Pakistan has 2 Choices: Secularism or Death

[Hyperion]

Spot on - and quite a lengthy reply at that!

phew , i cannot believe i am replying this.

 

[Kompromat]

Spot on - and quite a lengthy reply at that!

Hyperion. Every person whom i have debated secularism with has melted over the origins of secularism in western societies and why it was brought in Europe under dire conditions imposed by the Church as a system and social authority because of which social life had become impossible , Europeans reached their tipping point and kicked out church of the state affairs.

Which actually hasn't happened as the pope still dictates many policies on the highest level in many EU countries.

Example

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/10/wikileaks-pope-turkey-eu-muslim

 

[regular]

We would love DEATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
over SECULARISM....................

 

[K-Xeroid]

phew , i cannot believe i am replying this.

The way i look at it is this.

Author makes the case over a singular conceptual society where there is no place of diversity , sects , difference of opinion , difference over belief structure etc as a basic requirement for Pakistan's survival. Which i find ludicrous as there are no traces of religious conflicts being fought by different sects of Islam solely and purely because of their religious convictions. I have first hand experience of seeing some of them and speaking to people who were involved in them. Surprisingly , none of them were motivated out of their religious convictions alone but by monetary benefits , personal hatred , property conflicts and so on without forgetting the role of KSA & Iran funding salafis & shia'a extremist proxies to export their version in Pakistan.

Sectarian conflicts in Pakistan have largely been motivated by political gains and what i stated above. The author after posting a few warnings and posting a few wiki links goes on about trying to establish a Nazi like "pure Sunni" Pakistan by expelling all other minorities and then not being able to establish the utopia because Sunnis themselves are divided into further sects.
I hate to say this , but no one in Pakistan is trying to establish such a singularity as author states , because there is no singularity. Just because sects don't go along well with each other , does not mean they cannot coexist. In context of an Islamic state the author gives examples of S-Arabia and Iran which by far are not Islamic states by any measure and therefore are not an example of an Islamic state.

Author makes the case that stone worshipers , monkey , elephant worshipers can start considering themselves Muslims and would become so. Well its stupid to believe that there is such a possibility as there are clear cut conditions of Eman stated in Islam , people who don't meet them cannot recognize themselves as muslims. The idea that an Islamic state would go to surgical level to root out what author believes maybe non muslims according to minorities is flawed. Personally i believe , that the current model with Pakistan having a moderate system of governance which allowed Sunnis , Shias to held top posts as PMs and Presidents [Current President is Shia & PM is a Sunni] can allow a Hindu to become a Supreme court judge , allow an Ahmadi to become Foreign minister would work fine if we work to refine it. There is never going to be a blanket system of governance in Islam as there are differences between sects but that does not mean just because there can't be a blanket system those groups cannot co-exist , thats social evolution and it eventually will reach an equilibrium.


Lastly the author thinks that for Pakistan its either secularism or death , well no one in their right minds will believe that even in a secular Pakistan , sunnis will stop becoming sunnis , their sub sections will stop becoming who they are , shias will stop becoming shias , ahmadis will stop becoming ahmadis , christians will stop becoming christians and there would be a utopia where all of them will coexist just because the state authority is secular. I would suggest my dear author to study the history of Iran during Shah era when he tried to impose secularism overnight , tried to get women to dress in skirts and bikinis. It backfired and the product of that experiment is current Iranian society.

Maybe i am naive but Diverse Social make up of a society is not necessarily an evil thing to begin with , variations i beliefs , customs , culture make a country a rainbow nation. It works well provided the system of governance facilitates that. Having said that , i can give dozens of examples of hardcore secular countries who have repeatedly discriminated against minorities and still as we speak are subjecting them to heinous mistreatment.


In my personal opinion , Pakistan needs to preserve its ideological boundaries , it needs to preserve its Islamic pretext but in order to do that it does not need to be a country run by Mullahs. Pakistani public has proven that by not electing JUI or other Mullah parties time and again. Pakistan needs to find an equilibrium between western democracy and its Islamic values while living within a democratic culture in order to facilitate our diversity. I personally look at the half glass full & believe that one day every Shia , Sunni will get over their collective hatred through social evolution and would create a balanced society for every Pakistani to cherish. IMHO its not between Secularism or death.

Regards:

PS- We do not allow threads on religious topics so please do not expect this thread to go on for long.

Now thats called a nice and rational read.

 

[Zulkarneyn]

Corruption comes in many forms, secularists, islamists, kemalists...
We have seen for decades how corruption came in Turkey with secularists, kemalists etc. We have also seen people abusing islam in other countries, ie Pakistan.

It is not important what they use as their primary tool for cheating and manipulating the people. The important thing is to detect these people, and let them stand before justice for their crimes. How can one people do this? Well first of all people need to get educated. One thing which is prevalent in less-developed countries is how much politics is valued in the education sphere. If i have to give some examples:
In Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia etc. university studies like poltical science is not valued as much as engineering and medicine. While for example in Denmark, to many people's surprise the most prestigious university studies is political science and hardest to get into. Higher than even medicine. This is a clear indicator for how much we value our democracy and how high we hold it up - our rights as individuals. As a respected man once said "An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot." and "Every religion is good that teaches man to be good; and I know of none that instructs him to be bad."

It is not religion that brings the bad in people and make them do bad things. But some people who think of themselves as superior to "lesser" people use these institutions to control and dictate the people. I can assure you, the problem is not solvable with secularism. Because if you want an example Turkey is the perfect. During the staunch secularists time our country has always suffered and been a laughing stock for the West. But today after 10 years of islamic AKP we keep our head high and we are one of the few countries in the world that continues solid growth (along with China) and there is absolutely no power that can stop this development, even though many try stopping it.
A people whose prevalent values are religion cannot embrace living in perpetual discrimination. There has been a propaganda going for a long time, orchestrated by western media: Islam is not up-to-date with modern society and progressiveness. This is nothing but bs. If one wants to learn the power of religion and how its values were the primary engine behind socieatal and economical development one only needs to look at "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" by Max Weber. He sums up that Protestant ethic influenced large numbers of people to engage in work in the secular world, developing their own enterprises and engaging in trade and the accumulation of wealth for investment.
If you want to see how the islamic version folds out, you can check this article http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/11/business/worldbusiness/11iht-wbturkey.2450036.html?pagewanted=all
Kayseri is my hometown in Turkey and known for their religiousity and extremely succesfull businessminded peopel, and are renown for their innovative spirit and cleverness.

People are very easily deceived into believing in the bs the Western media feeds them. As a person who is born in Denmark and gone through their education and visited Turkey almost every year i can tell the difference. Muslims have values that could never be dreamt by westernes. We must keep these values.

Ramadhan kareem

 

[Kompromat]

Lets call it a day.

Thank you for participation.