Paradise Lost

By Nusrat Pasha

Today our dear country is at war with religious extremism. Religious extremism is either the natural consequence of allowing religion to come into politics or the result of politicizing Religion. Either way, the outcome is religious extremism. Extremism leads to religious inequality. Religious inequality, in turn, arouses among the clergy representing the majority, an insatiable desire to rule and impose its own interpretation per force. This subsequently paves the way to friction, then militancy and then terrorism, in the name of Religion.

Europe drew wisdom from pragmatism, and eventually separated the Church from the State. Ataturk had to struggle ardently to emancipate Turkey from its theocratic past and lead it to a secular and secure future. Secularism, as some people misleadingly propose, does not at all imply being anti-God, anti-Religion or atheistic or even agnostic; it only means to separate Religion from the business of the State. In fact, speaking realistically, this precisely is what the Holy Quran teaches in the words ” laa ikraaha fid deen ” (Quran 2 : 256) meaning ‘there is no compulsion in matters of religion’. Instead of deriving guidance from the Word of God, we as a nation, preferred to be intimidated and remain enslaved by the ‘ holier than all ‘ clergy of this country.

Islam, cricket and Pakistan

By Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi

Published Daily Times- Sunday, February 07, 2010

Two mutually unrelated incidents last week show the growing dilemma of a large number of Pakistanis to relate themselves in a meaningful manner to the imperatives of citizenship of a nation-state. They may talk of Pakistan and its sovereignty when it is relevant to achieving their individual and group agendas or to pursue some transnational Islamic vision. The key question is, can a person pursue any agenda on the basis of a self-cultivated aura of righteousness or highly partisan considerations while neglecting its negative implications for Pakistan?

The first incident is the statement by Maulana Fazlur Rehman of JUI-F in Peshawar that the military operation against terrorism is directed against a particular religious group and that the Waziristan problem should be resolved through dialogue. He asked the military and the government to side with the people rather than the US.

The second incident was ball tampering by Shahid Afridi in the Perth One-day International. He later maintained that he resorted to this method “in the heat of the moment as the match was a close one”. He knew that ball tampering was an offence in cricket but he was focused on immediate personal gains of consolidating his captaincy by winning the match without giving any attention to its negative fallout for Pakistan in international cricket. This revived the old controversy that Pakistani players engage in ball tampering.

State Religion

By Nusrat Pasha

Interfaith Harmony is unattainable until there is Interfaith Equality. Equality, on the other hand, is bound to remain a fantasy as long as there is a State Religion. As soon as you start talking about a State Religion and involve that religion in legislative matters, you inadvertently open the door to theocracy. The question of “who decides and who interprets?” comes up. An unending battle for supremacy between interpretations offered by the various sects and denominations, within that faith, ensues. Clergymen of diverse sects, simultaneously begin claiming absolute monopoly over the right to decide, the right to interpret and the right to rule. The umbrella of religion ends up being misused and abused to justify and even sanctify all forms of misconduct. Since Monopoly and Equality can not coexist, interfaith harmony is most conveniently sacrificed at the altar of the State Religion.

Only a truly Secular State can aspire to achieve any meaningful Interfaith Harmony. A Secular State does not at all signify an anti-God or even an anti-religion set-up. That would be an incorrect and misleading definition of secularism. Atheism, not Secularism, is the opposite of Religion. A Secular State, by definition, does not defy or deny religion; nor is it by nature anti-religion. A secular state is simply one that is not interested in the religious identity of the Citizen, and deals with all citizens as “equal citizens of one state” , in the words of Jinnah. The religion, religious affiliation or religious inclination of an individual, is thus of no relevance to the state in a secular state. This is the kind of state that was conceived by Quaid-e-Azam.

Jinnah’s Will to the Nation He Founded

By Nusrat Pasha

This nation still has hope if it succeeds in reverting to Jinnah’s Will :

1 : “….Religion should not be allowed to come into Politics….Religion is merely a matter between man and God”. [Jinnah, Address to the Central Legislative Assembly, 7 February 1935]

2 :  “….in the name of Humanity, I care more for them [the Untouchables] than for Mussalmans. ” [Jinnah, Speaking about the Shudras or Untouchables, during his address at the All India Muslim League session at Delhi, 1934 ]

3 :  “….I am NOT fighting for Muslims, believe me, when I demand Pakistan.” [Jinnah, Press Conference, 14 November 1946]

4 : “…. You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed. That has nothing to do with the business of the State.” [Jinnah, Presidential address to the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, Karachi, 11 August 1947]

5 :  “….no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and Equal citizens of One State.” [ Jinnah, Presidential Address to the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, 11 August 1947]

Identity Crisis: Rethinking the Politics of Community and Region in South Asia

By Ayesha Jalal

(Harvard International Review, Summer 1999, vol.xxi, no.3)

(Selected portion of the article)

On the eve of the twentieth century, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) wrote a poem
called ‘The Sunset of the Century’:

The last sun of the century sets amidst the bloodred
clouds of the west and the whirlwind of
hatred.
The naked passion of self-love of Nations, in its
drunken delirium of greed, is dancing to the
clash of steel and the howling verses of
vengeance…
Keep watch, India…
Let your crown be of humility, your freedom the
freedom of the soul.
Build God’s throne daily upon the ample bareness
of your poverty
And know that what is huge is not great and pride
is not ever lasting.

This poem composed on the evening of December 31, 1899 was reprinted by Tagore in his book, Nationalism, which appeared in 1917. As the self-love of Western nations danced to the clash of steel in the killing fields of Europe and the Middle East, the Bengali poet warned his fellow countrymen against the hubris of jingoistic pride that was embodied in the model of the modern nation-state. While Tagore’s songs have become the national anthems of two of post-colonial South Asia’s nation-states, India and Bangladesh, the spirit of his message has remained largely unheeded. Last summer India chose to flaunt its national pride with a series of nuclear explosions in an attempt to force its way into the exclusive club of the most powerful nation-states of this world and, in the process, making a mockery of the ample bareness of its poverty.

Conspiracy Theories and Rebuttals

It is an unfortunate and painful reality that Pakistani youth is mired in revivalism and conspiracy theories. Search for answers in this age of information and dis-information leads them to believe everything that appears on TV screens.  It is the need of the hour to refute such gross distortions of historical, political, religious and economic facts.

One such attempt has been made at AA@Counter Terrorism, Imperialism, extremism and bigotry (CTIEB) . It is highly recommended to go through these rebuttals.

Role of Youth in the Current Situation

From Institute of Peace and Secular Studies

The Institute for Peace and Secular Studies (IPSS) organized a day long youth convention with the theme of Terrorism and Peace under the title “The Role of Youth in the Current Situation” (on December 12, 2009). The convention was attended by over 200 youth including university students from FC College, GCU, COMSATS, Quaid-e-Azam Law College, Punjab University, Dial Singh, MAO College among others.

The convention began with a talk by Dr. Mohammad Waseem, Professor of Political Science LUMS and Mr. Amir Rana, Director Pakistan Institute for Peace. The speakers discussed the history of terrorism in Pakistan asking the youth to be skeptics and question the world around them rather than accepting what they hear and read without evaluating it. Mr. Rana provided facts regarding how jihadi infrastructure created since the Afghan war, religious extremism, sectarian violence and criminal networks have come together to form the most violent wave of terrorism we see today. Dr. Waseem concentrated on the intellectual aspects arguing that the youth of Pakistan was going through an identity crises. The urban life of a Pakistani had been deeply influenced by the West from breakfast to clothing, most of our state laws were a product of British rule and our political democratic system was Western. But because of Western economic hegemony and imperialistic wars, there was a tendency among youth to forgo even the most progressive values that we had gained from Western civilization. He thus argued for accepting the benefits of a civilization while rejecting its destructive elements. The discussion though originally scheduled for an hour lasted close to two hours.

State and Religion in the Perspective of Muslim History

By Hassan Jafar Zaidi

(hjzaidi@hotmail.com)

(The author delivered his lecture on the same subject in Conway Hall, London on January 7, 2007)

Courtesy Danishkada.com

God did not create state. Man evolved and created state in the shapes and forms suited to him according to growth of means of production and the level of organization required to manage the relationships of production and maintain equilibrium in a particular society. The state has not existed from all eternity. There have been societies, which have managed without it, which had no notion of the state or state power. At a definite stage of economic development, which necessarily involved the cleavage of society into classes, the state became a necessity because of this cleavage. Religions, whether evolved terrestrially, or descended heavenly, never evolved a political system or created a state structure though they had close cultural association, in one form or the other, with this institution of keeping balance in the society, called state. And this has been true for all religions and for all forms and shapes of states evolved so far.

History took a historical turn on 9/11/2001. A discriminatory stigma was associated with Muslims in terms of their religion and their states, as if they were the only creatures on the face of this earth that combined their faith with governmental system. Western powers and their media portrayed Muslims and their countries as source of terror. Protagonists of so-called “War on terror” created an Islamophobia by making a case against them on the grounds that:

Distorted Histories

Eqbal Ahmad Interviewed by David Barsamian

Eqbal Ahmad, activist scholar, was born in India probably in 1934. He’s not quite sure. In 1947, he left with his brothers for the newly created state of Pakistan. He came to the United States to study at Princeton in the 1950s, and then went to Algeria. Ahmad worked there with Frantz Fanon during the revolt against the French. He was active in the civil rights movement in the United States and the anti-Vietnam War movement. In 1971, he was prosecuted (along with the Berrigan brothers and several others) on the trumped-up charge of trying to kidnap Henry Kissinger. The case was dismissed.

Ahmad has long been active on the issue of Palestinian sovereignty. This work brought him into a close friendship with Edward Said, who dedicated Culture and Imperialism to him. It also brought him to the attention of Yasser Arafat, who met him several times but, Ahmad says, never took his advice.

In the 1960s, Ahmad taught at Princeton, the University of Illinois, and Cornell. After making a speech to a group of students about the Six-Day War between Israel and the Arab states in 1967, in which he argued that the conflict was more complicated than the media were portraying it, he found himself ostracised in the academy. “A large majority of the faculty at Cornell took great exception to that,” he told me. “For the next year, I found myself increasingly so isolated that sometimes I would sit at the lunch table and large numbers of people would be lining up for a table and nobody would sit at mine.”

The Public Role of Writers and Intellectuals

By Edward Said

The Nation – September 11, 2002

In everyday usage in the languages and cultures with which I am familiar, a “writer” is a person who produces literature–that is, a novelist, poet, dramatist. I think it is generally true that in all cultures writers have a separate, perhaps even more honorific, place than do “intellectuals”; the aura of creativity and an almost sanctified capacity for originality (often vatic in scope and quality) accrues to writers as it doesn’t at all to intellectuals, who with regard to literature belong to the slightly debased and parasitic class of “critics.” Yet at the dawn of the twenty-first century the writer has taken on more and more of the intellectual’s adversarial attributes in such activities as speaking the truth to power, being a witness to persecution and suffering, and supplying a dissenting voice in conflicts with authority. Signs of the amalgamation of one to the other would have to include the Salman Rushdie case in all its ramifications; the formation of numerous writers’ parliaments and congresses devoted to such issues as intolerance, the dialogue of cultures, civil strife (as in Bosnia and Algeria), freedom of speech and censorship, truth and reconciliation (as in South Africa, Argentina, Ireland and elsewhere); and the special symbolic role of the writer as an intellectual testifying to a country’s or region’s experience, thereby giving that experience a public identity forever inscribed in the global discursive agenda.

The easiest way of demonstrating this is simply to list the names of some (but by no means all) recent Nobel Prize winners, then to allow each name to trigger in the mind an emblematized region, which in turn can be seen as a sort of platform or jumping-off point for that writer’s subsequent activity as an intervention, in debates taking place very far from the world of literature. Thus Nadine Gordimer, Kenzaburo Oe, Derek Walcott, Wole Soyinka, Gabriel García Márquez, Octavio Paz, Elie Wiesel, Bertrand Russell, Günter Grass, Rigoberta Menchú, among several others.