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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

[mukto-mona] FW: [khabor.com] The focal point of cross-cultural dialogue



 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: khabor@yahoogroups.com [mailto:khabor@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Isha Khan
Sent:
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 3:07 AM
To: Dhaka Mails
Subject: [khabor.com] The focal point of cross-cultural dialogue

 

 

The focal point of cross-cultural dialogue

Louise Cainkar's new book Homeland Insecurity argues that 9/11 created an environment in which hostility toward Muslims could thrive and their political and social exclusion could be legitimated by both the government and nativist Americans.

 

By Asma T. Uddin, October 26, 2009

Free to be Muslim?

 

In the years since 9/11, Muslim men and women have responded to nativist hate mongering by working within the American legal framework. Muslim women have made the hijab a civil rights issue; similarly, the fight for the human rights of detainees has been going strong for some time. An additional response – one that is more nuanced to the gendered aspects of the problem – is to use gender and Muslim notions of femininity and masculinity as the focal point of cross-cultural dialogue.

Louise Cainkar, an assistant professor of sociology at Marquette University, recently published a book in which she argues that, while anti-Muslim suspicion existed prior to 9/11, 9/11 created an environment in which hostility toward Muslims could thrive and their political and social exclusion could be legitimated by both the government and nativist Americans. While Cainkar’s discussion in her book, Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience After 9/11, is, as a whole, thoroughly fascinating, if not depressing, her research regarding gendered dehumanization stands out as especially troubling – though also suggestive of where we may find solutions. Cainkar’s dissection of the gendered patterns of dehumanization identify gender as a critical area for cross-cultural dialogue. She lays out three patterns in particular of gender dehumanization.

Women in hijab as symbols of anti-Americanism

As is perhaps inevitable, after 9/11 Muslim women who don hijab (the headscarf worn by some Muslim women) became central to the construction of Arabs and Muslims as the ominous “Other” – that is, as belonging to a culture in which women are oppressed and incapable of exercising choice, and men are violent and misogynist. No woman could possibly choose to wear the hijab, or perhaps more accurately, a woman could not legitimately exercise choice when it came to something like the hijab, which represented a revolt against American values. Those forced to wear it and those who chose to wear it were both acting in a manner unacceptable to the American way. By obliterating choice with regard to the hijab, these social constructions essentially debased the free will of Muslim women.

Saving Muslim women from these purportedly oppressive garments became a theme used to invoke support for the
U.S.’s war in Afghanistan. Those who supported the war, justified the need for the invasion by pointing at images of Afghani women shrouded in all-encompassing, billowing blue burkas, sometimes seen being publicly beaten and executed by the Taliban. The government’s construction of women in hijab as symbols of barbarism made them counter-symbols to American freedom. The localized effect of such a construction: some Americans – self-fashioned “defenders” of American values – wanted to kick out women who wore hijab from their neighborhood.

Interestingly, the same set of notions that posited women in hijab as the opposite of freedom construed the chastity of Muslim men as equally foreign and threatening. “Muslim women were perceived as forced to cover their hair, just as Arab/Muslim men were perceived as forced into sexual sublimation.” (256) Muslim men’s not being allowed to view female flesh, or enjoy sexual intimacy outside of marriage, militated against the nativist idea of freedom, and for this, Muslim men were made the enemy.

Muslim women: Producers of terrorists

While the belittling of Muslim women in hijab may be a familiar concept, a less known phenomenon highlighted by Cainkar is that of Arab and Muslim women as producers of terrorists. This was an attack on Arab and Muslim motherhood, alleging that Muslims are cold and unloving toward their children, thus predisposing them to terrorist behavior as adults. Cainkar quotes Howard Bloom’s 1989 article, The Importance of Hugging, from Omni magazine to highlight the types of arguments commonly restated by nativists in the post-9/11 climate:

Could the denial of warmth lie behind Arab brutality? Could these keepers of Islamic flame be suffering from a lack of hugging? … In much of Arab society the cold and even brutal approach to children has still not stopped. Public warmth between men and women is considered a sin. And the Arab adult, stripped of intimacy and thrust into a life of cold isolation, has become a walking time bomb. An entire people may have turned barbaric for the simple lack of a hug. (243)

According to Bloom, the lack of public displays of affection between grown Muslim men and women signal a lack of warmth between parents and their children. The total absence of logical consistency in Bloom’s argument is jarring.

Bloom was not alone. The Global Ideas Bank, relying on Bloom’s work, argued:

The cultures that treated their children coldly produced brutal adults, according to a survey of 49 cultures conducted by James Prescott … Prescott’s observations apply to Islamic and other cultures, which treat their children harshly. They despise open displays of affection. The result, he claims: violent adults. (243)

Bloom-like arguments about the barbarism built into Arab and Muslim culture – sinking as low as questioning Muslim motherhood – have been employed in the cultural front of the War on Terror. Muslim women, as reproducers of culture, have thus found themselves frequent targets of this tactic of attack by nativists, or those seeking to protect the “American way of life.”

Gendered emasculation of Muslim men

Muslim women are not the sole scapegoats of nativist slander; Muslim men shared in the suffering. Cainkar explains that in times of crisis, when nationalism is mobilized, “men and women are expected to conform to hegemonic definitions of masculinity and femininity.” (244) In the post-9/11 process of determining what characterized an American, attacks on Muslim women who donned hijab amounted to an attack against those who did not fit this hegemonic concept of femininity. For Muslim men, the process was a bit more convoluted. Because they did fit the hegemonic conception of masculinity, rejecting them required that they be made not to fit; essentially, they had to be feminized. As such, Muslim men were stripped of their masculinity – the degradation ceremonies perpetrated against Arab and Muslim men imprisoned at Abu Ghraib were emasculation rituals.

While Muslim men at Abu Ghraib experienced a direct form of emasculation, Muslim-American men suffered from a more subtle form. These men were not afraid of the type of neighborhood attacks Muslim women faced, but instead felt unprotected by the rule of law, particularly in small towns where unregulated, abusive detention could be carried out more easily than in urban areas. “They feared being beaten, being detained, and being moved from place to place while multiple agencies searched for records of illegal activity, suspicious contacts, or ties to terrorism, and they feared that, in the process, no one would know.” (259) Muslim-American men were and still are to some degree subject to detention without adequate cause or explanation, and once detained, are made completely powerless. This implied emasculation is tied into larger hegemonic notions of masculinity and who is allowed to fit that image. If, in times of crisis, men and women are expected to conform to hegemonic definitions of femininity and masculinity, and if Muslim men are seen as the enemy and cannot be allowed to fit this definition, it becomes necessary to strip them of their masculinity. As this is not an easy process that can be undertaken by neighborhood crusaders, it must be done through “government actors with powers of detention.” (233)

The way forward

In the years since 9/11, Muslim men and women have responded to nativist hate mongering by working within the American legal framework. Muslim women have made the hijab a civil rights issue; similarly, the fight for the human rights of detainees has been going strong for some time.

An additional response – one that is more nuanced to the gendered aspects of the problem – is to use gender and Muslim notions of femininity and masculinity as the focal point of cross-cultural dialogue. In times of crisis people revert to hegemonic definitions of masculinity and femininity and this suggests that there is something about gender and sexuality that is fundamentally linked to national identity. There is something about gender that helps the dehumanization process in times of crisis. It seems, then, that in times of [relative] peace, efforts should be made to explore those connections in a way that prevents the crisis impulse to dehumanize the other.

The inherent femininity of Muslim women who wear the hijab is thus a theme to be explored, as is the seeming “foreignness” of the hijab. Are there ways to make non-Muslim Americans understand the hijab as essentially American? Are there ways to argue for femininity within the framework of Islamic modesty, in a way that non-Muslims can understand?

As for Muslim men, much of nativist fear is rooted in the idea of Muslim men as forced into sexual sublimation, that is, unable to view female flesh or act on their lust outside of marriage. Nativists perceive Muslim men’s modesty in this regard as a threat. Can peacetime dialogue change this conception? Is there a way that male chastity can be explained for its voluntariness, and perhaps even for its inherent masculinity?

Often, cross-cultural dialogue revolves around generalities, focusing on the minutiae of religious history and ritual or varying cultural practices. Broad-based, but deeply probing, discussions on notions of masculinity and femininity and the ways these notions are shared, and cherished, by Muslim and non-Muslims alike, may be more effective in paving the path forward. In place of imposing Muslims concepts of modesty on Americans, or American concepts of freedom on Muslims, cross-cultural dialogue should explore the connections and intersections. That is, it should explore how Muslims who choose to be modest are “free” in a very American way, and how American and Muslim notions of modesty are fundamentally connected rather than diametrically opposed to each other.

 

Asma Uddin is Editor-in-Chief of Altmuslimah, where this article was originally published.

 

 

 



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"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
               -Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190




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[ALOCHONA] 10 new TV channels for BALmen



10  new TV  channels for  BALmen
 



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[ALOCHONA] The Awami Togloki Karbar



The Awami League Government has decided to promote envoys of Bangladesh to United States, UK and India to the rank of State Minister. Therefore, now the Foreign Ministry has five ministers including these trio. For this reason the BAL Government should be given a place in the Guiness Book of World Record.

 

There are many questions unanswered. (1) What would be the position of the Foreign Secretary under whom our envoys work and report to him? (2) Why these three have been chosen for such a Togloki promotion.

Mr Akramul Qader was successful deporting Major Bazlul Huda from Thailand. As a reward he already enjoyed a three year extension while serving as a High Commissioner in South Africa. In the last nine years, he was enjoying retired life in Dhaka. He was called back and awarded with Ambassadorship to the USA and now State Minister.

 

Prior to his appointment as a High Commissioner, to the UK Prof. Sayedur Rahman Khan was also enjoying retired life. A die-hard pro Awami Teacher of Rajshahi University, he appointed many Chatra League Cadres as a teacher. Before his departure to London, he said he would secure British help to turn Bangladesgh into a digital Sonar Bangla. Now 'Sona' is glittering in the State Minister's Crown.

 

Mr Ahmed Tariq Karim is the high commissioner to India. A die-hard Indian supported was instrumental in negotiating the 1996 Ganges Water Treaty where Bangladesh lost many rights over the Ganges Water. After fall of the Awami Regime in 2001, he voluntarily retired from the Foreign Service and staying in the US. He was also a Research Fellow in the University of Maryland.

 
Bangladesh is a ''Baper Taluk'' of Sheikh Clan and whatever they think they are doing. Her Dad was also a similar commodity.
 
SH
Toronto



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[ALOCHONA] Curry spice kills cancer cells



Curry spice kills cancer cells

curry
The yellow spice gives curries their bright colour

An extract found in the bright yellow curry spice turmeric can kill off cancer cells, scientists have shown.

 

The chemical - curcumin - has long been thought to have healing powers and is already being tested as a treatment for arthritis and even dementia.
 
Now tests by a team at the Cork Cancer Research Centre show it can destroy gullet cancer cells in the lab.
 
Cancer experts said the findings in the British Journal of Cancer could help doctors find new treatments. Dr Sharon McKenna and her team found that curcumin started to kill cancer cells within 24 hours.
 
'Natural' remedy
The cells also began to digest themselves, after the curcumin triggered lethal cell death signals.
 
Dr McKenna said: "Scientists have known for a long time that natural compounds have the potential to treat faulty cells that have become cancerous and we suspected that curcumin might have therapeutic value."
 
Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK, said: "This is interesting research which opens up the possibility that natural chemicals found in turmeric could be developed into new treatments for oesophageal cancer.
 
"Rates of oesophageal cancer have gone up by more than a half since the 70s and this is thought to be linked to rising rates of obesity, alcohol intake and reflux disease so finding ways to prevent this disease is important too."
 
Each year around 7,800 people are diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in the UK. It is the sixth most common cause of cancer death and accounts for around five percent of all UK cancer deaths.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8328377.stm



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[ALOCHONA] Pakistani Army Offensive Devastates Tribal Communities



Pakistani Army Offensive Devastates Tribal Communities

 

By James Cogan

 

The ongoing Pakistani military offensive into the tribal agency of South Waziristan is having a devastating impact on the entire civilian population. Villages and towns are literally being bombed into rubble and tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee for their lives.

The long-expected offensive began on October 18 and was preceded by months of air and ground bombardments and an economic blockade. The assault is ostensibly aimed at destroying Tehrik-i-Taliban, a Pakistani Islamist organisation based among local Pashtun tribes that supports the insurgency over the border in Afghanistan against the US-led occupation. As many as 10,000 to 15,000 Islamist and tribal fighters are believed to be in South Waziristan, including several thousand Uzbek militants who had been fighting alongside the Afghan Taliban before the 2001 US invasion.

A map showing the main towns in the agency and the general thrust of Pakistani military movements is available on the BBC web site. (Click here to view the map) The region is part of the Hindu Kush mountain range and the terrain is particularly rugged.

At least 30,000 regular army troops, drawn from two divisions, are converging on the towns of Ladha and Makeen from three directions. As they advance with tanks and armoured vehicles along the main roads, they are fighting heavy battles with militants in a succession of towns, villages and mountain passes. The weather conditions are beginning to worsen as winter sets in. Temperatures will fall to -20° Celsius (-4° Fahrenheit) within a matter of weeks.

The main success claimed by the military thus far is the capture over the weekend of Kotkai, a village in the south-east of the agency that is the birthplace of Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud. Heavy fighting raged around the village for close to a week.

Kotkai has effectively been razed to the ground. Exclusive, albeit brief, video footage of the village was acquired and broadcast by Al Jazeera, showing bombed-out houses and a massive crater where a school once stood. Correspondent Imran Khan commented: "All the villagers can do is stand in the rubble of what was once home." Footage from a hospital in the town of Wana shows young children from the area being treated for serious wounds. (Click here to view the broadcast)

The military justified the destruction of the village by claiming that the "majority of houses had been converted into strong bunkers". It provided no evidence.

Troops have reportedly pushed at least three kilometres forward from Kotkai and taken a strategic high point where the Taliban allegedly had a series of fortified positions. The next objective in the south-east is an assault on the town of Sararogha. In the south-west, fighting is taking place along the road to the towns of Shakai and Kaniguram, which the military intends to seize before attacking the Taliban strongholds in Ladha and Makeen.

The Pakistani air force is using American-upgraded F-16s and helicopter gunships to conduct a continuous campaign of indiscriminate aerial assaults, particularly on the two main towns.

Desperate civilians are pouring out of Taliban-held areas for the safety of food distribution points in government-controlled centres such as Wana, Dera Ismail Khan and Tank. A UN refugee agency spokeswoman, Arianne Rummery, told Al Jazeera that over 125,000 people had registered as being displaced since October 13. "They join the other 80,500 people who were previously registered," she said. "So this means the total registered caseload in terms of families is 28,242, which is around 206,000 people." The total population of South Waziristan is estimated at around 500,000.

A 22-year-old student who escaped from Ladha told the Guardian: "It's a very bad situation. At home, every second house has been destroyed yet the government doesn't want to help us. If they can drop bombs, then they can drop food." Another man from a village near Makeen said his home had been completely destroyed by bombing. His extended family of 40 had crammed into a pick-up and drove throughout the night without lights to avoid being attacked by the military.

A farmer who fled from his village told the Associated Press: "Years ago, the army suddenly started an operation and we all had to leave our area in the clothes we were wearing. When we returned our homes were either bombed, bulldozed or torched. Our animals were missing. Now imagine, if they come with more might, what they will do with our area."

The military claims that it has killed at least 250 Taliban and lost 31 troops. It also claims that large numbers of militants are deserting their positions, shaving their beards and seeking to pass themselves off as displaced persons. None of these assertions can be verified as all media has been banned from the war zone by the Pakistani government and the Taliban. There is no credible estimate of civilian casualties.

The South Waziristan offensive is a mercenary operation on Washington's orders. The Pakistani government has agreed to slaughter its own citizens in order to gain US financial grants and ongoing military aid. The hope in the White House and the Pentagon is that crushing the Islamist movement in Pakistan will undermine the ability of the Afghan Taliban to sustain its eight-year insurgency against the US-led occupation.

The close US oversight of the operation has been underscored by a succession of visits by top Obama administration officials and high-ranking US military commanders to Islamabad. The latest is by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Obama's special envoy to Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, who arrive today for three days of talks with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and armed forces chief General Parvez Kayani.

Holbrooke stated last Friday that one of the visit's purposes was to ensure that the Pakistani leadership were serious about "destroying" the Taliban, rather than simply "dispersing" the militants. An unnamed US military official complained to the New York Times that Pakistan did not seem willing to "finish the task" by permanently occupying South Waziristan.

The fear in US strategic circles is that thousands of Taliban fighters will go to ground or and simply retake control of the agency once the Pakistani military pulls out. Many could escape by crossing into Afghanistan via North Waziristan, which is not being subjected to military attack. The northern agency is believed to be the stronghold of the Afghan insurgent Haqqani network—a movement led by former commanders of the CIA-financed and equipped mujahhadin who fought the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.

Significant sections of the Pakistani ruling elite, particularly within the military, are growing increasingly hostile to the constant US pressure for total war against the Islamists. In order to meet Washington's demands, virtually the entire military resources of the Pakistani state would have to be dedicated to combating the militants at the expense of other goals, including curbing Indian influence in the region.

Sameer Lalwani, an analyst for the New America Foundation, wrote in September that Pakistan would need to deploy as many as 370,000 to 430,000 troops to permanently suppress Taliban activity in the tribal agencies and areas of North West Frontier Province (NWFP). He estimated it would take two to five years to assemble the necessary force and would require the redeployment of 150,000 combat troops currently stationed on the Indian border, as well as massive and ongoing US logistical and financial assistance.

Lalwani's report noted that "as the US role expands and becomes more visible, Pakistan likely would face a stiff public backlash, a steep decline in the morale of its regular and irregular forces, and a more cohesive insurgency". He also observed that any attempt to lessen the social inequality and oppression that help fuel the Islamist rebellion would require reforms that "undermine the power of the country's existing elites and land-owning classes, which dominate the political scene".

Ashfaq Khan, a leading academic in Islamabad, told the New York Times: "There is a general perception in the educated class that Pakistan is paying a very heavy price for fighting alongside the United States." Dependent on American financial, political and military aid, the government has little choice but to bow to US demands to intensify the war.

Having created disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington is responsible for the deepening quagmire now unfolding in Pakistan.

 

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/wazi-o28.shtml




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[mukto-mona] Islam defeating realism.



In this age of enlightenment proliferation of ignorance is a significant problem. Millions of people who still find peace and solace with their religious beliefs this issue of ignorance are related to them. An immovable contradiction between reason and religion is playing havoc with our cherished desire to have a world based on logic and realism. Historically the provision of traditional religion is reserved for a fearful mind who will always keep the thoughts of reason at bay. This phenomenon is based on a prehistoric layer of fear which is very difficult to overcome. A staggering number of people still feels helpless to ignore this attraction to fear and this fear led some people to revolt against any attempt to minimize the influence of faith to help usher reasonable enlightenment. The scourge Islamic extremism which is challenging democracy to create a tolerant society based on equal justice is a matter of great concern for any sensible person. In the history of mankind ignorance never had a chance to reassert itself in such a profound way when humans have so much to get rid of it. In the realm of knowledge there is always a place of polemics but the reason is not to create a war but to find out the synthesis. At this juncture of time the blame goes to our failures to build a rational bridge to fill the gap in the differences of various concepts. We came up with bright ideas without a proper mechanism to implement it. The spread of Taliban type of religious extremism is raging forward not because that it can offer any better alternatives but only to deepen the crisis of understanding which can only bring a catastrophe.

 

Akbar Hussain



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"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
               -Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190




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[mukto-mona] FW: Hoodbhoy: The Saudiisation of Pakistan and the death of its rich culture




 


Subject: Hoodbhoy: The Saudiisation of Pakistan and the death of its rich culture


 
  The unmonitored mushroomimg of madrasahs in Bangladesh  is geared to squash all traces of traditional Bengali Muslim culture.  With the organized militant jehadi groups on the rise we are heading Pakistan's way.
 
              Farida Majid

 
The Saudi-isation of Pakistan: Prof. Pervez Hoodbhoy laments the loss of Pakistan's rich culture in the deserts of Arabia

"For three decades, deep tectonic forces have been silently tearing Pakistan away from the Indian subcontinent and driving it towards the Arabian peninsula. This continental drift is not physical but cultural, driven by a belief that Pakistan must exchange its South Asian identity for an Arab-Muslim one. Grain by grain, the desert sands of Saudi Arabia are replacing the rich soil that had nurtured a magnificent Muslim culture in India for a thousand years. This culture produced Mughul architecture, the Taj Mahal, the poetry of Asadullah Khan Ghalib, and much more. Now a stern, unyielding version of Islam (Wahhabism) is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis and saints who had walked on this land for hundreds of years."

A stern, unyielding version of Islam is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis in Pakistan.


By Pervez Hoodbhoy
Newsline, Pakistan
http://www.newsline.com.pk/NewsJan2009/cover2jan2009.htm

The common belief in Pakistan is that Islamic radicalism is a problem only in FATA, and that madrassas are the only institutions serving as jihad factories. This is a serious isconception. Extremism is breeding at a ferocious rate in public and private schools within Pakistan's towns and cities. Left unchallenged, this education will produce a generation incapable of co-existing with anyone except strictly their own kind. The mindset it creates may eventually lead to Pakistan's demise as a nation state.

For 20 years or more, a few of us have been desperately sending out SOS messages, warning of terrible times to come. In fact, I am surprised at how rapidly these dire predictions have come true.

A full-scale war is being fought in FATA, Swat and other "wild" areas of Pakistan, resulting in thousands of deaths. It is only a matter of time before this fighting shifts to Peshawar and Islamabad (which has already been a witness to the Lal Masjid episode) and engulfs Lahore and Karachi as well. The suicide bomber and the masked abductor have crippled Pakistan's urban life and shattered its national economy.

Soldiers, policemen, factory and hospital workers, mourners at funerals and ordinary people praying in mosques have all been reduced to globs of flesh and fragments of bones. But, perhaps paradoxically, in spite of the fact that the dead bodies and shattered lives are almost all Muslim ones, few Pakistanis speak out against these atrocities. 

Nor do they approve of the army operation against the cruel perpetrators of these acts because they believe that they are Islamic warriors fighting for Islam and against American occupation. Political leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan have no words of solace for those who have suffered at the hands of Islamic extremists. Their tears are reserved exclusively for the victims of Predator drones, even if they are those who committed grave crimes against their own people. Terrorism, by definition, is an act only the Americans can commit.

What explains Pakistan's collective masochism? 

To understand this, one needs to study the drastic social and cultural transformations that have rendered this country so completely different from what it was in earlier times.

For three decades, deep tectonic forces have been silently tearing Pakistan away from the Indian subcontinent and driving it towards the Arabian peninsula. This continental drift is not physical but cultural, driven by a belief that Pakistan must exchange its South Asian identity for an Arab-Muslim one. 

Grain by grain, the desert sands of Saudi Arabia are replacing the rich soil that had nurtured a magnificent Muslim culture in India for a thousand years. This culture produced Mughul architecture, the Taj Mahal, the poetry of Asadullah Khan Ghalib, and much more. Now a stern, unyielding version of Islam (Wahhabism) is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis and saints who had walked on this land for hundreds of years.

This change is by design. 

Twenty-five years ago, the Pakistani state used Islam as an instrument of state policy. Prayers in government departments were deemed compulsory, floggings were carried out publicly, punishments were meted out to those who did not fast in Ramadan, selection for academic posts in universities required that the candidate demonstrate a knowledge of Islamic teachings and jihad was declared essential for every Muslim. 

Today, government intervention is no longer needed because of a spontaneous groundswell of Islamic zeal. The notion of an Islamic state – still in an amorphous and diffused form – is more popular now than ever before as people look desperately for miracles to rescue a failing state.

Villages have changed drastically; this transformation has been driven, in part, by Pakistani workers returning from Arab countries. Many village mosques are now giant madrassas that propagate hard-line Salafi and Deobandi beliefs through oversized loudspeakers. 

They are bitterly opposed to Barelvis, Shias and other sects, who they do not regard as Muslims. The Punjabis, who were far more liberal towards women than the Pukhtuns, are now beginning to take a line resembling that of the Taliban. Hanafi law has begun to prevail over tradition and civil law, as is evident from the recent decisions of the Lahore High Court.

In Pakistan's lower-middle and middle classes lurks a grim and humourless Saudi-inspired revivalist movement that frowns on any and every expression of joy and pleasure. Lacking any positive connection to culture and knowledge, it seeks to eliminate "corruption" by regulating cultural life and seizing control of the education system.

"Classical music is on its last legs in Pakistan; the sarangi and vichitraveena are completely dead," laments Mohammad Shehzad, a music aficionado. Indeed, teaching music in public universities is violently opposed by students of the Islami Jamaat-e-Talaba at Punjab University. So the university has been forced to hold its music classes elsewhere. 

Religious fundamentalists consider music haram or un-Islamic. Kathak dancing, once popular with the Muslim elite of India, has few teachers left. Pakistan produces no feature films of any consequence. 

Nevertheless, the Pakistani elite, disconnected from the rest of the population, live their lives in comfort through their vicarious proximity to the West. Alcoholism is a chronic problem of the super rich of Lahore – a curious irony for this deeply religious country.

Islamisation of the state and the polity was supposed to have been in the interest of the ruling class – a classic strategy for preserving it from the wrath of the working class. But the amazing success of the state is turning out to be its own undoing. 

Today, it is under attack from religious militants, and rival Islamic groups battle each other with heavy weapons. Ironically, the same army – whose men were recruited under the banner of jihad, and which saw itself as the fighting arm of Islam – today stands accused of betrayal and is almost daily targeted by Islamist suicide bombers.

Pakistan's self-inflicted suffering comes from an education system that, like Saudi Arabia's system, provides an ideological foundation for violence and future jihadists. It demands that Islam be understood as a complete code of life, and creates in the mind of a school-going child a sense of siege and embattlement by stressing that Islam is under threat everywhere.

On the previous page, the reader can view the government-approved curriculum. This is the basic road map for transmitting values and knowledge to the young. By an act of parliament passed in 1976, all government and private schools (except for O-level schools) are required to follow this curriculum. It was prepared by the curriculum wing of the federal ministry of education, government of Pakistan. It sounds like a blueprint for a religious fascist state.

Alongside are scanned pictures from an illustrated primer for the Urdu alphabet. The masthead states that it has been prepared by Iqra Publishers, Rawalpindi, along "Islamic lines." Although not an officially approved textbook, it is being used currently by some regular schools, as well as madrassas associated with the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), an Islamic political party that had allied itself with General Musharraf. These picture scans have been taken from a child's book, hence the scribbles.

The world of the Pakistani schoolchild remained largely unchanged, even after September 11, 2001, the event that led to Pakistan's timely desertion of the Taliban and the slackening of the Kashmir jihad. Indeed, for all his hypocritical talk of "enlightened moderation," General Musharraf's educational curriculum was far from enlightening. 

It was a slightly toned down version of the curriculum that existed under Nawaz Sharif which, in turn, was identical to that under Benazir Bhutto who had inherited it from General Zia-ul-Haq. Fearful of taking on the powerful religious forces, every incumbent government has refused to take a position on the curriculum and thus quietly allowed young minds to be moulded by fanatics. What may happen a generation later has always been a secondary issue for a government challenged on so many fronts.

The promotion of militarism in Pakistan's so-called "secular" public schools, colleges and universities had a profound effect upon young minds. Militant jihad became part of the culture on college and university campuses. Armed groups flourished, they invited students for jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan, set up offices throughout the country, collected funds at Friday prayers and declared a war which knew no borders. Pre-9/11, my university was ablaze with posters inviting students to participate in the Kashmir jihad. Post-2001, this ceased to be done openly.

Still, the primary vehicle for Saudi-ising Pakistan's education has been the madrassa. In earlier times, these had turned out the occasional Islamic scholar, using a curriculum that essentially dates back to the 11th century, with only minor subsequent revisions. But their principal function had been to produce imams and muezzins for mosques, and those who eked out an existence as 'maulvi sahibs' teaching children to read the Quran.

The Afghan jihad changed everything. During the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, madrassas provided the US-Saudi-Pakistani alliance the cannon fodder they needed to fight a holy war. The Americans and Saudis, helped by a more-than-willing General Zia, funded new madrassas across the length and breadth of Pakistan. A detailed picture of the current situation is not available. 

But according to the national education census, which the ministry of education released in 2006, Punjab has 5,459 madrassas followed by the NWFP with 2,843; Sindh has 1,935; the Federally Administrated Northern Areas (FANA), 1,193; Balochistan, 769; Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), 586; the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA), 135; and the Islamabad capital territory, 77. The ministry estimates that 1.5 million students are acquiring religious education in the 13,000 madrassas.

These figures appear to be way off the mark. Commonly quoted figures range between 18,000 and 22,000 madrassas. The number of students could be correspondingly larger. The free boarding and lodging plus provision of books to the students, is a key part of their appeal. Additionally, parents across the country desire that their children be "disciplined" and given a thorough Islamic education. The madrassas serve this purpose, too, exceedingly well.

Madrassas have deeply impacted the urban environment. Until a few years ago, Islamabad was a quiet, orderly, modern city different from the rest of Pakistan. Also, it had largely been the abode of Pakistan's elite and foreign diplomats.

But the rapid transformation of its demography brought with it hundreds of mosques with multi-barrelled audio-cannons mounted on minarets, as well as scores of madrassas illegally constructed in what used to be public parks and green areas. Now, tens of thousands of their students, sporting little prayer caps, dutifully chant the Quran all day. In the evenings they swarm the city, making women minus the hijab increasingly nervous.

Total segregation of the sexes is a central goal of the Islamists, the consequences of which have been catastrophic. For example, on April 9, 2006, 21 women and eight children were crushed to death and scores injured in a stampede inside a three-storey madrassa in Karachi, where a large number of women were attending a weekly congregation. Male rescuers, who arrived in ambulances, were prevented from moving the injured women to hospitals.

One cannot dismiss this incident as being just one of a kind. In fact, soon after the October 2005 earthquake, as I walked through the destroyed city of Balakot, a student of the Frontier Medical College described to me how he and his male colleagues were stopped by religious elders from digging out injured girl students from under the rubble of their school building. 

This action was similar to that of Saudi Arabia's ubiquitous religious 'mutaween' (police) who, in March 2002, had stopped school girls from leaving a blazing building because they were not wearing their abayas – a long robe worn in Saudi Arabia. In a rare departure from the norm, Saudi newspapers had blamed and criticised the mutaween for letting 15 girls burn to death.

The Saudi-isation of a once-vibrant Pakistani culture continues at a relentless pace. The drive to segregate is now also being found among educated women. Vigorous proselytisers carrying this message, such as Mrs Farhat Hashmi, have been catapulted to the heights of fame and fortune. 

Their success is evident. Two decades back, the fully veiled student was a rarity on Pakistani university and college campuses. The abaya was an unknown word in Urdu. Today, some shops across the country specialise in abayas. At colleges and universities across Pakistan, the female student is seeking the anonymity of the burqa. And in some parts of the country she seems to outnumber her sisters who still "dare" to show their faces.

I have observed the veil profoundly affect habits and attitudes. Many of my veiled female students have largely become silent note-takers, are increasingly timid and seem less inclined to ask questions or take part in discussions. They lack the confidence of a young university student.

While social conservatism does not necessarily lead to violent extremism, it does shorten the distance. The socially conservative are more easily convinced that Muslims are being demonised by the rest of the world. The real problem, they say, is the plight of the Palestinians, the decadent and discriminatory West, the Jews, the Christians, the Hindus, the Kashmir issue, the Bush doctrine – the list runs on. They vehemently deny that those committing terrorist acts are Muslims, and if presented with incontrovertible evidence, say it is a mere reaction to oppression.

The immediate future does not appear hopeful: increasing numbers of mullahs are creating cults around themselves and seizing control of the minds of worshippers. In the tribal areas, a string of new Islamist leaders have suddenly emerged: Baitullah Mehsud, Maulana Fazlullah and Mangal Bagh. Poverty, deprivation, lack of justice and extreme differences of wealth provide the perfect environment for these demagogues to recruit people to their cause. Their gruesome acts of terror are still being perceived by large numbers of Pakistanis merely as a war against imperialist America. This could not be further from the truth.

In the long term, we will have to see how the larger political battle works out between those Pakistanis who want an Islamic theocratic state and those who want a modern Islamic republic. It may yet be possible to roll back those Islamist laws and institutions that have corroded Pakistani society for over 30 years and to defeat its hate-driven holy warriors. 

There is no chance of instant success; perhaps things may have to get worse before they get better. But, in the long term, I am convinced that the forces of irrationality will cancel themselves out because they act at random whereas reason pulls only in one direction. History leads us to believe that reason will triumph over unreason, and the evolution of the humans into a higher and better species will continue. Using ways that we cannot currently anticipate, they will somehow overcome their primal impulses of territoriality, tribalism, religiosity and nationalism. But, for now, this must be just a matter of faith.


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[ALOCHONA] FW: Hoodbhoy: The Saudiisation of Pakistan and the death of its rich culture




 


Subject: Hoodbhoy: The Saudiisation of Pakistan and the death of its rich culture


 
  The unmonitored mushroomimg of madrasahs in Bangladesh  is geared to squash all traces of traditional Bengali Muslim culture.  With the organized militant jehadi groups on the rise we are heading Pakistan's way.
 
              Farida Majid

 
The Saudi-isation of Pakistan: Prof. Pervez Hoodbhoy laments the loss of Pakistan's rich culture in the deserts of Arabia

"For three decades, deep tectonic forces have been silently tearing Pakistan away from the Indian subcontinent and driving it towards the Arabian peninsula. This continental drift is not physical but cultural, driven by a belief that Pakistan must exchange its South Asian identity for an Arab-Muslim one. Grain by grain, the desert sands of Saudi Arabia are replacing the rich soil that had nurtured a magnificent Muslim culture in India for a thousand years. This culture produced Mughul architecture, the Taj Mahal, the poetry of Asadullah Khan Ghalib, and much more. Now a stern, unyielding version of Islam (Wahhabism) is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis and saints who had walked on this land for hundreds of years."

A stern, unyielding version of Islam is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis in Pakistan.


By Pervez Hoodbhoy
Newsline, Pakistan
http://www.newsline.com.pk/NewsJan2009/cover2jan2009.htm

The common belief in Pakistan is that Islamic radicalism is a problem only in FATA, and that madrassas are the only institutions serving as jihad factories. This is a serious isconception. Extremism is breeding at a ferocious rate in public and private schools within Pakistan's towns and cities. Left unchallenged, this education will produce a generation incapable of co-existing with anyone except strictly their own kind. The mindset it creates may eventually lead to Pakistan's demise as a nation state.

For 20 years or more, a few of us have been desperately sending out SOS messages, warning of terrible times to come. In fact, I am surprised at how rapidly these dire predictions have come true.

A full-scale war is being fought in FATA, Swat and other "wild" areas of Pakistan, resulting in thousands of deaths. It is only a matter of time before this fighting shifts to Peshawar and Islamabad (which has already been a witness to the Lal Masjid episode) and engulfs Lahore and Karachi as well. The suicide bomber and the masked abductor have crippled Pakistan's urban life and shattered its national economy.

Soldiers, policemen, factory and hospital workers, mourners at funerals and ordinary people praying in mosques have all been reduced to globs of flesh and fragments of bones. But, perhaps paradoxically, in spite of the fact that the dead bodies and shattered lives are almost all Muslim ones, few Pakistanis speak out against these atrocities. 

Nor do they approve of the army operation against the cruel perpetrators of these acts because they believe that they are Islamic warriors fighting for Islam and against American occupation. Political leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan have no words of solace for those who have suffered at the hands of Islamic extremists. Their tears are reserved exclusively for the victims of Predator drones, even if they are those who committed grave crimes against their own people. Terrorism, by definition, is an act only the Americans can commit.

What explains Pakistan's collective masochism? 

To understand this, one needs to study the drastic social and cultural transformations that have rendered this country so completely different from what it was in earlier times.

For three decades, deep tectonic forces have been silently tearing Pakistan away from the Indian subcontinent and driving it towards the Arabian peninsula. This continental drift is not physical but cultural, driven by a belief that Pakistan must exchange its South Asian identity for an Arab-Muslim one. 

Grain by grain, the desert sands of Saudi Arabia are replacing the rich soil that had nurtured a magnificent Muslim culture in India for a thousand years. This culture produced Mughul architecture, the Taj Mahal, the poetry of Asadullah Khan Ghalib, and much more. Now a stern, unyielding version of Islam (Wahhabism) is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis and saints who had walked on this land for hundreds of years.

This change is by design. 

Twenty-five years ago, the Pakistani state used Islam as an instrument of state policy. Prayers in government departments were deemed compulsory, floggings were carried out publicly, punishments were meted out to those who did not fast in Ramadan, selection for academic posts in universities required that the candidate demonstrate a knowledge of Islamic teachings and jihad was declared essential for every Muslim. 

Today, government intervention is no longer needed because of a spontaneous groundswell of Islamic zeal. The notion of an Islamic state – still in an amorphous and diffused form – is more popular now than ever before as people look desperately for miracles to rescue a failing state.

Villages have changed drastically; this transformation has been driven, in part, by Pakistani workers returning from Arab countries. Many village mosques are now giant madrassas that propagate hard-line Salafi and Deobandi beliefs through oversized loudspeakers. 

They are bitterly opposed to Barelvis, Shias and other sects, who they do not regard as Muslims. The Punjabis, who were far more liberal towards women than the Pukhtuns, are now beginning to take a line resembling that of the Taliban. Hanafi law has begun to prevail over tradition and civil law, as is evident from the recent decisions of the Lahore High Court.

In Pakistan's lower-middle and middle classes lurks a grim and humourless Saudi-inspired revivalist movement that frowns on any and every expression of joy and pleasure. Lacking any positive connection to culture and knowledge, it seeks to eliminate "corruption" by regulating cultural life and seizing control of the education system.

"Classical music is on its last legs in Pakistan; the sarangi and vichitraveena are completely dead," laments Mohammad Shehzad, a music aficionado. Indeed, teaching music in public universities is violently opposed by students of the Islami Jamaat-e-Talaba at Punjab University. So the university has been forced to hold its music classes elsewhere. 

Religious fundamentalists consider music haram or un-Islamic. Kathak dancing, once popular with the Muslim elite of India, has few teachers left. Pakistan produces no feature films of any consequence. 

Nevertheless, the Pakistani elite, disconnected from the rest of the population, live their lives in comfort through their vicarious proximity to the West. Alcoholism is a chronic problem of the super rich of Lahore – a curious irony for this deeply religious country.

Islamisation of the state and the polity was supposed to have been in the interest of the ruling class – a classic strategy for preserving it from the wrath of the working class. But the amazing success of the state is turning out to be its own undoing. 

Today, it is under attack from religious militants, and rival Islamic groups battle each other with heavy weapons. Ironically, the same army – whose men were recruited under the banner of jihad, and which saw itself as the fighting arm of Islam – today stands accused of betrayal and is almost daily targeted by Islamist suicide bombers.

Pakistan's self-inflicted suffering comes from an education system that, like Saudi Arabia's system, provides an ideological foundation for violence and future jihadists. It demands that Islam be understood as a complete code of life, and creates in the mind of a school-going child a sense of siege and embattlement by stressing that Islam is under threat everywhere.

On the previous page, the reader can view the government-approved curriculum. This is the basic road map for transmitting values and knowledge to the young. By an act of parliament passed in 1976, all government and private schools (except for O-level schools) are required to follow this curriculum. It was prepared by the curriculum wing of the federal ministry of education, government of Pakistan. It sounds like a blueprint for a religious fascist state.

Alongside are scanned pictures from an illustrated primer for the Urdu alphabet. The masthead states that it has been prepared by Iqra Publishers, Rawalpindi, along "Islamic lines." Although not an officially approved textbook, it is being used currently by some regular schools, as well as madrassas associated with the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), an Islamic political party that had allied itself with General Musharraf. These picture scans have been taken from a child's book, hence the scribbles.

The world of the Pakistani schoolchild remained largely unchanged, even after September 11, 2001, the event that led to Pakistan's timely desertion of the Taliban and the slackening of the Kashmir jihad. Indeed, for all his hypocritical talk of "enlightened moderation," General Musharraf's educational curriculum was far from enlightening. 

It was a slightly toned down version of the curriculum that existed under Nawaz Sharif which, in turn, was identical to that under Benazir Bhutto who had inherited it from General Zia-ul-Haq. Fearful of taking on the powerful religious forces, every incumbent government has refused to take a position on the curriculum and thus quietly allowed young minds to be moulded by fanatics. What may happen a generation later has always been a secondary issue for a government challenged on so many fronts.

The promotion of militarism in Pakistan's so-called "secular" public schools, colleges and universities had a profound effect upon young minds. Militant jihad became part of the culture on college and university campuses. Armed groups flourished, they invited students for jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan, set up offices throughout the country, collected funds at Friday prayers and declared a war which knew no borders. Pre-9/11, my university was ablaze with posters inviting students to participate in the Kashmir jihad. Post-2001, this ceased to be done openly.

Still, the primary vehicle for Saudi-ising Pakistan's education has been the madrassa. In earlier times, these had turned out the occasional Islamic scholar, using a curriculum that essentially dates back to the 11th century, with only minor subsequent revisions. But their principal function had been to produce imams and muezzins for mosques, and those who eked out an existence as 'maulvi sahibs' teaching children to read the Quran.

The Afghan jihad changed everything. During the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, madrassas provided the US-Saudi-Pakistani alliance the cannon fodder they needed to fight a holy war. The Americans and Saudis, helped by a more-than-willing General Zia, funded new madrassas across the length and breadth of Pakistan. A detailed picture of the current situation is not available. 

But according to the national education census, which the ministry of education released in 2006, Punjab has 5,459 madrassas followed by the NWFP with 2,843; Sindh has 1,935; the Federally Administrated Northern Areas (FANA), 1,193; Balochistan, 769; Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), 586; the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA), 135; and the Islamabad capital territory, 77. The ministry estimates that 1.5 million students are acquiring religious education in the 13,000 madrassas.

These figures appear to be way off the mark. Commonly quoted figures range between 18,000 and 22,000 madrassas. The number of students could be correspondingly larger. The free boarding and lodging plus provision of books to the students, is a key part of their appeal. Additionally, parents across the country desire that their children be "disciplined" and given a thorough Islamic education. The madrassas serve this purpose, too, exceedingly well.

Madrassas have deeply impacted the urban environment. Until a few years ago, Islamabad was a quiet, orderly, modern city different from the rest of Pakistan. Also, it had largely been the abode of Pakistan's elite and foreign diplomats.

But the rapid transformation of its demography brought with it hundreds of mosques with multi-barrelled audio-cannons mounted on minarets, as well as scores of madrassas illegally constructed in what used to be public parks and green areas. Now, tens of thousands of their students, sporting little prayer caps, dutifully chant the Quran all day. In the evenings they swarm the city, making women minus the hijab increasingly nervous.

Total segregation of the sexes is a central goal of the Islamists, the consequences of which have been catastrophic. For example, on April 9, 2006, 21 women and eight children were crushed to death and scores injured in a stampede inside a three-storey madrassa in Karachi, where a large number of women were attending a weekly congregation. Male rescuers, who arrived in ambulances, were prevented from moving the injured women to hospitals.

One cannot dismiss this incident as being just one of a kind. In fact, soon after the October 2005 earthquake, as I walked through the destroyed city of Balakot, a student of the Frontier Medical College described to me how he and his male colleagues were stopped by religious elders from digging out injured girl students from under the rubble of their school building. 

This action was similar to that of Saudi Arabia's ubiquitous religious 'mutaween' (police) who, in March 2002, had stopped school girls from leaving a blazing building because they were not wearing their abayas – a long robe worn in Saudi Arabia. In a rare departure from the norm, Saudi newspapers had blamed and criticised the mutaween for letting 15 girls burn to death.

The Saudi-isation of a once-vibrant Pakistani culture continues at a relentless pace. The drive to segregate is now also being found among educated women. Vigorous proselytisers carrying this message, such as Mrs Farhat Hashmi, have been catapulted to the heights of fame and fortune. 

Their success is evident. Two decades back, the fully veiled student was a rarity on Pakistani university and college campuses. The abaya was an unknown word in Urdu. Today, some shops across the country specialise in abayas. At colleges and universities across Pakistan, the female student is seeking the anonymity of the burqa. And in some parts of the country she seems to outnumber her sisters who still "dare" to show their faces.

I have observed the veil profoundly affect habits and attitudes. Many of my veiled female students have largely become silent note-takers, are increasingly timid and seem less inclined to ask questions or take part in discussions. They lack the confidence of a young university student.

While social conservatism does not necessarily lead to violent extremism, it does shorten the distance. The socially conservative are more easily convinced that Muslims are being demonised by the rest of the world. The real problem, they say, is the plight of the Palestinians, the decadent and discriminatory West, the Jews, the Christians, the Hindus, the Kashmir issue, the Bush doctrine – the list runs on. They vehemently deny that those committing terrorist acts are Muslims, and if presented with incontrovertible evidence, say it is a mere reaction to oppression.

The immediate future does not appear hopeful: increasing numbers of mullahs are creating cults around themselves and seizing control of the minds of worshippers. In the tribal areas, a string of new Islamist leaders have suddenly emerged: Baitullah Mehsud, Maulana Fazlullah and Mangal Bagh. Poverty, deprivation, lack of justice and extreme differences of wealth provide the perfect environment for these demagogues to recruit people to their cause. Their gruesome acts of terror are still being perceived by large numbers of Pakistanis merely as a war against imperialist America. This could not be further from the truth.

In the long term, we will have to see how the larger political battle works out between those Pakistanis who want an Islamic theocratic state and those who want a modern Islamic republic. It may yet be possible to roll back those Islamist laws and institutions that have corroded Pakistani society for over 30 years and to defeat its hate-driven holy warriors. 

There is no chance of instant success; perhaps things may have to get worse before they get better. But, in the long term, I am convinced that the forces of irrationality will cancel themselves out because they act at random whereas reason pulls only in one direction. History leads us to believe that reason will triumph over unreason, and the evolution of the humans into a higher and better species will continue. Using ways that we cannot currently anticipate, they will somehow overcome their primal impulses of territoriality, tribalism, religiosity and nationalism. But, for now, this must be just a matter of faith.


Windows 7: Simplify your PC. Learn more.

__._,_.___


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