Najam Sethi
The outlook is bleak. After four weeks of inspired dithering, the government has succumbed to the Lal Masjid-Jamia Hafsa jihadis. Chaudhry Shujaat, whose political career rests on alliances with the mullahs, has been tasked to neutralize them. Apparently, the intelligence agencies, various ministries and even some well-meaning columnists are wringing their hands in despair because they are opposed to sorting them out. But they are all wrong in their prescriptions because their diagnosis of the problem is wrong.
The official diagnosis/prescription formula goes like this: These are a couple of mad maverick mullahs who have little public support but great nuisance value; therefore, there is no need to use force because that would only give them media headlines and public sympathy in the run-up to elections, with the judicial crisis still simmering and anti-government fronts boiling over in Balochistan and FATA. Instead, the prescription is to engage them in talks and make some concessions land and money to build new mosques and promises to uproot brothels and other un-Islamic ills from Islamabad and other cities .
But will this concession suffice to appease Islamic revolutionaries wired for suicide bombing? Logically speaking, the government should then prepare to make the same concessions to copycat blackmailing mullahs and madrassahs all over the country. Already, the Islami Jamiat i Tulaba has been emboldened into beating up un-Islamic students at the Punjab University in Lahore (where the vice-chancellor is a retired general) and openly proclaiming the Islamisation of the campus. In Peshawar, Maulana Qureshi, head of the 17th century Mohabat Khan Mosque and president of the Muttahida Shariat Mahaz (MSM), has warned the government to close down brothels or else the Mahaz will launch a jihad against them. More mullahs are likely to follow suit if this issue is not closed swiftly. Brothels, billboards, veils, music, film, haircuts, dress, schools there is no end to the concessions that will be demanded in the name of jihad and Islam. Indeed, if the threat of provoking militant resistance and suicide bombing by the Jamia Hafsa students has unnerved the government it should step down and hand over power to the FATA mullahs and Taliban who have raised not one but many brigades of suicide bombers to resist the governments war against terrorism.
One variant of this opportunist approach is to say that, while force is not the answer, a dialogue coupled with the threat of force may be the right way to handle the issue. But this is a non-starter. If force as an option is already ruled out then the threat of force in any context is meaningless.
In fact, herein lies the answer. In many situations, the threat of the use of force is more effective than the use of force itself. But that strategy requires a credible demonstration of the mental will and physical ability to deploy and use massive force. In this situation, General Musharraf was required to show the iron fist of the police and military, not proffer the velvet glove of Ejaz ul Haq or Chaudhry Shujaat. There were a hundred ways of doing that at the outset. But when the government leaked word that force was not an option, the mavericks were emboldened to extend their agenda from seizing a library to forming vigilante groups for the enforcement of virtue in the twin cities and establishing an Islamic space in the heart of Islamabad. The situation is so pathetic that this high and mighty government cannot even block the mullahs website on the internet. So if the government wants Chaudhry Shujaat to succeed in his negotiations, it should physically and mentally demonstrate its ability to sort them out immediately. One way to do that would be to cordon off the area, deploy troops and make ready to smoke them out. Then negotiations might succeed in disarming them.
But, of course, the problem is much deeper than that. The maverick mullahs of Islamabad are just one outcrop of a developing countrywide jihadi resistance to a cynical state establishment that once trained and nurtured them and now wants to put a lid on them. For a variety of well known reasons, this is unfortunately happening in the context of rising anti-Americanism (which is a political sentiment) and anti-Westernisation (which is a cultural sentiment). Both these sentiments are stimulating a return to religious faith as a symbol of measuring and stating identity in an alienating, insecure and globalizing world. The failure of the nation-state and nationalism in Pakistan is increasingly manifest. So what is the way out?
Clearly, we need a fresh restatement and refurbishment of the nation-state so that it truly reflects the aspirations, hopes and dreams of ordinary Pakistanis, a state that is based on democratic institutions that inspire popular confidence and are able to productively channel the energies of the people, a state whose writ is accepted as a measure of the social contract between rulers and the ruled rather than forcibly imposed from above and therefore liable to be resisted. But the rub is that, despite an early promise of radical reform of state and society, General Pervez Musharraf seems to be digging in for the status quo which is actually a recipe for Islamist insurrections.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2007 11:28 ||
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Well come to Ashok Mitra's book in a moment in which he damns Manmohan Singh as an American plant. But let us first take a bird's eye view of South Asia's blossoming republics. How long ago was it when Indira Gandhi imposed her emergency rule in India? Her dictatorship lasted all of 18 months between 1975 and 1977, when she called elections and lost. The howls of protest against the brief authoritarian rule came mostly from the West, and they were deafening. This was strange from a world that was playing footsy with the notorious generals, Messrs Zia in Bangladesh and Pakistan, not to forget Junius Jayewardene in Sri Lanka..
Let's not forget also Mrs Gandhi's circumstances, particularly in the wake of the far more serious happenings that are under way vis a vis the judiciary, for example, in Pakistan today. Mrs Gandhi was a Soviet client, and her emergency was supported by allies like the pro-Moscow Communist Party of India. Bad enough. On the other hand, the groups ranged against her included the pro-American wing of the fractured Congress party and the religious revivalist Jana Sangh, a creature of the world's original anti-Soviet strategy in South Asia, a forerunner of today's BJP. Other opponents of Mrs Gandhi were led by pro-China communists.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: John Frum ||
04/15/2007 07:11 ||
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An understanding of effect, now all they need to understand is cause
We use trains and planes, but they are not our trains or planes. The (Westerners) manufacture them and export them to us. True, we can buy the most magnificent things in the world products for our homes and for ourselves. Our people can buy the most luxurious cars, Rolls-Royce or Mercedes 500 or 700, models S, M, and L with all the luxuries. We own them, but we don't manufacture them. We don't even produce a single nail in any of these cars. Others do this for us. The income of the entire Arab world, including the oil-producing countries, does not reach the that of a European country, such as Spain. Spain let alone Germany, France, Britain, or Italy. Just Spain, which is at the bottom of the list of industrial countries... The income of the entire Arab world does not reach it. How come? Because we don't work, and if we do work, we don't do it professionally. Seek guidance from ol' Mo. He has all of the answers. LOLOL.
They conducted a survey of the average time that a government employee spends working in a certain Arab country. The average was 27 minutes a day. 27 minutes! The rest of the time he drinks coffee, reads newspapers, and goes on errands here and there. Only a small number of people work. The rest do not. I'd say the capitalist arabs work hard.
In the mid 1970s I went to Germany. We arrived during in the morning. I asked the guy who took me from the airport to the convention hall As I was passing through the empty streets, I asked him how come the streets were not busy, like in our countries. He said: "People are at work." After 7 p.m. he took me back to the hotel, and the streets were empty. I said to him: "What's going on, the streets are empty again." He said: people are back home from work, and they are exhausted. All they want is to eat their dinner, watch the news, and then go to bed, because early next morning they have to wake up for hard work. They commute more than an hour to work and back, and spend an hour at lunch. They work non-stop. And here comes, as they say, the "money shot"
We are a nation that doesn't work. How can we develop if we don't work? When we do work, we don't do it professionally. We keep saying "Don't worry, later, later " Islam teaches us to do things professionally. Doing things professionally is a religious duty. The Prophet said that Allah ordered to excel in everything. He imposed excellence and professionalism. Professionalism must be followed in everything. "If you kill, do it properly, and if you slaughter, do it properly." Even when killing, you must do well. LOL! It ALL comes down to killing for mohammedeans, correct? It IS something they can do well and maybe the only thing.
Unfortunately, we do not excel in either military or civil industries. We import everything from needles to missiles. This is our nation. We still haven't manufactured an engine in our Arab countries. We assemble parts, but have no manufacturing industries. India has manufactured a car, and even a plane, while we still go around in circles like a bull in who turns a grinding mill or a water weal (sic) until it reaches exactly where it started.
How come the Zionist gang has managed to be superior to us, despite being so few? It has become superior through knowledge, through technology, and through strength. It has become superior to us through work. We had the desert before our eyes but we didn't do anything with it. When they took over, they turned it into a green oasis. How can a nation that does not work progress? How can it grow? Ummm, drop the rules of mohammed? Try it.
#1
Formatting's farked, but it's easy enough to follow.
Watching archaeology shows on "Discovery", I've been struck by a couple of really massive engineering projects from ancient times that, apparently, the modern Arabs have no interest in emulating. I'll give the Egyptians credit for the Aswan Dam, but there was another dam, in Yemen, that was built 2-3,000 years ago. It turned a patch of the desert into an oasis that supported a massive city.
Today, there are only ruins of both the dam and the city. The locals apparently get a bit snippy (or is it "snipey"?) when outsiders come around to investigate the ruins.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
04/15/2007 17:39 Comments ||
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#2
I'll give the Egyptians credit for the Aswan Dam,
#3
Brett, your highlighting tags got away from you there.
We don't even produce a single nail in any of these cars.
Sorta gets to the heart of the problem right there. Cars arent built with nails. Qaradawi is one of Islams most respected scholars and he thinks cars are built with nails.
The income of the entire Arab world, including the oil-producing countries, does not reach the that of a European country, such as Spain. Spain let alone Germany, France, Britain, or Italy. Just Spain, which is at the bottom of the list of industrial countries... The income of the entire Arab world does not reach it. How come?
It is an intense irony that Qaradawi should cite Spain, whose rigid interpretation of Catholic doctrine prohibited loans as usury, as with Islam, and stifled the sort of industrial revolution that swept Protestant Northern Europe. Far be it from this idiot to notice such a glaring similarity. Islam's strangulation of MME (Muslim Middle East) economic growth is a direct parallel of Spanish industrial stagnation.
As to income, theres plenty of wealth that flows into the MME. There just isnt any trickle down in terms of capital investment and industrial development. For Qaradawi to bemoan lack of personal income without recognizing how the vast majority of petro-dollars never make it out of government hands is sheer obfuscation. The endemic corruption typical of almost all Islamic cultures is to blame and Koranic doctrine further entrenches that eliteist entitlement on a daily basis.
Doing things professionally is a religious duty. The Prophet said that Allah ordered to excel in everything. He imposed excellence and professionalism. Professionalism must be followed in everything. "If you kill, do it properly, and if you slaughter, do it properly." Even when killing, you must do well.
Looks like Islam didnt even get that part right, or else they would have invented nuclear weapons a long time ago. The Western work ethic triumphs once again. About all the Arab world does regarding this is beg us to use our atomic weapons against them. Not the brightest strategy for them to choose.
How come the Zionist gang has managed to be superior to us, despite being so few? It has become superior through knowledge, through technology, and through strength. It ahs [has] become superior to us through work. We had the desert before our eyes but we didn't do anything with it. When they took over, they turned it into a green oasis. How can a nation that does not work progress? How can it grow?
All this from a genocidal terrorist bastard who continues to advocate the Wests destruction. Does this moron sincerely believe that he can go on preaching an unreformed Islam yet manage somehow to obtain the industrious and productive results found in the West? This is a root cause of failure in the MME. They cannot have it both ways. They cannot disallow interest on loans and simultaneously expect foreign investment or growth in the business sector. They cannot place paramount importance on memorizing the Koran and expect such rote learning to produce individuals capable of critical analysis or the independent though needed for invention.
This same asshole insists that free speech be curtailed over something so idiotic as the Mohammed cartoons and still expects that such a constrained society could ever achieve the open exchange of ideas and expansive sort of thought needed for technological breakthroughs.
He is nothing less than the fabled monkey who, in trying to pull forth an apple from a jar, becomes trapped by his own fist clutching the piece of fruit. Qaradawi's unrelenting grip upon the power conferred by Islam's retrograde doctrine leaves him fatally encumbered but he cannot bring himself to admit it. He prefers to go on grasping Islam and its poverty of achievement rather than abandon the select privileges and political station it has brought to him and a bare few others.
Nothing of substance can pass through the narrow conduit of Islamic thought. It channels all energy and dedication into the dry riverbed of theocratic control. Qaradawi is directly responsible for this yet does not blink at bewailing the stillborn fruits of his lifes work. This is Islamic cognitive dissonance writ large. This is what has kept Islam in the stone age for over a millennia. Not so much Koranic doctrine, although it is surely to blame, but more importantly the blind unreasoning irrationality of those like Qaradawi who think that technological and military supremacy can result from practicing a narrow minded and Neanderthal creed like Islam.
#4
The Aswan Dam is Israel's ultimate weapon against an Egyptian invasion. It is the Sword of Damocles hanging over Mubarak's head. He knows Israel can blow the dam, and thus destroy Egypt, and believes they will do it before they submit (I choose that word very precisely) to defeat by Egypt. When they say 'Never again', they mean it, at least for this generation (after that - I am not so sure.)
#6
The end of "progressive" Islam can be traced to the school of a single Persian philosopher, named "al-Ghizali" in the late 12th and early 13th Centuries (the spelling is important, as there are other Muslim philosophers with similar names).
As a reaction to Persia being invaded, he promulgated through his school the idea that all knowledge outside of the Koran and its commentaries should be ignored, as it will only lead the faithful astray. This was accompanied by intense xenophobia and paranoia.
And though it took quite a while for his philosophy to spread across the Muslim empire, wherever it took hold, science, study and innovation died. And stayed dead.
The last real outpost of learning was in Spain and Morocco, where some of their libraries were captured by the Christians when the Muslims were thrown out (for the time being), by Ferdinand and Isabella.
But the further away from Persia Muslims got, the less they appreciated al-Ghizali. To this day, Moroccans and Egyptians still think of themselves as a cut above the other Muslims.
#9
can be traced to the school of a single Persian philosopher, named "al-Ghizali" in the late 12th and early 13th Centuries
IIRC he said that Mathematics was haram since it so entralled men that they looked away from Allah and the Koran.
Posted by: John Frum ||
04/15/2007 20:10 Comments ||
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#10
We don't even produce a single nail in any of these cars.
Cars have nails? Well, Morgans, maybe. Like Zenster says, he doesn't seem to even have a decent knowledge of how cars are constructed.
What he should have said: "Our countries are the main source of the liquid gold this technology runs on, and we're too lazy, disorganized, and fatalistic to keep our corrupt rulers from stealing all the profits instead of using them to improve our countries' economies and education systems."
#11
KBK-LOL. But think of the backfire that a nail-built engine would produce-who needs bombs to strew nails? Now THATt's Muslim-built-tough!
"They cannot place paramount importance on memorizing the Koran and expect such rote learning to produce individuals capable of critical analysis or the independent thought needed for invention."
Bingo, Zenster. Love the monkey analogy, too-seems fitting, given the symbolism of the term "monkey" in Islamic textbooks.
You bastid, KBK! I was going to insert that arcane automotive disclaimer but didn't want to be any more obtuse than I already am.
Love the monkey analogy, too-seems fitting, given the symbolism of the term "monkey" in Islamic textbooks.
Thank you, Jules. The analogy paid off on so many levels it was nigh well irresistible. Extending the jar comparison further to "the narrow conduit of Islamic thought" and thereafter "into the dry riverbed of theocratic control" was gratifying in the extreme. I'm glad that you enjoyed it. Qaradawi is one of terrorism's prime movers and needs to be capped stat.
#13
I've observed this lack of achievement in non-arab moslems and it's an interesting phenomena. In part, it's subsuming the individual to the group where any individual effort or innovation is frowned on.
Its especially interesting when in SE Asia their chinese neighbours who have an apparently (superficially?) similar strong attachment to family and clan work very hard are often extremely succesful.
#3
Using reason to challenge Islam? Good luck. You may as well try to teach a pig to sing and with much the same results. Islam responds to one thing only, violence. Not the threat of violence, their martyrdom complex is far too entrenched for that. Sheer brute force and heavy-handed violence in generous portions that are liberally applied. Nothing less will influence what passes for Muslim thinking.
WHILE commentators have charged that Britain capitulated to Iran and handed it a humiliating victory in obtaining the release of the 15 British Marines last week, it would appear that something more like the opposite is actually the case. But to understand why this is so, we have to look at the larger picture of internal Iranian politics against which the crisis was played out.
Our Iranian problem is actually a problem with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, or in Persian Pasdaran) and allied institutions like the Basij militia. These are the "power" agencies that serve as the political base for the conservatives inside Iran. In return for its support, political leaders like ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have allowed the IRGC to grow into a semi-autonomous state-within-a-state. Today it is a large and sprawling enterprise that controls its own intelligence agency, manufacturing base, and import-export companies, much like the Russian FSB or the Chinese military. Since coming to power, the Ahmadinejad regime has awarded IRGC-affiliated companies billions in no-bid contracts, increasing the great perception among the Iranian public of its corruption.
It is widely believed that Supreme Leader Khamenei put the current nutcase president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into office as a means of counterbalancing ex-president Mr Rafsanjani, and has been regretting this decision ever since, as Mr Ahmadinejad spouted off about the Holocaust and pushed Iran deeper and deeper into isolation. The current president comes out of the IRGC (specifically, the Ramazan Unit of the Quds Force), and has used that organisation and the Basij to help consolidate his power by moving against more liberal opponents.
No-one knows exactly why the naval wing of the IRGC took the 15 British Marines captive at the end of March. Some have speculated that it was a matter of freelancing by the IRGC's command, or the navy, reacting to a local target of opportunity. The IRGC may have wanted some bargaining chips to help spring its members captured in Iraq. It does not seem to be an accident, though, that the capture came quickly after the Security Council passed a very specific set of sanctions against Iran that targeted not just IRGC-affiliated companies and financial institutions like the Ammunition and Metallurgy Industries Group and the Bank Sepah, organisations dealing with nuclear or ballistic missile activities, but also a series of senior IRGC commanders, including Morteza Rezaei, the Guards' deputy commander, vice-admiral Ali Ahmadian, chief of the Joint Staff, and Brigadier General Mohammad Hejazi, commander of the Basij. By freezing Iranian assets outside of Iran, the UN was hitting the IRGC where it hurt, in its pocket.
Clearly, whoever was responsible for the decision to take the British Marines prisoner was hoping to rekindle some of the fervour of the 1979 revolution, and use that to force the rest of the leadership into a confrontation with Britain and America. Hence the televised "confessions" that hearkened back to the taking of hostages in the American Embassy (the "nest of spies"), and the rallies against foreign embassies. But the gambit didn't work, and there was clearly a behind-the-scenes power struggle between different parts of the regime. Mr Ahmadinejad was supposed to give a major speech to a huge rally in Teheran, which he cancelled at the last moment, and when he did speak, it was to announce that the captives would soon be released. The IRGC prisoners in Iraq were released, but Britain did not apologise or admit wrong-doing in return. So it would appear that it was the Iranians who blinked first, before the incident could spiral into a genuine 1979-style hostage crisis.
All of this does not mean that there are necessarily "radicals" and "moderates" within the clerical regime in Tehran. Those pulling the IRGC's chain are themselves committed to a revolutionary agenda, and doubtless want a nuclear weapon as badly as the Pasdaran commanders. One of the alleged reasons Khamenei didn't want Mr Rafsanjani as president was because he was not keen enough on the nuclear programme. The Iranian regime is not, however, a totalitarian juggernaut; there are important splits within the leadership and there is an important faction that does not want Iran to be isolated. The IRGC has evolved into something like a mafia organisation, with extensive economic interests that lead both to corruption and potential vulnerability to sanctions imposed by the international community.
It is important to remember: those who were responsible for taking the British Marines captive wanted an escalation of the confrontation, both to improve their domestic standing, and to punch back for sanctions that were beginning to bite. This suggests that what the Bush administration has been doing - slowly ratcheting up the pressure through the use of diplomacy to create an international coalition that now includes the Russians - is the proper course to be on.
Author, musician and former Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman has been friends with Don Imus since 1975, when they met on stage at The Bottom Line.
I MET Imus on the gangplank of Noah's Ark. He was then and remains today a truth-seeking missile with the best bull-meter in the business. Far from being a bully, he was a spiritual chop-buster never afraid to go after the big guys with nothing but the slingshot of ragged integrity. I watched him over the years as he struggled with his demons and conquered them. This was not surprising to me.
Imus came from the Great Southwest, where the men are men and the emus are nervous. And he did it all with something that seems, indeed, to be a rather scarce commodity these days. A sense of humor. There's no excusing Imus' recent ridiculous remark, but there's something not kosher in America when one guy gets a Grammy and one gets fired for the same line.
Continued on Page 49
#1
and Kinky, like Imus, is Jewish.... played with the Texas Jewboys. Gotta have a sense of humor
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/15/2007 14:11 Comments ||
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#2
That's what makes America great, guys zigzagging their ways through life in freedom. Imus ain't dead, he's just standin in the corner. I wonder if Imus will visit the governor (NJ) when he's well enough to laugh.
#3
I loved his campaign slogan. Friedmans' just another word for nuthin' left to loose. LOL!
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/15/2007 20:26 Comments ||
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#4
So rarely do you hear quotes from to Wavy Gravy anymore. Kinky never misses an opportunity to share an obscure reference. Incredibly foolish of his pal Imus thinking ghetto slang gave him street cred. Yo Dude...your just liberal...not a ni**a.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
