dagblog - Comments for "Death of Pakistani Progressivism?"

An Army Without a CountryBy

artappraiser — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 01:33:31 +0000

In reply to Death of Pakistani Progressivism?

An Army Without a Country

By Ahmed Rashid, New York Review of Books Blog, March 4, 2011

The assassination on Wednesday of Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s Federal Minister of Minorities, killed in broad daylight in Islamabad by four gunmen, is one of the most shameful acts of political violence committed by Pakistani extremists. That it comes just two months after the murder of Salman Taseer, the Governor of Punjab and one of the country’s leading liberal voices makes it all the more chilling. Yet the government and state’s reaction to the two killings has been even more shameful—raising the disturbing possibility that extremism is still being used by the security services in its efforts to oppose Western policies in the region....

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/mar/04/army-without-country/

Gunmen Kill Pakistani Cabinet

artappraiser — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 22:34:16 +0000

In reply to Death of Pakistani Progressivism?

Gunmen Kill Pakistani Cabinet Minister of Minorities

By SALMAN MASOOD and JANE PERLEZ, New York Times, March 2, 2011

The minister of minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian, was ambushed in his car on Wednesday. The attack was similar to the recent killing of another liberal politician.

...The pamphlet found at the site warned against changes in Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy law and bore the imprint of the Taliban and al Qaeda, police officials said. It specifically named Mr. Bhatti....

The killing of Mr. Bhatti is likely to further expose the depth of religious conservatism among ordinary Pakistanis and in the educated middle class, who at the same time are fed up with the shortcomings of a feeble civilian government unable to deliver basic needs.

“This is the mindset adopted in the 1980s when Pakistan and the United States were fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan,” said Athar Minallah, a liberal leader of the lawyers’ movement, who has condemned the killing of Mr. Taseer, and now Mr. Bhatti. “It says infidels are allowed to be killed.”

Islamist teachings were adopted in the school curriculum in the 1980s under the military rule of the pro-American dictator, Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, and have remained intact since. Mr. Minallah insisted this militant view remained a minority but “the collapse of the state has given the mindset this space.” ....

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/world/asia/03pakistan.html?hp

Well, y'know, as long as we

jollyroger — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 23:28:57 +0000

In reply to yep on the kidz these daze.

Well, y'know, as long as we are nibbling around the issue we both really understand that at its heart they are a-feared of uppity women. Hence the intuitive correctness of the jim crow analogy, albeit the oppressed "other" is distinguished not by color.

yep on the kidz these daze.

artappraiser — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 23:26:10 +0000

In reply to The disturbing prevalence of

yep on the kidz these daze. say it ain't so jameel!

I'm not so sure it's all love of fundamentalism tho, mebbe they want some fundie stuff on a symbolic level, especially if its something like a law that keeps religious minorities down under your the heel of yo powerful muslimhood as it were. You know, like Jim Crow--separate but equal but er, at the same time we are clearly better than you so we agree to use our laws. It's like: muslimhood rocks unless they are coming after me?

The disturbing prevalence of

jollyroger — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 22:07:21 +0000

In reply to Pakistan Faces a Divide of

The disturbing prevalence of fundamentalism among the under-thirty (iterated accross national and even class lines) has me boggled.

I so counted on the ameliorative impact of my tripartite program: Sex, Drugs, Rock 'n Roll.

Aren't the young my prime demographic?

What's wrong with the kids nowadays?

Pakistan Faces a Divide of

artappraiser — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 21:22:00 +0000

In reply to Death of Pakistani Progressivism?

Pakistan Faces a Divide of Age on Muslim Law/
Assassin Supported by Young Conservatives and Lawyers

by Carlotta Gall from Islamabad, New York Times, January 10/11, 2010

The same young lawyers once seen as a force for democracy are now rallying behind the confessed killer of a provincial governor.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/world/asia/11pakistan.html?_r=1&ref=to...

Shehryar Taseer: My father

artappraiser — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 01:00:47 +0000

In reply to Death of Pakistani Progressivism?

Shehryar Taseer: My father died fighting for a liberal Pakistan

The Independent, January 10, 2011

....on my 25th birthday, that is how my father died. He was gunned down in cold blood by a man who veiled his inhumane deed in a perverse ideology of Islam. He thereby blackened the name of Islam, and of our country, Pakistan.

It was his outspoken support for the minorities and the oppressed that led to my father's assassination. Salmaan Taseer was the most prominent advocate pushing for amending an extremist Blasphemy Law inserted by the dictator General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq in the Constitution of Pakistan in 1977....

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/shehryar-taseer-my-father-d...

Pakistanis Mourn A Once

artappraiser — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 20:18:22 +0000

In reply to Death of Pakistani Progressivism?

Pakistanis Mourn A Once Tolerant, Relaxed Nation

by The Associated Press

....Pakistan is a country where fundamentalism is becoming mainstream, leaving even less room for dissent, difference and many once-prevalent leisures such as public music, dance parties or other social contact between the sexes.

More liberal-minded Pakistanis have been left with a profound sense of loss, alienation and fear for the future....

"The silent majority does not want to take out a gun and shoot anyone, but at the same time they're not appalled by it when somebody else does," complained Fasi Zaka, 34, a radio host. "The majority are enablers."....

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=132736859

I am considering amending my

jollyroger — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 06:09:11 +0000

In reply to Extra helping of zaniness

I am considering amending my postmortem nomenclaturic instructions to King Roger the Blasphemer (see blurb...)

Extra helping of zaniness

artappraiser — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 06:00:27 +0000

In reply to "misused?"Are we to glean,

Extra helping of zaniness here, though. He was disagreeing with the interpretation that made the law, he wasn't himself doing the blaspheming. Gets the death penality anyways. Super twisted thinking, not just your average fundie stuff.

Death to those who disagree
By Syed Saleem Shahzad, Jan. 7

ISLAMABAD -
The right to disagree
....Muslim history is full of events over which learned people have given controversial opinions. Their views were rejected by the majority of Muslim jurists and scholars, but they were not condemned to death.....
Deafening silence
Taseer's murder has been widely applauded by rightwing elements, whose views appear to be politically motivated rather than driven by any ideology. Further, the secular and liberal majority of the country has mostly been silent, and the government too has not said a word against those who have openly lauded Taseer's killing.

Some lawyers showered the confessed killer - security guard Malik Mumtaz Qadri - with rose petals when he arrived at court on Wednesday, and an influential Muslim scholars group praised the assassination of a person who dared oppose a law that orders death for those who insult Islam.
"Whoever killed him [Taseer] is a pious man and will go directly to heaven," a former parliamentarian and the leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Asadullah Bhutto, said soon after news of the killing broke.
Haji Hanif Tayyab, a former federal minister, commented on a television channel, "Whoever loves the Prophet shouldn't be saddened by Taseer's death."....
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MA07Df04.html

Seems tied up with some kind of warped nationalist concept where a lot of people don't want to participate in fundamentalism but still want same enshrined in their government, or something....it's almost like they are the ones blaspheming the prophet. And I don't mean that in the simple sense of disobeying his instructions, I mean it more in the sense of "we're a Muslim state, we got to make sure and stay that way by having these traditional laws." Seems cultural, not religious, what's going on, i.e., Christians etc. who don't know their place and get uppity in this state are the enemy, and anyone looking to give them a break are just as much the enemy. And it's interesting that some Shia , Sufi, and Sunni there are uniting on this. And a lof of people are quiet.