“Liberation of thoughts,” I call it.

Liberalise yourself with knowledge.

Gaza and the terror state

Link to my article!

http://www.pakistankakhudahafiz.com/2012/11/22/op-ed-gaza-and-the-terror-state/

Holocaust…of Palestinians

“The incursion and bombardment of Gaza is not about destroying Hamas. It is not about stopping rocket fire into Israel, it is not about achieving peace.
The Israeli decision to rain death and destruction on Gaza, to use lethal weapons of the modern battlefield on a largely defenseless civilian population, is the final phase in a decades-long campaign to ethnically-cleanse Palestinians. The assault on Gaza is about creating squalid, lawless, and impoverished ghettos in the West Bank and Gaza, where life for Palestinians will be barely sustainable.”

“It is about building a series of ringed Palestinian enclaves where the Israeli military will have the ability to instantly shut-off movement, food, medicine, and goods to perpetuate themisery.”

“Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely-crowded refugee camps, schools, apartment blocks, mosques, and slums to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command in control, no army and calls it a war. It is not a war, it is murder.”

“The refusal by our political leaders, from Barack Obama to all but 5 members of congress to the major media to speak out in defense of the rule of law and fundamental human rights exposes our cowardice and our
hypocrisy. The public debate about the Gaza attacks engages in the absurd pretense that it is Israel, not the Palestinians, whose security and dignity is being threatened. This blind
defense of Israeli brutality towards the Palestinians is betrayal of the memory of all those killed in other genocides in
other times. The lesson of the holocaust is not that Jews are special, it is not that Jews are unique, it is not that Jews are eternal victims. The lesson is that when you have the capacity to halt genocide and you do not, no matter who carries out that genocide or who it is directed against, you are culpable.”
-Chris Hedges

Violence irks me…. a Karachi-ite

“[We] Observe that violence in Karachi during the current year and in the past is not ethnic alone but it is also a turf war between different groups having economic, socio-political interest to strengthen their position/aggrandizement, based on the phenomenon of tit for tat with political, moral and financial support or endorsement of the political parties who are claiming their representation on behalf of the public of Karachi… there are criminals who have succeeded in making their ways in political parties notwithstanding whether they are components or non-components of Government, and are getting political and financial support allegedly from such parties…
…recent violence in Karachi represents unimaginable brutalities, bloodshed, kidnapping and throwing away dead bodies… receiving bhatta (extortion money) to strengthen the ranks of one group against the other; grabbing land; drug mafia, etc,destroying moveable and immovable properties of the citizens…”

The above statement has been voiced by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, and clearly shows that the Sindh’s provincial government has failed to maintain the writ of government in the sprawling metropolis of around 21 million inhabitants, Karachi.

Being the financial and economical hub of Pakistan, Karachi has been seen as the city of opportunities since the time of partition. It is located near the two largest seaports (Port Qasim and Karachi Port) allowing it to be accessible by ships throughout the year. Due to it’s strategic location, it has been a customary belief that whoever controls Karachi, controls Pakistan. This has led to various socio political parties, politico religous parties and other non state actors vying to be the godfather of this city.

A politician Sheikh Rasheed recently stated, “if the situation like this continues, there would be a dire shortage of ambulances in Karachi.”

Yes indeed! In separate incidents throughout the city, more than 2000 people have been killed uptill now since the start of 2012. The ethnicities, political rivalries and sectarianism in the society has led the violence to escalate recently.

“The ongoing killings are multidirectional,” Sharfuddin Memon, security adviser to the government of Sindh Province, told IRIN. “Largely the killings are of a political, ethnic or sectarian nature and then in some cases personal scores are settled.”

Different political beliefs and religous sentiments have led the people in adoption of arms to promote their agendas. General Zia-ul-haq the former Pakistani dictator during Soviet-Afghan war, is considered by liberals to have engendered the concept of violence in the society. People with confused notions, in the search of unbirdled power ended up in the political parties of those times. The alumnis of Karachi University still recalls the fights of the religious and secular political parties within the campus. The fight within the campus, sporadically spread in the city, and the innocents from different ethnicities and political beliefs were started to be targetted. The society witnessed a new sense of intolerance as the politicians played nationalism and religious card excessively to increase their vote banks. Opportunism substituted pragmatism and the voters were made a fool of.

Sectarianism gradually crept in the violent recesses of politics. What started of as fiery oratory was substituted by Klashinkovs and 9mm’s. The Shia-Sunni rhetoricism engulfed the minds, creating rifts in the already troubled community. Tit-for-tat killings of the dignified people, mostly scholars of the both sides were done. This new form of violence got sponsored by the foreign states, Iran and Saudi Arabia in the form of money, weapons and asylum to the criminals. The criminals that got arrested were bailed, and eventually released due to lack of substantial evidence as the coerced witnesses refused to testify against them.

What can be done to bring in peace?

The answer to this is that either of their own volition or on the prospect of seeing the fellow citizens dead, this issue needs to be addressed urgently. The civil society needs to come up with methods themselves, and the reliance on leaders needs to be decreased. In short, do not fear death much, but rather the inadequate life.

Malalas… We Praise

Malala Yusufzai

Mark 10th of November in your calender as Malala Day.

The day in which the international community would pay tribute to a girl, who stood defiantly against the symbols of oppression, to make the world realise that being educated is important.

In a video message placed on the United Nations’ website, the UN chief said, “Malala Yousafzai is a global symbol of every girl’s right to an education.

“On November 10th, citizens from across the globe are speaking out for Malala and on behalf of the 61 million children still not in school.”

My apologies Mr. Ban Ki-Moon but you clearly failed to realise that, for children to be in school, they should be allowed to live. The Right to Inquire, to Know, to Learn comes after once the physical and security needs of human is satisfied.

Sir you need to realise that there is a place called Waziristan, where innocent children are being targetted by the un-manned aerial vehicles. The innocent children amongst whom, some in future might have been great scientists, lawyers, thinkers et cetera. Their future is being snatched away from them and the fires of their hopes being extinguished.

The word “Extremism” invokes images of people having distorted beliefs, who have taken far sides on the scale of moderation. Their views are dangerous, as they creates chaos in the society. Some imposes their views, while others not. Those who impose them, sometimes expresses their extreme beliefs in the form of terrorism. Terrorism that kills, plunders and loots a common man.

In lieu of what majority believes an extremist to be, for me there are two types, an educated extremist and an uneducated one.

Mr.Ban Ki-Moon, you need to realise that educated extremists are most dangerous. They use their techniques to terrorise the innocents. They don’t hesitate, neither do they feel weak as they have the ability to think, while others do not. They considers themselves superior as they have the power, the technology to make others bow down.

“Yes Mr.Ban Ki-Moon, I am referring to none other than an extremist that has graduated from Harvard Law School, named as Obama.”

Mr. Obama is responsible for the death of 176 children since 2008. 176 Malalas. While his daughters slept peacefully in the White House, people were crying Mr.Ban Ki-Moon. They were crying because their daughters and sons were being killed by the bomb strikes. The scattered pieces of their little bodies had to be searched for in the rugged vales of Waziristan, Mr.Ban Ki-Moon. The stifled cries of the parents still echoes in those mountains. Their Malalas had left them.

The world stands in repugnance due to the rise in the terrorism. But have you ever fancied, that the next person to join the ranks of terrorists, would be none other than that father, whose child got killed by a drone strike.

Children reported to be injured after a drone strike.

The Second Term….Obama’s nation or Abomination?

Abomination.. What say?

“The rules are simple: they lie to us,
we know they’re lying, they know we
know they’re lying, but they keep
lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them.”
― Elena Gorokhova, A Mountain of
Crumbs: A Memoir

The wordiness of this quote summarizes the state of illusion, that the people of the world has lived in and will keep on living.

Four years have passed, since Obama started off with the promises of peace. But every day of the last 1460 days of his presidency reeked with a sense of depravation, that arose due to the empty promises he made with the world. Indulgence in US politics is not of a concern to us. What I believe is, in the failures of the dealings of USA with the world at large.

Famous for his two faced statements, some of Obama’s foreign policy failures can be highlighted in lieu of his inaugral speech at Cairo of his first term presidency, in which he promised to bring in peace, the solution of Israeli/Palestinian dispute, growth in world economy, bringing democracy and increase in religious freedom.

Indeed democracy has come in Middle East through the so called American support of Arab Spring, as the US administration was the one that reared these dictators on their lap. It was just a matter of saying, “Oh my legs are getting numb. Why don’t you go out, and have some fresh air boys.”

Yes… They went away for good.

After ousting Hosni Mubarak, Obama stated,“In Egypt we stood on the side of democracy. In Libya we stood on the side of the people. And as a consequence there is no doubt that attitudes about Americans have
changed.”

But the truth is, in Egypt only 19% view U.S. favourably, down 3 points since 2008. Perhaps Bush should have been called in for the third term for repairing American ties with the new Muslim democracies.

On the front of peace, Obama ordered drone strikes in Yemen and Pak-Afghan border, retained US militiary presence in Afghanistan, forgot to close Guantanamo Bay, violated the terretorial sovereignity of Pakistan, threatened Iran on pursuing its nuclear programme and bringing in the notion of a clash of civilizations (which he vehemently disapproves off but acts otherwise).

A vitally important and thoroughly documented new report on the impact of Obama’s drone campaign has recently been released by
researchers at New York University School of Law and Stanford University Law School. Entitled “Living Under Drones: Death, Injury and Trauma to Civilians From US Drone Practices in Pakistan”, the report details the terrorizing effects of Obama’s drone assaults as well as the numerous, highly misleading public statements from administration officials about that campaign. The report states that in 2009 alone 700 innocent people got killed by drone strikes. The deaths of the innocents, if seen in connection with the Obama’s drone policies were revealed by New York Times in May that “Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting
civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants .” The advent of the second term of Obama’s presidency shows that ending the drone strikes is not on his agenda. As soon as Obama got re-elected, a hell fire missile fired from a UAV landed in Yemen, where reportedly innocent civilians have lost their lives.

The promise to close Guantanamo Bay was also a farce, which was observed after the august day of Obama being elected as the President of USA. Despite the promises, the president also didn’t manage to offload the American forces presence from Afghan soil, where tens of thousands of American troops remain in harm’s way and must be extracted in a way that limits their risk while doing the least damage to the country’s solvency.

Just like his predecessor George W Bush, Obama administration is finding a way to make the world taste a new war, to feed their billion dollars war industry. A lie was made to sound genuine, by claiming that weapon of mass destructions have been made in Iraq, on the pretense of which it was invaded by US forces. None were found. That old lie has been disguised under the claims of nuclear threat to the world from Iran. In effect, the world is a more hostile place to live now since it was before.

The veteran journalist Robert Fisk couldn’t have expressed his feelings for President Obama in a much dignified manner. “Behaves like dog”, he called Obama. So do I.

Human as a human…in liberalism, communism or religion?

By Maham Aslam

The world since its inception has been progressing steadily. Great advances have been made in every field of action in which a human can play his role. But still one question has haunted the humankind, making it the most confused lot of today. What is human?

It is nearly impossible to agree upon the exact definition of this question as it varies scientifically, or in philosophical or religious context. The man might have succeeded in reaching the moon or exploring the ocean beds, but in reality the man of today cannot comprehend the significance of his own existence. Hence foremost giving rise to the urgency of knowing one’s own self, than any other knowledge. As Ali Shariati states, “A modern man, more than any of his predecessors, can construct man, but knows less than any of them what it is he is constructing. As for his life, he can also live any sort of life he pleases, but he does not know how because he does not know why.” ..

But does the man strived to know about his own existence?

For that as we travel back in time, the span of history stretches back to around 2500 years ,in the times of ancient Greece. Although people like Confucius, Lao Tzu existed much more back that first raised questions about the existence of man, but the philosophers of Greece are particularly important in this regard as they concern this study. The Greek philosophy started with Xenophane and continued with men like Parmenides, Democritus and Anaxogorus; but mostly they had raised questions about physical world and the nature of matter. It was Socrates that first raised the questions like “What is man?”, and “What can he become?”. Perhaps it was the influence of the situation that existed in that time, as Greeks were experiencing a new political concept of democracy or the arrival of sophists that destroyed the religious beliefs of the youngsters of Athens, the society was puzzled and confused about their own views that they had cherished for long. “Know thyself” get to become the verse of the time.

From then till now, many views about liberation and perfection of man surfaced in different philosophical school and ideologies, and the aggregation of these generally accepted assumptions were termed as humanism, referring to the school that considers human an autonomous being and the conception of nature they adopt. At present many intellectual currents claims to represent humanism but most of them can be broadly categorized under Western Liberalism, Marxism and Religion.

Western Liberalism considers itself a principal heir of Greek civilization and the rightful representative of their thought and culture. With the passage of time, they refined those views making them reach their relative perfection in the present day West. The views of Western humanism are based on the mythological perspective that was solely the religion of the society of ancients, the belief in various Gods and Goddesses to supplant their needs. These lores of the mythological beings showed that the higher beings had feelings like greed, lust of power and desires. Moreover these Gods were shown to be in constant aggression against humans, and the humanity was shown in a pitiable condition, cowering against the wrath of these Titans against whom they had no remedy. These myths seemed too logical to the Greeks as the Gods in these myths used the forces of nature to unleash their rage. Hence every natural calamity such as droughts, storms, earthquakes were seen as the Gods war of dominance on the human life. Thus in ancient Greece, it was natural that humanism should develop to oppose the worship of Gods, and enmity should exist between mankind and them. Acquisition of power and pleasure became the mankind prime objective and it resorted to build structures that could predict and withstand the rule of nature against them.

These queer thoughts still existed after the Greek civilisation ended, occasionally rising in different societies but mostly in dormancy. These thoughts resurfaced once again in the 15th century, during the time of renaissance. The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy tell us that Renaissance means a period of intellectual history, that commenced in Italy that was due to the discovery of cultural heritage of classical Greek times. The discovery led people of that time to inquire about Greek’s beliefs. Contemporary historians considers it as a response to the harsh reasoning of the church and the representation of man as a sinner. As the church was powerful during that period, the feudal class formed an alliance with the church and exploited the society. Hence the middle class began to break away from the church. The humanism of Renaissance brought a new belief in man as opposed to the sinful nature of man. Man was now considered infinitely great and valuable. The human figures depicted in paintings were shown shrouded in flowing garments and celestial haloes surrounding their head. It was no coincidence that Pico Della Mirandola wrote the Oration on the Dignity of Man, that wouldn’t have been possible in middle ages. Jostiein Gaarder wrote about rennaisance in Sophie’s World, “Undeniably. The new view of mankind, led to a whole new outlook. Man did not exist purely for God’s sake. Man could therefore delight in life here and now. And with this new freedom to develop, the possibilities were limitless. The aim was now to exceed all boundaries. This was also a new idea, seen from the Greek humanistic point of view because the humanism of antiquity had emphasized the importance of tranquility, moderation and restraint.” But now as the humanism openly stood up in opposition to heavenly, it became earthly and tended towards materialistic values. It can be safely assumed that the post renaissance humanism of Europe was a continuation of ancient Greece’s humanism.

With the coming of industrial Revolution in Britian, a sense of exploitation by the producers spread in the masses. Engels and Marx came up with the ideas of alienation, materialism and exploitation of the worker. Surprisingly, these materialistic tendencies were also seen in the Marxism humanism when Karl Marx presented his theory about the society’s superstructure as a reflection of its base. Here Marx showed his materialistic tendency, when he allowed the humanity moral values to be overshadowed by the politics and economics of communism. Interestingly the same Marx when raging against the Capitalists, attacked their system by proclaiming that “it degrades the higher values of humanity” and spoke of human as a zealous, self aware, truthful, proud, knowing being endowed with moral virtues, who has been alienated from its true self in the promotion of capitalism. This mystical tone used to change immediately, when Marx promoted communism and here the higher values of humanity were instantly replaced by man as a tool of production. Critics state that the Western liberalism in the form of Bourgeoisie capitalism and Marxism communism assigned a monetary value to a human. Whatever their starting point is, the former one and the latter one ultimately converges in a single view of humanity, that is the extension of bourgeoisie life to all the members of society, and to make them powerful and their life’s pleasant.

Lastly Religion is the oldest school that gave us answers about humanistic values and human purpose of creation. Scorned by communists and liberalists alike who associated the God of old Abrahamic religions with Zues and other mythological Gods, both of these intellectual currents made a grave blunder. Unlike Zues who unleashed his wrath on Prometheus for giving fire to humans, the God in Abrahamic religions glorified those who helped the humanity in difficult times. Omni benevolence of God is referred in Christianity while in Islam Al-Razzaq denotes the Ever Providing deity. The mythological Gods needed human prayers to strengthen themselves, while the God of Abrahamic religions didn’t need the prayer of humans to increase their might. Islam tells us that one attribute of Allah is Al-Niaz. Similarly the Bible states that God “is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything”. In Zoroastrianism, mankind is shown to be the God’s companion and ally in the battle of creation. Hinduism engendered the idea that God, mankind and love are all inter related. Humans are encouraged to acquire knowledge and ponder upon the reasons behind the happenings of events. The God promised bounties for those who do good deeds. A universal set of moralism has been given as the guideline for people to follow, and make themselves better humans. It can be said that unlike the material mankind that is the product of liberalistic and socialistic values, spiritualistic mankind is the product of religious values.

It was the emancipation…. Today it can be exercised by believing in any of the self liberation theories.