It's time to bury the myth of moderate Pakistan. You know the one: the notion, repeated ad nauseam in magazine articles, think-tank reports and congressional testimony—as though saying it often enough will make it true—that Pakistan is an essentially tolerant country threatened by a rising tide of fundamentalism. Here's a news flash: The tide has risen.Read the whole article here.
The most recent reminder of this came last Wednesday in Islamabad, when suspected Taliban militants shot dead Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's 42-year-old minister for minority affairs and the only Christian in the overwhelmingly Muslim nation's cabinet. His crime? Supporting the repeal of a barbaric blasphemy law that makes insulting the prophet Muhammad punishable by death.
The law is often used to settle scores with hapless religious minorities, especially Christians such as Asia Bibi, an illiterate peasant sentenced to hang last year after she allegedly badmouthed the prophet during a row with Muslim coworkers. Bhatti's assassination comes two months after a bodyguard murdered Punjab Gov. Salmaan Taseer for visiting Ms. Bibi in jail and speaking out against abuse of the law. ...
Islamist parties may not garner large-scale electoral support, but Islamist ideas are widely tolerated by mainstream political parties. The major opposition party, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League, flaunts its closeness to sundry Islamists, including Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the parent organization of the international terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Ostensibly secular, the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party supported both Kashmiri militancy and the Afghan Taliban in the past. In its current incarnation it appears permanently cowed by the country's legion of vocal fundamentalists. President Asif Ali Zardari failed to attend the funerals of either Taseer or Bhatti. His government has made it clear that it will not touch the controversial blasphemy law. Interior Minister Rehman Malik declared that he would personally kill anyone who dared blaspheme Muhammad's name.
As for Pakistan's undeniably brave activists and intellectuals, unfortunately they appear to have more admirers overseas than among their compatriots. Hand-wringing in the pages of Dawn and the Friday Times, two of the country's leading English-language newspapers, has not prevented Mumtaz Qadri, Taseer's murderer, from becoming a national hero. ... By now the reasons for Pakistan's predicament are well known. They include the intolerance embedded in the nation's founding idea of a separate "land of the pure" for Indian Muslims, the malign shadow of Saudi Arabia on religious life, blowback from the anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s, and the overwhelming influence that the army and its thuggish intelligence wing, the Inter-Services Intelligence, wield on national life. The army's very motto, Jihad-fi-Sabilillah, or jihad in the path of Allah, is an exhortation to holy war.
In this venue, we have repeatedly brought this state of affairs to the readers notice--often in a very blunt and straight forward manner. We have argued that there aren't different Islams although some Muslims are lax or ignorant of their religion. The myth of moderate Islam is becoming harder to maintain. The WSJ gets credit for bringing this debate to the general reader. It's a start. We need an open debate that doesn't rule out, from the start, all critical expositions of Islam.
7 comments:
Before the "graceful" presence of Islam..the land of Pakistan was one of the richest in the world. Now the textbooks there start history from 768 something AD when bin-Quasim invaded India. Then the history goes on to tell how Hindus are
1) Cunning & not to be trusted
2) Enemies of Islam
3) "Baniya" ( Hindi word) and miserly
4) while Pakis are "Aryans" and All hindus are "Dravidians" (dont know why they put race in there)
WJC:
Muslims, Jews warn Europe: Mainstreaming of far-right parties is unacceptable
07 March 2011
Prominent Muslim and Jewish leaders from across Europe gathered in Paris have pledged to stand together against the rise of far-right xenophobic and racist parties that represent an escalating peril to ethnic and religious minorities across Europe, including Jews and Muslims. Members of the Coordinating Committee of European Muslim and Jewish Leaders, including top communal leaders from Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the US, announced plans for a series of public events in European capitals, on 9 May (Europe Day). The leaders expressed deep concern about the emergence into the political mainstream of extremist parties in many European countries and declared that it was “totally unacceptable” that several of these parties had been accepted by governing coalitions as tacit partners where they are allowed to help shape the agenda.
Contending that “Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and racism must never be allowed to become respectable,” the leaders expressed disquiet over recent pronouncements by European statesmen including President Sarkozy of France, Chancellor Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Cameron of Britain, characterizing multiculturalism as a failure; comments that have been cited by far-right parties as evidence that they are winning the battle for public opinion in Europe. Promising to press European decision-makers not to co-operate in any way with extremist parties, the Jewish and Muslim leaders vowed: “We will not allow ourselves to be separated, but will stand together to fight bigotry against Muslims, Jews and other minorities. An attack on any of us is an attack on all of us.”
Citing studies which show that anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are both growing rapidly in countries across Europe, the communal leaders affirmed that “Jews and Muslims are equal stakeholders in Europe, not expendable guests, and must therefore enjoy the same rights as everybody else. Appeasing those that sow the seeds of hatred and division is not only morally wrong, but will have disastrous consequences for Europe if allowed to continue.”
The first meeting of the Coordinating Committee was co-organized by the New York-based Foundation for Ethnic Understanding (FFEU), the World Council for Muslim Inter-Faith Relations (WCMIR), and the World Jewish Congress (WJC). It was a follow up to the first annual Gathering of European Muslim and Jewish leaders launched in Brussels last December. At the time, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy received the group and endorsed its aims. WCMIR’s European chair, British Imam Abduljalil Sajid, declared: “Islamophobia and anti-Semitism represent the sharp end of racism in Europe, so Jews and Muslims must fight them together, and prevent anyone from turning us into scapegoats. At the same time, Europeans of all backgrounds should come together to defend basic European and universal values of democracy, pluralism and mutual acceptance.”
FFEU President and WJC Vice President Rabbi Marc Schneier, who successfully initiated similar activities between Muslims and Jews in America together with the Islamic Society of North America, said: “Although much of the venom of extremist and populist parties is directed these days against Muslims, it should not be forgotten that several of the far-right parties, including the National Front in France, have histories replete with anti-Semitism. On 9 May, we will gather in Paris and elsewhere to say that the rise of such parties across Europe is menacing to both of our communities, as well as to basic democratic values of pluralism and tolerance. If Europe wants to remain true to its ethical and spiritual foundations, it must embrace people from different cultures, religions and ways of life. If not, it will not only fail as a concept, it will lose its soul.”
Anonymous,
What is your point?
Pastorius said...
Anonymous,
What is your point?
Thursday, March 10, 2011 2:08:00 AM
why they act like dhimmis?
why you can't say anything about islam that you are branded a far-right?
Ok, I get it.
Thanks.
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