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| India-Pakistan | |
| 'Christians considered Westerners despite contribution to nation building' | |
| 2008-07-26 | |
Christians are considered 'Westerners' in Pakistan despite their efforts in the country's independence movement and nation building, said Community Development Initiatives (CDI) Executive Director Asif Aqeel at a seminar on Friday.
Aqeel said that about 90 percent of Christians had converted from the lowest stratum of the Hindu society, called the scheduled caste in the middle of the 19th century. He said, "It is also an interesting fact that these Christians are aboriginals and the remnants of the Indus Valley Civilisation. It was the Aryan conquest that brought these people to the status where they were considered untouchables." Keeping this heritage in mind, he said, Pakistani Muslims should understand that their fellow Christian countrymen had nothing to do with the West. He lamented that after 9/11, churches and Christian schools had been targeted. "More than 20 Christians were abducted in Peshawar recently during worship." At the time of independence, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah met Christian leader Chandu Lal to get the minorities' support for Pakistan. Chandu Lal assured Jinnah of the Christian community's support, Aqeel said. He further said Christians had supported democracy because it was the only way to transform Pakistan in accordance with Jinnah's ideals. He said the Quaid had envisioned a state where people were not discriminated on the basis of their caste, colour, creed or gender. Dr Dubash said that nations could not grow without education and if they focused on education, they became indispensable. He added that Pakistanis should focus on learning the English language because it had become the lingua franca. | |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #6 That's likely because Christians, by their outlook, are oriented to things that are traditionally associated with the West: freedom to think and freedom to question being the most important. Which reminds me that IIRC, arab nationalism & baathism were created and pushed mostly by arab Christians (michel aflak firstly, of course), because it was seen as a way of overcoming the disctinction between Christians and the Master Race (exactly as IMHO lotsa jews in the 19th & early 20th century embrassed socialism and marxism, because this was seen consciously or not as a way to "transcend" the distinction between the minority jews and the majority Christians by going into a larger non-disctinctive socialist utopia of some sort, this was most probably true in russia, with the predominetntly jewish bolsheviks supremos). Again, all this was futile, and panarabism didn't help arab Christians escape their condition, because, again, it's not what they do or believe, it's what they are. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2008-07-26 12:25 |
| #5 They think differently and that makes them act differently. And in Pakistan, that's all it takes. I don't want to seem to be nitpicking, but again, it's probable they don't even act very differently from other paks on several levels (cf. the honor killing by a Christian father a while back), though the hardwiring must be different (better education, possibly, don't know if they're indoctrined with the same mix of pak religious ethno-nationalism?). It's not what they do, but what they are : infidels living in the land of the pure, AND, they're Christians, that is, they hail from the same religion than the Great Satan, the filthy danish dogs, all the devils that are besieging the Master Religion. IIUC, back in the Olden Days, dhimmis were perceived very differently according on if they were joooooooos or Christians; jews were the arch-dhimmis, and while their status was often very low (like in northern africa, where they had to live in secluded town areas, had to walk barefooted, were to be stoned at will by the local kiddies, etc, etc), they had more leeway and could become more involved in society, like in slave trade. The Christians, on the other hand, were seen as being part of the western ennemy, even though like the jews they were the actual indigenous people, and were treated as a potential fifth column. I think this is the exact same pattern here. If the pak Christians were a vanilla minority, they would be treated with the usual Tolerance™, but, on top of that, they're dumped with the ennemies of islam (and even if the West doesn't see itself as the ennemy of islam, important thing is joe islam sees the West as an ennemy of islam). It's really not what they do. That's why when the danish mo' cartoons were published, the local rubes went into the Christian ghettos/neighbourhoods to riot and wreck havoc (remember that woman who was potentially sentenced to death because she filed a police complaint after having been stripped naked, and the local pious muslims accused her of soiling a pic of the Kaaba with feces™? Not that the story was important enough for the international msm to report this, less even follow it...)... because, they were "them", regardless of what they do, think, act, believe,... Cf. this for lot of meat on the idea of "us vs them" societies : Augean Stables » Prime Divider Societies |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2008-07-26 12:16 |
| #4 But what makes the Paks 'us' and the Christians 'them'? Religion, of course. Not that the Paks need any reason to get uppity and go for their shooting irons, but the Christians are different because they're a different faith. They think differently and that makes them act differently. And in Pakistan, that's all it takes. Or just marrying the wrong cousin, I dunno ... |
| Posted by: Steve White 2008-07-26 10:17 |
| #3 Because Persians are better educated? |
| Posted by: Lumpy Cheack3231 2008-07-26 05:15 |
| #2 That's likely because Christians, by their outlook, are oriented to things that are traditionally associated with the West: freedom to think and freedom to question being the most important. I think the pink (I mean salmon, yes, salmon, that's right, it's important we all pretend it's salmon) inlining Doc is over-thinking this, in all due respect. It's most likely it's a very primal case of "Us vs Them", Christians there are not "us", therefore, they're part of the ennemy. It's not what Christians think (and IIRC, many usually are at the bottom of society thanks to paki tolerance, so I don't believe they're that "progressive" thinking, it's wishful thinking at least in some part), it's what they are. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2008-07-26 02:52 |
| #1 Last I heard, Pakistan students spend one third of school time studying the Koran and Arabic. And its worse in the Madrasas. Paradox: Pakistani immigrants to the West remain Islamic; Persian (Iran) immigrants tend to abandon the Arab murder cult. Wonder why? |
| Posted by: McZoid 2008-07-26 00:43 |