of militants and rogue elements.

When open threats to the lives of those challenging religion-based violence are given latitude by the state, the perpetrators of violence are frequently acquitted by the courts, people are misguided by a self-serving media, when those challenging the state’s writ are given high esteem instead of subjecting them to legal process, when political parties are doling out election tickets to the militants, when a poor woman from a suppressed class and religious community is put in jail for a crime far from being established and everyone who supports her is either killed or silenced by violent means, when a minister responsible for internal security of the country vows to kill a blasphemer (without due process of law), there is something grossly wrong. Letting it go like this is only a convenient path to speedy destruction. There is no honour in killing, there is no religion in violence, and there is no morality in chasing selfish self-interest. It is high time that the Maulanas of the political parties and of the media understand it or be ready for the fire to kiss their own doorsteps sooner than they realise.

The writer is an independent researcher and rights activist in Islamabad.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Nobel laureates of the Islamic world

The News
S Iftikhar Murshed
Sunday, April 03, 2011

Muslims, who constitute 21 percent of the world’s population of around 6.83 billion, have produced only nine Nobel laureates. Four were from Egypt and one each from Palestine, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, and Bangladesh. Three of them—the late Prof Abdus Salam of Pakistan, Iran’s Shirin Ebadi and Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh—were victims of religious and political persecution, which reflected not only the intellectual paralysis but also the repressive mindset that dominates the Islamic world. (The other two were Yasser Arafat and Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk.)

Abdus Salam shared the 1979 Nobel Prize for physics with Sheldon Lee Glashow and Steven Weinberg “for his contribution to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including the prediction of the weak neutral current.” Scientists believe that his achievement of unifying two basic forces of nature has had an enormous impact upon the development of physics, and “is deeper and more profound than the works of most other Nobel Prize winners” of the 20th century. His prediction of the “Higgs particle” is probably the foremost priority in modern physics and its discovery will be fundamental in comprehending the early stages of the universe. The debt that modern science owes Abdus Salam is also acknowledged by Stephen Hawkins in his book A Brief History of Time.

As a tribute to Pakistan, Professor Salam was addressed in Urdu at the Nobel Banquet on Dec 10, 1979. He replied that Pakistan was “deeply indebted” for the unprecedented gesture, and added: “The creation of physics is the shared heritage of all mankind. East and West, North and South have all participated in it. In the Holy Book of Islam, Allah says: ‘Thou seest not, in the creation of the All-merciful any imperfection; return thy gaze, seest thou any fissure? Then turn thy gaze again and again. Thy gaze comes back to thee dazzled aweary.’ This, in effect, is the faith of all physicists; the deeper we seek, the more is our wonder excited, the more is the dazzlement for our gaze.”

Yet Abdus Salam was never honoured in his own country because, as an Ahmadi, he became a non-Muslim under the Second Amendment of the 1973 Constitution. He died on Nov 21, 1996, in Oxford and, in accordance with his last wish, was buried in Pakistan. There was no official mourning, no recognition of the laurels he had won for his country and no representative of the government attended his funeral. The inscription on his tombstone initially read: “The first Muslim Nobel Laureate” but the word “Muslim” was effaced by the authorities, turning the inscription into the nonsensical “First Nobel Laureate.”

Shirin Ebadi, the Hamadan-born lawyer, rose to prominence in 1975 as the first woman to preside over an Iranian legislative court. However, her glory was short-lived. Clerics, after the 1979 revolution, prohibited women from becoming judges and Ebadi was demoted to a secretarial position.

If “a talent is formed in stillness, a character in the world’s torrent,” as Goethe believed, then Shirin Ebadi lived up to this dictum through the tumultuous years in post-revolution Iran. She wrote extensively in defence of human rights and in her book, Iran Awakening, exposed the distortion of religious tenets by the clerics. “In the last 23 years, since the day I was stripped from my judgeship to the years of doing battle in the revolutionary courts of Tehran, I had repeated one refrain: an interpretation of Islam that is in harmony with equality and democracy is an authentic expression of faith. It is not religion that binds women, but the selective dictates of those who wish them cloistered. That belief, along with the conviction that change in Iran must come peacefully and from within, has underpinned my work.”

Macaulay believed that the commands of law have their roots in the needs of men but exist in vain for those who do not have the courage to fight for these rights, and it was in this spirit that Ebadi defended the victims of state oppression in the law courts of Iran. She incurred the wrath of the clerical establishment when she agreed to defend Baha’is arrested in May 2008. An article published by the official news agency, IRNA, viciously attacked her alleged links to the Baha’i sect and accused her of defending homosexuals, appearing without a headscarf abroad and questioning Islamic punishments. Death threats followed and became so menacing that she was compelled to flee abroad in July 2009.

Despite Ebadi’s courageous defence of human rights, a perception lingers that the decision to confer the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize on her was politically motivated, just as it was in the selection of Lech Walesa and Mikhail Gorbachev for the award. It was argued this was contrary to the will of Alfred Nobel that the prize be given “to the person who had done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies.”

The third Muslim Nobel laureate to be victimised by his own country is Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh. However, it was not religious bigotry but his iconic international stature and domestic popularity that rankled with the authorities in Dhaka.

In 1976, Yunus initiated a modest project to provide loans without collateral to the poorest for starting small enterprises of their own. This proved a raging success and on October 1, 1983, the project began full-fledged banking operations and was renamed Grameen Bank. There has been no looking back and Grameen became the world’s biggest micro-lender with an estimated 8.29 million borrowers, 97 percent of whom are women. The concept has been replicated in 58 countries and, according to a recent New York Times article by David Bornstein, Grameen has become “the flagship enterprise in an industry that in 2009 served 128 million of the world’s poorest families.”

In 2006, when Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, there were tumultuous celebrations in the cities, villages and hamlets of Bangladesh. The following year he briefly entered politics and launched the Nagorik Shakti (Citizen’s Power) party. A vicious propaganda broadside was unleashed against him because politicians feared his enormous popularity. He was initially accused of malfeasance on a 1996 Norwegian loan although the government in Oslo had confirmed that there was no evidence that the funds were misused.

In December 2010, the Bangladeshi government alleged that Yunus was treating Grameen as his personal property and was “sucking blood from the poor.” A letter was circulated containing a litany of unsubstantiated accusations against him, including the absurd claim that it was the government, and not Yunus, that had founded the Grameen Bank.

The axe fell last month and Yunus was dismissed on the pretext that, at 70, he was way past the mandatory retirement age. Within days the decision was validated by the Bangladesh High Court and an appeal is under submission to the Supreme Court.

History is, in essence, the story of the ascent of man. In this vast empire of ideas and advancement, the Islamic world has been left far behind. It has only itself to blame. In the Middle Ages, Europe persecuted men of science and learning but later made amends. On May 9, 1983, Pope John Paul II regretted the persecution of men such as Galileo, stating “It is through research that men attain to truth.” There has been no such realisation among Muslim countries, as is evident from the way they have treated some of their Nobel laureates.

The writer is the publisher of Criterion quarterly.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Smokers’ Corner: Radical fatigue

Dawn
Nadeem F. Paracha
April 04 2011

There’s a theory: Whenever an extreme finds itself cornered and desperate, it becomes even more extreme, almost to the point of being nihilistic. Consequently, such an extreme starts facing a paradox. The brighter it burns or the louder it crackles, the quicker it starts to consume itself, until it is no more.

In other words, a heightened state of extremism becomes its own reason of fall and demise. This kind of a destructive and violent burnout is common with extremist political and religious organisations. They either consume themselves in their own fires of violent bigotry and intolerance, or to avoid such a burnout, they modify and soften their stance and find ways to join the mainstream.

Of course, in the process of burning out in the flames of their own nihilism, they do manage to inflict some serious material, human and psychological damage around them. And this is what we are witnessing today as far as Pakistan and the many extremist organisations that plague it are concerned.

The violent sectarian and Islamist outfits that have for so long unleashed unprecedented levels of havoc and bloodshed on the state, government and the people, now seem to be entering that nihilistic burnout phase.

This phase, extremely violent and indiscriminating in its desperation and vengeance against the people and the security apparatus alike, could have started a lot earlier if some misguided elements in the military had not pampered the extremists in pursuance of their rather delusional ‘strategic goals’.

As the state and the military now seem to be admitting (albeit grudgingly) the uncontrollable nature of the beast they had helped feed and grow, the beast is attempting to feed on the sympathetic bits on offer from another source of patronage and support: i.e. the political-religious and right wing parties and organisations.

It is true that compared to the beast’s erstwhile keepers in the now more cautious security agencies and the state, the other forces are negligible.

But lately these loud tiny tots have found support in the privately-owned electronic media. There is no great revelation in the already obvious suggestion that much of this media is vehemently right wing in its orientation. It’s not just about the media sounding populist and reactionary due to certain cynical economic and ratings-friendly reasons, there is much more to it.

Simply put, many of Pakistan’s news channels have a wall-to-wall covering of some of the most rabid right wing journalists in their midst. And it’s a colourful mix. Some have had direct participatory pasts with right wing outfits such as the Jamat-i-Islami and Hizb-i-Tahrir; some with certain shadowy intelligence organisations; some with both; and last but not least, there is now a growing number of ‘modern’ looking folks on TV who seem to have no clue about the complexities of politics.

To cover their incompetence many loudly mouth off incoherent, conspiratorial babble on politics, Islam, national honour, etc. Thus many news channels have become havens for tiny right wing tots who have continued to attempt attracting public sympathy for the extremists’ cause with their aggressive apologetic tirades and anti-America sloganeering. Nevertheless, these tiny tots and the way they are given a face by the largely right wing electronic media are not going to stop the beast’s nihilistic burnout. And this is because Pakistanis on the whole, and at least in this context, have begun to experience radical fatigue.

The way the Raymond Davis episode burst in the faces of the rightist TV anchors, who were clearly being maneuvered by those who wanted concessions from the CIA, and the way every rally and strike called by a leadership seeking popular approval on the issue fizzled out, was indeed revealing.

Fatigue and disillusionment are setting in. While so much radical hype does the rounds in the media about revolution, national honour, anti-Americanism, corruption and what not, every time the results of this maniacal hype on the ground is an anti-climax. This is simply because such animated hype has little or nothing to do with reality.

With the lack of ground support, all the tiny tots in politics and their media allies who are going on and on about their delusions have become unintentional parodies of themselves and silly caricatures of empty rhetoric.

Entertaining, but far from ‘revolutionary’. The state’s and the military’s growing weariness of the extremist beast and the fatigue setting among the public about empty sloganeering are positive developments.

However, though this may one day find the beast consumed by its own hatred and fire, one should keep a watchful eye on exactly how the media-proliferated right wing rhetoric over the years has affected society’s mindset. It is this mindset that will dictate Pakistan’s future: whether we will become a stable, democratic, progressive and tolerant people or continue to be consumed into oblivion by our own delusions about greatness and national honour.

 

[RabzonKhan]

EDITORIAL: Another attack on our traditions

Daily Times
April 05, 2011

The ugly face of religious intolerance showed its true colours once again on Sunday in a small town near Dera Ghazi Khan. The shrine of the 13th century Sufi Saint Syed Ahmad Sakhi Sarwar was hosting its 942nd Urs-cum-spring festivities when two suicide bombers detonated themselves outside the shrine. Hundreds of devotees were gathered at the shrine to pay their respects when the first suicide blast took place outside the gate. Pandemonium ensued and some 20 minutes later another bomber ripped through the remaining human chaos to cause a maximum amount of damage. It is now being reported that two more bombers were set to explode themselves to cause even more havoc but they were arrested before a further bloodbath could ensue. The total death toll has reached a devastating 50 while more than 100 people have been injured, many of them critically. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have claimed responsibility, which comes as no surprise as almost all the terror attacks carried out in Pakistan can be attributed to them.

Once again, our society has suffered a terror so deadly it does not recognise humanity nor does it refrain from targeting innocent men, women and children to spread mayhem and tragedy. This attack is the sixth major attack on shrines since 2007 in an attempt to frighten away the followers of the overriding faith that exists in the subcontinent — that of Sufi mysticism and participation in the culture of the shrine. It is this culture that is considered shirk by the fundamentalist militants who preach a radical and bloody streak of Wahabi Islam. Previously this was thought of as a battle between the Wahabi militants who have infiltrated the region with their imported brand of jihadi Islam and the Barelvi sect that goes to shrines and believes in saints. However, the culture and traditions of Sufi shrines are not confined to one or the other sect. As a matter of fact, throughout the Subcontinent, the inclusive and tolerant message of the Sufi saints is what helped the spread of Islam and even now attracts all sects, even non-Muslims to its embrace. This culture and these traditions represent the greatest obstacle to the extremists’ imposition by force of their narrow, literalist and purist interpretations of religion. Hence the campaign of bombing shrines that has afflicted Pakistan since the jihadis decided four years ago to turn on their mentors and Pakistani society generally.

Attacking the most sacred sites in the subcontinent — shrines — the militants are trying to first obliterate all remnants of Sufi Islam (the original message of the faith in the subcontinent) after which they wish to spread a stringent interpretation of a medieval brand of ‘Islam’, more in tune with Pashtun tribal traditions wedded to a rigid jihadi doctrine. However, this attack and the others like it betray a certain desperation on the part of the militants. When taking on the majority, there is no way the militants will win. Such attacks, while causing wide-scale devastation, will only serve to anger the many and turn almost all against this murderous version of a religion the militant minority will never get the opportunity to impose.

It has become even more pertinent now to nip this warped religious mindset in the bud. Better performance by our intelligence establishment and security apparatus is more necessary than ever. One of the arrested bombers is reportedly an Afghan refugee, relaying that it is vital to keep tabs on the real ‘foreign elements’. For the citizens, public awareness campaigns must be promoted to educate the people on suspicious activities and people, especially during sensitive times where religious activities and congregations take place.

This is our country and this is our culture that the militants are trying to destroy. It is time to take a determined stand to wipe out this scourge that rests on the hate-fuelled fabric of intolerance and brutality.