My Birthday ... and Bird Flu!

Greetings everyone!

So ... well ... today is my birthday. I am not much of a believer in astrology (at least not a passionate one).But every year, on the day of my birth, I have this sudden urge to google for a natal chart report. I got this one today. Its soo very long ... I didn't even read all of it.

Anyway, bird flu is in Pakistan, (check the cool bird-flu evolution thingy in the link ... the way bird flu virus can evolve into a lethal strain for humans)in NWFP at the moment. The doctors say it is H5 not H5N1 but samples have been sent to England for further tests. But I bet it is already in Pakistan despite the ban on poultry from India 'coz of the way many cases go unreported. All of it of course means no chicken. My mother has already instituted the ban in our house. It is terribly distressing. I don't even eat much mutton and beef so cannot sustain myself on that. Its just vegetables and lentils then. Ah ... well ... I hope it goes away soon.

And yeah ... Happy Birthday to me!

Lahore's woes

Violence, at last, in Pakistan too … Lahore was a mess. Buildings of KFC, McDonalds, Telenor burnt(Telenor is sending a message to its mobile connection users that it is not in any way involved and deplores the cartoons or something like that). Burning tyres all across. My mother passed through flamed tyres four times, with the car performing feats of acrobatics throughout in trying to get over the tyres. There is a theory surfing through some people’s minds, my parents included, that the government has some secret role in it. That while maintaining a we-told-you-to-be-peaceful façade, they intentionally permitted such wide-scale disorder to tarnish the image of religious parties or to later declare a state of emergency by means of this newly found justification of uncontrollable conditions within Pakistan. All of which will of course allow Musharraf to strengthen his hold over power, stay on for a longer period, as the 2007 parliamentary elections are delayed. Unfortunately this is not too far-fetched to believe. Rulers in Pakistan’s past have always regarded such disturbances as a windfall to prolong their rule. Or created them if they are too desperate. Intelligence officials suspect it was started by some outlawed Islamic group who wanted to derail Musharraf or something. But if you live in Pakistan you cannot believe those intelligence officials. At least I am skeptical of them. They always have some agenda or another and might just be laying their own blame on someone else. I do however realize that there is too much anger inside the people against the government’s policies and its inner reforms … the price hikes and everything (if you earn Rs. 6000 ... $100... a month you'll be bothered by that ... and of course some people earn even less than that) and some religious party might have tried to use this to their advantage by fuelling up some people’s sentiments. I apologize for all these mights. I am afraid I can’t figure out who to believe. I wish I was out to see it for myself. But it wasn’t like everyone was out with the mission of setting fire to everything. My mother went through all the main centers and she says that it was pretty calm. Just people marching forward with placards and everything. That was of course before the actual rioting began. Whoever started it however, there should have been enough police deployed all around to counter any of the more aggressive elements in the crowd. But their wasn’t. The few that were there just looked on even as some people set fire to buildings and vehicles which means that the government of Punjab didn’t give them enough orders. How can they go on and accuse the religious parties then? The DIG Lahore says that the parties didn’t honour their commitment of being peaceful and that they couldn’t have enough police to deploy everywhere in the city. That is ridiculous of course. Where did all the police and rangers, which were stationed around the city yesterday and that are going to be deployed today, come from? Honestly! … I am sick of saying that I am sick of this blame game played by each and every one of our sectors but well … I have to say it since nobody lets go of it. You never know who and what to believe. All confused and muddled. And as they amuse themselves with this favourite game of theirs, people die. And their property is destroyed. Nobody is going to do anything against those bank guards who shot two people as they tried to enter the building. Okay they were trying to enter, perhaps with an intention to damage but why fire, just like that. They could have just shot in the air or something. Though even that might have returned and hurt someone. But they shouldn’t have killed. An 8 year-old was among those that were killed. But nobody has an ounce of care or concern. Everyone is wrestling against everyone. Just playing ‘enemy enemy’ like little children. And you want to shriek and shout at the top of your voice and go mad or something with all the misery and distress that happens but you know even that is not going to be a cure. There is a beautiful day outside. Mild, pleaseant sunshine and a light blue sky diffused with the whites of the clouds. And I don't want to talk of madness on a day like this. But I do wonder why the entire Pakistani population, excluding the leaders and those that are busy looting this country with their avaricious apetites, has not yet gone mad with so much to tackle with.Indifference on the part of those who are luckier than others and do not have to struggle every single day to to survive?

But perhaps they already have. And don't you think the government has already sequestered them away from themselves? Away from there Defences and Cantonments(do you wonder why the protests and the burnings never happen in those areas). Sorry I am rambling. Thats all I have left to get out this anger that rises up each day.

Lets just hope that the coming marches, if they are going to happen, are peaceful. The one in Karachi was completely nonviolent. Hope we have a standard to go by.

What else but total human misery!

Greetings everyone!

Today was 10th Muharram(the first month in the Islamic Calender) ... the Day of Ashura .

In the town of Hangu, in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan there was an explosion to mark the event. 22 people dead.

In Afghanistan, clashes between Sunnis and Shias leave 5 dead.

Before I leave you to contemplate these appalling scenes, I have updates on the cartoon riots. Not good ones of course.

Four people in Afghanistan have died in riots as police opened fire. These fresh riots came as a response to a French publication winning the backing of a court to publish these cartoons.I, as a response, can't say anything. Words fail me. Don't know what to say, what to write. Just give me time to stomach all of this. Seriously, what do these republications are going to give to those papers?

Meanwhile an Iranian paper, Hamshahri has decided to hold a contest, for cartoons about the Holocaust. To test the West, if it is going to apply the same principles of free speech in this case.

All of this is spinning totally out of control.

Seems like it is going to escalate into something huge. Too huge. More huge than it already is.

P.S. If anyone is still wondering what all of those 12 cartoons consist of, check this out.If there is anyone who would want to know but is the sort of a Muslim who wouldn't want too see the Prophet(pbuh) actually portrayed in a cartoon, check this (contains their description).

Cartoon Controversy!

Hope nobody visited my blog a day before yesterday because it was not coming at all except for a part of my last post. I normally would have attributed it to the sluggish internet connection but I had a day ago made a change in my template & so I sorta panicked ‘coz I know next to nothing about HTML codes and web templates. I wrote to Blogger Support but I think its back to normal now without them doing anything. Must have been the connection. Or something wrong with Blogger.

There is so much that happens every day that you wonder what to write about. My mind is such a muddle of totally unconnected and mismatched things, each of them jostling and pushing in a tiny space, trying their hardest to reach the main stage and be processed and thought abut that I sometimes think it’s going to completely collapse one day. It doesn’t help of course if you, at that moment, have just been through the insufferable traffic noise around here on the streets and have a severe head-ache as a result.
Sorry for my wandering, incoherent, sputtering.

Back to sense-making things? (Or perhaps sense spinning things)

So the cartoon ruckus is on these days …

The Danish embassy in Damascus was torched yesterday. 18 people were injured. Danish flags and the effigies of its Prime Minister were burnt in Multan. I cannot in the least bit justify violence as a means of protest for what Jyllands-Posten and others have done. Okay the cartoons were blasphemous to Muslims but why come down to violence. Such means do not in the least bit assist their cause. Just complicates it further. But Muslims in today’s world have a lot of rage, a lot of aggravation over everything that seems to be going against them, over Palestinians not getting their rights, over Iraq, over Iran, over Kashmir and all of this, in the midst of these continuous declarations of our religious leaders that the West is ever hatching plans for the sole purpose of eradicating Islam and the Muslim World. So when a thing like this erupts up, it naturally has unbounded potential to exacerbate that anger. Muslims are like that active volcano which spills lava every few days … ever rumbling, ever giving off that ominous smoke … they are always on edge. Originally it was their fault …as a result of their decadence, they fell from being the rulers of the world into this deep pit of slavedom. And now they just can’t get out. They can’t even see the light. The pit goes ever deeper for some. They are still falling. Dealing with corrupt governments. With martial laws. With the laws of the Imperial World.I guess all of this has half extinguished their sanity … of years and years of fighting with all of this (of course some are not even fighting) and getting nothing in return. They don’t know what to do so they just go out and burn some flags, some buildings and give out a lot of death threats to let off their steam. There is nothing at the moment to suggest that some of the lost sanity is going to make its way back into the hearts and minds of people. Sometimes I think there is no coming back. That somehow that a not-to-be-pushed button has been pushed. I don’t know. It’s just a feeling. Because Muslims do not show any signs, not even dim ones of something hopeful. I wonder why doesn’t this kind of anger (not the violent one of course) burst out for the cause of education, for eliminating corruption. To Muslims it was an insult to the Prophet (pbuh) but it’s a hundred and thousand times more insulting to the Prophet (pbuh) if the people and nations who call themselves Muslims follow a path, the one we see in every other Muslim country, which is as far as it could be from the message our Prophet (pbuh) gave everything to. Why isn’t trying to become better Muslims our top priority? Why don’t we for once realize this? It doesn’t take a lot of intelligence to come to that conclusion does it? You feel sometimes that opposing the West is all we have to do these days (not saying that their unjust policies should not be opposed), that becoming a better Muslim is connoted with not agreeing with America. A common enemy does give a sense of unity but a unity which is being balanced on thin ropes. You have to have a common ideal to strive for, which we have but sort of forgotten. How do you make someone remember? In old movies you had to have this huge blow to your head which made you recall everything. Maybe that’s what we need. A huge blow. If the things continue like the way they are doing, a major blow (a very, very major one ‘coz the average sized ones don’t seem to get our attention) is not too far ahead.

Having said all of that, there is nothing that could have justified the publication of those cartoons. What irks me more than anything else are the re-runs. The European World is aware how these sorts of provocations are taken in the Muslim Community. They increase the chances of intolerant elements taking advantage of this fury. But they somehow had to do it in the name of freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is an extremely worthy ideal but as an editorial pointed out in The News on Sunday, not something to be “boasted or brandished about”. Someone please tell me, isn’t there a fine, a very thin & delicate line between freedom of speech and striking right at the point where the religious sentiments of a community are particularly sensitive? Papers all over Europe are proclaiming their right to blaspheme, that it is not a crime in their part of the world. There is not much religiousness in Europe and perhaps their right to blaspheme is their because of this secular culture. Nobody particularly cares if some religious figure is satirized. But a society has its own taboos, other ones if not religious. Let me quote the editorial I mentioned earlier: "Deliberate provocation, especially where others’ religious sentiments and emotions are concerned, is by no means free speech. The holocaust was without doubt a monstrous crime of the 20th Century, but the Western Press was up in arms, with some governments joining up as well, when President Ahmedinejad of Iran cast doubt on some of the details of the even. In Germany there is a law - opposed even by some Jews - which makes it a crime punishable by imprisonment to state that the Holocaust did not take place. This example just goes to show that every society has its own taboos and sacred cows and that absolute freedom is just a chimera.”

I am quoting this now from BBC: In Berlin, Die Welt argued there was a right to blaspheme in the West, and asked whether Islam was capable of coping with satire.
"The protests from Muslims would be taken more seriously if they were less hypocritical," it wrote in an editorial.

Who is being hypocritical now? All Ahmedinejad did was questioning. Even if he was wrong, why wasn’t it taken as a chance to discuss the issue? Why an uproar? Why was it considered as a proof of Ahmedinejad intolerance? The protests in this case are more violent but that is, as I said, due to the explosive properties of the Muslim World in general. It didn’t have to be that violent. A more reasonable approach would have been more effective .Bridges between two civilizations are not built if people on both sides just stand at each end, proclaim the need of a bridge, but do not bring any raw materials to actually construct it. All there is then left is just a deep chasm that divides them.

P.S. Poor Arla Foods! Their sales have plummeted to zero in the Middle East.

Back!

Hello everyone!

I thought I should write something ... anything ... even if it were going to be a few nonsensical sentences ... since its been almost a month ... I've had a lot to study this past months ... quite uncharacteristically I had gone quite serious and inclined to study a bit of those 2-inch thick books even if it did entail a lot of mind wanderings ... Anyways ...

There was a small news report in today's The News ... I wonder if you've ever heard about those people without a country ... Biharis in Bangladesh ... this tells their tale ... it says there are those 250,000 to 300,000 of those people in 66 camps all across the country in extremely overcrowded conditions ... this is another link which gives a comprehensive story ... Back to the news report ... it goes on like this ...

Biharis refugees clash with Bangladesh police
Dhaka: Hundereds of Pakistani refugees clamouring to be raptriated clashed with police in the Bangladeshi capital on Thursday and up to 30 people were injured and 20 detained. Witnesses said the violence erupted when the refugees, known as Biharis as their forefathers emigrated from India's Bihar state, tried to march to the Pakistan embassy. They wanted to hand over a memorandum demanding their repatriation to Pakistan, while other demands included imdroved foog and water supplies to refugee camps including the biggest one in Dhaka's Muhammadpur area which is home to more than 20,000. Witnesses including a Reuters cameraman said police used batons and tear gas to disperse the protestors, who pushed through barbed wire barricades trying to march towards embassy. Pakistan embassy officials were not available for comments. - Reuters

Now with more pressing matters on General Pervez Musharraf's agenda than providing basic rights to Pakistan's citizens, he can't be expected to to pay some attention to it can he? What matters to him if there are a few people in another country without any rights, any home? After all there are more than 300,000 people of that sort in Pakistan itself ... If he doesn't do anything about them how can you even have the insolence to ask him of those who are not even in his own country? ...

The state of those people has continued for about 35 years ... How much longer is it going to last?

Written Later: On the subject of the state of those ill-fated people who happen to be born in a country stuck with a bunch of unenlightened, unfeeling people at its rudder, I thought I would mention those 13 villagers killed by an air strike at Bajaur. By one of our greatest ally! (According to George Bush and our President). I wonder of what materials those invisible blindfolds are made, the ones that prevent our government from seeing all reason and everything that humanity stands for. I was so completely shocked at the way it has been dealt with. A mild sort of condemnation without any sort of apology! Is that what those 13 villagers were worth? I know with the kind of low opinion I have of the indifferent people that rule us, it shouldn’t in the least bit astonish me. But sometimes you begin to hope against all hopes, that some sort of humaneness exists somewhere in the depths of the unassailable Mountain of Indifference our General and Prime Minister love to live in. Our Prime Minister had the audacity to carry on with his planned visit of USA. How can you, after all, dare to miss the ceremony of licking the boots of the greatest provider of your income? Silence is all we get from our general. Not something unexpected of course, He has been thinking hard how to react. But he is a pragmatical man, our general. Pity him, his practicality could only recommend silence, with a hugely manipulative super-power on one side and the angry public on another: your thinking faculties collapse when you come across a crisis of this magnitude.

For George Bush, I’ve nothing left to say. How can you blame someone else when your own government doesn’t care? No apology yet. Why don’t we learn from our lessons? Each time a bouquet of friendship is offered to us, there is knife hidden somewhere masquerading as a flower. But time after time after time we are polite enough to accept it. What would happen if we once refuse America to assail our sovereignty, our self-respect? American government is similar to those high school bullying girls everybody has had the misfortune to meet. You can resist only if you are strong enough. Unfortunately we are not. Did you see the way India handled the situation when America began to put pressure to make it revise its relations with Iran. I was impressed. As I said, we are not strong enough, the leaders of course. They had to rely on the George Bushes to give justification to their dictatorial regimes. To help them to stay on. Democracy is a great thing, just too good enough for us lesser mortals or so George Bush thinks. After all look at what happened in Palestine. You give a people their right to vote and all they come up with is Hamas-like regimes. The dictionaries all over the world got the definition of democracy wrong. They should change it to: “Any sort of regime chosen by America, for America, identified by a group of unelected power-hungry people at the top and oppressed public at the bottom.”
Sorry I am rambling. So no signs of apology and every sign of perhaps another attack somewhere, with the intention of rooting out foreign terrorists. I usually don’t agree with my father’s cynicism but once he said that America could attack our nuclear installation under the pretext that terrorists got hand of it. After Bajaur it doesn’t seem impossible.