Pakistan's Ideology and Identity crisis

[Dark_Prince]

Najam Sethi, His Balanced Views a Bit Titted towards pakistan but still its a start!





Najam Sethi, a prominent Journalist and his Balanced Views a Bit tilted towards pakistan but still its a good start! You can watch more on youtube people such as Hassan Nisar, Najam Sethi, Hhodbhoy etc are a rare species in pak

 

[nitesh]

here is some food for thought:

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/feb2010-weekly/nos-07-02-2010/she.htm#1

TNS: Basant is also termed as an anti-Islamic or Hindu event. How do you respond to this criticism?

YS: Let us admit the fact that we were all Hindus several generations ago and that the people became Muslims through the ways of the Sufis and that’s how Islam came to the subcontinent. When our ancestors converted to Islam, the things that were not clashing with the basic principles of Islam were retained. If anyone insists that the wahabi practices which are practiced in Saudi Arabia should be implemented then that’s not going to happen. Allama Iqbal used to celebrate basant.

 

[johnee]

^^^ He says 'let us admit'. That means that the majority and especially the elites(the policy determiners and media) are in denial that they were once Hindus.

Secondly, he claims that they converted through the ways of Sufis. That may be true, but it is also possible that their ancestors might have succumbed to the force of the foreign invaders and changed their religion. It may also be possible that some of their ancestors changed religion to find favour with the new rulers. All these bitter facts need to be admitted and accepted by the Pakistanis. Instead of living in a false sense of arabic ancestory.

Allama Iqbal, if he knew what Pakistan has become today in terms of society, economy and politics, he may never have advocated the creation of Pakistan by dividing India.

 

[Daredevil]

Lessons in ‘patriotism’?



Wednesday, February 10, 2010
By Farah Zia

My son’s birthday that falls on Feb 4 is like a weekend every year, because Feb 5 is a national holiday, declared as “Kashmir Day” (instituted by Nawaz Sharif when he was Prime Minister) ostensibly in support of the Kashmiris. For the common people, though, like other gazetted holidays in Pakistan, Feb 5 is less about remembering Kashmir and more about getting a mid-week break -- time to relax.

We usually throw a lunch on Kashmir Day to celebrate my son’s birthday after which it is time for me to leave for office.

This year was no different.

On the way to my office in downtown Lahore, it is not unusual to see banners all around or to come across a rally or two, demanding an early resolution of the Kashmir issue.

This time, apart from the Shabab-e-Milli and other such ‘religious’ organisations, there was a sequence of banners on Lahore’s Mall Road carrying pictures of Mian Nawaz Sharif and his brother Mian Shahbaz Sharif. Most of them bore the usual inane versification. One banner that caught my eye read “Hindu bania muzammat se nahin murammat se maney ga” roughly translated as “The Hindu money-lender will not mend his ways through persuasion but will have to be physically fixed”.

It made me be angry. Or angrier, should I say. I was already feeling really agitated about an lesson called “Yom-e-Difaa” or “Defence Day” that my son had to do in his Urdu class a few days back. As I read it for him, I found it a pack of sheer lies and a classic case of how young impressionable minds are being indoctrinated through textbooks.

I could make the connection between the Urdu lesson and the banner on display and how difficult it is to work, or even yearn for peace in such a scenario.

My son, a student of grade 7, goes to a private school in Lahore. I find his history book quite amazing, so different from what we were taught as kids. It is reasonably neutral, academically conceived and quite knowledgeable. It moves logically from one civilization to the next, without exception.

I have no problems with his Islamiat course either. Most of it is about rituals and Islamic history. It does not instill fear in his mind the way ours did, though his Islamiat teacher often utters some strange views that I find totally unnecessary.

It is his Urdu syllabus that I find most dangerous. He has two books for Urdu, one a selection of literature and the other prepared by none other than the Punjab Textbook Board. The latter is compulsory for all children in mainstream school systems. Children in private schools read it partially.

The students are being fed a strange concoction of half-Islam and half-patriotism in the name of Urdu. Once again the Islam part is innocuous; some stories about the life of prophet are actually inspiring. The patriotic stories are scary, to say the least. This is what the Yom-e-Difaa lesson was all about. The way it constructs the ‘enemy’, distorts facts and creates a false sense of superiority is bound to stay in the minds of impressionable young children and turn them into inflexible conservative adults who refuse to move beyond their extreme views.

We in Pakistan have made a mistake of looking only at madrassas as seats of indoctrination. Our mainstream schools, private and public, and the very textbooks prepared by our textbook boards are where we need immediate reform.

The amn ki asha (hope for peace) will be realised only if we stop building war scenarios and worshipping war heroes in our text books. Only a sensible citizenry can question the mainstream political parties that simultaneously glorify peace and war.

– The writer is Editor,

 

[Vinod2070]

An intolerant society

By Huma Yusuf
Sunday, 07 Feb, 2010

Women weep for relatives, who were killed in the attack on a bus travelling to a religious procession, during their funeral in Karachi February 6, 2010. – Photo by Reuters.

Coming on the heels of the Ashura tragedy, the two blasts in Karachi on Friday are a reminder that sectarian violence poses one of the greatest threats to Pakistani society. Well over 4,000 people have been killed in the past two decades in sectarian — involving primarily Shias and Sunnis — violence.

Although no group has claimed responsibility for Friday’s attacks, fingers are pointing at banned sectarian outfits such as Jundullah and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi. No doubt, radicalised militants are behind the kinds of anti-Shia attacks we saw on Dec 28, and again on Friday. But the time has come to put sectarian violence in a broader perspective.

Such violence can no longer be denounced as the work of fringe elements, an accident of history or politics. Instead, it must be recognised as a symptom of an increasingly intolerant and divisive society.

Indeed, intolerance is very much a characteristic of Pakistani society, a fact obvious to anyone who follows the media. Take, for instance, the highly sensationalised, racist jibe at Senator Babar Ghauri by Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan. Khan resorted to racism as a response to Ghauri’s accusation that he had an illegitimate child. But the ease with which he opted for the race card — and the resounding applause that met his comment — indicates that intolerance is thriving here.

Khan’s one-off insult cannot, however, compare with the consistent intolerance preached by other prominent personalities. Pakistani bloggers have made much of self-proclaimed strategic analyst Zaid Hamid’s Wake Up Pakistan campaign, which is explicitly anti-India. Although the campaign calls for an “ideological revolution” that restores the Muslim identity of the Pakistani state, Hamid’s dream of Radio Pakistan broadcasting from New Delhi has come to symbolise the no-compromises attitude of this particular movement.

Meanwhile, Pakistani grievances against US government policies such as escalating drone attacks and the use of private security firms may be justified. But anti-Americanism is slowly becoming conflated with anti-white sentiments: local websites, for example, publish photographs of any white person spotted here, identifying them as Blackwater or CIA agents.

Similarly, in the last year or so, public disdain for the Taliban has been expressed through discriminatory attitudes towards all Pushto-speaking people, who are being pushed out of jobs and increasingly find themselves the victims of arbitrary arrests and harassment.

Returning to a religious context, there is no shortage of examples of intolerance. Sunni-Shia sectarian violence seems to be on the rise in Karachi. Religious parties and the opposition PML-N hushed up calls for the repeal of the controversial blasphemy laws — long identified as anti-minority — after eight Christians were killed in Gojra last year. In September 2008, popular televangelist Aamir Liaquat declared that Islam sanctioned the murder of Ahmadis. Subsequently, at least two Ahmadis were murdered in cold blood. Need one go on?

The government has fuelled this widespread intolerance by employing vague terminology and heaping all the country’s problems on ‘non-state actors’ and ‘foreign elements’. This language has perpetuated a belief in an amorphous, elusive enemy that is defined by one characteristic alone: not being Pakistani. This allows anyone who believes they can define the traits of a Pakistani (increasingly synonymous with Sunni Muslim) to fill in the vague outline of the enemy with that which is considered the ‘other’: Hindu, American, Israeli, Shia, Ahmadi, Christian, Sikh.

And this practice is no longer confined to political, extremist or media circles: the trend is proliferating among Pakistan’s urban, educated middle classes. Just this week, I heard of two incidents that betray the extent of xenophobia and religious intolerance in our society. After an intense medical examination, a friend was using yogic breathing to compose herself when another patient in the waiting room asked her contemptuously if she were Hindu.

Across town, incidentally in another hospital waiting room, an aunt decided to say her prayers. When she was done, a woman spitefully asked her if she belonged to the Ahmadi community. When she responded that she was not, the woman asked, “how can you not be, if you pray with nail polish on?”

In other words, we now live in a society in which any evidence of divergent beliefs or differing practices invites judgment. Rather than embrace diversity and pluralism, or respect people’s personal choices, we are becoming a people who label, despise and even attack that which is deemed to be variant.

A 2005 International Crisis Group report concluded “sectarian conflict in Pakistan is the direct consequence of state policies of Islamisation and marginalisation of secular democratic forces”. But, as the above examples suggest, sectarianism and other forms of intolerance have gone well beyond the political realm, and are now in danger of becoming social norms.

Indeed, a January 2010 report by the Legatum Institute, a London-based think tank, argues that Pakistani society will become more Islamist in the coming years. The report says that religious parties will not win more votes, but will exercise more ‘soft power’ through participation in political coalitions. This power will manifest itself in a move towards ‘Islamic values’, which will be articulated in increasingly conservative and intolerant legislatures; for example, Sharia-compliant laws to govern the banking system, limited women’s participation in the public sphere, public displays of piety, and the further marginalisation of minorities.

This means that the horrors Karachi saw on Friday, and that the country has grappled with for decades, will no longer be the extreme activities of militant groups — they will be an expression of public sentiment. We can already see how incitement to hatred is a prerequisite for representing Pakistanis, while religiously, racially and ethnically motivated violence is becoming intertwined with nationalism.

If our politicians, public figures and media personalities do not make a concerted effort to preach and practise tolerance, Pakistan will continue to head down an explosive path.

[email protected]

 

[peacecracker]

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
- J Krishnamurti

^This is what I have to Tell about Those Who Expects Aman Ki Asha With Pakistan.In Pakistan ,Islam is Represented By Different Cults and Cultmasters Who Have Successfully Brainwashed 99% Of Pak Population.Madrassas spreads Hate In The Name Of Religion.This Sick Society Is Unrepairable,Because New Generation Also Are Fed With Hate Lessons and Descrimination.

MOD EDIT: Kindly refrain from using racial slurs, its offensive.

 

[nitesh]

^^^ He says 'let us admit'. That means that the majority and especially the elites(the policy determiners and media) are in denial that they were once Hindus.

Secondly, he claims that they converted through the ways of Sufis. That may be true, but it is also possible that their ancestors might have succumbed to the force of the foreign invaders and changed their religion. It may also be possible that some of their ancestors changed religion to find favour with the new rulers. All these bitter facts need to be admitted and accepted by the Pakistanis. Instead of living in a false sense of arabic ancestory.

Allama Iqbal, if he knew what Pakistan has become today in terms of society, economy and politics, he may never have advocated the creation of Pakistan by dividing India.

Johnee it's plain and simple these guys are basically converted hindus who tried to run from the truth first and now trying to come back to the roots when they see there doom is near a pathetic attempt to say at least

 

[thakur_ritesh]

Johnee it's plain and simple these guys are basically converted hindus who tried to run from the truth first and now trying to come back to the roots when they see there doom is near a pathetic attempt to say at least

not entirely true nitesh, there is a section in pakistan which is in sink with its past, but then these are very far and very few in between and i believe most of such voices that one comes across are these voices but yes the fact of the matter is they are a rarity. take the case of musalman and ssg viper (both our members), they both say they are rajputs, so in their case for sure we know what was the faith of their ancestors, and them claiming they are rajputs shows us that they very well acknowlege they are converted hindus.

 

[Vinod2070]

^^ But even those who acknowledge the faith of the ancestors are second to none in bashing it or reveling in the genocide of their own ancestors!

I have to give credit to V S naipaul here. He was spot on in identifying this trait of many of the Muslim converts decades back.

“Islam is in its origins an Arab religion. Everyone not an Arab who is a Muslim is a convert. Islam is not simply a matter of conscience or private belief. It makes imperial demands. A convert’s worldview alters. His holy places are in Arab lands; his language is Arabic. His idea of history alters. He rejects his own; he becomes, whether he likes it or not, a part of the Arab story. The convert has to turn away from everything that is his. The disturbance for societies is immense, and even after a thousand years can remain unresolved; the turning away has to be done again and again. People develop fantasies about who and what they are; and in the Islam of the converted countries there is an element of neurosis and nihilism. These countries can be easily set on the boil.”

Most people lose their identity after conversion to Islam. They become confused and fake Arabs and start hating and denying their previous identities.

The best way to deny that identity is to take and show pleasure in denigrating it. So to get approval from their Arab masters they denigrate the faith of their forefathers.

Doesn't work. The Arabs still consider them second class Muslims or worse. In fact I have seen their interviews where the Arabs consider them slaves!

 

[johnee]

Vinod,
this trait is shared by most abramic religions. I think indic religion are more liberal in this regard because as far as most indic religions are concerned, just conversion is not enough, it is seen as continous process till one reaches god or become one with god. Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism and Sikhism, all share this trait. So, it is taken for granted that people are not perfect today nor they were perfect in the past. But getting better is the process. To the contrary, abrahamic religions simply demand obedience and grant eternal heaven to the converts. So, a newly convert has to admit that what he has done thus far was wrong. Not just that but he would be ashamed of his ancestory and his roots. This causes problems. That is the reason Pakistanis tend to trace their roots to mughals or arabs.

 

[johnee]

not entirely true nitesh, there is a section in pakistan which is in sink with its past, but then these are very far and very few in between and i believe most of such voices that one comes across are these voices but yes the fact of the matter is they are a rarity. take the case of musalman and ssg viper (both our members), they both say they are rajputs, so in their case for sure we know what was the faith of their ancestors, and them claiming they are rajputs shows us that they very well acknowlege they are converted hindus.

True. But interestingly those who do admit of their hindu ancestory seem to trace it to elites only. This is strange. No one says, "yes, we were hindus before and my ancestors were lower castes or some obscure castes". Instead, the pakistanis (those few who admit of hindu ancestory) trace it to rajas, maharajas, rich or elites.

 

[johnee]

Johnee it's plain and simple these guys are basically converted hindus who tried to run from the truth first and now trying to come back to the roots when they see there doom is near a pathetic attempt to say at least

Nitesh, I didnt get it. Are you saying that they want to come back to their roots because they realise their doom is near? What do you mean by come back to roots:
become friendly with India?
convert to hinduism?
acknowledge their hindu roots and become moderate muslims?

 

[johnee]

Madrassas spreads Hate In The Name Of Religion.This Sick Society Is Unrepairable,Because New Generation Also Are Fed With Hate Lessons and Descrimination.

While this is a truth, it is only a partial truth. The complete truth is that even the private schools and Govt schools teach a syllabus which is 'hindu bashing' and 'india bashing' along with cultivating 'suicide bomber' mindset. Read the article above posted by DareDevil. It will give you an idea.

 

[nitesh]

Nitesh, I didnt get it. Are you saying that they want to come back to their roots because they realise their doom is near? What do you mean by come back to roots:
become friendly with India?
convert to hinduism?
acknowledge their hindu roots and become moderate muslims?

Nope johnee it is a calculated move to claim the heritage and get out of identity crisis and in the mean while getting some brownie point so that when $hit hits the fan they can get out of it and get a refuge in....

 

[Vinod2070]

The "Arab" population of Pakistan shot up after the partition.

Many people who came from India invented the Arab identity for themselves. Now you have more quraishis in Pakistan than in Arabia itself.

 

[johnee]

Nope johnee it is a calculated move to claim the heritage and get out of identity crisis and in the mean while getting some brownie point so that when $hit hits the fan they can get out of it and get a refuge in....

Nitesh, I dont see any out for the pakistani for their identity crisis. Even if they admit their ancestors were hindus, they will say in the same breath that their ancestors were jahil and are now burning in hell. How can anyone be proud of 'jahil culture'?

But I agree, they may use this as a cover when they come as refugees.

 

[Vinod2070]

Nope johnee it is a calculated move to claim the heritage and get out of identity crisis and in the mean while getting some brownie point so that when $hit hits the fan they can get out of it and get a refuge in....

I think the Israelis whooping the arse of the Arabs also has something to do with it.

It is no longer sexy to be called an Arab! Now they call the Arabs as cowards and they are supposed to be the warriors of Islam.

 

[Vinod2070]

Nitesh, I dont see any out for the pakistani for their identity crisis. Even if they admit their ancestors were hindus, they will say in the same breath that their ancestors were jahil and are now burning in hell. How can anyone be proud of 'jahil culture'?

But I agree, they may use this as a cover when they come as refugees.

MJ Akbar had written an article on it. Whether India would accept them now is not at all certain.

 

[johnee]

Nitesh, I dont see any out for the pakistani for their identity crisis. Even if they admit their ancestors were hindus, they will say in the same breath that their ancestors were jahil and are now burning in hell. How can anyone be proud of 'jahil culture'?

But I agree, they may use this as a cover when they come as refugees.

So, before partition they were enamored by the arabs and as soon as they got a chance, they changed their ancestory and claimed arabic descendence. Who should be really hurt at this move? Their ancestors! If I refuse to accept my father as my real father and claim someone else as my father just because he is an arab, how humiliating amd shallow thinking! This is the paks mentality and they always talk about honour. Great irony.

 

[Vinod2070]

Here is that article:

What if Pakistanis land at our border?M J Akbar

A good friend from Lahore, an activist deeply committed to people's rights and the integrity of Pakistan's legal structures, asked me a question so startling that it took a while to sink in. What would India do if a million Pakistanis reached the Wagah border, demanding safety in India from the Taliban and its ancilliary ideological warriors?

The prospect is only as unthinkable as an analyst suggesting, over coffee on College Street in Calcutta in 1969, that three million refugees from East Pakistan would descend on the city's maidan within two years, forcing a war that would lead to an independent Bangladesh. Pakistan lost the trust of half its population within a quarter century of its birth. Within another four decades, half of what was left is in mortal fear of the other half.

Just as 1971 could not be contained within the geography of Pakistan, a second existential upheaval will also spill over into India. It cannot seep westwards into Afghanistan, because this is, in a sense, another east-west confrontation: the east is under siege from the frontier west, and the east can only move further east for asylum.

How would India, and, more important, Indians, react? In various ways, surely: shock, smugness, gloating, concern — both for those trying to stream in and for the volatile consequences of their arrival. But at some point, sooner rather than later, this range would have to coalesce into one broad sentiment that could then be translated into official policy. Would that be sympathy or cynicism? Would the human heart prevail as children, women and the young sought the comfort of India, or would antipathy make us dismiss them with a sneer: "You made your bed in 1947, now sleep on its thorns."

Punjab would have the decisive voice. I believe that most of Punjab, though not all, would speak from its heart, perhaps with tears in its eyes, even if a colder Delhi thought it a good idea to consign the refugees to thorns. Is this being sentimental? Perhaps, but it would be a cold life without sentiment. In 1971, West Bengal did not check the religion of refugees. Most of them were Muslims, but that was less important than the fact they were three million frightened and hungry Bengalis.

But there are also significant differences, both in time and space. India had never felt threatened by East Pakistan. Bengali Muslims did not forsake their language or script although there was pressure from Karachi "nationalists", in the early years, to write Bengali in the Urdu alphabet (just as, for instance, Kemal Ataturk made Turks abandon the Arabic script and switch to Roman). The reaction was so severe that such ideas were quickly forgotten. There were riots in Bengal, as bitter if not as widespread as those in Punjab, but links were more firmly maintained. There were riots, and there was discrimination against Bengali Hindus; but East Pakistan was not emptied of Hindus, as happened to Hindus in Pakistani Punjab and Sind. Any anger against Indian "repression" was soon overtaken by the reality of West Pakistani oppression against Bengalis for reasons that can only be described as racist.

Time offers its own angularities. In 1971 Indians were angry at the aggression of 1965. War is a tragedy, but one which is acceptable as part of human experience; there is no lifetime in history that can claim it has not undergone the tension and cleavage of war. The dominant experience of the last four decades has been of terrorism. Terrorism is a sly, surreptitious, contemptible evil that makes no distinction between innocent and enemy. How much will the horror of remembered terrorism faze eyes and ice up veins if, God forbid, there is clamour at the gates of Wagah? War will inevitably follow refugees into India; it is possible that a fifth column might camouflage itself in the misery of a human exodus. When citizens have made borders irrelevant why should armies, state or non-state, uniformed or shadowy, respect lines drawn on water? Who will be where in that war? Will the Pakistani armed forces be as divided as the country, split by ideology? Will half the Pakistanis fight alongside Indian forces? The imponderables chase the unthinkable.

One of the defining images of Pakistan's sense of itself is etched on the walls of its side of Wagah: a depiction of wrecked refugees streaming into the new country after Partition. The calamity was not one-sided; there were traumatized millions entering India as well. But India has not frozen that moment in stone, to remind everyone that this was once the brutal battlefield of a civil war. Perhaps Lahoris will erase that image, wherever it is, before they reach the gates of Wagah.