The Complexity of inferiority


When I was eight years old, my family returned to Pakistan from the United States and a lot of  things in the world suddenly changed for me. I remember (and my relatives won’t ever let me forget) that one of my very first statements was, “Why is everything broken?”. I’m pretty sure, I meant to refer to the buildings and the streets at that time, but today, I believe many other things are broken too.

I remember myself thinking about the prospects of going to Pakistan; a place my parents taught was home. I remember being worried about whether I was going to be that easily accepted. I knew for one thing that I was raised, till now, in a very different environment than the one I was going to.

One thing that really troubled me, then, was that I wouldn’t be able to speak my local language; English was all I knew. I wondered as to how I’ll go about in Pakistan, as I was expecting to have problems in interacting with other people. I was of the impression that once I get there I’ll be struggling with all my might to utter words in broken Urdu, the language of my parents, and people will see me as dumb as I would not be able to easily convey anything I want to say.

But such was the awkwardness that society was adjusting to me, rather than the vice versa. Instead of me struggling to speak to others, I would see people struggling to speak to me. I was also getting the scent that there was a factor of ‘showing-off’ in people trying to speak to me. People were desperately trying to speak with me in English. And I could see by their faces the difficulty many were going through. Personally, I felt a bit embarrassed seeing everybody put all their efforts in trying to speak in such a broken way. And after every attempt it was as though they were asking, through their facial expressions and body language, “how was I?”

Some may say well, what’s so awkward about all this? Well, for an eight year old it was awkward, and it should be ten times more awkward for a seventy year old. It’s actually bizarre! Imagine yourself going to the U.S.A from Pakistan and see all the people around you working their tails off just to speak in your language, Urdu. And not only do you notice this; you also notice that people are competing with each other just to prove as to who can speak the better Urdu?

I was taught to have pride for my country and everything in it, and therefore I was really disturbed on the way people looked down to their own language. Soon I reacted by refusing myself to reply in English, and instead tried to give my answers in Urdu, as much as I could. People were shocked at my behaviour. I believe they found it equally awkward. My aunts used to tell me that I was doing much loss to myself for refusing to use English in my conversation. They said that it is great luck that I’m fluent in English for people look up to those who are. “But why?” would be my response, just to get the what-do-you-mean-isn’t-it-obvious look.

Why are people looked up to just because they know English? The problem is because, for us, knowing this language is a sign of superiority. It’s as though just knowing it makes us more smart and knowledgeable. We become more liberal, more open-minded, and, most importantly, more educated. We can suddenly speak with more authority. When we want to make a point, or impression, we throw a sentence or two in English. As though by doing so just made the content matter anymore different then what it would have been otherwise.

It is because of this attitude of ours that a specific class dominates society just because it could afford good quality English language education. And if you were to analyse more closely you’ll realize that this has caused chaos in the lives of ordinary Pakistanis.

Why, I ask. Why the doors of opportunities are shut upon people, just because they can’t speak in a language which is not even local to the place? Why even in your own country, your own language carries no value? It’s all because we are still slaves mentally. By admitting their superiority we give up our identity, our pride and our humanity.

In 1948 the Duke of Gloucester, the brother of the British Emperor, was coming on a visit to Pakistan, and the British envoy requested the Quaid-e-Azam to receive him. The Quaid replied, “If I do so then the British head of state (King) would have to reciprocate when my brother would visit London”. Today our president feels no shame in carrying out a press conference with a third level U.S representative like Holbrooke. Today our most senior ministers get their body scans when entering U.S airports, while U.S citizens are given visas with zero scrutiny. Just recently, Senator and acting president of the ANP, Haji Adeel, was not allowed to enter the U.S embassy despite an official invitation. He was told by a guard that he needed a specific sticker on his car to get in or he could just park it outside.

You do not need to be physically captured to be a slave. Was our land occupied when our authorities handed over people to the U.S? Were we not independent and autonomous, when Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was taken to trial in the U.S and when Raymond Davis killed our citizens in the daylight and got away with it? No! We were a sovereign entity! But were we, ever?

Before it’s too late!


A “Mullah meeting” was in progress with around 20-25 participants. It was organized by a hardliner, radical Islamist group with extremist views. A man with a turban on his head and unknown identity was speaking to the gathering and encouraging the new “recruits” for more terrorist attacks and their rewards in the hereafter. Suddenly a youngster from the gathering volunteered himself for the next attack. He spoke some emotional, brainwashed phrases to show his commitment and inviting others to do the same.  He prepared himself, left the place and went into a nearby market. Upon entering a shopping mall he took his hand to the suicide jacket’s pin and shouted Allah-u-Akbar, detached its pin and……

 

”No…!” I screamed and jumped out of bed. I woke up sweating and my heart pounding like anything. I took a glass of water and then thanked God that it was only a bad dream and nothing more.

It was a usual day and I started surfing the internet where I read news….

“US Embassy holds gay, lesbian ceremony in Islamabad”.

I was shocked as it was not the US embassy in any liberal European country or China, not even in a so called secular state like India. In fact, it was held in the heart of our very own ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF PAKISTAN…!!!. I remembered a BBC news few days back that an NGO organized a meeting for homosexuals who were gathered from all over the country to Nathiagali (KPK), I remembered a similar event organized a couple of years back in Karachi and thought where we are heading to??

The event was arranged by none other than the US embassy itself, assuring full support to these “enlightened moderate and liberal class”.

“I want to be clear that the US Embassy is here to support you and stand by your side every step of the way”, said Charge d’ Affaires Ambassador Richard Hoagland at US embassy.

Wow… Isn’t this wonderful?? The world’s super power is backing you to live a “Jesay chaho jeo” life in Pakistan. Our police, rangers, FC and military are alert enough to catch the bombers before they are successful in their attempt and we hear the news every day that a potential suicide bomber is arrested; a planned suicide attempt was engaged etc. Our authorities, our police may have been ignorant and may be this event was carried out secretly. But wait, we have an official press release by US embassy informing everyone that we will promote “whatever we want” and “wherever we want” “jo kerna hai ker lo” (Do whatever you like).

How can “OUR” authorities even think of questioning them about this?? They can only catch Jihadist literature from a Madrassa, they can invent Al-Qaida personnel from wherever they want, they can let Kashmir Singh (Indian RAW spy) go back with full protocol and last but not the least they can give a CIA spy safe exit who was on Exit Control List as per High Court orders. What would have happened if the “Mullah Meeting Dream” was real and it took place in a local hotel, had it gone unnoticed the same way? Could they issue a press release as well with our foreign office and authorities being dumb and mute?

Why am I comparing these two completely different scenarios?

Promoting these shameful events like a Homosexual gathering is as harmful as promoting the Talibanization. In the West, this failed culture has made life a hellfire in itself with crushed family system and miserable youth, and now they want to rot our roots and weaken our generations.

‘’We also sent Luut, and recall when he told his people: “Do you commit shameless acts with your eyes open? Do you lustfully approach men instead of women? Nay, you engage in acts of sheer ignorance.” But this had only one answer from his people. They said: “Expel Luut’s folk from your city. They pretend to be absolutely clean.” Eventually We saved (Luut) and his family, except his wife. We had decreed that she should be among those who would remain behind. And We rained down upon them a rain. It was an evil rain for those who had already been warned.’’ (Surah Al-Namal 54-58)

The liberals and the enlightened moderates, when they condemn Taliban, repeatedly quote Quran “Taking a single human’s life is like killing the whole humanity”. Would they also be quoting the above straightforward verses of the same Quran where it condemns this shameful act?

I went through some blogs and articles speaking the same language as the US embassy on our very own “Sexpress Tycoon” which has a clear agenda to promote this kind of immoral, non-Islamic and alien culture in Pakistani society. I have also seen sarcastic comments for people who talk about values and roots as “They pretend to be absolutely clean” as quoted in above verse. But, it was very encouraging to see most of the comments on social media condemning this US embassy event. It is a ray of hope that Pakistanis will not be so dumb to let this penetrate in their society that easily, but is it too late or we still have time for reverse engineering for going back to our cultural roots??

Just a note of clarification: I consider any suicide attacks in Pakistan to be absolutely against Islam but at the same time I firmly believe that these plots against our values and religion are more hazardous as they (on a long term) are bound to weaken our cultural and ideological roots and a strong family system, on the basis of which we still stand in the world, despite all the evils in the society.

Asad Shaikh is a freelance writer and an analyst on issues related to evolution of Pakistani society and moral degeneration.

 

 

Freedom and (ir)responsibility


 Newspapers that maintain a left-of-centre policy in Pakistan claim to be unbiased and independent on facts and reporting. However, they are often subjected to ruthless criticism by the rightist journalists and bloggers for misleading the facts and total biased reporting of events.

Maintaining a left-of-centre or rightist policy is the legal choice of the institution and its investors and news institutions have been doing so since past many decades. There have always been debates between the rightists and the leftists on academic issues and both the sides have published their arguments, leaving it to the readers to decide.

However, in the past couple of years and with the birth of several private media institutions in Pakistan, the standard and quality of journalism has dropped drastically. With shortage of professional and seasoned journalists in Pakistan, several media organizations have hired fresh graduates and MBAs for their editorial teams and without proper ethical training and guidance, they have been granted freedom to operate in the online editions of these newspapers and TV channels.

To add credibility to my argument, recently an English newspaper published a amateur blog, NOT an article from a seasoned journalist, on their website, which was well in accordance with their editorial policy. There is no point in arguing whether such amateur criticism should be published or not, but what happened next is more disturbing and reflects the state of our media industry professionals. The Tweet below, by the web-editor of the newspaper says it all!

Yes, thats what I am talking about. A journalist, who is assumed to be a responsible person (probably) is writing the wonderful remarks “Cmon, say it w me now… Fuck the JI,” as well as inviting his followers on Twitter to do the same. This comment is neither “centre-of-left” nor “rightist”, its just an unethical, immoral comment from a person, whose public tweets to promote the traffic on website are going unchecked.

There is no doubt that even the basic dynamics of journalism are changing and the story now initiates from tweeting and citizen journalism as argued by Paul Bradshaw, however, I couldn’t find any latest research on the fact that improper and unethical language can be used to propagate an ideology and attract visitors to the website, or in legacy terms increase circulation. Perhaps, its an old idea rejected by the educationists, so they don’t publish it on the internet anymore! I find no difference between the “Urdu Eveningers”, who publish Masala stories, sell sex and end up in increased circulation, and the more sophisticated “English Eveningers” who use almost the same techniques to increase their ranking on Alexa and increase the no. of tweets and shares on Facebook!

Having said that, let me re-iterate what I have been promoting since the past many years in the journalist community, that there is a dire need for a body that monitors the online editions of newspapers and TV channels for unethical and derogatory content. There is nothing as absolute freedom of speech. Because, with absolute freedom, comes mere irresponsibility! Thats what has been proven so far.

Happy Father’s Day, Everyday!

Happy father’s day to everyone!!!!!!

“This is the day to express your love for your father, make him feel special on this Sunday. Father’s Day is a day honouring fathers and celebrating fatherhood, paternal bonds, and the influence of fathers in society.’’

These clips are not adverts from BBC, SKY or some other western channels, I saw them on a local
Pakistani channels here in the UK and I am sure this is true for all the other various channels that broadcast to millions of Pakistanis back home.

I just asked myself for a logical explanation as to what’s the point? Why is there only one Father’s day and only one Mother’s day celebrated in the Western society? So,  in order to find an answer and justify the significance, I let my observation go wild and tried to encompass things which I have learnt being a very close observant of this society.

There is an absolute need to celebrate dedicated days for parents in a society where the bond between parent and child is very delicate and might be non-existent after a certain age and stage; A society where 3 in 5 women aged 75+ live alone. (attached is a graph which shows the percantage of men and women in UK living alone at different ages); where an old parent is a hindrance to fun filled life and where the slogan is ‘Be nice to your children as they are the ones who would decide which old house you’d end up in’ (reads a ‘humorous’ car sticker); where living with your parents is ridiculed by your mates, where an old parent falls on the floor of a lonely haunting house and there is no one to give him a hand to stand up again, until the milk delivery man comes next morning only to find no answer at the door and calls the police and ambulance. A society where mothers abuse and kill their children, youngsters abuse and beat the vulnerable elderly, fathers leave their partners to survive as ‘lone mothers’ who may be as young as mid-teens such dedicated days are indeed reminders of those vague bonds that exist by chance and not by choice. 

The economic system here requires both parents to work to survive, which inevitably makes it difficult for them to spend quality time with their children. Such celebrations are required where children spend most of their time not in the company of their parents but child-minders, friends, mobile phones and internet. It’s a reflection of the society in which one-parent families on the rise. In the same society, morality dips down to the fact that they debate in the parliament on the very ‘need for a father’ to make a family and encourage lesbians to have children using IVF.

Rather than blindly copying (only the) useless traits of the West, let’s celebrate our values. Celebrate each day as mother’s day, a person whose cries at the time of childbirth can never be paid off and she keeps on bearing pains bringing us up and helping us keeping our head up high and reaching our goals; serving whom is more weighty than going to war in the way of Allah, if she is old and dependant. Celebrate everyday as father’s day in whose pleasure lies the pleasure of God and in whose displeasure lies the displeasure of God (according to a Tirmidhi Hadith).

And yes! Let’s be proud of a family system of respect which thankfully has been made an obligation by God upon us; which keeps us close  and beautifully tied in the bonds of eternal trust and a package of ‘give and take’ throughout our lives. It is our family system and respect to our elders, religiously engraved on our minds which makes us proud and keeps us going in all the difficult times and has so far prevented us from a nervous breakdown. And it is this quality which non-Muslim parents feel as an obvious positive change in their ‘new converts to Islam’ children.

Does that make your head high enough to celebrate a trait which should be a trend-setter for other nations and not vice versa?

Come on! Let’s celebrate. Make our parents happy every day; the easiest way to please God every day.

“And your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him. And that you be dutiful to your parents. If one of them or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of disrespect, nor shout at them but address them in terms of honour” [al-Isra’ 17:23]

A mere number!


What have we come to? Are we not a mess?

It is as though our humanity has been stripped away from us. Violence, violence, and more violence, plus so much of indifference! We have lost our ability to feel; to feel the sacredness of the value of life. Human suffering is gradually meaning to us not more than a matter of individual concern. Whatever happens around us, for us what matters is our lives, our lifestyles, our careers, our possessions, our image… our everything. We have individualized our universe. Happiness has become, but an individual property.

We live in a place called Pakistan; a place where death is a mere number, despite the fact that we belong to a religion that teaches us that the sacredness of human life is above everything; a religion that teaches us that the unjustified murder of one is like the murder of all humanity.

Every day, we listen to death tolls as we listen to match scores. When hearing the news of killings or casualties, our facial expressions and feelings fail to carry the intensity of the news. We then ask, as if for formality, “How many?” And hence we put all the suffering, the loss of lives, and things attached to it, in a mere number.

What has brought us to such a condition? Is it not but the daily violence, the daily oppression and the daily injustice we collectively go through? Every day we see drone attacks, target killings, and suicide bombings on the top of mass corruption, institutional exploitation, and poor governance!

We have developed an every-man-for-himself psyche. But what else can be done?

Hazrat Umer (RA) has always been presented as a perfect model of justice. But we also learn that a time came when he temporarily lifted the usual punishment for stealing. But what was so specific about this time. The nation was facing a crisis of famine, and the state could not fulfil its responsibility of providing basic necessities . Hence if the state is not able to fulfil the social contract with the people then it is wrong to expect the people to respect the same?

Saint Augustine said, “In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?” Without justice, are not parliaments, police stations and courts, mere centres of exploitation? How can you expect peace when there is no justice? When courts further exploit you, when the police robs you, and the government lives lavishly off you; how can you expect citizens to respect the state and its institutions?

But there is justice being done somewhere. Of course, extra-judicial justice that is. In fact, the very enforcers of law break the law, all in the name of justice. Needless to say, however, this justice exempts all those who have any socio-political backing, or wealth and prestige. You don’t need to escape the hands of law, you only need to shake them.

A friend of mine came to me and asked whether I saw a video he posted on facebook? He said  it had made him cry. This video was of a youngster, being viciously murdered by law enforcement agencies in broad daylight in a crowded park. After seeing the video, which surfaced all over the social networking site, I asked as to why he cries for the one he was able to see. What about all those painful and degrading deaths which go nameless and unmentioned. Yes the media cashed the situation fully. But does that make this single incident any more significant than all others? Should we not extend our frustration and sorrow for all oppressed? Not only those who made it, somehow, to the camera.

Some claim that this victim of brutality was yet another mobile snatcher, or a criminal. These people cause so much damage, and he, apparently, got a taste of his own medicine. But little is realized that such accusations are irrelevant. For, if criminals are to be punished in such a manner, why not start with the big fish? Why is such treatment reserved for the weak and poor? Why those powerful and wealthy  just get away with it?

This young man was murdered. But it wasn’t just him. Justice was slain. In this state of zero justice, the people cannot be expected to behave in a civilized fashion. Their actions are  products of exploitation and oppression.

But we remain silent and numb. And by putting the value of life in a mere number, we wait passively for our own turn to be added to the count.

Saad Lakhani is a motivated young writer, a student of Social Sciences from Karachi.

Please take me to hospital, my friend


“Haspataal puhancha day yar, mujhay haspataal to puhancha day’’

“Take me to hospital, my friend, please take me to hospital” were my last words.

And why would they take me to hospital when they shot me like an animal. Had they considered me a human being, they wouldn’t have treated me like this. I would have been given the opportunity of proving myself innocent.

I am a 17 year old, youngest of five brothers, a matric student. I go out to a nearby park as it was unbearably hot at home without any power for the fans to work. I get involved in a scuffle at the park and one of the men pulls my hair and takes me to some uniformed men. I’m labelled as a dacoit. Six giants corner me and I plead for mercy and beg them to listen to my part of the story. I have hope that they would listen to me, probably arrest me and put me behind the bars but not in my wildest dream I have thought that they can take my life.

They are mighty and armed and I’m weak and helpless. They do not let me speak and their metallic hearts do not mould. They remember no law, no jails, no courts and of course no mercy. They find no other way to handle the situation and they shoot at me.

But why? Was I a threat? Was I armed like they were? Or did I look like them, mighty and fearless? Did I have a suicide jacket on? None of these, but yes, they were inhuman and they had weapons in their hands and I was a target to prove their bravery and chivalry.

I fall on the floor. My hope begins to fade but there is something in me that keeps me going and I beseech for help

“Please take me to the hospital”

They keep wandering around me telling someone on the phone they have caught a ‘man’ while I exsanguinate to death.  I’m helpless and slowly passing to the next world right under the nose of my own so-called ‘brothers in faith’. I am not in in Palestine, I am not in Kashmir. I am a Pakistani, a ‘La-Waris’ Pakistani,  and I belong to a state whose rulers lick the boots of their western masters, whose armed forces watch their men die in drone attacks and whose law enforcement agencies strictly follow ‘jungle ka qanoon’. Yes! That’s how I define myself, ‘an orphan, lonely Pakistani’ and I close my eyes.

I die and a story comes to an end, but many stories erupt after I pass away to my Lord.

The world mourns after me. Eyes get tearful and there are screams in my house which I left a few hours ago and my dead body now lies in the lounge. The hands that rocked my cradle are up for supplication, asking for Lord’s mercy and justice. My father suffers from a heart attack and is rushed to the hospital. The people who asked the police for help in the park and told them that I am a dacoit,  have disappeared and are now untraceable. An FIR is registered at the police, which tells the world that I was a robber and I was killed in a Police crossfire the ever famous“Police Muqabla”. Then this video appears on TV channels made by an independent cameraman covering an event in the park. So another FIR is registered with some amendments. They now say I had a 30 bore pistol with me. This cameraman receives threats and is now running for his life. My family remains unable to register an FIR for hours after I have left you all, which is nothing but normal in my country.

Should I tell you the moral of my story?

Make sure you have someone in your friends or family who can yell and tell the people that you were killed in cold blood for no reason when your life could be saved very easily. Probably my merciless killers did not know that my brother is a reporter at a local news channel.

And, also when you move around, ask someone to keep their mobile cameras ready in case you are shot at. Because unless proven otherwise, you are a terrorist and a ‘potential suicide bomber’ like Kharotabad incident victims or dacoits like Sialkot lynch mob preys.

May Allah have mercy on you all and this land where I leave you today amongst barbarians and butchers.

Fee Aman Allah.

 

Be Wary of The Headlines


“Muslim beauty stoned to death’’ was a headline, I came across  on a news website.

The screaming headline is a perfect example of yellow journalism gone wild. Unfortunately these dirty tactics of marketing news have become a norm. The news was picked up from British and Ukrainian newspapers which in summary said,

“Aspiring Miss Ukraine stoned to death under Shariah Law by Crimean Radical Islamist. The man was told to be a radicalised Wahabi extremist and the lady was reportedly a Muslim who was given this punishment by him as it is not allowed for women to take part in a beauty contest in Islam”

Sensational and ‘Masalay-dar’ as it sounds, our media didn’t bother to carry out any further research before propagating this piece, as it perfectly fulfils the purpose and agenda they are working on.

A few hours later the headline was amended to ‘’Teenage beauty ‘’ instead of ‘’Muslim beauty’’ and an addendum was added to the article as the original story was absolutely different to what was published. An elementary online research shows:

  1. There are conflicting reports and according to Crimean Police, the girl was not a Muslim
  2. The boy who killed her strangled her and then struck a blunt object on her head which according to the police was her cause of death
  3. The boy was her admirer and was suffering from serious mental health disorder
  4. The only relation of the killer with Islam was that his parents were non-practising Muslims who had never attended a Mosque.

According to Ukrainian Interior Minister, “There was no underlying religious, national or inter-ethical motives behind the murder.”

Big round of applause to Pakistani media which never misses an opportunity to defame Islam, Muslims or Shariah Laws by strictly following the rules of the game. This is in line with the negative stereotyping of Muslims, that western media is bent upon promoting. A threat, a bomb, a killing- a faint link to anyone having a Muslim sounding name, there you go! You have a perfect combination, so publish, propagate and make money.

How many of us know about a police officer killed in an explosion caused by a bomb planted under his car in Northern Ireland (the 2nd of April 2011), or Irish militants warning of a bomb blast in central London just a day before Queen Elizabeth’s first state visit to Ireland (16th May 2011) or the discovery of a bomb in town of Maynooth ,15 minutes away from Dublin and a second suspicious device found at a Dublin tram station (the 17th of May 2011). Of course, it doesn’t carry any material for any media hype as no Muslims were found attached to it.

How many of us remember Marwah Al-Sherbini, a 32 year old Egyptian girl who was called a ‘Muslim bitch and a terrorist whore’ and was killed by a racist in a German court. She was three months pregnant and was stabbed 18 times with a verdict by her killer, ‘you don’t have a right to live’ (July 2009). Has anyone seen our media talking about the plight of Muslims all over the world because of being Muslims’? Of course not! Because those 50 million dollars pledged by President Obama are not to serve that cause.

How many of us saw our media getting furious about Niqab ban in France. Did you see any feminist or human rights NGOs voicing this issue? Did you see any blog or article or even a news showing their fury or concern on Sharon Horgan’s comments on BBC’s ‘Have I got news for you?’ when she calls Makkah as Mecca (hub) of suicide bombers just a few days ago.

I was watching an interview with Yuri Bezmenov on YouTube , a trained KGB agent, recorded in 1985.

He tells “In recent times, 15% of the time, money and manpower is spent on espionage, and 85% is spent on the great brainwashing process called the ideological subversion or psychological warfare. It changes the perception of reality so much so that despite the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions.”

In a nutshell, he lays out four steps to transform the thinking and behaviour of an entire population, namely:

  1. Demoralisation (which takes 10-15 years to brainwash one generation)
  2. Destabilisation (over 2-5 years) where economy, foreign relations and defence systems are rattled.
  3. Crisis
  4. Normalisation (a cynical term which lasts indefinitely and includes violent changes of power and structure and economy)

Demoralization is a task so religiously being fulfilled by our media, print as well as electronic. And you can be a part of it by qualifying to minimum criterion of joining the team which serves the purpose of ‘ideological subversion’. Believe! Pen is mightier than sword but only if your ink is made visible to public and that happens if you fulfil their criteria. So if you have a story (no matter how fabricated), or an opinion (no matter how useless) or you have enough vocabulary to bash the bearded, ridicule the word of God and blame the Shariah Laws, or simply have an obscene picture for an explicit topic like porn, sex, contraception, you are a perfect candidate to become a part of some ‘Sexpress Tycoons’.If you have a video showing a woman is being whiplashed by bearded men and you can stretch a story or add mirch masala to it, you have everything that takes to become a potential blogger or a writer.

I adore my prime inspiration, Malcolm X’s quote where he says,

“The press is so powerful in its image-making role that it can make a criminal look like a victim and make the victim look like a criminal. This is the press, an irresponsible press. If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppression”

Let’s keep our eyes open to the dirty tricks of the people who are out to sell their news (and Eiman) for a few bags of dollars and helping the confusion grow every day.

Kinda Like Chicken!!

We, the Pakistanis! Do we look like chicken?

No really, is that how we look like?

I believe we do look like chicken to you. The reality is that you Americans have always seen the world the same way you view chickens. You don’t have to see the slaughter and suffering of the chicken, do you? You have factories for that kind of stuff. And even in those factories you don’t have to do the killing yourselves, do you? You have machines for that. But could you stand seeing as to what a chicken actually goes through?

I was watching Jim Carrey’s “Yes Man” the other day. I happened to go through a scene where the main character faints in a chicken slaughtering factory when he learns about the techniques adopted. Then it occurred to me that this was not the first time I was seeing an American movie in which Americans have problems seeing chicken, or any other consumed dairy animal for the matter, being slaughtered. The fact is that they are never usually exposed to such a scene. But ironic as it is; they love eating chicken.

But the question neither starts nor ends with the chicken. It’s much more than that. It’s about being concerned of only the end product.

Multi-national corporations exploit people all over the world. Because they are unwilling to hire expensive labour at home, they simply go to places where they know labour is extremely cheap, and take complete advantage. Such corporations make billions of dollars.  Labour is exploited by being made to work in extremely inhumane conditions. They are deprived of all basic facilities, including proper food and sanitation. They have zero job security, and have to work on daily wages. When they have an emergency, they have to choose between that emergency and feeding their children. This does not however end here; there are many more facets to this exploitation, which includes environmental damage and market monopoly.

But then again; do the employers have to see all this? They only have the final product in their mind and they’re happy. Little do they know, or care, that in the production of that certain product was there a huge exploitation of human beings.

Then they have their government; a government they voted for, a government which is usually at war, a war to make the world a better, and more peaceful, place. They have their “brave” American men and women who fly overboard to fight for this just cause.  Obviously, the lives of Americans are precious you know. All being done to keep the  American people safe at home. But then again, who are they exactly at war with?

The United States of America is the Big Show, or the Undertaker, of the Global arena. In fact it’s much more than that. Never has a power accumulated such military and technological might as has the United States, or so it is said. This being the case, one may presume that such a power, if at war, will be at war with an entity that is, at least, possessive of strength worthy of any comparison. But where is it that American bombs fall? Is it, say, China? The European Union? Forget the EU; is it even a European country like France and Germany? The once almighty, United Kingdom? Or, even, India?  Hell no! Of course it’s not any of these. It’s always some weak Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq. Its always “terrorist” countries. Countries where people need to be liberated, even if they have to be killed for it. (liberated from the circle of life)

My question to Americans; have you ever thought over the chances of your dying in a terrorist attack? Today there is a much larger probability of you being abducted, raped and, then, murdered by a friendly neighbour than to be blown up in a Muslim suicide attack. I’m sorry that you lost three thousand people in one such attack ten years ago. But if you are going to repeatedly justify the same for the implied killing of the hundreds of thousands of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, then you shouldn’t expect the slightest sympathy. Let me remind you that you voted, and hence you’re no less responsible for the happenings.

What about the case of Pakistan? According to US, we are double-dealers. Today we have betrayed the “Global” (or Western) Community by not handing over Osama Bin Ladin, presumably, the “greatest threat” to the world. We are just a bunch of fanatics who support terror, and cannot reconcile with modern times. Simply put, we are belonging to a terrorist state; a state that exports terror.

You see the big beards of terrorists. You see how uncivilized they are. All on your large TV screens.  But have you ever seen a drone? Have you ever seen a little girl die from a drone attack? Have you ever seen the loss of a whole family from one drone attack? Is it in your knowledge that your brave men regularly bomb schools (madrassas)? I think I may have used a politically incorrect word, i.e.madrassas, because you have, unfortunately, dehumanized “mullahs” to such a level that you believe that just eradicating the world from their very existence would make the world a better place.  But do you know that in many of the madrassas bombed, the students, or “mullahs” as you may call them, were within the age span of 10 to 18. We here, who live in the real world, see them no different than elementary school students in the U.S. It cannot be denied in any case that the large majority of people who die of your drone attacks are civilians. But wait, what do you see?

The only thing you see is the same thing you see in Palestine. You don’t see the murder of little girls in Israeli bombing raids, do you?  You see little lads throwing pebbles on Israeli Tankers bulldozing their homes,  as terrorists. However, you don’t see Israeli soldiers throwing bombs at the helpless Palestinians in Gaza, do you?

But yes, you do protest. How silly of me to miss that out. Many of you protest against the war. Many of you are against the war. The reason, however, mostly being that you have to stop the increasing deaths of your soldiers. “Brave” soldiers, aren’t they. They are homesick, and the only thing they fear is death, and other small things, such as the battle field. But then again you are only disturbed when the effects enter your comfort zone. What about us? Us over here! Do you see us? Can you see us? What about our lives? Do our lives carry the slightest of value?

We then come again to the point we started with. What are the workers in sweat shops to Americans? They are merely a transaction in a balance sheet under the heading of “expense”. Not a very expensive expense though. What are we to Americans? We are hurdles to a better world. When we go through the process of humiliation and death; we end up as merely “collateral damage”. What’s collateral damage? Well, it’s kinda like chicken.

Saad Lakhani is a motivated young writer, a student of Social Sciences from Karachi

 

 

Whispers of the other


A trusted pair of hands sweeps down and in one motion he picks up the giggling 2 year old carefully placing her on his shoulders. The giggles grow louder and the child looks for the reaction on a graceful female face that follows and finds a mix of content and loving approval. Surely, we can feel the warmth of the moment if not through personal experience then by the sheer humanness of the scenario. This family of three could be walking down any mall in America, they could just as easily be walking in the midst of a tribe in Africa on a ritualistic walk to seek water, they could with comparable ease be placed waking down any street in Europe and yes they could just as easily be a snap shot of blissful moment for a family in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia or Malaysia. If the added mental exercise of the fatherly figure sporting a beard or a skull cap, be it a Muslim one or one of typical Jewish fashions, or the mother wearing a veil or head scarf or perhaps even a skirt baring her legs, takes away from the beauty of this moment in your mind then you have for sure added a few bricks to the wall beyond which the “other” is fabled to live.

The world has progressively constricted since 9/11 no matter what side of the wall you find yourself on and whether you own a share in the bricks of this ever growing divide or not it builds regardless. Some of us lay our claim to humanity more than others and the “other” either worships a false God or isn’t loved by ours. When will we realize that this ugliness spares no one? When does the arrogance end and the dialogue begin?

The recent events unfolding in Pakistan inspire these words and I am plagued with the familiar feeling that something obvious is being missed. “We” as human beings constantly wish for ourselves what we are not willing to grant others: dignity, self-respect, justice and the right to be masters of our own destiny and yes the right to choose “our way of life”. The latter brings to mind the arrogance of the Bush era. Most in the US do not realize how damaging the policies of this half-crazy president have been and how it has left the world in an endless spiral of hate and violence. If you are a Pakistani living and working in the US, not a day goes by without a painful realization that evil has no permanent address. The senselessness of the constant media blitz portraying one in every four human beings on the planet as a terrorist at worst or a security risk at the least is only matched by the equally alienating chanting of “down with America” in any street demonstration in the Middle East or Pakistan. The latter is as guilty of lumping a nation of 300 million into a monolith as the former is of generalizing the actions of a handful to 1.5 billion.

Being a Muslim Pakistani in the US gives can serve as a unique and painful vantage point. Each day we see the gulf between humanity widening. The opinion makers on either side of the divide and especially the hypnosis that the media in the west creates with the idiot box as the ultimate determinant of truth with the average American having the choice of subscribing to their own sub- flavour of it based on whether they choose to tune in to CNN or Fox, serve to strengthen generalizations that the “other” is an epitome of absolute evil. The dehumanization of the “other” along with a sense of entitlement for “us” has unleashed endless violence. Forever etched in our minds are the images from that fateful day when the horrible images of the day those planes slammed in the twin towers. I watched with horror in Pakistan as some jumped from the unimaginable heights, choosing between this and the inferno. Around 3000 human lives were lost to senseless hate. I don’t remember rejoicing. If anything I will remember the tears rolling down my mother’s cheeks. The tears would roll down her cheek yet again as the sky over Baghdad lightened up in “shock and disgust”. The same dictator that had been propped up for years by the US is now a danger to humanity. The way the war was being sold over the western media is instrumental in understanding the widening gulf between the west and Islam. Perhaps Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) persecuting a religious minority (surprise it’s the Muslims!) in the US in the name of radicalization should start by considering what is increasingly dividing humanity in to “us” and “them”. His at best naïve argument that “radicalization” in the Muslims of US needs to be gauged as if it is a breathalyser for estimating blood alcohol levels.

Yet there is more to the events that have unfolded in the last decade. The western media has established a rather fluid and make shift moral basis that apply to others variably and mostly never to the international stance the US takes, a case in point being the Raymond Davis Saga in Pakistan. A CIA contractor of the notorious black water brand (the same trigger happy psycho’s who gunned down countless Iraqis and earn to the tune of 200,000 dollars an year), who gunned down two Pakistani men in broad daylight on the streets of Lahore, a city known as the heart of Pakistan. To ice the crime with more blatant arrogance a backup vehicle coming to his rescue enters the incoming traffic and crushes to death a third innocent Pakistani. The widow of one of the victims overdosed and on her death bed tells the many news channels of the country that she wants “justice” and “blood for blood”. Her disillusion with the country’s corrupt and sub-human leadership forces this girl to kill herself as a plea for justice for the man she had a love marriage with. The same western media that would cry itself to bed over a woman being forced to marry a man of her parent’s choice conveniently rips the face off this human tragedy. We will digress, but Islam requires the complete consent of a girl for marriage. The deaths are mere statistics, the story tucked away in some inconspicuous corner of CNN, perhaps not even in the “US edition”. A west constantly brain washed. What you will find instead is an inspiring story of some cancer survivor. There is no doubt that America as a nation is blessed with wonderful people who have achieved great things and have often opened their hearts and homeland to many in need but to think that this rest of humanity is devoid of this kindness is a mere convenience. The more time I spend in the US, the more I realize that the genuine kindness and warmth of its people within its borders is constantly undone by its government by its tyrannical foreign policy leaving the humanity in this part of the world wondering why the same people that they empty out their pockets to help when floods and earthquakes strike are the ones that hate them.

I think to understand each other better the Raymond Davis case offers many opportunities. So this murderer is declared a “diplomat”. His belongings included a cell phone, GPS and firearms as well as photographs of sensitive military installations. The US embassy uses a mix of threats and carrots over the ensuing week. So involved in the countries politics is the US embassy that they are virtually the new East India Company, having hijacked the freedom and dreams of a nation of 170 million. The resentment that an ordinary Pakistani feels against the US has nothing to do with religion but is conveniently labelled such by the western media. Reverse this with the hypothetical situation that a Pakistani spy commits the same crime in the US and then claims immunity for being a diplomat which he is proved beyond doubt not to be. Not only that, the Pakistani government gets Secretary Clinton “fired” for obstructing the release of this “diplomat” and the level of outrage that this Nation would experience is barely imaginable. No rational person would dispute the reason for this indignation as one rooted in religious hatred. Yet, this is exactly how the story is told to an average American. The wide spread shock at how this man was whisked away by dubious tactics and invoking the very Sharia the defenders of civility in the US are using as tool of fear mongering and to widen further the gulf between the west and the Islam, will be labelled as “protests by Islamic hardliners” when in reality the whole nation feels robbed of its dignity.

I will end my tirade here but with the hope that the educated lot amongst the Muslims speak for themselves before we find no means of getting our voices across this wall being built by a handful of hate mongers who use war as a business, who would still support the KKK if that meant being voted in to office and who see humanity as a hierarchy with themselves at the apex, even among their infinitely more well-meaning and kind fellow countrymen. Perhaps for now, I will let the image of this family of three plays out in my mind walking through a church, finding them sitting in a synagogue the next moment, kneeling in a temple and yes praying five times in a mosque. Assalam-e-laikum (Peace be upon you).