Making a mockery of Islam
Upholding the Mockery
The real Islamic stand on the issue!
If you thought that you have heard the worst from our self-assigned and unrepresentative clergy, then read the latest tragedy that happened to a Muslim women when she was raped by her own father in law and various rulings by Muslim clergy that followed. It would seem to an outsider that Muslim world is living in the laws comissioned and promulgated in some jungles of Mozambique. Even they might be better!
With fatwas like those depicted in the first two links...there is no need of any biased media to malign the image of already sullied and barbaric Shariah and Islamic laws. The fatwas started by a cleric ordering the women to marry her father in law (the rapist) and divorce her husband. Thankfully, that fatwa was done away with only to be followed with the one that requires her husband to divorce her and leave her on the streets with her five kids to fend for themselves. The latest one is supported by two Islamic bodies of India, AIMPLB and Dar Ul Uloom.
Regarding the edicts issued or supported by AIMPLB, the All India Muslim personal law board, I have known earlier misadventures by this body of India. Totally unrepresentative. God only knows, who gives them the right to decide and why are they glorified as official voice of a 150 million East Indian Muslims?
Their latest standing is that Imrana (the rape victim) is no more 'pure' for continuing conjugal rights with her husband and thus the marriage stands nullified.
What are the issues here? Let's see..
Quran states that: "And marry not women whom your fathers married, except what has already passed;(in the days of pre-islamic igonorance) indeed it was shameful and most hateful, and an evil way...// (forbidden to you are)- the wives of your sons who (spring) from your own loins, and two sisters in wedlock at the same time, except for what has already passed (in pre-islamic days); verily, Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful." (An-Nisa)"
Indian Dar ul uloom jurists argue here that because father in law has raped the wife of his son, hence according to Quran, she is now prohibited for the son. But Hey guys!!...since when a rape case came to be judged by this verse of the Quran?? This verse was about prohibited and legal spouses for marriage, never the rape. Or is there any other verse that I do not know of. I am certain that it's the only one that relates to marriage.
Thankfully, the rapist of a Father in law is now behind bars and under sharia..(if implemented) he should be given capital punishment in public so that anyone else desist doing so in the future.
Now, let's presume that the Daughter in law gets pregnant post rape. The child would then effectively be the brother of her husband. Does Islam allow abortion in such cases? Some argue that even if the conception is the result of extra-marital union or forced rape, abortion is not allowed, because the (innocent) baby to be, has the right to life, that can not be denied. The biological parents - both or either one - or else the society/state is responsible to take care of such "un-wanted" or illegal births.
So, what's the Islamic ruling on the issue of children borne out of wedlock/adultery etc?? No child carries the sin of his mother...or biological father, so I think, it would be haraam to abort/kill that child. Here lies the problem. Should the child be sent to the care of an orphanage? Can Imrana and her present husband rear the child as their own? That sounds pretty impossible! Tough questions here! But Islamonline says: the child borne out of rape or forced incest can be aborted without putting any of the blame on the mother.
I agree!! The mother of such a child, if seen through the full term, might not be ever able to go give due love, care and affection towards such a child borne out of violent conception.
All knowledgeable jurists opine that young Muslim men should hasten to marry women who have been raped or tormented off their dignity. Imrana has been tormented. who can better reduce or alleviate her sufferings than her husband? She should be allowed to be with her husband so as to reduce her suffering and console her, to compensate her for the loss of the most precious thing she possessed, her dignity.
Muslim public opinion in India too (if the reports are to be believed), is questioning the right of the religious seminary to adjudicate on a purely criminal offence. Deoband should have kept quiet on this issue as India is not an Islamic country. In fact, they have no right to issue a fatwa on a criminal offence and neither does a the AIMPLB. What is the logic behind giving a decision in which one party (Imrana) is penalised when none of the two self proclaimed Muslim mouthpieces have the power to punish the culprit?
The best part of it all, no one seems to be listening to another equally (if not more) (un)representative body and that is of the 'All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board' (AIMWPLB). Thankfully, they now plan to mobilise public opinion by enlisting the support of the ulemas for getting the decision reversed saying it had not been issued in the light of the Koran. ‘‘The decision has not been taken in the light of Koran; it has been doctored by some fundamentalists who were bent on implementing their agenda,’’ said Shaista Amber, president of the Board.
Why are we not seeing press releases or media interviews from the representatives of AIMWPLB as much as the AIMPLB is in the news? Who gave more legitimacy to the latter than the former?
Most important of all..it's not so much about Imrana or the issue at hand. Time and again unwanted controversies have been created and flagged. This time too it appears designed to get the Shariat laws changed. The dumb and illiterate Muslim representatives, unknowingly but reprehensibly have fallen prey to these designs almost everytime the need arose for them to show an iota of wisdom and vision.
If muslim personal laws are done away with, in India, then so be it. We have proved ourselves incapable of doing justice to their sanctity time and again. We better let go off something which we cannot maintain with due deligence. It's going to be better for the cause of Islam.
Let the law of the land give it's judgement.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Monday, June 27, 2005
No Indian Muslim in Al Qaeda!
In London, while declaring India's democracy to be a model for Islamic countries, External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh revealed (what's known to many since long,) that the biggest measure of its success was that no Indian was a member of terrorist group Al Qaeda.
No Indian in Al Qaeda: Natwar Singh
"Yet, not a single Indian out of our 150 million Muslims has joined the Al Qaeda. This is a fact that is not often recognised," Singh said during his keynote address to a two-day conference on "India - the next decade".
"The existing world needs to take into cognisance the aspirations and hopes of the Islamic world," he said.
"India is a good example of how this can be done through democratic and consensual means, thereby strengthening the forces of coherence and integration within societies."
Singh's speech signalled the renewal of an outward-looking foreign policy for India - one that embraced what he called the "new realities" such as economic globalisation, Islamic aspirations, global poverty, challenge of terrorism and nuclear non-proliferation.
"It seems to me, from what respectable forecasting institutions have projected, that India - together with China - is more the flavour of the century than the decade," he said.
"In the next decade we could see India position itself for greater accomplishments as the century progresses. There are no precedents for managing a democracy of 1.2 billion people," said Singh as British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who shared the stage with him, nodded vigorously.
Some wise and true words there, but there could be more to Jack Straw noddings than meets the eye. If our BPO processes continue to sell secure information for a dime a dozen, we mighty loose it all in IT lead.
Well...that's a different topic though, just came to mind when the IANA reporter observed 'vigorous noddings' of Jack Straw.
Elsewhere, I read that according to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers report 65 per cent of the companies involved in BPO processes do not have comprehensive information security measures. Thankfully, Wipro and Godrej have tripled their information technology budgets in the last one year to implement a comprehensive security.
It's time for a CEO or CTO of a BPO to take a comprehensive check. With the chorus against outsourcing to India getting louder by the day in the West, that's one thing BPOs can ill afford to ignore.
My Random thoughts there...doesn't have to do with the original subject of the thread, I know. But can't help it...an IT guy would remain an IT guy first!! I guess!! :)
No Indian in Al Qaeda: Natwar Singh
"Yet, not a single Indian out of our 150 million Muslims has joined the Al Qaeda. This is a fact that is not often recognised," Singh said during his keynote address to a two-day conference on "India - the next decade".
"The existing world needs to take into cognisance the aspirations and hopes of the Islamic world," he said.
"India is a good example of how this can be done through democratic and consensual means, thereby strengthening the forces of coherence and integration within societies."
Singh's speech signalled the renewal of an outward-looking foreign policy for India - one that embraced what he called the "new realities" such as economic globalisation, Islamic aspirations, global poverty, challenge of terrorism and nuclear non-proliferation.
"It seems to me, from what respectable forecasting institutions have projected, that India - together with China - is more the flavour of the century than the decade," he said.
"In the next decade we could see India position itself for greater accomplishments as the century progresses. There are no precedents for managing a democracy of 1.2 billion people," said Singh as British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who shared the stage with him, nodded vigorously.
Some wise and true words there, but there could be more to Jack Straw noddings than meets the eye. If our BPO processes continue to sell secure information for a dime a dozen, we mighty loose it all in IT lead.
Well...that's a different topic though, just came to mind when the IANA reporter observed 'vigorous noddings' of Jack Straw.
Elsewhere, I read that according to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers report 65 per cent of the companies involved in BPO processes do not have comprehensive information security measures. Thankfully, Wipro and Godrej have tripled their information technology budgets in the last one year to implement a comprehensive security.
It's time for a CEO or CTO of a BPO to take a comprehensive check. With the chorus against outsourcing to India getting louder by the day in the West, that's one thing BPOs can ill afford to ignore.
My Random thoughts there...doesn't have to do with the original subject of the thread, I know. But can't help it...an IT guy would remain an IT guy first!! I guess!! :)
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Of Tamerlanes and Auragzebs
How many times does one come across perceptions that it's only Muslims who are and were always being cruel, wicked and capable of barbarism while it's only non-Muslims while all great men of history have been non-Muslims. That's not quite what true history is about. For an example, The hero of the movie, 'Kingdom of heavens' Saladin was a man ahead of his time and a benevolent man in an era when true nobility was rare. Yes, there were other conflicts, men such as Tamerlane butchered almost the entire population of Delhi, while Mohammed Khilji burnt down the great ancient Buddhist University in Nalanda and everyone inside it. Tamerlane butchered his own religious community. Chroniclers write that: "Timur surpassed all others in the matter of ‘…the murder of peaceful non-combatant Muslims and in a much smaller degree, non-combatant non-Muslims who were beheaded or put to death on his orders in the most original ways.’ And he fancied himself the saviour of Islam. Many believe that he killed only 'kaafirs'.
The true fact of history is that the past cannot just be judged by looking at a few men who are convenient from one’s point of view, but by viewing the total picture. True, some muslim rulers had been dreadful in their way of warfare and when met with resistance to their rule and authority, but to say that all Muslims are cruel and and hence all the Islamic nations should pre-empted and Muslims oppressed is just ridiculous. Each era has its own victors and the vanquished, just as each era has its own oppressors and the oppressed. Look how Americans deal with those who resist their occupation and how Israelis deal with those who defy. Why shouldn't Aurangzeb deal the way he dealt with Shivaji who defied his sovereignity? If we change the name of shivaji in history to someone named "Shuja", I would expect Aurangzeb do deal with him the same way.
Most important of all, I seldom find any Muslim blaming all the non-Muslims for being barbaric.
Unlike many non-Muslims, we don’t go and stigmatise entire communities as barbarians for the sins of a few. Nowhere would the writer find us calling ‘Christian terrorist’, ‘Jew terrorist’, or ‘Hindu terrorist’ for the barbaric acts of a few from their communities, but everywhere we can find prejudiced people like the writer blaming the entire religion for terrorism (just because some people from that religion are supposed terrorists).
The fact of the matter is that all Muslims were/are not like Tamerlane or Mehmood Khilji the way all non-Muslims are/were not barbarians. If you view the total picture of history without any prejudice, you could find the contribution of Islam larger then any other civilisation. When the whole medieval Europe was fluctuating in the realm of the Dark Age, Muslims enlightened them and sowed the seeds of the Renaissance. Our contribution to the betterment of humanity has been written in golden letters in the annals of human history.
True, each era had its own oppressors and the oppressed, and it’s also true that, each era witnessed the oppressed rising against the oppressors and fighting the battle of freedom. The entire perception of the writer looks like he is another victim of the biased western media, and his clotted mind is shrouded with the doctrines of anti-Islamic propaganda. If Muslims defending their religion looks like vitriol to the writer, I would like to know why the writer consumes the vitriol like honey, and returns again and again to bite and howl at the Muslims, given any opportunity.
The true fact of history is that the past cannot just be judged by looking at a few men who are convenient from one’s point of view, but by viewing the total picture. True, some muslim rulers had been dreadful in their way of warfare and when met with resistance to their rule and authority, but to say that all Muslims are cruel and and hence all the Islamic nations should pre-empted and Muslims oppressed is just ridiculous. Each era has its own victors and the vanquished, just as each era has its own oppressors and the oppressed. Look how Americans deal with those who resist their occupation and how Israelis deal with those who defy. Why shouldn't Aurangzeb deal the way he dealt with Shivaji who defied his sovereignity? If we change the name of shivaji in history to someone named "Shuja", I would expect Aurangzeb do deal with him the same way.
Most important of all, I seldom find any Muslim blaming all the non-Muslims for being barbaric.
Unlike many non-Muslims, we don’t go and stigmatise entire communities as barbarians for the sins of a few. Nowhere would the writer find us calling ‘Christian terrorist’, ‘Jew terrorist’, or ‘Hindu terrorist’ for the barbaric acts of a few from their communities, but everywhere we can find prejudiced people like the writer blaming the entire religion for terrorism (just because some people from that religion are supposed terrorists).
The fact of the matter is that all Muslims were/are not like Tamerlane or Mehmood Khilji the way all non-Muslims are/were not barbarians. If you view the total picture of history without any prejudice, you could find the contribution of Islam larger then any other civilisation. When the whole medieval Europe was fluctuating in the realm of the Dark Age, Muslims enlightened them and sowed the seeds of the Renaissance. Our contribution to the betterment of humanity has been written in golden letters in the annals of human history.
True, each era had its own oppressors and the oppressed, and it’s also true that, each era witnessed the oppressed rising against the oppressors and fighting the battle of freedom. The entire perception of the writer looks like he is another victim of the biased western media, and his clotted mind is shrouded with the doctrines of anti-Islamic propaganda. If Muslims defending their religion looks like vitriol to the writer, I would like to know why the writer consumes the vitriol like honey, and returns again and again to bite and howl at the Muslims, given any opportunity.
What has Arabs World given us?
An interesting new times passed by the covers of Arab press, titled:Writer urges Riyadh to review Arab ties. The writer seems to have urged his country's policy makers to give a second thought to its relations with other Arab countries, saying that he prefers boosting of ties with the United States, instead of Arab nations. In this article he wrote under the title ‘What did we benefit from Arab nationalism’ and published on Sunday by the Arabic daily Al Jazira, Mohammed Al Sheikh said: “We Saudis need to re-arrange our priorities, to read very well and with utmost objectivity our modern history and to derive lessons from it in our efforts to strengthen our new culture which should not be based on postulates without being subjected first to deliberations, scrutiny and constructive criticism as we used to do in the past.” He said that “our ideology must be based on nationalism and patriotism, must be an ideology which always takes into serious consideration the nation’s interest by placing national interest at the helm of other areas of priority.”
Perhaps, a more important and pertinent question would have been ‘What did the Arab/Muslim world benefit from Saudi Arabia?’ Or for that matter, what contribution has Saudi Arabia made to the betterment and development of human beings anywhere in the world. Yes! No doubt, millions of Saudi Riyals flow back into Indian coffers by the labour expat community who send foreign remittances back home but that's not what really matters on the world scene?
Indeed, the Arab world needs to rearrange its priorities, starting with the formation of a credible and visionary leadership capable of developing long-term strategies not based on nationalism and patriotism, but internationalism and globalism.
I don’t know what America has given to Saudi Arabia, perhaps the Saudi Writer can enlighten us, but I know that being the custodians of the holiest Muslim sites and an economic powerhouse, Saudi Arabia has a responsibility to lead the Muslim world, and by investing in the Arab world can help them develop economically.
Fund hospitals, technology schools and institutions, rush towards providing aid to wherever required irrespective of religious affiliations and see your goodwill soar amongst the nations.
Till then, no matter which way you look for friendship, it would be a friendship of convenience where there will be no respect for Arabs but they would be only considered, American stooges!
Perhaps, a more important and pertinent question would have been ‘What did the Arab/Muslim world benefit from Saudi Arabia?’ Or for that matter, what contribution has Saudi Arabia made to the betterment and development of human beings anywhere in the world. Yes! No doubt, millions of Saudi Riyals flow back into Indian coffers by the labour expat community who send foreign remittances back home but that's not what really matters on the world scene?
Indeed, the Arab world needs to rearrange its priorities, starting with the formation of a credible and visionary leadership capable of developing long-term strategies not based on nationalism and patriotism, but internationalism and globalism.
I don’t know what America has given to Saudi Arabia, perhaps the Saudi Writer can enlighten us, but I know that being the custodians of the holiest Muslim sites and an economic powerhouse, Saudi Arabia has a responsibility to lead the Muslim world, and by investing in the Arab world can help them develop economically.
Fund hospitals, technology schools and institutions, rush towards providing aid to wherever required irrespective of religious affiliations and see your goodwill soar amongst the nations.
Till then, no matter which way you look for friendship, it would be a friendship of convenience where there will be no respect for Arabs but they would be only considered, American stooges!
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Three interesting new items!
http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=47584
http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=47507
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13874541
I'll Blog on these..Later but you're welcome to comment! :)
http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=47507
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13874541
I'll Blog on these..Later but you're welcome to comment! :)
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
The vices of Patriotism and Communalism
Sometimes I read/hear some people advocating mass cleansing operations on this earth to get done away with a particular breed/denomination of people in a society. Something of the types Hiter/Stalin advocated. Something of the types Narendra Modi and his compatriots are very proud of and willing to go about it again if they get another excuse to do so.
Some posted this in his weblog and I relate it here: "We all probably know that it's not the Satan who does bad..nor is it the God or Allah or Rama who does good. Man has been created and given powers and thus be held responsible for the good and bad he does, and it does not matter whether he does whatever he does under the banner of Allah or Ram or Jesus. Because, under whatever name he may commit good or bad deeds, they are going to remain his deeds. When did we hear the last time a judge ruled, acquiting a murderer for the murderer proved that he got the commands for his misdoings from some supernatural powers?
But yes, these deeds do affect other people's psyche. It is like a disease.
Personally, I feel that emotions like patriotism and communalism are the root causes of all problems of this world. Why is our country better than the other. Why should our citizens be more worthwhile and important than the other? Why is our land , Bharat Mata , whose honour we have to uphold? Doesn't it all become so meaningless when we see some of these 'putras' of bharatmata begging to be adopted by 'US Mata' or 'UK Mata'?
But for those, who are deep in hatred for any other community member, be it Muslims or Hindus, and advocate mass genocide or cleansing of them, say whatever you are saying just because it helps your ego or because it gives you a reason to live life. Sometimes, even hatred for someone becomes a reason for survival albeit perverted.
Most communal people are egoists, believe me, because they are not fighting for Hindus or Muslims or Christians, but they are fighting for their own religion..yes..Many Hindutvavaadis are worried about Hinduism because it is THEIR religion, and not because it is Hinduism. Similarly, Osama is fighting for his version of religion and not ISLAM. It is because these people are born into this religion that they have become obsessed with it.. this is a clear cut example of a person feeding his or own ego..it is like fighting for your toy, or your car, or your suit..
Please think twice before talking about a living being's life or death. When you say that the people killed in the Haj stampede were killed by the wrath of Satan, well, it does not matter. But what matters for sure is that those were human beings.
We are all someone's son, daughter, husbands or fathers. If either one of us dies, than think about the reciprocal effects on your life. Now think about catastrophes like homicides, which, under the name of Allah, the extremist terrorist groups are committing. Suddenly, death's definition from emotional loss is converted into loss of numbers..a mere number..15 people killed..39 killed..59 killed..
well, same is for the ones killed daily by Israelis in Palestines or US forces in Iraq.
Media portrays that there are more Muslim terrorists in the world than there are Christian or Hindu or Jewish terrorists but scrutiny of statistics and incidents might reveal otherwise. But let's even agree that there are indeed more Muslim fundamentalists, then killing all Muslims or considering their death as the wrath of Satan or the revenge of Ram is a disgusting thought..those people going to Haj are just like people going to Amarnath..no one is going there to pray for Osama bin Laden..and if some people are, they are just as misguided in life, like hindutvavaadis or American/Israeli Right wingers.
India already has a lot of problems to deal with. The answers are not simple. Not everything can be solved by 0 (shoot) 1 (live), lest Americans and Israelis wouldn't be dying the way they are in their quests for forced occupations. I do not have the solution to problems like fundamentalism or proxy wars..or even riots..but yes, I do believe that human lives are not numbers. Coz if they are, then probably your wife or son or sister are also numbers..think about it, will you please?"
Some posted this in his weblog and I relate it here: "We all probably know that it's not the Satan who does bad..nor is it the God or Allah or Rama who does good. Man has been created and given powers and thus be held responsible for the good and bad he does, and it does not matter whether he does whatever he does under the banner of Allah or Ram or Jesus. Because, under whatever name he may commit good or bad deeds, they are going to remain his deeds. When did we hear the last time a judge ruled, acquiting a murderer for the murderer proved that he got the commands for his misdoings from some supernatural powers?
But yes, these deeds do affect other people's psyche. It is like a disease.
Personally, I feel that emotions like patriotism and communalism are the root causes of all problems of this world. Why is our country better than the other. Why should our citizens be more worthwhile and important than the other? Why is our land , Bharat Mata , whose honour we have to uphold? Doesn't it all become so meaningless when we see some of these 'putras' of bharatmata begging to be adopted by 'US Mata' or 'UK Mata'?
But for those, who are deep in hatred for any other community member, be it Muslims or Hindus, and advocate mass genocide or cleansing of them, say whatever you are saying just because it helps your ego or because it gives you a reason to live life. Sometimes, even hatred for someone becomes a reason for survival albeit perverted.
Most communal people are egoists, believe me, because they are not fighting for Hindus or Muslims or Christians, but they are fighting for their own religion..yes..Many Hindutvavaadis are worried about Hinduism because it is THEIR religion, and not because it is Hinduism. Similarly, Osama is fighting for his version of religion and not ISLAM. It is because these people are born into this religion that they have become obsessed with it.. this is a clear cut example of a person feeding his or own ego..it is like fighting for your toy, or your car, or your suit..
Please think twice before talking about a living being's life or death. When you say that the people killed in the Haj stampede were killed by the wrath of Satan, well, it does not matter. But what matters for sure is that those were human beings.
We are all someone's son, daughter, husbands or fathers. If either one of us dies, than think about the reciprocal effects on your life. Now think about catastrophes like homicides, which, under the name of Allah, the extremist terrorist groups are committing. Suddenly, death's definition from emotional loss is converted into loss of numbers..a mere number..15 people killed..39 killed..59 killed..
well, same is for the ones killed daily by Israelis in Palestines or US forces in Iraq.
Media portrays that there are more Muslim terrorists in the world than there are Christian or Hindu or Jewish terrorists but scrutiny of statistics and incidents might reveal otherwise. But let's even agree that there are indeed more Muslim fundamentalists, then killing all Muslims or considering their death as the wrath of Satan or the revenge of Ram is a disgusting thought..those people going to Haj are just like people going to Amarnath..no one is going there to pray for Osama bin Laden..and if some people are, they are just as misguided in life, like hindutvavaadis or American/Israeli Right wingers.
India already has a lot of problems to deal with. The answers are not simple. Not everything can be solved by 0 (shoot) 1 (live), lest Americans and Israelis wouldn't be dying the way they are in their quests for forced occupations. I do not have the solution to problems like fundamentalism or proxy wars..or even riots..but yes, I do believe that human lives are not numbers. Coz if they are, then probably your wife or son or sister are also numbers..think about it, will you please?"
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Sunil Dutt - The epitome of an Indian
So much has been written about him already but I have to write something, for he was someone, I always had that strange admiration for. I hardly ever met him or saw in person. All my information about him is gathered through years of media reporting, but still, whatever I read or heard, made me believe that he was an example of a human being, we in India should all aspire to become.
A misfit in politics? No!! Unlike many would like to call him that way, but he was there probably so that he can make a difference. Vir Shanghvi in one of his recent columns in Mid Day, sums up his life as a 'triumph', and I wholeheartedly agree.
Back in 1962-63 when he and his wife had set up the Ajanta Arts troupe and took parties of dancers and singers to the borders of India, to NEFA and to Ladakh to entertain our jawans, it would always be the high point of the values that he cherished. This feat often prevented the pseudo-patriots from branding him as a pseudo-secular. They would love to do that for his innumerable services done toward those who suffered during the riots and other onslaughts in the hands of our ingrown terrorists amongst the majority community.
Then again, during the Rajiv Gandhi government, Dutt strived towards communal harmony and peace, walking around Punjab at a time when tensions between Sikhs and Hindus were at an all time high.
His anti-climax, (as was bound to happen, for doing all this service to the nation) would have definitely come during the Narasimha Rao congress government. Then, he had come to believe that the party had lost its secular moorings and went public with these thoughts. He resigned from the Congress because of its shameful failure to prevent babri demolition and keep the peace during the ghastly Bombay riots of 1993, only to culminate by the infamous Bomb Blasts engineered by D-company 3 months later .
Though he was persuaded to withdraw that resignation, further trauma was in store when his son Sanjay was arrested under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA). The police had charged Sanjay with possession of an unlicensed rifle (he had arms licenses, but not for this particular weapon).
Dutt had then said, in Sanjay’s defence, that he had procured the weapon because of the many threats the family had received in the aftermath of Sunil Dutt’s stand on the riots where he, along with other bigwigs like, Ratan tata, called for the arrest of Shiv Sena chief, Thackery.
Sena chief was then persumably convinced, and so were/still are many Hindus of Bombay and abroad, that in the critical months of December, 1992 and January 1993, Muslim mobs armed to the teeth with hi-tech weapons provided by Pakistan (who else?) would have butchered Hindus in the city had he not ordered his Sainiks to "pre-empt" and "retaliate" and thus eventually "teach the Muslims a lesson", they would have killed all Hindus.
Bal tackery had written highly inflammatory articles in his mouthpiece and created this illusion amongst his Shiv Sainiks which culminated in the slaughter of the minority community while the police simply stood by.
So, Sunil Dutt always believed that while the police could have tried Sanjay under the Arms Act (which would have attracted a possible jail sentence of six months), the decision to charge him under a terrorism law was taken by Narasimha Rao and Sharad Pawar (then Chief Minister of Maharashtra) to punish his father for his stand during the Bombay riots.
Imagine, the apathy and humiliation of a father, when he was forced by law enforcers/law makers, to go and seek mercy from the same criminal for the life of his son, whom he detested and expected the lawmakers to punish. It would have been a filmy story, played out in real life when Dutt went seeking thackery's mercy for the release of his son. Thackery happily obliged. Sunil Dutt has been shown his place and learnt his lessons.
Unusually for a man who had little bitterness about most things, he did not forgive either man(Narasimha,Sharad and Chavan) for the trauma his son suffered, (the case is still under trial a decade later) though of course, both men claimed that they had no ulterior motives but that's hard to believe since
Narasimha Rao was a student of old RSS school and regularly attended shakhas when young and considering vajpayee to be his mentor. Narasimha Rao and Chavan (the then home Minister) have since died. Sharad Pawar was recently seen sharing the same stage with Thackery for the launch of a book written by this don. They are all brothers in arms and Sunil Dutt realised it late.
Even recently, when the Shiv Sena 'threw' out Nirupam (they always play this game to have their people in all the boats) and AICC welcomed him into the party, inspite of Dutt’s objections, the veteran star and activist refused to be downcast.Yes!! he said, it was a disgrace that somebody like Nirupam should be in the Congress. But in politics, you took the rough with smooth.
In the final analysis, India had what he regarded as its first fully-functioning secular government for 15 years - and that was a result worth fighting for.
A misfit in politics? No!! Unlike many would like to call him that way, but he was there probably so that he can make a difference. Vir Shanghvi in one of his recent columns in Mid Day, sums up his life as a 'triumph', and I wholeheartedly agree.
Back in 1962-63 when he and his wife had set up the Ajanta Arts troupe and took parties of dancers and singers to the borders of India, to NEFA and to Ladakh to entertain our jawans, it would always be the high point of the values that he cherished. This feat often prevented the pseudo-patriots from branding him as a pseudo-secular. They would love to do that for his innumerable services done toward those who suffered during the riots and other onslaughts in the hands of our ingrown terrorists amongst the majority community.
Then again, during the Rajiv Gandhi government, Dutt strived towards communal harmony and peace, walking around Punjab at a time when tensions between Sikhs and Hindus were at an all time high.
His anti-climax, (as was bound to happen, for doing all this service to the nation) would have definitely come during the Narasimha Rao congress government. Then, he had come to believe that the party had lost its secular moorings and went public with these thoughts. He resigned from the Congress because of its shameful failure to prevent babri demolition and keep the peace during the ghastly Bombay riots of 1993, only to culminate by the infamous Bomb Blasts engineered by D-company 3 months later .
Though he was persuaded to withdraw that resignation, further trauma was in store when his son Sanjay was arrested under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA). The police had charged Sanjay with possession of an unlicensed rifle (he had arms licenses, but not for this particular weapon).
Dutt had then said, in Sanjay’s defence, that he had procured the weapon because of the many threats the family had received in the aftermath of Sunil Dutt’s stand on the riots where he, along with other bigwigs like, Ratan tata, called for the arrest of Shiv Sena chief, Thackery.
Sena chief was then persumably convinced, and so were/still are many Hindus of Bombay and abroad, that in the critical months of December, 1992 and January 1993, Muslim mobs armed to the teeth with hi-tech weapons provided by Pakistan (who else?) would have butchered Hindus in the city had he not ordered his Sainiks to "pre-empt" and "retaliate" and thus eventually "teach the Muslims a lesson", they would have killed all Hindus.
Bal tackery had written highly inflammatory articles in his mouthpiece and created this illusion amongst his Shiv Sainiks which culminated in the slaughter of the minority community while the police simply stood by.
So, Sunil Dutt always believed that while the police could have tried Sanjay under the Arms Act (which would have attracted a possible jail sentence of six months), the decision to charge him under a terrorism law was taken by Narasimha Rao and Sharad Pawar (then Chief Minister of Maharashtra) to punish his father for his stand during the Bombay riots.
Imagine, the apathy and humiliation of a father, when he was forced by law enforcers/law makers, to go and seek mercy from the same criminal for the life of his son, whom he detested and expected the lawmakers to punish. It would have been a filmy story, played out in real life when Dutt went seeking thackery's mercy for the release of his son. Thackery happily obliged. Sunil Dutt has been shown his place and learnt his lessons.
Unusually for a man who had little bitterness about most things, he did not forgive either man(Narasimha,Sharad and Chavan) for the trauma his son suffered, (the case is still under trial a decade later) though of course, both men claimed that they had no ulterior motives but that's hard to believe since
Narasimha Rao was a student of old RSS school and regularly attended shakhas when young and considering vajpayee to be his mentor. Narasimha Rao and Chavan (the then home Minister) have since died. Sharad Pawar was recently seen sharing the same stage with Thackery for the launch of a book written by this don. They are all brothers in arms and Sunil Dutt realised it late.
Even recently, when the Shiv Sena 'threw' out Nirupam (they always play this game to have their people in all the boats) and AICC welcomed him into the party, inspite of Dutt’s objections, the veteran star and activist refused to be downcast.Yes!! he said, it was a disgrace that somebody like Nirupam should be in the Congress. But in politics, you took the rough with smooth.
In the final analysis, India had what he regarded as its first fully-functioning secular government for 15 years - and that was a result worth fighting for.
Monday, May 23, 2005
Civilized versus Uncivil....
Every passing day brings a new (leaked) report of American troops inflicting prolonged, gratuitous torture on suspected terror detainees, be they in Afghan or Iraq - and murdering of the recent two - makes a mockery of Bush administration claims that prisoner abuse is the fault of a few rogue soldiers.
Most of us are already desensitized to these reports. How stupid does this administration think the American people are? Or are they fooling the World? They are not even able to fool the most uncivilized and illeterate of them all, the Muslims.
It's been a year since President Bush first used the "few bad apples" excuse following abuse revelations at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Since then, other reports have rolled in of torture of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the far-flung countries where the United States has outsourced prisoner abuse.
When anyone is held responsible, it is low-ranking service people and even they are let go with 6 months behind doors, after they plead..."so very remorseful and guilty".
High-ranking officers have almost without exception been found blameless and shameless. And Mr. Bush feigns horror at every new revelation, even though he set the stage for torture when he determined in 2002 that the Geneva Conventions don't apply to terror suspects.
The only way for the United States to salvage its reputation in the world and among its own citizens is through the appointment of an independent federal investigator on detainee abuse. But would it ever do? How cleverly Mr. Bush dissolved the cry for an independent enquiry into the 9/11 incidents after he appointed and fired Mr. Henry Kissinger, never to hear about it again.
Anyways, The latest torture accounts come from an internal Army investigation file obtained last week by The New York Times. It shows American military men and women engaging in hideous, immoral acts - the best part often for the fun of it.
One victim was a 22-year-old shy, uneducated and slightly built Afghan taxi driver. Within four days of his detention at America's Bagram center in Afghanistan, most of the man's interrogators were convinced he was innocent of wrongdoing.
But he was interrogated one last time anyway, and died.
Like many prisoners at Bagram, the man's wrists had been shackled to the ceiling for most of his stay. In one 24-hour period, soldiers took turns striking him on the side of his legs just above his knees - a potentially disabling blow used regularly at Bagram.
Soldiers thought it was funny that after every strike the man called "Allah."
An autopsy later showed the man's legs ''had basically been pulpified."
This is sadism.
Mr. Bush's spokesman says allegations about Bagram are "being investigated thoroughly." But 2½ years after the taxi driver and another man were killed there, no one has been convicted. Only seven individuals have been charged, although Army investigators found cause to charge 27.
If this administration is serious about improving America's image in the Islamic world, then it must stop acting as if one mistake in reporting by Newsweek is to blame for the distrust and hatred of Americans abroad. It must start treating detainees, most of whom are Muslim, as humans.
Most of us are already desensitized to these reports. How stupid does this administration think the American people are? Or are they fooling the World? They are not even able to fool the most uncivilized and illeterate of them all, the Muslims.
It's been a year since President Bush first used the "few bad apples" excuse following abuse revelations at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Since then, other reports have rolled in of torture of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the far-flung countries where the United States has outsourced prisoner abuse.
When anyone is held responsible, it is low-ranking service people and even they are let go with 6 months behind doors, after they plead..."so very remorseful and guilty".
High-ranking officers have almost without exception been found blameless and shameless. And Mr. Bush feigns horror at every new revelation, even though he set the stage for torture when he determined in 2002 that the Geneva Conventions don't apply to terror suspects.
The only way for the United States to salvage its reputation in the world and among its own citizens is through the appointment of an independent federal investigator on detainee abuse. But would it ever do? How cleverly Mr. Bush dissolved the cry for an independent enquiry into the 9/11 incidents after he appointed and fired Mr. Henry Kissinger, never to hear about it again.
Anyways, The latest torture accounts come from an internal Army investigation file obtained last week by The New York Times. It shows American military men and women engaging in hideous, immoral acts - the best part often for the fun of it.
One victim was a 22-year-old shy, uneducated and slightly built Afghan taxi driver. Within four days of his detention at America's Bagram center in Afghanistan, most of the man's interrogators were convinced he was innocent of wrongdoing.
But he was interrogated one last time anyway, and died.
Like many prisoners at Bagram, the man's wrists had been shackled to the ceiling for most of his stay. In one 24-hour period, soldiers took turns striking him on the side of his legs just above his knees - a potentially disabling blow used regularly at Bagram.
Soldiers thought it was funny that after every strike the man called "Allah."
An autopsy later showed the man's legs ''had basically been pulpified."
This is sadism.
Mr. Bush's spokesman says allegations about Bagram are "being investigated thoroughly." But 2½ years after the taxi driver and another man were killed there, no one has been convicted. Only seven individuals have been charged, although Army investigators found cause to charge 27.
If this administration is serious about improving America's image in the Islamic world, then it must stop acting as if one mistake in reporting by Newsweek is to blame for the distrust and hatred of Americans abroad. It must start treating detainees, most of whom are Muslim, as humans.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Why we turn blind to facts?
US may be winning battles but... but they ARE NOT winning the war.
If any effort were ever made to understand those from other cultures-then there would be no war. The hatred against Muslims spread by evangelists in the US, by misquoting quranic verses and depicting Muslims as followers of tribal/barbaric practices, has partially been successful with the masses.
With the public face of Abu Ghraib, and the chronic humiliation of those held and released, those in America, will pay for this Adminstrations idiocy for a long long time to come.
I worked with Arabs and Muslims for 10 long years. They DON'T forget nor forgive an insult that goes to the heart of their religion or culture. They bide their time, and strike again, and again, and again. We saw that in Iraq, In palestine, in Moracco and Algeria, and in Afghanistan. Had it been any other community, it would have been flattened to ashes long time ago.
AS to LIES - part of Muslim culture is to HIDE anything done to them that they find shameful. When it DOES become public in some manner-they still acknowledge it only halfheartedly. So I find it hard to believe they would fabricate degradation regarding sexual abuse or abuse of bodily functions.
Lets not kid ourselves. The International Red Cross documented gitmo and Iraqi prison torture before any of us knew anything. Amnesty International, Human Rights watch and many other groups are also documenting it. British solders and Officers have gone on trial and admitted it. The only place where the LIES are due to not acknowledging truth, or hiding truth, are from the group of people sitting in or around White House power structure.
No, I do not want to see the horrors that are yet to come. If US does not get it's troops home soon, I truly fear the future will be a very long dark tunnel for US citizens and their descendants.
Let's be honest, building "permanent" bases (the US Adminstration says don't exist) along oil pipelines around the world is a prescription for disaster.
I have seen DVD's from 3 different people home on leave from Iraq. All include pictures the troops find "funny" of Iraqi's being at best abused, run over by tanks, humvess etc.
Yesterday there were articles that said the riots actually started 3 weeks ago due to civilians being killed by US troops along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. (I just woke up and do not have the energy to look for the links).
Raw Story and The Guardian have provided links to show the Newsweek Story on torture and abuse is not new nor original. That a Republican governement source stated it would be in a published report-and then later backed down IS the real story of this squabble.
The Independant, Italian, German, Norwegian and other countries have documented evidence of the outrageous US treatment of people. WAKE UP US Citizens! Google for FACTS - meet and talk with Muslims or you too may end up as fodder for this insanity.
It's time you all stand up and protect your own Constitution. Once again Bush and his sidekicks are pointing the finger at the media because the truth received a scary response. This administration is trying to get away with overplaying their hand. Speak out against the regime and vocally protest at any event the Republicans hold. The President is touring the U.S. in an attempt to sell his Social Insecurity plan. Protest at those events so they are unable to divert America's attention from the corruption, lies and unethical behavior.
If any effort were ever made to understand those from other cultures-then there would be no war. The hatred against Muslims spread by evangelists in the US, by misquoting quranic verses and depicting Muslims as followers of tribal/barbaric practices, has partially been successful with the masses.
With the public face of Abu Ghraib, and the chronic humiliation of those held and released, those in America, will pay for this Adminstrations idiocy for a long long time to come.
I worked with Arabs and Muslims for 10 long years. They DON'T forget nor forgive an insult that goes to the heart of their religion or culture. They bide their time, and strike again, and again, and again. We saw that in Iraq, In palestine, in Moracco and Algeria, and in Afghanistan. Had it been any other community, it would have been flattened to ashes long time ago.
AS to LIES - part of Muslim culture is to HIDE anything done to them that they find shameful. When it DOES become public in some manner-they still acknowledge it only halfheartedly. So I find it hard to believe they would fabricate degradation regarding sexual abuse or abuse of bodily functions.
Lets not kid ourselves. The International Red Cross documented gitmo and Iraqi prison torture before any of us knew anything. Amnesty International, Human Rights watch and many other groups are also documenting it. British solders and Officers have gone on trial and admitted it. The only place where the LIES are due to not acknowledging truth, or hiding truth, are from the group of people sitting in or around White House power structure.
No, I do not want to see the horrors that are yet to come. If US does not get it's troops home soon, I truly fear the future will be a very long dark tunnel for US citizens and their descendants.
Let's be honest, building "permanent" bases (the US Adminstration says don't exist) along oil pipelines around the world is a prescription for disaster.
I have seen DVD's from 3 different people home on leave from Iraq. All include pictures the troops find "funny" of Iraqi's being at best abused, run over by tanks, humvess etc.
Yesterday there were articles that said the riots actually started 3 weeks ago due to civilians being killed by US troops along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. (I just woke up and do not have the energy to look for the links).
Raw Story and The Guardian have provided links to show the Newsweek Story on torture and abuse is not new nor original. That a Republican governement source stated it would be in a published report-and then later backed down IS the real story of this squabble.
The Independant, Italian, German, Norwegian and other countries have documented evidence of the outrageous US treatment of people. WAKE UP US Citizens! Google for FACTS - meet and talk with Muslims or you too may end up as fodder for this insanity.
It's time you all stand up and protect your own Constitution. Once again Bush and his sidekicks are pointing the finger at the media because the truth received a scary response. This administration is trying to get away with overplaying their hand. Speak out against the regime and vocally protest at any event the Republicans hold. The President is touring the U.S. in an attempt to sell his Social Insecurity plan. Protest at those events so they are unable to divert America's attention from the corruption, lies and unethical behavior.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
What's worse? Gitmo or Bamiyan?
So, Muslims have been asked to make comparisons between what they feel now when US soldiers are reported to have desecrated Quran at Gitmo bases and what the world (at least as it portrayed) felt when Talibanis destroyed Buddha statues?
We all know, Buddha as a diety is largely worshipped/revered by either buddhist community and given lip service by few in India. But nevertheless, seems like the whole world was unison to go up in arms when Taliban bombed the statues. Rightly so, even Muslims governments and scholars had condemned it then. See Islamonline reports, for those who disbelieve.
But there is a major difference between what happened at Gitmo to that took place at Bamiyan. At the risk of being seen as sypathising with Talibs, I have to relate the truth without being a hyprocite.
Afghanistan had (still is) been suffering and bleeding after 25 years of devastating wars. Instead of lending a helping hand, the U.S. was enraged by Afghanistan's sheltering of Osama Bin Laden, who was a monster of it's own creation. After failing to extract OBL out of Afghanistan, the U.S. did what it does best: imposed sanctions on this already shattered nation.
So, When the world practically destroyed the future of afghani children with economic sanctions, they had also lost the right to worry about their past. I remember to have read a communique by the then Taliban government in reply to various Muslims government's request to spare the statues, which stated that their decision to destroy the statues had been made out of anger and frustration rather than anything related to Islam. Their point was that, the International agencies were then spending hefty amounts of money to repair the Buddhist statues, while nothing was being done to address the plight of Afghan children ravaged by malnutrition. It should be known that the statues were tolerated there for 1500 years but with the policies of UN bullied by US, they had turned into a hated symbol of Western preference for rock over Afghan lives. Their anger might be misplaced but was highly understandable.
It was more hypocritical of a country like Russia, for example, to voice its condemnation of the Taliban over the destruction of the Buddhas. It was reported that since the Russian invasion of 1979, "thousands of Hellenistic, Persian and Indian artifacts from Afghanistan's many-layered past have been smuggled out to the voracious and amoral Western art market." Status of gods were sold to the highest bidders in the market like cattles.
If we are, as we claim to be the guardian of cultural heritage, how come no one moved a army or called back it's ambassador to condemn the destruction of the historical Babri Mosque in India? In tearing down the Babri Mosque, Indian mobs threatened to "cleanse" India of all Islamic shrines, palaces and artifacts. Two-hundred million Indian Muslims were attached to the Babri Mosque, while there is not a single Buddhist living in Afghanistan. Later, almost 500 mosques and shrines were destroyed in Gujrat, India during the riots.
In India, we have great democratic system which far surpasses US/UK civilized first world. The governments who did this, were punished and rooted out by my countrymen on both occasions of wilderness. Alas...Bush and Blair have survived and that speaks volumes of the larger hypocritic attitude of these nations and it's majority citizens.
There lies the difference between Gitmo desecration of Quran and Bamiyan Budha destruction. There is absolutely no reason for the state funded and mantained agencies to desecrate something which has not brought any misery to then directly or indirectly. With countless innocent suspects and a U.S. federal court judge itself ruling that military tribunals initiated by the Pentagon to determine the status of terrorist suspects held at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are unconstitutional because they do not satisfy minimal due-process requirements, US is coming out to be worse than Taliban, as at least, Taliban, as a government, didn't break any of it's own constitutional rules or harmed the living beings of any other religion, so much...en-masse!!
You can't debate this one!!
We all know, Buddha as a diety is largely worshipped/revered by either buddhist community and given lip service by few in India. But nevertheless, seems like the whole world was unison to go up in arms when Taliban bombed the statues. Rightly so, even Muslims governments and scholars had condemned it then. See Islamonline reports, for those who disbelieve.
But there is a major difference between what happened at Gitmo to that took place at Bamiyan. At the risk of being seen as sypathising with Talibs, I have to relate the truth without being a hyprocite.
Afghanistan had (still is) been suffering and bleeding after 25 years of devastating wars. Instead of lending a helping hand, the U.S. was enraged by Afghanistan's sheltering of Osama Bin Laden, who was a monster of it's own creation. After failing to extract OBL out of Afghanistan, the U.S. did what it does best: imposed sanctions on this already shattered nation.
So, When the world practically destroyed the future of afghani children with economic sanctions, they had also lost the right to worry about their past. I remember to have read a communique by the then Taliban government in reply to various Muslims government's request to spare the statues, which stated that their decision to destroy the statues had been made out of anger and frustration rather than anything related to Islam. Their point was that, the International agencies were then spending hefty amounts of money to repair the Buddhist statues, while nothing was being done to address the plight of Afghan children ravaged by malnutrition. It should be known that the statues were tolerated there for 1500 years but with the policies of UN bullied by US, they had turned into a hated symbol of Western preference for rock over Afghan lives. Their anger might be misplaced but was highly understandable.
It was more hypocritical of a country like Russia, for example, to voice its condemnation of the Taliban over the destruction of the Buddhas. It was reported that since the Russian invasion of 1979, "thousands of Hellenistic, Persian and Indian artifacts from Afghanistan's many-layered past have been smuggled out to the voracious and amoral Western art market." Status of gods were sold to the highest bidders in the market like cattles.
If we are, as we claim to be the guardian of cultural heritage, how come no one moved a army or called back it's ambassador to condemn the destruction of the historical Babri Mosque in India? In tearing down the Babri Mosque, Indian mobs threatened to "cleanse" India of all Islamic shrines, palaces and artifacts. Two-hundred million Indian Muslims were attached to the Babri Mosque, while there is not a single Buddhist living in Afghanistan. Later, almost 500 mosques and shrines were destroyed in Gujrat, India during the riots.
In India, we have great democratic system which far surpasses US/UK civilized first world. The governments who did this, were punished and rooted out by my countrymen on both occasions of wilderness. Alas...Bush and Blair have survived and that speaks volumes of the larger hypocritic attitude of these nations and it's majority citizens.
There lies the difference between Gitmo desecration of Quran and Bamiyan Budha destruction. There is absolutely no reason for the state funded and mantained agencies to desecrate something which has not brought any misery to then directly or indirectly. With countless innocent suspects and a U.S. federal court judge itself ruling that military tribunals initiated by the Pentagon to determine the status of terrorist suspects held at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are unconstitutional because they do not satisfy minimal due-process requirements, US is coming out to be worse than Taliban, as at least, Taliban, as a government, didn't break any of it's own constitutional rules or harmed the living beings of any other religion, so much...en-masse!!
You can't debate this one!!
Muslim are real stupid..!Huh!!
When newsweek said its information had come from a "knowledgeable government source" who told the magazine that a military report on abuse at Guantanamo Bay said interrogators had flushed at least one copy of the Qur'an down a toilet in a bid to make detainees talk, it was indeed speaking the truth. So many times earlier we have read the same charges being doled out by innocents held as suspects and released from such hellholes, due to their government or relatives influences. What's new? What's unbelievable?
But, according to Newsweek now, the source later said that he could not be certain that he had seen an account of the incident in the military report. It might have been in other investigative documents or drafts, he said.
Can you imagine...even the afghans were unconvinced whom americans have liberated and put on the path to properity. Forget the rest of the Muslim world!! Even non-Muslims would be smirking at the naivity of the US policy makers or laughing at the utter helplessness and sorry state of Muslim nations. What a stupid world it's considered??
But, in my opinion, I didn't expect the afghan response to this episode to be so overwhelming that it brings about an apology even from a creadible US News magazine, leave alone a single American. Their demand that the US government apologises might be too far fetched, but the fact that it did make US Govt. at least took note of the matter, goes to say that the soul of the Muslims is still alive for the things that they consider as sacred. Post Abu Ghraib pictures, I thought that nothing can be more degrading and disgusting for the Muslim world and if nothing happened then, nothing would happen..ever.
But, Did I hear any protests or demonstrations in the US friendly but fanatic Arabian peninsula against this Quran desecration? Guess NO!!
But, according to Newsweek now, the source later said that he could not be certain that he had seen an account of the incident in the military report. It might have been in other investigative documents or drafts, he said.
Can you imagine...even the afghans were unconvinced whom americans have liberated and put on the path to properity. Forget the rest of the Muslim world!! Even non-Muslims would be smirking at the naivity of the US policy makers or laughing at the utter helplessness and sorry state of Muslim nations. What a stupid world it's considered??
But, in my opinion, I didn't expect the afghan response to this episode to be so overwhelming that it brings about an apology even from a creadible US News magazine, leave alone a single American. Their demand that the US government apologises might be too far fetched, but the fact that it did make US Govt. at least took note of the matter, goes to say that the soul of the Muslims is still alive for the things that they consider as sacred. Post Abu Ghraib pictures, I thought that nothing can be more degrading and disgusting for the Muslim world and if nothing happened then, nothing would happen..ever.
But, Did I hear any protests or demonstrations in the US friendly but fanatic Arabian peninsula against this Quran desecration? Guess NO!!
No democracy, coz the outcome would be Islamists!
After President Islam Karimov's American-trained crack troops massacred an estimated 500 people on the streets of Andizhan, the Uzbek leader insisted that the victims were Islamic terrorists. They were not. But the real danger is now that Islamic extremists, rather than democratic forces, will exploit the power vacuum.
Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan were a forgotten corner of the world. Their leaders and regimes had barely changed since the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991 and they had refused to carry out desperately needed reforms.
The US and Europe had little incentive to support democratic change in the region. Instead, the Pentagon established close relations with Uzbekistan in 1998, funding and training Uzbek troops to deal with Islamic extremists.
The CIA and MI6 followed suit, helping to train and re-organise the Uzbek security services which are notorious for torture. After September 2001 the US leased military bases from Mr Karimov while Uzbekistan became one of 10 countries where the CIA has ''rendered'' dozens of al-Qa'eda suspects in the full knowledge that they would be abused thoroughly without any intervention of any kind of HRW.
At the end of January 2005 Mr Karimov issued a warning to Western ambassadors in Tashkent that he would use ''necessary force" to stamp out any democratic unrest in Uzbekistan. Still there was no significant change of policy in London or Washington.
Mr Karimov's repressive system has ensured that all democratic parties are banned. Unlike in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, where there was an organised democratic opposition, one has had democracy training in Uzbekistan.
Nevertheless, the armed group that first attacked the jail in Andizhan were not extremists but relatives of 23 businessmen and traders on trial for their lives. The 23 were the first to be freed in the jail break and from then on the movement became a local popular uprising.
Meanwhile in Tashkent, Mr Karimov is rumoured to be extremely ill. But Western policies have ensured that even if he were toppled by an internal power struggle, his replacement would only be another dictator.
So, this world is indeed going to dogs. Let's see where this mass hypocrisy on the part of "World super powers" leads us al, especially the Muslims.
Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan were a forgotten corner of the world. Their leaders and regimes had barely changed since the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991 and they had refused to carry out desperately needed reforms.
The US and Europe had little incentive to support democratic change in the region. Instead, the Pentagon established close relations with Uzbekistan in 1998, funding and training Uzbek troops to deal with Islamic extremists.
The CIA and MI6 followed suit, helping to train and re-organise the Uzbek security services which are notorious for torture. After September 2001 the US leased military bases from Mr Karimov while Uzbekistan became one of 10 countries where the CIA has ''rendered'' dozens of al-Qa'eda suspects in the full knowledge that they would be abused thoroughly without any intervention of any kind of HRW.
At the end of January 2005 Mr Karimov issued a warning to Western ambassadors in Tashkent that he would use ''necessary force" to stamp out any democratic unrest in Uzbekistan. Still there was no significant change of policy in London or Washington.
Mr Karimov's repressive system has ensured that all democratic parties are banned. Unlike in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, where there was an organised democratic opposition, one has had democracy training in Uzbekistan.
Nevertheless, the armed group that first attacked the jail in Andizhan were not extremists but relatives of 23 businessmen and traders on trial for their lives. The 23 were the first to be freed in the jail break and from then on the movement became a local popular uprising.
Meanwhile in Tashkent, Mr Karimov is rumoured to be extremely ill. But Western policies have ensured that even if he were toppled by an internal power struggle, his replacement would only be another dictator.
So, this world is indeed going to dogs. Let's see where this mass hypocrisy on the part of "World super powers" leads us al, especially the Muslims.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
From bane to boon..men perceptions!
For decades, India's burgeoning population has been blamed by it's selfish and corrupt politicians, for dragging down the country's growth and acting as a drain on its resources. How many of us remember the rhetoric of politicians down the ages of holding high population resposible for hunger, crimes and poverty while tonnes of food was eaten away by rodents and got decomposed in government godown due to mismanaged setup.
And I always mantianed and now appears that India's high birth rate could be a boon because it will make her population much younger in the next 15-20 years - in fact, much younger than China's - and give the country an unprecedented competitive edge.
Increasingly over the years, this large population base is being viewed as a serious competitive advantage for India, with the potential of leapfrogging the country into the orbit of higher economic growth.
So what has brought about this change in perception? Chirdeep Bagga of Indiatimes reports Singapore's chief mentor Lee Kuan Yew saying earlier this month that: "One of the by-products of China's one-child policy is that in a decade or so many more people will be retiring than entering the workforce... There is no precedent for a country to grow old before it has grown rich. India - average age 26, compared to China's 33 and still with much faster population growth - will enjoy bigger demographic growth."
India's population, at present about 1.1 billion, is expected to be nearly 1.4 billion in 2025 and 1.6 billion in 2050, surpassing ...
...China around 2030. But the good news is that its population in the age group 15-64 (623 million in 2000) will see an unprecedented rise to hit 942 million in 2025 and 1060 million by 2050.
A report by Goldman Sachs predicts that India would be the only economy consistently growing in excess of 5% annually till the year 2050. It is estimated that by 2020 the US will be short of 17 million people of working age, China 10 million, Japan 9 million and Russia 6 million.
Against this, India will have a surplus of 47 million working age people. Thus India is expected to continue having a competitive advantage in labour costs, which would be sustainable up to 2050. India's growth rate is expected to exceed China's by 2010 and it'll be the third richest economy in 2050, behind China and the US.
India's youthfulness is expected to substantially increase the saving rates in the country, while also encouraging flow of capital from ageing nations which would seek investment in high-growth regions.
But experts say this huge population may prove a curse if investments in human capital are not taken up on a rapid scale. This would entail providing education and employment opportunities, besides investing heavily in infrastructure.
So, there goes the myth. What will our politicians do or say now, to "pass on the buck"?
And I always mantianed and now appears that India's high birth rate could be a boon because it will make her population much younger in the next 15-20 years - in fact, much younger than China's - and give the country an unprecedented competitive edge.
Increasingly over the years, this large population base is being viewed as a serious competitive advantage for India, with the potential of leapfrogging the country into the orbit of higher economic growth.
So what has brought about this change in perception? Chirdeep Bagga of Indiatimes reports Singapore's chief mentor Lee Kuan Yew saying earlier this month that: "One of the by-products of China's one-child policy is that in a decade or so many more people will be retiring than entering the workforce... There is no precedent for a country to grow old before it has grown rich. India - average age 26, compared to China's 33 and still with much faster population growth - will enjoy bigger demographic growth."
India's population, at present about 1.1 billion, is expected to be nearly 1.4 billion in 2025 and 1.6 billion in 2050, surpassing ...
...China around 2030. But the good news is that its population in the age group 15-64 (623 million in 2000) will see an unprecedented rise to hit 942 million in 2025 and 1060 million by 2050.
A report by Goldman Sachs predicts that India would be the only economy consistently growing in excess of 5% annually till the year 2050. It is estimated that by 2020 the US will be short of 17 million people of working age, China 10 million, Japan 9 million and Russia 6 million.
Against this, India will have a surplus of 47 million working age people. Thus India is expected to continue having a competitive advantage in labour costs, which would be sustainable up to 2050. India's growth rate is expected to exceed China's by 2010 and it'll be the third richest economy in 2050, behind China and the US.
India's youthfulness is expected to substantially increase the saving rates in the country, while also encouraging flow of capital from ageing nations which would seek investment in high-growth regions.
But experts say this huge population may prove a curse if investments in human capital are not taken up on a rapid scale. This would entail providing education and employment opportunities, besides investing heavily in infrastructure.
So, there goes the myth. What will our politicians do or say now, to "pass on the buck"?
Saturday, March 05, 2005
Plight of marriages, made out of compulsion
We, in India, pour our hearts out when we hear of an old octogenarian Arab man that comes to India hunting for a young bride for himself. How often Muslims, Islam and all Arabs are painted black with the same brush without giving a thought to the causes that lie below these despicable acts of some Arabs.
Cause...What causes...??!! No one even seems to have time to think about this word anymore.
So, when a young Indian woman was sentenced to death in UAE for murdering her octogenarian UAE national husband when she was 15 years old, was scheduled to fly back home on 22 Feb 2005 after her compatriots helped her raise the blood-money to escape the death sentence...it was a cause for the whole humanity to celebrate.
“I am very glad to go back home although I know that the community at large will keep looking at me as a criminal and the whole experience will remain a stigma in my life. I will heed only my conscience and try to live the rest of life as a good citizen and try to forget this dark period in my life,” said 22-year-old Fatima Begum en route to her home town of Hyderabad in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
Most interesting patr was that Fatima was seen off at the airport by Sainul Abdeen Saleem, President of the Ras Al Khaimah Indian Association (RIA) that handled the difficult negotiations with the family of the deceased to bring down the blood money and later to raise the amount through a fund-raising campaign.
The story goes that Fatima’s husband was found murdered in their house, following which the Court of First Instance convicted her for murder and sentenced her to death in June 1997. The Shariah Appeals Court upheld the verdict.
After the victim’s relatives dropped their demand for capital punishment in favour of blood money, the court ordered her to pay Dh150,000. In response to Fatima’s request, the RIA intervened and managed to get the demand reduced to 40,000 through prolonged negotiations with the victim’s family.
The amount was donated by the Indian community members following a campaign organised by the RIA in association with the Indian Consulate in Dubai.
At the end of her conversation with one local newspapers, an emotional Fatima thanked her compatriots for their kind treatment and generous contribution to her cause.
That's what makes us good Muslims but more important than this all is the alleviation of poverty which is part government and part our responsiility so that no parents ever entertain requests by these handful of corrupted people in the Middle East, who consider poor Muslim families of Hyderabad as a place to give vent for their untamed desires.
Cause...What causes...??!! No one even seems to have time to think about this word anymore.
So, when a young Indian woman was sentenced to death in UAE for murdering her octogenarian UAE national husband when she was 15 years old, was scheduled to fly back home on 22 Feb 2005 after her compatriots helped her raise the blood-money to escape the death sentence...it was a cause for the whole humanity to celebrate.
“I am very glad to go back home although I know that the community at large will keep looking at me as a criminal and the whole experience will remain a stigma in my life. I will heed only my conscience and try to live the rest of life as a good citizen and try to forget this dark period in my life,” said 22-year-old Fatima Begum en route to her home town of Hyderabad in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
Most interesting patr was that Fatima was seen off at the airport by Sainul Abdeen Saleem, President of the Ras Al Khaimah Indian Association (RIA) that handled the difficult negotiations with the family of the deceased to bring down the blood money and later to raise the amount through a fund-raising campaign.
The story goes that Fatima’s husband was found murdered in their house, following which the Court of First Instance convicted her for murder and sentenced her to death in June 1997. The Shariah Appeals Court upheld the verdict.
After the victim’s relatives dropped their demand for capital punishment in favour of blood money, the court ordered her to pay Dh150,000. In response to Fatima’s request, the RIA intervened and managed to get the demand reduced to 40,000 through prolonged negotiations with the victim’s family.
The amount was donated by the Indian community members following a campaign organised by the RIA in association with the Indian Consulate in Dubai.
At the end of her conversation with one local newspapers, an emotional Fatima thanked her compatriots for their kind treatment and generous contribution to her cause.
That's what makes us good Muslims but more important than this all is the alleviation of poverty which is part government and part our responsiility so that no parents ever entertain requests by these handful of corrupted people in the Middle East, who consider poor Muslim families of Hyderabad as a place to give vent for their untamed desires.
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
‘God's invisible hand’ saved Indonesia’s mosques
Indonesia's indestructible mosques defy colossal forces of tsunami under ‘God's invisible hand’.
By Victor Tjahjadi - BANDA ACEH, Indonesia
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Indonesia's tsunami wastelands on the northern tip of Sumatra island, little remains of whole towns lost to the colossal forces that came thundering in from the ocean.
But across these battered shores, dozens of mosques still stand, their minarets glinting defiantly in the sun - a phenomenon survivors in the deeply Islamic region credit as much to divine intervention as robust architecture.
"God's invisible hands prevents the mosque's destruction," said Mukhlis Khaeran, who saw the sea sweep away his home village of Baet outside the north Sumatran city of Banda Aceh, but leave the neighbourhood mosque relatively intact.
"He punishes us for our greed and arrogance but He will protect his house," Khaeran said, his arms covered with injuries sustained in the disaster that killed at least 100,000 people around the north Sumatran province of Aceh.
Mosques are an everyday sight in most of Indonesia, but especially in Aceh, credited with the being one of Islam's main gateways into the archipelago of islands which now forms the world's largest Muslim-populated country.
Despite a long-lasting independence struggle, Aceh, parts of which are under traditional Islamic sharia law, has remained a Muslim heartland for Indonesia, which mostly practices a very relaxed interpretation of the faith.
Spiritual beliefs in Aceh and around the Indian Ocean were tested to the limit on December 26 when an epic earthquake sent towers of water crashing ashore, obliterating virtually everything in their path.
But while some spoke of "God's wrath", hundreds turned to their mosques, in panic for shelter from the advancing tides and later for spiritual comfort in a time of desperate need.
In the village of Kaju, also outside Banda Aceh, hundreds of homes were annihilated while the local mosque suffered only a few cracks in the walls.
"There is a saying among Acehnese that a mosque is God's house and no one can destroy it but God Himself," said Ismail Ishak, 42, who was digging rubble from his crumbled house while searching for seven of his relatives.
In Pasi Lhok, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) east of the north Aceh town of Sigli, 100 frightened people sheltering inside their mosque were spared while almost every house in the surrounding five villages was pulverised, according to chief cleric Teungku Kaoy Ali.
In Meubolah, a town on Aceh's western coast less than 150 kilometres (95 miles) from the quake epicentre which bore the full force of the tsunami, leaving at least 10,000 dead, mosques stand sentinel over a vanished town centre.
Banda Aceh resident Achyar said when he saw the waves pounding in from the sea, his first instinct was to turn and run for the nearest mosque.
"I climbed the mosque tower and hung on to an electric wire until water receded," he said. "Many of my friends, many of them ethnic Chinese, died because they climbed to the second floor of their shops and were trapped there," he said.
Another, less divine, explanation for the survival of the mosques is that many are built much more sturdily than most of the other structures in the towns and cities of Aceh.
However one mosque in Sigli was made only of wood but still survived unscathed despite all the other buildings around it being destroyed.
Banda Aceh's grand Baiturrahman mosque suffered partial damage from the quake and tsunami, but proved invaluable to the city's survivors in the minutes, hours and days that followed the cataclysm.
For many it became a rallying place to search for missing friends or relatives, a makeshift hospital to treat the injured and a morgue to collect the dead.
With much of Banda Aceh likely to remain in ruins for months, residents were quick to repay their debt to their cherished religious buildings, working swiftly to ensure the Baiturrahman mosque was one of the first places restored.
On Sunday, some 300 survivors gathered for their first prayers since their five-times daily ritual was halted - a major step on the long road back to normality in Aceh.
Saturday, January 01, 2005
Once again - In the name of liberation
So, the US State Department has launched a $10m ‘Iraqi women’s democracy initiative’ to train Iraqi women in the skills and practices of democratic life ahead of the forthcoming elections. Paula Dobriansky, US undersecretary of state for global affairs, declared: "We will give Iraqi women the tools, information and experience they need to run for office and lobby for fair treatment."
The fact that the money will go mainly to organisations embedded with the US administration, such as the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) founded by Dick Cheney’s wife Lynn, was, of course, not mentioned.
Of all the blunders by the US administration in Iraq, the greatest is its failure to understand Iraqi people, women in particular. The main misconception is to perceive Iraqi women as silent, powerless victims in a male-controlled society in urgent need of ‘liberation’. This image fits conveniently into the big picture of the Iraqi people being passive victims who would welcome the occupation of their country.
The reality is different. Iraqi women were actively involved in public life even under the Ottoman empire. In 1899 the first schools for girls were established, the first women’s organisation in 1924. By 1937 there were four women’s magazines published in Baghdad.
Women were involved in the 1920 revolution against British occupation, including in fighting. In the 50s, political parties established women’s organisations. All reflected the same principle: fighting alongside men, women were also liberating themselves. That was proven in the aftermath of the 1958 revolution ending the British-imposed monarchy when women’s organisations achieved within two years what over 30 years of British occupation failed to: legal equality.
This process led Unicef to report in 1993: "Rarely do women in the Arab world enjoy as much power as they do in Iraq ... men and women must receive equal pay for equal work. A wife’s income is recognised as independent from her husband’s. In 1974, education was made free at all levels, and in 1979 it was made compulsory for girls and boys until the age of 12." By the early 90s, Iraq had one of the highest literacy rates in the Arab world. There were more professional women in positions of power than in any other Middle Eastern nation
The tragedy was that women were living under Saddam’s oppressive regime. True, women occupied high political positions, ibut they did nothing to protest at the injustice inflicted on their sisters who opposed the regime.
The same is happening now in ‘the new democratic Iraq’. After ‘liberation’, Bush and Blair trumpeted women’s advancement as a centrepiece of their vision for Iraq. In the White House, hand-picked Iraqi women recited desperately needed homilies to justify the invasion of Iraq. In June, nominal sovereignty was handed over to a US-appointed Iraqi interim government, including six women cabinet ministers. They were not elected by Iraqi people.
Under Ayad Allawi’s regime, ‘multinational forces’ remain immune from legal redress, rarely accountable for crimes committed against Iraqis. The gap between women members of Allawi’s regime and the majority of Iraqi women is widening by the day. While cabinet ministers and the US-UK embassies are cocooned inside the fortified green zone, Iraqis are denied the basic right of walking safely in their own streets. Right of road is for US tanks labelled: "If you pass the convoy you will be killed."
Lack of security and fear of kidnapping make Iraqi women prisoners in their own homes. They witness the looting of their country by Halliburton, Bechtel, US NGOs, missionaries, mercenaries and subcontractors, while they are denied clean water and electricity. In the land of oil, they have to queue five hours a day to get kerosene or petrol. Acute malnutrition has doubled among children. Unemployment at 70 per cent is exacerbating poverty, prostitution, backstreet abortion and honour killing. Corruption and nepotism are rampant in the interim government. Al-Naqib, minister of interior admitted that he had appointed 49 of his relatives to high-ranking jobs, but only because they were qualified.
The killing of academics, journalists and scientists has not spared women: Liqa Abdul Razaq, a newsreader at Al Sharqiyya TV, was shot with her two-month-old baby. Layla Al Saad, dean of law at Mosul University was slaughtered in her house.
The silence of the ‘feminists’ of Allawi’s regime is deafening. The suffering of their sisters in cities showered with napalm, phosphorus and cluster bombs by US jet fighters, the death of about 100,000 Iraqi civilians, half of them women and children, is met with rhetoric about training for democracy. Tony Blair, earlier this week in Baghdad said: (In Jan 30 elections), we will have a very clear expression of democratic will." Does he not know that ‘democracy’ is what Iraqi women use nowadays to frighten their naughty children, by shouting: "Quiet, or I’ll call democracy."
Haifa Zangana
The fact that the money will go mainly to organisations embedded with the US administration, such as the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) founded by Dick Cheney’s wife Lynn, was, of course, not mentioned.
Of all the blunders by the US administration in Iraq, the greatest is its failure to understand Iraqi people, women in particular. The main misconception is to perceive Iraqi women as silent, powerless victims in a male-controlled society in urgent need of ‘liberation’. This image fits conveniently into the big picture of the Iraqi people being passive victims who would welcome the occupation of their country.
The reality is different. Iraqi women were actively involved in public life even under the Ottoman empire. In 1899 the first schools for girls were established, the first women’s organisation in 1924. By 1937 there were four women’s magazines published in Baghdad.
Women were involved in the 1920 revolution against British occupation, including in fighting. In the 50s, political parties established women’s organisations. All reflected the same principle: fighting alongside men, women were also liberating themselves. That was proven in the aftermath of the 1958 revolution ending the British-imposed monarchy when women’s organisations achieved within two years what over 30 years of British occupation failed to: legal equality.
This process led Unicef to report in 1993: "Rarely do women in the Arab world enjoy as much power as they do in Iraq ... men and women must receive equal pay for equal work. A wife’s income is recognised as independent from her husband’s. In 1974, education was made free at all levels, and in 1979 it was made compulsory for girls and boys until the age of 12." By the early 90s, Iraq had one of the highest literacy rates in the Arab world. There were more professional women in positions of power than in any other Middle Eastern nation
The tragedy was that women were living under Saddam’s oppressive regime. True, women occupied high political positions, ibut they did nothing to protest at the injustice inflicted on their sisters who opposed the regime.
The same is happening now in ‘the new democratic Iraq’. After ‘liberation’, Bush and Blair trumpeted women’s advancement as a centrepiece of their vision for Iraq. In the White House, hand-picked Iraqi women recited desperately needed homilies to justify the invasion of Iraq. In June, nominal sovereignty was handed over to a US-appointed Iraqi interim government, including six women cabinet ministers. They were not elected by Iraqi people.
Under Ayad Allawi’s regime, ‘multinational forces’ remain immune from legal redress, rarely accountable for crimes committed against Iraqis. The gap between women members of Allawi’s regime and the majority of Iraqi women is widening by the day. While cabinet ministers and the US-UK embassies are cocooned inside the fortified green zone, Iraqis are denied the basic right of walking safely in their own streets. Right of road is for US tanks labelled: "If you pass the convoy you will be killed."
Lack of security and fear of kidnapping make Iraqi women prisoners in their own homes. They witness the looting of their country by Halliburton, Bechtel, US NGOs, missionaries, mercenaries and subcontractors, while they are denied clean water and electricity. In the land of oil, they have to queue five hours a day to get kerosene or petrol. Acute malnutrition has doubled among children. Unemployment at 70 per cent is exacerbating poverty, prostitution, backstreet abortion and honour killing. Corruption and nepotism are rampant in the interim government. Al-Naqib, minister of interior admitted that he had appointed 49 of his relatives to high-ranking jobs, but only because they were qualified.
The killing of academics, journalists and scientists has not spared women: Liqa Abdul Razaq, a newsreader at Al Sharqiyya TV, was shot with her two-month-old baby. Layla Al Saad, dean of law at Mosul University was slaughtered in her house.
The silence of the ‘feminists’ of Allawi’s regime is deafening. The suffering of their sisters in cities showered with napalm, phosphorus and cluster bombs by US jet fighters, the death of about 100,000 Iraqi civilians, half of them women and children, is met with rhetoric about training for democracy. Tony Blair, earlier this week in Baghdad said: (In Jan 30 elections), we will have a very clear expression of democratic will." Does he not know that ‘democracy’ is what Iraqi women use nowadays to frighten their naughty children, by shouting: "Quiet, or I’ll call democracy."
Haifa Zangana
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Why did HE do(allow) all this?
A great tremor and a "deafening blast" follows the sound of the Trumpet. At this moment, people recognise that they are face to face with a horrible disaster. It is obvious that the world and life is about to cease to exist. That is why, everything on earth loses its value in just a few moments. Even the sound of the Day of Resurrection will suffice to break all worldly relations among people. No thoughts can occupy the minds of people other than escaping and rescuing themselves. Fear is rife and, on that day, everyone is concerned only about himself:
When the Deafening Blast comes, the Day a man will flee from his brother and his mother and his father, and his wife and his children: on that Day every man among them will have concerns enough of his own. (Surah 'Abasa: 33-37)
After an intense shake, the earth throws up all its treasures and discloses all its secrets, none of which will have any value at all from then on:
When the earth is convulsed with its quaking and the earth then shakes off its burdens and man asks, 'What does this mean?'-on that Day it will impart all its tidings because your Lord will have inspired it. (Surat az-Zalzalah: 1-5)
A terrifying noise followed by an intense tremor and sudden underground explosions ravage everything to which people formerly attached a great deal of importance. For instance, people treasured their houses, offices, cars and fields. Some people held a house to be the main target of their lives. Yet, the vanity of such goals surfaces at the very moment of the Day of Resurrection. Material wealth, to which people devoted all their lives, will disappear in a second. The goals of one who makes getting promoted in the company his main ambition become worthless. Another who devoted all his life to seizing power in his country experiences the same terrifying situation. He bitterly witnesses the disappearance of that country...Everything loses its significance...except everything done to earn God's approval. As God states in the Qur'an: "When the Great Calamity comes: that Day man will remember what he has striven for and the Blazing Fire will be displayed for all who can see." (Surat an-Nazi'at: 34-36)
A posting by someone on the Forum made me realise the most often felt disillusionment by all theists when faced with such questions as asked by this poster.
Those who suffered in this Tsunami recently and lost their lives, must have had feelings of the same type...except the children who were too young to comprehend.
Images of children dead bodies piled up in rows. Dead bodies piled up outside a mosque in Aceh and a Temple in Tamil Nadu. Christians dead while celebrating Christmas brought home the fact that none in this World can claim to be immune from collective death and destruction just on the basis of belonging to a particular caste or creed. A very profound lesson to learn there for the whole Humanity.
When a child is run over and killed by a drunk driver, the parents ask why it had to happen to them? They are not asking for an engineering analysis of masses, velocities, and forces. They are simply seeking moral answers.
I too searched for the answers.
This question leads us to examine our basic beliefs about the nature of the God that most humanity believe in, variously called Allah, God, the Trinity, and Jehovah. Most religions teach that God has a number of attributes. Among them are:
Omniscience: all-knowing, Omnipotence: all-powerful; Omnibeneficient: A loving deity, who cares for the world.
But when about 3,000 lives were snuffed out in New York, Washington, and a Pennsylvania field by attacks on 2001-SEP-11; this caused massive grief and pain to tens of thousands of spouses, partners, family members and friends. About 25,000 people a year are murdered in the U.S. About 2000 people murdered and raped in Gujrat, Around 30,000 perished in Iraq (100,000 unofficially) in the name of liberation and now another 70,000 in SE Asia Tsunami disaster. All of these events could be prevented, by an omnipotent, omniscient, caring God. It is these types of event that can cause some people to become mad at God and to lose their faith. But it drives even more people to examine their religious beliefs, and perhaps grow spiritually.
Christian Fundamentalist R. Albert Mohler, assigned full responsibility for 9-11attacks on the (then) unknown terrorists. He said: "We dare not dignify the murderers by explaining their cause. No cause, however righteous, can justify such acts. And, no righteous cause could produce such acts. He acknowledges that God is omnipotent -- infinitely powerful -- and thus could have prevented the tragedy. He however said: "This much we know—we cannot speak of God’s decree in a way that would imply Him to be the author of evil, and we cannot fall back to speak of His mere permission, as if this allows a denial of His sovereignty and active will."
Many consider these answers to be unsatisfactory. They yearn for a more complete understanding of the puzzle.
As a Muslim, I realise that death and destruction seen in recent years, all around is not the whole story. Besides all these negative things, we also see beauty, health, prosperity, life, birth, wisdom, intelligence, growth and progress. We also see goodness among people, faith, sincerity, charity, love and the spirit of sacrifice. We also see a lot of virtue and piety. It is wrong to see one side of the coin and not to see the other side. Any philosophy that concentrates on one aspect of the creation and denies or ignores the other side is partially true and partial truths are no truth at all.
It is also the fact that the element of good is more in the creation than the element of evil. We all see that there are more people who are healthy than those who are sick. There are more that eat well than those who starve.
There are more that lead decent life than those who commit crimes. Goodness is the rule and evil is the exception. Virtue is the norm and sin is the aberration. Generally trees bear fruits, the flowers bloom, the winds move smoothly.
The Best attempt to answer these questions, I found at this Link. I am at Peace now!
Why does God Allow Death and Destruction?
Not every Calamity is a punishment.
Hope you too benefit from this...InshAllah!
But nothing will ever make me feel happy about how we bungled as nation and yet again, proved ourselves to be inheritors of the Third World Legacy.
First tsunami alert lost in Indian bureaucracy
When the Deafening Blast comes, the Day a man will flee from his brother and his mother and his father, and his wife and his children: on that Day every man among them will have concerns enough of his own. (Surah 'Abasa: 33-37)
After an intense shake, the earth throws up all its treasures and discloses all its secrets, none of which will have any value at all from then on:
When the earth is convulsed with its quaking and the earth then shakes off its burdens and man asks, 'What does this mean?'-on that Day it will impart all its tidings because your Lord will have inspired it. (Surat az-Zalzalah: 1-5)
A terrifying noise followed by an intense tremor and sudden underground explosions ravage everything to which people formerly attached a great deal of importance. For instance, people treasured their houses, offices, cars and fields. Some people held a house to be the main target of their lives. Yet, the vanity of such goals surfaces at the very moment of the Day of Resurrection. Material wealth, to which people devoted all their lives, will disappear in a second. The goals of one who makes getting promoted in the company his main ambition become worthless. Another who devoted all his life to seizing power in his country experiences the same terrifying situation. He bitterly witnesses the disappearance of that country...Everything loses its significance...except everything done to earn God's approval. As God states in the Qur'an: "When the Great Calamity comes: that Day man will remember what he has striven for and the Blazing Fire will be displayed for all who can see." (Surat an-Nazi'at: 34-36)
A posting by someone on the Forum made me realise the most often felt disillusionment by all theists when faced with such questions as asked by this poster.
Those who suffered in this Tsunami recently and lost their lives, must have had feelings of the same type...except the children who were too young to comprehend.
Images of children dead bodies piled up in rows. Dead bodies piled up outside a mosque in Aceh and a Temple in Tamil Nadu. Christians dead while celebrating Christmas brought home the fact that none in this World can claim to be immune from collective death and destruction just on the basis of belonging to a particular caste or creed. A very profound lesson to learn there for the whole Humanity.
When a child is run over and killed by a drunk driver, the parents ask why it had to happen to them? They are not asking for an engineering analysis of masses, velocities, and forces. They are simply seeking moral answers.
I too searched for the answers.
This question leads us to examine our basic beliefs about the nature of the God that most humanity believe in, variously called Allah, God, the Trinity, and Jehovah. Most religions teach that God has a number of attributes. Among them are:
Omniscience: all-knowing, Omnipotence: all-powerful; Omnibeneficient: A loving deity, who cares for the world.
But when about 3,000 lives were snuffed out in New York, Washington, and a Pennsylvania field by attacks on 2001-SEP-11; this caused massive grief and pain to tens of thousands of spouses, partners, family members and friends. About 25,000 people a year are murdered in the U.S. About 2000 people murdered and raped in Gujrat, Around 30,000 perished in Iraq (100,000 unofficially) in the name of liberation and now another 70,000 in SE Asia Tsunami disaster. All of these events could be prevented, by an omnipotent, omniscient, caring God. It is these types of event that can cause some people to become mad at God and to lose their faith. But it drives even more people to examine their religious beliefs, and perhaps grow spiritually.
Christian Fundamentalist R. Albert Mohler, assigned full responsibility for 9-11attacks on the (then) unknown terrorists. He said: "We dare not dignify the murderers by explaining their cause. No cause, however righteous, can justify such acts. And, no righteous cause could produce such acts. He acknowledges that God is omnipotent -- infinitely powerful -- and thus could have prevented the tragedy. He however said: "This much we know—we cannot speak of God’s decree in a way that would imply Him to be the author of evil, and we cannot fall back to speak of His mere permission, as if this allows a denial of His sovereignty and active will."
Many consider these answers to be unsatisfactory. They yearn for a more complete understanding of the puzzle.
As a Muslim, I realise that death and destruction seen in recent years, all around is not the whole story. Besides all these negative things, we also see beauty, health, prosperity, life, birth, wisdom, intelligence, growth and progress. We also see goodness among people, faith, sincerity, charity, love and the spirit of sacrifice. We also see a lot of virtue and piety. It is wrong to see one side of the coin and not to see the other side. Any philosophy that concentrates on one aspect of the creation and denies or ignores the other side is partially true and partial truths are no truth at all.
It is also the fact that the element of good is more in the creation than the element of evil. We all see that there are more people who are healthy than those who are sick. There are more that eat well than those who starve.
There are more that lead decent life than those who commit crimes. Goodness is the rule and evil is the exception. Virtue is the norm and sin is the aberration. Generally trees bear fruits, the flowers bloom, the winds move smoothly.
The Best attempt to answer these questions, I found at this Link. I am at Peace now!
Why does God Allow Death and Destruction?
Not every Calamity is a punishment.
Hope you too benefit from this...InshAllah!
But nothing will ever make me feel happy about how we bungled as nation and yet again, proved ourselves to be inheritors of the Third World Legacy.
First tsunami alert lost in Indian bureaucracy
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
America's war on itself
I have a persistent mental image of US foreign policy, which haunts me even in my sleep. The vanguard of a vast army is marching around the globe, looking for its enemy. It sees a mass of troops in the distance, retreating from it. It opens fire, unaware that it is shooting its own rear.
Is this too fanciful a picture? Both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were groomed and armed by the United States. Until the invasion of Iraq, there were no links between the Ba'athists and al-Qaida: now Bush's government has created the monster it claimed to be slaying. The US army developed high-grade weaponised anthrax in order, it said, to work out what would happen if someone else did the same. No one else was capable of producing it: the terrorist who launched the anthrax attacks in 2001 took it from one of the army's laboratories. Now US researchers are preparing genetically modified strains of smallpox on the same pretext, and with the same likely consequences. The Pentagon's space-based weapons programme is being developed in response to a threat which doesn't yet exist, but which it is likely to conjure up. The US government is engaged in a global war with itself. It is like a robin attacking its reflection in a window.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in its assaults on the multilateral institutions and their treaties. Listening to some of the bunkum about the United Nations venting from Capitol Hill at the moment, you could be forgiven for believing that the UN was a foreign conspiracy against the United States. It was, of course, proposed by a US president, launched in San Francisco and housed in New York, where its headquarters remain. Its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, characterised by Republicans as a dangerous restraint upon American freedoms, was drafted by Franklin D Roosevelt's widow. The US is now the only member of the UN security council whose word is law, with the result that the UN is one of the world's most effective instruments for the projection of American power.
The secret deals in Iraq for which the United Nations is currently being attacked by US senators were in fact overseen by the US government. It ensured that Saddam could evade sanctions by continuing to sell oil to its allies in Jordan and Turkey. Republican congressmen are calling on Kofi Annan to resign for letting this happen, apparently unaware that it was approved in Washington to support American strategic objectives. The US finds the monsters it seeks, as it pecks and flutters at its own image.
So we could interpret the activities of Bush's government at the climate talks in Buenos Aires last week as another vigorous attempt to destroy its own interests. US economic growth depends on the rest of the world's prosperity. The greatest long-term threat to global prosperity is climate change, which threatens to wreck many of America's key markets in the developing world. Coastal cities in the US - including New York - are threatened by rising sea levels. Florida could be hit by stronger and more frequent hurricanes. Both farms and cities are likely to be affected by droughts.
In February, a leaked report from the Pentagon revealed that it sees global warming as far more dangerous to US interests than terrorism. As a result of abrupt climate change, it claimed, "warfare may again come to define human life... As the planet's carrying capacity shrinks, an ancient pattern re-emerges: the eruption of desperate, all-out wars over food, water, and energy supplies." The nuclear powers are likely to invade each other's territories as they scramble for diminishing resources.
So how does George Bush respond to this? "Bring it on." The meeting in Buenos Aires was supposed to work out what the world should do about climate change when the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012. Most of the world's governments want the protocol to be replaced by a new, tougher agreement. But the Bush administration has been seeking to ensure both that the original agreement is scrapped, and that nothing is developed to replace it.
"No one can say with any certainty," Bush asserts, "what constitutes a dangerous level of warming, and therefore what level must be avoided." As we don't know how bad it is going to be, he suggests, we shouldn't take costly steps to prevent it. Now read that statement again and substitute "terrorism" for "warming". When anticipating possible terrorist attacks, the US administration, or so it claims, prepares for the worst. When anticipating the impacts of climate change, it prepares for the best. The "precautionary principle" is applied so enthusiastically to matters of national security that it now threatens American civil liberties. But it is rejected altogether when discussing the environment.
The Kyoto protocol is flawed, the Bush team says, because countries such as China and India are currently exempted from cutting their emissions. But instead of helping to design a treaty that would eventually bring them in, the US teamed up with them in Buenos Aires to try to sink all international cooperation. It even supported Saudi Arabia's demand that oil-producing countries should be compensated for any decline in the market caused by carbon cuts.
The result is that the talks very nearly collapsed. On Saturday, 36 hours after they were due to have ended, and while workmen were dismantling the rooms in which the delegates were sitting, the other countries managed to salvage the barest ghost of an agreement. The US permitted them to hold an informal meeting in May, during which "any negotiation leading to new commitments" is forbidden. According to the head of the US delegation, the time to decide what happens after 2012 is "in 2012". It's like saying that the time to decide what to do about homeland security is when the plane is flying into the tower.
Wrecking these talks is pretty good work for a country which, as it refuses to ratify the protocol, doesn't even have negotiating rights. But this is now familiar practice. The US tried to sink the biosafety protocol in 1999, even though, as it hadn't signed, it wasn't bound by it. It sought to trash the 2002 Earth Summit, though Bush failed to attend. This isn't, as some people suggest, isolationism. It is a thorough and sustained engagement, whose purpose is to prevent the world's most pressing problems from being solved.
And the result, of course, is that the catastrophe described by the Pentagon is now more likely to happen. The US has just spent millions of dollars in Buenos Aires undermining its own peace and prosperity. Of course we know that its delegation was representing the interests of the corporations, not the people, and that what's bad for America is good for Exxon. But this does not detract from the sheer, self-immolating stupidity of its position.
The US has every right to beat itself up. But unfortunately, while chasing itself around the world, it tramples everyone else. I know that appealing to George Bush's intelligence isn't likely to take us very far, but surely there's someone in that administration who can see what a monkey he's making of America.
By George (Monbiot) - The Guardian
Is this too fanciful a picture? Both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were groomed and armed by the United States. Until the invasion of Iraq, there were no links between the Ba'athists and al-Qaida: now Bush's government has created the monster it claimed to be slaying. The US army developed high-grade weaponised anthrax in order, it said, to work out what would happen if someone else did the same. No one else was capable of producing it: the terrorist who launched the anthrax attacks in 2001 took it from one of the army's laboratories. Now US researchers are preparing genetically modified strains of smallpox on the same pretext, and with the same likely consequences. The Pentagon's space-based weapons programme is being developed in response to a threat which doesn't yet exist, but which it is likely to conjure up. The US government is engaged in a global war with itself. It is like a robin attacking its reflection in a window.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in its assaults on the multilateral institutions and their treaties. Listening to some of the bunkum about the United Nations venting from Capitol Hill at the moment, you could be forgiven for believing that the UN was a foreign conspiracy against the United States. It was, of course, proposed by a US president, launched in San Francisco and housed in New York, where its headquarters remain. Its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, characterised by Republicans as a dangerous restraint upon American freedoms, was drafted by Franklin D Roosevelt's widow. The US is now the only member of the UN security council whose word is law, with the result that the UN is one of the world's most effective instruments for the projection of American power.
The secret deals in Iraq for which the United Nations is currently being attacked by US senators were in fact overseen by the US government. It ensured that Saddam could evade sanctions by continuing to sell oil to its allies in Jordan and Turkey. Republican congressmen are calling on Kofi Annan to resign for letting this happen, apparently unaware that it was approved in Washington to support American strategic objectives. The US finds the monsters it seeks, as it pecks and flutters at its own image.
So we could interpret the activities of Bush's government at the climate talks in Buenos Aires last week as another vigorous attempt to destroy its own interests. US economic growth depends on the rest of the world's prosperity. The greatest long-term threat to global prosperity is climate change, which threatens to wreck many of America's key markets in the developing world. Coastal cities in the US - including New York - are threatened by rising sea levels. Florida could be hit by stronger and more frequent hurricanes. Both farms and cities are likely to be affected by droughts.
In February, a leaked report from the Pentagon revealed that it sees global warming as far more dangerous to US interests than terrorism. As a result of abrupt climate change, it claimed, "warfare may again come to define human life... As the planet's carrying capacity shrinks, an ancient pattern re-emerges: the eruption of desperate, all-out wars over food, water, and energy supplies." The nuclear powers are likely to invade each other's territories as they scramble for diminishing resources.
So how does George Bush respond to this? "Bring it on." The meeting in Buenos Aires was supposed to work out what the world should do about climate change when the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012. Most of the world's governments want the protocol to be replaced by a new, tougher agreement. But the Bush administration has been seeking to ensure both that the original agreement is scrapped, and that nothing is developed to replace it.
"No one can say with any certainty," Bush asserts, "what constitutes a dangerous level of warming, and therefore what level must be avoided." As we don't know how bad it is going to be, he suggests, we shouldn't take costly steps to prevent it. Now read that statement again and substitute "terrorism" for "warming". When anticipating possible terrorist attacks, the US administration, or so it claims, prepares for the worst. When anticipating the impacts of climate change, it prepares for the best. The "precautionary principle" is applied so enthusiastically to matters of national security that it now threatens American civil liberties. But it is rejected altogether when discussing the environment.
The Kyoto protocol is flawed, the Bush team says, because countries such as China and India are currently exempted from cutting their emissions. But instead of helping to design a treaty that would eventually bring them in, the US teamed up with them in Buenos Aires to try to sink all international cooperation. It even supported Saudi Arabia's demand that oil-producing countries should be compensated for any decline in the market caused by carbon cuts.
The result is that the talks very nearly collapsed. On Saturday, 36 hours after they were due to have ended, and while workmen were dismantling the rooms in which the delegates were sitting, the other countries managed to salvage the barest ghost of an agreement. The US permitted them to hold an informal meeting in May, during which "any negotiation leading to new commitments" is forbidden. According to the head of the US delegation, the time to decide what happens after 2012 is "in 2012". It's like saying that the time to decide what to do about homeland security is when the plane is flying into the tower.
Wrecking these talks is pretty good work for a country which, as it refuses to ratify the protocol, doesn't even have negotiating rights. But this is now familiar practice. The US tried to sink the biosafety protocol in 1999, even though, as it hadn't signed, it wasn't bound by it. It sought to trash the 2002 Earth Summit, though Bush failed to attend. This isn't, as some people suggest, isolationism. It is a thorough and sustained engagement, whose purpose is to prevent the world's most pressing problems from being solved.
And the result, of course, is that the catastrophe described by the Pentagon is now more likely to happen. The US has just spent millions of dollars in Buenos Aires undermining its own peace and prosperity. Of course we know that its delegation was representing the interests of the corporations, not the people, and that what's bad for America is good for Exxon. But this does not detract from the sheer, self-immolating stupidity of its position.
The US has every right to beat itself up. But unfortunately, while chasing itself around the world, it tramples everyone else. I know that appealing to George Bush's intelligence isn't likely to take us very far, but surely there's someone in that administration who can see what a monkey he's making of America.
By George (Monbiot) - The Guardian
Sunday, December 19, 2004
The circle of Life!
Science and technology worked wonders in our lives, and we are indebted to the great geniuses who, through their inventions and innovations, made our lives more pleasant and comfortable.
But, advances in science and technology have made man arrogant, and assertive about his own strengths.
So much so, a time came when he began denying the Creator himself. Call it rationalism, liberalism, or materialism or atheism. Life began drifting away from religion and its great tenets and teachings. But, the wheel has turned full circle. Today, in the land of liberalism, religion is bouncing back. Forcefully. So forcefully that it helped a president win a second term!
What was the basis of rationalism, or denial of the power of God? Are things in our hands? We never know when we will be born, and when we will pass away from this life. When we're born, we do not know how we live; and it is in no one's hands other than the Supreme Being's to guide our destinies.
I know of a person in his 60s, who had a check-up done with the best doctors in the UK some time ago. He had insured his life for a huge sum, after getting the doctors' certificate. We all know how doctors in the Western world do their check-ups. They will not do a normal diagnosis. They will make sure that all advanced systems are brought into play, and minute observations done, aided by computer and scanning machines, so that nothing is left to chance, and the insurer does not lose his money. So, this man was subjected to all tests, spread over long hours, and then came the certificate that he is perfectly alright. But, sadly, he didn't live for many more days. One morning, in one stroke, he passed away. Tests couldn't help anyone know his fate.
Man is under the mercy of the Creator. Humanity has passed through an age of reasoning. It was an age of greater faith in reason and empirical observation; espoused as it was since the Renaissance; and bolstered by scientific discoveries. Rationalistic approach was modelled on geometry and introspection to discover "self-evident truth" as foundation of knowledge. They thought seeing is believing; and failed to note that what cannot be seen can also be real.
In the materialistic world, wealth turned men away from religion and God. Liberalism was the creed. But, wealthy societies didn't deny God, per se. They ignored many of the teachings of religion. In societies like America, for instance, abortion had at times become an issue and at times a non-issue.
Atheism and Communism advocated denial of God and religion. It was also a reaction to the dominant role played by the Church in political affairs in Europe. For a period, the denial worked at some levels. Karl Marx declared religion was the opium of the masses. It found takers in eastern Europe, Soviet Union, and parts of Asia, where people were poor, and were swayed by ideology that leaned to the left and swore by the poor and the disadvantaged. But, it lasted only for a period. People turned away from Communism and its anti-religion stands.
The intellectual class in Europe and elsewhere were at one time leaning to the anti-religion lobbies. Said Sigmund Freud, "When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life". But, there were also geniuses like Albert Einstein, the father of modern science, who linked religion and science. Said he, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind". That was the age of the real and the unreal; reason and fancy; hope and hopelessness.
It was religious persecution that brought many from Europe to the shores of America after Christopher Columbus discovered the land. The British colonies in North America attracted a mass immigration of religious dissenters and poor people throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, coming as they did from the British Isles, Germany, the Netherlands and other countries. In what is today described as the Land of Opportunities, they built their lives, and lived their lives. America has always been a liberal society, that gave importance to individual freedom. As materialistic culture caught up with the people's lives there, people began straying from religious teachings. That was understandable, though not appreciable.
Religion cannot be divorced from life. Religion is what gives strength to human life and its existence. Religion is what gives solace to millions and millions of us; it takes us nearer to God; it teaches us about good living, and guides us onto the right paths. After all, it doesn't harm anyone. So, why does anyone deny it? What is good is to be cherished, preserved and promoted.
It is, thus, good to note that America, the land of the liberal, is turning back to religion. Religious revivalism is the subject of discussion in the media there for the past few weeks, after George Bush won another term of Presidency by riding the crest of a pro-religion wave set in motion by the conservatives there. It is believed that the November election results hinged not on Iraq war, or on American economy, but more clearly on socio-religious issues like same-sex marriage, abortion, and the role of religion in American life, in all of which Bush's pro-religion stands helped him.
Those who watched the elections know that Bush was defensive on Iraq and economy as he entered the campaign trail, and even in the televised pre-election debates at the fag end of the campaigning. Democrats thought victory was at hand for them. The Republicans quietly and successfully worked up the voter minds the religious way. And religious conservative votes re-elected Bush.
The fact is that the American society is returning to religion and its teachings. The Republicans exploited the general mood in the society, and identified the right subject that would see Bush through into a second term. "Deep-rooted conservatism and puritanical (religious) beliefs swayed a majority of American voters", was how commentators put it. Democrats failed to fathom the under-currents, and kept harping on Iraq and Bush's foreign policy "blunders". Bush's victory is bound to give a fillip to the religious and moral revival movement in America. Those who advocate abortion rights and same-sex marriage will find the going tough.
It could be an age of moral revival and re-generation, after a period de-generation. But, more than that, it is a return of the age of faith; the faith in the Supreme Being, the Creator, who guides all our destiny. That is what makes it important.
But, advances in science and technology have made man arrogant, and assertive about his own strengths.
So much so, a time came when he began denying the Creator himself. Call it rationalism, liberalism, or materialism or atheism. Life began drifting away from religion and its great tenets and teachings. But, the wheel has turned full circle. Today, in the land of liberalism, religion is bouncing back. Forcefully. So forcefully that it helped a president win a second term!
What was the basis of rationalism, or denial of the power of God? Are things in our hands? We never know when we will be born, and when we will pass away from this life. When we're born, we do not know how we live; and it is in no one's hands other than the Supreme Being's to guide our destinies.
I know of a person in his 60s, who had a check-up done with the best doctors in the UK some time ago. He had insured his life for a huge sum, after getting the doctors' certificate. We all know how doctors in the Western world do their check-ups. They will not do a normal diagnosis. They will make sure that all advanced systems are brought into play, and minute observations done, aided by computer and scanning machines, so that nothing is left to chance, and the insurer does not lose his money. So, this man was subjected to all tests, spread over long hours, and then came the certificate that he is perfectly alright. But, sadly, he didn't live for many more days. One morning, in one stroke, he passed away. Tests couldn't help anyone know his fate.
Man is under the mercy of the Creator. Humanity has passed through an age of reasoning. It was an age of greater faith in reason and empirical observation; espoused as it was since the Renaissance; and bolstered by scientific discoveries. Rationalistic approach was modelled on geometry and introspection to discover "self-evident truth" as foundation of knowledge. They thought seeing is believing; and failed to note that what cannot be seen can also be real.
In the materialistic world, wealth turned men away from religion and God. Liberalism was the creed. But, wealthy societies didn't deny God, per se. They ignored many of the teachings of religion. In societies like America, for instance, abortion had at times become an issue and at times a non-issue.
Atheism and Communism advocated denial of God and religion. It was also a reaction to the dominant role played by the Church in political affairs in Europe. For a period, the denial worked at some levels. Karl Marx declared religion was the opium of the masses. It found takers in eastern Europe, Soviet Union, and parts of Asia, where people were poor, and were swayed by ideology that leaned to the left and swore by the poor and the disadvantaged. But, it lasted only for a period. People turned away from Communism and its anti-religion stands.
The intellectual class in Europe and elsewhere were at one time leaning to the anti-religion lobbies. Said Sigmund Freud, "When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life". But, there were also geniuses like Albert Einstein, the father of modern science, who linked religion and science. Said he, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind". That was the age of the real and the unreal; reason and fancy; hope and hopelessness.
It was religious persecution that brought many from Europe to the shores of America after Christopher Columbus discovered the land. The British colonies in North America attracted a mass immigration of religious dissenters and poor people throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, coming as they did from the British Isles, Germany, the Netherlands and other countries. In what is today described as the Land of Opportunities, they built their lives, and lived their lives. America has always been a liberal society, that gave importance to individual freedom. As materialistic culture caught up with the people's lives there, people began straying from religious teachings. That was understandable, though not appreciable.
Religion cannot be divorced from life. Religion is what gives strength to human life and its existence. Religion is what gives solace to millions and millions of us; it takes us nearer to God; it teaches us about good living, and guides us onto the right paths. After all, it doesn't harm anyone. So, why does anyone deny it? What is good is to be cherished, preserved and promoted.
It is, thus, good to note that America, the land of the liberal, is turning back to religion. Religious revivalism is the subject of discussion in the media there for the past few weeks, after George Bush won another term of Presidency by riding the crest of a pro-religion wave set in motion by the conservatives there. It is believed that the November election results hinged not on Iraq war, or on American economy, but more clearly on socio-religious issues like same-sex marriage, abortion, and the role of religion in American life, in all of which Bush's pro-religion stands helped him.
Those who watched the elections know that Bush was defensive on Iraq and economy as he entered the campaign trail, and even in the televised pre-election debates at the fag end of the campaigning. Democrats thought victory was at hand for them. The Republicans quietly and successfully worked up the voter minds the religious way. And religious conservative votes re-elected Bush.
The fact is that the American society is returning to religion and its teachings. The Republicans exploited the general mood in the society, and identified the right subject that would see Bush through into a second term. "Deep-rooted conservatism and puritanical (religious) beliefs swayed a majority of American voters", was how commentators put it. Democrats failed to fathom the under-currents, and kept harping on Iraq and Bush's foreign policy "blunders". Bush's victory is bound to give a fillip to the religious and moral revival movement in America. Those who advocate abortion rights and same-sex marriage will find the going tough.
It could be an age of moral revival and re-generation, after a period de-generation. But, more than that, it is a return of the age of faith; the faith in the Supreme Being, the Creator, who guides all our destiny. That is what makes it important.
Sunday, December 12, 2004
Iron curtain is falling across Europe
Germany's new immigration law comes into force less than three weeks from now and here's a message for Indian techies thinking of heading for the Fatherland: Ponder long, consider hard; Germany 2005 may be difficult territory to colonise with our skills. So also Holland. And France. And Italy. And who knows, Britain too, may one day soon, be pulling up the cultural drawbridge and barricading itself against the non-European barbarians at its gate.
For, though he never meant it in quite this way, Churchill's "iron curtain" is once again descending across Europe. "Behind that line," he said in 1946, "lie all these famous cities and the populations around them." Churchill, of course, meant the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe — Warsaw, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia. His iron curtain divided the Soviet sphere from the rest of the West. And his prescient words marked the onset of the Cold War.
But howsoever complex the situation then, it was surely less so than today. Now, the iron curtain is draped across Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris and Rome. It enfolds other, smaller cities and towns. Its tassels fall untidily everywhere. It screens off minds from the 'other'. For, "multi-kulti" has gone out of fashion. Hard-won European tolerance to a fault has suddenly become an outsize cheque that bounced badly, dashing hopes of a sizeable future pay-off.
How else to read the remarks of Germany's opposition leader Angela Merkel, when she announced that the very idea of a multicultural society was flawed? And what to make of Holland's chant, "normen en warden" (Dutch norms and values), even as it embarks upon one of the largest deportations of foreigners in modern European history? Why else would France ban conspicuous religious symbols such as the Jewish yarmulke, Muslim hijab and Sikh turban in state schools? And how to justify the UK's tough new measures to repatriate rejected asylum claimants? Italy, meanwhile, has promised it will never repeat the amnesties granted to illegal immigrants.
Right or wrong, but everyone seems to know why the continent is falling under the hypnotic spell of the mono-culturalism mantra. European Muslims are seen to be too many and too unreconstructed for white Christian Europeans to suffer, post-9/11. Holland has seen the ugly murder of film-maker Theo, great-great-great nephew of Vincent van Gogh, for daring to be rude about living Islam. Berlin has heard a secret recording on television of an imam telling the faithful the Germans would "burn in hell" because they were unbelievers. And Britain has discovered that Muslim-dominated parts of its cities might very well be in deepest Pakistan.
Should we care? Yes, because when multi-culturalism is discredited, it affects us all.
There may be no watchtowers, no tangible Checkpoint Charlie, no Berlin Wall to pull down. The curtain might almost be invisible in politically-correct Europe. But the heavy drapes insidiously muffle all sound, including the pleasing tapping of keyboards as Indian techies get going in Europe.
By RASHMEE Z AHMED
For, though he never meant it in quite this way, Churchill's "iron curtain" is once again descending across Europe. "Behind that line," he said in 1946, "lie all these famous cities and the populations around them." Churchill, of course, meant the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe — Warsaw, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia. His iron curtain divided the Soviet sphere from the rest of the West. And his prescient words marked the onset of the Cold War.
But howsoever complex the situation then, it was surely less so than today. Now, the iron curtain is draped across Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris and Rome. It enfolds other, smaller cities and towns. Its tassels fall untidily everywhere. It screens off minds from the 'other'. For, "multi-kulti" has gone out of fashion. Hard-won European tolerance to a fault has suddenly become an outsize cheque that bounced badly, dashing hopes of a sizeable future pay-off.
How else to read the remarks of Germany's opposition leader Angela Merkel, when she announced that the very idea of a multicultural society was flawed? And what to make of Holland's chant, "normen en warden" (Dutch norms and values), even as it embarks upon one of the largest deportations of foreigners in modern European history? Why else would France ban conspicuous religious symbols such as the Jewish yarmulke, Muslim hijab and Sikh turban in state schools? And how to justify the UK's tough new measures to repatriate rejected asylum claimants? Italy, meanwhile, has promised it will never repeat the amnesties granted to illegal immigrants.
Right or wrong, but everyone seems to know why the continent is falling under the hypnotic spell of the mono-culturalism mantra. European Muslims are seen to be too many and too unreconstructed for white Christian Europeans to suffer, post-9/11. Holland has seen the ugly murder of film-maker Theo, great-great-great nephew of Vincent van Gogh, for daring to be rude about living Islam. Berlin has heard a secret recording on television of an imam telling the faithful the Germans would "burn in hell" because they were unbelievers. And Britain has discovered that Muslim-dominated parts of its cities might very well be in deepest Pakistan.
Should we care? Yes, because when multi-culturalism is discredited, it affects us all.
There may be no watchtowers, no tangible Checkpoint Charlie, no Berlin Wall to pull down. The curtain might almost be invisible in politically-correct Europe. But the heavy drapes insidiously muffle all sound, including the pleasing tapping of keyboards as Indian techies get going in Europe.
By RASHMEE Z AHMED
