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| India-Pakistan | |
| Sectarianism in Pakistan | |
| 2003-02-26 | |
The killing of nine Shia Muslims near an Imambargah in Malir, Karachi, puts us on notice that religious terrorism is not at an end; and that the government remains responsible for it in more ways than one. Because of dereliction on the part of the government, more disorder is now in store. Already, the mourners of the latest victims have gone on the rampage, attacking two fast food American franchises in the city.
Up until recently, whenever there was a terrorist incident in Pakistan (ie: every other day) the Indian counterpart to the ISI got the blame, but nowadays the Americans have taken over as the Mullahs favourite boogeyman. Of course the Pakistani media are full of stories about Mossad being active fighting alongside the Indians in Kashmir, as part of that well known Hindu-Jewish-Crusader conspiracy against Pakistan The systematic Shia murders that took place in Karachi targeted the countryâs best doctors and industrialists in 1998-99; and the murderers were not caught because the jihad was on full steam. You can't demoralise the Jihadis by arresting their buddies just because they murder a bunch of doctors and businessmen, after all, these guys are doing the army's dirty work! Many of them were caught later when, after the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, the Americans put pressure on us and brought in the FBI. All of them belonged to the jihadi militias fighting in Afghanistan and Kashmir. One by one, all the killings that we had routinely attributed to the âenemy abroadâ were laid at the door of the jihadis who had concentrated in Karachi as a safe haven along with their Arab friends. Good thing these sectarian groups have promised to be good boys, so there shouldn't be anymore problems The latest research tells us that the madrassas continue to be nurseries of hatred and extreme views. In comparison with students from Urdu and English medium schools, a survey found that over 60 per cent of the respondents in seminarians are opposed to giving rights to the minorities. What is remarkable is that despite indoctrination 60 per cent of the pupils from the other two education streams responded positively to giving rights to the minorities, proving once again that the general non-clerical population of the country is neither sectarian nor warlike in its thinking. In response to the question whether equal rights could be given to Ahmedis and Hindus, the Urdu school response was nearly equally divided, but the seminarian response was negative up to 80 per cent. Not surprisingly, the English medium schools were pluralist in their thinking with over 60 per cent positive responses. No wonder the Brussels-based International Crisis Group chaired by former president of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari, expressed its dissatisfaction last year with Pakistanâs response to the UN directive to reform its madrassas. So nearly 40% of English language schools of the middle class are opposed to equal rights for the infidels, and they are considered bastions of pluralist thinking? | |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |
| #6 great post, Ishmail, very informative. one query: Indonesia put as a cause for concern as in at risk of becoming a failed state? It's pretty big and powerful, with a strong military. also: poverty and cultural shame alone IMHO are not the sole causes for the rise of Islamism: there are poor and undeveloped countries that are not muslim and who do not embrace radical religion as a solution nor seek to destroy the West. And there are wealthy and proud Islamic individuals who join the Jihad. Rich and highly intelligent people join cults even in the western world, economic success is not an accurate predictor. There is a psychological component to the rise of Islamism linked specifically to the current interpretation of that religion, especially to some hadiths and quotes from the koran being adhered to literally. |
| Posted by: anon 2003-02-27 02:32:55 |
| #5 Yo, ISHMAIL. Great stuff. Suggestion: Get a blog! You got lots to say. |
| Posted by: Nero 2003-02-26 22:30:01 |
| #4 "IS IT BY ANY MEANS A MATTER OF SURPRISE TO NOTE THAT VALUATION OF UNISYS IS TWICE THE AMOUNT TO THAT OF ENTIRE KARACHI STICK EXCHANGE?" Stick exchange? Is there an Ethiopian Resturaunt around here? |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-02-26 14:34:51 |
| #3 Great post, Ishmail--it'll take some time to digest it all. I do agree that Pakistan is headed the way of Yugoslavia--and so will Iraq and Afghanistan if we're not careful. |
| Posted by: Dar Steckelberg 2003-02-26 13:44:18 |
| #2 The Muslim countries run from continent of Africa, which has thirteen of them. They then move south through Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Crossing into the Persian Gulf and scrolling into Iran, they across through the Caspian Sea into the âstansâ of Central Asia. Coming into Asia Pacific and finally into south East Asia; they are in all fifty-seven of them. The so-called Islamic world comprises a fifth of humanity and at least a quarter of the world's natural resources having some 70 per cent of the world's energy resources. however the total GDP of the total fiftyâseven countries totals no more than US$1200 billion which is less than that of France, almost half that of Germany and less than a quarter that of Japan. There are less than 400 universities in the total fifty - seven Muslim countries, most of which are sub-standards low-level colleges. In contrast, Tokyo city alone has 120 universities. Japan in totality has over 1000 universities. Consequently, the entire Muslim world produces 2500 PhDs, whereas Britain annually, alone produces 3000 doctorates. There were times when Muslims were torchbearers of knowledge but then it was all followed by a period of deep slumber. Things started to go haywire in the early thirteenth century, when the Muslim world began to stagnate and Europeans surged ahead. Thus, 'there are historians -- who argue that the eastern Muslim world flourished until the sixteenth century, when "the Muslim people, taken collectively, were at the peak of their power". Revisionist historians take exceptions to the dates as the time decline set in, but do accept that decline eventually took place'. But that all is a matter of drawing the line here and not there. Regretfully, right now Islam or its followers, like other religions, have also known such periods, whereby, in frustration are going through a period of hatred and violence. This is by no means all over or we have seen even most of it. Consequently, for a long time now, there has been a rising surge in rebellion against the Western domination and a bloodlust to reassert Muslim values and re- establish Muslim importance. The Muslims have slid through sequential stages of defeat. Like the loss of domination on the world stage to the advancing power of Russia and the West. With the invasion of science and foreign knowledge and weak governance at home, there has been successive weakening of authority of Muslim citizens in their own countries. You know Turkey is the only functioning democracy in the total fifty-seven countries. (It is also a hybrid of military âdemocracy at that, just like Pakistan) In explaining that sense of defeat, you can draw a parallel by thinking of how France would have felt when Germany captured it in World War II. That sense of shame and defeat hangs in all French psyche and reaction even today. It is the same sense of inferiority, the sense of shame that an average Muslim has when they start comparing and contrasting themselves with the West. If you take that sense of shame and inferiority and shame, and enhance it, manifolds you will start to appreciate what, causes the intellectual groups of Muslims go berserk and maniacal. It is the same thinking that actually impels men to hijack commercial jetliners and ram them into skyscrapers, or blow themselves in buses, this desperation makes them believe that they are actually pulling ahead and winning. The fact of the matter lies in the point that Muslims as a people are obsessed with the memory of their history--recent, revolutionary, and ancient. Yet, paradoxically, they have yet to come to terms with much of their present. As a group Muslims believe or are made to believe the most gullible facts about themselves, their history, and their religion. The adult literacy rates are abhorrently low and plethoric throughout the Islamic world. With exception of Brunei and the Commonwealth of Independent States - the four former soviet states, namely Kazakhstan (97-98%) Kyrgyzstan (95-98%) Tajikistan (97-98 %) Turkmenistan (97- 98%) Uzbekistan (88%). these have achieved the literacy rates mainly because the soviet system insisted on the whole lot to pass the high school in matter of three or four generations. But elsewhere illiteracy is rampant and languishes in the depths and breadths of the Muslim society. Pakistan has never been well governed. A country has seen military interventions in its civil systems for half of the 54 years of its existence. Another country similar in circumstances to that of Pakistan is Turkey. Incidentally, the former country is a role model state for Pakistanâs General Mushraff who also happens to be an admirer of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk - the Turkish despot dictator who started an unfinished revolution. From The National War of Independence (1919-1923), eighty years have passed Turkey continues to be worn down by economic and political crises, suffering from a loss of confidence in politicians and institutions. The statist mentality of a single-party period. The country is staggering under a debt load, which is nearly equal to the size of its total GDP. Economists have been fretting since long that its government will be unable to embrace the financial discipline necessary to avoid a default that could leave the economy in shambles. *1 Additionally, Turkey will lose $2 billion to $4 billion in tourist revenue alone. (American monetary reward to turkey for putting soldiers there is the same amount that US would have paid for bailing out Turkey, when it would have defaulted as it has been said,"aid will help put Turkey on a favorable long-term path". The budget target set by IMF for Turkey, aiming to shrink the debt to manageable proportions. The target calls for a government budget surplus, excluding interest payments, equal to 6.5 percent of gross national product, a goal Ankara met in 2001 but missed in 2002.) Is Pakistan any different from the foregoing description? Mushraff is planted to prolong the military rule itself, which with own manufacturing facilities, agribusinesses, construction firms, stakes in schools, hotels, constitute a virtual parallel state. It is no smaller than the civilian sector itself. Or the black economy that riddles that country. Paradoxically the Pakistan military is grimed in corruption but still exempted from investigations by the courts. IS IT BY ANY MEANS A MATTER OF SURPRISE TO NOTE THAT VALUATION OF UNISYS IS TWICE THE AMOUNT TO THAT OF ENTIRE KARACHI STICK EXCHANGE? Readers would be familiar with the concept of the Human Development Index. It measures a country's achievements in three aspects of human development: longevity, knowledge, and a decent standard of living. Expenditures Rankings by HDI and by GDP per capita can be quite different, showing that countries do not have to wait for economic prosperity to make progress in human development. Costa Rica and Korea have both made impressive human development gains, reflected in HDIs of more than 0.800, but Costa Rica has achieved this human outcome with only half the income of Korea. Pakistan and Viet Nam have similar incomes, but Viet Nam has done much more in translating that income into human development. So, with the right policies, countries can advance faster in human development than in economic growth. And if they ensure that growth favours the poor, they can do much more with that growth to promote human development. Twenty-nine of the worldâs 100 largest economic entities are transnational corporations (TNCs), according to a new UNCTAD list that ranks both countries and TNCs on the basis of value added. Of the 200 TNCs with the highest assets abroad in 2000, Exxon is the biggest in terms of value added ($63 billion). It ranks 45th on the new list, making it comparable in economic size to the economies of Chile or Pakistan. Nigeria comes in just between DaimlerChrysler and General Electric, while Philip Morris is on a par with Tunisia, Slovakia and Guatemala. For a change, they would have to accept, that is if they want to set the house right; that Pakistan is almost a failure country and crumbling fast. It has not participated or benefited from the process of globalization and now is gradually becomes poverty-ridden progressively, by almost 2 percent every year. Failed states are countries in which the central government does not exert effective control over, nor is it able to deliver vital services to, significant parts of its own territory due to conflict, ineffective governance, or state collapse. Current examples include Afghanistan, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sudan. Failing statesâthose in which the central governmentâs hold on power and/or territory is tenuousâalso pose a serious threat. They are often countries emerging from, or on the brink of, conflict such as Angola, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Liberia, Burundi, and Cote DâIvoire. Others, like Colombia, may have relatively strong central governments but are cause for concern, due to their lack of control over parts of their territory. Countries such as including Pakistan, Georgia, Albania, Yemen, Nigeria, and Indonesia, are becoming causes of concern as well as these countries queue-up of becoming clearly failing states. At present, the preponderance of state failures is in Africa. While the problem is not exclusively African, the prevalence of failing states there suggests the need for correcting focus on the problems posed by failed and failing states. But one wonders all the while why there preponderance of failure in Islamic countries more than others. Pakistan is another Yugoslavia in the making. And the following goes for entire Muslim world as much as it goes for Pakistan , the prerequisite for any real change is self-criticism, a reliable and ruthless search for the abstruser reasons why things have gone wrong in the Islamic world, why others are strong and Muslims are weak, why its societies are becoming dilapidations . Critics do exist in the Muslim world, but so far, their voices have been voices calling in the wasteland. The obligation of holy war therefore will have to begin at enemy within and enemy at home, against the enemy of social, moral, and economic poverty. ------------------------------------------------- *1 The choice of role models and metaphors is important we use to describe the world we live is very important. They influence the way we approach it, the style and extent of our attempts at shaping it. Probably that is why they insist on viewing the glass as half-full rather than half -empty. |
| Posted by: ISHMAIL 2003-02-26 11:43:43 |
| #1 You take what you can get. |
| Posted by: Crescend 2003-02-26 08:09:11 |