Positive Pakistan

[SANITY]

Missing activists

THE sanitised language — ‘missing persons’, ‘the disappeared’, etc — cannot hide an ugly truth: the state of Pakistan continues to be suspected of involvement in the disappearance and illegal detentions of a range of private citizens.

Now, with the disappearance of Salman Haider and at least three other activists, a dark new chapter in the state’s murky, illegal war against civil society appears to have been opened.

It is simply not enough for government and police officials to claim that the disappearances are being investigated. Mr Haider and the other recently missing activists need to be returned to their families immediately — it is surely impossible that several individuals can simply vanish and the state lack the resources to track them down and have them released on an emergency basis.

The state, because it is the enforcer of the law, cannot be above the law.

If Mr Haider and the other recent additions to the long list of missing persons have something to answer for, if they need to be investigated, there are laws in place to do that — though it would be remarkably confounding if individuals who have built a public profile based on their human rights and democratic activism are to be investigated and charged with crime by the state.

The recent disappearances are also sure to contribute to a worsening climate of fear and intimidation in the country among activists working for a tolerant, progressive and inclusive Pakistan.

Where once missing persons belonged to the remote areas of the country, to Fata, Balochistan and far-flung parts of KP, and mostly involved those accused of waging war against the Pakistani state, the tactic has now clearly been broadened to encompass anyone who is deemed an irritant to state policy — or the policies of a state within the state.

Meanwhile, the vast infrastructure of jihad and the mosque-madressah-social welfare network of extremism continues to thrive.

That contrast, of peaceful citizens practising democratic dissent versus armed militias preaching hate and intolerance, is one that the state and society should encourage in favour of the former, and it is indeed official state policy enshrined in the National Action Plan.

But the on-ground reality appears to be the reverse, of a state lashing out against the ostensibly weak and cowering before the purportedly strong.

Why is that the case?

And why are so many in government and across the political spectrum silent in the face of state repression?

 

[SANITY]

PM Nawaz speaks out strongly against religious persecution

PM Nawaz speaks at the Katas Raj Temple.— DawnNews


Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday said the day is not far when Pakistan will be recognised as a "minorities-friendly country" and that his government is taking steps to improve the lives of under-represented religious groups.

The premier said his government, through its actions, promotes the belief that 'to each his own faith', adding that humanity is what should bind the nation together.

He was speaking at a ceremony at the Katas Raj temples complex in Chakwal.

He further said followers of all religions have equal rights in Pakistan, noting that they had worked hand-in-hand to defend the country and contribute to its peace and prosperity.

The PM said he has advised his officials to spare no effort in hosting non-Muslim pilgrims and ensuring the protection and expansion of their places of worship.

He also said he would lend his full support for the construction of the Baba Guru Nanak and Gandhara universities.

The PM observed that Islam and all other religions preach peace, and those preaching otherwise were not doing a service to their religion, Radio Pakistan reported.

PM Sharif made frequent references to Islamic history to stress that it was part of the Islamic faith to treat minorities equally.

He recalled that when, in the early days of Islam, after Muslims migrated to Madina to escape prosecution and came into power, they treated the "minorities living there with respect". He said Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) even declared those minorities "one nation" along with Muslims.

He said the Holy Quran states that God is the God of everyone and not just the Muslims, adding that there should be no distinction on the basis of caste, colour or creed because "we are all one as human beings".

PM Sharif reiterated that he was the prime minister of all Pakistanis and "not just Muslim Pakistanis".

PM inaugurates water plant
The premier earlier inaugurated a water filtration plant at the Katas Raj temple.

The filtration plant, set up at the temple's holy Amrat Jal pond, will provide clean drinking water to visiting Hindu pilgrims.

Sharif also planted a sapling on the temple's premises.

He visited different sections of the temple and was briefed about their historic significance.

Minister for Religious Affairs Sardar Yusuf and ETPB Chairman Siddiqul Farooq accompanied the prime minister.

 

[SANITY]

Military Mafia against common Pakistanis? Won't let their authority Questioned.

WHAT do those who abducted the four activists want? What crime did those four commit? They used the digital space very effectively to create satirical commentary against an extremist narrative that is sweeping across the country with increasing ferocity. They wrote poetry.

Salman Haider was picked up without warning when he was returning from a visit with friends, and his car was found abandoned near Korral Chowk just outside Islamabad. His wife received a text message telling her to come and get the car, from his phone. Kidnappers usually turn the phone off at once, since it can be used as a tracking device.

Another two were picked up from their homes. In at least one of those cases, the family noticed that their WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger accounts were still on, and being checked, well into the night.

Doesn’t sound like your typical kidnappers again. The BBC, in their news story on the event, put it best: “No group has said it is holding them. All four aired views critical of the military or militancy on social media.”

Now we have news of a fifth individual, with a similar profile as an activist, also missing as per family reports. Whether or not this is the fifth in line, or the last, we don’t know.

What is going on? Whoever picked them up has no fear of being tracked. No group has claimed responsibility, and no ransom calls have been received. Quite apparently, this is not the handiwork of ordinary criminal gangs.

Days after the pick-ups began, a Facebook page by the name of Bhensaa was shut down. The page was reportedly run by two of the individuals who have been picked up, with possibly other partners. It carried material that touched on religion and politics in a way to counter the extremist narrative sweeping the country.

We are turning crooks into heroes on our TV screens, while the courageous and articulate amongst us are violently weeded out.
In a more sinister development, the page that was taken down became active again but with a new group of people posting to it, who began hurling abuse on the original creators of the page and accusing them of engaging in “hate speech”. Really? Hate speech? So is that how this is going to go down?

This in a country where banned sectarian outfits have felt free to hold demonstrations in an open lot in the capital city, complete with their flags, stage and loudspeakers, from which the most hateful speeches against minority sects have been delivered. This in a country where the interior minister himself meets the leadership of a banned outfit and grants its requests. This in a country where leading members of the same group can run for election, and in one case even win.

What on earth is going on in our country? What ideas are animating the people who issued the instructions for these pick-ups? What do they think they are achieving with acts such as these, which amount to little more than simple abductions?

For a country that is being practically swept off its feet by hate-filled narratives emanating from some seminaries and mosques, that is in the throes of a violent backlash by militant groups that seek to impose their own brand of extreme intolerance on the rest of us, that has had its military installations attacked as well as its schools, playgrounds and shrines, not to mention witnessed targeted killings along sectarian lines, for a country reeling under such circumstances to start using state powers for apprehending these violent and vicious elements, to instead start targeting bloggers and online activists is folly of unimaginable proportions.

Time and again it has been said that the fight against militancy will take far more than guns and bombs. It will take words, poetry, memes, Tweets. It is less a fight over territory and more a fight for the imagination. Such a fight cannot be waged with fake news and sponsored Tweets. It takes the imaginative genius of the citizenry, those with the guts and the brains to generate innovative responses to extremist propaganda.

Instead, the message we are sending to our citizenry is ‘be quiet and do nothing’. We are turning crooks into heroes on our TV screens, while the courageous and articulate amongst us are violently weeded out.

Time and again I am reminded of a story reported by one of the best Karachi journalists in the profession, about a family of boxers who were killed in gang war. Read the details and it will leave you immeasurably sad. These were heroes who stood up to the gangs, sought to rescue the youth from a life of crime by opening a boxing club and providing training and material, and served as role models for them. They were all hunted down by the gangs and killed in one violent swoop. That was the end of their story.

Far too much violence is picking off the best amongst us. Sometimes it is directed by the state, sometimes by criminal gangs, other times by terrorists. Sometimes, sadly, it comes from within the family or by a family against a powerless member of society who is forced into a life of servitude for a few measly rupees.

If we succumb to all this and resolve to lead our lives in a manner that seeks to avoid all contact with the possibility of violent retribution, we become a country of sheep. And nothing helps the terrorists more than that. Nothing hurts the cause of the fight against extremism and terrorism more than that. Nobody is more ill suited to fight against an extremist and terrorist onslaught than a country of sheep. We must demand, and continue demanding, that those abducted bloggers be returned immediately, and unharmed. Recourse to such measures must never be contemplated again in the future.

 

[mayfair]

Blast from the past. Alhamdulillah, Islami Jamhuriyah Pakistan on the road to enlightenment

Jinns invade campuses

Last week, a workshop titled ‘Jinns and Black Magic’ was organised in Islamabad by the department of humanities at the COMSATS Institute of Technology (CIIT), one of Pakistan’s largest universities. The invited speaker, Raja Zia-ul-Haq, introduced as a ‘spiritual cardiologist’ is reputedly an expert on demonic possessions and evil spirits. He is popular: a press photograph shows no standing room left in the university’s main auditorium.
Please note, Baki aawam fully supports and cherishes such events and beliefs.

Interesting logic was used to prove the existence of jinns and black magic. The speaker first categorised all unseen creatures into three types: those that fly; those that change shape and appearance depending upon circumstance; and those that find abode in garbage or dark places.

Why, he asked, would Hollywood invest in horror movies and paranormal phenomena if these didn’t actually exist?
Can't argue with that logic. If Hollywood makes a film on it, it must be true.

But hang on! Doesn’t his argument force you to accept that Hollywood’s popular vampires, werewolves, and zombies are also real, not mere fiction? Surely this nonsensical claim could have been challenged by a single bold person in the audience. But, as at all such events, the organisers ensured that the preacher’s three-hour monologue would be uninterruptable.

What lies next is to be seen. Perhaps CIIT could go for creating a jinn-based telecommunications network. Another promising direction could be radar-evading jinn-powered cruise missiles. Jinn chemistry, a research subject activated in the Ziaul Haq era, could be another growth point. CIIT could also pursue a proposal from the 1970s, initiated by a senior director of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, to replace fossil and nuclear fuels with jinn power

Actually, last week’s event was unexceptional. In schools, colleges, and universities similar ‘motivational speakers’ claiming paranormal knowledge are today’s rage. The Institute for Business Management (Karachi), for example, organised a meeting on ‘The last moments of a man’. The poster showed the grayed hulk of a man slouching through a graveyard. Students (again a full auditorium, I’m told) were given graphic glimpses into life in the next world. The source of this information, probably secretly SMS’ed from inside the grave, was not revealed by the speaker.

One might have thought that Pakistan’s super-elite universities would be different. Lums, the country’s most expensive private university, has a school of science and engineering built with American dollars. It appeared to have a serious mission but several Lums professors now openly deride scientific reasoning.

Quite accidentally, earlier this year I happened to attend a public lecture given by a professor of humanities at Lums whose specialty is science-bashing. While admitting he knew no physics, he went through the usual stale post-modernist critiques of science and then claimed that the Nobel Prize for physics, awarded to American physicist Robert Millikan in 1923, was undeserved since it was based upon a selective choice of data.

The distortions were clear to me, but when the professor poured a ton of scorn on Einstein’s famous equation, E=mc squared, my eyes nearly popped out and my heart stopped beating. What else could make an atom bomb explode, or a nuclear reactor produce electricity? Jinns, surely! But he is not alone in making such claims. The head of the biology department, in an email to the entire Lums faculty, excitedly claimed that reciting or listening to certain holy verses “can control genes and metabolites” and suggested that specially equipped audio-visual rooms be made in hospitals to treat terminally ill patients.
Doctaraan te macheenein nu dafa karo

Perhaps to underscore its determination to shift away from Western science, last month Lums ousted Pakistan’s most highly regarded and respected mathematical physicist from his tenured position.
He deserved it. Woh saala Jinn mein yakeen nahin rakhta tha aur khawateenon ki padhai likhaayi ka himaayati tha, khawaateeno ki hausla afzai karta tha. Uske imaan mein khot thi.

Fortunately, he loses nothing since Harvard, Princeton, or MIT (from where he received his PhD) will welcome him with open arms.

Paranormal and conspiratorial ways of thinking dovetail well with each other. Hence it should not surprise that the current vice chancellor of Punjab University, Pakistan’s largest public university, has written a book asserting that 9/11 was an inside job. Further, according to a newspaper interview, he says that the world’s entire economic system is controlled by Jews huddled together in the town of Monte Carlo.
Jazakallah VC sahab, aap ek sacche, usool parast, watan parast musalman aur Pakistani hain. Allah aapko barkat de, shohrat de.

Conspiracy buffs can expect even more delights now that the famous Zaid Hamid, having successfully dodged his sentence of 1,000 lashes, is back from his months of incarceration in Saudi Arabia. This fiery orator is expected to soon resume his popular campus speaking tours across Pakistan.
With 5 people in attendance including 1 mic fitter, 2 tent fitters and 1 lackey apart from Laal Topi himself.

The all-pervasive anti-reason, anti-science attitude on our campuses might seem difficult to understand. No, it’s not hard, just think for a moment. To spit venom at science and pillory its epistemological basis is easier than falling off a broken chair. Rejecting science means you are spared the required toil, effort, and exacting mental discipline needed for learning hard stuff like math and physics. Besides, you might not even have the talent for it. It’s far easier to curse science than to woo it.
Allah knows best

Consider the advantages: mental disorders like epilepsy can be understood and cured without bringing in neurosurgeons or clinical psychologists since, of course, it’s the jinns at work. A good resident pir or exorcist would do fine. You don’t have to learn the messy science of meteorology because jinns make winds. And seismology is useless since earthquakes happen because of our bad deeds.
Deen mein in sab sawaalon ke jawaab maujood hain Professor sahab- zalzaley, beemari, sookha, baadh, sabka ilaaj mil sakta hai gara aapka imaan buland ho

As for toys and trinkets like computers and cellphones we can, like our Saudi brothers, always buy the best from Apple or Nokia. Some money-hungry Zing-Zang-Zong company will happily run the cellphone networks for Pakistan. The dirty business of technology and inventing things can be safely left to the Chinese, Americans, and Europeans. Their jinns know their job so well.
Surely a learned professor such as yourself can understand that there's no use re-inventing the wheel. Jab CPEC hai to kya ghum hai...

Pakistan’s universities should have been beacons of enlightenment, open inquiry, and bold new thinking. Instead they are sheep farms. A legion of intellectually lazy and ignorant professors wants a breed of students who will submit to authority, not question or challenge. Knowing that an invented bogeyman subdues five-year-olds effectively, they hope the spectre of unworldly creatures and fear of death will suitably frighten 20-25-year-olds. The newly launched jinn invasion of campuses means that Pakistan’s cultural and intellectual decline will accelerate.
One man's decline is a aam Pakistani's road to enlightenment

 

[Adioz]

Pakistani people like her continue to give me hope and a reason to believe that change is possible from within Pakistan. People like her make me reconsider my wish to nuke that entire country. Lets hope more of her kind erupt in Pakistan with similar outbursts and I further hope this translates into an Arab Spring for these Arab Wannabes. If that happens, we will finally get rid of this troublesome neighbour without firing a shot ourselves, and then we can all focus on China: the real threat.
We'll just have to be ready to exploit such an opportunity. When Spring comes to Pakistan, we must be ready to secure Sir Creek, PoK and Paki nuclear arsenal.
Lets hope fir the best.

Some more people like her:-