Belt, Don, and Reza. "Struggle for the Soul of Pakistan". National Geographic, September, 2007. See http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0709/pakistan/pakistan.html The cover story for the September, 2007 issue of National Geographic sees writer Don Belt and photographer Reza in Pakistan, documenting people and places in a volatile country torn by powerful religious, political, and social forces as it struggles to establish its modern identity. Belt aims to tell a number of stories, starting with Umme Ayman, one of 200 female religious students holed up in a children's library in Islamabad, part of the difficult and eventually bloody standoff in and surrounding the nearby Red Mosque. Near press time, word arrives of the government's assault against the Mosque. Belt notes that Ayman is among the survivors of the clash. The story of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, is recounted. Pakistani novelist Moshin Hamid reminds that the vast majority of Pakistanis "want nothing to do with violence". Belt observes, Thus begins the tale of Abdul Sattar Edhi. It would be safe to guess that most Americans have never heard of this man, whose mission began with a dented Hillman station wagon, which he used as Pakistan's first private ambulance, bringing the poor to medical care and transporting the bodies of the homeless in order to give them proper burials. Edhi's mission has grown, and now his fleet of 1,380 ambulances is hailed as the largest private ambulance service in the world. But we should know his name: Abdul Sattar Edhi collected the ten dismembered parts of Daniel Pearl's body and delivered them to the morgue. Versed in death, Edhi also works on behalf of life: Hardliners in Pakistan dislike Edhi, calling him un-Islamic in part because his foundation does not discriminate. He does not ask of religion or ethnicity, and told Belt, "I'm a Muslim ... but my true religion is human rights." His position isolates him. When radicals seized a three-million dollar foundation hospital, newly built, the authorities refuse to act, and now the building is used as a madrassa dormitory. There is also the tale of Najma, all of 16, raped by local thugs attempting to bully her family off their tenant farm. Rape is, of course, common in the area around Nizampur, and for Najma there will be no justice. The forensic evidence has been "lost". The local police constable is the foremost suspect; the police inspector the from the next town dismisses the accusations. Human rights lawyer Rashid Rehman is all too familiar with the story, and makes a chilling point: Belt also brings a story of talking with students at Jamia Uloom-ul-Quran, a Deobandi madrassa in Peshawar. The boys are curious about American attitudes toward Muslims, even joking when asked about suicide bombing. One student, Rafiullah, tells Belt that suicide bombing is not allowed in Pakistan (the country is not occupied by a hostile force): "Nobody has a right to blow you up, even if you're a non-Muslim, or an infidel. If you are here as a guest, you are welcome." The story of the madrassas is a difficult one. In a place where existing schools are underfunded and so poorly administrated, where "thousands ... are 'ghost schools' that exist only on paper, to line the pockets of phantom teachers and administrators", the madrassas seem a welcome alternative for parents seeking to educate their children. And the situation has its consequences: The online version of the story includes notes from Belt and Reza, including this strange tale from the photographer: • • • I'm glad I don't have to write book reports anymore. Carving that mess into something coherent would probably hurt my head. Look, I never really thought I would hear from my fellow Americans the kind of foul shite spewing forth since that awful day in September. Too often, we in the West prefer to consider Islam and Muslims as some sort of monolithic anti-culture, a demon-beast akin to the Soviets during the Cold War. It's weird to make this point, but some of our members may be too young to remember when Sting sang the memorable lines, "We share the same biology, regardless of ideology. What might save us, me and you, is that the Russians love their children, too." That actually caused some controversy in its day, albeit minor by contemporary standards. These people in Pakistan are our neighbors. And you might find them annoying, may not like the hours they keep or the smells wafting from their kitchens. Their music might grate on your ears, and maybe they don't like your dog. But there comes a point when you won't turn your back on them. If their house was on fire, would you actually try to stop anyone from calling 911? If you heard the sounds of bloody murder next door, would you cheer? If their children were raped, would you say they deserved it? Because that's what we do when we cast "Muslims" as some monolithic enemy in a cosmic war between good and evil. My generation has no excuse; we ought to remember the last world-scale clash of mythic proportions. After all, Americans still think we won that one, despite the fact that its grim toll still echoes around the world. And what's happening in Pakistan, not exactly ironically, is part of that legacy. We're going through it all over again. "We" are good. "They" are bad. But it's true that they love their children. And if they had the McMansions, the 2.7 cars, the 2.4 children, the cable television, computer with high-speed connection, four weeks of paid vacation, three credit cards, and had the privilege of arguing about whether and how best to implement a national healthcare plan, then yes, their love for their children would look a little more like something we would recognize. Abdul Sattar Edhi gives his orphans educations and healthcare, and arranges their marriages. This last may bring us shivers in the West, but in Pakistan it may well be the best he can come up with. On their wedding days, Edhi's orphans have a better chance to prosper than many of their generational peers, so it's not all a loss. It is time to get the fuck off their backs. It is time to look upon our Muslim neighbors around the world as human beings, and consider what diverse circumstances bring. Thus, it is time to reject our own hatemongers and bigots. It is time to put our myths of good and evil to the rubbish tip. If there must be carnage, then let us for once send our own evil to the stake, and leave their good the best chance they can manage. And when the dust settles, perhaps we can reach out with a genuine hand and, with pure hearts, ask if there's anything we can do to help. We in the West are in a unique position compared to human history. Things will only get better if we decide to let them. And one of the ways we can do that is to give our neighbors credit as human beings. It's time. It's been time for a while, now.
I read the story. And what struck me most is ...that area of the world had thousands of years of headstart on the western nations of the world, yet they're all so far behind, so backward as to be shocking. Why is Pakistan still struggling when the west has continued to advance in all phases of human existence. In Pakistan, there are highwaymen who practice a violent way of life almost openly and completely immune to the authorities or the law. How can that be? How can such a thing continue in the modern world? Ahh, it's because Pakistan is not in the modern world ...they're stuck in the Dark Ages! We in the west have progressed, and have laws to protect such people. While the Pakistanis, the Muslims, have thousands of years of headstart, yet they're still so backward that they have no system for preventing such child abuse or abuse of human rights. They've had thousands of years, yet they're still living in the Dark Ages! You mean like how you treat the cops of USA? Something like that, Tiassa? And yet here, you're saying that's a bad thing to do? Huh? Whenever we in the west try to help "those" people, we're maligned and degraded and set-upon by both the press and people like you, Tiassa. This is just one of many such bullshit posts as "We should all love each other, and kiss each other on the lips!" Liberal bullshit that only has a place in silly-assed philosophy discussions, not in the realities of the world. "Those" people are so far behind us in the west that it's almost like modern man interacting with Cave Men! Now, ....let's all hold hands and sing "I'd like to buy the world a Coke, and keep it company. ...." ...LOL! No, I think we should bomb them, then rebuild their country in some sensible form of modern life, and teach them how live properly. Baron Max
We get what we ask for; we get what we demand In addition to the number of years passed, history also involves the events that take place through time. Consider your statement: Historically, what has provided the West the opportunity to make such laws is that we have had the luxury of doing so. Pakistan became a nation in 1947 amid the social turmoil brought about by one of the worst administrative decisions ever made by human beings, generally referred to as "The Partition". • "The Partition of India" (Emory Univ.) • "In Pictures: India's Partition, Train to Pakistan" (BBC) • "India and Pakistan: Partition Lessons" (OpenDemocracy.org) Islam, on the other hand, came about in the seventh century, and grew into a world that received them warily at best, and generally with open hostility. • "Muslim history" (Wikipedia) I would actually recommend Karen Armstrong's book Islam: A Short History. From an MSNBC.com interview, October,2001: A couple of things to note: In principle, we still see in the United States the dying shreds of Armstrong's description of "developing a Shiite democracy". We still have Christians that don't want secular democracy, but "their own democracy which comes in that familiar religious package that makes it more intelligible"--and, therefore, more palatable--"to the vast bulk of" evangelical Christians. The great difference in the results cannot be considered if we overlook the vastly different conditions in which each idea occurs. I would ask you to consider a 1982 article by Yvonne Haddad, published in The Link, the newspaper for Americans for Middle East Understanding: It's a lengthy article, though, rife with subtleties of history and humanity. What you need to understand in order to answer your question is that the conditions encouraging our Western development, comfort, and luxury have been deliberately denied other nations, and while many would point to something about those nations such as skin color or religion as the basis of fault, the reality is that the people have never had the opportunity to do what we in the U.S. do. And, in the end, I would hope you realize what's wrong with that statement. Sixty years is not thousands for Pakistan, which started in chaos after generational exploitation by the British. Don't let your obsession with me cloud your understanding of very basic differences between groups: Muslim citizens, like other citizens, occupy a specific role in the social contract. Police, in any nation, occupy another. Stop pretending that the obligations of each party are the same. We should stop pretending that backhanded slaps are genuine attempts to help. It is only because we in the West have worked so hard to make it so. Of course you would.
What are you trying to say, Tiassa? What the shit does the Nat'l Geo story have to do with anything you're pussy weeping over?
Is this some sort of book report? You got gold stars for quantity, didn't you? Big words? Man, I would have fucked your shit up in grade school.
A response: I'm glad I don't have to write book reports anymore. Carving that mess above into something coherent would probably hurt my head. Look, I never really thought I would hear from my fellow Pakistanis the kind of foul shite spewing forth since that awful day in September, and for almost 1000 years before that day in September, and all over the street and everything. Too often, we in the Islamic world prefer to consider Westerners and non-muslims and kaffirs of every kind as some sort of monolithic anti-culture, a demon-beast akin to the religious minorities in Pakistant today. *shudder* Although it’s basically true, it's weird to make this point, but some of our members may be too young to remember when Sting reminded Westerners that Russians loved their children, too. Because, surprisingly, they do. Only Nazis never loved their children. Well, that’s probably not true. Basically everyone loves their children on average. I guess it really doesn’t have much to do with whether or not we like their system. I just kinda said it to berate you. Anyway. These disbelievers and kuffar here are our neighbors. And you might find them annoying, you may not like the free press or the women’s liberties or the homosexual rights wafting from their elected parliaments. Their music might grate on your ears or cause your daughter’s hips to sway as her hijab falls off, and maybe they really should be equated to urine and feces for their disbelief, and their love of dogs, and dogfighting. But there comes a point when you won't turn your back on them. Not wouldn’t dare turn your back on them, in case they actually do turn into apes and pigs and attack you – and what’s scarier than an ape riding a pig, except for an uncovered woman with a job – but just wouldn’t. If their house was on fire, would you actually try to stop anyone from calling 911 if you hadn’t lit the fire yourself? Well, maybe, if they were daring to preach their filthy polytheist religion to your children or hand out pamphlets or rebuild their filthy churches or something. But if you heard the sounds of bloody murder next door, would you cheer unless it was a pair of buildings packed with them in New York or a bunch of Pakistani kuffar daring to legally own land that by all religious rights should be extorted out to other people?...all right, bad example. But if their children were being raped, would you say they deserved it? Unless they dared to go out without the hijab on, of course; c’mon, let’s be reasonable here. Because that's what we do when we cast "kuffar" as some monolithic enemy in a cosmic war between good and evil…which our failure of separation between personal religion and state apparatus really, really encourages when it considers leaving islam as treason. "We" are good. "They" are bad. Now, that all may be true…but it's also true that they love their children, like I was saying above. And if only they had the forced marriage, female genital mutilation, limitations on social freedoms, the shocking institutionalized misogyny, the extremist religious reactionaries poised to burn a church or a Christian village at the drop of a hat and the outlawing of apostacy and homosexuality, then yes, their love for their children would look a little more like something we would recognize. This last may bring us shivers in the Islamic world, but in the liberal Western world with their constitutional protection of religious and social freedoms it may well be the best they can come up with. Thank god we don’t let the frigging kuffar have any of that over here. It is time to get the fuck off their backs unless they start up with the public displays of their religion and requests for societal equality again, in which case they need to be slammed down, hard. It is time to look upon our non-Muslim neighbors around the world as human beings, unless they draw cartoons of our prophet or engage in the same kind of demonisation of our religion like we do everyone else’s. Thus, it is time to reject all criticism of our our system as motivated by hatemongering and bigotry, so that such change can be eternally avoided. We in the Islamic world are in a unique position in human history. Things will only get Westernized and free if we decide to let them. And one of the ways we can prevent that is to give our neighbors credit as human beings. It's time. It's been time for a while…about 1400 years, by my watch. Stay the course.
What I find amazing is how quickly people in India are pulling on their boots and going to work. Or compare Singapore with their neighbors Malaysia and Indonesia. Lets face it, it takes a LOT of HARD WORK - A LOT OF HARD WORK to lift a society up to the level of first world civilization. Then it takes even more hard work to maintain it. 14 hours or work per day and I have no idea where Tiassa pulled that 1 month vacation from ??? HARDLY! Quite frankly, I don't think people in Pakistan have what it takes for whatever reasons. This I agree with. Let them try Islam all day long. Will it work - no. But, they need to learn that lesson for themselves. Just like Communist countries needed to try Communism. Islamic countries need to try Islam to realize it is never going to work for them. Maybe, when after they get another Religious God-like leader (sort of like the NK leader Kim Jung Il) and after they have had a few millions starve to death from their crappy Islamic system and after a few millions more people are destitute and their country has gone to shit - THEN and only then will they be in a ripe position to maybe give secular democracy a serious go. Until then as I said, let them try Islam all day long. Our job is to let them give it a go. We will have to be strong and just let them fail utterly and not be so inclined to keep dishing the handouts - that only perpetuates the inevitable. exactly.
Dear Tiassa - thank you for your kind question. I would suggest severing the association between my religion and the state. Good luck with that though.
Religion and state should ALWAYS be apart. Religion is, at least to me, not very valuable. Beliefs from an old book that might only MAYBE be true are not of my highest importance.
Sadly, with those four decades of economic growth still 1 every 2 Pakistani people are illiterate and about 1 in every 3 live in object poverty. I suspect being sandwiched between China and India may end up being Pakistan's saving grace. BUT, just imagine if Pakistani people elected a fundamental religous Ayatollah to run the country - one who thought the best thing for Good Muslims was not to trade with the atheistic kuffar Chinese or polytheistic kuffar Hindu. Just focus on creating a perfect pure Islamic State. Just how long do you suspect the economy would continue grow? Not very long I suspect. Which is the point, so long as Pakistan's government isn't an Islamic theocracy maybe they can maintain around 50% literacy and a 60% low income economy for another 4 decades. Are they going to become economic powerhouses like Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea or Japan - I seriously doubt they have the work ethic. But maybe you are right and I am wrong. Maybe they rise to the levels predicted of India and China.
The key is the seperation of religion and state. If I were pakistan's president, I would try to completely eliminate religion altogether. I'm not as religious as I used to be.
I'll say this: personal religion is fine. Even state religion is fine, so long as its not used to batter the nonconformers. Unfortunately, it usually is.
IMO it depends on the beleif really. There are always going to be nutty psychotic people in every normal distributed population. That's a matter of math. Given that is the case I think it's not good to give these psycho killers any ammunition to go off and kill innocent people. For example, lets open todays BBC and see which terrorist is on page 1? That was quick and took ... maybe... 3 seconds: Indonesia cafe bomber flees jail. Now lets take a look and see who he murdered and why he murdered them. The blast, blamed on Islamic militants, killed four people and injured three. Police said at the time that the cafe had been targeted because it served alcohol and was Christian-owned, Seems to me that this nut was looking for a reason to murder someone anyway. Why give him a justified Religious one? Especially if it sees he gets virgins or something good in heaven for doing so. Wouldn't it be much better if he was taught: There are many paths to the Gods and many Prophets who walked those paths and there will be many more to come. Respect all people and it is never acceptable to purposely bring harm to a human. Now lets say instead he had a Religious teacher who just so happened to teach him a "weak" myth that says it's OK to murder people under the appropriate conditions because God likes it when people kill in Its Name - murder is sometimes a good thing, for example; a poorly sung song making fun of a fat polygamist with a bride the same age as his granddaughter. Well well, this Religious teacher is probably a psychopath killer too - he didn't pick little Bin Kasau out of the blue. He chose him because he knows a killer when he sees one. BUT if little Bin Kasau was taught at some point in his pathetic life murder is NEVER acceptable - who knows maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't have murdered those people for not sharing his stupid beleif? Maybe he could have held back those murder urges? kept them in check so to speak. It just seems silly to teach the general populous a bunch of myths that can be used to justify murder - if anything, it just convinces people it's ok to murder. when in reality it's not. Summary - not all beliefs are similarly tolerant and not all are equally as peaceful. Michael
Well, its easy to see that Tiassa's post has missed its mark. As for the front page news, its sooo boring to read about the secular troops 'liberating' people by the millions. Much more interesting to read about an 'Islamic militant'.
Oddly enough most Iraqis have been killed by Iraqis. You may not know it, but it's quite common for the people of one form of religous beleif to kill the people of a different beleif. I wonder why they don't simply unit as Iraqis and vote for a government that will legally ask the USA's millitary to leave? Anyway, I agree, I am for a 100% pull out ASAP. Tomorrow could not be quick enough.
Oh, and in case we forget, GW Bush Jr has a VERY VERY strong Religious base. While we all know the truth of the reason for war was, and is, oil, the war was sold wrapped in a Religious ribbon to many of his supporters. Anyone remember the "Crusades" bull crap coming from Jr.'s mouth? Rightwing-nut American Christians want the "promised" land returned to the Jews so they can usher in Armageddon, the return of Jesus and the end of the world :bugeye: Add to this the more sensible simply want to begin the conversion of Iraqis to Christianity as they know in their hearts Iraqis are good people and if they only loved Jesus and stop worshipping Satan's false prophets would be good little consumers just like Americans... and maybe the Japs - (because Japanese don't have souls it ok for them to worship that other Satan Buddha - this is what fundamental Christians in Americans believe). Well, we can see what a few years of having the Religious right in charge of the USA has done. A half- collapsed economy and lost two wars. The same happens to any country that is Theocracy. Michael
S.A.M., Perhaps you would enlighten us as to what Tiassa's 'mark' was? He built up a fictional strawman of what he thinks us unenlightened American's (not himself, of course) are supposed to think about, who, Pakistanas or Muslims? Is this the 'mark'? Now what the hell was that about? I can only guess he is fucked up on coke again or something. Does he believe we should invade them to clean up their corrupt cops and government, that we are 'turning our backs on them' if we don't? I am never in favor invading another country unless we are attacked by residents of that country, no 'pre-emptive strikes' or otherwise. If they get a nuke to threaten us with, so what? If they are stupid enough to actually use it on us, we respond with at least a dozen of our own. Ahh, yes. I knew you would bring up Irag in a thread about Pakistan. S.A.M., you are supposed to be a scientist, or something close. Are you so blinded by prejudice that you fall for any crap you can link to on the internet? Did you actually read any of the so-called LANCET article, or the 'Irag Body Count' links? The Lancet 'survey' was conducted by a few people who interviewed 33 cluster of 30 families each and asked them 'How many people in your family have died in the last 8 months'. They extended that figure to cover the whole of Iraq and compared it with a 6 month period before the war. They estimated about 100,000 'excess' deaths had occured since the war began. Not 'millions'. The Iraq Body count site was a little less, 73,498 - 80,116 since the war began. They list the latest deaths, the latest of which was a female law professor stabbed to death. No guns or bombs required. And no 'millions'. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It seems we have an adminstration that naively believed that we could overthrow the dictator of a country and the citizens would greet us a 'heros' that gave them their freedom. I don't like the policies of the Bush admistration and I have always thought they were making a serious mistake to even consider invading Iraq. I would forcefully resist any nation that invaded the US to overthrow an adminstration I disagree with. Same difference.
