Friday, August 20, 2010

The Year 2210; Speech by the Republican President of the United States of America

My fellow Americans! I am proud to tell you that our colonization of the moon has been successful thanks to the wonderful corporations that assisted us in wiping out the natives! Now that we have succeeded in introducing oxygen and plant life on the moon, we can start letting the general public come and take advantage of the super-luxury apartments with TouchWall ™ technology that Microsoft in conjunction with Intel is offering. The apartments are housed in compounds protecting us from terrorists by XE (formerly known as Blackwater) Security.

Investment into new places to live provides us with unprecedented opportunities and access to a whole new set of resources. The United States of America now owns the Moon and will expect foreign states to pay us for the resources they utilize from us such as moon-light. We will be introducing the “Moon-Light Trade Treaty” at the headquarters of the World Trade Organization to set a standard rate of 35% of each state’s GDP to continue to use US assets. China and Iran have stated that they will not be joining the “Moon-Light Trade Treaty” so America has no choice but to impose economic sanctions on these rogue states.

Unfortunately, today we live in a world of uncertainly and doubt. Due to the terrorist threat on the moon, income tax will be raised by 40% to pay the good people of XE to keep us safe and the Microsoft to keep us connected. This applies to all citizens, on Earth and Abroad.

Now, there is huge controversy going on regarding the building of a Mosque near the artificial oasis we created in sector G13 on the dark side of the Moon. Regardless of the number of Churches, Wiccan Temples, and Synagogues built around that site, I feel that letting a mosque be built on the moon will encourage people like Usama Bin Ladin (even if he has been dead for the better part of a century). America is a state of religious tolerance and freedom. Therefore, to protect that freedom, to stop something like 9/11 from ever happening again, we cannot let the mosque be built. Thank you my fellow Americans and God Bless!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Time to change the way we fight the war on terror?

With bombings on a daily basis, it is clear that the American, Afghani and Pakistani policy of eradicating terrorism has not worked. Militants (be they Taliban, Al Qaida, LeT or Jundullah) seem very apt at retaliating state aggression with explosions and taking innocent lives with them in the process. As in the previous entry, a suggestion regarding how to handle terrorism needs to be made. It seems that taking away their future ranks may not be enough; we need to do something to protect the people from the militants of today. Pakistan can try a new innovative strategy. Seeing how conventional methods have not met with much success, a complete overhaul might just provide the assistance we need to beat militancy. If these radical measures work, we can recommend them to the American and Afghani governments and even NATO.

As we have done before, we should try making deals with individuals in the banned militant outfits to neutralize the terrorist threat. However, unlike the earthly deals that the army, intelligence agencies and politicians have made so far, we need to make heavenly deals in the same way that Al Zahwari and Mullah Omar’s people do. Perhaps General Kiyani could try to lure the terrorists to play for the right team. “Hey you! Yes you in the turban and the wispy beard! Are you an Al Qaida member? Excellent! Boy have I got a deal for you! What’s Usama offering you? 72 virgins? That’s it? He couldn’t do better than that? Look, I’ve got a better offer for you… work for me and I’ll make sure when you die, you get 74 virgins, and I’ll even throw in 20 sloppy seconds!”

People like Faisal Shehzad (the New York City would be bomber) might not be as easily hoodwinked though. For them, a more subtle approach might be better. Send a British Old Labour Party worker to go visit him. The two can start to bond over how evil the capitalist system is, how the economic decline that resulted in Mr. Shehzad’s home foreclosure was a result of the evil capitalism loving God fearing right-wingers and the only way to deal with such issues is to become a left wing American Democrat and get your views across. Better yet, make Mr Shehzad a sob story on on of Micheal Moore's documentaries about the evils of capitalism and the current political setup in America.Of course, someone of Faisal Shehzad’s ethnicity may never progress in American politics but at least he won’t have his head filled with thoughts of declaring war on a sovereign state and then try to blow up Times New Square.

Pakistan needs to start thinking “outside the box” to come up with a way to battle this menace. The time for conventional war is over and we have seen it fail. Madrassas and training camps are beginning to mushroom all over the country and the state has been unable to do much to stop it. While these may seem to be drastic measures, ones that might be met with scorn and ridicule, they certainly do seem to be worth a try seeing that everything else General Kiyani and (previously) Musharraf tried has failed.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Replacing madrassas with Coke Studio

In Pakistan, the last decade has been a rather discerning one in terms of human security with “Johnny Jihads” blowing up innocent people in public places. Many of these Johnnys are a product of the brainwashing institutions called madrassas. With promises of taking care of children from under privileged backgrounds, the Mullahs running the place tend to teach chauvinistic right wing Jihadist philosophy, prepping many of an entire generation of “students” in the art of self explosions with instructions to take as many victims with them as they can while exploding. The rationale for this is one that pulls at the heartstrings of pubescent boys in a sexually repressed society such as Pakistan;, die for God (because he wants you to kill people) and you will be rewarded with more than 70 virgins once you go to Heaven.

Sex has become a weapon wielded by the religious right to recruit more to their cause. With the right wing Punjab Government cracking down on late night mobile phone packages, the state is helping establish a new era of sexual repression, one that distances the already bipolar world of man and woman. At the same time, since the federal government (under both Musharraf and the PPP) has been reluctant to anger the right wing power-brokers by abolishing these breeding holes of terrorism, it would be quite unpatriotic to not offer an alternative “out-of the-box” solution to this dilemma. The state should take over havoc creating madrassas and replace the mullahs with projectors showing songs from Coke Studio. The Song “Alif Allah” by Arif Lohar features a cool female celeb, Meesha Shafi (of Overload fame) who sings about the “Oneness of God” with folk singer Arif Lohar. This can be accompanied by the track by Saieen Zahoor, “Aik Alif” The mysticism associated with Sufi music will help lend a feel of religious devotion to these new fangled educational institutions. The religious right will get their message of God across to otherwise doomed-to-a-short-life-of-self-explosion-children while the left will get the “students’ to realize that music and female vocal chords are quite wonderful things. It’s a win-win situation!

Once these children learn to accept the wondrous world of art, they may not feel the need to try and destroy it. In fact, it might even contribute towards eradicating widespread philistine beliefs regarding thespians- a move that is immensely needed in Pakistan. If the state wants to be really daring it can add the occasional Indian film in to the mix and let the children get accustomed to people who may not be Muslim and realize that not all of them are agents of the Devil or out to kill all Muslims. A good holocaust film would also do a world of good but might raise more controversy than all the above measures combined. Exposure to the likes of Kareena Kapoor and Katrina Kaif and their rather splendid curves will hopefully make “madrassa students” realize that many of our Indian neighbors are wonderful and gorgeous people. The promise of gorgeous women might awaken these children to normal beliefs about earthly women and life being and important as well. Perhaps realizing that Katrina could tempt a saint might bring acceptance in an otherwise xenophobic and sexist society. Without the support of these budding Taliban and Al Qaida members, these two organizations will find themselves with receding numbers and will not therefore be as much of a threat as they are today.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The return of the Mushy!

Not long ago, in a land not far away, a land called Islamabad, there lived a military dictator who was known for his invention of the term, "moderate enlightenment". What relation the term had to fighting terrorism few know, but it was thrown around by his administration as a philosophy much like capitalism or socialism. Somehow, a phrase that seems to indicate a limited amount of knowledge was supposed to bring the nation together to fight terrorism. It worked in the sense that it led to limited knowledge of the part of the people of Pakistan at the expense of Pakistan.

It would seem that the adminstration was criticizing the terrorists while arming them at the same time. According to Ahmad Rashid's "Descent into Chaos" (2008 Penguin Books), as long as General Musharraf's army was helping the US forces fight Al Qaida forces in Afghanistan, the ISI was free to do whatever it pleased. Using the power of the military adminstration behind it, the ISI were arming Taliban members to go fight against Afghanistan. When the Allied Forces planned a large offensive, a Pakistani military plane airlifted many militants out of danger citing the evacuation of ISI operatives as an excuse. These same militants were the fore runners of organistations linked to the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaida. They wasted little time in establishing training camps in Waziristan and now Punjab. It seems that when General Musharraf was talking about "moderate enlightenment", he meant that the people ahould be enlightened about the army's efforts at eradicating terrorism in Afghanistan while being unaware of the ISI's efforts of arming Taliban and other non-state actors.

Due to the example of the US forces not following the Geneva conventions that detail legal rights of prisoners of war (which became a scandal in itself in the US and a key argument for Obama's campaign), the Pakistani security forces under Musharraf decided to follow suit and ignored the UN rules regarding ban on torture or the right to habeas corpus (due process of law). With the security forces detaning suspected militants without charging them with crimes, the Supreme Court was forced to step in on humanatarian grounds and direct the forces to free those not charged with anything. Had these suspected militants been arrested and charged with a crime while giving them trial, a genuine threat to national security could have been diminished. Instead, the militrary intelligence establishment forced the judiciary to free suspected militants. These militants could have been dealt with in ways to benefit the state and keep militancy at bay. Instead, due to the rash decision of following the policies of the then US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld (whose choice it was to ignore international law regarding the rules of war), the Pakistani administration ended up digging itself in a hole.

The follies of General Musharraf did not stop there. After a political conundrum involving
the courts over the legality of a President who was also an army chief, followed by democracy and still more political instability, General Musharraf (finally ousted from the presidency by parliament and as a retired army chief, no longer officially supported by the army and living in self exile in England) had decided he could not get enough of the Pakistani political arena. He has now formed the All Pakistan Muslim League, a party that has extended a hand of friendship towards the violent MQM Party (Mohajir Qaumi Movement Party) of Karachi. The question is, will anyone want to see a disgraced president (frequently called a dictator by the state leadership and the opposition) back in power? More importantly, is the world ready for the return of the Mushy?

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Can Pakistanis sink any lower?

1974, Zulifqar Bhutto in a desperate attempt to cling to power declared Ahmadis non Muslims in order to appease the right wing pressure groups. He was replaced by a military dictator regardless of the attempts to please right wing political elements. General Zia, dictator of the late 70s and 1980s brought about changes in the constitution that promised more discrimination against the Ahmadis, a minority sect of Islam in Pakistan. They are forbidden to call themselves Muslims, they are forbidden to call their places of worship mosques and every Pakistani who applies for a passport has to sign a document forcing him to state that Ahmadis are non-Muslims. People argue that the 80s are gone, and democracy is back. They argue that religious tolerance can only improve with a liberal government like the PPP in power and also argue that the “moderate enlightenment model” of the Musharraf era has made Pakistan better for minorities. The massacre of approximately 100 Ahmadis is considered by many as a terrorist incident and condemned. The right wing PML-N’s Nawaz Sharif has publicly called Ahamadis his “brothers”. Why then all the disgust?

Many of these so called peace loving politicians allowed Dr. Amir Liaquat Hussain to get away with saying that it the Islamic duty of all Muslims to murder Ahmadis on the show “Alim Online” (7th September 2008). According to the Asian Human Rights Commission, “48 hours after the first broadcast, two Ahmadi community leaders were lynched and murdered”. This hate monger remains free and unprosecuted. Geo television has not been questioned about why they allowed religious based discrimination on public television at a time when the state is fighting religious extremists. To make matters worse, a 2009 billboard paid for by the Punjab Government (run by Mr. Sharif’s party) for “world Conference for the Protection and Finality of the Prophet hood” stated in Arabic, “Friendship with Ahmadis is Rebellion Against the Prophet Peace Be Upon Him". If that was not enough, a massacre of Ahamadis took place in Lahore, the capital of Punjab. When the PML National Assembly representative, Nawaz Sharif expressed solidarity for the loss of so many innocent lives and called the Ahmadi sect his “brothers”, it did not sit well certain Pakistanis. At a time like this, given the present conditions and the lack of respect for minorities, it was a commendable course of action. Members of parliament should be helping all Pakistani citizens and view them as equals. By equating them as brothers, these minorities can feel less threatened and isolated. It seems our peace loving religious parties did not feel the same way as many were in an uproar. “Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam President Maluana Sami-ul-Haq has threatened to launch a statewide protest unless Nawaz Sharif does not retract his statement about Ahmadis being his brothers. The “Wafaqul Madaris Al Arabia”, the representatives of the “Deobandi” religious school of thought stated that Nawaz Sharif should be “ashamed of calling Ahamadis brothers of Muslims”. All these groups have publicly come out against the fascist policies of the right wing Israeli government when it comes to their treatment of Muslims in the Mid-East but seem to forget that they oppress people with different ideologies and beliefs just as much in their own country.

The strange thing about right wing Muslims in Pakistan is how quickly they forget the reason for the creation of Pakistan. The Indian Muslim League was afraid that after the British left India, the Hindu majority community of India would discriminate against the minority Muslim community. Pakistan was a state created to give minorities refuge, not to assassinate them in the name of religion. Pakistan was supposed to be a state for religious tolerance, one where people who ascribed to all doctrines could practice their beliefs without fear of persecution (anyone remember the white part of our flag? It stands for non-Muslim minorities residing in Pakistan).

The sad reality of the situation is that Pakistan is not the state it was destined to be. Mr. Jinnah, a Shia Muslim (one of the minority sects being persecuted by the militant Pakistani Taliban), the man who made Pakistan stood for morality, values, modernization, secular politics, religious impartiality and harmony. Instead, we have a state where religious intolerance increases on a daily basis, where corruption and scandals are the highlights of the political arena and where anyone not born a Sunni has to live in fear. Pakistan unfortunately, has become a failed state.